WEBVTT - Where does the Higgs get its mass? 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:10.840 I have a really deep question for you, or a 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.000 one that's really been puzzling me. Oh, but we're jumping 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.400 right into the hard stuff. I don't know. Maybe you're 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.640 gonna think it's easy. Really a cartoon is let's find out. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.720 So we just came off of the holiday season. Lots 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.919 of people got lots of presents. Yeah. Yeah, And in 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.560 American Christmas, at least, the traditional story is that Santa 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.200 Claus brings all those kids presents. You're not gonna ask 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.879 me about the physics of flying reindeer, are you? No? No, No, 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.919 My question is more philosophical. It's does Santa also get presents? 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.959 Who is Santa's Santa? WHOA that's meta, dude. And if 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.320 Santa has a Santa, who is there Santa Santa Santa 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.840 Santa Santa has a Grand Santa and a great grand Santa. 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:58.080 But you know, I don't think you want to go 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.760 too far into the Santa verse. You just accept your presence, Daniel, 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.360 Thanks Santa. I hope these cookies are enough for you. 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.600 Hi am or handmade cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.240 Hi I'm Daniel. I'm a particle of physicist and a 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.959 professor at U c Irvine and I have sometimes played Santa, 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.440 Oh really in like a theater production, in a movie. 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.160 No No. In the eating Cookies Late at Night version 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.760 of Santa, you don't even leave presents. You just go 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:40.959 and eat the cookies. You try to teach your kids 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.120 a valuable lesson about leaving food out. We're all about delegation. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.560 My wife handles the presence, I handle the cookies. You know, 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.880 it's a marriage that seems like a raw deal for 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.920 one of you. We're a half big deal depending on 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.920 the cookies. But welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.480 Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.200 which we share the treats of the universe with you. 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.320 We don't gobble up all the cookies of understanding. We 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.800 break them into pieces and pass them around to all 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.880 of humanity. We think it's important that everybody gets to 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.280 taste the sweetness that is the understanding of how the 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:17.000 universe works. Because this incredible, far flung universe is majestic, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.320 is bonkers. Is difficult to understand, but it's definitely worth 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.200 digging into. Yeah, because we hope that every episode you 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.120 listen to is a little bit like Christmas where you 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.440 click on the episode and you open up an incredible 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.079 and amazing gift of truth about the universe and how 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.600 it works, and hopefully you won't return it. Hopefully you 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.240 didn't get two or three of these for Christmas, but 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.560 you can regifted. You know, we give the gift that 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.720 just can be infinitely regifted. I guess that's true. Yeah, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.680 And it is a goal of physics to unwrap the 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.799 mysteries of the universe, to peel back layers and layers 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.520 of wrapping paper, and to finally, maybe one day, reveal 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.040 what is going on underneath. Yeah, because sometimes I think Daniel, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.840 you talk about the days when they reveal big discoveries 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:58.760 in the media, you call that kind of like a 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.760 Christmas for physicists. Yeah, it is really exciting, and that's 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.200 what we live for. You know, it's not that often 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.240 in physics that you actually make a really big discovery 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.639 a day when you get to ask Nature a question 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.440 and you've forced it because of the ingenuity of your 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.960 experiments to reveal something to you. These days come, you know, 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.200 sometimes ten twenty years apart. Yeah, And I guess the 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.160 problem is if it's a discovery by one of these 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.720 huge collaborations with like a thousand people, do you then 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.000 have to leave a thousand cookies and milk classes out 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.320 for them? You know, a big collaboration of physicist doesn't 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.960 run on empty stomach. So yeah, the cookie budget is 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.000 pretty serious, right, except then also it's coffee not milk. 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.120 I guess it's expresses depending on where you are in 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.720 the world. Yeah, And there was a particularly interesting and 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.440 fun discovery announcement, and back in twelve that was a 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.720 big deal. It was like a mega Christmas almost in 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.000 the particle physics world. It was. And you know how 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.800 you anticipate Christmas, You start thinking about it in the fall, 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.360 and then as December comes it gets more and more exciting, 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.560 and then the night before Christmas you're just going absolutely 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.320 bonkers wondering what you're gonna get under the tree. Well, 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.760 for us, the discovery the Higgs boson was like that, 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.280 except over fifty years, fifty years between the prediction that 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:09.600 the Higgs boson was a thing and the day we 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.040 could say it is a thing, it is real, It's 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.600 out there in the universe. Oh Man, actually did that 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:16.840 with my kids. It's like the next Christmas is fifty 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.240 years from now. That's when you get your presents. They're 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.560 going to give you fifty times long a list then, right, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.799 but then they have to be good for fifty years. 