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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, A quick note to let you know that

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Speaker 1: our preschool science TV show on PBS Kids called Eleanor

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Speaker 1: Wonders Why just launched its second season. It's a show

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Speaker 1: about curiosity and exploration and learning to use science to

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Speaker 1: find your own answers to questions or Hey and I

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Speaker 1: created the show a few years ago, and the second

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Speaker 1: season has just premiered. We're so excited to share this

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Speaker 1: new batch of stories and adventures. Check it out on

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Speaker 1: PBS Kids. Eleanor Wonders Why.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Daniel, what do you think will happen first? That

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Speaker 2: we discover aen life or that Aian life discovers us?

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Speaker 1: Ooh, I really hope that they find us first.

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Speaker 2: Why?

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Speaker 1: Because in that scenario, they're more likely to be smart

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Speaker 1: and curious critters. If we find them first, it might

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Speaker 1: just be that they're like microbial slime somewhere.

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Speaker 2: Mmmm. How do you know they would be smart and curious?

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Speaker 2: What if they're dumb hungry? Wouldn't we want to find

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Speaker 2: them first and figure that out.

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Speaker 1: If they're dumb and hungry, at least they're smart enough

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Speaker 1: to have found us, right.

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Speaker 2: What if they stumble upon it.

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Speaker 1: In their hunger fueled stupidity?

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Speaker 2: Exactly in indy. Case that we want to avoid them,

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Speaker 2: we'll just feed them some microbial slime. If they're so dumb,

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Speaker 2: they'll be happy with that. But what if we find

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Speaker 2: them and they're smart and microbial slime.

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Speaker 1: I'll put up with some slime if they're happy to

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Speaker 1: share their knowledge.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But what if all they have are sticky facts,

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Speaker 2: stick it to me or slimy data.

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Speaker 3: Hi?

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Speaker 2: I am Orge, my cartoonist and the author of Oliver's

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Speaker 2: Great Big Universe.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm married

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Speaker 1: to a biologist who tells me quote, microbes run the world.

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Speaker 1: Makes me wonder when aliens come, who they would talk

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Speaker 1: to first, us or the microbes that vastly outnumber us

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Speaker 1: and out mass us.

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Speaker 2: Wait, your spouse thinks that microbes run the world? I mean,

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Speaker 2: is she talking about politicians?

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Speaker 1: I think she's talking about like the metabolic processes of

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Speaker 1: our ecosystem, you know, moving stuff around, processing stuff, transforming stuff.

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Speaker 2: So are they working for us or are we working

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Speaker 2: for the microbes?

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Speaker 1: I think that remains to be determined. Maybe the aliens

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Speaker 1: will help us figure it out.

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Speaker 2: But what if the aliens are clean freaks? And they

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Speaker 2: don't like microbes.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine even aliens surviving without microbes, you

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Speaker 1: know Howso well, of course, we don't know what life

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Speaker 1: might look like on those planets, but at least here

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Speaker 1: on Earth, everything evolved from microbes, and microbes remain an

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Speaker 1: essential part of all of our life processes. We couldn't

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Speaker 1: survive without them.

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Speaker 3: Mmmm.

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Speaker 2: Slimy as it it is, we need microes. But anyways,

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Speaker 2: welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,

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Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio in.

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Speaker 1: Which we try to cut through all that mental slum

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Speaker 1: and give you a clear picture for how the universe works,

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Speaker 1: at least as much of it as we understand. We

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Speaker 1: think that everybody out there who's curious and wonders about

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Speaker 1: this incredible, amazing, but kind of bonkers cosmos deserves to

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Speaker 1: have it explained to them. So on this podcast we

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Speaker 1: did through all of your questions and your curiosity and

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Speaker 1: try to bring you to the latest understanding of our universe.

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Speaker 2: That's right. We try to give you a gut feeling

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Speaker 2: about the universe and how it works, and fill you

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Speaker 2: up with micro doses of knowledge and curiosity as we

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Speaker 2: ponder what the universe is made out of, and how

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Speaker 2: we're going to ever explore all of it?

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Speaker 1: Somehow amazingly, by taking these tiny little micro bites of

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Speaker 1: knowledge out of the universe, we've built up something of

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Speaker 1: an understanding of how the universe works. But of course

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Speaker 1: vast critical foundational questions remain about the way the universe works.

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Speaker 1: What are space and time? How can we have a

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Speaker 1: quantum understanding of it? How did the universe all begin?

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Speaker 1: And of course are we alone in it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and seeings that there are too many questions for

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Speaker 2: us to ever answer them all. But asking questions is

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Speaker 2: how science starts and how we start building our knowledge

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Speaker 2: of the universe.

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Speaker 1: And that science is powered by individuals asking questions. There's

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Speaker 1: no monolithic institution out there somewhere churning out science. Is

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Speaker 1: just a bunch of curious people wondering about the universe

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Speaker 1: and being so passionate about their particular question that they

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Speaker 1: devote their lives to figuring it out, even if that

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Speaker 1: means climbing trees in the rainforests of Costa Rica or

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Speaker 1: spending their lives in labs underground with lasers. It takes dedication,

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Speaker 1: it takes curiosity. It takes perseverance to make progress on

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Speaker 1: these questions. But it's not just professional scientists who power

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Speaker 1: this human curiosity. It's everybody. Everybody who lives in this

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Speaker 1: universe and demands answers about how it works.

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Speaker 2: And that's because everybody has questions about deniverse. We all

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Speaker 2: look around us and we all wonder how it all works,

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Speaker 2: and we all learn about what scientists now, and still we.

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Speaker 1: Have questions, and we want to hear your questions. When

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Speaker 1: you read something in science journalism about a new discovery

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Speaker 1: that was made that doesn't quite make sense to you,

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Speaker 1: or when you watch a video that explains thermodynamics to

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Speaker 1: you but it doesn't quite click in your brain, or

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Speaker 1: when you hear us talk about something and you have

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Speaker 1: follow up questions, please write to us to questions at

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Speaker 1: Danielanjorge dot com. We really will answer every question.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes we answer those questions here on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Sometimes the questions are really fun or I

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Speaker 1: think everybody might want to hear the answer, and so

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Speaker 1: we ask folks to record themselves asking it so we

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Speaker 1: can joke about it and sometimes even answer it here

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Speaker 1: on the pod.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes answer it. Most often not.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how often those answers are actually satisfactory,

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Speaker 1: because usually the answer is we don't know. It might

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Speaker 1: be this, or it might be that.

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Speaker 2: I think we do a pretty good job of providing

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Speaker 2: an answer, even if the answer is sometimes just a question.

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Speaker 1: It's entertaining as much as it's educational.

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Speaker 2: So today on the podcast, we'll be tagling listener question

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Speaker 2: and number fifty nine. I love how we're still numbering

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Speaker 2: these after all these years. Is there anyone keeping track?

