1
00:00:06,200 --> 00:00:10,400
Speaker 1: What if another universe shared our Big Bang? Why do

2
00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:12,360
Speaker 1: figs have a waspy tang?

3
00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:16,320
Speaker 2: Could the Higgs make the Big Bang? Relte? Why is

4
00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 2: dark chocolate so much better than white?

5
00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:25,119
Speaker 1: Biology? Physics, archaeology, forestry, and today fortunately no chemistry.

6
00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:28,760
Speaker 2: Whatever question keeps you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

7
00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:30,400
Speaker 2: answer will make it all right.

8
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,479
Speaker 1: Welcome to another Listener's Questions episode on Daniel and Kelly's

9
00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:51,800
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe. Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I'm a parasitologist who

10
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:52,840
Speaker 1: loves questions.

11
00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:56,760
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist with a deep voice.

12
00:00:56,760 --> 00:00:59,440
Speaker 2: That's even deeper because I was shouting at a UCI

13
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:01,080
Speaker 2: basketball game on Saturday.

14
00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:03,480
Speaker 1: Oh, and you said you were sick. Recently, There's been

15
00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:06,560
Speaker 1: a lot of things happening to your voice.

16
00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:09,160
Speaker 2: So I hope you enjoy an extra baritone version of

17
00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:10,160
Speaker 2: the podcast today.

18
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:13,720
Speaker 1: It'll be fun. I just spent four hours on my

19
00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:17,520
Speaker 1: tractor this morning plowing our roads. So what is the

20
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:20,200
Speaker 1: most exciting power tool you've ever used, Daniel.

21
00:01:22,760 --> 00:01:25,600
Speaker 2: Other than the large hadron collider. That's a power tool,

22
00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:26,040
Speaker 2: isn't it.

23
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:26,399
Speaker 1: Yeah?

24
00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:30,119
Speaker 2: Thirty three kilometers around accelerates protons to nearly the speed

25
00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:32,760
Speaker 2: of light, but it can't cut through a two by four.

26
00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:35,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but I guess you win. I was feeling

27
00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:37,880
Speaker 1: pretty cool about my tractor, but now I think you win.

28
00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:40,959
Speaker 2: I want a particle beam to melt the snow off

29
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,960
Speaker 2: my sidewalk. No, that's a collective tool. What power tool

30
00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:49,960
Speaker 2: have I personally used that's most impressive? Hmm, that's a

31
00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:52,840
Speaker 2: good question. We have like a cool machine shop here

32
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:55,840
Speaker 2: at UCI, so we have some pre impressive power tools

33
00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:58,480
Speaker 2: that can, like you know, put rivets into stuff. Or

34
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,640
Speaker 2: we have the metal cutting bandsaw, which terrifies me. Oh

35
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:04,520
Speaker 2: my gosh, every time I go near that thing. I'm wondering,

36
00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:06,760
Speaker 2: is today the day I lose a finger?

37
00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:08,880
Speaker 1: Wait, because you're using it? Or do you just mean,

38
00:02:08,919 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: like even walking by it freaks you out?

39
00:02:11,919 --> 00:02:13,680
Speaker 2: Even walking near it? You know, I've seen enough videos

40
00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:15,880
Speaker 2: of somebody like tripping and putting their hand out and

41
00:02:15,880 --> 00:02:18,720
Speaker 2: then zoom and then it's gone.

42
00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:21,000
Speaker 1: In our place, we try to buy the like safest

43
00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:23,080
Speaker 1: power tools. Have you seen the videos where like it's

44
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:25,880
Speaker 1: a table saw and they put a like hot dog

45
00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:29,080
Speaker 1: into the blade and it immediately stops and everything disappears.

46
00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:31,280
Speaker 1: So like everything we have at our property is like

47
00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:34,160
Speaker 1: the safest version. Like our tractor is low to the ground.

48
00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:36,240
Speaker 1: It's got double tires so that it's less like lit

49
00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:39,680
Speaker 1: a flip over. Does an electro fishing boat count as

50
00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:41,760
Speaker 1: a power tool, because now I'm thinking that maybe that's

51
00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:42,760
Speaker 1: cooler than a tractor.

52
00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:45,800
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that is. Electro fishing boat.

53
00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:47,400
Speaker 2: It fishes electrically.

54
00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:49,880
Speaker 1: It puts an electrical current in the water to stun

55
00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:51,680
Speaker 1: the fish, and then you catch them in a net

56
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:53,440
Speaker 1: and you put them in a live well, so it's

57
00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:56,800
Speaker 1: that flowing water that's well oxygenated. People who work in

58
00:02:56,919 --> 00:03:00,840
Speaker 1: fisheries use these to survey a different population. And once

59
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:03,440
Speaker 1: we were stunning the water and a fish got past

60
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:05,760
Speaker 1: the people with the net, and I thought, I would

61
00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:07,440
Speaker 1: like save the day because we really wanted to catch

62
00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:09,200
Speaker 1: this fish. So I reached in to get it and

63
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:09,800
Speaker 1: I forgot.

64
00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:14,160
Speaker 2: I was like, you made a shocking discovery.

65
00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:17,080
Speaker 1: I made a shocking discovery. That's right. That's why it's

66
00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:19,160
Speaker 1: probably not smart for me to use big power tools,

67
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:20,400
Speaker 1: but I use them anyway.

68
00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,560
Speaker 2: I am awed by the power of these tools and

69
00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:28,960
Speaker 2: amazed that people used to build whole civilizations without them.

70
00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:31,280
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, that's so amazing. Yeah, when I think about

71
00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:33,480
Speaker 1: the Pyramids, like, I know, that's like a cliche example,

72
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:34,399
Speaker 1: but holy crow.

