Explosive Queries with Terry Crews
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That's for the rest of your life. Just visit rosettastone.com slash StarTalk. I got to do this. Oh my God. But here's what happened. Here's what nobody told anybody. Did you fly into New York to do it? I did. Okay, because I just took the subway. Okay. Afterwards, I go home. Two hours later, I had explosive... Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. And today is a special edition of Cosmic Queries. Coming to you from the hearth.

Terry Crews. Terry Crews. Wait, let's get the hearth going. What are you talking about? Let's get this going. Here we go. There we go. Oh, now it's real hearth. Now we got a hearth going. Fireside chat with Terry Crews. So Terry, you're my co-host for this episode. I love this, man. And we go back, so this should be fun. This is good, man. This makes my pectorals percolate. I don't even know how to react. It's so good. Watching your... It's so good. I love, love learning about science. I love...

having my mind blown and just you you just always every time i talk to you you expand my brain well you living in the right part of the country you like you took up residence in pasadena yes like near caltech that's right jpl institute of technology jpl a branch of nasa so if there's any you get it as osmotically as it comes yeah exactly i just feel smarter being here yeah

No, this is good. And we'll get to the questions in a minute, but I can't channel surf without seeing you on NBC talking about America's Got Talent. America's Got Talent. You're hosting that. I'm hosting it 19 seasons. And every week you got some kind of new flashy suit. Oh yeah, well that's part of the whole thing. Let me tell you, the suit is its own character right now. People would be disappointed if I just came out in a gray suit. I'm ready for the suit to just walk off of your body.

and do its own dance. - That's right, that's right. Listen, I love this show. We just wrapped our 19th season. - That's crazy. - I've been hosting six of them. - Okay, but I'm looking at it and I say, who are these people? What species are they? Are they human? The stuff they do. - It's amazing. First of all, last season we had a dog that was the most incredible dog I've ever seen in my life. The dog's name was Rhythm. - That's a cool name, I love it. - Oh, it was, but the dog danced.

On beat. Without looking at the owner. Ronnie C.E. Not even prompted. It was unreal. I was like, I thought it was a man in a suit for a while. I was like, you gotta be, you're lying. It's the best dog act I've ever seen. I always have my brain just blown every time because I think I've seen it all. You know what I mean? You're like- Until you realize you haven't. You have not seen it all. No. There's no limit to human capability. And then I realized we got-

8 billion people in the world. That's a lot of people with a lot of talent. That's it. Some of which is waiting to be discovered. And I wonder, do I have a talent that could work on AGT? You know, first of all. You can say no. No, no, no. First of all, you don't know until you try. Okay. I did not know that I could act until I was 30 years old. Oh.

- 30, I never attempted acting before I was 30 and I did not know it was my destiny. So you might get on there and try something and go, wait a minute. - So we collected questions. - Yes. - We went to our fan base and we said, Neil's hanging out with Terry.

Do you have questions for them? When they came. They came in. Lots of questions. You got them. Okay. But we picked the best of the best. Let's come right off the top. All right. Let's start with, here's Julia Lind. And she didn't list where she's from. Oh, witness protection. Okay.

We don't want it. Okay. Julie Lynn from somewhere on Earth, we presume. Okay. Okay. She's come with the questions here. It's, hello, Dr. Tyson et al. Is there a possible way to generate an artificial magnetic field on Mars so that it can have a thicker atmosphere and protect colonists on the surface from radiation? It's a two-part question. Wow, this is deep. It's a two-part question. People thinking all about it. Right. Okay.

So... And do you want me to go on? Go on. Is there a technology that we could theoretically develop or would we be better off trying to build underground colonies on Mars? Yeah. So what she knows is that...

Here on Earth, we have a magnetic field. Not very strong, but we have one. That's why compasses, anybody remember what a compass is? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Old school. Old school, old school. We have a magnetic field. And when dangerous charged particles come from the sun, we call it the solar wind, they see Earth's magnetic field and then they channel themselves away and funnel in at the poles. And they collide with our atmosphere and render it aglow.

Causing the aurora. Mm-hmm. So when we see the aurora, that's the atmosphere and our magnetic field shielding us from harmful radiation. Oh. Okay. So if we lose our magnetic field, the radiation just comes straight in wherever it hits. Mars, we may have once had a magnetic field. It does not any longer. Mm-hmm.

