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Neil deGrasse Tyson at 85% the Speed of Light

This video made me laugh harder than anything I’ve seen in a long time. Okay, except for some Louis CK videos. But for a non-comedian (allegedly)… this is hard to beat.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


This video made me laugh harder than anything I've seen in a long time. Okay, except for some Louis CK videos. But for a non-comedian (allegedly)... this is hard to beat. Not that the humor is entirely intentional by the speaker.

I had previously seen the original video - of Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about Isaac Newton - but someone took this talking-head video by Big Think and turned it into comedy gold with one simple alteration: they slowed it down.

Neil Tyson himself shared the video on Twitter, calling it "simultaneously disturbing & hilarious." Sit back and enjoy...


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Tyson also tweeted that his "geek daughter calculated that my slow motion interview is what the original looks like moving at 85% the speed of light" (due to relativistic time dilation).

See how much fun we can have with science?

Here's the original, normal speed, not-nearly-as-humorous video by Big Think:

And here's Neil playing the video for a crowd at one of his talks in Toronto:

In addition to performing and giving science communication talks for NSF, AAAS, NASA, NIST, ACS and other acronyms, Brian Malow has produced science videos for Time magazine and audio pieces for Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk radio show. He has blogged for Scientific American and worked in science communications at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. He can be found as @sciencecomedianScienceComedian.com.

More by Brian Malow