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Speaker 3: Like?

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Speaker 2: What if we skip a number, would anyone notice?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I did. How do you know exactly?

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Speaker 1: That's what I mean. I'm gonna start giving these random numbers.

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Speaker 1: Then next time it's going to be listening to questions six,

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Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty two thousand.

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Speaker 2: We should be like Taylor Swift and put in little

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Speaker 2: codes or secret messages in these numbers.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I have been. How do you know? Yes, everybody

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Speaker 1: dig into it.

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Speaker 2: You're the tte of Science Communication podcast.

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Speaker 1: No, this is the Da Vinci code. Actually, I'm leaving

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Speaker 1: secrets for future civilizations. Oh, I see, I see. You're

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Speaker 1: not Taylor Swift, You're Da Vinci. No, I'm the Pope.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's keep going.

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Speaker 1: I don't know where you go from the pope, so hmm.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, we do like to answer questions here on

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Speaker 2: the podcast, and so today we have three pretty awesome questions,

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Speaker 2: most of them about space exploration and space probes, but

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Speaker 2: also an interesting question about splitting the electron and so

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Speaker 2: let's jump right in. Our first question comes from Charles.

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Speaker 4: Hey, Daniel and Jorge. That was a recent listener question

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Speaker 4: about traveling to a different star, and it got me thinking,

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Speaker 4: given the state of technology today or in the near future,

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Speaker 4: could we build a probe that could survive long enough

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Speaker 4: to reach another star. A second part of it is

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Speaker 4: when it does reach another star, could it send back

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Speaker 4: meaningful data that we could receive. We do live in

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Speaker 4: a real world, so I think that the answer should

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Speaker 4: be limited to Apollo levels of funding, So about two

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Speaker 4: point five percent of GDP for ten years.

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Speaker 1: Thanks a lot.

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Speaker 2: All right, great question. It seems that Charles er wants

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Speaker 2: to know could we send a probe to another star

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Speaker 2: and would it even survive that long?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally get where this question is coming from.

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Speaker 1: We feel sort of like isolated in our little solar

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Speaker 1: system and we can send probes to explore nearby planets,

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Speaker 1: but we're always wondering, like what do those planets look

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Speaker 1: like around other stars? And that we have incredible telescopes,

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Speaker 1: the Hubble and James Web, we still can't visualize those

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Speaker 1: planets and those solar systems. So the question basically is like,

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Speaker 1: why don't we just send some science instruments to those

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Speaker 1: solar systems, snap some photos, and send them back. Couldn't

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Speaker 1: that be like revelatory. Couldn't we see incredible things things

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Speaker 1: we might not even be able to imagine.

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Speaker 2: Right, Because I guess so far we've only been able

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Speaker 2: to see up close six or seven planets, right, or

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Speaker 2: eight planets? Where are we at in our solar system?

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Speaker 2: Eight planets including eight planets, Yeah, including ours? I guess

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Speaker 2: those are the only ones we've been able to see

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Speaker 2: up close with probes, And so I guess Charles's question

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Speaker 2: is could we send probes to another solar system to

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Speaker 2: take pictures of other planets, maybe to find one that

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Speaker 2: is habitable or one that has maybe things we haven't

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Speaker 2: seen before on a planet.

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Speaker 1: And Charles is also trying to be reasonable. It's not

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Speaker 1: like let's pour all of the resources of humanity into this.

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Speaker 1: Let's limit it to like, you know, two and a

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Speaker 1: half percent of our GDP, which would be an incredible

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Speaker 1: amount of science funding. I would love if we would

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Speaker 1: spend two and a half percent of our GDP on science. Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be amazing. So I guess his question

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Speaker 2: is a two parter. First one is could we send

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Speaker 2: a probe to another star? How long would that take?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? The challenge here, and the reason that is so

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Speaker 1: difficult and we haven't done it yet, is these other

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Speaker 1: stars are sort of like mind blowingly far away. Like

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Speaker 1: even our solar system is pretty big, you know, like

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Speaker 1: Pluto is very very far away. It's like ten thousand

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Speaker 1: times further away than the Moon. So that's why even

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Speaker 1: sending probes to the outer Solar system is an incredible feat.

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Speaker 1: But the nearest star is much much further away than Pluto.

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Speaker 1: It's like ten thousand times further away than Pluto. So

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Speaker 1: it's not like the next solar system is like the

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Speaker 1: next town over. It's like we're in a little town

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Speaker 1: and there's another on the other side of the world.

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Speaker 1: So these solar systems are very very far away. It's

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Speaker 1: not just like a simple extension of our current technologies

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Speaker 1: that's going to allow us to send probes there.

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Speaker 2: But I guess what is the nearest star to us.

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Speaker 1: The nearest star is Proximus Centauri. It's just under four

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Speaker 1: light years away.

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Speaker 2: Okay, four light years away. How many kilometers is that?

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Speaker 1: That's thirty seven qua tillion kilometers away, three point seven

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Speaker 1: times ten to the thirteen kilometers.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that's a lot of zeros. But in space, I

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Speaker 2: feel like you can go super duper fast.

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Speaker 1: Right, Well, in space, you can go super duper fast

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Speaker 1: if you can get up to high speed. Right. The

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Speaker 1: speed of light, of course, is pretty fast. If you

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Speaker 1: could travel at the speed of light, it would only

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Speaker 1: take four years to get there. But the question is,

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Speaker 1: can you get some piece of mass, some scientific probe

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Speaker 1: up near the speed of light? If you want this

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Speaker 1: thing to get there and to send us a message

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Speaker 1: back in like less than one hundred years or so,

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Speaker 1: then you need to get this thing up to like

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Speaker 1: ten or twenty percent of the speed of light. It

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Speaker 1: takes a few decades to get there, and that turns

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Speaker 1: out to be quite a challenge.

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Speaker 2: Wait, how fast do we need it to.

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Speaker 1: Go something like ten or twenty percent of the speed

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Speaker 1: of light for it to get there within a few.

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Speaker 2: Decades, which is how fast.

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Speaker 1: And the speed of light is three times ten to

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Speaker 1: eight meters per second, so ten percent of that is

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Speaker 1: three times ten to the seven meters per second, but.

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Speaker 2: In like kilometers per hour.

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Speaker 1: So the speed of light is like a billion kilometers

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Speaker 1: per hour. So we need this thing to go like

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Speaker 1: one hundred million kilometers per hour. Whoa.

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Speaker 2: And that's if we wanted to go there and come

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Speaker 2: back within a few decades.

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Speaker 1: Now, that's just if we wanted to reach there in

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Speaker 1: a few decades. And then we're hoping it's going to

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Speaker 1: send us signals. We're not actually going to take samples

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Speaker 1: from that solar system and fly them back. I think

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Speaker 1: the first thing that it would be sent probes and

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Speaker 1: then have them shoot the pictures back using messages rather

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Speaker 1: than like actually returning.