So if you pitch tent, you're susceptible to this flux of high energy particles. So she was correct to wonder, will we just have underground colonies? Yeah. All right. And then I'd wonder, well, then what the hell is the point of being on Mars? You live underground here. We'll be basically the ants of Mars. The worms, you know, whatever. You know, like, what's the point of that? Yeah. Just consider that...

Almost anything will protect you from those particles. Like the roof of a house. Yeah. Okay. So if you could just, the shielding doesn't have to be elaborate. It just has to have some kind of shielding. And there's a whole branch of NASA. Well, there's a branch that studies the sun and a subdivision of it that specializes in space weather. We call it space weather, which is when is the solar wind coming?

Because it correlates with explosions on the sun. Yeah. It's not just at any time. Yeah. So as the sun goes through cycles, it goes through intense periods and then it acquiescent. It's an 11 year cycle. So as it pumps up, we get more warnings about explosions on the sun. And as it drifts off, there's fewer. And we...

And we know when a pulse of these particles is gonna hit us, 'cause it takes time to get from the sun to Earth or to Mars. So we just have a warning sign. Is that any different from saying thunderstorms this afternoon? - Yeah, tornado warning. - Tornado warning, bring an umbrella, but this would be a special solar wind umbrella. - Right, right. - And so I don't see it as an impossible thing to overcome. - That is cool. - And maybe you create some local magnetic field.

and direct the particles off to the north and south of you, your little city in a bubble, whatever. I mean, engineers figure this stuff out. - I love this. - I'm not worried about it. - I mean, you know, that is a wonderful thing to say about the magnetic field. It's protecting us. - It's protecting us. - It's so beautiful. - Oh yeah. - But this is another thing I gotta add on to this question.

That's allowed. I want to because it's so fascinating. I heard that the magnetic field was actually reversed at one time in the Earth's history. Oh, yeah. That's exciting. North was south and south was north. Okay, now I don't want to blow your mind. Okay, hit me. Really? I love this. I love this stuff. Mind should be blown at least once a day. That's a quote of mine. I'm just saying. Okay.

Okay, you ready? Hit me. Okay. We're about the same. I'm a little older than you, but we're approximately the same age. When we were growing up, the North Magnetic Pole was in Northern Canada. It was never where Santa is. Whoa. Okay? So Earth's magnetic pole is shifted from our rotation poles. I don't know if you didn't know that. I did not know this. And it's not stationary. Okay.

It moves. It's moving. Hang on. Hang on. So when we were growing up, it was kind of meandering in the Canadian, you know, that whole northern area of Canada where there's just islands and lakes and things. That's where it was. Which meant that if you were up in Canada, you couldn't use a compass to find north because

Because it could be south of you. That's right. Okay? So it's no good way up and way farther down that you get a kind of right. Good Boy Scout books would have a correction table depending on where you were in longitude relative to good Boy Scout books. Now watch. You check it lately. That North Pole has been moving and it is now passing the North Pole on its way to Siberia. What? Wait. Yes. Yes. And pretty soon it'll be Putin's North Pole. You're kidding. Yeah.

Okay. All right. The boy controls enough in the world. That's a tilt. The tilt meter just went, I can't believe it's moving. On top of all that, the magnetic field is getting weaker. And we think it's going to get weaker and weaker until it goes away. And then when it comes back again, it'll be in reverse.

Because it flips every time. Oh my God. Now, check this out. You know how magnets work, right? The plus attracts to the minus. Yes. Okay, so opposites attract. That's right. You've heard that. Okay. If you have a compass with a little needle and there's a north side of the compass, that would point to our north magnetic pole. However, that is a north needle on the compass. Yeah. Why should north point to north? It's not supposed to. I know. Which means...

Earth's south magnetic pole is in our north because all north magnets point to it. Yes, right. That's right. We're going to point them to the opposite. Oh my goodness. So you've always been told that's where our north magnetic pole is, our south magnetic pole is in our north. Okay, so now. So we're going to lose the field and then it will come back in reverse. Then all your compasses will point the other way. We worry...

That when the magnet field goes away to flip again, this is called a dynamo effect, when it goes away and flips, that while it's not there, will it put all of us at risk? Yeah. So we go back in the fossil record because it's flipped before. And if you go to the points where it has flipped, there's no periods of mass extinction. So if it wreaked havoc, it was not global catastrophe. Right. So I'm not so worried about it.

