Neil deGrasse Tyson , Asteroids, the God Particle, and Robots and Other Cool Stuff

neil tysonAstrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is America’s most popular scientist, and has become beloved because he is not only scientifically smart, but he can make scientific principle relatable to the average person.  Neil is also the director of the Hayden Planetarium, an award winning author, and the Space Program’s most vocal spokesperson.  He stopped by the SiriusXM studios this week to talk with Ron Bennington about his book coming out in paperback form.  Excerpts from the interview appear below.   Want more?  Read our previous interview with Neil from March 2012 here, and browse a long list of Neil deGrasse Tyson related posts right here in theibang.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks About the God Particle

Ron Bennington:  I had been looking all over for a God particle before you got in here. And I’ve been looking around and I just can’t seem to find one.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  They found you.  (laughs)

Ron Bennington: Yeah.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Yeah, so, the announcement this week that it was confirmed – there was an earlier announcement that they might have found it. But you’ve got to still build your statistics to be sure that what you’ve got is real. So yeah, so they made the announcement. So that confirms an expectation of what was called the standard model of particle physics. Where, you know, we have quarks, and electrons, and they expected there’d be such a particle that would grant mass to all other particles. That’s why it got called the God particle for a while there. Yeah, so they found it, we’re on to the next challenge now. We, I mean they are.

Ron Bennington:  But by the way, but it’s nice because it is kind of we. It’s all of us humans sharing that. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Exactly. It’s a communal, it’s a vicarious thrill for what we discover as humans.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks About Research and How Long it Takes to Prove Theories

Ron Bennington:  But isn’t it interesting how long it takes before you can prove some of the theories? That decades can go by.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Yeah, I think it’s always taken that long to show a lot of this. But what’s happening now is that the press is gaining access to preliminary results, and preliminary ideas. So you have things more open in that regard. In the old days you just learned the one discovery. You’d say, “Oh look at that discovery.” Then some other discovery would come right after that from a different group. “Look at that (case) of discovery.” And you had no idea that each of those was ten years. To plan, fund, build – somebody had to build the accelerator. Somebody had to, you know, figure out how to make it work and had to debug it. Right? And so all this, and it’s like hundreds of scientists, thousands of engineers, all come together to find this particle. So yeah, it took a while.

Ron Bennington:  Research, for you, is the exciting part. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Oh yeah. Ron Bennington:  It’s all about research. Neil deGrasse Tyson:  As it is and has always been.

Ron Bennington:  And yet that’s the one thing that the media, I believe, will attack. When they want to know what did we get for the research? Because as you pointed out, with thousands of things going on sometimes they build upon each other. And a lot of times they go, “Look they’ve done this research to find out if mice do this” and they feel like it’s wasting money.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Well, I think the problem is our brains have taken on the profiles of quarterly reports and annual reports. We  say, “We just funded that last year. What has it done for me this year?” And this is corporate thinking, but it’s not strategic thinking. And strategic thinking is, “What can I fund now so that it could stimulate other levels of creativity that will then one day create something that we would then know would be valuable to us.” I can give you important examples from the history of science, but these are repeated constantly. But I’ll give you two that rise to the top. Do you realize that for decades after the electron was discovered, there were people debating in the press whether the electron would have any practical use to humans at all. Or was it just a plaything of the physicists? And we would shortly thereafter electrify the cities.  And by the way, electricity as a concept was sort of – goes back to Ben Franklin and a little earlier – but we didn’t start understanding it’s conduct and behavior until like the mid 1800’s. And we started electrifying cities in the early 1900s. So that’s 50 years. There’s a 50 year delay from the research into electricity and it’s practical applications as effecting everybody on the street. Take a look at the 1920s. Quantum physics is discovered. An extraordinary behavior of matter revealed only on it’s smallest of scales. Molecules, and atoms, and particles. And, again, is this the plaything of they physicist? It has no known application to anything. 50 years later it is the entire foundation of the information technology revolution. So, to say your discovery is not useful to me. Maybe it will never be useful to you, but neither of us know that yet. And so you can say, “Let me not fund anything.” Well then, okay, wait for some other country to fund it and they’ll reap the benefits of it and they’ll sing the tune to which we must dance. I’m not accustomed to being in that position as an American in my entire life.

