Stars Ask Neil To Save The Universe
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What is the premise of the Celebrities Ask Neil special edition?
I love celebrities asking you all.
Yeah.
Okay. It's just a reminder that, you know, they're people too, and they have a geek soft underbelly. They have cosmic curiosity just like the rest of us. And they got really personal, those people. I got to tell you, I was offended by some of those questions. Steven Spielberg's question, that offended you? Yes. What a nut he is.
Stop. Stop.
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. Hello. Hey, Gary. Okay, so today we have one of our occasional installments of Celebrities Ask Neil. Oh. Oh, those are fun. Yeah. Okay. 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. Right. And so we gather enough of them on the shelf and bring them out as an entire episode.
You know, I do the same thing when I'm on set and the answer always comes back. How did you get past security? Is that what that means? So it's kind of like cosmic queries for celebs. Oh, that's cool. That's a way to think about it. All right. Do we charge them like Patreon? No. Give me my $5. By the way, $5 is top tier. Forget the $5. These are stars we're talking about. All right. So first up, let's see who we've got on the docket.
Okay. 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? Wow.
Where did you get to talk to Steven Spielberg? I mean, that was kind of wild. Hey, Neil, Steven Spielberg here. Where's that happen? Well, so I had access. Yeah, we just saw that. 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. Nice. And not only that, I also got a red carpet. Oh, cool. Yeah, that was fun.
Yours is in the mail.
Well, no, I got the blue carpet invite. I got the cease and desist. Exclusions phone. 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. Cool, cool, cool. So he asks a perceptive question that most people don't even think about. Okay. All right. So in an atom, there's empty space between the nucleus and the electron. Right. What's the charge on the nucleus? It's a positive charge. It's a positive charge. That's where all the protons are. All right. Okay. What's the charge on an electron? It's negative. It's the opposite charge. Right. All right. They attract. Of course. Why doesn't the electron slam into the nucleus? 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. Oh, thank you, Shakespeare, for that. Romeo and Juliet. So the distance, is that the Max Planck sort of scenario? Planck is much smaller.
Much smaller than him.
But if you want to get a sense of how big that gap is, you have a few kernels of... What's that popcorn they eat in stadiums? Popcorn? Cracker Jack? Cracker Jack. If you have a few Cracker Jack kernels in the middle of the field, the volume of the stadium is approximately where the electronic is. That's amazing. It's that much space. That much space. That's incredible. And the first guy who discovered there was that much space, his name is Ernst Rutherford. He loved baseball. In fact, a New Zealand... He's a New Zealander. New Zealander.
Yes.
Ernst Rutherford.
How does Steven Spielberg’s question about the atomic gap relate to faster‑than‑light travel?
Kiwi. A Kiwi. One of your colonies.
Thank you for reminding me of our colonial past again.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the premise of the Celebrities Ask Neil special edition?
0:00–4:59
2
How does Steven Spielberg’s question about the atomic gap relate to faster‑than‑light travel?
4:59–30:01
3
What evidence does Neil give for the existence of a multiverse?
30:01–43:57
4
Why is Himalayan pink salt pink and is it nutritionally different?
43:57–44:35