That's deep. Yeah. Will our electronics still work? Yeah, because the magnetic field is not that strong. So it's no Y2K event. Not even was that an event. Yeah, right. I wasn't worried. So the threat is not good. Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Oh, by the way, everyone thought like Y2K everything would break. Yeah. But keep in mind the way we celebrate time, it's midnight.

in 24 different hours in sequence. It doesn't all happen at once. That's right. That's right. Okay. So it's not like the whole world blows up at once. Yeah. Even if that were going to happen, it would blow up time zone by time zone. It would be one at a time. So people get confused when they say, oh, the magnetic axis is going to flip. They think it's our rotation axis and then they freak out. I love this. So I got to tell them, no, chill.

It's just a magnetic, it's happened before, it's gonna happen again. Man, Neil, you blew my mind on the first question. With the first answer.

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So Terry, I don't know if you realize the people who ask us these questions, they're part of our Patreon patrons. So they get to ask questions in our Cosmic Queries. So all of them are patrons. I love that. So check it out. What's next? All right. Next is Sandra Pink.

Sandra here from Singapore. Singapore, I very know. All right, can't wait to visit Singapore. I was here a couple years ago. I heard nothing but great things. Thank you for doing what you do, inspiring and making everyone's lives just a little bit better every day. Nice. Question. Mr. Cruz has so many muscles. Yes, thank you. Sandra, you're the best. Stop jiggling your pets. I'm sorry. There's a lot of law against that. Back to science. I bet that's illegal in three states.

And muscles are so hard to build and maintain. In the cosmic sense, how important are muscles? And why do we need to work so hard for them if they are so important to our survival? Is this entropy? Ooh. Oh. Ooh. I like it. Ooh.

Well, okay. So there's a lot of speculation about like the strong man in the tribe. Because what does that person do? Goes out and gets the food. Okay. Right. They walk back with an elk. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And they're the one. I'm the man. I'm the man. And I brought back the food. Uh-huh. Okay. And there's further speculation that that person has almost mythical significance in the tribe. Uh-huh.

And everybody wants to mate with that person. Because if you don't want to mate with that person, then you don't have offspring that could possibly do that in the future. And you'll just die. You'll be a dead end in the gym. And very hungry. Okay. So people have speculated that this accounts for the fascination we have with famous people.

Because whatever was that urge to want to make babies with who brought back the food, today you don't need to do that because there's a grocery store down there. So what became of that urge, it's still there within us. Right. And there's the person on the silver screen. Yeah. That's the person who I want to mate with or I want that to be my friend. There's an urge. Connection. Even though they're a total stranger. Yeah. And they could be a total asshole. Yeah. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay. So muscles have that role. But-

There are other roles that muscles don't really serve. Okay. So I don't know if everybody had muscles, you know, is that, does that work? You know, so maybe some people out of a group, not,

need the muscles for the tribe. And, you know, others need to be able to climb trees nimbly, maybe to get the fruit. Somebody needs to swim. You surely know how to swim, but if you have less fat, as you surely do, you're less buoyant. Yeah. Okay. People who have very sinewed muscles need,

are less buoyant in the water. Now, Olympic swimmers, of course, are very sort of lanky. They don't look like you. Yeah, no, not at all. Very different bodies. Not at all. I've seen that. Yeah, you've seen that. But long-distance swimmers typically have a little more fat on their bodies, which gives them buoyancy so that the energy you're putting into swim is not only to keep you afloat, it's to actually push you forward.

Because if you're going to sink, some of your energy has to go into not sinking. I love what you're saying because it shows that the muscle is skill oriented to what you need. Yes. It doesn't have to be big. Right. Just skill. It's not about big. That's correct. Yes. I love that. And are you quick? Can you catch the rabbit? Yes. And some big muscular person is not catching the rabbit. Oh, listen. First of all, I've seen for years big guys in the gym who can't do anything.

They just, they can just lift weights. They're just big. You know what I mean? I have a perfect example. I thought I was strong and I had a mover one time, little guy. I mean, he just looked like a normal guy. And there was a box I couldn't move. I was literally like, hey man, you're going to need to bring some other views. And no, I got it. And he picked it up and walked out the door.

