Who says Charlie Sheen is dumb?

"Duh! Winning!"

 - Guess Who?

Ladies and gentlemen, and all those who think Charlie Sheen is one drug and sex-addicted over-confident limelight-hogging excuse for an actor (which most of them are), think again:

If the universe if 14 billion years old, does that mean that the edge of the universe is 14 billion light years away?

Yes Sir - that was the question that Charlie Sheen asked in a discussion with Neil deGrasse Tyson, a reputed astrophysicist, which prompted the latter to declare that Charlie Sheen was "more scientifically literate than most":

Jeffrey Toney over at Scienceblogs blogged about this universe-shattering phenomenon, in which, although he did express doubts about whether the commenter who commented on his post under the name Neil deGrasse Tyson was indeed Neil deGrasse Tyson, the text of the comment is actually worth reproducing:

Thanks for everyone's interest in my Charlie Sheen tweet. I am impressed by the level of skepticism regarding my ability to judge whether someone is scientifically literate. To clarify, I measure science literacy not simply by a person's body of knowledge but **primarily** on how the brain of a person is wired for thought. This reveals itself instantly in conversation, manifested by what questions get asked up front and what follow-up questions get asked based on the newly acquired information. Here are three actual examples:

1a) Where is Pluto?
1b) Is Pluto in our galaxy?

2a) What are the clouds made of in the Hubble photos?
2b) If they are gas, and if stars are composed of gas, could new stars be made inside of these gas clouds?

3a) When was the big bang?
3b) If the universe if 14 billion years old, does that mean that the edge of the universe is 14 billion light years away?

Questions 1 were asked by a college educated person who I judge to be in need of improved science literacy.

Questions 2 were asked by a janitor at my Museum who has clearly done some thinking on the subject between broom-sweeps. If you want to read more on this, see:
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2006/08/01/blue-collar-intellectuals-the-janitor

Questions 3 were asked by Charlie Sheen. Based on these and our
overall conversation, I judge Sheen to be in the 90th percentile of the general population, hence my tweet that Sheen is: "...more scientifically literate than most"

 Moral of the story - Take drugs, drink lots of alcohol.....