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Speaker 1: People have wanted to know the answer to the question

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Speaker 1: what is the universe made of? Since we've been asking

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Speaker 1: questions about anything, it seems a reasonable thing to want

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Speaker 1: to know the answer to what am I made of?

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Speaker 1: What are you made of? What are kittens made of?

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Speaker 1: Lava or stars? Around us? We see an incredible complexity.

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Speaker 1: We want to know if there's a simple explanation for

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Speaker 1: this glorious universe. Does it have some kind of basic bits,

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Speaker 1: a small number of which interact in complex ways so

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Speaker 1: that from their toing and froing emerges all of the

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Speaker 1: complexity of chemistry and biology. We've made some good progress

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Speaker 1: on that question, and we now know that you and

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Speaker 1: I and kittens are made of three kinds of particles,

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Speaker 1: of quarks, down quarks, and electrons, and in basically the

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Speaker 1: same proportion. What makes you you and what may lava

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Speaker 1: lava is not the bits they're made of, but how

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Speaker 1: they're put together. You are your arrangement of particles. And

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Speaker 1: we figured most of that out by doing something pretty simple.

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Speaker 1: Take this stuff around us, usually electrons or protons, and

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Speaker 1: smash you together to study what comes out, and we

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Speaker 1: found all sorts of exotic matter, muons, other quarks, higgs, bosons,

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Speaker 1: stuff that isn't part of the atom. But what if

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Speaker 1: we flipped the script and smashed some of that exotic

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Speaker 1: matter together? What could come out? What might we learn?

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Speaker 1: How could we even do that? We're going to dive

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Speaker 1: into all that today on the episode Welcome to Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Kelly's extraordinarily smashy Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Kelly Smith study parasites and space. And while Daniel

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Speaker 2: gets away with smashing particles into each other all day long,

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Speaker 2: I feel like I would get in trouble if I

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Speaker 2: smash fish into each other all day long. So I

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Speaker 2: feel like maybe there's a double standard.

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Speaker 1: Here, Kelly. I don't think fish need you to smash

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Speaker 1: I think they do it all by themselves out there

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Speaker 1: in the ocean.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they're not super smart, but they're not that dumb. Daniel.

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

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Speaker 1: smashing particles. But I'll smash just about anything together.

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Speaker 2: Oh and you know, I hope this goes without saying,

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Speaker 2: but I don't actually want to smash fish together. I

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Speaker 2: like fish a lot, So Daniel. Today, I want to

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Speaker 2: know what is the most surprising thing about working at Cern.

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Speaker 1: I think one of the most surprising things about working

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Speaker 1: at Cerne is the natural beauty of the environment. There

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Speaker 1: you are in this valley surrounded by incredible mountains. You

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Speaker 1: have like the Alps on one side, you have the

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Speaker 1: Zura on the other side, you have the sin on

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Speaker 1: another side, so it's already gorgeous. And then the valley

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Speaker 1: is mostly filled with vineyards and sunflower fields. So summers

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Speaker 1: i was there, I was biking to work through vineyards

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Speaker 1: and then fields of like millions and millions of sunflowers.

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Speaker 1: It's just really astonishingly incredible setting. And so I love

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Speaker 1: sending students there because of course their minds are blown

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Speaker 1: by the science but also by the beautiful nature.

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Speaker 2: And then you go inside and it's physicists wearing socks

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Speaker 2: and sandals and they kind of stink, and the juxtaposition

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Speaker 2: is just absolutely overwhelming and surprising. Is that is that

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Speaker 2: where this was going? No, it's just no, Kelly, No.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. No, it's a wonderful surprise to bonus. When

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Speaker 1: you go to Cern, you're there for the science. Plus

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Speaker 1: also it's in one of the most beautiful places in

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Speaker 1: the world. So yay yay.

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Speaker 2: That does sound amazing, and I love physicists and my

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Speaker 2: husband wears socks and sandals, so I have learned to

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Speaker 2: live with that.

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Speaker 1: Well, I have a pop quiz question for you, Kelly.

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Speaker 2: Oh oh okay, what is.

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Speaker 1: Your best off the cuff prinunciation of the particle we're

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Speaker 1: talking about today?

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Speaker 3: Uh?

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Speaker 2: Oh uh mwon. Isn't that right? Mwon? That's one right,

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Speaker 2: everybody is shot everyone. I could have maybe mealon, I

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Speaker 2: could try to make some cat jokes, but no, I

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Speaker 2: got this one where you've probably said this particle many

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Speaker 2: times on the show, and I guess.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, because the most common mispronunciation is MoU on,

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Speaker 1: like what a cow might say, but it's mew on,

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Speaker 1: like the Greek letter mew.

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Speaker 2: All right, well, so here here is getting into my head.

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Speaker 2: When I hear a wrong pronunciation, I start getting really

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Speaker 2: fixated on it because I don't want to say that,

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Speaker 2: and so I will probably say muon at some point

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Speaker 2: in the show now because my brain sabotages me at

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Speaker 2: every corner. So on today's show, we're talking about smashing

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Speaker 2: muons together.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, we are we willing to understand the nature of

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Speaker 1: the universe, and we will do just about anything to

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Speaker 1: get there, from building ten billion dollar particle collis in

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Speaker 1: incredible natural settings to inviting aliens to come and tell

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Speaker 1: us the secrets of the universe. We are just desperate

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Speaker 1: to know here on the show. But you might be wondering,

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Speaker 1: why would anybody smash muans together? Don't we have enough

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Speaker 1: other stuff to smash together? So that's today's topic. Before

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Speaker 1: we dive in, I went out there and asked our

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Speaker 1: listeners what they thought we could learn from smashing muons together.

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Speaker 1: Here's what folks had to say.

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Speaker 4: And then we could learn what other sub atomic particles

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Speaker 4: muons decay into, and that could help us better understand

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Speaker 4: the fundamental building blocks of matter in the universe.

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Speaker 1: Fractions of.

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Speaker 3: Particles, just the importance of spending mutual activity time together.

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Speaker 3: And oh wait, you've been smashing them into each other.

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Speaker 3: I'd say that's probably tetriquarks. Then we could underlock much

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Speaker 3: larger energies.

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Speaker 1: We could learn what's inside.

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Speaker 3: Of them, create a kind of a some sort of

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Speaker 3: exotic state of matter.

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Speaker 1: Are mouons something that cows emit? If there were two

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Speaker 1: back to back and the emitted moons and they collided,

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Speaker 1: what a smell? Oh my?

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Speaker 2: We could learn about the arc energy.

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Speaker 1: Release some massive type of energy. This could be used

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Speaker 1: for possible applications for nuclear fusion.

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Speaker 3: Maybe it could be the best way to make chocolate.

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Speaker 4: Why we could learn the secrets of the universe and why.

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Speaker 4: But seriously, I think it would be interesting to delve

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Speaker 4: into a heavy electron essentially and maybe find out if

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Speaker 4: there's something below that, if it's made of something.

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Speaker 1: The constituents and why they decay into neutrinos and anti neutrinos.

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Speaker 1: So smashing luons is a new band that's taking over

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Speaker 1: from Smashing pumpkins.

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Speaker 3: So first of all, you spell moons wrong, and by

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Speaker 3: smashing moons together you would learn how to become very

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Speaker 3: bad as supervidin.

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Speaker 5: So it seems like because muons have greater mastering electrons

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Speaker 5: but the same charge, it should be easier for us

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Speaker 5: to see evidence of gravitational attraction between them.

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Speaker 2: We could learn what happens if you smash muons together.

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Speaker 3: See what makes up these particles, and maybe get a

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Speaker 3: better idea of how the universe is made up.