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Speaker 2: Oh I see, So you want it to go there

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Speaker 2: in a few decades and then it sends a signal

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Speaker 2: back which comes back in four years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so the challenges are getting the thing

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Speaker 1: up to that speed, having it survive the journey, and

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Speaker 1: sending us a message back. Whoa.

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Speaker 2: And so I guess it's hard to get up to

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Speaker 2: that speed and space.

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Speaker 1: It is hard to get up to that speed in

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Speaker 1: space depending on the technology you use, Like if you

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Speaker 1: use the kind of technology we use in like the

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Speaker 1: Space Shuttle and in most of our rockets, then you

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Speaker 1: run into a really difficult problem, which is you not

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Speaker 1: only need to accelerate your payload like your science probe,

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Speaker 1: you need to accelerate in the fuel that you're using

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Speaker 1: to accelerate it. So you need a lot of fuel

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Speaker 1: to get up to high speed. You're not burning all

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Speaker 1: that fuel initially, it's not like one big boost and

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Speaker 1: then boom, you're going ten percent of the speed of light,

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Speaker 1: which means that a lot of the fuel needs to

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Speaker 1: accelerate the rest of the fuel, which means you need

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Speaker 1: more fuel for that, which means you need more fuel

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Speaker 1: for that, And then pretty quickly your ship is almost

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Speaker 1: all fuel.

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Speaker 2: Right, Like to put a rocket or to put even

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Speaker 2: a small satellite into orbit, you need a giant rocket,

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Speaker 2: and those rockets are like mostly filled with fuel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, they're mostly filled with fuel. So the practical

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Speaker 1: limit of rocket technology, like rockets we could actually build

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Speaker 1: and send towards other solar system it would take tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of years for those probes to reach those

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Speaker 1: solar systems because we couldn't get them anywhere near ten

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Speaker 1: percent of the speed of light using like solid or

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Speaker 1: liquid fuel rocket technology.

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Speaker 2: Wait, how do you know what's the fastest we could

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Speaker 2: accelerate today.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's not like exactly a fastest speed, but if

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Speaker 1: you think about like simple extensions of the current rockets,

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Speaker 1: you know, doubling tripling them, this kind of stuff, you

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Speaker 1: don't get anywhere close to ten percent of the speed

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Speaker 1: of light, and so it would take tens of thousands

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Speaker 1: of years.

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Speaker 2: Like maybe, for example, the voyagerer pros that have now

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Speaker 2: left the Solar System, how fast are they going?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so Voyager is the furthest man made object currently.

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Speaker 1: Was launched in nineteen seventy seven and it's only gone

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Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty three au, like that's the distance

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Speaker 1: between the Earth and the Sun. So it's just out

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Speaker 1: of the edge of the Solar System, and it's been

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Speaker 1: going for almost fifty years. It's traveling at like three

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Speaker 1: point six au per year. But that's not really a

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Speaker 1: powered object in the same way, like we launched it

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Speaker 1: and we sent it off in a space and it's

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Speaker 1: got a little bit of like nozzle and thruster for control,

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Speaker 1: but it's mostly just cruising. It's never really designed to

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Speaker 1: go at very high speed.

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Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned sort of an interesting idea, like what

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Speaker 2: if we gave it a whole bunch of acceleration at

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Speaker 2: the beginning, like if we exploded it out of a

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Speaker 2: gun or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so there are other ideas for how to get

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Speaker 1: something to another solar system other than just like do

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Speaker 1: a dumb rocket. There was a really fun idea in

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Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties called project Orion, which said, like,

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Speaker 1: let's blow up nuclear weapons behind the spaceship, so who

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Speaker 1: can like surf a wave of nuclear weapon explosions. This

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Speaker 1: is called project Orion.

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Speaker 2: This is yeah, I mean, what could go wrong?

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Speaker 1: This is Freeman Dyson's idea. And people kind of took

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Speaker 1: this semi seriously for a while until there was a

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Speaker 1: treaty saying no blowing up nuclear weapons in space, which

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Speaker 1: basically killed this whole plan.

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Speaker 2: But wait, so it's a political problem.

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Speaker 1: That's a political problem. Yes, And he wrote a paper

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Speaker 1: decades and decades ago estimating that this ship would take

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Speaker 1: between two hundred and one thousand years to get to

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Speaker 1: Alpha Centauri if it was powered by nuclear complosions.

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Speaker 2: WHOA, that's a long time. Do you think that's what

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Speaker 2: Charles meant? Do you think that's too long?

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Speaker 1: I think that's too long. I think you want to

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Speaker 1: send this thing and then have it send you back data,

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Speaker 1: like in the lifetime of a scientist. You know, you

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Speaker 1: can imagine somebody building this thing as a young scientist,

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Speaker 1: sending it out there, getting the data back before they

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Speaker 1: retire seems like a reasonable strategy. I'm all for multi

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Speaker 1: generational science projects, but it just seems like too long

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Speaker 1: to wait.

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Speaker 2: Well for you, because you're not the results exactly.

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Speaker 1: I want the answers.

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Speaker 2: Think about your grade grade grand kid scientist and how

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Speaker 2: excited they would be to receive a message from this probe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, as they're scratching out of living in a cave

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Speaker 1: somewhere when civilization has fallen and that data is beamed

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Speaker 1: back from that other solar system and then just splashes

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Speaker 1: on the ground totally ignored.

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Speaker 2: M I guess that's the other part of it, is

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Speaker 2: what can happen in a few hundred years exactly, Like

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Speaker 2: the United States, it is not even more than three

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Speaker 2: hundred years exactly.

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Speaker 1: So that's why people have been thinking about faster ways

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Speaker 1: to get stuff to other solar systems. There are other

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Speaker 1: ways to power these rockets, like ramjets, which are a

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Speaker 1: technique that scoop up fuel as you go, because you know,

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Speaker 1: space is not empty, it's filled with protons, and protons

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Speaker 1: are hydrogen and you can use that as propellant. So

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Speaker 1: there are techniques for like scooping up hydrogen and using

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Speaker 1: that along the way. But I think the most realistic

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Speaker 1: is actually maybe the most science fiction y, which is

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Speaker 1: a solar sail pushed along by lasers. And the idea

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Speaker 1: is to escape this rocket trap by not bringing your

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Speaker 1: fuel along at all. Just have a huge sail and

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Speaker 1: point a laser beam at it, and that'll push the

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Speaker 1: probe along and the probe doesn't have to carry the

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Speaker 1: fuel with it.

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Speaker 2: Well, you'd have to be really accurate, though, right, to

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Speaker 2: like shoot this tiny little probe in the middle space

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Speaker 2: really far away.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you would have to be accurate because these things

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Speaker 1: are tiny targets from like an angular point of view.