73
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:36,720
Speaker 2: Well, people have lots of questions about how the Pyramids

74
00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:39,720
Speaker 2: were built. We know it wasn't ancient aliens. We know

75
00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:42,640
Speaker 2: humans have been in genius and modern day humans are

76
00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:46,560
Speaker 2: ingenious about thinking about the universe and asking questions about it.

77
00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:49,760
Speaker 2: And we love on this podcast hearing about your questions,

78
00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:51,840
Speaker 2: not just answering the questions in my mind or in

79
00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:54,800
Speaker 2: Kelly's mind, but answering the questions on the tips of

80
00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:55,800
Speaker 2: everybody's tongues.

81
00:03:56,200 --> 00:03:58,160
Speaker 1: All right, so let's start to me. This is a

82
00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:00,640
Speaker 1: very exciting day because we have questions from a lot

83
00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:04,080
Speaker 1: of different countries represented, well, almost a few different countries represented.

84
00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:08,240
Speaker 1: So let's start with Brazil, and let's hear Marcella's question.

85
00:04:08,600 --> 00:04:12,520
Speaker 3: Hello, Daniel and Kelly, how are you doing. My name

86
00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:15,240
Speaker 3: is Marcella. I am from Brazil and I was talking

87
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 3: with a friend about the Big Bang and if we

88
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:24,080
Speaker 3: were to reproduce it using the exact same seed, so

89
00:04:24,320 --> 00:04:27,400
Speaker 3: the particles would interact in the exact same way, moved

90
00:04:27,440 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 3: in the same exact directions, would that create a clone universe?

91
00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:36,240
Speaker 3: Or is there no such thing. I'm very curious about this.

92
00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:39,719
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to hearing from

93
00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:41,040
Speaker 3: you on the podcast.

94
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,800
Speaker 1: All right, Daniel, So let's start with what is the

95
00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:47,640
Speaker 1: Big Bang? To make sure we're all on the same page,

96
00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:49,320
Speaker 1: because I feel like this is one of those topics

97
00:04:49,320 --> 00:04:51,160
Speaker 1: that I hear about and I seem to remember you

98
00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:53,800
Speaker 1: telling me that the popular conception of this idea is

99
00:04:53,960 --> 00:04:56,000
Speaker 1: like totally not right. So let's make sure we're all

100
00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:57,440
Speaker 1: on the same page.

101
00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:01,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's amazing to me and kind of endlessly frustrating

102
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,440
Speaker 2: that this incredible concept in science that's been so talked

103
00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 2: about is still so widely misunderstood. That like, the mental

104
00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 2: image most scientists have of the Big Bang is very

105
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:15,760
Speaker 2: different from the mental image in the public's mind. And

106
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:18,120
Speaker 2: I had a long conversation with Zach about this when

107
00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:21,120
Speaker 2: we talked about one of his recent books on cosmology

108
00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:25,600
Speaker 2: about this discrepancy and how these things go awry. But briefly,

109
00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:28,320
Speaker 2: most people, when they think about the Big Bang, imagine

110
00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:31,960
Speaker 2: a tiny dot of matter in empty space, and then

111
00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,520
Speaker 2: an explosion of all that stuff flying out, filling out

112
00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:38,599
Speaker 2: that once empty space and zooming through the universe and

113
00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:41,720
Speaker 2: then fourteen billion years later, things are still flying out.

114
00:05:42,160 --> 00:05:45,040
Speaker 2: That's what people imagine. And I wonder, when Marcella is

115
00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:47,839
Speaker 2: talking about a single seat to reproduce the Big Bang,

116
00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:50,200
Speaker 2: the particles flying in various directions, if this is what

117
00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:54,360
Speaker 2: she's imagining, because in contrast, the scientific view of the

118
00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:58,159
Speaker 2: Big Bang is quite different. There's no dot in empty space,

119
00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:01,560
Speaker 2: and also wasn't the beginning of the universe. The Big

120
00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,040
Speaker 2: Bang is a time thirteen point six billion years ago

121
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,120
Speaker 2: when the universe was very hot and very dense. But crucially,

122
00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 2: there was not a dot in empty space. It was

123
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:14,719
Speaker 2: filled with this hot dance matter. It was everywhere. The

124
00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:17,440
Speaker 2: whole universe was filled with hot, dense stuff. There was

125
00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:21,479
Speaker 2: no empty space. It also wasn't the beginning of the universe.

126
00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:23,720
Speaker 2: It's just the earliest moment we can think about, or

127
00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:26,679
Speaker 2: we can describe with our laws of physics. So ditch

128
00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:29,279
Speaker 2: the idea of a hot danse dot exploding into space

129
00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:33,599
Speaker 2: and imagine a whole universe filled with hot, dense matter.

130
00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:37,200
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I think that differs significantly from what I

131
00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:38,960
Speaker 1: was told when I first heard about the Big Bang.

132
00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:41,760
Speaker 1: All right, so let's take the scenario that you just

133
00:06:41,839 --> 00:06:45,599
Speaker 1: laid out for us. If everything was exactly the same

134
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,200
Speaker 1: as it was about fourteen billion years ago, and then

135
00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:52,000
Speaker 1: you hit play and you started it again, would you

136
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:53,240
Speaker 1: get the exact same thing.

137
00:06:54,279 --> 00:06:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is such a great question, and I think

138
00:06:56,960 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 2: it's so important philosophically because it makes us wonder about

139
00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:04,039
Speaker 2: whether the life we're living is random or determined. And

140
00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:06,359
Speaker 2: if it's determined, is that mean I'm just a robot

141
00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:08,719
Speaker 2: and I was predetermined to say this thing on the

142
00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:10,600
Speaker 2: podcast and to make these dumb jokes, And so I'm

143
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,520
Speaker 2: not responsible for all my terrible humor.

