The Stuff You Should Know Doin’ Science Playlist: How Big Bang Theory Works, with Neil deGrasse Tyson

**Josh Clark** (0:01)
Yes, indeed, you read that right. If you made it all the way to the end of the very lengthy title of this science playlist episode, we got Neil deGrasse Tyson to sit in for an interview with us, and it was pretty boss. And a couple years later, he was nice enough to have me come on Star Talk to talk about my end of the world series. He had this rapid fire question segment that he does every time, and he wondered aloud at some point why it was going so slow. And the secret answer was that my tangents were derailing the rapid fire part.
At any rate, even without NDT, this episode is pretty great, as everyone knows any talk about the origin of time and space is cosmologerific. So I hope you feel that way about this episode too.

**Charles Bryant** (0:44)
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from howstuffworks.com.

**Josh Clark** (0:55)
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Chipper Josh Clark. There's Chipper Charles Bryant. Oh, that's your new nickname.

**Charles Bryant** (1:01)
Chipper Charles?

**Josh Clark** (1:02)
Yep.

**Charles Bryant** (1:03)
Eesh.

**Josh Clark** (1:03)
Yeah, and then there's Jerry.

**Charles Bryant** (1:06)
She's not Chipper.

**Josh Clark** (1:07)
She is actually Chipper today.

**Charles Bryant** (1:08)
I'm not Chipper, I'm grumpy, because this time I'm...

**Josh Clark** (1:10)
I know.

**Charles Bryant** (1:11)
Man, oh man, my head has already melted.

**Josh Clark** (1:13)
You guys should see the vein in Chuck's forehead. It is protruding.

**Charles Bryant** (1:17)
Well, we'll do our best. Of course.

**Josh Clark** (1:19)
Dude, we're not astrophysicists, but we do have an astrophysicist coming on as a guest at the end of the episode, don't we?

**Charles Bryant** (1:26)
Yes, my friend. You interviewed Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, or as I like to call him, NDT.

**Josh Clark** (1:34)
Sure, that's what I call him, too. NDT, he's dynamite.

**Charles Bryant** (1:39)
Yeah, but I was unable to be on the interview for various tooth-related reasons, so you took it upon yourself, and I think an interview like that is probably just better for one person anyway. It gets a little clumsy if two people that don't know anything about astrophysics are trying to glean information.

**Josh Clark** (1:56)
Oh, here's my question.

**Charles Bryant** (1:57)
Yeah. What did you eat for breakfast, doctor?

**Josh Clark** (2:02)
But yeah, it was very kind of him to come on, and we want to thank our friends at the Fox Theatre, where he's going to be on April 20th here in Atlanta, for hooking that up. So thanks to everybody who made that happen, because it's a great interview, as you guys will hear at the end of this episode.

**Charles Bryant** (2:17)
Yeah, I loved listening to it, and I'm going to go ahead and say my two favorite parts are probably one that won't make it in, when you said that you're happy to plug the Fox Theatre show, and he was like, don't bother, it's going to be sold out.

**Josh Clark** (2:29)
Yeah, I like that too.

**Charles Bryant** (2:30)
And then at the end, when you thanked him for advancing our understanding of this light years, and he was like, that's not nearly enough.

**Josh Clark** (2:37)
Yeah.

**Charles Bryant** (2:37)
He was like, a light year is not very far, thanks.

**Josh Clark** (2:39)
Yeah, so I changed it to parsecs. He's like, you're getting closer.

**Charles Bryant** (2:42)
I know, it was very funny, actually. I hope you leave that part in there.

**Josh Clark** (2:46)
I hope so, and later on, I immediately get in not saying, well, you advanced our show billions and billions of light years.

**Charles Bryant** (2:54)
He would have appreciated that.

**Josh Clark** (2:55)
Yeah, he would have, and I didn't do it. Yeah. I wasn't sharp enough.

**Charles Bryant** (2:58)
It was a good interview, though, so.

**Josh Clark** (2:59)
Thanks.

**Charles Bryant** (3:01)
Feel free to skip right ahead to that.

**Josh Clark** (3:03)
We'll lay here and go to sleep. So we're talking about the Big Bang Theory, and not the TV show, so settle down, nerds.

**Charles Bryant** (3:12)
I think he was on that show, though, wasn't he?

**Josh Clark** (3:13)
I'm sure. Yeah.
Sure.

**Charles Bryant** (3:15)
Yeah, he made an appearance.

**Josh Clark** (3:17)
I think all you have to do is say, like, you will further science if you appear on this. He's like, I'll do it.

**Charles Bryant** (3:22)
Yeah, I've never seen one episode of that show.

**Josh Clark** (3:26)
I guess I've maybe seen some here and there. It's, I think, literally the most popular show in the world.
Or it was, like, last season or the season before. It's just taken off like a rocket. And hats off to them, too, because they mix actual science and science jokes and all that stuff. It's, like, smartening up the world.