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Speaker 1: But in principle you could also maybe steer these things

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Speaker 1: a little bit. You have a magnetic fin that you

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Speaker 1: could use, you know, to take advantage of interstellar magnetic fields,

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Speaker 1: et cetera.

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Speaker 2: So if you do that, how fast can you get

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Speaker 2: a probe going?

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Speaker 1: So they suspect that if you build these things with

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Speaker 1: huge sales, we're talking kilometer sized sales, and you build

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Speaker 1: a huge beam of lasers, like a square kilometer array

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Speaker 1: of lasers that can pump out like giga WoT hours

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Speaker 1: of energy, then you could get these things realistically up

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Speaker 1: to ten or twenty percent of the speed of light,

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Speaker 1: which means they could reach the neighboring star system in

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Speaker 1: like twenty ish years.

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Speaker 2: WHOA, And with this fit within the budget that Charles

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Speaker 2: laid out.

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Speaker 1: It depends on energy costs. Mostly a few gigawatt hours

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Speaker 1: of energy is a pretty big fraction of our energy output.

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Speaker 1: If we can make energy production more efficient or somehow

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Speaker 1: harness energy from the Sun to power these lasers directly,

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Speaker 1: or something that would be more productive.

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Speaker 2: Could you just build like a giant magnifying glass to

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Speaker 2: fill this of the light from the sun put it

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Speaker 2: out there in space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, potentially. It's a funny thing to try to play

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Speaker 1: in these projects because you never know if you should

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Speaker 1: start building today or wait five years until the technology

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Speaker 1: has improved so that you could actually get your probe going. Faster,

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Speaker 1: Like which probe would actually arrive first, the one you

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Speaker 1: start building today or the one you start building in

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Speaker 1: ten years that might get up to a higher speed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Those giant magnifying glasses just keep getting better and

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Speaker 2: better every year.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course this challenge is in flight. Right

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Speaker 1: while you're flying from here to there, you have to

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Speaker 1: worry about like micrometeorites tearing your sale or destroying your

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Speaker 1: space probe or all sorts of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of what Charles asked as the second

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Speaker 2: part of his question is would the probe even survived

401
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Speaker 2: that long?

402
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Speaker 1: It's hard to say. And one of the current plans

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Speaker 1: I read from the Breakthrough Starshuk program is to send

404
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Speaker 1: a bunch of probes, like not an individual one, but

405
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Speaker 1: like a whole array of small probes. The idea of

406
00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:52,160
Speaker 1: being you're spreading your risk. But it is tricky because

407
00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:55,359
Speaker 1: even a tiny particle like a hundredth of a millimeter

408
00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:58,479
Speaker 1: in size at very high speed we're talking, you know,

409
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Speaker 1: twenty percent of the speed of LFE could basically destroy

410
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Speaker 1: that kind of probe.

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Speaker 2: Hmmm, even if you put it like a shield in front.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there is possibility to have shields. We talked about

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Speaker 1: on the podcast once to have these whipple shields, like

414
00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:12,800
Speaker 1: thin layers of graphite that might make it work. I

415
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:15,640
Speaker 1: did read an analysis of how likely these probes are

416
00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:19,359
Speaker 1: to survive, and the famous Avi Lobe says, quote, we

417
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Speaker 1: did a thorough analysis, taking all relevant physics into consideration.

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Speaker 1: We didn't see any showstoppers. But you know, thorough analysis

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Speaker 1: by Avi Lob. Who knows what that means.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure who Avi Lob is, but he sounds

421
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Speaker 2: very sure of himself.

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Speaker 1: Well, remember we talked about him on the podcast before.

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Speaker 1: He's the guy who claimed to have found interstellar material

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00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 1: from sperials under the ocean, and then planetary scientists came

425
00:19:42,760 --> 00:19:44,080
Speaker 1: along and they were like, yeah, you don't really know

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Speaker 1: what you're talking.

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Speaker 2: About, So where are we quoting him on the podcast?

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Speaker 1: Incredible, so we can dunk on him, of course.

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Speaker 2: But I guess maybe even a bigger question is even

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Speaker 2: we could get a probe that far, would it even

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Speaker 2: be able to talk to us? Because you know, sending

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Speaker 2: a signal that bar takes a lot of energy.

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00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:03,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tricky, and you're fighting the one over are squared,

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00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,680
Speaker 1: Like if you just broadcast from Earth, you might think

435
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,640
Speaker 1: our signals are pretty strong, but the signals get weaker

436
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:12,040
Speaker 1: and weaker, and if you're ten times further then the

437
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:14,480
Speaker 1: signals one hundred times weaker, and if you're a thousand

438
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:17,639
Speaker 1: times further, the signal gets a million times weaker. And

439
00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:20,439
Speaker 1: so broadcasts of that strength can't actually be picked up

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00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:23,840
Speaker 1: by technology that we have further than like a couple

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Speaker 1: of light years. And so in order to get a

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Speaker 1: signal from another solar system two hours, you don't want

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Speaker 1: to broadcast in every direction. You want as tight a

444
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:34,400
Speaker 1: beam as possible. And so if you have, for example,

445
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 1: a laser on board, it in principle could send you

446
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: a signal which would outshine that star in particular wavelengths

447
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:42,720
Speaker 1: that you could pick up.

448
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:45,119
Speaker 2: Interesting. All right, So it sounds like the answer for

449
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:48,600
Speaker 2: Charles is that, yeah, it is possible for us to

450
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 2: send a probe that goes to another planet, to the

451
00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:55,879
Speaker 2: nearest star and census back signals within the budget. We

452
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:57,840
Speaker 2: just kind of have to do it, right.

453
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an exciting moment because we're like and on

454
00:21:00,320 --> 00:21:02,720
Speaker 1: the edge of having all these technologies come together where

455
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:05,159
Speaker 1: we really could actually do this. It would still be

456
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:08,040
Speaker 1: very very expensive, but mostly I think at this point,

457
00:21:08,080 --> 00:21:11,000
Speaker 1: it's a political and organizational challenge. We're in the place.

458
00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:13,480
Speaker 1: We are in lots of scientific fields where we could

459
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:16,720
Speaker 1: buy knowledge about the universe. We have enough money. It's

460
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:18,520
Speaker 1: just a question of do we have the will, do

461
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:19,960
Speaker 1: we want it enough right?

462
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:21,800
Speaker 2: Do we want to buy it or do we want

463
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 2: to just leave it in our shopping cart for.

464
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:26,440
Speaker 1: A while, wait till the price goes down.

465
00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:32,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, wait for that sale. That's Cosmo Amazon sale in

466
00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 2: the sale on solar sales. But yeah, scientists, get on it, because,

467
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 2: let's face it, Daniel is not getting any younger, and

468
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:42,479
Speaker 2: he really wants to do these pics is before he dies.