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Speaker 2: Amazing answers, And if you would like to be an

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Speaker 2: extraordinary who shares their thoughts with us, go ahead and

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Speaker 2: write us at questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org

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Speaker 2: and will put you on our question list.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and these are some hilarious answers. I'd love

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Speaker 1: to see the band Smashing Muons performed live.

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Speaker 2: I like the one that said you spelled moons wrong exactly.

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Speaker 1: I would love to build a moon collider. Wow, that

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Speaker 1: would be amazing. We would learn so much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, Daniel's always willing to risk humanity for the

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Speaker 2: sake of learning something about physics. I am not on board.

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Speaker 1: I think the answer about gravity was super interesting because

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Speaker 1: because they're right that muons have more mass, and it's

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Speaker 1: tempting to think, ooh, does that mean that we could

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Speaker 1: use them to study gravity? But remember gravity is crazy

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Speaker 1: week like ten to the thirty times weaker than other forces.

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Speaker 1: So even though muons have more mass, you're not going

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Speaker 1: to see their gravitational attraction.

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Speaker 5: Boo.

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Speaker 2: You all just haven't figured out a way to really

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Speaker 2: address that question.

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Speaker 1: Have you. No. I have figured it out. I just

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Speaker 1: haven't gotten the funds for you to keep writing proposals

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Speaker 1: for my black hole collider and to keep coming back

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Speaker 1: saying no.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck, good luck. I don't think anybody should

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Speaker 2: give you like a species annihilating tool because you might

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Speaker 2: use it.

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Speaker 1: But all right, I will one hundred percent use it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, okay, nobody fun Daniel. All right, let's start by

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Speaker 2: talking a little bit about like how we go about

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Speaker 2: smashing particles together in a controlled way, So like why

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Speaker 2: do we build particle smashing colliders and how do we

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Speaker 2: build them?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, why do we build them? Because because they're there?

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Speaker 2: No, come on, do you know that he died summoning Everest?

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Speaker 1: Oh boy? Yeah, right, Well I'm willing to die to

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Speaker 1: learn the secrets of the universe. Yes, I will press

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Speaker 1: the big red button on that crazy collider. No, we

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Speaker 1: are not just here to ant humanity. We are here

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Speaker 1: to learn the secrets of the universe. And there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of unanswered questions about particle physics that we think

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Speaker 1: building particle smashers can help us answer. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: we know that the world around us is made out

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Speaker 1: of protons and neutrons and electrons. Inside those protons and

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Speaker 1: electrons are quarks. So we have the upcork, the down cork,

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Speaker 1: and the electron make up everything we know and love.

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Speaker 1: And what you had for lunch today and what you're

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Speaker 1: going to have for lunch tomorrow and the next day

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Speaker 1: and basically forever. But we also know that those three

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Speaker 1: particles can't explain everything that's out there in the universe.

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Speaker 1: But there are other exotic states that matter out there,

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Speaker 1: Like the electron has its heavy cousin, the muon and

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Speaker 1: an even heavier cousin the tao. The quarks have heavy

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Speaker 1: cusin as well, charm and strange and top and bottom,

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Speaker 1: and then there's three neutrinos. So we have this periodic

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Speaker 1: table of the fundamental particles, has these twelve particles, and

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Speaker 1: only three of which are needed to make up the

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Speaker 1: matter that we know and love and have for lunch

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Speaker 1: every day. And so we have lots of questions about

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Speaker 1: that table, like why are there so many particles, Why

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Speaker 1: there's such a big range of masses. What's the relationship

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Speaker 1: between the electron and the quarks? Their electric charges balance

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Speaker 1: very very nicely to make hydrogen, but nobody really understands why.

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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of unanswered questions about particle physics

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Speaker 1: we'd love to answer, and a particle collider is a great.

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Speaker 2: Way to do that, all right, So muons are like

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Speaker 2: electrons right after the Thanksgiving Christmas season, how what is

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Speaker 2: it that makes muons heavier than electrons?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, great question, So muons are not electrons that got heavier.

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Speaker 1: Electrons and muons are very very similar, so we categorize

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Speaker 1: them in the same way, or of the way you

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Speaker 1: might like group carbon and silicon together. They have a

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Speaker 1: lot of similar properties. They're in the same part of

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Speaker 1: periodic table, but they're not the same. A muon is

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Speaker 1: like an electron in that it has the same electric charge, right,

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Speaker 1: they're both charged minus one, and it doesn't feel the

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Speaker 1: strong force, so it's very similar there, and it's the

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Speaker 1: same weak force charges, so that's all very similar. But

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Speaker 1: it has more mass, and you ask why does it

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Speaker 1: have more mass? Well, the Higgs boson gives it more mass,

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Speaker 1: so masses of these particles come from their interactions with

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Speaker 1: the Higgs boson. So the muon interacts with the Higgs

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Speaker 1: more than the electron does and gets more mass. That's

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Speaker 1: kind of an answer to the question because you say, well,

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Speaker 1: why do you have more mass because you interact more

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Speaker 1: with the Higgs. But it sort of kicks the question

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Speaker 1: down the road to like, Okay, why does the muon

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Speaker 1: interact with the Higgs more? We don't know that's just

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Speaker 1: a number we've measured in the universe, and we don't

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Speaker 1: have any explanation for it. So why is the muon heavier?

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Speaker 1: We don't know. Why is it how even heavier? We

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Speaker 1: don't know. Why is the top super duper crazy heavy

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Speaker 1: compared to all these particles. We don't know. These are

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Speaker 1: questions we don't have answers to. We're just like looking

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Speaker 1: at the pattern of the masses and going, hmmm, there's

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Speaker 1: probably something going on here, And in one hundred years

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Speaker 1: people will look back and be like, it was so

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Speaker 1: obvious yet idiots, Come on, I would have won a

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Speaker 1: Nobel Prize if I was a physicist in twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: But you know, science is not linear. It's not just

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Speaker 1: like some path in your video game. When you're standing

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Speaker 1: at the forefront of human ignorance, it's not obvious to

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Speaker 1: know what is the right way forward.

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Speaker 2: So in a previous episode, I remember you telling us

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Speaker 2: that we don't know if electrons are fundamental or not

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Speaker 2: because you all have like tried to break it apart

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Speaker 2: a bunch of different ways and none of them have worked.

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Speaker 2: Do we think they will break apart if you smash

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Speaker 2: them together?

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Speaker 1: We certainly hope. So we don't know. You're right, We

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Speaker 1: have not seen inside the electron, and we don't know

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Speaker 1: if smashing me want together will reveal their inner bits.

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Speaker 1: It's one reason we might want to do that, and

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Speaker 1: it's a deeper question, like what's inside any of these

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Speaker 1: particles quarks and electrons. We suspect that the answer we

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Speaker 1: have today these quarks and electrons and other kinds of

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Speaker 1: leftons is not the final answer. That these things are

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Speaker 1: like the periodic table, that all their properties are emergent

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Speaker 1: phenomena from the rearrangements of like smaller bits that do

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Speaker 1: their thing in different ways, and that's why this looks

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Speaker 1: like an electron, and if you rearrange them, or if

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Speaker 1: they are in a different energy state, it looks like

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Speaker 1: a muon. One example of that is string theory. String

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Speaker 1: theory says all of these are just strings vibrating in

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Speaker 1: different ways. It's really just one fundamental thing. And when

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Speaker 1: you zoom out and you see that string behaving in

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Speaker 1: different ways, it looks like different particles. But of course

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Speaker 1: there's no evidence for string theory or anything inside these particles.

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Speaker 1: But that's an example of what we'd like to know.