And I was like, oh my. I like the fact that you benchmarked other people's abilities to your own ability. Well, this is the thing. You said, I can't do this. He must need help. I totally told him. I was like, you better get your friend. Yeah. And he was like, no, no, I got it. And he picked it up and walked out the door. And I realized something. I said, this is what he does. That's what he does. All his muscles are configured for that. Everything is configured for moving. Yes. I'm not. No.

I'm a celebrity. Yeah. I don't move anything. You got a celebrity body. I love it. You pop your pecs. That's it. That's it. That's it. Thank you, Sandra. Oh, this is great. Yeah. So, entropy is disorder. Mm-hmm. And...

Generally, we like living in what is ordered and we put energy into a system to order it so that we can function within it. But we have to get that energy from somewhere else. Yeah. Things don't get ordered for free. Wow. Okay. So we get our energy from the food and the food gets its energy. If it's an animal, it ate plants, the plant got its energy from the sun. Wow. So,

So ultimately, we are all solar powered. I love that. That's hot. That is really, that is beautiful, man. It's beautiful. You know, I tend to lay out in the sun and I do feel better after I do that. Not too crazy, but you know. But I think that's right. Communing with the cosmos. That's it. In that way. It's a way to keep me grounded. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, give me some more. All right, here we go. We have Will Mansell-Brown. Hello, Dr. Tyson, Mr. Cruz. New patron here. Nice, nice. Another patron. My name is Will Mansell-Brown, and I'm from North Hampshire in the UK. North Hampshire. North Hampshire. North Hampshire. Yeah, I got to say it right. They staple it all together. Yeah, they do. They do. I'm not from there. I'm not from the UK. Let's see. My question is, photons are massless. Yeah.

However, are given a mass equivalent based on their energy. Yes, they do. Does this mean that gamma rays are affected more by the curvature of space than radio waves due to there being a higher mass equivalence? Many thanks, and I love the show. Wow. Okay. Okay.

So there's a lot going on there. Yes, it is. So the mass equivalent, you have the energy of the photon. You plug it into E equals MC squared. You plug it in. The E is for energy. You put in the energy, and on the other side is M, mass, times C squared. That's the speed of light squared. That's just a constant. You look that up. Plug it in. So energy and mass are related in this way. So what he's wondering is, if it has no mass, would it still respond to gravity or

And if it does respond to gravity, do the higher mass equivalent photons respond more? That's the question. Okay. Now that's very Aristotelian and Aristotle got a lot of physics wrong. Okay. Okay. You know what Aristotle said? I'm a little bit paraphrasing. He said...

Heavy things fall to earth faster than lighter things in proportion with their mass. He didn't use the word mass, but in terms of their weight. Yeah. That's not true. Like a rock and a feather. Well, a feather's different. Fine. That's true with a feather because a feather is doing this. But get a heavy rock and a light rock. Right.

they fall down at exactly the same rate. That's right. Exactly the same rate. That is way more profound than most people appreciate. Okay? The gravity is pulling more strongly on the heavier object, but it takes more force to accelerate the heavier object at the same rate as the lighter object. So they fall at the same rate because gravity

Earth is pulling more strongly on the heavier object. Okay, so let's back up. So I have something light, everything's on wheels, and something massive and something not mass. Put the same force on each thing. On the low-mass object, it's going to scoot along real fast. Yeah. Right? And the heavy one's not going to go very fast. Okay? So if the force of gravity...

were the same on every object, you're putting the same force, then the lighter things would go faster. The force of gravity is stronger on the heavier object. Because if the heavier object and the lighter object are both accelerating at the same rate, something's pushing that harder. Yeah, yeah. So they all show up-- More power. More! Okay? So, even though gamma-ray photons have higher equivalent mass than radio wave photons, because the whole electromagnetic spectrum can be thought of as photon, even though they have more mass,

They're each attracted to gravity at exactly the same rate. Wow. By the way, that's called the equivalence principle, advanced by Albert Einstein in 1915. And it's one of the most profound advances ever

inhuman understanding of the universe that there ever was. Because everyone thought something's heavier. Right. It would go... In fact, the dudes went to the moon. They brought a hammer and a feather. On the moon, there's no air. So the feather is not doing this. Yeah. Had the hammer, the feather, let go. Boom.

