The guys are surprised by renowned astrophysicist, planetary scientist and author, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil teaches the guys about the wonders of the universe, the concept of infinity, the power of mind-blowing inspiration, and even his own potential parallel universe. Gravity and Levity all at once.This episode was originally released on 7/27/2020. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts of Smartless and what is their podcast about?
Hey, everybody, you're listening to Smartless, hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and myself, Sean Hayes. I know, I wish my voice was more masculine, too. This show is about learning through laughter in the brains of people around the world who are far smarter than us three idiots. And each week, one of us brings on a guest who the other two don't know about.
So with that, let's jump into the Smartless rocket ship and let's blast off into the universe together. Ooh, I think I just turned myself on. Smartless.
I went to seventh grade with Janet Jackson. Are you serious? Did you? At a school called Valley Professional. Hold on. It was a school that was only from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., So that you had your afternoons free for auditioning. For auditions, yeah. It was sort of like the back of a gas station on Sherman Way and Vineland. And I'm not sure they were accredited.
I think chances are high that they were not accredited.
I went to high school with one of the kids. This is not a bit from the original Degrassi junior high.
I went to college with, I was piano majors with Craig Robinson from The Office. Really? Oh, I knew that. Wait, I knew that. Piano majors together, yeah. What's a piano major? You major in piano and you don't minor in it, get it? Oh, oh, oh.
There are different ranks. There's different, because I was a piano colonel, but, and then...
That is so dumb. I can't believe you.
Of course you're going to laugh. I just watched you, Hayes, because I knew that would get me. Anyway, at ease. Who's our guest? Whose guest is it today?
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Chapter 2: How did Neil deGrasse Tyson become interested in astronomy?
Unbelievable, Sean. Unreal.
What a guest. Hey, guys. What an honor. Thank you so much for being on here. I know this is very nice of you to come and chat with us today. I want to, you know... Do people kind of like jump right in and ask you things about the universe in the same way one might, you know, after discovering someone's a doctor and go, you know, I have a pain in my lower back?
Without hesitation. Instead of asking you about you first? Yeah, no, I don't care about me. And as an educator, I don't think who I teach should care about me. That's like cult building. Really? Yeah. Yeah, so compare these two scenarios. Someone comes up to me and says, hey, aren't you Neil deGrasse? I said, yes. Tell me more about a black hole in this.
So that's the perfect educational encounter. The one that's not is, are you Neil Tyson? I said, yes. Oh, what's your favorite color? And all of a sudden, I become the object of their curiosity. rather than the universe itself. And in that way, I have failed. And you don't like that? No, it's a failure. No, no. It's a failure of my educational efforts. Got it.
If I become the object of their interest, that's all. I'll do it and I'll accommodate it. But on a certain level, you feel like you've failed in your objective. It must not have made the science interesting enough for them to come at that.
But not knowing you, I would think... You know, all I ever see of you, and again, I'm such a huge fan of yours, and I could hear you talk about all of this crap, which I love, for hours.
Oh, the stuff that he spent his life studying, you summed up as crap.
Thank you, Sean. I have a PhD in crap.
This is why I don't have a PhD. Crap is piled high and deep. That's what the PhD stands for.
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Chapter 3: What is the difference between astrophysics and astronomy?
No. Because, you know, the fact that there's something around us that we know, about which we know so little, became this infinite source of curiosity for me. And I've never been the same since, since age nine. And I didn't know that most people are still sort of ambling in college. What am I going to major in? Oh, you major in astronomy. Was that because it's early in the alphabet?
You know, no, my stuff goes deep with regard to that.
And to that point, explain to people like us idiots who don't know what the difference between astrophysics and astronomy is.
Well, so we all, in modern times, do astrophysics. Astronomy is the traditional older name for it. But in the late 1800s, we figured out how to apply the laws of physics to what was going on in the universe, and thus was birthed astrophysics. Before then, it's like, well, the star is over here, and it's this bright, and it's that color. Oh, it might be moving. So let's call it a planet.
Or it's got a tail, so we call it a comet. So it's descriptive. In the 19th century, we learned how to take spectra of stars. And a spectra breaks the light into its colors like a rainbow. And when you do that, you learn things like how fast is it moving, how fast is it rotating, what it's made of, how long ago it was born. You can create models of that.
And so all of a sudden, the universe becomes our backyard.
