WEBVTT - What if Earth was a cube? 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.640 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.240 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglass. Julie, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:18.560 what do you think it would be? Like, we'll live 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.640 on a square planet? Like you think you've listened to 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:23.599 a lot of like Lawrence Welk eat a lot of 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.800 cheese steak. Yes to Lawrence Welk, No to cheese steak. 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.360 Cheesteak is kind of a squares food that you gotta admit. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.920 I don't know. I mean, cheese steak is quite prized 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.840 in some cities are and um and it's really been 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.599 elevated to an art if I can say that as 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.680 a vegetarian, I guess yeah. I mean you turn into 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.440 the food shows and it's like, uh, they just go 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.760 on and on about like every city has their grotesque 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.279 um and too in my opinion, square meet sandwich and 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.200 uh and the people got got for Well you're saying 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.040 a square not hip? Right? Yeah? Like not hip? You know, 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.479 like what are the squares doing? Like what the cool 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.760 kids are all going to the midnight puppet show and 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:09.440 and then the one of the squares are going to 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.959 their football game. I don't know. Anytime you say squares, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:13.640 I just feel like I should be dressed in all 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.920 black and nothing anytime I agree with something that you say, 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.840 which is what I'm going to do. But but now 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.000 we're not We're actually not talking about that kind of 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.440 a square. We're talking about literal square, literal square planet 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.039 like um David cross as is bit which Matt Frederick 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.200 just reminded us of about the Squaggle, where it's a 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.920 it's a product that was apparently officially marketed, like produced marketed, 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:40.959 and he talked about it in a stand up bit. 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.080 But it's a bagel. It's a real square. Yeah, it's 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.400 a real thing. It's a square bagel, so that it's 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.680 not like rolling. What's the opposite of snapping your fingers 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:54.280 to disagree? I don't know. That doesn't make sense. I 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.320 don't know I'm saying that that's not going to be 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.640 transmitted by my voice. I guess like lengthy discussions over 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.200 some freestyle jazz. I don't know. But basically, imagine a 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.840 square planet. If you're into comics, then you may know 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.680 that the bizarro world where Bizarrow hails. Okay, and we're 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.320 not talking about a square planet made out of bagels. 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.000 We're talking about a square planet. Like the idea that 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.639 we're gonna talking about today is what if our what 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.600 if our earthwork square? Which is, like I said, Bizarro 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.959 Bizarro Superman familiar with this, right, yes, Sam, he's like Superman, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:28.160 except he's like an albino or something. Um and he's 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.519 not really well but he's white. He's like really white 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.080 really and uh and uh and and kind of dumb. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.440 And it's like you might be familiar with the concept 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.880 with Bizarro Seinfeld to right, right, Yeah, yeah, they they may. 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:46.560 They referenced this particular comic creation. So, yeah, imagine the 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:48.960 world that we live on seeing it from space and 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.160 seeing not a sphere but a square, a cube, which 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.960 would be pretty cool. Right. Yeah, It's not possible, but 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.200 that doesn't mean that we can't talk about it because 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.560 lots of let's people have talked about this or dreamed 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.280 what would it be like if our Earth was squared? 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.320 And and actually it gets down to the question of 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.400 why why do we have spheroid like planets and moons? Anyway? Right, 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.480 what's the whole deal with that? To be sun filed 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.280 in about it? What's the deal with the actual formation 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.440 of planets. No, no, no, Like, hey man, why do 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.280 we why don't we have a square for a planet? Yeah, 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.679 well I'll tell you why. Gravity, my friend. Yes, gravity 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.720 is the key to it all, because at heart we 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.080 have this thing called accretion. Like this is the way 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.560 everything forms. Right. So you know, if you if you 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.400 go back in time before there's a planet, and even 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.520 planet or star, you have a whole lot of little 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.360 bits of dust floating around, and each of those little 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.520 bits of dust, no matter how small, has mass and 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:50.119 exerts gravity. Okay, so everyone with me. So you have 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.839 dust dust mote number one meets the cosmic dust mote 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.680 number two and they attract to each other. Suddenly they 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.480 have more mass. Then surrounding they have more gravitational pull. 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.360 They begin to pull in other little bits of of dust, 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.320 and so you end up with this kind of cosmic 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:11.320 snowball effect where the gravity builds, it accrues more mass, 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.000 and it eventually it gets bigger and bigger and becomes 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.600 a you know, it in literally becomes like a star 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:19.920 or a planet or some other kind of astral bodies. 