They fell at exactly the same rate. Yes, yes. And that's the moon pulling on them, but it's just how gravity works. That's right. Yeah. So everything will respond the same. I love this. Because it doesn't matter how much it weighs. It's cool. This is another thing I want to follow up on. I love this stuff. I heard we all have our own gravity. Yes. Yes. Incredible. Incredible.

That is amazing. I thought it was just people because people liked me. You know what I mean? So, if I put you out in space and I had like a marble and I gave it just the right speed in just the right direction, then it would go orbit around you. Whoa. No, no, a marble. Probably like a poppy seed. Yeah, yeah. Maybe something like that. Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so...

We can make at least some of the universe orbit you. Your ego needs it. I know, I know. Listen, my wife believes I have my own gravity. It's called narcissism is what it's called. So the real way to say it is you and the earth attract each other. Yes, that's great. That's what's going on. That's it. That is so beautiful. So if you jump out off a cliff,

and you fall to earth, what's actually happening is you and earth are falling towards each other, except you're doing most of the moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Earth will come up just a little bit. I love that. Yeah, yeah. Dude, oh good. Okay, keep going. Here we go. Samuel Tomka, excuse me, Samuel Tomka. Hello, Neil and Terry. Samuel here from Slovakia. Nice. All right. I'm embarrassed as an American. I just...

geographically ignorant American. I was asking someone from Slovakia, like, what was Slovakia before? It was Slovakia. Because growing up, I don't remember hearing that. And she said, oh...

It was part of Czechoslovakia. You know what? Duh. Yeah, yeah. She's like, duh. Well, then I asked another stupid question. I said, well, so what was the rest of Czechoslovakia? Oh, that became the Czech Republic. Okay. Yeah. Makes all the sense in the world. It's like, okay, duh. Connect the dots here. But yeah, believe me, I would ask the same question. Okay. I have a question. If humans settled on a low gravity planet,

Would skipping leg day have an entirely different meaning? Or would we have to invent new exercises just to keep our legs from shrinking? Keep the fun and education going. Love you guys. I love it. People, I've been accused of skipping leg day a lot. I can give two answers to that. Okay. One of them is if you want to maintain the physique that you would have had on earth,

Yeah, you're going to have to exercise way more. And you have to use exercises where you can add resistance beyond just lifting things off the ground. You need like pull-ups and things. So that's if you wanted to do that. But if you will forever be living on that low-gravity planet, you don't need the big muscles anymore. No, you don't. And I heard you get taller. Yes. In fact, you get tallest if... Do you know that...

astronauts that do spacewalks, which NASA calls extravehicular activities. I'm trying to get them... Dude, just call it spacewalk. Yeah, yeah. Extravehicular. EVAs, they call them. Okay, good. So astronauts have spacesuits, depending on how tall they are when they're launched, two to three inches taller...

for their spacewalk than they do for when they launch. Oh my goodness. Because in zero G, they grow. They just grow into it. If you're six feet, you can grow two inches. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. I want to go to space. I'm going to look amazing when I come back.

So your vertebrae... Terry, you're 6'7". No, it's not. So it doesn't keep going. Oh, yeah. So your vertebrae expand because you don't have gravity compressing them. Yeah. And you get a couple of extra inches. So they can't spacewalk in the same suit that they launch in. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. These...

I bet you zero gravity is good for my skin too. It's good for everything. Everything. Everything. I love it. Yeah, everything just kind of floats there. Yeah. So like I said, if you don't need your muscles, they will atrophy. If you never need your muscles, should we care that they atrophy? That's right. I don't know. That's right. But if you ever want to come back to Earth, you better be ready for that. And the astronauts come back to Earth and they got all kinds of machines up there so that they lose their muscle mass. Yeah, because you can get really hurt. And you can still lose bone mass. There's still a...

unsolved problem the bone part but you can be a blob in space that'll be great you'll be blob in space and your heart won't even know the difference because it's not pumping against gravity that's good yeah you don't want to clog your arteries that would but but you can be chubby but if your arteries were still clear your heart won't even know this is a great question that was a great question okay

Sisterhood above all. From Frank Herbert's epic universe and from the novel Sisterhood of Doom comes a new HBO original series set 10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides. This series follows Valia and Tula Harkonnen as they fight for the future of humankind and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit.

