Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Colbert were arguing about the existence of Dune's sandworms on the latter's The Late Show.
Tyson, astrophysicist and self-proclaimed Dune superfan recounted his and Colbert's attendance at the Dune: Part Two premiere. The two watched the movie together.
“I would say it's perfect. What do you think, Neil? There are no errors. Go on, Neil,” the late night host asked, setting up scientist's response of, “I have have some issues.”
Tyson started recounting one of the film's major characters: the sandworms endemic to the sand dunes of Arrakis. However, he takes issue with the thumper — a device that literally thumps on the sand to call the sandworms.
“Somebody didn't do the research on that,” he said.
Colbert clarified if he has issues on how the fictional sandworms are supposed to behave, Tyson replied, “I'm saying you can't thump sand.”
According to the astrophysicist, if sand is hit repeatedly it won't be heard because it's sand.
Colbert countered, “You can't hear it, but a sandworm can. They hear things differently than we do, Neil Tyson.”
However, Tyson responded, “If you wanted to insulate yourself acoustically from your surroundings, fill the volume with sand. No one will hear you.”
Scientifically unsound or not, he conceded, “I've got to let it go because there's no movie without it.”
Another issue he had with a different part of the film is how the Fremen needed to ride on a sandworm's back as part of an initiation, if you will. Tyson pointed out that the sandworms in the movie move in a straight line as opposed to how these type of creatures are supposed to move.
He explained, “Have you ever seen a snake chase you as a straight snake? No! They've got to curl, and they push off the curl. That's what the curling is.”
For my part, I think everything can be explained away by just saying that the laws of physics don't apply here since they're not of our world. For example, the sand in Arrakis doesn't behave the way our sand does because — well, it's a special kind of sand. It has sandworms that make spice… we don't have those, do we?
As for the sandworms themselves and how they move in a straight line? I'm not a scientist, but I'd like to think that they can't undulate the way our worms do because they're so massive. The most efficient way for them to move is just in a straight line. After all, the shortest distance from point A to point be is a straight line.
Having moved on from the mechanics of Arrakis sand and sandworms, Tyson and Colbert spoke about the former's appearance in Jennifer Lopez's This Is Me … Now: A Love story. The scientist played the personification of the zodiac sign Taurus.
Since he was in his element, the astrophysicist said he agreed to take part in the project because he wanted to add some science into it.
“[Taurus] is a constellation, but in that movie, it's an astrological sign. I said, ‘Show me the script. I can make some adjustments to get a little bit of science,” he related.
However, that science part was cut out of the final edit. Tyson explained that there are actually 13 constellations in the zodiac, not 12 to correspond to the 12 months of a year.
Ophiucus was defined by the International Astronomical Union's constellation boundaries in 1930 as being behind the Sun from Nov. 29 to Dec. 18. This is why Tyson went on a tangent about how “if you are a Scorpio, you are probably an Ophiuchan because the Sun spends more time in Orphiucus than it does in Scorpio” Scorpios are those born on Oct. 23 to Nov. 21. The next sign is Sagittarius, those born on Nov. 22 to Dec. 21.
But no need to panic. The astrological signs don't follow the IAU. It's based on the ecliptic plane or the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun which is in sidereal or tropical astrology is divided into 12 equal parts rather than the actual constellations which have irregular spaces between them. If you're born in Nov. 29 to Dec. 18, you don't have to learn how to pronounce what your “new” astrological sign is.
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