WEBVTT - We Are Stardust 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.920 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.480 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. I 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.840 find it interesting, Julie, that that we can as humans 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:25.240 can take solace and find some sort of spiritual almost 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.600 spiritual comfort in the idea of a supernova, which is 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.760 something that's worth discussing this podcast that is, on one level, 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.000 is so far removed from us. I mean, it's a 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.040 it's a it's a Titanic event, one of the most 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:43.160 powerful events that that regularly occurs in the universe, and 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:47.440 it takes place vast distances of both time and space, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.879 and yet we can find something in there to connect 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.240 with and to to to take solace in and and 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.720 leave it feeling better about our place in this vast 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.279 sea of cosmos. What's the life stile goal in Macro Right, 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.440 it's a dying star and it's absolutely brilliant. Right, it's 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.160 visual fireworks. It's a star that suddenly increases greatly in 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.120 brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.280 its mass. So it's a dramatic storyline. So because you 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.120 know how could you not be caught by this, this 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.240 thing that is imploding and ejecting most of its mass. Yeah, 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.240 I mean it's the death of a star. It's kind 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:26.240 of like the death of a guy. Like we're totally 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.160 into that idea as well. Yeah yeah, um. And it's 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.959 really powerful and the core of a massive star runs 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.000 out of nuclear fuel, right, this is this is the 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.600 sad part. I guess you could sit sad. It's not 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.640 so much sad and collapses under its own gravity to 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.680 form an ultra dense object known as a neutron star. 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.680 But only so much material can compress into the neutron stars, 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.160 so some of the original stars collapsing gaseous outer layers 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.480 can't fit, so instead they sort of bounce off the 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.680 neutron star, and then this triggers a shock wave that 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.320 bulldozes back were the outer layers and blows the star 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.960 to smithereens. Yeah. The way, the way I really like 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.079 to think about it is basically, you have a situation 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.679 where a working star, a functional living star, is having 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.360 to burn massive amounts of energy to expand against the 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.240 force of its own crushing gravity. So I like to 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.399 think of it like a poorly run but well financed business, 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.560 you know, where there's a lot of moneys, a lot 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.959 of money is being spent to keep keep up these offices. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.800 It's like, uh, the company that Tom have havever heard 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.639 a season sorry his character in Parks and Rector. It's 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:33.560 just spen in all this just mad money and they're 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.200 not actually bringing money in, but all this money is 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.040 being spent to keep it out. And then what happens 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.520 was it Tommy Fresh Industries or something like it was 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.080 something along those lines, and they were hiring NBA stars 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.280 just hang out at the off the hands from cocktails 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:48.960 to people, um and uh. And then of course they 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.120 run out of money and it just collapses. And that's 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.720 kind of what happens with with the Star. Um. It 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.520 reaches the point where there's nothing else to burn to 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.680 sustain it, to to to keep it fight against its 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.840 own massive gravity. And when that happens, it collapses. In 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:05.800 some cases you end up with a singularity, you end 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:07.960 up with a black hole. But in other cases you 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.400 end up with this enormous explosion that Jettison's uh, you know, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.600 all the shrimp cocktail and NBA stars elsewhere it happened 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.400 to the universe. Yeah, and it's really helpful to use 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:24.400 these supernova nova plural to actually study the universe, right, 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:26.160 because it's something that we can see, something that we 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.280 know about. UM. It used to be that we thought 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.519 this was terribly uncommon, but it turns out that it is. Uh, 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.520 these stars exploding, this very violent catastrophic events are more 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.520 common than we thought. UM. And again just so you 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.640 guys understand, um, how immense this is. They emit in 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.560 a few seconds and energy equivalent to what they've emitted 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.240 for their entire lifetime. UM. Our galaxy is about twelve 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.320 billion years old, so we have seen well not you 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.480 and I when you guys out there personally, but two 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:01.280 hundred million stars exploded during its lifetime. Right. Yeah, I 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.920 was looking at a at a study where from April 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.160 two thousand three to August two thousand and six, the Canada, France, 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.960 Hawaii telescope watch four parts of the sky. Each section 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.800 that it looked at was about sixteen times the area 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.039 of a full moon, and which is roughly one of 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.719 the entire sky. And during that time period they observed 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.040 two hundred forty one Type one A supernova. So just 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:28.920 to give you an idea of like how often these 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.880 things are happening. Um. And actually I did a blog post. