Stars Ask Neil To Save The Universe

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:00)
I love Celebrities Ask Neil. Yeah.

**Chuck Nice** (0:02)
Okay.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:03)
It's just a reminder that, you know, they're people too, and they have a geek, soft, and good belly.

**Gary O'Reilly** (0:07)
They have cosmic curiosity, just like the rest of us.

**Chuck Nice** (0:09)
And they got really personal, those people. I gotta tell you, I was offended by some of those questions.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:16)
Steven Spielberg's question, that offended you?

**Chuck Nice** (0:18)
Yes. What a nut he is.

**Gary O'Reilly** (0:20)
Stop.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:23)
Coming right up, Celebrities Ask Neil, StarTalk Special Edition. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
This is StarTalk Special Edition, which means I got Gary O'Reilly.

**Gary O'Reilly** (0:48)
Hello.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (0:48)
Hey Gary. Okay, so today we have one of our occasional installments of Celebrities Ask Neil.
Oh, those are fun.

**Steven Spielberg** (0:59)
Yeah.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:00)
And generally, you know, if I find myself around town on a movie set, as you do, as you do, as can happen on occasion, I'll just pull out my smartphone and see if they have a question for me. If one of the celebs have a question for me, because everybody's got a question about the universe.

**Steven Spielberg** (1:16)
All right.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:17)
And so we gather enough of them on the shelf and bring them out as an entire episode.

**Chuck Nice** (1:23)
You know, I do the same thing when I'm on set, and the answer always comes back. How did you get past security?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:34)
So it's kind of like Cosmic Queries for celebs.

**Chuck Nice** (1:36)
Oh, that's cool.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:37)
That's a way to think about it.

**Steven Spielberg** (1:38)
All right.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (1:38)
All right. So first up, let's see who we've got on the docket.

**Chuck Nice** (1:44)
Okay.

**Steven Spielberg** (1:45)
Neil, Steven Spielberg here to ask you a question.
I'm not a physicist and I don't have any real knowledge of quantum mechanics or any of this, but I am curious about what is the gap between an electron? What is that gap where the nucleus is separated and you've got this gap? And is that gap a way to travel, to be able to defy having to go the speed of light to get somewhere?

**Chuck Nice** (2:20)
Wow, where did you get to talk to Steven Spielberg? I mean, that was kind of wild.

**Chuck Nice** (2:26)
Hey, Neil, Steven Spielberg here.

**Chuck Nice** (2:30)
Where's that happen?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:31)
Well, so I had access.

**Chuck Nice** (2:35)
Yeah, we just saw that.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:39)
So two things, as a StarTalk entity, we were invited to the early press encounters with the actors and producers and writers for Disclosure Day.

**Chuck Nice** (2:52)
Nice.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:53)
And not only that, I also got a red carpet invite.

**Chuck Nice** (2:58)
Oh, cool.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (2:59)
Yeah, that was fun.

**Gary O'Reilly** (3:00)
Yours is in the mail.

**Chuck Nice** (3:01)
Yeah, well, no, I got the blue carpet invite.

**Gary O'Reilly** (3:06)
I got the cease and desist. Exclusion zone.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:12)
So here we caught up with him when we were chatting with him about the film, putting together a whole episode on what the film was about and aliens.

**Chuck Nice** (3:21)
Cool, cool, cool.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:21)
Yeah, so he asks a perceptive question that most people don't even think about.

**Chuck Nice** (3:27)
Okay.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:28)
All right. So in an atom, there's empty space between the nucleus and the electron.

**Chuck Nice** (3:36)
Right.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:36)
What's the charge on the nucleus?

**Chuck Nice** (3:38)
It's a positive charge. It's a positive charge.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:40)
That's where all the protons are.

**Chuck Nice** (3:41)
All right.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:41)
Okay. What's the charge on an electron?

**Chuck Nice** (3:44)
That's negative.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:45)
It's the opposite charge. They attract.

**Chuck Nice** (3:47)
Of course.

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (3:48)
Why doesn't the electron slam into the nucleus?

**Chuck Nice** (3:50)
Well, they want to, but it's kind of a Montague and Capulet type thing. So they're being kept apart from one another, even though they love each other dearly.

**Gary O'Reilly** (3:59)
Oh, thank you, Shakespeare, for that.

**Gary O'Reilly** (4:01)
Romeo and Juliet.

**Gary O'Reilly** (4:03)
So the distance is, is that the Max Planck sort of scenario?

**Neil deGrasse Tyson** (4:07)
The Planck is much smaller than that. But if you want to get a sense of how big that gap is, if you have a few kernels of, what's that popcorn they eat in stadiums?