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:27.800 That might be worth it. It might be where that 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.960 you're definitely not screwing up their childhood death. Well, I am, 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.080 but it's just a matter of how, of course. But 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.000 it was a pretty big discovery, the discovery of the 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.240 Higgs boson, or I guess not the discovery, but the 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.160 confirmation that it exists, right that the same thing. No, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.359 I think it was a discovery. We didn't know for 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.400 sure that the Higgs was real before we thought there 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:49.800 was a great idea. It was a beautiful and brilliant 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.880 idea to bring together all these various pieces and explain 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.200 them in terms of the Higgs boson. It really pulled 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.159 everything together in an elegant way. But we weren't sure. 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.880 It could have been wrong. And that's why we experiments, right, 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:02.599 because we don't just sit in the back of a 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.080 cave and think about how the universe might be. We 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.120 actually go out there and try to discover it and 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:09.560 force it to reveal the truth to us. That's what 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.400 science is all about, is doing experiments to confirm our understanding. 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.839 So I would definitely call it a discovery, right, right, 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.240 But and you mean metaphorically, you don't go out of 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.440 the cave because the large Hattern collider isn't a cave technically, right, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:23.640 It's true. I guess we don't go out of the cave. 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:25.720 We do the experiments in the cave. We bring the 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.280 world into the cave. Screw you, Plato. You build all 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.760 the equipment inside, kind of like the bat cave. So 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.040 you and Batman are right up there. That's right, we're 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.159 reading a new chapter to Plato's allegory. But it was 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.520 a pretty big discovery, right, the discovery of the Higgs boson. 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.240 It sort of completed what's known as the standard model. Yeah. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.520 Without that piece, we really didn't understand some basic things 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.640 about the particles and how it all whiz through the universe. 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.760 We didn't understand why the W and the Z bosons 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.480 for the weak force were so heavy whereas the photon 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.080 was so light. We didn't understand where the other particles, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.000 how they got their mass. It was a big puzzle. 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.000 And so now that we know the Higgs is real 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.800 and we know something about how that happens. Yeah, and 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.440 The idea is that the Higgs boson and the Higgs 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.240 field is what gives other particles their inertial mass. Right, 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.680 We've just talked about this in a recent podcast. We 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.400 talked about this in lots of podcasts. Absolutely, the Higgs 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.800 is the reason that particles are not massless. The electron 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.680 and the corks and lots of these other particles have 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.159 some massive changes how they move through the universe, and 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.120 that's because of the way they interact with the Higgs field. Yes, 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:30.640 so the Higgs is sort of like the you know, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.440 the host of the Christmas party making sure everyone gets 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:38.640 enough mass, eat, eat exactly. But then I guess that 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.680 raises the question, what about the Higgs itself? Who is 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.880 making sure the host's plate is also full of cookies? Yeah. 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:53.120 Today on the program, we'll be asking the question where 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.560 does the Higgs boson get its mass? WHOA, that's a 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.839 pretty meta question if you're if you're familiar with particle physics. Yeah, exactly. 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.640 It's like does Santa give himself presence? Does he get 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.680 presents from somebody else? Either way, it's kind of weird. 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.320 I would think it was Mrs Santa who gets Santa presents? Right, 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.800 all right, and so then Santa gets her presence. Also, yeah, 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.600 the Santas are their own Santas. Do They whisper thank 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.440 you Santa to each other on Christmas Morning? They write 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.440 Dear Santa letters to themselves. Every time they write an 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.880 email to each other or send a text message, they're 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.280 literally writing to Santa. Yeah. But then I would say, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.560 Mrs Santa, she's the super Santa because she's Santa Santa, right, 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.080 Like everybody else gets their presence from Santa, and Santa 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.520 gets his presence from Mrs Santa. And she's sort of 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.480 like at the top of the pyramid. See you're saying 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.800 Santa is just like the Wizard of Boss. It's just 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.200 the front man exactly. He's the front man. Really, it's 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.080 Mrs Santa pulling the strings behind the curtain. She is 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.880 the supervillain, the final boss. If you want to get 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.800 your presence, I mean, you know, but yeah, it's a 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.040 pretty deep question, I guess. You know. We talked about 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.600 all the time how the Higgs boson gives mass to 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.640 the other particles. You know, when you interact with the 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.080 Higgs field that when you feel yourself heavy or or 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.840 inert and the Higgs boson is sort of how you 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.360 interact with the Higgs field. But then the Higgs I 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.200 guess particle itself has mass. Also, the