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Speaker 1: The point I want to make is that there are

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Speaker 1: burning questions about the nature of matter and energy in

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Speaker 1: space and time, and we hope to answer these. So

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Speaker 1: not just what's inside these particles, but like, why is

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Speaker 1: our universe made of these particles and not the antimatter

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Speaker 1: version of these particles? The muon has an anti muon,

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Speaker 1: the quarks have anti quarks? Why are we all made

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Speaker 1: out of matter? And most of the universe seems to

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Speaker 1: be made out of matter, or even more broadly, like

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Speaker 1: most of the universe is not actually made out of matter.

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Speaker 1: It's made out of dark matter, and we have no

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Speaker 1: idea what that is. And so these are the unsolved

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Speaker 1: questions in particle physics we'd love to get answers to,

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Speaker 1: and if we could just download them from aliens, that

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Speaker 1: would be great. But colliders are a great way to

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Speaker 1: get answers to these kinds of questions.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so then let's dig into how colliders work.

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Speaker 1: So you might be wondering, like, how does a collider

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Speaker 1: give you an answer to these questions? Just smash particles together?

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Speaker 1: How does that tell you about the nature of the universe? Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: the cool thing about colliders is that they can create

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Speaker 1: new particles or reveal what's inside the particles that we

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Speaker 1: already know. So, for example, when you smash these particles

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Speaker 1: together really high energy, you're giving the universe sort of

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Speaker 1: a big budget. You're saying, here's a bunch of energy

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Speaker 1: all in one place. Make whatever you can make. And

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Speaker 1: you know, the time in the universe that we live

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Speaker 1: now is when the universe is very dilute, very old

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Speaker 1: and cold. There's not a lot of energy around. It's

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Speaker 1: all very spread out. Back in the early days of

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Speaker 1: the universe, you know, the first few seconds, the first

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Speaker 1: few hundred thousands of years, there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: energy density, and so the universe could do basically everything

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Speaker 1: that it was capable of because there was always enough

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Speaker 1: energy around. It could make top quarks, it can make

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Speaker 1: Higgs bosons, it can make anything that was on its menu.

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Speaker 1: These days, it can only make really low energy stuff

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Speaker 1: like electrons and protons. So what you're doing when you

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Speaker 1: smash particles together is you sort of recreate the early

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Speaker 1: moments of the universe when there was enough energy to

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Speaker 1: do everything. You know, before all of the budget had

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Speaker 1: been spent. And so you smash the particles together, and

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Speaker 1: then the universe rolls the quantum die and says, hmm,

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Speaker 1: what can I make with my energy budget? I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: pick from the list. And so if you smash the

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Speaker 1: particles together often enough, you'll see everything on the list.

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Speaker 1: That's really amazing that you can like explore what's possible

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Speaker 1: in the universe, what's on the sort of nature's menu

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Speaker 1: of ideas of what the universe is capable of doing,

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Speaker 1: even if you don't know that it exists in advance

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Speaker 1: and you have no idea how to put it together.

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Speaker 1: You just smash these particles together like a bunch of idiots,

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Speaker 1: and eventually the secrets of the universe just like pop out.

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Speaker 2: All right. Well, so I'm old and cold and low energy,

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Speaker 2: but probably it wouldn't be good to put me in

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Speaker 2: a particle collider. I'm guessing have you tried it?

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Speaker 1: I mean, geez, don't be so closed.

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Speaker 2: Minded, co I mean, aren't there. So my daughter had

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Speaker 2: a tour of surd and I'm pretty sure that they

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Speaker 2: were like signs everywhere being like, don't get in the collider.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And we had a whole episode about that poor

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Speaker 1: Russian guy and leaned into the beam and it's not

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Speaker 1: a good idea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm saying, don't get collide with a beam

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Speaker 1: of particles, but with a beam of Kelly's who knows.

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Speaker 2: Could be fun? Could be fun. Okay, So then how

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Speaker 2: do you actually break open a particle?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So one way to discover a new particle

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Speaker 1: is you like smash the particles together and they turn

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Speaker 1: into a blob of energy and boop, some like a

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Speaker 1: Higgs boson pops out or something new or dark matter

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Speaker 1: or whatever, and you flesh out your table. It gives

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Speaker 1: you more context. Another way to make a discovery is

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Speaker 1: to crack open one of the things you already know

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Speaker 1: and say, oh, look inside the proton, there are three

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Speaker 1: little bit we call quarks, right, And so the way

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Speaker 1: to do that is to exceed the energy of the

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Speaker 1: bonds holding the particle together. So proton is not just

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Speaker 1: like three quarks near each other. It's three quarks tied

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Speaker 1: very tightly together with gluons. It's like really intensely bound together.

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Speaker 1: But those bonds have some finite energy. If you're beam,

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Speaker 1: if you're like, shoot an electron at that proton, and

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Speaker 1: the electron has more energy than the bonds holding the

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Speaker 1: quarks together than those gluons have. Then you're going to

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Speaker 1: break that proton apart and you're going to see those

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Speaker 1: quarks fly out. It's sort of like if you bounce

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Speaker 1: a ball against the wall very gently. What happens, Well,

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Speaker 1: it just bounces back off. Right, you haven't put enough

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Speaker 1: energy in to separate the bonds in the wall. But

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Speaker 1: if you build a super fast gun and shoot your

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Speaker 1: ball at the wall, it's going to crack the wall open. Right,

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Speaker 1: you're going to see what's inside the wall or behind it.

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Speaker 1: It's the same thing with particles. If you shoot them

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Speaker 1: together with less energy than they have in their bonds,

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Speaker 1: then they're going to act as if they're fundamental because

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Speaker 1: the bonds are going to hold them together, going to

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Speaker 1: see what's inside. But if you can crank the energy

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Speaker 1: up so it's greater than those bonds, then you can

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Speaker 1: shatter those particles and see what's inside. And that's how

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Speaker 1: we saw what was inside the proton. We actually shot

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Speaker 1: an electron at the proton and we saw it bounce

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Speaker 1: off of the little dots inside the proton.

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Speaker 2: So when we shot an electron at the proton and

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Speaker 2: gave it enough energy where we could see it like

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Speaker 2: bouncing off the quarks. Did we have a theoretical expectation

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Speaker 2: for when we should be able to find the quarks?

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Speaker 2: And do we have something similar for electrons and muons?

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Speaker 1: A great question. So the context there was exciting because

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Speaker 1: we already had an idea for what was inside the proton.

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Speaker 1: We had all these particles that nobody could explain. It

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Speaker 1: was called the particle zoo. Basically, every time you turned

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Speaker 1: on a collider, you discovered some new particle. There are

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Speaker 1: so many of them, is a wonderful time to be

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Speaker 1: an experimentalist. But then the theorist sort of organized them

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Speaker 1: and categorized them and said, oh, you know, this would

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Speaker 1: make a lot of sense if all of these were

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Speaker 1: made out of three different bits. They only knew about

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Speaker 1: three different quarks back then, and that would explain all

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Speaker 1: of these particles. And some people were like, yeah, that's cool,

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Speaker 1: but it's just like mathematical chicanery. It's not real. And

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Speaker 1: other people are like, no, no, no, they're real. They're

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Speaker 1: really in there. So they sort of knew to look

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Speaker 1: for them and what they were looking for, and roughly

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Speaker 1: the scale of the energy you would need. Today, we

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Speaker 1: do not know what might be inside the electron or

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Speaker 1: the muon or the quarks if there are strings that

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Speaker 1: you need like a solar system sized collider to see them,

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Speaker 1: or maybe even bigger. But there are other theories about

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Speaker 1: what might be inside them, all various different kinds of theories,

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Speaker 1: and so it could be that it's like just around

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Speaker 1: the corner they were about to crack open the electron,

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Speaker 1: or it could be that like, yeah, we need a

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Speaker 1: solar system sized collider, so we don't have a good

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Speaker 1: guess about when we might see these things.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, so it sounds like you'all take the same

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Speaker 2: particles and you smash them together over and over and

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Speaker 2: over again, and so it feels like, probably you just

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Speaker 2: need to do that for like five minutes and then

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Speaker 2: and you analyze your data. But y'all have been at

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Speaker 2: it for a really long time, and so why do

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Speaker 2: you keep doing it?

