Bug Splat Galaxies with Mordecai-Mark Mac Low

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Introducing Toyota's family of full electric rides as cool as you are. The adventurous BZ Woodland, the trendsetting CHR and the versatile BZ. Zip around town in the BZ with a smooth and sporty driving dynamic. Explore the outdoors in the BZ Woodland with dual motors and available all-terrain tires. Be bold on the road with the CHR's sharp handling. Imagine what you can do with an all-electric vehicle that gets you. Learn more about the new all-electric family at toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Our listeners love puzzles, paradoxes and hidden patterns almost as much as we do. On TikTok, those fascinations come to life.
People are breaking down physics, exploring geology and explaining why the world works the way it does. You'll see impressive experiments, explanations that finally make sense, and connections you didn't expect. It's like having a lab, a lecture hall and science museum in your pocket. TikTok is where wonder is shared, where curiosity turns into discovery, and where millions learn something new every day.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:10)
Negin, we learned all about colliding galaxies and the formation of planets.

**Negin Farsad** (1:15)
I had no idea how much banging and colliding and smashing there was in this universe.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:20)
All the time. Coming right up on StarTalk. 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. You're a personal astrophysicist. This is gonna be Cosmic Queries on the formation of planets in the universe. I got with me my co-host, Negin Farsad.

**Negin Farsad** (1:57)
Negin! Oh my god, hello! Welcome back! I'm so excited.
I've peeped at some of these questions, and they are already- Query-licious.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:08)
Query-licious, I love that! Very good! And just a reminder, you still have your Fake the Nation podcast.

**Negin Farsad** (2:15)
That's right, every week.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:17)
Every week, and it's a delight anytime I hear you on, wait, wait, don't tell me.

**Negin Farsad** (2:22)
Thank you.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:22)
That's the NPR, right?

**Negin Farsad** (2:24)
Yeah.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:24)
It's an NPR mainstay.

**Negin Farsad** (2:26)
An NPR mainstay, I've got a lot of tote bags to prove it. We have a good time.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:32)
All right. Let me introduce you to my guest today.
He's a long time friend and colleague, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low. Mordecai.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (2:41)
Well, hello, Neil.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:42)
It's weird to-

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (2:43)
It's only been 37 years that we've known each other.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:49)
Yeah. So, we came up together through graduate school. Not at the same graduate school, but we're about the same generation. And he's one of the earliest hires into our brand new Department of Astrophysics.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:04)
Number one.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:05)
Oh, you were the number one hire.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:06)
I am number one. Into the department that you founded.

**Negin Farsad** (3:10)
Is that a way of saying that he's better than you?

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:13)
No.

**Negin Farsad** (3:13)
Is that what I'm understanding?

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:14)
He founded the department.

**Negin Farsad** (3:16)
Oh, gotcha.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:16)
I was his number one hire.

**SPEAKER_7** (3:18)
Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:19)
Let's be clear here.

**Negin Farsad** (3:20)
Okay, you're just better than everyone else here.

**SPEAKER_8** (3:23)
But Neil was still better than you.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:24)
That's what we're looking for.

**SPEAKER_7** (3:25)
Got it, got it.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:26)
Number one means he was hired first, not that he's the number one guy. We're all number one here, no.
And what was a delight in your research profile is that you just need a powerful computer and the universe succumbs to you.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (3:43)
Well, it's a good sandbox.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:46)
Tell me what you do, because most people's stereotype of the astronomer astrophysicist, we're at the telescope, or maybe we're crunching numbers on, not numbers, but we're on a theorist's notepad, and you are in the middle of that.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (4:02)
I'm a simulator. Simulator. So I do, I run computer programs that-

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (4:08)
That you write.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (4:10)
Well, that I and my colleagues write.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (4:11)
Yes.

**Mordecai-Mark Mac Low** (4:14)
That describe how parts of the universe behave using mathematical equations derived by theorists, but using the computer to derive consequences that would be absolutely impossible to do with pencil and paper mathematics. So when things get hairy, we pull out a computer.

**Negin Farsad** (4:36)