Globetrotter’s Guide to the Galaxy with Neil deGrasse Tyson

How does a gravity assist work? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly run us through physics phenomena with the help of our friends from the Harlem Globetrotters, Hot Shot Swanson and Cheese Chisholm.
You’ll learn about the law of reflections and how spin helps stabilize a moving body. We answer the ever-present question: How do you get a ball to spin on your finger? Neil talks about what it’s like to become a mini two-planet solar system. Is Earth just one big treadmill? We break down momentum, mass, and velocity as we break down the Globetrotters’ signature shots. What makes a trick shot work?
We invent some StarTalk signature shots, a shot Neil likes to call “The Far Side Of The Moon” and “The Gravity Assist.” How do we demonstrate the physics of our solar system on the basketball court? Did they pull it off? How does a gravitational slingshot work in space? Is there really a dark side of the moon? Plus, we learn a few Globetrotter tips for making a trick shot.
How do you make a half-court shot? We look at the different techniques used by Cheese and Hotshot. What was the one dimension that gave them a problem? Is a half-court shot a trick shot? Does Gary have the right definition of “dribble”? Neil demonstrates to us why players should never miss a jump shot. Just how big is the basket? Would practicing with a smaller rim make you a better shooter? All that, plus, find out what cool tricks the StarTalk team was able to pull off against the Globetrotters.
Thanks to our Patrons Helen Gilchrist, Elliot Frost, Lupita Valenz, Danny Andersen, Alex Thorne, Philip A. McKinney, and David Williams for supporting us this week.
NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.
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About StarTalk:
Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
#StarTalk #NeildeGrasseTyson
0:00 - Introduction
03:03 - Physics of the 'Ball Finger Spin'
10:53 - Physics of Hot Shot Swanson's 'Ricochet' shot
15:51 - Physics of Neil's trick shot "Far-side of the Moon"
20:42 - Physics of the 'Gravity Assist' trick shot
28:05 - Neil explains an athlete's intuition
30:20 - Physics of the half-court shot
35:08 - Physics of Gary's 'Kick-shot'
37:55 - Why there are "no excuses" for missing a free throw
44:02 - The effect of overthinking in sports
46:29 - The risks of 'heading'
48:40 - Outro

[@ariefputraart]

I would love watching a "documentary" of natural habitat with Chuck as the narrator.

[@513villain5]

Chuck's improv is so underrated, I can not believe I have never seen his comedy.

[@fc-qr1cy]

i loved seeing the crew hang out with those two guys. it was fun.

[@SparkyWrench]

The moonwalk was great!

[@WestExplainsBest]

I was fully expecting a half-court dunk from Neil based on the description.

[@TheRabbitRonin]

These three make an awesome team when they do a video together

[@pejko89]

I will always remember July of 2020., because that's when I found out about Niel Degrasse Tyson!

[@mftraw1099]

My favourite sports edition ever! Chuck man, your killing me today. The Globe Trotters amazed me as a kid. But being from the UK we never saw them very often. So this is so Interesting to me. Thanks guys.

[@StarTalk]

We're glad you could enjoy it! :)

[@shankarganesh2013]

पीएम

[@tamika2612]

i can see all the joy in theyr faces bro this is amazing!!!!!

[@EthanShadeSlayer]

neil don’t test me, I will mess with the earth’s rotation of the sun

[@davidl.4888]

Neil was having flash backs on that basketball court 😆

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

The good kind, Not the Vietnam kind.

[@emperorgizmo3014]

@@Robert_McGarry_Poems lieutenant Dan?!

[@wezingoma9751]

My favourite upload notification 😁

[@bdr420i]

Chuck Nice is amazing ♥️ he know so many random stuff

[@Brandonpox]

Heard the pod cast then had to rewatch just to see the footage. 👍🏻 keep looking up

[@jamesszymonski5449]

Neil your a complete inspiration 💯💯

[@sicfxmusic]

But how? Never heard Neil say "your" instead of "you're".😂

[@jamesszymonski5449]

Isn't that the truth 😭

[@jamesszymonski5449]

I greatly appreciate 'you're' comment.. I will try to use proper English.

[@Derfboy]

Wow, such an amazing episode! I've never thought about the physics of the Globetrotters. Thanks everybody, I absolutely enjoyed this one. :)

[@Orpheonix]

Was hoping the video of Neil's shots would come out ever since the podcast 👍

[@phillyjawnlolo089]

I get a tiny thrill everything Neil slips in a curse 🤣 it's so childish of me, but I love it regardless

[@elizabetholiviaclark]

He's a man of the people, one of us.