144
00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,400
Speaker 1: You're not getting out of it. It's your responsibility.

145
00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:20,560
Speaker 2: That was my philosophical backdoor. Anyway, It's a fascinating question

146
00:07:20,600 --> 00:07:23,040
Speaker 2: and one that's been debated for a long time in physics,

147
00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:26,760
Speaker 2: and in classical physics, the answer is yes, the past

148
00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:31,160
Speaker 2: perfectly predicts the future. It determines the future. The classical

149
00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:33,440
Speaker 2: way to think about this is like a billiard ball.

150
00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:35,360
Speaker 2: If you shoot the cue ball at the eighth ball,

151
00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:37,560
Speaker 2: and you do it again and again with exactly the

152
00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:40,160
Speaker 2: same setup, you should get the same answer. Because the

153
00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 2: laws of physics tell you exactly how momentum travels and

154
00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:47,360
Speaker 2: exactly how that bounce happens, and even at the microscopic scale,

155
00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:48,880
Speaker 2: if you think about the atoms. As long as you're

156
00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:53,600
Speaker 2: talking about classical physics, then the past completely predicts the future.

157
00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:56,520
Speaker 2: There is no wiggle room at all. The universe is

158
00:07:56,560 --> 00:07:59,240
Speaker 2: like a clock. It's like a big mechanism, and the

159
00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:02,320
Speaker 2: current state addicts the future, and the current state can

160
00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:04,480
Speaker 2: be predicted by the past. So if you have two

161
00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:07,280
Speaker 2: universes with the same setup and you just hit play,

162
00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:10,120
Speaker 2: as you say, they should end up fourteen billion years

163
00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:12,360
Speaker 2: later with exactly the same mushroom over here and the

164
00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:15,880
Speaker 2: same blueberry over there. If the universe is governed by

165
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:17,480
Speaker 2: classical physics.

166
00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:20,000
Speaker 1: And the same Daniel on a podcast like all the

167
00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,280
Speaker 1: way to those details like no free will at all.

168
00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:25,520
Speaker 2: No free will at all if the universe is governed

169
00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,400
Speaker 2: by classical physics, because otherwise where can it creep in? Right,

170
00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:30,920
Speaker 2: You either have to add some sort of dualistic thing

171
00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:33,360
Speaker 2: where you have like, yes, the universe is controlled by

172
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:36,240
Speaker 2: classical physics, but there's a special thing where people get

173
00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:39,800
Speaker 2: to make decisions, and there's this like an unexplained force

174
00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:43,880
Speaker 2: somehow where my brain decides how neurons fire and how

175
00:08:43,880 --> 00:08:46,240
Speaker 2: my hand moves. You know, there's no room at all

176
00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:50,000
Speaker 2: for wiggles in classical physics. Right, you throw the ball

177
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:52,560
Speaker 2: the same way twice, it will fly the same way

178
00:08:52,559 --> 00:08:55,120
Speaker 2: twice if you've captured all of those details. And that's

179
00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:58,360
Speaker 2: tremendously difficult, like to imagine setting up a whole universe

180
00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:00,840
Speaker 2: with every particle moving in exactly the same direction. But

181
00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:03,120
Speaker 2: you know, it's a philosophical question, so we get to

182
00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:07,280
Speaker 2: be unrealistic in practice. If you are building universes, it's

183
00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,880
Speaker 2: going to be very, very difficult to have exactly the

184
00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:12,680
Speaker 2: same starting conditions. But that's what Marcella is asking about,

185
00:09:12,679 --> 00:09:15,000
Speaker 2: because she's not interested in is it hard to make

186
00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:17,960
Speaker 2: two universes start the same way? She's interested in if

187
00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:21,200
Speaker 2: you do what happens, and yes, you get exactly the

188
00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:24,440
Speaker 2: same Daniel on the same podcast, not liking chemistry or

189
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:26,000
Speaker 2: with a growing interest in biology.

190
00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:30,240
Speaker 1: Oh good, good answer, and hating white chocolate. So I

191
00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:32,960
Speaker 1: really don't want to lose hope that there's free will

192
00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:34,680
Speaker 1: out there, and so I'm going to cling to my

193
00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:39,360
Speaker 1: knowledge that general relativity and quantum mechanics don't always agree.

194
00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:43,480
Speaker 1: So probably at a different scale, this deterministic stuff breaks

195
00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:46,319
Speaker 1: down and so what happens if you're thinking about the

196
00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:47,079
Speaker 1: quantum realm.

197
00:09:47,160 --> 00:09:49,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, so then people say, oh, okay, well, the universe

198
00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,880
Speaker 2: is not classical. There's quantum mechanics, and electrons don't obey

199
00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:56,880
Speaker 2: these rules of classical physics. They aren't like billiard balls.

200
00:09:56,880 --> 00:09:59,319
Speaker 2: And as you zoom down to the microphysics of the universe,

201
00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:02,240
Speaker 2: there are different set of rules and quantum mechanics dot

202
00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:05,440
Speaker 2: dot dot randomness, dot dot dot free will. But there's

203
00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:07,680
Speaker 2: a lot that's being lost in those dot dot dots.