469
00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not the only one who's not getting

470
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:46,960
Speaker 1: any younger. That's true of literally everybody.

471
00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 2: You seem especially to want to see these pictures.

472
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,800
Speaker 1: I do want to see these pictures. Absolutely, Yes, Congress,

473
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:54,880
Speaker 1: please send us one hundred million dollars we can spend

474
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:55,159
Speaker 1: on this.

475
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:59,359
Speaker 2: Or let's freeze Daniel and when we finally get the

476
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:01,240
Speaker 2: pictures back, well.

477
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 1: Wake them up the frosty. That sounds pretty good. I

478
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:08,680
Speaker 1: do have fantasies about freezing myself and waking up every

479
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: hundred years just to get like updated on physics. That

480
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:11,840
Speaker 1: would be pretty cool.

481
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, but just you, not your family.

482
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 1: Everybody else has to stay awake so they can do

483
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,160
Speaker 1: the physics and then I can get updated. Right, that's right.

484
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it sounds like you need to start

485
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 2: like a cult. Maybe you used to start by having

486
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:27,440
Speaker 2: a podcast.

487
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,920
Speaker 1: Perhaps maybe that was the plan the whole time.

488
00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 2: Maybe you read the numbers in our listener question titles.

489
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 2: You'll get instructions for how to how to join, how

490
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 2: to join the cult, and mix the kool aid?

491
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: Don't cult leaders usually like solicit donations from their members though,

492
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: we should have gotten on that.

493
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, maybe that's in the instructions or maybe you

494
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 2: should have put that in the instruction.

495
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, it's banking information.

496
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 2: All right. Well, thank you Charles for that question. Let's

497
00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 2: get to our next question. This one is kind of

498
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,199
Speaker 2: also about space prodes, but from a different perspective, so

499
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:04,919
Speaker 2: let's dig into that. But first let's take a quick break.

500
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,439
Speaker 2: All right, we're answering listener questions here today, and our

501
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 2: next question comes from Ted.

502
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:24,600
Speaker 1: Hi, Daniel and Joge.

503
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 2: Here's my question.

504
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,639
Speaker 3: I've always been fascinated by the voyager space probes and

505
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 3: their journey through our Solar System out into interstellar space.

506
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,400
Speaker 3: I believe it will be around forty thousand years until

507
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:43,440
Speaker 3: Voyager one will reach the proximity of another star. I've

508
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 3: always wondered if another civilization has sent a voyager like

509
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 3: probe in our direction and it passed through our Solar system,

510
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,480
Speaker 3: would be a even be able to detect the presence

511
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 3: of an object that size be If we were able

512
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 3: to detect it, would we be able to intercept it

513
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,640
Speaker 3: and bring it back to Earth so that we could

514
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 3: retrieve its gold record or the equivalent audio medium that

515
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 3: the alien civilization who sent it had included?

516
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: Thanks?

517
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 2: All right, pretty cool question. Basically, I feel like that

518
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:22,479
Speaker 2: question is couldn't Alien have probed us?

519
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a fun question. Couldn't Alien have probed us?

520
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 2: Or?

521
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 1: If alien probes arrive, could we even see them? To me,

522
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,439
Speaker 1: this is a really dark scenario that like an alien

523
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: voyager probe could pass to the Solar System and we

524
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 1: could not spot it. Oh my god, what a tragedy.

525
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 2: Well, maybe if we assume that you're assuming we want

526
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 2: to meet these aliens.

527
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: I don't need to assume that I want to meet

528
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 1: these aliens. I already know that somebody sends us a probe.

529
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 1: I want that thing. Oh my gosh, wouldn't you want

530
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: to see it?

531
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,880
Speaker 2: But I guess the question is how likely is it

532
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 2: that maybe we haven't seen a probe that has come

533
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 2: near us? Or maybe that's the main point, is it?

534
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 2: It depends on how close to us it flew.

535
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 1: Well, we're definitely sure we have not yet seen any

536
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: alien probes. I mean, unless the government has some secret

537
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: program and is captured in an alien probe and is

538
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: studying it at Area fifty nine or Area sixty two

539
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: or whatever. But let's assume that we have not yet

540
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: captured any alien probes. I think it's a fun question

541
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: to explore, like could we see an alien probes? Like

542
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: if one hundred aliens shot their probes in our solar system,

543
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: what fraction of those could we see right?

544
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 2: And seeing them meaning like we see them with their

545
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:28,919
Speaker 2: naked eye right or with some sort of radar.

546
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a lot of technology to spot these things.

547
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: I mean, number one, if they somehow still have power

548
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: after their ten thousand year journey to our solar system

549
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: and they're broadcasting, then yeah, we're going to spot them.

550
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: You know, because any signal like that we will capture.

551
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 2: Wait, why would they need to have been space that long?

552
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 2: Couldn't they do the same thing we just did in

553
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 2: the first question, And maybe the probe is only twenty

554
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 2: years old.

555
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's possible. And space craft can have like nuclear

556
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: powered batteries, they can last four decades, and so it's

557
00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 1: certainly possible that you know, they send a solar sale

558
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: or they have some even better technology and it gets

559
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: here and it still has power. But broadcasting takes a

560
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: lot of energy, and so it seemed unlikely to me.

561
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: But that's possible, and that would be easy, right if

562
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: an alien probe comes and is sending signals in some

563
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: band that we're monitoring, yeah, we're going to spot that.

564
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: I think the harder thing is some like dead relic

565
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: of an ancient civilization that's floating through our solar system.

566
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 1: Could we spot that?

567
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 2: Well, it's sort of I feel like it's the same problem,

568
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 2: Like it could also be a probe, but maybe it's

569
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 2: sending laser signals back to its own planet that we

570
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 2: can't see, right, so it.

571
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: Could be silently spying on us.

572
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I guess the question is if something

573
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 2: that was not naturally occurring, like a meteorite was flying

574
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 2: around us, around the Earth, Could we first of all

575
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: spot it and could we tell that it is not

576
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:49,360
Speaker 2: an asteroid?

577
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 1: What media clue would be its trajectory? Like, we monitor

578
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: a lot of things in the Solar System and we

579
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: measure their orbits, mostly because we're curious about whether they're

580
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: going to slam into the Earth. Has been monitoring asteroids

581
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: and comets and all sorts of stuff, and most of

582
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: those orbits are consistent with having gone around the Sun

583
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 1: a bunch of times. But sometimes, very rarely, very occasionally,

584
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: we see something that clearly is coming into the Solar

585
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: System that was not gravitationally bound by the Sun. The

586
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: most famous example is O Muamoa, which is a rock

587
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 1: that came from another Solar system just like drifted through ours.