The Reckoning is coming. Dune Prophecy premieres this Sunday at 9 p.m. on Max. Find a fresh, healthy take on grocery shopping at your new neighborhood Sprouts Farmer's Market, now open in Leesburg on Edwards Ferry Road Northeast and Route 15. Discover the season's freshest produce, unique products around every corner, high-quality meats, an assortment of vitamins and supplements, and so much more.

Sprouts makes it easy to find your healthy with our huge assortment of plant-based, gluten-free, organic, and keto-friendly products. Head over to your newest Sprouts, now open in Leesburg.

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If one was able to stop time, is it true that you wouldn't be able to see anything because the photons would freeze too? Can we make an exception to that? You know, I don't know if I have a good answer for that. No. Because to the photon, there is no time. You might have heard that the faster you go, the slower time ticks. This is relativity. And in the limit, at the speed of light, time stops. Yeah.

photons which exist at the speed of light when they are emitted at whatever wherever they came from my PhD thesis was on the center of the galaxy which is 30,000 light years away and When I captured those photons for me watching them they took 30,000 years But if you're the photon the instant you left the center of the galaxy you hit my detector right there in the same instant Yeah, so if there's zero time

I don't know what effect that would have on the photons. Right. Because they don't ever have time. Yeah, they're outside of time. In a way, they're outside of time in that sense. So I'd have to think more about it. I don't have a good answer for that. I feel like a fish floating in water. Doesn't know it's in the water. Doesn't know it's in the water, so to speak. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's really wild. Would a photon know that time had stopped?

That's a whole other deep question. Oh, we just opened a wormhole. My brain just went. Tilt, tilt. Yeah, so I don't know. I love this. Oh, by the way, that was a very dated comment you made. You said tilt, tilt. I did. I know. Oh, my gosh. Terry. Pinball wizard. Pinball. Pinball wizard. I know. My kids were like, what? If you try to influence the ball, you're like.

hit your hips into the machine. If you do that too much, the game craps out on you and it says tilt. Well, I tell my kids, I'm like, I'm trying to read. I want to make myself so interesting. I could read the phone book and be wonderful. And they're like, what's a phone book? What are you talking about? Oh man. You're already not interesting. Yeah.

Oh. All right. You should have a few more in there. Yeah, it's more. This was Mickey Pastillo. Mickey from Omaha here. Omaha. Which flavor on Hot Ones was the hardest for each of you? Thanks. You were on Hot Ones? I was on Hot Ones. So was I. Oh, my God. Oh, I was high on Hot Ones. It made me, literally, I've never been on drugs. I've never been drunk before in my life. Okay. Dude, I was hallucinating. Oh. It was so painful. Okay.

That I started to see double. No, I spent six years in Texas starting out a complete wimp and leaving where I could eat a jalapeno pepper and not tear. So I had some bit of, I don't want to call it training, but life experience. So there were 10 of them. Where did you start crapping out? Oh, man. I went all the way. You went all the way. The last dab. Yeah.

So bad. Okay. Now, you have to understand, too, because I do intermittent fasting. That was my first meal of the day. Ouch! That made it triply... I would say it amped everything up. Wait, wait. Just take a minute. Take a minute. Tell everybody what Hot Ones is in case they missed it. Hot Ones is a show that you basically taste different hot wings at different levels. Buffalo wings. The buffalo wings. The buffalo wings at different levels of heat.

The sauce was from mild all the way to the most intense heat you could ever taste. To mega death. Yeah. Where there's ghost peppers, they have all these names for each one of them. And some of them are not even found in nature. Yes. They became this contest. A genetically modified...

Peppers that were like, oh my God, like nuclear. Is that what our GMO scientists are coming up with? Chernobyl level. Yeah, and so I think the premise is you're allowed to talk about your projects to him, but only if you can get through the sequence of heat. I heard another experiment where it's hard to lie when you're doing something else.

So they would make you hold a ball, bounce a balloon in your hand, and then they ask you questions. And you can really tell who's lying and who's not. Interesting. I never knew that. And I think that's the premise behind Hot Ones. Because everyone there is really honest. You have to think honestly.

Think through all of the what's going on in your face. And you know they're honest because they're people who otherwise have their relationship with a camera and it goes completely out the window. I was screaming. I literally had to yell just to keep my brain from just like, okay, or running out of the room. I knew I wanted to stay in it, but I was like, it's hard. So I was good up to eight out of the 10.