[@brianprinty112]

The Harlem Globetrotters were instrumental in my understanding of race relations. I will forever 💘 Meadowlark Lemon. It was so much more than basketball.

[@themassinsanity1520]

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Harlem Globetrotters are awesome! Michael Jordan: Ok, fine... YOU MADE IT PERSONAL!

[@millymonroe1465]

L

[@lemongavine]

Having a small rim for practice would be bad for player confidence. They need to see the ball going through the hoop.

[@WDChevyMan]

These guys talk about things I'd never suspect are related to physics

[@erikhendrickson59]

This was a great episode!

[@exatedbazer3915]

Auto play put me on this immediately 🙃

[@partof2559]

down the street from the Ribbeck's

[@NeroThacher]

8:00 - So, theoretically... If every form of life on Earth started to walk against its rotation, we could potentially slow it down(?)

[@NeroThacher]

Obviously not - but fun thought experiment

[@TheFaarf]

Yes, theoretically but as you would know that number would be miniscule

[@smenci]

Obviously yes, and it would be a fun experiment

[@RobertSaxy]

15:08 great advice

[@jmathk]

Sports are all about conceptual physics, you do body math as you practice, and when you keep all the game variables similar, other than the players, it gives you the ability to think quickly so that you can focus on your body. I believe sports have been a great impact on medicine, muscular study, etc, but I do believe it is time to put money back into the math so that we can make our next great leap into our easier future.

[@richardbryans9515]

Interesting curiosities satiated, hats to you.

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

When hotshot introduced himself as the tallest member of the team, I died laughing. It was slightly muffled, but he did say it...

[@duanehastrich1460]

LOL, Chuck nailed it with that narrative.

[@chestershelton1076]

I like the orbital assit explanation

[@ItsFrickinBats]

Yay for notifications! Love me some NDT

[@MegaAshabasha]

Thumbs up for the Chuck puns!!

[@d.a.b.2336]

Yes you guys nailed it regarding Steph Curry and sometimes practicing on a smaller diameter rim. I think they even mentioned it recently on espn.

[@CosmicShieldMaiden]

Talk nerdy to me 🤓❤️

[@mattevans-koch9353]

My first girlfriend must have been nicknamed Gravity because Chuck described her when he said gravity was a tease. Thank you gentlemen.

[@jonathanmuniz4659]

🤫 when you secretly want to be an astronaut, astronomer, astrophysicist, theorist, space consultant, space engineer. It is a heck of a combo.

[@EmpyreanLightASMR]

ikr 😭😭

[@benbarker1258]

In old school basketball terms, we referred to the spin you put on the ball in relation to hitting the backboard "english".

[@roberthutchison8197]

When I was younger and more flexible, I could make a basket by throwing it behind my back by running across the foul line towards the basket, proving no one was behind me...

[@MadDragon75]

I'd like to try teaching one of you how to do quadcopter flippy floppies. 😁. You'd both geek out doing a split S or inverted yaw spin.

[@SerDunk]

Keep looking up ppl 🌎

[@abstract5249]

Chuck: "Even Jordan was a whiny little baby." Michael Jordan: "And I took that personally."

[@danielvermeer3363]

We have so much momentum from forest gumps running that we will be spinning forever😅

[@stephenearly4057]

Neil, would you consider these guys going up in rides in blue origins astronauts or is there a better term to call them? I feel like calling them astronauts a bit extreme

[@JosephSalas07]

7:00 this is like scientists explaining the extraordinary and unbelievable speed of animals when hunting their prey. And the animals were like 👀 “yoooo that’s like a normal thing to do when hunting stuff”

[@stephenherring9771]

saw them back in the 70's.Truly amazed me.How about skateboarding? Peace and love.

[@MadDragon75]

Most if not all of this also applies to quadcopter FPV freestyle. We call it Flowstate.

[@ShyHippie]

Chuck is most of us haha.

[@paulbowser1989]

December 7th to me is Pearl Harbor day and also the day after my birthday. I've never heard of International Trick Shot Day

[@danjf1]

What about the science behind an NBA-certified ball getting stuck on the side of the rim between the glass? That used to happen to me on occasion in high school lol

[@eliyahfeld]

oh they woke Chuck up again without leaving him any time to make coffee (otherwise known as Chuck overslept again!)