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Speaker 1: That would be amazing, And you know, there are some

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Speaker 1: examples of that, like when they turn on Lego to

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Speaker 1: see gravitational waves. They expected it to take years to

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Speaker 1: see black hole collisions, and they saw one like the

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Speaker 1: next day, and they were like, what are we fool

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Speaker 1: in ourselves? This is a joke, And we didn't know

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Speaker 1: when we turned on the collider, what we would see

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Speaker 1: because this is uncharted territory. Nobody had ever collided particles

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Speaker 1: that this energy before, and we could have had like

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Speaker 1: crazy pink elephants jump out right. But the amazing thing

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Speaker 1: about these colliders is how the universe determines what comes

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Speaker 1: out of each collision, like it really is random, because

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Speaker 1: we try our best to create exactly the same collision

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Speaker 1: over and over and over again. And if you have

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Speaker 1: in your minds like balls, like ping pong balls colliding,

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Speaker 1: you know that if you do that over and over

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Speaker 1: again and exactly the same initial conditions, you'll get exactly

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Speaker 1: the same outputs. You can predict exactly where they're going

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Speaker 1: to go at what angle energy. You can't do that

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Speaker 1: with quantum particles because quantum mechanics is deterministic in a

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Speaker 1: different way than classical mechanics is it only determines the

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Speaker 1: probability of various things happening, not the actual events. So

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Speaker 1: every time you collide particles, you draw from a probability

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Speaker 1: distribution and say, well, what are we doing today? All right,

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Speaker 1: we're doing it again, how about this time? And so

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Speaker 1: you get different outcomes every time you collide. The particles,

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Speaker 1: which one hand might seem frustrating, like hmm, you don't

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Speaker 1: have as much of a handle, you can't predict exactly

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen. But on the other hand, this

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Speaker 1: is exactly what allows you to explore the universe because

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Speaker 1: you don't have to know what's in that probability distribution.

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Speaker 1: And the thing about that distribution is some things are

435
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:42,240
Speaker 1: super duperor likely, like two protons come in, two protons

436
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:44,920
Speaker 1: come out, that's like ninety nine percent of collisions, but

437
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,280
Speaker 1: very rarely, like once in a trillion collisions you get

438
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,159
Speaker 1: a Higgs boson, And we don't know if the tails

439
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 1: of those distributions have super duper rare things, like maybe

440
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:58,280
Speaker 1: every quadrillion collisions you get something bizarre and crazy nobody's

441
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,480
Speaker 1: ever seen before. The projects right now is to run

442
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: the collider really fast, like lots of collisions, really long,

443
00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:08,400
Speaker 1: to look for really really rare stuff, stuff the universe

444
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:12,360
Speaker 1: only occasionally makes if you ask like a zillion times.

445
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 2: So how do you know when to stop then? Because

446
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 2: at some point if you haven't gotten a new result

447
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 2: in like a decade, and the funders are like, really,

448
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 2: we're going to keep paying for this, Like how do

449
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 2: you like, do you have some way of saying like, Okay,

450
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 2: we've done it enough, it's time to move on to

451
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:28,359
Speaker 2: something else.

452
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 1: You have put your finger on the button right there, Kelly. Yeah,

453
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,360
Speaker 1: it's diminishing returns, Like the longer you run your collider,

454
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,480
Speaker 1: the more you can set statistical limits on what can't

455
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 1: be there. Like, if there was something big there that

456
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: comes up pretty often, we would have seen it already,

457
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: so we can say that that doesn't exist. But there

458
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,439
Speaker 1: could always be something weird and more rare than you

459
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 1: could have seen that you might be able to capture

460
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: if you just run longer and longer. But it is

461
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: diminishing returns, and eventually the mood shifts and people say, well,

462
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 1: maybe we should build a bigger collider, higher energy, rather

463
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:03,440
Speaker 1: than to keep running the same one longer and longer.

464
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:06,640
Speaker 1: Or maybe people decide this isn't worth the money. We're

465
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 1: gonna go off and do a different kind of science instead.

466
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's take a break and when we

467
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 2: get back, we'll talk a bit more about how we

468
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 2: get these particles moving so fast and how these colliders work.

469
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 2: All right, we are back and we're talking about how

470
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:42,919
Speaker 2: colliders work. We've talked about smashing particles together. I've managed

471
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:46,400
Speaker 2: to pronounce mew on right almost the entire show. I'm

472
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 2: proud of me, You're proud of me. So Daniel tell

473
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 2: us more about how these colliders work.

474
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,360
Speaker 1: So colliders have a few jobs to get them up

475
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: to high speed. What they have to do is push

476
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: and bend right. So most of the clutters are talking

477
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,879
Speaker 1: come out today are circular colliders, which gives you opportunities

478
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: to push the particles again and again and again. It's

479
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:07,639
Speaker 1: like when your kid is on a swing, right, you

480
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: don't just give them one big push and then they're swinging,

481
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: and you start off slowly and you give them lots

482
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: of gentle taps and then eventually they're swinging like crazy.

483
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:18,119
Speaker 1: It's the same story with colliders. You have particles that

484
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: have an electric charge. They're moving in a circle, and

485
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 1: you have alternating pushes and bends. So you have a

486
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: little linear accelerator that pushes the particles a little bit faster,

487
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 1: and then a magnet which bends them back in a circle,

488
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: and then a little pusher and then a bender, and

489
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: then a pusher and then a bender. So the pushers

490
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: are rf cavities are chambers filled with electromagnetic waves that

491
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 1: the particles basically surf and gather some of that energy

492
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: and come out faster. It's like a fancy version of

493
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: just having an electric field that accelerates the particle. It's

494
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:51,159
Speaker 1: an oscillating electric field that moves with the particle so

495
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: it can continue to push it the whole way, and

496
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: you can have like bunches of particles in there, so

497
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: it's a fancy version of that. And then you bend

498
00:24:58,520 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: them so that they keep going in a surfa.

499
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 2: First of all, the RF cavities sound awesome. I don't

500
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 2: think I had heard of that before. But so if

501
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 2: you are trying to work with protons, neutrons, electrons, like

502
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 2: they've got all these different charges and you're using magnets

503
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 2: to try to make them bend, does that mean that

504
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 2: you're going to like lose something like neutrons around the

505
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 2: corner because they don't respond to the magnets and they

506
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 2: smash into the wall. Like what's the limitation of the magnets.

507
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: You can't build a circular particle collider neutrons because you

508
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 1: can't accelerate them and you can't bend them. Okay, so

509
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 1: you can only really work with charged particles. You can

510
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 1: make a neutron beam if you have something else which

511
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: decays into neutrons, but you can't like direct it or

512
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: shape it. It's frustrating to work with neutrons because they're neutral,

513
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: But we can do it for electrons. So we could

514
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: do it for protons. But you need a different kind

515
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: of accelerator for protons or for electrons because they're very

516
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 1: different masses. Electrons very very low mass, protons relatively high mass,

517
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: and so you need an accelerator tuned specifically to the particle.