And then nine was pretty severe. I already knew you're not supposed to touch it with your lips because then your lips get, you can't feel your lips. They give you a little milk and all that stuff. Yeah, I did ice water, but milk would work too. But I went to 10 and then I took a double dose because I said, I got to do this. Oh my God. But here's what happened. Here's when nobody told anybody. Did you fly into New York to do it? I did. Okay, because I just took the subway. Okay. Afterwards, I go home.

Two hours later, I had explosive diarrhea. Okay? Two hours later. Now...

suppose I was on an airplane. Suppose I was in a taxi. I'm in my own bathroom, thank you. And it was like, and I was on the floor. If you never got drunk, this never happened to you in college. In college, you put your cheek on the bathroom tile just to feel the coolness because you're just... Okay, I heard about people doing that. Yeah, this is what it was. And so, yeah, that was my final chapter of my experience. That was the sequel. Yeah.

Hot twos. Hot number twos. Okay, that's really disgusting. Oh, I'm just trying to show like that. But it was one thing you do once in life, I think. Yeah, yeah. I would never do it again. That show got syndicated. I think it's on Hulu. Oh, and listen, mine, I know yours went viral. Mine went viral. Yeah, it went viral, yeah. Oh, people want to see people they know in pain. They do. Oh, look, they're celebrities. They're just like us.

They hurt too. I was in tears. I was crying. It was crazy. Okay. So, Terry, we've got time for one more question. You got it. You got it. Here we go. And I'm sorry. We had like...

Hundreds of questions came in. This is so awesome. Sorry, but we just pick them here. All right, go. This is beautiful. The last question is from Riley Ruffin. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Mr. Cruz. Riley Ruffin here from Illinois. All right. I must say, Mr. Cruz, I love your acting. Thank you. Really a big fan. My question is related to the edge of the observable universe. What observations have been made and can you describe what it looks like?

I have heard that there appears to be some type of haze. Is this true? And can you tell us more about it? It's a purple haze. Oh, man. We writing songs right now. I like it. So, a couple of things. Talk to me. The age of the universe is...

is in our way. The age. Yeah. So there's a horizon beyond which we cannot see because the universe isn't old enough for light from objects beyond that horizon to have reached us yet. That's the horizon. It's not completely different from the horizon at sea.

where you're at a ship and you see the horizon, are you saying to yourself, is that the edge of the universe? No, there's probably ocean beyond that. Right. And if you sort of sail towards it, more ocean comes into view and you bring your horizon with you. Yeah. That's kind of, the horizon is not an absolute thing. That's true. It's relative to you and you are in the center of your own horizon. The exact center. Okay. Now, it turns out, as we look out into the universe,

we see the universe younger and younger and younger and younger until we see it just shortly after the Big Bang itself. So technically that's not quite a horizon. It's a time horizon more than it is a space horizon because you can't see before the Big Bang. And so if you wait a few billion more years as the universe continues to expand, then there'll be a place, a space horizon beyond which you cannot see.

And if you travel that direction, again, you can take your horizon with you. So the real question is, do we really know how big the actual universe is? Right. Do you know how big the actual ocean is? Not really. No. Unless you keep sailing until you hit land. That's right. But if you're in the middle of the Pacific, that's a lot of sailing. You have no idea. You have no idea.

So generally when we speak of the universe, it's how big is the observable universe? We gotta contain it. 'Cause what's beyond that, we don't know. No reason to think it's completely different. No reason to think just beyond your horizon, there's something very different from the water that you're witnessing up until the horizon. No reason to think that. So too with the universe. Beyond an observable horizon, no reason to think the rest of the universe is fundamentally different from what's within our own horizon.

And so, by the way, everyone sees themself as the center of the universe. That's true. That's true. Which means there is no center of the universe. And one of my most retweeted tweets, I guess it's X now, it was very simple. I said, because the universe has no center, it means you can't be it.

Oh, wait, now I'm disappointed. Now I'm very disappointed. I always thought I was the center of the universe. But you know what? I got to add one more thing. What's that? What's that? Okay. What's so crazy is looking at how endless it is out there. Mm-hmm.

