Joe Rogan and Neil deGrasse Tyson Tackle Gravity

The J.Rogan experience. Gravity is one thing that I want to talk to. You're still hooked up on gravity. Yes. I'm always hooked up on gravity. As you should be. Well since we've talked last, I've been reading a lot about it. One of the things that confuses me the most is that we don't really understand what gravity is. We know its effects. We can measure them. We know how to measure them. We know what the mass is involved. But we don't really know what gravity is. There's a similar question in the book, but they got a little more philosophical than you just did. But they both lean philosophical. Science can describe how gravity works. But can they describe why it works? Can we? So this is the how why duality here. And allow me to just answer it from a how why point of view and then we can apply it to gravity after I say that. In science, if we can describe how something works and predict its future behavior, we claim to understand it and we move on. You can ask deeper questions about why is there gravity? What is the meaning? What is the purpose? And go ahead, but I'm good with what I've done and I can land a spacecraft on Mars inside of a crater in a hole in one using my understanding of gravity. So I'm pretty good with it. Okay? So I'm not distracted by the more philosophical side of that. Why does it work? Okay. Einstein, so Newton was deeply puzzled by how you can have something called, in which he coined the phrase action at a distance. Okay? He wrote down the equation that worked. He walked down the equation. Moon goes around the Earth, Earth goes around the Sun. The moons of Jupiter go around Jupiter. He accurately described that with his equations of gravity. Okay. He said, one day I think we're going to find some way that they're connecting to each other, but I don't know what that is right now, but I know my equations work. He called it spooky. It was spooky to him. That's his word. Spooky action at a distance. All right. Fast forward 300 years. 300? No. No. Fast forward 230 years. Get to Albert Einstein. Gravity is the curvature of space and time. And you're moving on the curvature of that fabric. That's gravity. Oh my gosh. Is it even a force then? Is it even? So there's no need to think of it as an action at a distance. In a phrase first uttered by, I think it was John Archibald Wheeler, a student of Einstein. I learned relativity from John Archibald Wheeler. In fact, that's where I met my wife in relativity class in graduate school. It's space. So matter tells space how to curve. Space tells matter how to move. It moves along the curvature of space. You don't need an action at a distance. There is no action. It can't do anything else but do that. It's like you have a funnel and you take a ball and you roll it on the funnel. The ball can only do what that funnel tells it to do. And it'll circle. If you give it a sideways motion, it'll start spinning around. There's no magic hand coming in there. It is following the curvature of its space-time continuum, this construct that you provided for it. So now I can describe what gravity is doing. I even have a mechanism for it. Are you going to still ask me why is there gravity? Is that answer not fulfilling enough to you even in the why department? You can say, well, why would a particle curve space? You can just keep doing that. That's fine. But is there a point where you'll be satisfied with the answer? Oh, that answer is my why. I can say, well, why did this half liter of order drop off the edge here? Well, it's no longer the forces are imbalanced. And it's a no, but why did it fall? Well, there's nothing holding it up. Why did it... There's a point where it's not especially productive to continue to think about the world that way. Because what I'm claiming is answers to the how, when you understand the how enough, are tantamount to having answered the why question. That's what I'm telling you. Tantamount in terms of the ability to measure it and accurately use it. Correct. But we can say, okay, you got a bald head. We can say, well, why did you go bald? Well, okay, the hair follicles when you start in your late 20s and when you go bald, when do you start losing your hair? Probably late 20s, early 30s. Yeah. That's common. If you have your hair when you're 30, you'll probably have it for the rest of your life. That's how that goes. You start losing it up right going up till you're 30. So you can say, well, the hair follicle begins to not producing the keratin or whatever. You get the explanation, then you say, well, why does the hair follicle stop doing that? Then you say, oh, well, because the DNA has pre-coded about the hair kind of thing. Well, why does the DNA have the hair? Well, because so. Right, but we know far more about how and why people go bald than we do about what gravity really is, correct? I'm telling you, gravity really is the curvature of space and time. That gets us the big bang and everything we've ever known and loved. The curvature of space and time, but it's also based on mass, right? It's based on the amount of mass and mass that counts. Any concentration of matter and energy and or energy will curve the fabric of space and time. And the more mass, the more gravity. And the movement of matter on that fabric of space and time, we call gravity. And I'm good with that. Okay, but you seem a little oddly defensive about something that's scientific. No, I have to say I'm good with the... But you are, because you're kind of defending it. No, you can say, well, why does matter... Defending, why do you