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.840 And these are all spherical for a reason because it's 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.600 because at the center that you have a center of mass, 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.800 and it is when we're standing on a planet, the 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.320 mass is more or less the same. No matter where 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.680 you go on the globe. It does differ. There areas 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.440 on the earthware where the the where where gravity is 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.520 stronger but for the or weaker. But for the most 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:47.280 part you have more or less uniform gravity. So a 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.440 square would not form because a square or a cube 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.240 would not have uniform gravity. Yeah, and it's sort of 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.400 but still I still sort of wonder, like why not 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.480 the shape of a banana or well, I think because 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.359 the square is a very um it's it's the opposite, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.200 you know, it's uh, it's the squiggle versus the bagel idea. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.480 It's like the square is very uniform. There's an episode 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.159 of Look Around You season two where they have a 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.520 soccer ball um um or you know in football in 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:19.279 in Britain and you push a button on it and 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.520 it transforms into a cube so that you can store 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.240 it on a shelf without it rolling off. There's you know, 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.960 it's just something on a very like mathematical basis, like 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.520 the cube is a very ordered what they're both very 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.840 ordered shapes, but but but they're very opposite, you know. 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.000 And uh, and so we can't help but but but 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.599 think of things in terms of their ridiculous opposites, you know, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.000 like you know, we would look in the mirror. It's like, well, 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:43.440 what if what if I was a woman instead of 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.240 a man? You know, what if? What if? What if 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.080 that horse flew instead of walked? What if the world 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.560 were a cube instead of a sphere? And uh and 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.680 and when you when you look back at some of 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:56.320 the things that have been written about this, I mean, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.920 there have been times where people have made some surprising 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.640 arguments for the existence of cubes in nature. Now, now, granted, 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.160 cubes do can form in nature. Rough cubes conform in nature. Obviously. 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.200 We've all seen blocks of stone that have fallen off 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.039 of something that may be roughly cubicle. You've seen tricksters 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.680 using bubbles to you know, tricks tricks. Well, I guess 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.680 they're bubble artists or something, blowing bubbles and then piecing 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.839 them together in forming that square, that cube at the center. 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.960 So it's not like a natural impossibility. But you see 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:33.720 fewer of these in nature than you do spheres. Well, geographically, right, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.640 you tend to see more of the spheres right, certainly 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.120 in the universe. So yeah, I found it really really interesting. 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.480 Looking back to four, there was a Swiss astronomer by 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.919 the name of Aren't a r N d T. And uh, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.479 this is like the only name he was attributed in 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.160 this particular chair. But Aren't Yeah, and he made the 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:54.919 headlines back in the day when he claimed to have 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.680 discovered a very curious planet in the orbit beyond Neptune, 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.839 a cubicle planet. Even in eighteen a four astronomers knew 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:03.920 better there was. There was a New York Times article 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.400 titled the Cubicle Planet, November sixte edition. The the author 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.440 talked to a physicist by the name of Dr Theodore 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.200 Van Kirk. It's it's a great article because it's this 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.239 is the Gilded Age of newspapers, so it's extremely long, 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.040 and it's like it's written in the style of like 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.200 and then the writer asked, and then he's like, oh, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.840 good boy, let me explain it to you, and and 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.240 and and so like the first debt is the professor 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.400 just saying this is complete whuie, this this is just 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.920 I'm not yeah, he says who he and he's He's like, 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.840 I'm not even gonna dignify such an idea. But then 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.520 he goes on to say, oh, but this is what 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.720 it would be like, you know, because because at the heart, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.000 that's the cool thing about thinking about a cubicle planet 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.280 is that, um it it illustrates some of the things 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.520 that we take for granted about life on an actual 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:53.320 spherical world. Yeah, so what would a cube shape Earth 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.400 look like? You know, would it? Would it? Is this 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.720 some sort of like parallel universe where Picasso just exist 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.480 and well for and then this cubical form. Well, the 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.840 important thing to realize is the way center of gravity 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.800 affects everything. Again, um gravity more or less uniform across 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.560 the planet because the center of the Earth is always 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.760 directly beneath your feet. No matter where you're standing. You 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.000 can point down at the space between your feet and say, 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.920 if I were to go straight down from you know, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.240 straight down towards the center of gravity, I would hit 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.440 the core of the No matter where you were, gravitation 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.000 is um it's always going to point roughly towards the center, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.480 right right. So imagine you're facing once one square one 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.679 side of the six sides of the queue. If you 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.440 were standing the exact center of that it would be 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:39.920 like on Earth because the center is directly below you. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.960 You're standing standing straight up, You're standing straight up on 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.680 the Okay, So let's say you're out near an edge. 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.320 If you're out here an edge, you would be technically 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:54.560 you may be standing straight up on that particular side, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:56.920 on that particular plane, but it would feel like you 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.120 were standing on a hill because the exact center, the 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:05.560 center of the planet's mass, is not directly beneath your feet. Okay, Yeah, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.800 I'm trying to get the idea of this. So you've 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.080 got the you've got these six sides, and it's almost 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.199 it would almost feel like it's forming a bowl right right, 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.440 Like like, let's say again, you're standing at the center 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.280 of one of the six sides, okay, and then you're 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.400 gonna walk towards the edge. The closer you came to 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.520 the edge, the more it would feel like you were 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.320 walking up the side of a mountain. Only if you 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.480 were to actually reach the very edge and stand on 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.880 the edge, would it feel like Earth would Only then 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.600 would the center of the planet's gravity be directly beneath you. Okay, 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.199 I think it's fascinating. There's some This question was posed 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.760 to ask mathematician slash physicists. These are the guys that 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.000 show up at Burning Man, So take this for what 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.079 you will. But they had some very interesting thoughts about this, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.120 and they said that Earth would take the form of 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.920 a vast barren expanse of rock directly exposed to space. 0:09:58.320 --> 0:09:59.760 And if you were standing on the edge of a 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:01.880 face and look back toward the center, you'd be able 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.439 to clearly see the round bubble of air and water 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.840 extending above the flat surface with the poles in the 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.600 center of the two faces. Then then two of those 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.959 bubble seas that were created. Right, wait, are these the 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.760 cornels as physicist? No, this is different. This is why 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.920 I say these are These are the guys that show 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:20.600 up at Burning Man. And they have a tent. Actually 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.400 it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool, and it says ask uh. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.120 Mathematicians are asking a physicist, right, they're one of each. 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:28.800 So guys are wandering up to be a burning man 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:33.079 and going like, dude, what if? What if? Like a cube? 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.480 It was cube and it was completely pupiled by a 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:41.319 bunch of Picasso's and they were fragmented faces, and one 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.880 of the areolas was on his ear. That's that's what 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.280 they're asking. So that's why I say take it, take 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.439 it what you will out of this. But I do 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.800 think it's really you're standing on the edge, you're looking down, 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.080 and you're seeing the seeing the bubble of the atmosphere, 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:59.120 right Okay, So that in and of itself is pretty 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.800 cool to imagine, and that you're you're on this the 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.680 face of the square and you're seeing this atmosphere because 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.760 right now we can't we don't perceive that right well, 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.520 and we wouldn't be able to perceive it. And then uh, 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:17.080 these bubble seas would create solid ice cot ice cap blocks, yeah, 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.559 and that this would be an entirely weird area that 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.000 that life probably wouldn't be supported in um but if 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.200 it were, it would it would be in this ring 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.520 around the shore of those bubbles bubble seas that were created, 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.400 and the leaning tower of piece would be straight. And 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.800 actually a Dr Karen L. Masters, who was coming in 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.560 on Cornel's Aaska Physicist page, she pretty much backs this up. Yeah, 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:42.280 she's got some good mouth. Yeah, and I'm not going 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.480 to bore everybody with the numbers, but she conscious the 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.040 numbers and says, yeah, based on the way the atmosphere 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.000 works on the Earth we actually live on. If the 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.400 Earth were impossibly a cube, the edges of the cube 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.679 would be Titanic mountains just jutting far above the atmosphere. 0:11:55.679 --> 0:12:00.000 They would be space mountains in a very atmosphere. Yeah yeah. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.319 And the oceans would be uh, would be pooled at 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:08.200 the center of the six square planes. So each side. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.920 If you think of this cubical planet as a dice, 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.280 each face of the die would be like a one 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:20.200 when that one would be an ocean. Yeah. Um. And 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.640 then and then you have to also take into account 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.680 how weather and seasons work. What is a pretty complex system, 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:27.840 and gravity is one of the key players. And gravity 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.959 holds the atmosphere to the Earth, and again it holds 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.040 it uniformly, so in the shape of this cube. That's 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.560 when you have the mountainous edges piercing above the atmosphere. 