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.400 The guy did a neat thing where he he set 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.680 this to music, like he sped it up. And then 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:38.719 every time there's a supernova and one of these quadrants 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.640 that lights up and there's a note and it's really cool. Yeah, 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.440 and it's it's a great event. I believe in nineteen 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.040 eighty seven they were actually able to uh witnessed an 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.160 explosion of the nineteen seven nine seven a supernova which 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.159 they had had their telescopes trained on. Uh. But you know, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.760 I'm vniched down. They actually blew up and they were 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.159 able to study it quite carefully. Um. But again it 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.799 brings back to this this whole idea that you put forth, 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:05.600 which is, you know, we can't help but look up 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.960 in the night sky and feel connected. And now that 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.560 we know a lot more about a supernova, we can 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.760 better understand that these raw materials hurling out in the 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.160 universe are actually very deeply connected to our existence. Yeah, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.320 which is I mean you look back at like just 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.880 sort of religious and spiritual ideas. I mean everybody, it's 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.240 probably not everybody, but but you see a lot of 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.880 people into the idea of being, say, a child of 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.360 God or being or having some sort of a connection 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.560 to a spiritual or heavenly realm. So strip away religious 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.520 and spirituality and uh and just look at science. And 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.359 that's what what we're looking at here, the idea that 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.640 there is a connection between these titanic and timeless events, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.080 uh playing out in the cosmos and our own small, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.240 uh little lives. Yeah, and let's talk just a little 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.440 bit about sort of the nuts and bolts of the 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.039 supernervo so that we can all sort of get a 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:02.080 firm understanding of what's happening at the center of a supernova. 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.160 So a star can go supernova in one of two waves. 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.520 There's type one supernova, in which a star accumulates matter 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.599 from a nearby neighbor until runaway nuclear reaction nick nites. 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.000 And then there's the type two supernova. And this is 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.680 sort of the more spectacular version, in which a star 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.040 runs out of nuclear fuel and collapses under its own gravity, right, 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.799 which is the kind of the the collapsing business analogy 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.960 I used earlier. Yes, Yes, what happens is that as 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.600 it begins to die, it eventually runs out of hydrogen 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.039 and then helium fuel at its core. So gradually heavier 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.240 elements build up at the center, and then it becomes 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.320 layered like an onion, with elements becoming lighter towards the 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.440 outside of the star. And this is where we start 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:49.159 to see the spiraling effect of those materials um throwing 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.000 off of the star. Basically, so that shock wave that 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.000 we talked about earlier, that actually shoots out the whole 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.360 outer part of the star, and the shock waves compressed 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.799 the gas and space, which triggers new star formations. Okay, 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.640 which is really key to us into the universe. Right, 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.200 you have situations, um where just imagine just some empty 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.120 space in the universe where you just have a bunch 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:14.520 of dust molecules just floating out there doing nothing. Uh. 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.120 You know, it's like a quiet town. I can think 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.320 of it as like a quiet Midwestern town. Everything's just 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.080 going about its business, tumbleweeds. But then what happens, right, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.720 the hot young rebel on its bike rolls through town, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.200 right and stirs everybody up. Well, that's kind of what 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.120 happens when a shock wave from a supernova moves through 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.360 these particles. It's it mixes things up a little. Suddenly 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.120 you have pieces colliding into one another you have in 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.360 these little bits of dust begin a process called acretion, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.920 where the gravity of minute little pieces of matter begin 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.200 drawing in other many pieces of matter until and in 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.560 this snowball effect takes off where it gets grows bigger 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:54.400 and bigger, eventually becoming uh, planets, stars, new systems, new galaxies. 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.520 And this you know this, this gun slinger, this rebel 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.080 riding into town. This is happening super fast because the 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.000 core of a supernova supernova is larger than the Earth, 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.400 containing about a million times the mass of the Earth. