Science at Warp Speed: StarTalk Live!

What It Covers

Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts a live StarTalk show at the Novo Theater in Los Angeles with comedian and SNL alumna Sasheer Zamata, particle physicist David Saltzberg, Star Trek science advisor Erin McDonald, and comedian Pete Holmes, examining the real physics behind science fiction concepts including warp drives, dark matter, gravitational waves, and antimatter.

Key Questions Answered

• •Multi-Messenger Astronomy: Telescopes detecting visible light represent only one channel for observing the universe. Neutrinos, gravitational waves, and cosmic rays each provide distinct observational windows. Roughly 100 trillion neutrinos pass through the human body every second, yet only one or two will ever interact with any given person across an entire lifetime, depositing trace energy or occasionally disrupting DNA.
• •Gravitational Wave Detection: LIGO, first announced in 2016, detects spacetime distortions one one-thousandth the size of an atom using laser interferometry — a technology whose theoretical foundation Einstein himself laid decades earlier. The same 1915 general relativity paper that predicted gravitational waves preceded his stimulated emission research, which later became the basis for the laser acronym embedded inside LIGO's own name.
• •Antimatter Energy Efficiency: Matter-antimatter annihilation converts mass to energy at 100% efficiency via E=mc², compared to roughly 0.1% for fission (as in the first atomic bomb) and a few percent for fusion. Producing one gram of antimatter at a particle accelerator would cost on the order of quadrillions of dollars, making Star Trek's matter-antimatter warp drives an energy-sourcing problem, not a physics problem.
• •Alcubierre Warp Drive: Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre demonstrated mathematically that a warp bubble — wrapping spacetime around a vessel rather than accelerating through it — violates no known laws of physics. Initial energy calculations required more energy than exists in the observable universe, but refined equations reduced the requirement to roughly the mass-energy equivalent of a semi-truck converted via E=mc², still far beyond current capability.
• •Dark Matter Detection Strategy: Dark matter constitutes approximately 85% of the universe's gravitational effects yet emits no detectable electromagnetic radiation. Particle physicists search for dark matter candidates by placing ultra-cold liquid noble gases such as xenon or argon in deep underground caves, shielded from cosmic ray interference, and waiting for a single dark matter particle collision. Future gravitational wave detectors may provide an independent detection pathway.
• •Science Fiction as Engineering Roadmap: The Motorola flip phone was directly inspired by Star Trek's communicator design. The XPRIZE for a functional medical tricorder — a touchless device diagnosing multiple conditions without physical contact — has already been awarded. Three-dimensional printing technology is advancing toward food replication. Science fiction establishes design targets that engineers then reverse-engineer into functional products over subsequent decades.