need to know why? No, why does... That's what you're saying. No, I'm saying, why does matter and energy curve the fabric of space and time? You can ask that. Okay, why? And I don't have an answer for that. I can say... Well, that's all I'm asking. Well, no, what I'm telling you is... Okay, you don't need to know why. Because I got you to the point... Right. We had to walk to that point... Yes. ...where your why got unanswered. I understand that, but... But before we got to that point, I answered otherwise. But I'm not disputing that. Good, good. So what I'm telling you is that I can answer your why question most of the time, but then you'll come back to a point where there's a point where there's the why doesn't have the answer. So you say, why did it fall? I say there's a force of gravity operating on it. Why did it fall that way? Because the curvature is space and time. I'm answering your why's. I understand. Then, well, why does matter and energy curve space and time? Okay, that's a frontier. We're still working on that. But that's all I'm asking. That's good. That's fine. You are a man of science. So you are a person that should probably embrace why's. Except many people who ask why questions, they really want to know purpose. I'm not asking purpose. Good. Well, then that distinguishes you from many other people who ask why questions. Oh, okay. I don't know if there's purpose or anything. Why did you bang the table? I was angry. There's a purpose behind it. Okay. So if your why is just a curiosity of what's going on, that's one thing. If you are inquiring about purpose, then it's theological. Because when it's theological, then religions give purpose to life. Clearly, I'm not doing that. But I just think it's amazing that something that's such a massive part of life on this planet that we stayed glued to the ground because of gravity. Can you pull up my Instagram account? I only post... Do you have an Instagram account now? Because you had a fake one for a while. Yeah, I took it over. That's a friend of mine, actually. I know that guy. I took it over. He gave it to you? Oh, do the guy who had it? Yeah. No, no, no, no. Actually, sorry. I went to Instagram and said, people think this is a real account and it's not. Can I have it back? Oh. If it's an account that's an imposter and followers don't know it, it's illegal. So there's one that says fan of Neil Tyson. Yes. And that's a different one. That's the guy I know. Okay. So I only post art house photos, okay, that I've taken, most of which I've taken. So just scroll down and look for Muscle Beach. There it is. Click on that. Okay. So here's my... Go to my caption. Go full screen on that. Okay. For most of our life on Earth, we either resist or succumb to the force of gravity. At Muscle Beach, gravity loses every time. That's not true. I was proud of that caption. You call me out on that caption. That's nonsense. Gravity never loses. Gravity doesn't even have like little tiny losses. It's not like there's a war and gravity loses a battle. For those just listening to this, so I was at, I was in Venice, California and the sun was setting behind some guy who was doing, who was doing... Hand presses. Hand presses suspended up on the chin up bar, right? And it was really, so, and it was cool. He was silhouetted. There's a palm tree. There's the beach. He's there. Gravity is going to beat that motherfucker. Let me tell you. Eventually, but while he's there, he's conquering gravity. Are you getting too old? You haven't conquered gravity lately. No, I work out all the time. I'm not buying it. That guy ain't conquering shit. He's pulling rank now. He's, I work out and you don't because I see your middle aged man belly. Well, when I've talked to other astrophysicists and scientists... Wait, wait, let me ask. Are these conversations supposed to have like a theme or a purpose or is it just, you sit there and just whatever comes to your head, you send my way. Well, you and me? Yeah. Well, clearly it's just whatever comes to my head. Okay, I don't know. I don't know. How do you say this episode is about? You can't say that. I don't ever do that. You don't do that. Okay, fine. That's just episode number. Secret to my success. You got no obligate, no commitments. How the fuck could I ever have a threat? Think about all the different people that I have in here. Of course, of course. It's like impossible between fighters and scientists and scholars and crackpots. There's a bunch of different people coming through here, man. I can't have any agenda. All right. I mean, that's probably the only reason why this thing is successful as it is. But that's a weird one for people, this one thing that is so powerful. What is? Gravity. Gravity. That's a weird one for people. Yeah, I mean it's- It seems like you're frustrated by all the various questions. No, no. It seems like you seem a little defensive there. Am I right? No, because I thought you were taking your why to ultimately mean a purpose. No, no, no. If it's just why, I'm claiming that many responses to how are also responses to a why. That's the point I'm making. And I don't like splitting definitions. Do people ultimately understand gravity? I think we do. That's why we can land things on Mars. Well, we understand the effects. I think we do, which is why your cell phone gets time from GPS satellites that is pre-corrected for Einstein's general theory of relativity because they're in a different gravitational field in orbit than you are on Earth's surface. We got this. You're getting angry. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.