204
00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:11,760
Speaker 2: And there's important subtlety about quantum mechanics which is deterministic

205
00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:15,199
Speaker 2: also just in a different way that I really want

206
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:19,240
Speaker 2: people to understand. So quantum mechanics does not say that

207
00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:22,040
Speaker 2: if you shoot an electron at some experimental setup, you'll

208
00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:24,720
Speaker 2: get the same answer twice, even if the initial conditions

209
00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:27,800
Speaker 2: are the same, which is different from classical physics. Classical

210
00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,320
Speaker 2: physics says throw a baseball the same way twice, you

211
00:10:30,360 --> 00:10:33,640
Speaker 2: get exactly the same trajectory. Quantum mechanics says you throw

212
00:10:33,679 --> 00:10:35,800
Speaker 2: an electron at a wall, you don't always get the

213
00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:39,960
Speaker 2: same outcome. But quantum mechanics does say you always get

214
00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:45,280
Speaker 2: the same probability distribution of possible outcomes that is deterministic.

215
00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:48,400
Speaker 2: So quantum mechanics is not like, hey, the universe is random.

216
00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:51,040
Speaker 2: Do anything you like, folks. Right, there are still rules,

217
00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,240
Speaker 2: it's just the rules don't govern the individual outcomes. Instead,

218
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:58,240
Speaker 2: they govern the probability of various outcomes. So if you'd

219
00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:00,760
Speaker 2: like to think about two options, if an electron can

220
00:11:00,800 --> 00:11:03,720
Speaker 2: go left or right, and quantum mechanics is very specific

221
00:11:03,800 --> 00:11:06,040
Speaker 2: about the odds of going left or the odds of

222
00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:06,760
Speaker 2: going right.

223
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:10,319
Speaker 1: But once you have many, many, many of these sort

224
00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:13,200
Speaker 1: of decision points where it goes left or right, things

225
00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:16,400
Speaker 1: can get very different between for example, the moment the

226
00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:19,880
Speaker 1: Big Bang happened, and now like we wouldn't necessarily have

227
00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:22,120
Speaker 1: Daniel with a deep voice on the show today if

228
00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:25,280
Speaker 1: we started everything again from the exact same materials.

229
00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:29,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's exactly where it gets messy, these decision points, right, Like,

230
00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:33,160
Speaker 2: if we throw electrons at the wall, quantum mechanics says

231
00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,319
Speaker 2: they have the same probability. But then you're suggesting, Okay,

232
00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:38,640
Speaker 2: now let's ask where the electrons are, let's observe them.

233
00:11:38,679 --> 00:11:40,720
Speaker 2: They end up in different places. And we duck into

234
00:11:40,760 --> 00:11:43,880
Speaker 2: this recently with Scott on our listener questions episode. But

235
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:46,439
Speaker 2: it's interesting to play another philosophical game and say, well,

236
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:50,080
Speaker 2: what if we don't ever ask, like, take your universe,

237
00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:53,199
Speaker 2: make it quantum mechanical, started from the same initial conditions,

238
00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:56,920
Speaker 2: run it forward fourteen billion years, but never make an observation,

239
00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:01,960
Speaker 2: then those two universes are this same quantum mechanically. They

240
00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,959
Speaker 2: have the same probabilities distribution of outcomes because nobody's ever

241
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:09,640
Speaker 2: collapsed those wave functions, and so because you never made

242
00:12:09,679 --> 00:12:14,480
Speaker 2: any choices, quantum mechanics is completely deterministic about the probability

243
00:12:14,480 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 2: distributions of the various outcomes fourteen billion years later. And

244
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,840
Speaker 2: so if you let the universe stay quantum mechanical, you

245
00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:24,839
Speaker 2: never collapse it into classical physics or make observations, then

246
00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:28,000
Speaker 2: the deterministic of quantum mechanics says, the answer is that

247
00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:31,480
Speaker 2: you get the same universe, the same quantum mechanical universe.

248
00:12:31,640 --> 00:12:34,200
Speaker 2: Or if you like to think about many worlds version

249
00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 2: of quantum mechanics, you get the same set of possible

250
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,920
Speaker 2: universes in the future if you haven't picked one at

251
00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:44,000
Speaker 2: any moment, and you're making that face because you're wondering, like,

252
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:46,199
Speaker 2: how is it possible to not pick one. Doesn't the

253
00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:47,520
Speaker 2: universe force you to do that?

254
00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:49,880
Speaker 1: Well, that's one of the things that I'm wondering, But

255
00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:52,600
Speaker 1: I could see this on multiple levels, I think. Right, Okay,

256
00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:54,680
Speaker 1: So if the electron can go left or right, and

257
00:12:54,760 --> 00:12:57,559
Speaker 1: you know, say, getting from fourteen billion years ago to now,

258
00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:00,960
Speaker 1: that has to happen, you know, a trillion time. Why

259
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:04,960
Speaker 1: during those trillion times in a quantum mechanical universe, would

260
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:07,480
Speaker 1: the electron always make exactly the same decision as it

261
00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:11,520
Speaker 1: made initially. Why wouldn't each time it would be a

262
00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:14,280
Speaker 1: separate coin flip to make the decision and you could

263
00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:17,640
Speaker 1: end up somewhere else. Why does observing it mess that up?

264
00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:20,800
Speaker 2: Because there is no coin flip until you observe it.

265
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:24,400
Speaker 2: Like if you shoot electrons through this double slit experiment

266
00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:27,920
Speaker 2: but there is no screen, then the electron could have

267
00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:29,480
Speaker 2: gone through the left or could have gone through the right.