Ron Bennington:  Sure.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  So, to do what others say, because they’re more creative than we are. I grew up in sort of a very different relationship there. And I’m not going to cede that easily. We’re an elected democracy, so if people among knowing the value of research, still choose to not fund it. Well that’s what a democracy does. It chooses what it wants to fund and what it doesn’t. And then we’ll sit here and watch the rest of the world pass us by economically.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks About the Russian Asteroid

Ron Bennington:  When you put out the book Space Chronicles and you were talking about what we need to be doing with the space program. We did not have a big asteroid that hit Russia when that happened.  Neil deGrasse Tyson:  (laughs)  Did you like the way I arranged for that? Was that good? Ron Bennington:  So, as the paperback is coming out, it’s a much different way of looking at some of the things you’re talking about. Because people could actually see these things do happen.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Yeah, so the asteroid came out in time for the paperback, but not in time for the hardcover. So the good thing about that asteroid is that it was unimpeachably dangerous, yet no one died. Alright, so we’re not lamenting the tragedy of deaths from an asteroid. But it was a big enough shot across our bow, so it sort of shocked people into action. And right now, as we speak, congress is meeting and having hearings. The senate, as well as the house, having hearings on hazards from space. And I’m disappointed that it took a real rock from space to make – to shock them into this action – because we’ve been telling them this for 30 years. Once we, after we figured out that it was an asteroid that took out the dinosaurs, yeah this can happen, this happens more often than we’ve ever thought. And yeah, this geologic feature, that was an asteroid that made that feature. Oh, this city that was buried under – that was flooded? Completely flooded out and washed out to sea? That was a tsunami from what might have been an asteroid that hit. So it’s a new understanding to our relationship to the world. And I’m disappointed that they didn’t have the foresight to do it pre- what’s the word? You do it in advance, pre-, not retro – proactively. Thank you. I’m disappointed that no one figured out to do this proactively. I think they wait until we feel threatened, and only then do we act. And that’s not a country that leads you into the future, that’s a country that trails itself into the future.

Ron Bennington:  But do we have the technology already to be able to save ourselves?

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  On paper we know exactly how to save ourselves.

Ron Bennington:  We do know how to do it?

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Yes. We know the physics, we know the engineering, we know how to do it, we know how long it would take, we know all of this. But there’s not a single – that’s been brought to my attention, there’s not a single funded asteroid deflection plan anywhere in the world. So, all we’re doing now is cataloging those asteroids that could render us extinct. In retrospect you say, “A lot of good that does. Now we know we’ll go extinct on this day.” Rather than not know we’re going to go extinct on that day.

Ron Bennington:  And there’s also the possibility that we haven’t caught one right? That we don’t even see out there.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Exactly. So we’ve got nearly all the meter class asteroids. These are the asteroids that are dangerous enough to disrupt civilization. Not enough to render us extinct, but they will destroy the transportation train, the food chain, the emergency response chain. All of the clean water access. These things that make civilization, that ground civilization, will be disrupted with a meter class – a kilometer class asteroid. So a little more than a half a mile, obviously. So now how about the ones that are down to 100 meters? Like one tenth that size? We are woefully incomplete in those data. The one that hit Russia? That’s  one third that size.

Ron Bennington:  Wow.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  One third that size. And we don’t have a way to find those before they hit. And so, by the way, that exploded about 20 miles up. It was 25 times more powerful than the bomb we exploded over Hiroshima in the second World War. 25 times that power. So you can ask, “Well how come it didn’t flatten the whole town?” It would have had it exploded as low in the atmosphere as our bomb did. If it had exploded at the height that the Hiroshima bomb exploded, every building would have been completely flattened and there would have been no survivors. In fact, we might not have known about it for a while. Because anybody close enough to see it, would have been incinerated. Right? And these are low population density areas. So…

Ron Bennington:  Yeah, and this is just luck that it didn’t, right? There was no reason.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  No, no, no. I didn’t mean to imply this. So certain kinds of asteroids such as that one, and that’s the majority of them, are rocky. As opposed to metallic. And the rocky ones have so much energy coming in, so much speed coming in, that when they see the atmosphere, it’s like hitting a brick wall. So they explode as an air blast rather than as a ground blast.

Ron Bennington:  Alright.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  And so that one, they’re not going to get much deeper than 20 miles.

Ron Bennington:  So but if it was metallic? 

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Metallic, it would not have exploded in the air, it would have hit the ground.

Ron Bennington:  Wow.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  And exploded on the ground. Because it’s structurally more bound. You know metal, you can drop metal all you want on the ground, it’s not going to break into two pieces. A rock, you can smash a rock with a hammer, right? So if you move a rock fast enough into a wall, you’ll completely shatter the rock. If you move it fast enough – if you move metal into it – the metal will dent the wall. Right? And so there’s a different effect when these two things come into our airspace. The rock explodes in air typically – unless it’s really, really huge. Really, really huge atmosphere makes no damn difference at all. So the one that took out the dinosaurs could have easily been a rock asteroid, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Ron Bennington:  And this is stuff, as of right now, we’re defenseless against. It’s not up to us whether it’s a rock or whether it’s metal, it’s just whatever happens.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  We are defenseless in two ways. The one that hit Russia, in Chelyabinsk, in the Urals. Asteroids that size, we are defenseless because we don’t even know they’re coming. A, B, for bigger asteroids, even if we knew they were coming. We currently have no plan to deflect them. So we’re doubly defenseless.