588
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: We spotted that because of its weird trajectory. That's what

589
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: made it different from all the other rocks in the

590
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: Solar system.

591
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 2: Right, Like, maybe Omo was an alien probe from an

592
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 2: alien civilization.

593
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, now you're sounding like a vilobe, right, That

594
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: was his other claim.

595
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, maybe I'm necessarily after thorough analysis, I

596
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 2: can tell, let's say, alien probe.

597
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And that's what makes these things so exciting, Right,

598
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: they're coming from another solar system. Are they just a

599
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: chunk of ice or rock, or are they actually a

600
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: relic from another civilization, et cetera, et cetera. And so

601
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: we want to study these things. But the exciting thing

602
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 1: is that we can usually tell if something is interstellar

603
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: or if it's part of our solar system. So these

604
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: things stand out because of their motion and because we're

605
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: trying to track things moving in our solar system. We're

606
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 1: pretty good at spotting those things.

607
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 2: M I thought you were going to say that we

608
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: could tell it's an alien pro because maybe it's not

609
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 2: going in a straight line or maybe not going in

610
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 2: a natural sort of gravitational orbit line.

611
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: Absolutely, that's an important factor as well. Like number one

612
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: is where do we think it came from? Number two

613
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,400
Speaker 1: is is it moving gravitationally? Like If it's moving as

614
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: if the only forces on it are due to gravity,

615
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: gravity the Sun and Jupiter, etc. Then that makes it

616
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 1: more likely to just be like a rock or a

617
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: chunk of ice. But if it's thrusting, if it's accelerating,

618
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: if it's deviating from a gravitational path, then it's almost

619
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: certainly not natural. Although in the case again of Omuamua,

620
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: that thing was not just moving gravitationally. There was a

621
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: little bit of thrust, though now we're pretty sure that

622
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: was due to ice boiling off the back of it

623
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: as it left the Solar System, which provided a little

624
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: push hmmm.

625
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 2: Or I guess you know, just sort of how we

626
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 2: do it with our space probes. We basically only do

627
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 2: small corrections every once in a while, right, Like we

628
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 2: when we plan out the navigation of our space pros,

629
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 2: we try to make it as natural as possible, right,

630
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 2: because that saves you the most amount of energy.

631
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: Exactly. We're very sparing with our use of that fuel

632
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: because you can't put a lot on board. It makes

633
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: the thing heavy and you have a long way to go.

634
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: It's a voyager, for example, still has a little bit

635
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 1: of fuel left, even decades and decades after it took off,

636
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: because mostly its trajectory was determined by gravitational slingshots around

637
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: Solar System objects.

638
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 2: So it's possible we may not be able to detect

639
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 2: this probe by studying its path.

640
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: That's right, though, if it comes from outside the Solar System.

641
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: I think we would identify it as a non Solar

642
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: system object, but that depends on whether we can see it.

643
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: Like we can see stuff in the Solar System, but

644
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: we can't see everything. You know, the Sun is bright,

645
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: but it doesn't light up all of space in the

646
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: way that you can see every rock. Rocks have to

647
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: be like shiny enough and big enough and oriented the

648
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: right way for the light to bounce off of them

649
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: and come to Earth. There's a lot of dark rocks

650
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 1: in the Solar System we've never seen.

651
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 2: Before, right, and a lot of tiny rocks that we

652
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: just can see. They're too small for us to even notice.

653
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And most of the stuff we've seen in

654
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: the Solar System is bigger than like the Voyager probe.

655
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: We can see smaller rocks, but they have to be

656
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of brighter. So we've seen all the big rocks

657
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: in the Solar System. We're very confident about that. But

658
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: as the rock size gets smaller and smaller, then the

659
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: fraction of them we've seen starts to drop pretty quickly.

660
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: So certainly is possible for an interstellar probe to enter

661
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: the Solar System. And if it's dark enough and small

662
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: enough for us to not notice.

663
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, omoom Wo was huge and we still

664
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: can definitively tell right, we can't get a closer picture

665
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 2: of it.

666
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: Oh mum Woo was pretty big and we couldn't study definitively.

667
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: One reason is that we didn't really identify it until

668
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: it was already past its point of closest approach, so

669
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: zipping away from us in the Solar System. If we

670
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: spotted these things sooner, and we could identify them before

671
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 1: for they had their closest approach to Earth, then there's

672
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: a possibility we could like rapidly launch something to intercept it,

673
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: or at least come near it and like snap a

674
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:11,959
Speaker 1: bunch of quick photos. But oh Mumu was so frustrating

675
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: because it's basically too late to launch anything to go

676
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: sample it or take pictures of it. It was already

677
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: zipping on its way out of the Solar System.

678
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 2: And oh, I feel like we just happened to have

679
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 2: seen it. Is it possible we've missed other o'mu moos

680
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 2: in the near past or will miss them in the

681
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 2: near future.

682
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: It's certainly possible. Omoomu is something we spotted pretty soon

683
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: after we turned on a new set of telescopes, the

684
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: pan Stars telescopes, which are excellent at this So now

685
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: that we have those guys operating and we're building more

686
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: of these things in the future, I think we're just

687
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: increasing our chances of spotting these things. But there's always

688
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: a chance that we miss them. Right, you have to

689
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: be looking in the right place at the right time,

690
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: and we have a tiny number of eyeballs scanning a

691
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: very large solar system. We should definitely be spending more

692
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: money on telescopes.

693
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,239
Speaker 2: Well, here's a question. What if the Aliens designed a

694
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: stealth space prow Could they do that? Could they design

695
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 2: it in a way that maybe doesn't reflect light or

696
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 2: reflects it, you know, like maybe it has weird angular

697
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 2: mirrors in its surface that would make it super duper

698
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 2: hard to spot.

699
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you basically just paint the thing black and

700
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 1: it's invisible. If it absorbs the radiation instead of reflecting it,

701
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: then it's gonna be very very hard for us to

702
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: see it.

703
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: M what if they paint it infinite black or infinite dark, then.

704
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: They're going to owe you license because.

705
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 2: That'shactly, Maybe I sold them to paint.

706
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: Maybe you're an alien, And this whole question is just

707
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: to try to figure out how to sneak by our defenses.

708
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 2: Yes, that's my cult. Then I'm starting, but I want

709
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 2: to hide the code for sending me money. Just got

710
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 2: to hoorhead Han dot com and use the Venmo coat.

711
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 2: All right, So it sounds like the answer for Ted

712
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 2: is that, yeah, it's totally possible. Then an alien species

713
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 2: has sent approach to us and taking pictures of us,

714
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: study does and we could have maybe not noticed at all.

715
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: It is possible. I think it's not likely unless they're

716
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: trying to hide it because we have pretty good telescope

717
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: scanning the solar system. So I think at least it

718
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: helps me sleep better at night to think that we

719
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: have a pretty good chance of spotting an alien voyager.