268
00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:32,520
Speaker 2: You don't know. Even after the experiment is over, you

269
00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:36,440
Speaker 2: haven't collapsed the wave function, the probability still remains. And

270
00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:40,120
Speaker 2: if it only ever interacts with quantum objects and influences

271
00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:43,520
Speaker 2: those that, then those probabilities are just propagated. Say, for example,

272
00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:45,880
Speaker 2: we have our double slit experiment, the electron could have

273
00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:47,760
Speaker 2: gone through the left or the right, and that I

274
00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:51,199
Speaker 2: don't have a screen. Instead, downstream I have two more

275
00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,880
Speaker 2: double slit experiments which capture electrons that went left, to

276
00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:58,079
Speaker 2: capture electrons that went right, and does another split. Now

277
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:00,439
Speaker 2: I have four possible outcomes for the elector and could

278
00:14:00,480 --> 00:14:04,000
Speaker 2: goone left, left, left, right, right, left or right right,

279
00:14:04,880 --> 00:14:08,160
Speaker 2: and all the four possibilities exist now downstream from that,

280
00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,040
Speaker 2: at another set of experiments, Now I have eight possible

281
00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:15,960
Speaker 2: outcomes right now, say I do this for fourteen billion years, right,

282
00:14:16,120 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 2: I have a huge number of possible outcomes for this electron.

283
00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:22,200
Speaker 2: And because I never had a screen, I allowed all

284
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:25,440
Speaker 2: those possibilities to propagate forwards. And if I start from

285
00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:27,640
Speaker 2: the same initial conditions, I will always have the same

286
00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:31,480
Speaker 2: possible set of outcomes for that electron. Same thing for

287
00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:35,840
Speaker 2: the whole universe. If there's no screen. Now, how can

288
00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:36,920
Speaker 2: you avoid having a screen?

289
00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:37,080
Speaker 4: Right?

290
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:39,720
Speaker 2: Because electrons will hit something, and the universe has planets

291
00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:41,440
Speaker 2: in it and there are people in it and whatever.

292
00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 2: And this is where we don't know the answer, because

293
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:48,200
Speaker 2: we don't understand the distinction between quantum things which don't

294
00:14:48,240 --> 00:14:50,760
Speaker 2: force the collapse of the wave function and can happily

295
00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:54,320
Speaker 2: allow superpositions to propagate in classical things like my eyeball

296
00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:58,440
Speaker 2: or your brain that do force individual outcomes. Because I

297
00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:00,920
Speaker 2: can't be in a superposition. I can't be Daniel who

298
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,440
Speaker 2: saw the electron on the left side and Daniel who

299
00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:05,520
Speaker 2: saw the electron on the right side simultaneously. I'm a

300
00:15:05,520 --> 00:15:07,880
Speaker 2: classical thing. And this is where we don't have a

301
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,800
Speaker 2: philosophical answer to the question of why does the wave

302
00:15:10,840 --> 00:15:14,440
Speaker 2: function collapse sometimes and how does an observation work? We

303
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 2: don't know. So to answer Marcella's question, like, if you

304
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:22,480
Speaker 2: start from the same quantum state I mean, the same probabilities,

305
00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 2: same undetermined reality, and you let that propagate forward, you

306
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,160
Speaker 2: would get a clone of the universe's quantum states today,

307
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:32,600
Speaker 2: which includes all the uncertainties and all the unknowns, because

308
00:15:32,880 --> 00:15:37,560
Speaker 2: quantum mechanics is deterministic about the probabilities. Right, But you

309
00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:40,240
Speaker 2: were right, the collapse can't be cloned. If people do

310
00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:43,960
Speaker 2: experiments and there are observations in those universes, then those

311
00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 2: will be individual coin flips, and those are drawn from

312
00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 2: those probability distributions, but they are fundamentally random, and so

313
00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:53,400
Speaker 2: they will go different ways. Like a ball bouncing down

314
00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:55,240
Speaker 2: one of those games, it's going to end up in

315
00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:58,080
Speaker 2: a different slot, and that's going to cascade down the road.

316
00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,200
Speaker 2: So if you have quantum mechanics and you have collapsing

317
00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:04,160
Speaker 2: wave functions, that it's essentially impossible to end up with

318
00:16:04,200 --> 00:16:08,000
Speaker 2: the same universe twice fourteen billion years later starting from

319
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:11,000
Speaker 2: the initial conditions. But if you never collapse the wave function,

320
00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:14,120
Speaker 2: then you get the same quantum mechanical probabilities for all

321
00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 2: those various outcomes.

322
00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:18,360
Speaker 1: All right, that was trippy, but I think I followed it.

323
00:16:18,520 --> 00:16:20,239
Speaker 1: Let's see what Marcella thinks.

324
00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,400
Speaker 3: Hey, Daniel and Kelly, thank you so much for answering

325
00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:29,200
Speaker 3: my question. It was very trippy. Indeed, I think I

326
00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:33,920
Speaker 3: prefer classical physics. I don't really understand it that deeply,

327
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:37,440
Speaker 3: as I am a psychology major, but I feel like

328
00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:39,880
Speaker 3: it wraps around my head a little bit easier than

329
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:44,760
Speaker 3: quantum physics. Quantum physics is a whole different realm. But

330
00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:49,760
Speaker 3: it was very interesting to listen to you guys discussing

331
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:53,520
Speaker 3: it and learn a little bit more about this. I

332
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:55,960
Speaker 3: will have to take this to my friend now, with

333
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:59,120
Speaker 3: whom I had this conversation in the beginning, and we're

334
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:02,080
Speaker 3: going to discuss and if I have any further questions,

335
00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:04,760
Speaker 3: I will definitely send it your way. Thank you so much.

336
00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:23,640
Speaker 2: Guys. All right, we are back and we're zooming out

337
00:17:23,680 --> 00:17:26,320
Speaker 2: from the whole universe and the Big Bang, and now

338
00:17:26,320 --> 00:17:28,639
Speaker 2: we're going to answer our some questions about the gooey

339
00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:29,960
Speaker 2: treats that we all eat.