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.360 So when a star like say the supernova seven A, dies, 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.480 it collapses to the size of the Earth, which then 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.360 collapses to the size of London and approximately one second, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.560 I mean, this is that's amazing, right, So this, this 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.080 h gunslinger shows up and you know this, this ball 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.920 of fire. And you know, if that's not dramatic enough, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.120 consider that the materials that spiral off the supernova into 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.680 the universe during its final seconds have been billions of 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.120 the years in the making, right millions. For instance, we 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.560 know that all the hydrogen burns to helium in ten 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.080 million years. So this is what's happening when a star dies, right, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.960 it starts to take its own material and burn off. 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.840 So all that hydrogen burns to helium in ten million 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.520 years um, and then gravity starts to contract the star, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.440 making it hotter and hotter, and then helium burns to 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.760 carbon in one million years, and then all the carbon 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.920 burns to form nitrogen in one hundred thousand years. Oxygen 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.440 burns to silicon in ten thousand years, and then during 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.560 the last day, this is the coolest part, the last 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.560 day in the life of the star, all the silicon 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.600 burns to form iron in one day, and this really 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.000 is the death now, since iron is tightly bound um 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.360 in terms of its nucleus and it has nothing to 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.080 give in the form of fuel to the star. The 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.520 really cool thing about this is that these are all 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:31.480 the elements that the universe is made of, that the 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.280 Earth is made of, and pretty much what we are 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.560 made of. Right, So every atom in your body, according 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.720 according to Lawrence Cross, and he's a theoretical physicist, was 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.600 once in a star that exploded. Two hundred million stars 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.320 have created the elements to make up your body. Hydrogen, carbon, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:50.560 and lithium were part of the Big Bang. So this 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:55.200 is where the beautiful quasi spiritual idea enters the picture. 0:09:55.320 --> 0:10:00.679 The idea that are humble, little fragile body that are 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:06.240 in the process of growing old and dying. Uh contain uh, 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.400 the elements that were once a part of the of 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.920 one of the most colossal, powerful events that regularly happens 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.280 in the universe, And they were once the part part 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.760 of stars. We're we're made out of these stars were 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.560 made out of the celestial gods. We are kind of 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:24.560 like the trickle down from that. Yeah. So if you 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:25.880 look at in the night sky and you fill an 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.360 affinity with it, then it's because we you know, it's 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.760 the building blocks of us. Right, And Lawrence Cross says, 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.240 you know, the atoms in your left hand probably came 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:37.720 from a different star than your right hand. He says, 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:39.439 I mean, this is a great quote. It really is 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.000 the most poetic thing I know about physics. You are 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.600 all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.800 because the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.439 that matter for evolution and for life weren't created at 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.960 the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.800 furnaces of stars. And the only way for them to 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.760 get in your body is if those stars were kind 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.720 enough to explode. He says, so forget Jesus, the stars 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:08.360 died so that you could be here today. Well, we'll see. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:13.600 That's nice. And now I've also read estimates that of 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.079 the mass in our bodies has actually started us. So 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.160 it's a good chunk. It's a good chunk. And it 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:19.840 just sounds better to say all of it though, because 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.000 no one wants to be like, like we are divine. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.400 You know, that's that's a weird percentage. Why I just 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.840 go for a hundreds, right, yeah, exactly, why not? Uh, 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.640 let's not split hairs. But um, you know, it's an 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.680 interesting perspective when you think about that your existence in 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.520 a in a the universe. And we actually just did 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.280 a podcast concerning black swans. Black swans being these events 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.240 that out liars that seem like, you know, you couldn't 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.440 predict them. Um, and this idea that black swans are 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.040 everywhere all the time, and in fact our existence is 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.920 a black swan, right um. And Lawrence Cross would actually 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.840 say that there's there's many black swans in this universe. 