720
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 2: But well, I guess also, I mean, usually we only

721
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 2: have a pretty good view of half of this guy, right, Like,

722
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 2: what if they're smart enough to come at us from

723
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 2: the sun.

724
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be much more difficult if it comes

725
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: from behind the sun and then around the sun and

726
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: then straight at us. You know, like a fighter pilot

727
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: coming in from the sun.

728
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

729
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 1: If you're intentionally sneaky, it would not be hard to

730
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: go unnoticed. But if you're friendly and you're trying to

731
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: advertise your existence, then it's not that hard to build

732
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: something which with a good probability of being seen.

733
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 2: But technically, I think the answer is it is totally possible.

734
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: It is totally possible.

735
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 2: Yes, we've been probed, well, probe up.

736
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: There was it up the intellectual wazoo.

737
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that's right, it's a family friendly podcast. All right, well,

738
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 2: thank you Ted for that question. Now let's get to

739
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 2: our last question, and this one is about splitting the electron,

740
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 2: so that's not split hairs about it. Let's get to it.

741
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:22,320
Speaker 2: But first let's take another quick break. Robert answering listener

742
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 2: questions here today, and our last question comes from Inyaki.

743
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 5: Hi Danielle lan Jorge. I was curious about the possibility

744
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 5: that in certain specialized state of matter, electrons can splinter

745
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 5: into a fraction of their whole, splitting the electron chart,

746
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 5: what will be amazing? Thank you, very great podcasts.

747
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 2: All right, interesting question. It seems to be about this

748
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,399
Speaker 2: idea that they have in certain field to physics where

749
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 2: you have like fractional electrons.

750
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. I think that this question is stimulated by

751
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: a bunch of news articles that came out that were

752
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: little sensationalist about something that was discovered in condensed matter

753
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: physics that led people to believe that the fundamental electron

754
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: that we know and love has somehow been split into

755
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: sub electrons with fractions of an electric charge. WHOA.

756
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 2: That was actually in the news.

757
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: There was a bunch of popular science news articles describing

758
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: these studies and giving people that impression. I know because

759
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 1: I got like ten emails from listeners asking about it.

760
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: What were some of the headlines.

761
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: Here's one from MIT News that says, quote, electrons become

762
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:32,399
Speaker 1: fractions of themselves.

763
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: WHOA, that is pretty sensational and from MIT.

764
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: And it says in the article, in very special states

765
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: of matter, electrons can splinter into fractions of their whole. WHOA.

766
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 2: That does sound like you're splitting the electron. So what's

767
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 2: really going on here?

768
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 1: So first of all, number one, we have not split

769
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: the electron. Okay, that's not what has happened here. Instead,

770
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: they've created some new kind of funky material that displays

771
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 1: some new weird property, and there's like a layer of

772
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: condensed matter theory interpretation on top of that that says

773
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: that it's sort of like if you had fractional electrons.

774
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:10,800
Speaker 2: I feel like that was a lot of legalise there

775
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 2: in your explanation there. So what was the experiment was

776
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 2: it that they did?

777
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: This is the whole field of physics, soft mataphysics or

778
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: condensed mataphysics that tries to build new, weird kinds of

779
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: materials in order to force electrons and other particles to

780
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,879
Speaker 1: do weird quantum stuff. So in this case, they're using

781
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: graphene to these regular lattices of carbon. They use it

782
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 1: because it has strange electronic properties, like the electrons sometimes

783
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: can only move basically in two dimensions in between the

784
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: layers of graphene. So what they do is they make

785
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: structures of graphene. So they have like five layers of graphene.

786
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: And you remember, to make these layers of graphene is

787
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,800
Speaker 1: actually quite tricky, use like Scotch tape the stuff. Yeah,

788
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 1: to put like thin layers of graphine off and actually

789
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: have these super thin like two dimensional stuff. And what

790
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 1: happens when you build these things is electrons behave in

791
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 1: new weird ways. Now, this is not changing what the

792
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 1: electron is. The electron is not being split, The electron

793
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: is not new. We're not looking inside the electron. What's

794
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: happening here is that we're putting a new interpretation on

795
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: what we're seeing. This is what we call quasi particles.

796
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: You know, particles are like ripples and fundamental quantum fields.

797
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: Quasi particles are things that obey the same mathematics as particles,

798
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 1: but are ripples in things that are not fundamental fields.

799
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: Like for example, sound is a ripple in air, right,

800
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: but air is not like a fundamental field in the universe.

801
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: It's just a bunch of atoms. But still you can

802
00:37:37,640 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: talk about sound in terms of like phonons, particles of

803
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: sound moving through the air. So you can use that

804
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: kind of mathematics to talk about ripples in stuff that

805
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: are not fundamental quantum fields. So when you make electrons

806
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: operate in this weird way inside graphene, then what you're

807
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 1: doing is you're making them operate in a way that

808
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: they create these quasi particles, some of which have fractional

809
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: electric charge. But they're not like new fundamental particles we're

810
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 1: discovering in the universe. It's just like a layer of

811
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 1: mathematical interpretation on top of the complicated stuff that the

812
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 1: electrons are doing underneath.

813
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 2: Right. I think We've done a few episodes on this,

814
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 2: and the idea is that, you know, sometimes it's sort

815
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 2: of like things like bubbles in water, right, Like a

816
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 2: bubble in water is not really a particle of something

817
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: or water. It's just sort of like the absence or

818
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 2: a little void of water and it sort of behaves.

819
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 2: It looks like a thing because it's moving through the

820
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: water and it's bubbling up, and you think, oh, there's

821
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 2: a little circle that moves up, But it's not actually

822
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 2: a particle or a thing. It's just sort of a

823
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 2: void of water molecules that's moving together as if it

824
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 2: was a thing.

825
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And let's take that example and run with it.

826
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:51,760
Speaker 1: Say you try to then measure properties of that void

827
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, what is the mass of it?

828
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: And you're like, oh, well, compared to the water, there's

829
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: no mass there. So we could imagine having like negative mass.

830
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: Could we use negative mass in our mathematics to describe

831
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,399
Speaker 1: the motion of these things? And that's essentially what's happening here,

832
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: is that they're adding a layer of mathematics on top

833
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: of this condensed matter experiment where lots of electrons are

834
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: swooshing around and obeying weird mathematics quantum mechanics, and in

835
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 1: that mathematics they use fractional electric charges. That doesn't mean

836
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 1: they've seen any fundamental particles with fractional electric charges. It

837
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: just means that, like when the electrons get together, they

838
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: do a complicated dance, and you can interpret that at

839
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: a sort of a higher level when you zoom out,

840
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: as if there were least quasi particles with fractional electric charges.

