We’ve entered the fourth day of renowned astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson and renowned rapper who sang the song “Airplanes” B.o.B’s unlikely rap beef over the shape of the planet Earth. After a fairly straightforward back-and-forth on Twitter in which B.o.B claimed the Earth is flat and Tyson responded that no, in fact, it isn’t, B.o.B released a diss track aimed at Tyson, which prompted Tyson’s nephew (who raps under the name TYSON) to release his own diss track aimed at B.o.B. Last night, to deliver the ultimate smackdown, Neil DeGrasse Tyson went on The Nightly Show and delivered a monologue explaining the principles of Euclidian geometry that explain why a tiny person on a giant curved surface, such as Earth, would perceive it as flat.
He added in a few jabs about the general culture of anti-intellectualism in the US, throwing certain presidential candidates into the mix and claiming that, when you have a public platform and spread conspiracy theories, “being wrong becomes being harmful to the health, the wealth, and the security of our citizenry.” Then, invoking the words of Issac Newton, who famously claimed, “if I have seen farther than others, it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants,” Tyson laid down the final word: “That’s right B.o.B: When you stand on the shoulders of those who came before, you might just see far enough to realize the earth isn’t fucking flat.”
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With that, he offered up a final science demonstration, saying “by the way, this is called gravity” before dropping the mic. Ethered? Perhaps. Watch for yourself on Comedy Central’s website.
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