[@youtubersdigest]

Fun fact I can get into any globe trotters game for free just for being born in 2000

[@jy-li1jq]

I saw the globetrotters play against a team of atomic supermen

[@ThoughtPhoenix]

Say it Neil 0:34 😂😂😂😂

[@Haze-vi6ng]

So we get a between the legs a backwards shot and a three man weave all shot we seen on accident in nba games next they going to show the 2-3 defense and man

[@colonelkurtz2269]

Chuck Attenborough

[@kevinbreckenridge6729]

My Gym teacher in the 7th grade climbed a ladder and put two balls through the hoop to show everyone how big it really is. And if the ball hits inside that little colored square above the basket from anywhere it's headed for the hoop

[@Elephant_Juice74]

I always wondered if the Globetrotters could put the showmanship aside and actually win a game versus a pro team with pro rules...

[@leeFbeatz]

❤

[@aaronbailey3942]

Does a rainbow take the shape of a circle, because the sun is spherical? If so does the light from the sun shine a certain dimension?

[@MattIsntYoung]

I think the circular nature of rainbows is because of the spherical water droplets refracting the light. I assume if the water droplets were somehow prism shaped, rainbows would be perceived as having a more geometric looking shape. Further, light is emitted from the sun in an infinite number of directions (radiating sphere), but the refraction cause by our atmosphere can have some effect on that. Like light from a midday midsummer sun, versus a sunrise or sunset on the horizon (greatest distortion of light distribution).

[@aaronbailey3942]

@@MattIsntYoung wow

[@Dadas0560]

That shot you call the far side of the moon - I did that somewhere around 1973 when I was 13.

[@myleanwe6738]

So for sure, JAZZ, and The Globe Trotters are basketball teams!?! Thank you 🙂

[@pragyanpathak9330]

coool

[@ryanpauloneeyed9669]

Speaking as a white male, I do not find it at all racist to be referred as a "white guy" it's just descriptive language, let's not get too sensitive now. Chuck, keep up the Grade A comedy man!

[@danielscuiry2847]

Didn’t Wilt Chamberlain use a “Granny Shot” on his free throws for a while? He got it from someone else who’d used it before. Anyway he was unbeaten for a while but then stopped using it because it looked silly. 🤔

[@momosaidnineisfine2194]

I once took a basket ball on the forehead. I stopped being stupid since thegnugnnhqdlbslsdb

[@dalton6173]

And that's called The Granny shot been called The Granny shots since before I was a kid I know that for sure.

[@matthewlofton8465]

speaking of trick shots, here's a little nugget of information for the "everything you thought you knew" pile that Neil might get a kick out of. What's the closest planet to Earth? According to everything you learned in school and on the internet, that would be Venus. But as it turns out that's incorrect by a trick of presentation. We learn about the Solar System in a way that chops the entire sphere in half--Sun is always shown on the edge followed by the list of everything else as if all the stuff in the solar system were moving like a clock hand. It's easy to present, and easy to understand. However, the solar system doesn't move neatly in tandem like that. If we divide the orbital circle around the Sun into 4 parts (like a graph), most of the time there's at least one planet in each of the 4 quadrants. This changes the distance relationship between individual planets, such that 2 adjacent neighbors will spend some amount of time offset or opposite each other. For example, Venus and Earth spend about half their time on opposite sides of the Sun. The individual planets are also not traversing their orbits at the same speeds. Mercury by far has the fastest orbit, making one full trip (roughly half the width of the continental US) in 88 Earth-days, which means that the actual closest planet to Earth happens to instead be Mercury. As it turns out, Mercury also happens to be the closest planet to all the other planets as well. Trippy, huh?

[@dalton6173]

Daniel there is such a thing as the dark side of the moon it's just ever changing....

[@MattIsntYoung]

I had to read this twice but yeah... The earth isn't making the light/dark side of the moon. We're just tidally locked so one side of the moon always faces us, and we just can't see the far side's "daytime" because that face of the moon is always facing away from Earth!

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

@@MattIsntYoung yup. Our moon phases are month long lunar days.

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

A new moon is the dark side! 😉

[@Nipplator99999999999]

I think that I was bad at basketball because I was short and couldn't jump.

[@matthewlofton8465]

did you happen to do the math for soccer balls and hockey pucks? I wonder if, despite the difference in pair sizes (obviously the size of a basketball to a basketball rim is way smaller than the size of a soccer ball to a soccer goal or a hockey puck to a hockey goal) the proportion ends up the same due to differences in application of force and distances of shots taken. Both sports seem to have gigantic goals with really tiny "balls" in comparison, yet both have way less scoring success than basketball does (when translated to an equivalent scoring system, obviously).