841
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way I understand it, it's sort of like

842
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 2: you have this layer of graphene, right, and you have

843
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 2: these electrons kind of on the surface of that layer,

844
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 2: and they're just moving around like in a two dimensional table,

845
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 2: and sometimes you get these bubbles in that sea of electrons,

846
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 2: and those bubbles then have like a fractional charge of

847
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 2: the electrons. Is that sort of a good way to

848
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 2: look at it.

849
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:58,720
Speaker 1: That's a good way to look at it. They're actually

850
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 1: a p probate using the quantum Hall effect, which is

851
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: a complicated effect that electrons can do when you have

852
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 1: an electric current one direction in a magnetic field and

853
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: another direction. And so they're observing not just the quantum

854
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: Hall effect, but the fractional quantum Hall effect. That's what

855
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: this experiment is actually about. But you're right, essentially, they're

856
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 1: looking at the emergent behavior of a bunch of electrons

857
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:23,320
Speaker 1: doing weird things. And you know, all these popular science

858
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:25,399
Speaker 1: articles that are talking about it, none of them really

859
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: explain what the quantum Hall effect is because it's really

860
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: complicated and kind of a mess to understand if you're

861
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 1: not deep into condensed matter theory. So I totally understand

862
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: like why they didn't dig into the details of it,

863
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: But I think it's a little misleading to write that

864
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: they've split the electron into fractional charges because they really

865
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: haven't done that.

866
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: Well. I think maybe what they mean then is sort

867
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 2: of like they created something that behaves like a particle

868
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:51,240
Speaker 2: that has the fractional charge of an electron.

869
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:52,319
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.

870
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 2: So then you maybe get into a little bit of

871
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 2: philosophy of like is that actually a thing or not

872
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 2: a thing? How do you even know that electrons are

873
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 2: a thing?

874
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, electrons are a thing and they have a certain charge.

875
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: We don't know that they're a fundamental thing, right, totally

876
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 1: find a zoom out and say, look, here's the thing,

877
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: even if it's made out of other stuff, Like we

878
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: call the proton a thing. It has a charge, but

879
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,439
Speaker 1: it's actually made of other charge things inside of it. Right,

880
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: It might also be true of the electron, And that

881
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: would be very exciting. If you could take the electron

882
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: apart into little bits and show that it's a charge

883
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,280
Speaker 1: of negative one comes from other little fractional charge bits,

884
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 1: that would be very cool. That would fundamentally change our

885
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: understanding of the nature of reality. That's not something we've

886
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 1: done here today. That would be huge milestone.

887
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 2: But I wonder if it's possible that, you know, maybe

888
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 2: the electron fields are not quite what we expect, and

889
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,919
Speaker 2: when they mix together they somehow do create these sort

890
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 2: of things that are fractional charge and maybe they're just

891
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: as real as the electrons.

892
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is totally a fascinating and valuable direction

893
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 1: of research. But it's not asking what is the electron

894
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: field made out of? Fundamentally, what is it's nature. It's

895
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: asking what complicated stuff can the electron field do under

896
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: certain conditions. This is not telling us anything about the

897
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: nature of the electron. It's telling us about the complexity

898
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: that arises when a bunch of electrons come together. And

899
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: so that's fascinating totally worthwhile.

900
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 2: Right.

901
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: The whole field of candense matter physics is basically that

902
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: what complicated stuff can a bunch of tiny particles do

903
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 1: when they get together, And it turns out, Wow, they

904
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 1: can do all sorts of amazing complicated stuff bananas, an

905
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 1: ice cream and people and superconductors and all that stuff.

906
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: It's glorious. But none of that tells us anything about

907
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: the nature of the electron itself, which is I think

908
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: what this article was suggesting.

909
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 2: Could it maybe could it? You know, by finding out that, oh,

910
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 2: these are electron fields makes in a weird way that

911
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 2: we didn't think of before. Maybe they're not fundamental.

912
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. By exploring what the electron field is doing,

913
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 1: you might see some discrepancies from your predictions that point

914
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: towards clues that tell you that you're understanding the electron

915
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,759
Speaker 1: field is wrong. Yeah. Absolutely. That also is not what's

916
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: happened here. Like the fraction quantum Hall effect was predicted,

917
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: it's understood theoretically, it had never been seen before experimentally,

918
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: So that's cool, But again, it doesn't tell us anything

919
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: new about the electron field itself. That doesn't mean again,

920
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 1: this is not a valuable area of research. And if

921
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: they see something weird and unexpected, they could lead to

922
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 1: a discovery that does help us unravel what the electron

923
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: field is. But this is more about like what do

924
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 1: electrons do when we combine them into weird ways than

925
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 1: like what is the electron itself?

926
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 2: All right? Well, then to ask for Nyiki is that

927
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: they did not split the electron, or at least Daniel

928
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 2: doesn't like an interpretation of the results, But it may

929
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 2: I'll be telling us a little bit more about the

930
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 2: nature of the electron and what it can do, and

931
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 2: what it's made out of, and whether it could maybe

932
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 2: be split in the future exactly.

933
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: And questions of the fundamental nature of the universe are

934
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: not the only valuable science questions. We can do science

935
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: at the tiniest scale to try to reveal what are

936
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: the basic units of the universe, but there's still a

937
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,280
Speaker 1: lot of really important open questions about what those basic

938
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: units do when they come together and how they make

939
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: the complexity of our world. Science is valuable at all

940
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,399
Speaker 1: sorts of different scales, from like psychology all the way

941
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: down to particle physics. All of it is teaching us

942
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: something about our wonderful universe.

943
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 2: Now, does that include cult studies.

944
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 1: Also, absolutely, yes, can two podcasters raise millions of dollars

945
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,240
Speaker 1: to fund their interstellar probe? That's a fascinating question of science.

946
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 2: Yes, and the answer is hidden in the numbers of

947
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 2: our listener question titles.

948
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: And in Jorges Venmo code. Yes, that's right.

949
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 2: I'll give you the answer if you pay. How about that?

950
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: Oh man, you better come up with the answer then.

951
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 2: All right. Well, thanks to all of our question askers

952
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 2: for these great questions, and thanks to all of you

953
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 2: for listening to our listener questions.

954
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 1: Thanks to everybody who writes in with their questions. I

955
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: love reading them, I love answering them. Please don't stop

956
00:44:57,200 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: sending them, and don't stop being curious about the universe.

957
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 1: Your personal curiosity about science and about the universe that's

958
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: pushing forward the whole human project of science and exploration

959
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: of our gospels.

960
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: That's right, Daniel, I think you're saying, don't stop believing.

961
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 2: Just listen to that feeling. All right, Well, weeled you

962
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 2: enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, See you.

963
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: Next time for more science and curiosity. Come find us

964
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,320
Speaker 1: on social media, where we answer questions and post videos.

965
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, disc org, Insta and now TikTok. Thanks

966
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the

967
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 1: Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

968
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

969
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.