I often wonder, is it as endless in here? Meaning, is there an end as you go inside as well? Inside the mind? Inside the atom? Inside this atom. Okay, for a while there, people suspected, because they wanted it to be true, that you see the sun and you see planets orbiting the sun. Are we an atom? Exactly. So when we first cracked the atom, they said, wait a minute, there are electrons going around the

the nucleus. So we borrowed the same vocabulary. We don't call them orbits, but we call them orbitals. Same idea. And they said, well, if that's what it is, what happens if we go into the nucleus of the atom? Will it be that again and then that again? Is it that all the way down? No, it's not. It's just not. There's atoms and then there's us and this universe and

And, you know, not to get too pop culture on you, but in Men in Black, there was the galaxy on the belt of Orion. I don't know if you remember that. I don't remember. Orion was a cat. Okay. And it had a...

- Yes, I remember that. - And in there was this sort of transparent ball and inside that ball was the entire universe that we are living in. And it's just this little dangly thing on the neck of a cat. It's fun to think that and write stories about it, but it doesn't look like that's the case. Because different laws of physics apply to the large scale universe than the small. And if it was the same thing all the way down, you'd see repeated, I think. - That's true. The rules don't stay the same. - They don't stay the same. They're very different, very, very different.

So it's a fun thought. This is great. I love this, man. I love this. I could do this all day. I love it. Let's make a deal. Yes. Any future time I'm in Pasadena, we'll fire up the hearth and we'll do this again. Let's do it. Let's do it. I love it. Okay. There's a permanent Pasadena date. Absolutely. Absolutely. Or I'll meet you at Caltech. No problem. I'll walk over there. No problem. Just quick. You had a very successful memoir. Yes.

Because your life was so interesting. You shared some of it with me on a previous time you've been on the podcast. Just what your struggles had been from pro football and you were not quite homeless, but you were destitute for a while. And how fortunes can change if you keep confidence and you have to understand what role failure needs to play. There are people who are ready to give up. And I say, no, that should be the force that drives you forward. Listen, the book was called Tough.

And it was about finding your- It still is. It's on shelves. I've seen it. It's about finding your true power. And literally, it's really the power of choice. Choice. You know, the only thing you can control is you.

That's it. That's so simple that it's deep. Yeah. It's, and wait, it took me years to find that out because I was a professional victim. I mean, looking at all the circumstances and different things and the wins. We all know people like, you did, hey. Your fault and how come I didn't, because you didn't. Professional victim. I like that phrase. Everything revolved down to my choices.

And I realized that, and that really opened the way. It was, like you said, it's so simple, it's deep. Simple doesn't mean easy. No, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. That's the big thing. A lot of people think simple and easy is the same thing. It doesn't. And one last thing. I was channel surfing.

And there's like the animated. Yes. Everybody hates Chris. Did I hear your voice still in there? You did. You did. It just came out. I'm so happy. Everybody hates Chris. Everybody still hates Chris. Because that's the sequel. It's a sequel. But it's an animated sequel. And it literally. That's audacious. It picks up where the live action show left off. And you got all the characters come back. All the characters.

Except for, we lost one. Well, Tyler James Williams is an adult. So a lot of those kids grew up. Yeah, of course. So we have new voice actors for the kids, but a lot of the characters who were adults at the time did come back. Yourself included. Me, Tashina Arnold, Chris Rock, Jackie Harry, Ernest Thomas. It's amazing. And Chris is the narrator. That's right. It's his life. Okay, we're looking forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, and of course,

star host with shiny suits on AGT. Yeah. Oh, and don't forget Killer's Game. Killer's Game. My movie is going to be out on demand. I did a movie with Dave Bautista where we were like assassins. We had our own app where you could, it's like the Uber for assassins. It's a, it's,

It's an action comedy, by the way. So have a great time. Dialogue and assassin comedy. Okay. You can get an assassin anytime. Just Uber it. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, look at this. You rate your assassin. You need to do a good job. Give them a friendly face. Give them a friendly face. And I'll give them a like, don't f*** with me. I'll kill your face. That's how you do it?

I've been doing this forever. All right. We out. Terry, love you, man. Love you. I love you, brother. You're the man. This has been another edition of StarTalk Cosmic Queries with special guest co-host Terry Crews. I love you guys. All right. Until next time, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson bidding you to keep looking up.

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