518
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: You can't put electrons and protons in the same accelerator.

519
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 2: It okay.

520
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: And at the Large Hadron Collider, we use fancy technology

521
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,879
Speaker 1: to make these magnets as strong as possible because you

522
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: either need a really big ring so your bending is gentle,

523
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: or you need a strong ring with powerful bending, and

524
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: then you need powerful magnets to do that bending. And

525
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,400
Speaker 1: so the most powerful magnets we use are super conducting magnets,

526
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: and they use like ninety six tons of super fluid helium,

527
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 1: which cools it all down to like two kelvin. For

528
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: a very strong magnetic field, it's like seven tesla. And

529
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 1: this is very cool, but it also means haha, very cool,

530
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: But it also means that anytime you want to fix it,

531
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 1: you have to warm up the magnets and you do

532
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: it gradually. It takes like weeks and weeks, and then

533
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: when you repair it and then you got to cool

534
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: it down again, it takes weeks and weeks and weeks.

535
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: So it's awesome to have them be super cool, but

536
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: it would be really awesome to have room temperature superconducting magnets.

537
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 2: So was that like space constraint, It wasn't possible to

538
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 2: build a big enough one where they could slowly be bent,

539
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: and you had to do it a little bit more

540
00:26:57,720 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 2: of a harder bend.

541
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 1: Yes, surn is already thirty three kilometers around, Like that's

542
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: a big tunnel. Yeah, and so yeah, you can build

543
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 1: a bigger one, but then the tunnel becomes crazy expensive,

544
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: so nobody wants to build a new tunnel these days.

545
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 1: A lot of the conversations about colliders are like what

546
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: can we fit inside existing tunnels or also how can

547
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: we make tunnels cheaper? Right, So lots of different people

548
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: working in different directions, and in most colliders you actually

549
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: have two accelerators in the same tunnel. So, for example,

550
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,360
Speaker 1: the tevatron, we had a proton accelerator going one way

551
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 1: and the anti protons going the other way.

552
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 2: Because you wanted them to run into each other.

553
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want them to run into each other. And

554
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: the large Hadron collider where protons going one way and

555
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: protons going the other way at the same time because

556
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: you want colliding beams. And so the large Chandron collider's

557
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: actually two accelerators in the same tunnel. It's crazy.

558
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 2: So if you send a proton and an anti proton

559
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 2: and opposite directions to smash into each other, is that

560
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 2: a big explosion, she says hopefully.

561
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. In fact, that's what the tepatron collider was, and

562
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: the SPS before the super proton signatron that discovered the

563
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 1: WZ bosons. They collided protons and anti protons. And there's

564
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 1: a lot of different choices to make here about what

565
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: particles to use and what particles to collide. There's some

566
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: pros and cons here. So electrons are really nice to

567
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 1: use because electrons appear to be fundamental, right, They don't

568
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: have stuff inside of them, So you can like accelerate

569
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: the electron up to a certain energy and you know,

570
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: all that energy is going to go into the collision

571
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: with the anti electron, right, It's very clean in that way. Also,

572
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: because the electrons don't feel the strong force and so

573
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: the interaction is limited, you don't get like crazy gluons everywhere,

574
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: and so collisions with electrons in them are very clean.

575
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: They're easy to understand, you can control the energy. There's

576
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: not a lot of messy stuff in there. But because

577
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: electrons have kind of a low mass, when they go

578
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: around the corner, they have to radiate a lot of energy,

579
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: and so electrons moving in an accelerator will radiate a

580
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: lot of photons, which means that it's hard to get

581
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: them up to really high energy. So electron colliders are

582
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: good for precision measurements. You want to like study something

583
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: you already know is there, create it lots of times

584
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: in a really clean environment so you can study it

585
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: in gory detail and measure its properties. Good to use

586
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: electrons for your collisions, but if you want to explore

587
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: a new energy range, you want to get to the

588
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: highest energy you can, then you use protons.

589
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 2: So my brain today is kind of stuck on that

590
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 2: conversation we had about whether or not electrons are fundamental.

591
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: Does the fact that they work so well for these

592
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 2: purposes suggest they really are fundamental? And why are we

593
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 2: even still looking for a way to break apart the electron?

594
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 2: Or it's just for the speeds we're talking about assuming

595
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 2: their fundamental works because we know they're fundamental when you're

596
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: working with these particular kinds of energies. So even if

597
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 2: we're wrong about it being fundamental, we can still go

598
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 2: forward with this experiment.

599
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the second one exactly. We don't know if

600
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,719
Speaker 1: they're fundamental. They appear to be fundam mental at our

601
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: energy level, and so we can take advantage of that,

602
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: the fact that they don't crack open, that they're very simple,

603
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: that the whole electron is interacting with the whole positron.

604
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: In contrast, protons are much messier because they're not fundamental,

605
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: and we can crack them open. So what happens when

606
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: you collide to protons You don't really collid two protons

607
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: At those energies. The protons aren't even bound together. The

608
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: energy of the bonds is almost zero compared to the

609
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: energy of the protons, So you're colliding a bag of

610
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: quarks with another bag of quarks, so the quarks interact

611
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: with each other, or all the gluons inside the bag

612
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: interact with each other, and so you can sometimes get

613
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: like a bunch of different interactions all at the same time.

614
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: It's kind of a mess. And because they feel the

615
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: strong force every time they interact, they're gluons everywhere. It's

616
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: just like sprays of gluons all over the place. And

617
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: so the fact that protons are not fundamental is one

618
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: reason why they're so messy to collide. So you might think, well,

619
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: why does anybody ever collide protons. Well, protons have a

620
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: lot more mass than the electron, so when they go

621
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: around the corner, they don't radiate as much energy, fewer photons,

622
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 1: and so you can get protons up to higher mass

623
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: then you can get electrons. So if you want to

624
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: explore a new energy range, create stuff that hasn't existed before,

625
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: protons are the way to go because they cover a

626
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: big energy range. Like you accelerate protons up to seven

627
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: thousand gigle electron volts for example, the quarks inside them

628
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: are interacting at a lower energy because those quarks have

629
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: a fraction of that proton's energy, So you get interactions

630
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: at many, many different energies, whereas with the electrons, you

631
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: collide them at a certain energy. You know, every collision

632
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: has exactly the same energy because you're putting all that

633
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: energy into the electron and it goes into the collision protons.

634
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: You have these bags and what interacts with what you

635
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: can't control that. How much energy they have, you can't

636
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: control that. It's a big mess, but it's a very

637
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: very high energy, and so if there is something new

638
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: in there, you're probably going.

639
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 3: To see it.

640
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: Okay, So protons and neutrons are made up of up

641
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 2: and down quarks, and gluons are the charges that hold

642
00:31:58,840 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 2: those quarks together.

643
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: Gluons are the particles that carry the strong force, and

644
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: they are also charged under the strong force, So they're

645
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: very very messy. Gluons are to the quarks the way

646
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: like photons are to electrons.

647
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 2: All right, So protons high energy, messy, electrons low energy

648
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 2: clean Exactly. How have the for the particle accelerators that

649
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 2: we've made so far? How have we sort of split

650
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: out our interest in protons and electrons?

651
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we've sort of been going back and forth.

652
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: Some discoveries have been made at electron positron machines. Like

653
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: the discovery of the Jape side particle was at an

654
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: E plus minus machine at Slack. That's actually a rare

655
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: example of a discovery at an eplus minus machine because

656
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: they had to know exactly what energy to tune that

657
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: machine to make that particle, because all the energy goes

658
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: into the electrons. And if you remember, there's a whole

659
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 1: controversy about like how they knew how to tune it,

660
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: and they discovered exactly how to tune it like one

661
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: day before their competitors were about to announce the discovery

662
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: of the Jape side and so there's a big scandal there.