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.280 But then rotation also plays a role because you have 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.240 alternating periods of night and day of heat and cool 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.240 that end up stirring the atmosphere into motion. And then 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.760 a number of other geological and gravitational factors complicated even 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.320 more untill you have this vast and largely unpredictable system. 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.600 But climates would basically depend on exactly how it's rotating, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:58.480 because there's you know, a sphere is only going to 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.480 rotate pretty much. I mean, it's it's a it's a sphere. 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:03.800 Everything is is more or less uniform. So if it's 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:05.720 rotating up and down side the side, it doesn't matter. 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.199 This position is still gonna look the same shape wise. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:10.560 Whereas a cube, how is that going to rotate? Is 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.160 it gonna be like if I were to lay a 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.920 dice down on the table and just rotated it around. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.200 Is one of the six sides gonna face face down 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.200 or yeah? Or is it gonna be on edge? Is 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.480 if I were to take a die and spin it 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.240 like a top on the table. Now if I were 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.240 just if it we're gonna rotate like like you spin 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.160 it on the top of the table, you would have 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.559 more or less uniform coverage from the sun. But if 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.520 it were like a die setting on the table, you 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.120 would have like an entire the entire top and bottom 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.200 uh squares, The entire top and bottom planes would be 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.840 like our north and south pole, and then everything else 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.640 would be like like the equator, So it would be similar. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:55.160 Then in terms of our weather, Yeah, except weirder because 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.120 you would have like you'd have six six sides six sections. 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:04.040 Four be equator land and two would be um Arctic 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.320 or antarctic land. So it'd be like you're rolling. If 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.400 you were to then roll it on the table, you're like, well, 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.280 I have a two and six chance that I'll roll 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.600 snow and a four and six chance that I'll roll 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.640 the crazy vacation. Well, and that's what I was just 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.720 thinking too. All of a sudden, your wind patterns are 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:22.960 going to be completely different because what feels like wind 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.840 coming out us right now across our localized area, if 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.560 if you are at an extreme point, I would imagine 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.640 that the wind would act in a very different way 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.200 because it's one of the things about the way that 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.200 the wind works on Earth is you have a global 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.360 system where what's happening on one side of the globe 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.000 affects the other because you have you have heat here, 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.640 cool here. It's all one system. But in this scenario, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.800 we have the space mountains the edges of the cube, 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:54.000 so each face will have its own atmosphere basically, I 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.880 mean it's it's cut off from the other atmospheres. So 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.280 it would have its own isolated weather So each side 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.640 of the die would have its own weather system, would 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.360 have its own biosquare too, right, because you would have 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.200 completely if you did have some sort of life form 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.360 in there, that's rightly different from one. That's another thing 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.800 that factor, because the emergence of life on Earth had 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.560 a huge role in the amount of oxygen. So what 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:18.880 would that be like for the north and south section? 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:20.800 We would you even have life emerged there? If they 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.440 were lifeless planes of extreme cold? You know, what would 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.760 the atmosphere be like? Maybe they wouldn't have breathable atmosphere. 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.480 You might have different, vastly or slightly different atmospheres depending 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.480 on which side of the die you were visiting. And 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.440 that's what what these burning man, the physicism mathematician actually 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.200 brought that up. They said, if the biospheres are bio squares, 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.080 took different routes in terms of these isolated regions, you 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.880 could have a nitrogen oxygen atmosphere on some faces like 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:52.040 we have, and a hydrogen nitrogen carbon dioxide atmosphere on others, 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.720 kind of like our old atmosphere for a billion years ago, right, 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.840 So that's crazy, And then what would cheesteaks be like 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.920 in each of these zones vastly different. What would what 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.400 would warfare be like between the six zones? I mean 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.440 there's I'm surely somebody has written a book about politics 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.360 of a of a cubicle world. That would be yea 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.040 like who who becomes the master of that world? Right? 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:15.880 And why how long does it take you to even 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.880 discover other faces of the cube? Because you've got to 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.920 be capable of climbing a space mountain or drilling through it, right, 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.320 unless there are naturally occurring tunnels that can be taken. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.760 I like the I like the tunnel route. Yeah, but 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.080 what does that do to your perception too? Right, especially 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:32.680 if you can see the bubble of the atmosphere? Yeah, 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.360 I mean the interesting thing is we're talking about this earlier. 