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.480 We just have to look for them. And we have 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.720 a lot many more connections to the universe than just 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.240 being you know, part of Stardust. Ruminate on that for 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.640 just a moment, and we will be back with more 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:21.640 on the cosmic origins of your atoms. All right, we're back, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.079 and we're actually going to discuss a few other um 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.760 kind of trippy cosmic connections that you can make to 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.040 the outer dark without having to really as much on 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.000 the whole star dust supernova situation. Okay, here's here's one. 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.720 Are we possibly the extraterrestrials that we've been talking about? Ah, 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.959 you are, of course talking about exogenesis. I am talking 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.280 about the idea that life immer originates not on Earth 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.640 but somewhere else, the raw materials for it at least, right, 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.640 that the raw materials at least or you know, you 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.640 could go crazy and say, get into some ancient alien stuff, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.600 but that's uh, that's for another podcast for this though. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.679 You're talking about, um, the idea that the raw materials 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:08.160 end up arriving here um via asteroids meteor rides. So yeah, yeah, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.320 And it turns out of Antarctica is really helpful in 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.400 trying to study this because it's just this vast white 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:19.360 landscape right, really easy to spot meteorites, particularly Martian meteorites. 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.840 And since we have looked at the soil composition on Mars, 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.560 we already know that when we find a meteorite that 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.080 it could have come from Mars when we slice it 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.520 and dish it and look at the composition. So what 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:35.000 has become apparent is that we are polluted regularly from 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.520 material from Mars and vice versa. So materialist from Earth 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.600 getting knocked out from the surface, and they also make 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.320 their way to Mars. Um. Now sometimes we send things 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.640 to Mars too. It's true we did have little care 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:51.520 packages um cookies, but we also known Again, this was 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.840 Laurence Cruss talking about that microbes in this Siberian desert 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.920 can exist without water under harsh conditions for months or 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.320 even years uh and in door mis state, and he 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.320 says no doubt that if microbes existed in a rock 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.680 on Mars, it could make a six month trip to 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.079 Earth once they were knocked out from this service with 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.040 no problem. So the big question is did life on 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.960 Earth arise here or somewhere else? Maybe we are all 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.960 the extraterrestrials right, And the process of life traveling from 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.520 one planet to another is called pan spermium. And we 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.800 have an article on how stuff Works about space collisions. 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:26.920 If you look, if you just go to a house 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.320 stuff works dot com, type in space collisions and you'll 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.680 find a cool little article talking about various cosmic heavy 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.000 hitters smacking together. And also um the idea of pants spermia, 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.680 the idea of life spreading from one world to another. Yeah, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.360 and he also uh mourns across us people to think 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:49.080 about taking a breath, think about oxygen for just one moment. Okay, 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.680 now I can say this. Consider that life evolved on 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.360 Earth for two billion years before it began to produce 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:59.720 and use oxygen. Organisms use photosynthesis, which use carbon carbon dioxide, 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.160 and all those little dudes produce little puffs of oxygen, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.880 and over millions of years, created more and more oxygen 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.640 in our atmosphere until boom here we are taking it 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.120 for granted. Um, he says. Lawrence Croft says that in 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.160 every breath you take, they're an average of at least 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.600 ten oxygen atoms from the dying breath of Caesar. When 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:24.080 he said at brute wow, he's waxing poetic hardcore on this. 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.680 He totally he's pulling out all the stops because he's like, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:28.400 you know, it's not just as as I think he 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.320 referred to it before, just a bunch of dead people's 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.840 breath that we're taking in. Yeah, because because I mean, 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.040 we're also you could also say, oh, I'm also drawing 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.400 in the breath of every inane thing that has ever 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.320 been said by a politician, Hollywood starlets, the dark side 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.240 of that. But it's true. Every time you breathe, you're 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.520 breathing in atoms of everyone who has ever lived. So 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.440 you know, if there's someone sitting next to you that 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.680 you just might be annoyed with, you just feel like, 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:55.840 oh man, I can't I can't muster any sort of 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.560 empathy for this person. Uh. You know, you just have 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:00.440 to realize that we actually are all eat out of 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.080 the same material um, and we're all breathing the same 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.120 funky breath of the earth. But it reminds me of 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.680 the I did a block pist a while back about 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.120 the the idea that all drinking water was poo at 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.480 