Higgs particle definitely 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.120 has mass. And one of the big experimental challenges for 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.440 us before we discovered it was that we didn't know 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.160 how much mass it had. If it had had more 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.160 mass than it does, it would have been much harder 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.360 to find. And if it had had less mass, we 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.760 would have found it years ago. And as it changes 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.080 its mass, it looks different in the universe, and so 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.280 we had to look for lots of different kinds of 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.640 Higgs is at the same time because we didn't know 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.680 which one our universe had. Wow, well, it is a 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.040 pretty meta and a little bit mind bending question. It 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:42.760 kind of gives me a headache to think about a 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:44.560 little bit. And so we were wondering, as usual, how 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:46.559 many people out there have thought about this question, this 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.640 sort of recursive question, And so Daniel went out there 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.120 into the internet as usual to ask people where does 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.480 the Higgs boson get its mass? And so, if you're 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.560 sitting at home and you like to play along this 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.760 part of the podcast, wondering if you know the answers 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.000 to this question. Then I do you you to send in 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.440 your answers If you'd like to get some headache making 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.320 questions in your inbox, just right to us two questions 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.000 at Daniel and Jorge dot com and you'll send them 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.680 all on Christmas, right, that's right. I'm the Mrs Santa 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:13.840 of physics. Well, here's what people had to say. The 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.200 first thing that comes to mind is the Higgs field. 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.000 But given that the Higgs Boson is a we go 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.480 in that field itself, I don't know if that makes 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:29.360 any sense. M Probably the Higgs bosom get its mass 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:34.920 from itself, because I know it gives mass to other particles. 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.960 The Higgs boson definitely gets its mass from its local church. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:45.079 I cannot point a finger to a place Higgs field 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.120 gives mass, but Higgs boson when he gets his mass, 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:53.880 I don't know. I believe that it is a field 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.360 as well as a particle, and I know that it 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:02.160 imparts mass to other particles. But as far as where 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:07.080 it gets its mass, I would say maybe the field 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:12.440 around it. I don't know. But from the chatter I 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.120 hear from scientists and shows such as yours, I get 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:21.439 the idea that too, a three D being such as ourselves. 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.280 It would seem as if that mass is coming from 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.080 somewhere else in space. That's the best I can do 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:34.160 for you. So I think Higgs boson would get its 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:39.720 mass from dark matter. I think the Higgs boson might 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:45.240 be massless. It's a boson like the photon or gluon 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:50.720 or graviton or w or z the boson. I think 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.360 it probably doesn't have mass itself, but if you excited field, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.120 it will decay into stuff that does have mass. I 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:03.200 thought it was like mess. Doesn't it give the mess 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:08.559 to other things? So where does it get it? Maybe 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:14.000 space hamsters, space hamsters. That's a great answer. Space hamsters 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.880 is a great answer for any question. Really, what would 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.800 you like for lunch today? Or have you been good 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.160 this year? Space hamsters? That's all I have to say. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:28.800 Who made this mess in the kitchen? Yeah, so a 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.280 pretty wide range of answers here, mostly questions themselves. Everyone's 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.880 like what what? Yeah? I think this made people realize 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:37.800 that there was maybe an angle to this question. They 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.080 maybe hadn't considered it before. That's why I thought this 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.560 would be really fun to talk about. Like the person 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:44.520 who said the Higgs boson gets its mass from its 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:49.839 local church, Like does the Higgs Boson go to mess 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.679 it is called the God Particles? Maybe it is the 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.040 Higgs Boson Church. Yeah, and you know St Peter Higgs 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.400 of course discovered it, and so it all hangs together. 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.000 You know, there's a St. Peter in the Church of 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.480 Biggs Bosoni. Yeah, and you know, the name the God 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.120 Particle just comes from that book by Leon Laterman a 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.520 couple of decades ago. Nobody in the field ever calls 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:11.319 it the God particle. We just roll our eyes when 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.840 we hear that. You grown every time I mentioned it 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.000 on the podcast, mostly out of jealousy because his book 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.160 sold so many copies. Well, that's your problem. We should 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.319 name our books. Um, I don't know, the Devil particle 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.080 the devil. Oh, yeah, there you go. You know, I 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.240 was looking at the list of science podcasts recently and 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.640 noticed that we're up there on the list, but we're 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.760 well behind several other science podcasts, including The Bigfoot Chronicles 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.000 and The Paranormal. And in the list of science podcasts, 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.600 they're mostly about the supernatural. Whoa, yeah, I noticed that 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.680 as well. It's it's a little um makes me wonder 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.200 how they categorize these things. Yeah, or maybe we should 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.320 pivot and our podcast should be about like you know, 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:56.080 quantum big foot, yeah, or the electron lockns mon monsters. 