Q:
As a kid, what scientific depiction or invention
from sci-fi movies or television did you most want
to have become real?
Tyson: Seen in the original StarTrek series - doors that
automatically open when you approach them, and
close when you walk away. Something ubiquitous
today, but unimagined for most of the history of doors.
Beyond that, warp drives. I, too, want to be able to
cross the Galaxy during a TV commercial.
Q:
How can gravity cause galactic collisions when
the universe is constantly stretching them away
from each other?
Tyson: Some galaxies -- those that are closest to
one another -- tend to be gravitationally bound. The
expanding universe has no effect on them. Over the
eons, they will ultimately collide, coalescing into one
giant mass of stars and gas. We (Milky Way denizens)
are on just such a collision course with the Andromeda
galaxy.
Q:
Why is there a growing consensus that there was
something before the Big Bang, and what are
some of the theories of what ‘that’ was?
Q:
Is time tangible? Why?
Tyson: If, by tangible, you mean that you can touch
it, then no. But neither is space. They are coordinates
of our lives.
Q:
Are we as a species ready to send humans to live
on Mars as a colony, never to return to Earth?
Tyson: No. Such a colony would be a habitat module,
mimicking earth air, and providing a supply of water
and food. If that’s how you are going to do it, why not
stay on Earth? Like taking a luxury Winnebago with
satellite TV, a bathroom, and a kitchen on a camping
trip. You are not camping.
The colonists who came to the new world did so,
in part, to escape persecution. And they discovered,
upon arriving, that you can breath the air, and eat the
fruit, and use wood from the trees to make homes. A
one-way trip to Mars has no such amenities. Consider
also that Antarctica is wetter and balmier than the
Martian surface, yet nobody is lining up to build
condominiums there.
The takeaway here is that people live and work
among us who want to take such a one-way trip. And I
will always applaud ambition.
Image: Patrick Eccelsine/FOX
Tyson: Quantum physics -- the most successful theory
of the universe there ever was -- when combined with
general relativity, offers compelling arguments for why
our universe may be one of many, each with slightly
different laws of physics from one another. This admits
a multiverse that preceds the universe itself.
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