one point, which again Lawrence Cross will say he has 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.640 some interesting things to say about that. Um. He says 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.200 that it's just really interesting. He says, every time you 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.160 drink in water, you're drinking in the sweat from your parents, 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.400 coupling that created you. I know, I know, even this, 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.760 this fancy lacroix in my hand, it seems so pure, 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.800 so wide spread our materials. We just and and he 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.160 says also, like any sort of exprement from any sort 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.520 of sludge that ever existed on this earth, you're also 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.840 taking it. But this is really cool too. If you 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:46.720 prick your finger and drop a drop of your blood 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.760 in the Thames, for instance, Um, a year later, you 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:51.640 could take a tablespoon of water from the ocean and 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:53.520 there would be some of the atoms of your blood 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.880 in that water. According to Lawrence Cross, Yeah, it does 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.640 drive home the interconnectedness of it all, and that there 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.800 is um. I mean, we don't stand outside the cycle 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.560 of mass and matter and energy. That we are a 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.639 part of this. Uh, we are part of cosmos. Really, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.920 you know that's true. So often we think of science 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.240 is something separate from us rather than within us. Yeah, 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.560 I mean, that's just that's just the where our minds work, 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:20.600 and it's one of the reasons we end up, you know, 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.959 having all these blinders to figuring out how consciousness works 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.160 and how can we end up creating all these uh 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.960 uh these ideas of spirituality and religion. She sort of 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.439 peep beyond those blinders that you're forced to recognize that 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.600 we are a part of the universe. It's it's the 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.200 hippie dippi as that may sound, you know, it's we are. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.719 I mean, there you go. Okay, so now you've all 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.479 put us in a mood for a little Carl. Second, 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:43.760 why don't you hit us with a little well, yeah, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:45.800 that imagine A number of people were like, how are 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.520 they going to mention that Carl Sagan quote or not? 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.160 What's a matter with these people there? In fact, they're 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.480 already writing the emails. How could you leave out the 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.200 Carl Sagon quote? Well, I have the Car sagend quote 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.639 here for you. And interesting fact, we considered, um, trying 0:17:57.680 --> 0:17:59.639 to get somebody to do a Car Sagan voice for 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.320 us for this, but there was a lot of discussion about, well, 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.520 he doesn't really do a Carl Sagan voice. He does 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.800 a Kermit the Frog voice that kind of sounds like, 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.840 kind of sounds like Carl Sagan. Do do we do 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.600 we get him to do this in his current voice? 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:15.360 Do we ask him to tweak it into a Sagan? 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:17.879 Is that cool? Is that because we love Sagan, we 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.199 don't want to and we love Kermit, you know, right, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:21.560 And then there's an other dude in the office that 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.440 always wears a turtleneck. But then that doesn't quite come across. Yeah, 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.359 that only works if you're in the studio with us. 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.280 So I'm just gonna read it in my serious voice. 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.800 I guess matter is much older than life. Billions of 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.000 years before the Sun and Earth even formed, Adams were 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.880 being synthesized in the insides of hot stars and then 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.480 returned to space when the stars blew themselves up. Newly 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.479 formed planets were made out of the stellar debris, and 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.560 Earth and every living thing are made of star stuff 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.639 like that, like yeah, yeah, yeah, this the star stuff 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.160 is is um Yeah, that's it's just a great quote 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.280 and it really and he drives some some much of 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.439 what Sagan did so well that he was able to 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:07.400 convey this uh, this passion for uh, for for cosmos, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.080 for for the universe, for for space, for sciences, for 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.480 you know, neuroscience, and another related to areas as well, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:15.640 was able to relay that passion for it and make 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:17.960 it feel like a part of us and not something 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.600 that we stood apart from indeed, incidentally, there is also 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.880 around the same time about the late sixties of when 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.040 when Sagan was thinking about this stuff and formulating these, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.639 uh these ideas, you also had a young Joni Mitchell 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:37.119 wrote wrote a song called Woodstock, which features the lyrics 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.720 were start us we're golden, We're billion year old carbon 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:41.680 And as we close out the podcast, you were actually 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.800 gonna play a portion of a cover by the by 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.720 the band Austra all of that song wood Stock that 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:52.439 I find particularly snazzy. 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