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.360 Even though we live like everyone, I doubt we have 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.480 any flat landers out there listening to this who think 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.560 that we live on a flat world and the ocean's 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.680 empty off and uh and drip off into the void, 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:48.880 or that we live in a discworld. If you're up there, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.560 tell us of your time traveling secrets. Do do tell 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.720 us if if you do, you do hold that opinion. 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:55.160 But now we we all know that the Earth is 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.400 spherical and that we're standing on a plane that wraps 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:02.200 around on itself, but we still have the experience. We 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.200 still more or less feel like we're on a flat 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.160 world because we can't we we can't see the curvature 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.320 of the Earth. We can't poke our head out above 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:13.400 the atmosphere or anything like that, so we would still 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.080 experience the cube world more or less the same. Uh. 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.480 And and even as we approach those mountains, they would 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.199 feel like mountains. So I can easily imagine like a 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.560 map of a cubicle planet made by inhabitants of a 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.240 cubical planet, like they well, you know, if they didn't 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.159 know about the other sides, they would just see the 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.520 world as, oh, well, we live in the valley and 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.359 the mountains rise up on either side of us, and 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.320 beyond the mountains is who knows. Well, instead of having 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.600 a flat or of theory, perhaps it would be like 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.200 the triangular earth theory, right, because you can't quite wrap 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.360 your head around it. Alright, We're gonna take a quick 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:49.880 break and then we're gonna get back to all this, 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:55.560 So hanging there for one second. This podcast is brought 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.960 to you by Intel the sponsors of Tomorrow and the 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:03.359 Discovery Channel at Intel. We believe Curiosity is the spark 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.600 which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:13.600 explore the answers to life's questions. And we're back. So 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.200 let's get that to gravity and why why the Earth 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.800 will never be a cube or it could never have 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.680 become a cube? Well particular Earth. Well, it comes down 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:25.560 to a creatum starts Earth. You know again, like is 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.639 all these particles come in, there's gonna be one to another. 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.000 That's gonna be You're gonna have the center of gravity 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.399 pulling things in and applying and pulling things in more 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.959 or less uniformly. So like a cube just wouldn't form. 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:43.320 I mean, you could conceivably a significantly advanced civilization could 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.000 build a giant planet sized cube. But still it's going 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.960 to warp. Right still, it's gonna warp because you're going 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.320 to have that uniform of gravity pulling in. It's gonna 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.320 like things are gonna conform. That's this is what I 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.320 thought was interesting that the weight of the material begins 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.679 to overwhelm the strength of that material and then the 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.639 planet is pulled into a sphere. So you can't help 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.600 that the force from rotation actually like squashing it into 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.760 a sphere alike or spheroid nature is going to abhor 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:16.800 a giant cube because the sphere is the uniform forces 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.560 at work. Yeah, And just an example of this, one 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.080 of the two moons of Mars Phobos. It's not large 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.080 enough to produce enough gravity to become a proper sphere. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:26.640 So you look at that and you see that it's 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:28.800 kind of it's sort of like egg shaped, but then 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.280 it has this gigantic crater on one side. It's called 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:33.760 the Stickney crater, and it kind of looks like a 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.040 fish that's been punched in the mouth and you just 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.400 can see you like, oh, this mean that's just never 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.640 going to quite become like a billiard ball here. Yeah, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.560 Like think of this all right, Say here at the park, 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.439 right and say let's say, I don't know, Lady Gaga 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.520 shows up too, and she just starts performing in the 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.120 center of the park and everybody's interested in so they're 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.880 going to gather around to see her. Only so many 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.560 people can fit in any given space. So and as 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.080 the crowd gathers around her, which shape do you think 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:00.840 they're going to take? Do you think it's gonna roughly 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.840 be spherical or roughly be a big square. It's gonna 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.680 be spherical or at least roughly. So it's gonna because 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.240 people are gonna be drawn in towards the center of attention, 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.120 and in our universe, the center of attention is always gravity. 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.640 I feel like you have a secret agenda to insert 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.240 Lady Gaga in as many podcasts as possible. I don't know, 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:20.760 it's a good reference. I mean, it's one of those 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:22.640 things you get Lady Gaga is performing in the park. 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.560 I mean, i'd go see what it was about. I'm 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.560 just I'm just clocking it. Lamb. Okay, well, we we've 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:31.720 shown that she showed up in studies before. There's that 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:35.320