340
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,200
Speaker 1: And we're talking about wasps, which makes me very happy.

341
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: So we have a question from Petrie. Let's go ahead

342
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:37,000
Speaker 1: and listen.

343
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:38,320
Speaker 2: Hello.

344
00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:42,160
Speaker 5: My name is Petrie and I'm from Waterloo, Canada, and

345
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:46,840
Speaker 5: I recently learned a little bit about figs and wasps.

346
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,679
Speaker 5: And my question is am I really eating dissolved wasp

347
00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,359
Speaker 5: carcasses when I eat figs? Thank you?

348
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:56,080
Speaker 2: So I'm very excited to hear your answer to this

349
00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:59,199
Speaker 2: question because just the other day at dinner, as I

350
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:03,200
Speaker 2: was enjoying fig one of my son's friends said to me, Hey,

351
00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:06,200
Speaker 2: you know you're eating wasp babies, right, And I thought

352
00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:09,359
Speaker 2: to myself, that is a very cool little popsie fact.

353
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:11,800
Speaker 2: I wonder if it's true or if Kelly would throw

354
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:14,359
Speaker 2: cold water on it. Petrie and I are both very

355
00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:17,440
Speaker 2: curious to know whether or not we're eating wasp babies.

356
00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:20,360
Speaker 1: Well, this is a question about biology, so the answer

357
00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:26,000
Speaker 1: has to be it depends, because nature's never that easy.

358
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:28,680
Speaker 1: Let's dig into the biology here. So first of all,

359
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:32,320
Speaker 1: there's over seven hundred and fifty species of fig trees,

360
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,520
Speaker 1: and almost all of them have their own wasp that

361
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 1: pollinates them, and so there's a lot of different kinds

362
00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:41,200
Speaker 1: of these and so the answer that you're going to

363
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:43,520
Speaker 1: get in the end depends on what species of fig

364
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:45,760
Speaker 1: it is that you're eating and how it was cultivated.

365
00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:48,040
Speaker 2: All right, First, I have some questions. Yeah, okay, seven

366
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:51,040
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty species of figs. I've had like three

367
00:18:51,080 --> 00:18:53,359
Speaker 2: different kinds of figs, like the black figs and the

368
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 2: tiger figs. Are there a lot more figs out there

369
00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 2: that I should learn to enjoy? Or are these all

370
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:00,000
Speaker 2: like invisible variations on bloe?

371
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,040
Speaker 1: There are people who forage on wild figs, and they

372
00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:06,480
Speaker 1: would tell you that each one is its own unique

373
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,680
Speaker 1: flavor escapade that you should go on. And so.

374
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:13,919
Speaker 2: I like flavor escapades. That sounds great, It does.

375
00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:16,280
Speaker 1: Sound great, but I can't say that I have tried them.

376
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:18,600
Speaker 1: I've just tried, like, you know, the typical figs that

377
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:21,480
Speaker 1: you get yeah, okay, but the biology is trippy. Okay,

378
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:24,480
Speaker 1: So because they're seven hundred and fifty different species, this

379
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:26,400
Speaker 1: works in a lot of different ways, and so I'm

380
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:28,120
Speaker 1: just going to give you like an overview of how

381
00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:30,080
Speaker 1: it works a lot of the time, but if you

382
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:32,639
Speaker 1: dig into a particular system, the details probably different. All right,

383
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:33,679
Speaker 1: So here's the deal, right.

384
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:35,280
Speaker 2: So give us a background on like what it means

385
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:38,879
Speaker 2: for a wasp to pollinate a fig, because I'm familiar

386
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:41,639
Speaker 2: with like bees and pollen a little bit, but like

387
00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:43,800
Speaker 2: tell us how it works for figs and why they

388
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:44,760
Speaker 2: have to use wasps.

389
00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:47,560
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So figs, So usually you think of

390
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,639
Speaker 1: flowers getting pollinated. A fig is a flower, but instead

391
00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,320
Speaker 1: of it opening outwards, it actually kind of closes in

392
00:19:54,359 --> 00:19:57,399
Speaker 1: on itself and it's got a little tiny hole at

393
00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:00,960
Speaker 1: the bottom called the osteole, and and it's ready to

394
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:05,480
Speaker 1: be pollinated. It secretes a smell that attracts the wasps

395
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:06,280
Speaker 1: that pollinate it.

396
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:09,560
Speaker 2: All right. So usually for fruit, you have like a

397
00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:11,600
Speaker 2: flower and then it's pollinated and then you get the

398
00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:14,199
Speaker 2: fruit laders, like you'll see cherry trees bloom and then

399
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,240
Speaker 2: later you have cherries. But you're saying figs are the

400
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:18,919
Speaker 2: blooms themselves.

401
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:19,560
Speaker 1: Yes, and then they ripe it.

402
00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:25,440
Speaker 2: Wow yeah, wow, Okay, fascinating plants are nuts. Nuts are plants.

403
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:26,040
Speaker 2: It's amazing.

404
00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:30,920
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. This is deep. So there's this little

405
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:33,840
Speaker 1: hole at the bottom, and when it's ready to get pollinated,

406
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 1: it attracts the wasp. And the hole is so small

407
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,560
Speaker 1: that when the female wasp, and it's always a female

408
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:40,720
Speaker 1: in this case, when the female wasp goes in there,

409
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 1: she has to like squeeze in and her wings fall

410
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 1: off and sometimes part of her antennae fall off. She's

411
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:49,399
Speaker 1: really like wedging herself in there because she's.

412
00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:51,480
Speaker 2: So desperate to eat this smelly thing.

