On Friday night, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Steven Tyler were guests on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the two of them got to talk while they were waiting to appear on the CBS show. The singer asked the coolest scientist, how old would he be when he returned to Earth after traveling at the speed of light for a year. The answer is, we would all be a year older and he would be about the same age. Which might answer how he continues to look so young even though he is 67 years old.
This video is extremely cool to me because of personal reasons. You see I grew up in a place called Riverdale, NY, and both men lived in my hometown for part of their youths. In fact, both of them went to the same elementary school, years apart from each other, but still they both attended PS 81 (I didn’t) for a while. I wonder if the two of them knew that when they were talking about Space and time? Just think if they did, then they would’ve realized that if the voice of Aerosmith had spent about 15 years in a rocket ship, when he was kid, traveling at the speed of light; then they would’ve been able to go to school together. That is only if Tyler didn’t get expelled again like he did the first time. Can you imagine these two taking Science and Music classes together? The world would be a much different place. Maybe it would be flat like that clueless rapper thinks.
Some of us have joined the Mile High Club and know that the thinner air makes it more exciting. Well that and getting caught. But back to the thinner air. If it is that good at about 6 miles up, then imagine how orgasmic it would be at 249 miles. Sounds like it would be a lot of fun? It might be, but it is also very hard and not in a good way according to what Neil deGrasse Tyson told Matt Lauer today on Today. The host of StarTalk said, “If you are weightless in Space, you need a lot straps and things to hold things down. You learn Newton’s Laws of Motions, first hand, when that happens, and there is a lot of recoiling.” Then the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History added, “But then I figured some people have it strapped anyway.” So basically the only way we will find out about Sex in Space is if we send up a professional Dominatrix up there to set things up. Which I am OK with the new idea 50 Shades of the Black Hole.
Just when I think I can’t be more proud of the fact that I went to same Junior High School as him, his humor about this topic makes me even more proud. Even though, I am sure we didn’t have the same teachers, our JHS is where some (not that many) of our teachers prepared us for things like sex and drinking in a way that wasn’t so academic! Sadly, none of my teachers taught us about Sex in Space, it was an alum who schooled you and I on that.
Back in 2006, Pluto was downgraded to a Dwarf Planet because of Neil deGrasse Tyson‘s findings. Back then Twitter was just a dwarf social media site, so people weren’t able to let him know how they feel about taking away Pluto’s status a planet.
That was then and this is now. On Monday, New Horizons, sent back photos from Pluto and people’s anger was reignited. So much so, they took to Twitter and let their feelings be known to him. The Tweets got to him because he took to YouTube to read them to us.
Even though Tyson and I went to the same JHS, I am siding with the mean Tweeters. Pluto will always be a full-sized planet to me, even if it is a 1/5th size of our moon.
Today was a big day for Pluto because NASA’s New Horizon was able to transmit images of the planet and her moon. While you and I call her planet, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, calls her a Dwarf Planet.
Since today was her big day, Stephen Colbert thought she needed some defending. Even though his Late Show doesn’t debut on CBS until September 8th, he still interviewed the Pluto naysayer.
Was he able to convince him? I think he got him to consider adding a 9th planet to his tie, don’t you?
I would write more about their conversation, but even though Tyson and I went to same Junior High School, I have no idea what he is talking about. He went to Harvard and I went to the Harvard of the South, University of Miami. The only planet we studied there was the sun because we worshiped her. I bet you are going to go all Neil deGrasse Tyson and tell me that the sun is not a planet.
Remember when you were little kid in school; and you learned about the planets in Science and you got all excited? Well that is the feeling you will get watching Cosmos on Fox and Nat Geo tonight and every Sunday at 9p. The 13 part series updates the 1980 Emmy winning PBS series that was hosted by Carl Sagan. Now nearly 35 years later we know so much more about worlds that aren’t our own and our own world, and Neil deGrasse Tyson will educate us something we have forgotten but want to remember.
So sit back and feel like a kid again and if you are kid enjoy learning again via Cosmos.