[@mathewhudson7649]

Football, Ice hockey and field hockey all have goalkeepers, a major factor in the reduced scoring success, ice hockey goal keepers block more than half of the shooting area anyways. but the another parameter in the scoring success ratio is that hockey games use sticks and in football the legs are used mostly for scoring while in Basket ball the hands are used and it's MUCH easier to control a ball directly with one's hands than with the legs or sticks. A good example is Hand ball a sport with a goal keeper but because you use your hands to score the scoring success is pretty high.

[@muratozger2672]

"there is no dark side of the moon really. matter of fact it's all dark"

[@rocketRobScott]

All athletes know more physics than they think. They can calculate projectile trajectories of moving targets, literally on the fly.

[@codyadkins3061]

Woohoo!!

[@brandobrown22]

I have a question I have does Neil still have the tie he took from the kid that's waiting to get it back 🙄 and is Neil the only astrophysicist that mugged a person on the street? Lol

[@gazzabethyname]

Bruh 35:21

[@positiveinfluence4647]

✌🏾👍🏾

[@danielgonzalez-lp9nf]

Neil: someone tells you what you cant do? F#!k em

[@zaw2654]

"In the beginning, all things in existence existed as one thing. The Source of all things is information. Underlying and permeating our entire physical material existence is a field/plane of Quantum Information. Even when 'nothing' existed, something still did- the 'information of nothingness'. Through itself, the field created itself, from nothing. The field itself is nothing, which is still something. Through this field is generated all other things, including our universe. All particles, all states, all molecules, all atoms, etc. all existed as One. This One manifested through itself the individualization of all other particles, planes, dimensions, and universes. Time itself exsists within the One. All laws and rules exist within the One. The One is the Law itself. Eventually via the Great Cycle, all individualized particles will contract back into One, each cycle bringing a higher advancement in consciousness than the previous cycle. Each individualized unit of creation also being an individualized unit of consciousness, brings back to the Source its own information."-Me

[@defiantnature27]

Where was chuck

[@RobertSaxy]

Curry does use that technique to challenge himself more

[@usern4metak3ns]

Probably time to panic, waiting for authorization, signed in triplicate, that panic is the approved emotional state in which you are allowed to experience. However, you can only panic in the approved factual way. Which is legally defined as not visible or noticable amounts of panic that might cause others to experience your authorized emotion. Ahh. Freedom.

[@nashbassett4120]

Soccer with a bowling ball but no goalies and all contact is allowed

[@vonkug]

Danny Devito is 4'10"

[@furiousgeorge1526]

damn niel is actually a pretty big dude lol

[@brolicartrixing4111]

That gorilla glue. Lol

[@chadkwondoe4338]

🙋‍♂️PROFESSOR CAN YOU DO A SEGMENT ON PANPSYCHISM. I would love for you to discuss this topic… too bad you probably won’t ever read this 😢

[@mikee2465]

Not a fan of the Sports edition. I tend to sign out as soon as Neil says "Sports edition"

[@ahmedbako2324]

What wil happen if u shot a bullet in space

[@shaileshkris]

Neil, In India, startalk comes riddled with advertisements of pseudoscientific food supplements that somehow makes you gain that weight on our malnutritioned bones.

[@vincentmiller420]

I saw them two guys just a little bit ago. Too bad I was wrapped up in some nonsense.

[@Haze-vi6ng]

Best players in the world mid 40 percent but it’s easy to shoot lmao stick to math guys

[@BusinessEnglishSuccess]

Did we also learn why it is that the English team are so bad at penalties? :-)

[@phukfone8428]

Birds aren't real

[@aaronbailey3942]

I’m totally adding a useful comment since I got 10th

[@roughsax13]

Love Chuck but he stole a Simpsons joke, lol. Krusty goes broke making terrible financial decisions. Guy reading his books says, You bet AGAINST the Harlem Globetrotters? Krusty said he thought the Generals were due.

[@justinbarfield5873]

What's wrong with that man's mustache? I watched this whole video, didn't learn anything, just confused about neil's upper lip, I feel that all the commentators, including, "your personal astro physicists" should do a podcast on that man's face!! CHUCK!!!!@!,, PLEASE can u help him with his hairline, please!! Please!!!

[@millymonroe1465]

I'm a fan but this one was horrible

[@arickmcgovna9014]

Not interested in the politics you have earned in unsubscribed