413
00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 1: To lay her eggs in the smelly thing.

414
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,240
Speaker 2: Oh, to lay her eggs in my delicious tree.

415
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:58,639
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. This is just the beginning of the gross

416
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,760
Speaker 1: pyramid or the gross ice, if you will. So she

417
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 1: wiggles her way to the inside of the fruit. And

418
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 1: if you've opened up a fig, you've maybe noticed that

419
00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:07,439
Speaker 1: the inside has a little bit of an open space,

420
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,680
Speaker 1: and so she gets to that open space. And you

421
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:12,879
Speaker 1: might have also noticed that when you open up a

422
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:15,320
Speaker 1: fig often there's lots of little seeds in there. So

423
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:16,800
Speaker 1: the good news is that when you bite into a

424
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,080
Speaker 1: seed and you feel something crunchy, it is the seed.

425
00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:22,440
Speaker 1: It's not the wasp, So like, don't start panicking already.

426
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:25,280
Speaker 1: So the mom gets in there and all of the

427
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:28,240
Speaker 1: little like projections and the inside of the fig are

428
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,760
Speaker 1: as I understand it. They're like ovaries, and so they

429
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:35,880
Speaker 1: can either get pollinated, and the wasp has pollen on her,

430
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:37,919
Speaker 1: and we'll get to how she got that pollen on

431
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 1: her towards the end of the story. But she's got pollen,

432
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:43,000
Speaker 1: and so in some of those little ovaries she deposits

433
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:45,879
Speaker 1: her egg and then induces the fig to make a

434
00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:47,800
Speaker 1: gall where her offspring will develop.

435
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,440
Speaker 2: Tamika, what a gall? What's a gall?

436
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,159
Speaker 1: Oh? Man? I love galling insects. We need to get

437
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:54,560
Speaker 1: my friends. Got Egan on the show one day to

438
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 1: talk about galling insects because he freaks out because they're

439
00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:57,240
Speaker 1: so great.

440
00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,040
Speaker 2: Gallic is different from galic Gaalic is like French.

441
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, right, this is gall Gall. A plant is

442
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 1: manipulated into producing a compartment in which an insect will grow,

443
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,400
Speaker 1: and that compartment is called a gall. Yikes, And they

444
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 1: take lots of different crazy forms, some of them are

445
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 1: super fuzzy. Some of them have spikes. This is not

446
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: in the figs. This is in like oaks and stuff.

447
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 1: But here it's just a tiny little compartment that the

448
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 1: insect grows in.

449
00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 2: So the fig manipulates the wasp to crawl in, and

450
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 2: the wasp manipulates the fig to make a little nest

451
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:27,439
Speaker 2: for its baby.

452
00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: Yes, while it is also depositing pollen. There's all of

453
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:33,760
Speaker 1: these little like projections in the gall Some of them

454
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:35,919
Speaker 1: are the right height for eggs to get laid in,

455
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,199
Speaker 1: and some of them are not, and those get pollen

456
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: on them. And so you get some insect babies inside

457
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 1: of these projections, and then in some of them you

458
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 1: just get the production of like seeds. Is that making

459
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: sense so far?

460
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,480
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely? Okay, right, so they're like sharing this thing,

461
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 2: like you grow some of your babies and I'll grow

462
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,640
Speaker 2: some of my babies. So basically figs and wasps are

463
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,200
Speaker 2: like siblings that grow up together.

464
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,160
Speaker 1: This is a mutualism, so they both benefit. The listener

465
00:22:58,200 --> 00:22:59,680
Speaker 1: should let us know if you want a whole show

466
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:01,360
Speaker 1: on this, because I would love an excuse to read

467
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 1: about the evolution of like how this came into being.

468
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:06,439
Speaker 1: But that is not the question I was asked to answer.

469
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:08,240
Speaker 1: So we're going to stay on focus.

470
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 2: I want a whole show in this, depending on how

471
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 2: gross this gets and whether this ruins figs for me

472
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 2: in the end.

473
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 1: All right, stick with me, Stick with me. Okay. So

474
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: the mom, when she's done pollinating and laying her eggs,

475
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,399
Speaker 1: dies and that's usually the wasp that people are talking

476
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 1: about you eating. And the good news is at the

477
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: point where this process is happening, the fig is not

478
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: usually ripe enough that you would pick it and eat it.

479
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 1: So the mom dies and then the mom essentially gets

480
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: digested by the fig, so it releases this enzyme I

481
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:41,880
Speaker 1: think it's called fiking ficin, and it digests the mom,

482
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 1: and I think it just uses that protein for like

483
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:44,479
Speaker 1: its own stuff.

484
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:46,040
Speaker 2: So the fig eats the wasp.

485
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 1: So the fig eats the wasp.

486
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 2: Wow, what amazing.

487
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: There's other wasps in there, right, because you've just created

488
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:55,199
Speaker 1: a bunch of goals, right, And so those gulls hatch

489
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: and the males come out first, and often more than

490
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 1: one female wasp gets in and lays her eggs. Sometimes

491
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: it's only one, but the males come out first. And

492
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: the reason it's important to know if it was one

493
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: or more moms is because what those males do is

494
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: they open up the gulls that contain the females and

495
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: they start impregnating those females.

496
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:15,159
Speaker 2: Which might be their sisters, which might be.

497
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 1: Their sisters, and often it is their sisters.

498
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 2: And so gross problematic, wasp men problematic, that's right.

499
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: Work on that wasps, work on it. So the females

500
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: get impregnated, and then the males, having done that job,

501
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,160
Speaker 1: start chewing their way out of the fig to create

502
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 1: exit holes for the females.

