Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson Tweets More Baseball

During the 2011 World Series, Neil deGrasse Tyson treated his Twitter followers to an entertaining and informative stream of tweets about baseball from the perspective of an astrophysicist.

Tyson is arguably one of the most popular, charismatic, and likable scientists since Carl Sagan. It's only natural that we would want to know what it's like to sit on the couch with him during the All-Star Game.

I was pleased to find Tyson tweeting about baseball last night while the game was on. (It wasn't much of a game, so his commentary was probably the only thing keeping me from shutting the thing off.)

I've collected those tweets below for your enjoyment:

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson Tweets Baseball

Since my beloved Red Sox missed the playoffs following their curse-esque September nosedive, I have avoided watching baseball altogether this postseason. It's too painful. I didn't even have the chance to root against the Yankees in the World Series.

I have, however, found some consolation in the post-season tweets of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Tyson has wowed us for years with his intermingling of science and pop culture, He's showed up on Jeopardy!, Who Wants To Be A Millionare?, and Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! He's appeared on The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Conan O'Brien, and The Big Bang Theory. On his radio show, Star Talk, he has analyzed the physics behind the powers of superheroes.

Tyson's baseball tweets have run the gamut: the physics of baseball, breakdowns of player salaries, suggestions for new rules, and new criteria for awards.

I've collected some of his gems below (running in order, from the playoffs through the World Series):

• Yankees must win tonite. CC Sabbathia in relief on the mound. During the regular season, he earned $6,500 per pitch.

• Yankees must win tonite. A-Rod is 0 for 2. During the regular season, he earned $86,000 per at-bat.

• You can play baseball on the airless Moon, but only if you find a way not to suffocate & if you don't care about curve balls

• New baseball rules I'd like to see: if the pitch that hits you is ball four, you should get to advance to second base.

• Baseball should track extraordinary plays that fielders can bank, and then credit against errors they might later commit.

• If you walk on 4 pitches it should count against the pitcher. But if you walk on 8 pitches, it should count as a hit.

• On the Moon, with 1/6 of Earth's gravity, a 400 ft home run would travel nearly half a mile. Do the physics.

• The "ManagerOfTheYear" award should not be a vote, but should go to who gets the most wins per dollar of player salaries paid

• Just an FYI: It takes twice as much energy to throw a baseball 100mph than it does to throw one at 70mph. Do The Physics

Follow Neil on Twitter at @neiltyson

The Feynman Series: Curiosity

If you're unfamiliar with The Sagan Series, you should check it out. The series of videos pays tribute to the late great astrophysicist Carl Sagan. They're stirring, and really inspirational. Something we can all use during this time of economic uncertainty and political madness.

The folks who brought us those wonderful Sagan videos are now releasing a series of videos that pay tribute to everyone's favorite bongo-playing physicist, Richard Feynman.

The videos, like the Sagan Series, are essential viewing. First, they're beautiful to look at, using footage from various sources including many BBC nature programs, and the films Koyaanisqatsi and Microcosmos. And they are aurally pleasing as well. Feynman describes the workings of the universe with the fascination of a child, but with the mind of a wizard. It's contagious.

The below is the latest installment, 'Curiosity.' You can view the previous installments here and here. Perfect viewing for those moments when you need a bit of perspective.

Michio Kaku: What Physics Can Do For You

"If [your great-grandparents of the year 1900] could see you now, with iPads and iPods and satellites and GPS and laser beams, how would they view you?," asks Michio Kaku. "They would view you as a wizard or a sorcerer. However, if we could now meet our grandkids of the year 2100, how would we view them? We would view them as gods."

Via The Big Think:

From the standpoint of our agrarian ancestors, the marvels of the post-Industrial world would appear to be sorcery. (What would a Renaissance man make of a vending machine, let alone an Ipad?) Kaku predicts that likewise, the people of 2100 will have harnessed "the power of the gods" by present day standards, defeating barriers like age and distance. "We will have that flying car that we’ve always wanted to have in our garage," he says.

But the most interesting places in the universe are beyond the reach of Einstein's equations, says Kaku. He's searching for "An equation like E=mc². That equation is half an inch long and unlocks the secret of the stars. Why do the stars shine? Why does the galaxy light up? Why do we have energy on the earth?" These are the questions we can still only dream of answering.

Michio Kaku is a smart guy. He's a theoretical physicist, a professor, an author, a speaker, and happens to be the co-founder of string field theory.

He's also very good at explaining science to people who aren't quite as smart, like myself.

In the latest online course offered by The Floating University (a new media venture with the aim of democratizing education), Kaku serves up a lecture called "The Universe in a Nutshell: The Physics of Everything."

The course description:

What if we could find one single equation that explains every force in the universe? Professor Michio Kaku explores how physics could potentially shrink the science of the big bang into an equation as small as e=mc2. Physics powers every electronic device in your living room, underwrites every technological breakthrough, and thanks to advances in string theory, could allow us to escape the heat death of the universe, explore the multiverse, and unlock the secrets of existence.

In a profoundly informative and deeply optimistic discussion, Professor Kaku delivers a glimpse of where science will take us in the next hundred years, as warp drives, teleportation, inter-dimensional wormholes, and even time travel converge with our scientific understanding of physical reality. While firing up our imaginations about the future, he also presents a succinct history of physics to the present.

How did Halley's Comet manage to start the British Empire in 1066 and lead to the most important publication in human history in 1682? What are the four ultra-powerful forces that dictate all observable phenomena in the universe and how did we find them? How is 96% of matter in the universe undetectable? And why is the emergent field of string theory turning everything we thought we knew about physics upside down? In under an hour, Professor Kaku makes a compelling case that physics is the key to pretty much everything.

See below for an excerpt of his lecture. Visit The Floating University to subscribe and view it in its entirety.

What Does Science Have To Say About Life After Death?

Physicist and cosmologist Sean M. Carroll sure did step in it. Hot on the heels of Stephen Hawking's assertion that heaven (or any afterlife, for that matter) was "a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," Carroll has published a Scientific American piece entitled Physics and the Immortality of the Soul, that is quite clear on what physics has to say on the topic. And for such a nice guy, he certainly doesn't sugar-coat it.

Now there are many who, like Stephen Jay Gould, assert that there are things on which science and religion do not overlap. Many cite this non-overlapping magisteria when arguing the existence of God, the afterlife, or souls. However, we can't discount the degree of improbability of life after death given the laws of physics.

Carroll explains:

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren't any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.

Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.

Further on:

Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can't be a new collection of "spirit particles" and "spirit forces" that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham's razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.

Carroll then goes into The Dirac Equation and demonstrates, as simply as a particle physicist can, that it requires an amazing amount of metaphysical shoehorning and the chucking out of everything we know to put any credence in the afterlife concept.

There's no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science. Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.

I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's feelings on the afterlife:

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

If we think about where the concept of the afterlife originated, we must look to our ancestors -- ancestors who, if they were lucky, lived only a fraction of the time we will live.   These ancestors had only a fraction of the knowledge we now have at our fingertips -- knowledge of the interconnectedness of all living things, knowledge of the world, and of the cosmos.  Perhaps, as our knowledge and our lifespans continue to increase, we will find (as we are beginning to see in modern European secular societies), that we do not need the promise of an afterlife.  Isn't this life more than enough?