Ron Bennington:  And this actually came up yesterday, I think, with congress. Where they asked what we would do if one of these was heading to Times Square. And there’s nothing to do right now.  

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Well I have a bad joke about that. It would be the greatest smash hit on Times Square since…since Cats. No, so it wouldn’t have to just hit Times Square. These things do vastly more damage than what they’re ground zero would represent. I mean ground zero lately we think of September 11. Ground zero has a specific meaning, and it is the point on the ground directly underneath the air blast explosion. So if Times Square is ground zero, who cares? If you’re in Jersey you’re dead. If you’re in Brooklyn, you’re dead. If the impact is big enough. So fortunately, the big impacts are uncommon relative to the little impacts. So the ones that could do the most damage, NASA’s original plan was to focus on those. And the ones that could just disrupt a city, but not disrupt civilization, those will have to come later.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks About Robotics

Ron Bennington:  I will tell you this. I think there’s something in our DNA to fear robots. And these Japanese are going like a bat out of hell making robots.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Here’s the thing, we have a biased view of what a robot is. We think a robot looks like a human. No excuse me, your cell phone, your smart phone is a robot. It does things that you command it to do. It gets information for you. Look at Siri, I asked Siri one day, “Siri, what is the integral of E to the X from 1 to 2?” and this is a high level, well it’s a mid-level calculus problem. Calculus. I’m telling Siri. Siri comes back with a web page that has that exact integral calculated on it. Says, “Will this serve your needs?” Well thank you. Now, of course, I could have done it on my own. Because I’m calculus fluent, but when you think about what that is, that’s a robot.  You know what else is a robot? GPS is a robot. Turn left here. And it’s telling you what to do. And you don’t have to know what to do. So my microwave oven is a robot. It will go three minutes at level three, two minutes at level one, it will brown on the top, out comes perfect grilled cheese sandwich or whatever. So I’m not afraid – none of us fear robots. We fear something that looks like us, that can perhaps strangle us. What’s that movie “I, Robot”?

Ron Bennington:  “I, Robot”, yeah.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Where the robots turn on you. You don’t want them violating the…

Ron Bennington:  Robot law.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  …the Robot Law. You know, thou shalt not kill your creator. And so no, you just don’t give them hands.

Ron Bennington:  Don’t give them hands. (Laughing)

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  And plus, what is the thing they sell up in Massachusetts? We all have the Roomba. The roomba, rombo? The roomba, that’s a robot. It vacuums your – so we used to think that you needed a human looking robot that then pushes your vacuum cleaner around. “Well I have an automated house.” No, the automated house is the vacuum does it’s own damn cleaning. So we’re surrounded by robots, this fear factor I think is a myth held over from the days when robots looked like us.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks About Hosting the New “The Cosmos”   

Ron Bennington:  What are you going to be doing with the “Cosmos”? Are you going to be shooting these?

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Oh, thanks for asking, we just finished four days of shooting in Northern California. There’s another seven weeks that are going to be scattered into the Summer. And we hope to premiere it a year from now. The Spring 2014.

Ron Bennington:  And you’re going way big into the universe, and way small?

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  We are, every place in the universe will be touched by this series.

Ron Bennington:  Well, I know…

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  By the way, it’s not just what is our knowledge of the universe. It’s why should that matter. That’s the big takeaway that the original “Cosmos” had. It’s not just, let’s learn some science. Because you can just go to a wiki page if that’s all you’re going to get out of this. It’s why should any of this matter to you. And how can you become a more informed and enlightened citizen of your country, of your planet, of your universe. For having seen these episodes.

Ron Bennington:  And I remember seeing the original series and then finding out like, that’s where we are from a distance. That’s how small it is, and this is how much more we’ve got to do.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Yes, that is part of the construction of the cosmic perspective.

Ron Bennington:  And the beauty of it is, as of right now, as far as we know, if we don’t do this – who else is going to? I don’t see the turtles working on anything.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Right, right, exactly. But, if we – I mean if humans don’t do it, right, turtles are not going to pass us on this. And even the chimps are not really there yet. But I can tell you that if America doesn’t lead in space, someone else will.

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Ron Bennington:   “Space Chronicles” is out in paperback and like we said, somehow the universe seems to be helping get the word out there by throwing rocks at us.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  I swear I had nothing to do with that asteroid.

Ron Bennington:  Neil deGrasse Tyson, thank you so much. It’s @neiltyson on Twitter.   Thank you so much my friend, I’ll see you next time coming through.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:  Thank you for having me again.

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Follow Neil deGrasse Tyson on twitter @neiltyson and pick up a copy of his book in paperback, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, at amazon.com. .

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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews atRonBenningtonInterviews.com.