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:58.680 Or maybe we should just double down and go for 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.679 like supernatural big combined at all, you know, oh interesting, 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.120 Or we could just talk about things that bend reality 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:09.199 and seemed supernatural themselves, like particle physics. Yeah, exactly, the 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.600 universe is bonkers enough. We don't need to add alien 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:16.240 bigfoot that built the pyramids. No, we don't, but they 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.120 would make it a little bit more interesting. For sure, 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.520 we might get more listeners. But yeah, we're asking the 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.600 question what gives the Higgs boson itself? It's mass, because 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.880 we know the Higgs boson gives other particles mass, and 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.120 so where does it get its mass? And so you 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.240 talked about that it does have mass, meaning Daniel, the 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.080 Higgs boson, I guess, is heavy like it it doesn't 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:38.760 move at the speed of light. That's right. The Higgs 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.040 boson cannot move at the speed of light because it 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.600 has mass, and nothing that has mass can move at 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:45.800 the speed of light, and everything that doesn't have mass 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.079 always moves at the speed of light. So the Higgs 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.920 has a hundred and twenty five gigga electron volts of mass. 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.559 That's a unit where one gig electron volts is about 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.680 the mass of a proton, So the Higgs is about 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.280 a hundred and twenty five protons worth of mass. WOA. 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.400 But I guess you know, if the Higgs boson can 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:04.520 move at the speed of light, and that's the particle 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:06.640 that gives other particles mass, does that mean that my 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.480 mask there's like a delay to my mask. Do you 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:11.280 know what I mean? Like I have mass when the 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.320 Higgs boson gets to me. Well, information does propagate through 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.840 the Higgs field at the speed of light, so you 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.080 can have wiggles in the Higgs field that move at 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:21.920 the speed of light, because not every wiggle in the 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.600 Higgs field is a Higgs boson, but the Higgs boson 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.760 particle itself doesn't travel at the speed of light. So 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.240 if you made a Higgs boson and you threw it 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.000 to me, it would be outraced by a photon. But 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.880 for example, if the Higgs field collapsed because it's some 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.160 crazy experiment you were doing over there in your basement, 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.440 then the collapse of the Higgs field would move at 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.280 the speed of light. M I see, all right, But yeah, 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.240 I guess you know, the idea that it gives me 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.320 mass is mostly about me interacting with the Higgs field, 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.800 not necessarily with the Higgs boson. Right, Like, when I'm 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.239 moving through space, I'm not getting bombarded by Higgs bosons. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.880 I'm just kind of moving through this molasses field. But 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.840 if I wiggle the molasses, then that creates a Higgs boson. Yeah, 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:01.480 and you know, there's a bit of a fine point there, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.880 depends on whether you like to think about fields or 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.000 you'd like to think about particles. I like to think 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.040 about fields, that the fundamental thing in space is all 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.880 these quantum fields, and a particle is like a special 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.400 excited configuration of those fields. There are people out there 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.640 that like to think about everything in terms of particles. 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.200 Particles are the real thing, and fields are just like 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.040 a mathematical construct, and instead of fields, they think about 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.280 virtual particles. That everything we would call a wiggle in 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.359 the field is just a bunch of virtual Higgs bosons. 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.640 So you can think about it in both ways. Both 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.600 pictures are mathematically accurate. I think it's clear to think 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.880 about the field as the basic element of the universe right, right, 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.040 And the Higgs boson gives particles mass but not all 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.600 of its mass, right, Like, it only gives particles one 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.880 type of mass, that's right. And so you mentioned something earlier, 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.720 inertial mass. There's really a couple of ways we talk 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.720 about mass. One is gravitational mass, and that's like, if 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.360 you have mass, then you bend space and you can 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.760 create gravity and all that kind of stuff. That's one 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.360 concept of mass. We're talking about something else today. We're 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.320 talking about inertial mass. That's like the mass in F 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.600 equals m A. Right, F equals m A tells us 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.040 that if you want to accelerate something, that's the A. