Joe Rogan - Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Manhattanhenge

Stonehenge those those rocks are nowhere in the region. They were carded from some with they found a place where those rocks were Would would have been mined removed and yeah, those are some big-ass rocks Yeah, as are the ones but it's less impressive because they're just big Like what the thing about the pyramids is so impressive is the precision and the sheer numbers two million our best 600,000 stones our best understanding of Stonehenge is that it's a functioning observatory that can actually predict eclipses So I got I just got a bitch slap you there Solstice they have their holes that are not stones But they're 56 holes which is three times the the Saros Which is the cycle of eclipses of the matching of the orbits of the Sun and the moon in the sky the paths of the Sun And the moon in the sky and when they match up you get an eclipse is there is an eclipse observatory guy named That's absolutely what it is There's a book published in the 1970s by a guy named David Dawkins it's not Richard Dawkins, but it's another one of these Hawkins Richard Hawkins Richard Hawkins Hawking Hawking Hawkins Damn, what I'm dudes damn what we got our top crack researchers here James on just look up that the title of his book was Stonehenge Decoded just look up the title of that book anyhow It's highly convincing and we all were all there with it There's no it's essentially just a study of the position of the stones in relationship to the where the okay, Gerald Hawkins thank you. Yeah Stonehenge decoded So he I visited Stonehenge as a kid at age 15 on an expedition and he was the expedition head Oh, wow. Yeah, so how lucky for you? Yeah, it was it was good and that stuck with me Which is why I named this phenomenon in Manhattan where the Sun sets along the stress on that Yeah, yeah, so so I named that Manhattanhenge sort of Harkening back to my early days thinking about the alignment of the Sun and structures that we might build So twice a year for those viewers or listeners who don't know twice a year the Manhattan Street grid Which is not perfectly aligned north-south the Manhattan Street grid Will the Sun will set exactly on the grid and in a great and what's up there now? That image what's not obvious is that picture is taken? Along a street that is itself three miles long and then you're crossing a The Hudson River and then there's New Jersey on the other side So people try to zoom in on it, but really what you really should do is zoom out from it And then you get the vanishing point on it. So yeah, all those are zoomed in Let's go to yeah, that one looks more like like my photo. I go back to that other one Yeah, see so so that's on 34th Street the one you see now and then you get this sparkling effect that happens twice a year Twice that sort of crazy wild light effect. Yes. It looks yes, photoshopped almost. Yeah There's an image on his Instagram that is linked on my Instagram the most recent photo. Okay, there he goes Oh, there's you with the cell that's a selfie. Okay, so come on down for afro Oh, yeah, that's wrong. That was my first cell for you. I was 14 Let me see. It was 19 probably 1974 Wow So I would have been 15. I think I've been 14 or 15. So your path of curiosity was set Oh go back that goes back very early, right? But that's nothing we're looking for here. Let's go that one Thank it. It is so that no, what there's another one Wait, go back to all of the river is wild zoom back out. It's you see all the pictures there Go to the bottom left. There you go. Okay, that might be the first ever Manhattanhenge photo What year is that from? I took that in 2001 right to and it got published in 2002. This is before September 11th This is July. I took it before September 11th. Right? Right and then I had a means to publish it and right then The notice that it's a green light and traffic is ready to knock me over So so no one is in the streets doing this But now there are tens of thousands of people that pour into the streets on these days we post what day you get in Manhattanhenge from the American Museum of Natural History my day job and then that goes out the press gets it and Tens of thousands of people spill at the street blocking traffic and if you think of all the ways traffic gets blocked in your day Yeah All of us too many of them by yourself, it's interesting. It's great Yeah, so that's what it has become holding up phones And it's all because I went to Stonehenge. Yeah, so it's a it's also a an observatory So was it you that named this? Yeah. Yeah, damn check you out coined coined. I think say coined it. Yeah, yeah, Manhattanhenge Because the buildings are like hinges the hinges a stone is a vertical stone There's a vertical structure if you made a stone, it's a stonehenge