663
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: Go check out that episode.

664
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 2: So when you say e pluss, is that an electron

665
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 2: and an anti electron?

666
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 3: M Okay, got it?

667
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. So you smash electrons and anti electrons together,

668
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: they annihilate into like a photon or something, which turns

669
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: into in this case, a charm and anti charm, and

670
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: that's what the japside particle is.

671
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 2: All right, awesome.

672
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: So that was at Slack and then CERN built the

673
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: super proton sygnotron, which collides protons with anti protons like antimatter. Again,

674
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: we're not just talking about like scooping stuff up from

675
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: around the Earth and smashing it together. I have to

676
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: make anti particles, just like they did at Slack when

677
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: they used positrons.

678
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 2: That sounds like a lot of work.

679
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: It is a lot of work. And they use the

680
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: same strategy for the next accelerator, which is the tevatron.

681
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: This is the one outside Chicago where I got my PhD.

682
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: This collides protons and antiprotons and it discovered the top quark.

683
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 2: Way to go tevotron people, did you discover the top quark?

684
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 4: Daniel?

685
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 2: In particular, I.

686
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: Did not discover the top cork. That was in nineteen

687
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: ninety five and I was in college. I do remember

688
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: my particle physics professor announcing the discovery in class one day,

689
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: and I got kind of chills. I was like, ooh,

690
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: this feels like a momentous occasion. And it was because

691
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: in particle physics you don't discover stuff very often anymore.

692
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 1: It's like every ten to twenty years, and so like

693
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: that was a moment.

694
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:19,879
Speaker 2: For sure, very cool And did that make you want

695
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 2: to go to grad school?

696
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: It did?

697
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 2: It?

698
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: Maybe like ooh, maybe the next one's around the corner.

699
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: I want to get involved.

700
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, very cool, little did you know?

701
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And after the Temperatron they built a large

702
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:35,879
Speaker 1: electron positron colider at CERM. This one didn't discover any

703
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 1: new particles. It was an E plus minus machine, but

704
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: it was really good for measuring the W and the

705
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: Z and the top really really precisely. And because of

706
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: those measurements, we were very confident that the Higgs existed.

707
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: Like because of the properties of those particles, we could

708
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: sort of triangulate what the Higgs might be doing because

709
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: the Higgs is involved in all those particles. So even

710
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: though we hadn't seen the Higgs directly, we could sort

711
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: of like into it or deduce what the Higgs had

712
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 1: to be like from measuring these things really really precisely.

713
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 1: And so it set the stage for the Higgs discovery.

714
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: Okay, and then what about the LHC.

715
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Large Hadron Collider, which we're still running.

716
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: This is protons and protons, so not protons and anti protons.

717
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: They made a different choice here, and one reason they

718
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: did is that they wanted to go for really high rate.

719
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: It's easier to make high rate collisions of protons and

720
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: protons because protons are everywhere. Anti protons hard because you

721
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 1: got to make them. It's like manufacture antimattery, which requires

722
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 1: like starting from a beam of matter and smashing it

723
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: into this stuff and filtering out the rare anti protons

724
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: and then storing them. It's really complicated to make antimatter

725
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: and smash it together. So they were like, let's just

726
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: do the easy thing proton proton, because protons are everywhere

727
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: and they're simple and they're stable, and then we can

728
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: do it really really high intensity for a long long

729
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: time in order to look for really really rare things,

730
00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: and they discovered the Higgs boson. Who you might be wondering, like,

731
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: how does a proton interact with another proton? Don't you

732
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,720
Speaker 1: need matter antimatter? Well, remember the whole protons not interacting

733
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: with the other proton. You have like a bag of quarks,

734
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 1: and you have gluons, and so actually what happens most

735
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 1: of the time at the Large Hadron Collider is gluon

736
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: gluon collisions, So it's really kind of a gluon collider,

737
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: which is crazy.

738
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 2: That is crazy. And then there was a particle collider

739
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 2: that was partly built in Texas before we gave up

740
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,320
Speaker 2: on funding it, right, What kind of particle collider was

741
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 2: that going to be?

742
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: Yes, so the superconnecting SuperCollider, which never happened, unfortunately, That

743
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: was going to be very similar to the Large Hadron collider.

744
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: It's going to be proton proton in the same way,

745
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: and so it almost certainly would have discovered the Higgs boson. Also,

746
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 1: it was going to be like three times more energy

747
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: than the Large Hadron collider. So it would have revolutionized

748
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: particle physics. Like they would have built it and discovered

749
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: stuff which today is still out of our reach. Like

750
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, they would have known the answers to questions.

751
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,280
Speaker 1: We still don't know the answers to such a shame.

752
00:36:57,719 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 2: Does the tunnel still exist?

753
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: The tunnel still exists and is mostly filled with water.

754
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 2: Ah, well, let's start that project again, all right? Well, Daniel, Well,

755
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 2: you and I go look for funding to start that

756
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 2: project again. We'll take a break and when we come back,

757
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,879
Speaker 2: we'll talk about why we should be smashing muons into

758
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 2: each other. All right, Daniel and I still have not

759
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 2: figured out a way to get funding to resurrect that

760
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 2: particle collider in Texas. I thought Texans like to go big,

761
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 2: but apparently they don't like to go that big. And

762
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:46,320
Speaker 2: now we're talking about muons.

763
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: So muons are attractive to use for a collider because

764
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: they might be the best of both worlds. Remember, muons

765
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: are like more massive electrons. And the only negative thing

766
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: we had to say about electrons was they were so

767
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: low mass that when the ways around corners, they lost

768
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: a lot of their energy. So it's hard to get

769
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: electrons up to high energy. All right, we'll just swap

770
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: in muons for electrons. Now they have more masks, they

771
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: can get to higher energies. Right, So now they are

772
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: like very high energy, and they're cleaner than protons. Protons

773
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,800
Speaker 1: are these messy bags of quarks with the strong interaction.

774
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 1: So this is like taking something which is massive like

775
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: the proton, but clean like the electron.

776
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: And would we need muons and anti muons or could

777
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 2: we just smash muons into each other.

778
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:31,879
Speaker 1: You could just smash muons into each other, but you'd

779
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: learn more if you smash muons and anti muons into

780
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: each other. Absolutely, and to make the same kind of discoveries,

781
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: and a muon collider you don't even need to get

782
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: the muons up to the same energies as the protons. Remember,

783
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: protons are bags of three quarks, so you accelerate the

784
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: protons to like ten trillion electron volts. Each quark only

785
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: has like three trillion electron volts, and that's what goes

786
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: into your collision to make those same discoveries, and a

787
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:59,360
Speaker 1: muon collider you only need to bring your muons up

788
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 1: to like three three zero point three trillion electron volts,

789
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: not all the way to ten. So it's easier to

790
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: make these discoveries at a muleon collider because it's fundamental,

791
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 1: because or at least we can't tell if it's not fundamental,

792
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 1: and so there are real advantages there. The kind of

793
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: physics you can do at a muon collider is very

794
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 1: powerful at lower energies and yet clean like an electron collider.

795
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 2: And so what do we think we would discover that

796
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 2: would be different if we used a muon collider than

797
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,320
Speaker 2: if we had, you know, the pre existing electron colliders.