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:13.880 You've got to give it a force, you've got to 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.600 push it. That's the F and mass is the relationship 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.880 between that. If you want to give something a big acceleration, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:20.720 you have to give it a big force. But if 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:22.600 it's got a lot of mass, it's going to require 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.400 even more force to get a big acceleration. So it's 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.880 that mass the M and F equals m A that 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.400 we're talking about. We're talking about how an object moves 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.360 when you push it, Does it accelerate a lot or 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.880 does it accelerate a little. Right, it's the masses in 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.200 like how hard it is to move it from here 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.080 to there. Because there are there are other kinds of masses, right, 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.640 there's gravitational mass, which is sort of like how you 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.760 get attracted to other massive things. Yeah, and this is 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.440 really about how something moves, how hard it is to 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.960 push it or how hard it is to slow it down. Right, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.000 this concept of inertia, that's what we call it inertial mass. 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.040 And it's helpful, I think, to spend a minute thinking 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.600 about what that really means. You know, we're talking about 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:00.880 what it's like to move some thing through space, or 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.400 to speed it up or to slow it down. Any 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.080 property of an object that changes how easy it is 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:07.679 to speed it up or how easy it is to 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.360 slow it down changes its inertia. And so we call 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.840 that a change in mass. And so that's really what 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.040 mass is, is a combination of everything that makes it 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.040 easier or harder for that object to move, to get 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.520 sped up or to get slowed down. Right. And and 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.720 if you're just sort of a regular particle run of 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.160 the male particle, the reason you're hard to move from 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.879 here there is because of the Higgs field exactly. So 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:30.960 if it was no Higgs field in the universe, the 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.480 electron would have no mass. It would act like a photon. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.399 But because the Higgs field is there, the electron is 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.119 interacting with the Higgs field, like the Higgs field is 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.040 changing the way the electron moves, and it changes the 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.000 way the electron moves in exactly the same way as 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.919 if the electron actually had its own mass. There's no 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.080 difference mathematically. That was really the genius of the Higgs 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.879 mechanism is to come up with this other way for 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.879 a particle to effectively get mass. That's why we call 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.000 it like the Higgs boson gives it mass, where the 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.520 electrons and get mask because it's this interaction that changes 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.040 the way the electron moves in exactly the same way 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.760 as if the electron sort of inherently had a pure 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.240 mass to itself. You're saying, like if it inherently was 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.920 hard to move, Like if the universe worked in that 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.159 way where things are hard to move if they have 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.159 something called mass. Yeah, it's possible for a particle to 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.240 have like its own inherent mass for that not to 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.719 be zero. But for all the particles we have they 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.760 come from the Higgs boson. So the electron and all 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.200 the corks that have zero inherent mass, all of their 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.960 mass comes from this interaction of the Higgs boson. And 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.359 so for the mathematically inclined people out there who know 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.199 about like equations of motions and lagranges, you know, this 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.639 changes effectively how a particle gets kinetic energy, and so 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.399 it changes the equations of motions for how it moves 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.560 in exactly the same way as if it had this 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.840 pure mass, right, right, So we get our inertial mass 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.159 from the Higgs field, but not all inertial mass is 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.040 due to the Higgs field, right, Like you can be 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:58.840 hard to move and not interact with the Higgs field. Yeah, 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.280 And this is a common misconception. People think that all 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.760 mass comes from the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson does 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.119 give mass to the electron into the corks, but there 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.359 are other things in the universe that have mass that 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.919 don't come from the Higgs boson. For example, you you 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.160 have a lot of mass that doesn't come from the Higgs. 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.240 Like if you look at a proton, a proton is 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.679 made of three quarks. Those quarks really don't have a 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.320 lot of mass, But the proton does have a lot 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:23.400 of mass, and most of its mass doesn't come from 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.960 those corks. It comes from other internal energy inside the proton, 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.080 And any kind of stored energy also gives mass to 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.040 an object. Right, Like you're saying, and this kind of 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.679 blew my mind that black holes can have mass, but 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.240 they don't interact with the Higgs field. Yeah, black holes, 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.120 for example, have a lot of mass. Right, we don't 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.040 know what's inside a black hole. We have no idea 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.600 the state of matter that's in there. And you could, 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.720 for example, have a black hole made purely of photons. 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.080 Photons have no mass, but together you concentrate all this 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.879 stuff together into space, and a black hole made purely 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.760 of photons can have mass, and none of that comes 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.800 from the Higgs field. Meaning, like the black hole is, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.800 it's hard to move, Like if you wanted to move 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.440