Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
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From StarTalk. What’s a parsec? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down space’s weirdest unit of measure. Learn how people came up with parsec and how Star Wars, once again, doesn’t understand science. Timestamps: 00:00 – Embarrassing Unit of Measure 1:13 – Origins of Parsec 3:12 – Parallax Experiment 7:59 – Parsec vs. Light…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by Chuck Nice, interviews David Grinspoon about how science fiction—especially Star Trek—has portrayed aliens and planetary science compared to real astrobiology. They discuss how early space propaganda, including the work of Wernher von Braun, Walt Disney, and Chesley Bonestell, helped shape public imagination about space exploration,…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson is joined by co-host Chuck Nice and guest David Grinspoon to explore the history of “space futures” — the evolving visions humanity has had about space exploration and what it would mean for our future. Grinspoon discusses how cultural forces like science fiction, politics, funding, Apollo, and…
From StarTalk. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. https://T-Mobile.com/HomeInternet Do we need new math to explain dark matter? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Paul Mecurio explore unsolved problems in math, simulation theory, base systems and more with mathematician Terence Tao. We take a look at the boundary between pure and applied mathematics. You’ll learn intentional simplifications of…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by Chuck Nice, interviews David Grinspoon about the historical belief in life on Mars. They explore how Percival Lowell’s claims about Martian “canals” sparked widespread scientific and public belief in intelligent Martians, influenced H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, and even contributed to Orson Welles’ famous…
From StarTalk. Go to https://ground.news/startalk to stay fully informed on the latest Space and Science news. Save 40% off through our link for unlimited access to the Vantage plan this month. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. https://T-Mobile.com/HomeInternet How did we go from digital computers to AI seemingly everywhere? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, & Gary O’Reilly…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-host Chuck Nice, and guest Sean Carroll explore two big cosmology questions: whether a slowly rotating universe could explain dark energy or the Hubble tension, and what really happens if you fall into a black hole. Sean Carroll explains that a rotating universe would likely break the…
From StarTalk. Why does water evaporate when it’s not boiling? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down Maxwellian Distributions of Velocities how particles move differently when adding heat. Is the universe one big mosh pit for particles? Timestamps: 00:00 – Maxwellian Velocity Distributions 00:31 – Gas Particle Most Pit 03:48 – Velocity Curves 04:29…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-host Chuck Nice, and guest Sean Carroll discuss the famous double-slit experiment and the much-hyped delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. Chuck raises concerns about whether particles “know” they are being observed, but Sean Carroll explains that the experiment does not imply consciousness, backward causation, or particles making…
From StarTalk. 🔒 Get 20% off DeleteMe by going to https://joindeleteme.com/StarTalk and use code StarTalk to protect your privacy! 🙌 What’s more terrifying: finding alien life or finding out we are alone in the universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice dive into fan questions about optics, religion, communicating with entanglement, and life…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-host Chuck Nice, interviews Sean Carroll about the mystery of the arrow of time. Carroll explains that while the fundamental laws of physics don’t distinguish between past and future, time appears to move forward because the early universe began in a highly ordered, low-entropy state…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice interview Sean Carroll about his latest paper exploring what Hawking radiation looks like if you fall into a black hole. Sean explains the apparent paradox: from far away, black holes emit Hawking radiation, but if you cross the event horizon, you’re not supposed to…
From StarTalk. What is a Lagrange Point? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down these special points in space and how we found them, use them for space telescopes, space travel, and beyond. Could we do construction in space? Timestamps: 00:00 – Unstable v. Stable Equilibrium 02:49 – Stable Point in the Earth-Moon System…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-host Chuck Nice, talks with physicist Sean Carroll about the concept of invisible fields in physics—especially electric and magnetic fields. They explore how scientists moved from Newton’s mysterious “action at a distance” to Faraday’s intuitive “lines of force,” and finally to Maxwell’s mathematical description of…
From StarTalk. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/startalk How much energy would it take to make a warp drive? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedians Pete Holmes and Sasheer Zamata explore the science in TV shows from antimatter annihilation to tachyons to warp bubbles speeding outside of spacetime with astrophysicist & science advisor…
From StarTalk. In this conversation, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, speaks with neuroscientist Dean Buonomano about how the brain stores memory and keeps time. Buonomano explains that memory is not stored like computer data but emerges from changing neural connections and dynamic activity patterns, and that the brain likely tells…
From StarTalk. Is your consciousness a quantum phenomenon? Is the universe one predetermined block? Neil deGrasse Tyson and cohosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly answer grab bag questions about quantum theory, the cosmological constant, and retrocausality with astrophysicist Charles Liu. We explore a question about the Big Rip, quarks, and whether tearing the universe apart…
From StarTalk. In this conversation, Neil deGrasse Tyson, alongside co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, speaks with neuroscientist Dean Buonomano about how humans and animals perceive time without clocks. They explore how timing is deeply embedded in brain function, language, memory, and evolution, and how our sense of time’s flow may conflict with physics but…
From StarTalk. Go to https://ground.news/startalk to stay fully informed on the latest Space and Science news. Save 40% off through our link for unlimited access to the Vantage plan this month. What’s up with Greenland? Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down some important points about Greenland from a scientific, historical, and geopolitical lens. Timestamps: 00:00 –…