798
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so muone colliders can get to higher energies, Like

799
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: we think if you built a mule collider at just

800
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: ten trillion electron volts, it could discover the same kind

801
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: of things that a proton collider at one hundred trillion

802
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: electron volts could discover. So it's like ten times more

803
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: efficient in that sense per discovery because at one hundred

804
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: ero electron volts, protons are insane bags of gluons and

805
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: most of the energy is just in the gluons, and

806
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 1: every collision is very inefficient. You're not really getting any

807
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: fraction of that one hundred trillion electron volts, whereas mule

808
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: ten trillion electron vaults. You can really precisely tune those

809
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,240
Speaker 1: interactions and you can find all sorts of crazy stuff.

810
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: Plus there's the added bonus. Remember we said that muons

811
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: have more mass, why because they interact with the higgs more.

812
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: That means that if you collide muons together, you're going

813
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: to get more higgses because muons interact with the higges.

814
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: And when the universe is like making its draw from

815
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: its random probability distribution, what are we making today? If

816
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: you start from muons, then the higgs is are a

817
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,799
Speaker 1: bigger part of that probability distribution than if you start

818
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: from electrons, because electrons hardly interact with the higgs boson

819
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,919
Speaker 1: because they have such low mass. So, in that sense,

820
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: a Muon collider is like a Higgs factory. It'll make

821
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: tons and tons of Higgs bosons for us to study

822
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: and learn about.

823
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 2: So the LC is where we discovered Higgs. What would

824
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 2: we learn if we saw more higgs?

825
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: Great question. So we found the Higgs, but we don't

826
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: really know is this the Higgs that Peter Higgs predicted

827
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: or is it like a weird version of the Higgs?

828
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: And so the next thing is to study it in detail,

829
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: measure its mass, measure its properties. Remember how we measured

830
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: the top and the W and the z at a

831
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: large electron positron collider, and that set the stage for

832
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: the discovery of the Higgs, because all those particles properties

833
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: really only made sense if the Higgs was there. So

834
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: what we want to do is study the Higgs and

835
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 1: gory detail and see like, well, is it decaying as

836
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: a dark matter? Is it interacting with something else? Are

837
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 1: there two Higgs bosons? These kind of things can be

838
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: revealed if we studied the Higgs in great detail. So

839
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: far we haven't seen any hints of that, but you

840
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 1: never know what's around the corner.

841
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 2: Are there theoretical predictions that I guess you've you're already

842
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 2: not sure you've seen the only version of the higgs.

843
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 2: So there's probably a lot of questions you all have.

844
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 1: There are, and there's lots of predictions about models with

845
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: two Higgs bosons or three higgs bosons, all sorts of

846
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: crazy stuff that we're excited to look for, and a

847
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: muon collider would be a great way to do that

848
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: and be very powerful in its physics reach.

849
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 2: Cool. Okay, so we've tried to figure out if electrons

850
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,760
Speaker 2: are fundamental by smashing them together and nothing has come apart.

851
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 2: Is there any reason to think that muons, being essentially

852
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 2: heavy electrons, would be more likely to break apart if

853
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:16,760
Speaker 2: there was something break apart a bowl about electrons and muons.

854
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,439
Speaker 1: No, not necessarily, so if they are fundamental, then there's

855
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,399
Speaker 1: no reason to imagine muons would be easier to break

856
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: apart than electrons. But the advantage is it's easier to

857
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: get muons up to higher energies. If there is some

858
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: threshold above which you can see inside electrons and muons,

859
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: it's much easier to get muons over that threshold than electrons.

860
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: So in that sense, we're more likely to discover that

861
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: muons are made of something else little bits and bobs

862
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: than we are of electrons.

863
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 2: All right, well this sounds like a slam dunk. Why

864
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 2: wouldn't we do this?

865
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: Well, one of the real challenges is that muons are

866
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: not stable. Like you have a pile of electrons, they're

867
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 1: going to stay a pile of electrons. The protons that

868
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: are inside you have been protons since the Big Bang,

869
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 1: Like these are really stable things. Muons last for two

870
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: point two microseconds, So you can't just like say, hey,

871
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,359
Speaker 1: I've got a big pile of muons in a drawer,

872
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: do you need any Right, you open that drawer, They're

873
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: gone two point two microseconds. That's you know, ten to

874
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: the minus six seconds, So it's not a lot of time,

875
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: which means that number one, there aren't muons around. You

876
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: can't just go like go dig up muons like you

877
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: want electrons and protons. You just start with hydrogen, which

878
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: is everywhere, and you separate and you have protons and

879
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: electrons easy. If you want muons, you have to make

880
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: them in collisions of other stuff and filter them out

881
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,760
Speaker 1: and then they disappear after a millionth of a second.

882
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of challenges here. So making them

883
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: accelerating and cooling them and colliding them all within microseconds

884
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 1: is not an easy thing to do.

885
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 2: And what about anti muons, which you'd probably want for

886
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:56,439
Speaker 2: these collisions. Is that harder still?

887
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 1: Actually, it turns out those are just as hard, so

888
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 1: there's a bonus. Yeah, So where do you get muons?

889
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 3: Like?

890
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: There actually are natural sources of muons, because protons are

891
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: hitting the upper atmosphere all the time, and when protons

892
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: hit the atmosphere they create showers of particles, some of

893
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,360
Speaker 1: which decay into muons. So you know, muons are passing

894
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: through you all the time, but not at the rate

895
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: we need for the large Hadron collider. And so what

896
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: they plan to do there is they're going to make

897
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 1: their own muons. They start with protons, which are easy

898
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: to get, They accelerate those up to reasonable energies, not

899
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: crazy LEDC level energies, and just like smash them into

900
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: some block of stuff like you know, carbon or whatever,

901
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:39,240
Speaker 1: and out the back comes a bunch of different particles kons, pions, whatever,

902
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: and a lot of these will decay into muons. And

903
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: so then you use a magnet to filter out the

904
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: ones that you want, because a magnet will bend to

905
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: charge particles, so you get like muons going one way,

906
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 1: anti muons going the other way, and other stuff goes

907
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 1: at at a different angle because it has a different mass.

908
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: So now you have your muons and the clock starts ticking.

909
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: You have a millions of a second to accel wait

910
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:03,839
Speaker 1: these things and smash them together. But fortunately physics comes

911
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: to the rescue because if you get them going at

912
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: really high speed, you can take advantage of special relativity.

913
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: Remember that moving clocks run slow, so if you have

914
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: a muon sitting on your table, it lasts for two

915
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,879
Speaker 1: point two millions of a second, but a muon going

916
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 1: at almost the speed of light can last four minutes

917
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 1: and minutes because its clock is running slowly. That's the

918
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: only reason why muons make it all the way down

919
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:28,960
Speaker 1: from the atmosphere to the surface of the Earth. They're

920
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: creating the upper atmosphere, and two microseconds is not enough

921
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: time for them to get here, but their clocks are

922
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: slowed down because they're relativistic, and so there's enough time

923
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: for them to get here. In the same way, we

924
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: get our muons up to high speed, then we actually

925
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 1: have longer to play with them.

926
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 2: Okay, that's awesome, right, So we've got a chance of

927
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 2: making this work. Did I hear you say at the LHC.

928
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 2: Are they starting to do this at the LHC. Or

929
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 2: did I mishear you.

930
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when I said, we're not doing this yet.