Yeah, because, you know, when I, I still do this, I mean, on the dumbest level, on the most, you know, simplest level, there's places on earth and it's wearing thin where the air is cleaner and you can see more stars somewhere like Hawaii or whatever. And you lie there and you, like a kid, I'm still act like a kid.
And I look up and the longer you look up at a clear sky to all the stars, you can't help but think about everything you're talking about, which is where do we come from? That light that we're seeing is like way older than the earth and whatever.
That's the one that got me. When I was about 12 years old, a teacher said to me, he said, look, you see that star? I don't know what I was doing with the teacher in the middle of the night, but he said, the light that you're seeing... That's another episode. It's a different episode. It's a whole different podcast. That one's called You Don't Want to Know.
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Chapter 4: How does Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the concept of seeing the past through light?
Yeah. And he said, and he said, he said, for instance, the sun, the heat that you're feeling on your face, this was, this is after we woke up. He said, he said, he said, he said that.
And he put down the cigarette. Right.
Yeah. He put it out on my forearm, and he said, that is seven minutes old, the heat from the sun. So that's how far the sun is away.
Okay, so I don't know how you got the speed of light correct and that number wrong. Oh, uh-oh. But you're close enough. No, you're close enough. It was a long night.
So it's not seven minutes away.
I want to give you the correct number. I mean, to know the speed of light to that precision and then get that other number wrong, that's a little weird. But it's eight minutes and 20 seconds, 500 seconds. Wow, I was so close. And by the way, it's not only the light that takes eight minutes and 20 seconds to reach us, so too does it take the sun's gravity.
So if you were some giant and plucked the sun out of the middle of the solar system, we would still orbit. We would still feel its gravity. We would not know any different for 8 minutes and 20 seconds. And at that instant, we would plunge into darkness and fling out into interstellar space.
So that is – those moments, those things, you know, a teacher telling Jason that thing, those are mind-blowing moments. And I've had those mind-blowing moments where I hear these things. Which obviously throughout, because of what you do throughout your life, you must have had a million mind-blowing revelations and stats and things thrown at you and discoveries that you've made.
Have you reached a point where it doesn't blow your mind anymore? Or what are the things that blow your mind about the universe around us?
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Chapter 5: What are some mind-blowing aspects of the universe according to Neil deGrasse Tyson?
You keep going farther and farther away, you get to significant time frames back into the past of the object you're observing. And that's where cosmology comes in. It's how we decode the record of the universe because it takes light so much damn time to reach us.
And Sean, you were going to take cosmology, right? At one point, just... Yeah, for my skin. Beauty school.
Yeah.
That's why I glow. That's why I glow like a star. Beautifully, yes.
So if you're looking back at something that happened a long time ago, i.e. the Big Bang, somewhere in that Big Bang is our planet, is the Earth. And therefore, you see the Earth before anything has ever happened on it.
No.
So if you can see...
So if you can see back – I'll let you continue, but I should really stop you there. But I'll let you continue.
Well, so let's make an assumption that the Big Bang was the start of everything. So at some point, whatever we're rolling around on here on this rock was in there. So my point is if you can see all the way back that far, is there a –
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Chapter 6: What alternative career would Neil deGrasse Tyson pursue in a parallel universe?
There was never that expectation or obligation. And they had freedom to think what they want, to study what they want. And they're each doing different things right now. But I can tell you that by the time they were 12 or 13, certified scientifically literate. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah.
You don't have to tell us, but are they in that world of science?
No. No, but they're scientifically literate. So the difference is if you're scientifically literate, it means your brain is wired for inquiry. It's wired for thought. So that at a young age, I'm happy that they were also polite when they did this because otherwise it would be embarrassing.
If you were a grown-up, walked into the room, and you said something, oh, I checked my horoscope sign today, and my 12-year-old, 13-year-old kids heard that, They would say, well, what did you find? They would start asking questions. And what are you basing that on? And have you tested it?
And they would just calmly sort of ask the questions to drive you into the corner that you really are in because you have no foundation for those thoughts. That's the science literacy that I'm talking about that anybody can and should cultivate for themselves, whether or not you become a scientist.
Uh-huh. Neil, if you could pick one subject that you would have an equal level depth of knowledge about, what would it be? Is there another area?
Thanks for that question. If there's a parallel universe. Oh, here we go. An alternative, not in this universe, but another universe. In another universe, I would be writing songs for Broadway musicals. Are you serious?
Do you write? Do you play anything?
Oh, here comes Sean.
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