From StarTalk. In this discussion, Neil deGrasse Tyson, alongside co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, talks with neuroscientist Dean Buonomano about why humans evolved such a deep need to measure and synchronize time. They explore how timekeeping shaped human cooperation, survival, industrial society, and scientific breakthroughs—from Galileo Galilei’s pendulum observations to the role of clocks…
From StarTalk. Is there life in the Venusian Clouds? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice are joined by planetary astrobiologist David Grinspoon to discuss NASA’s return to Venus, our space future, and whether we’ll find life in our solar system. As a primary investigator on the upcoming DAVINCI mission, David explains why we…
From StarTalk. In this StarTalk segment, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O’Reilly talk with Dean Buonomano about how brains “tell time” differently from manmade clocks. Dean contrasts oscillation-based devices (pendulums, quartz, atomic clocks) with neural timing, arguing the brain often uses evolving activity patterns (dynamics) more like an hourglass than a ticking metronome—while…
From StarTalk. How does a gravity assist work? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice explain the slingshot effect and the spacecraft that we’ve sent out of the solar system with it (like Pioneer and Voyager missions). Is Pluto secretly the savior of humanity due to blunder on Pioneer 10 & 11’s gold plaques? We break…
From StarTalk. In this discussion, Neil deGrasse Tyson is joined by co-host Chuck Nice and guest John Martinis, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, to demystify quantum computing. Martinis explains what a qubit is, how quantum superposition enables massive parallel computation, why quantum computers are powerful yet difficult to harness, and how advances in quantum computing…
From StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-host Chuck Nice, speaks with physicist and Nobel Prize laureate John Martinis about how quantum tunneling can occur in macroscopic electrical circuits. The conversation explains how superconducting circuits obey quantum mechanics, why this discovery mattered enough to earn a Nobel Prize decades later, and how it ultimately enabled…
From StarTalk. What do astrophysicists mean when they talk about “information”? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice dive into questions about the black hole information paradox, moon moons, wormholes between black hole universes, and more! Why do astrophysicists worry about lost information, and what actually happens when a molecule meets a singularity? If…
From StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-host Chuck Nice, talks with physicist and Nobel Prize laureate John Martinis about how quantum mechanics can govern macroscopic electrical circuits, not just microscopic particles. The discussion explores Martinis’ Nobel-winning discovery of quantum behavior in superconducting circuits, clarifying how large-scale systems can obey quantum laws without invoking mysticism…
From StarTalk. Why do we need to know that other people know we know? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice dive into human psychology and how common knowledge is the invisible glue holding civilization together with cognitive scientist and author of When Everyone Knows What Everyone Knows, Steven Pinker. How do we know…
From StarTalk. In this discussion, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, explores whether free will can be understood as an emergent property of consciousness, similar to how fluid dynamics describes gases without tracking individual particles. Using analogies from physics, neuroscience, and science fiction, they debate whether human choices can be…
From StarTalk. Why don’t we make scientific laws anymore? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice break down how we went from laws to theories, what the term means in contemporary science, and how there will always be limits to our knowledge of the universe. Timestamps: 00:00 – Newton’s Laws 03:25 – Breaking the Law 06:25…
From StarTalk. In this discussion, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-host Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, explains how physicists decide which equations to use when tackling complex problems. Neil emphasizes that physics is not about memorizing formulas, but about building a conceptual “toolbox” of physical principles—from Newtonian motion to relativity and quantum mechanics—and recognizing which…
From StarTalk. What does Hawking radiation look like falling into a black hole? Will we ever find a theory of everything? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice answer questions about invisible fields, many worlds, entropy, the theory of everything, and more with theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll. What is a field, and why…
From StarTalk. In this conversation, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, explains the strong nuclear force in intuitive, everyday terms, using analogies like rubber bands and springs to clarify why protons and quarks bind together despite electromagnetic repulsion. Neil deGrasse Tyson walks through how quarks, gluons, and force carriers work,…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice use humor and curiosity to explore space-themed snacks by tasting and ranking products inspired by astronomy and sci-fi culture. As they react to items like Milky Way and Mars bars, astronaut ice cream, cosmic Oreos, and space-branded drinks, the conversation blends genuine food…
From StarTalk. Right now, you can try Bitdefender Premium Security FREE for 90 days.Get your Bitdefender Premium Security plan for FREE today at bitdefend.me/StarTalk Did life on Earth come from elsewhere in the universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down the discovery of mold in the ISS and what it means for panspermia theory. Are we…
From StarTalk. In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, explores whether gravity should be understood as a traditional force or as the curvature of space and time. Using thought experiments, everyday analogies, and Einstein’s equivalence principle, Neil explains why gravity and acceleration are experimentally indistinguishable and why the…
From StarTalk. In this conversation, Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, speaks with science writer Adam Becker about why science fiction so often dominates public imagination compared to real science. The discussion argues that the real problem is not science or sci-fi, but weak critical reading skills and the dangerous…
From StarTalk. Is time fundamental to the universe or a human construct? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O’Reilly explore our brain’s relationship with time, how we remember the past, and project the future with Dean Buonomano, Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology at UCLA. Why do we measure time more accurately than any other…
From StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, joined by astrophysicist Charles Liu, along with Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, dive into the fundamentals of quantum mechanics—superposition, wave–particle duality, entanglement, qubits, and the collapse of the wavefunction—using pop-culture references like Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen to make these abstract ideas more accessible. The discussion builds toward a critical examination…