931
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: This is like very experimental technology. There's a lot of

932
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: stuff that has to happen here. You have to make

933
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: the muons, and then you need to do something called

934
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: muon cooling, because the muons that are made come out

935
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: of a spread of energies and directions, and you need

936
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of muons all organized, like you want a

937
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 1: marching band of muons where everything is the same energy

938
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,439
Speaker 1: in the same direction. You don't want like a mosh

939
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: pit of muons. And so they do something called muon cooling,

940
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,879
Speaker 1: which is basically getting them all in line. It means

941
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: like reducing the phase space that these muons are in

942
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,080
Speaker 1: in sort of velocity and location. And to do this

943
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: they like pass them through a bunch of filters which

944
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 1: tend to reduce the energy of the muons more for

945
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: the higher energy ones, and so bring them sort of

946
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: together coalesce them. This is something still experimental. We're not

947
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,800
Speaker 1: like experts in muon cooling, but the way we're experts

948
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 1: in dealing with protons, for example, because nobody's done this before.

949
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like a technology that's being developed.

950
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: And then you have to accelerate these particles really fast. Protons,

951
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: you've got lots of time. It's like pushing your kid

952
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: on the swing. You can push very gently all afternoon

953
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: until they get up there. But with muons, a clock

954
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,760
Speaker 1: is ticking, so you have to accelerate them like really quickly.

955
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: It requires different kinds of technologies. So what they actually

956
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,760
Speaker 1: want to do is separate the rings into an accelerating

957
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: ring and acceparate colliding ring. So you have an accelerating

958
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: ring where you do like these crazy rapidly changing magnetic

959
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: fields to accelerate your muons really really rapidly, and then

960
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 1: you move them into a ring where you can collide

961
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,399
Speaker 1: them together and observe those collisions to see what comes out.

962
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 2: So when you say that they last two point two microseconds,

963
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 2: but they last longer because of time dilation. When they disappear,

964
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 2: what do they become? So, like you said, they're not stable,

965
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 2: do they decay into electrons that then mess up your

966
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 2: experiments and they need to be pulled out, like what

967
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 2: happens to them?

968
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. They decay into electrons and then

969
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: two neutrinos, and the neutrino's mostly invisible. But that's actually

970
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: a problem because now you have like sprays of high

971
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: energy electrons filling your detectors, which is bad, and so

972
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: you have to work on shielding to block all those

973
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: electrons from your detectors. You want to just see what

974
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 1: happens when muans colliding. You don't want to be buried

975
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:04,839
Speaker 1: under like massive sprays of electrons from all of your

976
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: decaying muons, And so it's complicated. There's a lot of

977
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 1: technology here that has not been fully developed. We think

978
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: we know how to tackle these problems, but some of

979
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: this is sort of in the like, we have an idea,

980
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: we think it's going to work, let's try it. There's

981
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 1: always surprises around the corner. So the timeline here is like,

982
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: maybe we're going to get the funding together. If we

983
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,839
Speaker 1: can convince everybody to build a demonstrator, like a mini

984
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 1: version in the twenty thirties, and if that works, then

985
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: we can ramp it up and start building a massive one,

986
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 1: which we hope would turn on in like twenty fifty.

987
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, And so is there like a consortium of

988
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 2: scientists then writing up this grant.

989
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: There is a community of folks, the Muon collider community.

990
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 1: They're very engaged, they're very active, they're very energetic. I

991
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: think they have a good case. But there are other

992
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: people who think, no, let's build another proton proton machine,

993
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 1: or other people who think no, we should build a

994
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 1: linear accelerator with electrons and positrons have to worry about

995
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: any magnets. So the field right now is a little

996
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 1: bit split into different camps about what the best thing

997
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: to do is. It's all very congenial, people disagreeing in

998
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: good faith, but there's not a whole lot of clear

999
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: consensus about what the next step is. And it's sort

1000
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: of an unusual moment in particle physics. Usually we have

1001
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: one collider running and another one we're building, which is

1002
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:22,800
Speaker 1: why we had this sort of zigzag we talked about before,

1003
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:24,879
Speaker 1: like the Tevatron and then LEP and then the Large

1004
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 1: Hadron collider. But right now we're operating one and we're

1005
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: not building another collider. China has said maybe they'll build one,

1006
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: but they don't really know. Cern has said they could

1007
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: build one hundred TV machine, but we don't know if

1008
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: the money is there. Other people are pushing for this

1009
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 1: Muon collider, and so we don't really know what the

1010
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: future holds for particle.

1011
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 2: Physics and what is the cost of a project like this,

1012
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:49,840
Speaker 2: Like if Musk decided he really wanted a particle to

1013
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 2: be named the musk On, and he decided he was

1014
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 2: going to build one of each of these particle colliders, like,

1015
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 2: could he afford to do that? Or are we even

1016
00:49:58,160 --> 00:49:59,959
Speaker 2: exceeding Musk's vast wealth.

1017
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 1: No Musk could afford to do that. I mean, I

1018
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 1: don't know what his liquid assets are, but you know

1019
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: these are things that cost tens of billions, maybe up

1020
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 1: to one hundred billion dollars. So definitely Musk, who is

1021
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: likely to be that the first trillionaire, could afford to

1022
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: build one of these things and insist that it'd be

1023
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:18,359
Speaker 1: named after him. In fact, you know, since his name

1024
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 1: starts with mu you can imagine some clever play on

1025
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 1: words there.

1026
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and that would have been a much.

1027
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:25,720
Speaker 1: Better Muskon collise.

1028
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:27,719
Speaker 2: There you go, that's right, that's right. That would have

1029
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 2: been a much better purchase than x, I think. But anyway,

1030
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 2: this is why I am not in the tech industry,

1031
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,760
Speaker 2: nor am I an entrepreneur. I don't know what good investments.

1032
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,719
Speaker 1: Are, nor are you a business advisor to billionaires?

1033
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 2: That is exactly true. Yeah, I have made lots of

1034
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 2: suggestions for how he could spend his money in my

1035
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 2: book and on shows, and he doesn't seem to be listening.

1036
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 2: But that's okay, all right, Well, this was fascinating. I

1037
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 2: hope that physicists find ways to have more of all

1038
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 2: of the different fun colliders that they want to be

1039
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 2: working with.

1040
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:58,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. These are really fun toys. The most

1041
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 1: exciting thing are the potential surprises. These colliders really are

1042
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 1: ways to explore the universe without going anywhere. If you're

1043
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: excited about like landing a probe on a new planet,

1044
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: because you never know what you're gonna find, that is exciting.

1045
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: And it's the same kind of excitement when you turn

1046
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 1: on a new collider at a new energy. Nobody has

1047
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 1: colliding particles of this energy before, You have no idea

1048
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 1: what on nature's menu will be revealed, and that is

1049
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: really exciting. So I hope we get to build these

1050
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,919
Speaker 1: things because the only obstacle between us and understanding is money.

1051
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,560
Speaker 1: We are in the candy store of universal knowledge, and

1052
00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: we have the money in our pocket, and we're just deciding, Hey,

1053
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 1: should we buy those suites or not?

1054
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 2: Or should we cure cancer and give it to the biologists? Ah,

1055
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 2: who's a better investment you decide?

1056
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: No, No, it's a false choice. They're all good investments.

1057
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:50,839
Speaker 1: All of these investments pay for themselves, and so it's

1058
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: not a zero sum game. We should do all of it.

1059
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: Let's cure cancer and build a mere on collider.

1060
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 2: Amen, you're right. Why am I dividing us, Daniel when

1061
00:51:58,080 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 2: we could be brought together instead?

1062
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: All right, believe in the universe, invest in humanity. Let's

1063
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 1: go explore it.

1064
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone, until next time. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe

1065
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,400
Speaker 2: is produced by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from.

1066
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: You, We really would. We want to know what questions

1067
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 1: you have about this Extraordinary Universe.

1068
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:27,440
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1069
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,480
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1070
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:30,880
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1071
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1072
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:37,880
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1073
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:39,080
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1074
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:42,960
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1075
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1076
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1077
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:48,719
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