503
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:35,160
Speaker 2: I'm losing track of who's eating who here.

504
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, there's a lot of bags and forth right.

505
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: It's a mutualism. It's give and take. And so the

506
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: males they start chewing these exit holes for the females

507
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: who have wings, and they manage to get out. A

508
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: lot of times the males like chew these exit holes

509
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: and then they get like picked off by ants that

510
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: are like waiting on the outside of the fig to

511
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: eat these other insects. Because nature is just mean, and

512
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 1: so the males are like sacrificial. Some of them never

513
00:24:57,720 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 1: get out of the fig. A lot of them that

514
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: get out of the they get eaten by ants. And

515
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:03,439
Speaker 1: while they are being consumed by ants, that gives the

516
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: females a chance to go off.

517
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:07,440
Speaker 2: Is this the whole job of the males to dig

518
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:09,399
Speaker 2: the women out and pregnate them and then let them

519
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 2: miscave the wasp or do they have a life cycle

520
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 2: outside of the wasp.

521
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: Well, that's it, that's it. Yeah, they impregnate the females,

522
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 1: they help them get out, then they sacrifice themselves and die.

523
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: That's it.

524
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,199
Speaker 2: So if you're a male wasp, your whole existence is

525
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 2: inside a fig. Your fig is your universe. Yes, that's crazy.

526
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: And so if you are eating a wasp in a fig,

527
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: I think you're probably eating the males m that get

528
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: left behind in there. So the females they get impregnated,

529
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: and before they go out and leave to go find

530
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 1: another fig, the fig that they're in starts producing pollen,

531
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: and the females go and they collect the pollen. They've

532
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: got like a little compartment and they collect the pollen,

533
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: they hold onto it, and then they go off in

534
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: search of another fig.

535
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 2: Why did they do that? They just do that to

536
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 2: be nice to the fig, or there's a benefit to them.

537
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: This is why I would love to have a whole

538
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: show on this. But the quick answer that I found

539
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: when I did a little bit of research was that

540
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: when females get into a fig and they lay their

541
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: eggs but they don't do any pollinating, the fig trees

542
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: are more likely to drop that fig. So it's like

543
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: they're punishing the wasp for not pollinating it. But there's

544
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: got to be some cheating. So, like, you know, if

545
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: two fig wasps get into a fig and one pollinates

546
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: and one doesn't, then how do you punish the one

547
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: that didn't pollinate?

548
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:27,959
Speaker 2: Wow?

549
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 1: And so I'd love an excuse to read more about it,

550
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: but it sounds like there's some punishment going to like

551
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: maintain this mutualism. There's consequences if you don't play along.

552
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 2: Mutualism is that the grown up word for symbiosis that

553
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 2: I learned as a young biologist.

554
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,159
Speaker 1: So symbiosis means a long term interaction between two organisms.

555
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can be bad or sometimes it can be good.

556
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: And so mutualism is when it is good. When a

557
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: symbiosis is good for both partners.

558
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 2: I see, even though they eat each other, the fig

559
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 2: eats the wasp, the wasps eats the fig, it's good

560
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:57,639
Speaker 2: for both of them.

561
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,360
Speaker 1: It's good for both of them, that's right, right. That's

562
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: like a general overview of how it works. And so

563
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 1: now let's get into the specifics. So figs have been

564
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: cultivated by humans for something like eleven thousand years.

565
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 2: Wow, how do we know that?

566
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: We know that because we have found figs and archaeological

567
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: digs and it looks like it's been going on for

568
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: about eleven thousand years.

569
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 2: Figs and archaeological digs like remnants of fossilized figs, or

570
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 2: like depictions of people eating figs or what does that mean?

571
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: I think it's remnants of fossilized figs.

572
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 2: Wow. Incredible.

573
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: But again, if we did a whole hour on this,

574
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 1: I'd be happy to find a lot more. All right,

575
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 1: And here's where we really get out of my area

576
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: of expertise, and this is in how plants reproduce. But

577
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: here is my best guess at answering the question. Okay,

578
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: so through that process of cultivation, we have come up

579
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: with some figs that don't produce seeds at all. So

580
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 1: you've had seedless watermelon. Probably this is sort of the

581
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: same idea. I think what's happening is you like pull

582
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 1: a branch off, and then you stick a branch in

583
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: the ground and it'll just start like propagating that way,

584
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 1: and so those fruits will still ripen, you can still

585
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: eat them. And if they don't have seeds, then they

586
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: didn't need a wasp. And so a lot of the

587
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 1: figs that you eat in grocery stores have been propagated

588
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 1: that way and have never encountered a wasp.

589
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 2: Wow.

590
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: There are also some figs that you can induce to

591
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: ripen by spraying them with plant hormones, and even though

592
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: the wasp wasn't there, it will go ahead and ripen

593
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 1: and then you can eat it.

594
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 2: So figs in the wild originally had this complex dance

595
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 2: with wasps to evolve and propagate, and that gives us

596
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 2: natural selection and all the kind of useful stuff. But

597
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 2: humans have intervened and been cultivating figs and taking them

598
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 2: out of their sort of natural cycle which might exclude

599
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: the wasps. Is that what I'm understanding.

600
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: Yes, And it wouldn't surprise me if in those seven

601
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty fig species there were some that had

602
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: dropped the wasp and get pollinated in some other way,

603
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: because plants are just kind of crazy. But yes, in general,

604
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: you need the wasp. But when we took this system

605
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: and cultivated it as many cases as we can, we

606
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: try to cut that wasp out. And that wasp also

607
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: has environmental conditions that can't live under. So when it

608
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: gets too cold, for example, and you're growing a fig

609
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: too far north, then you probably don't have that wasp

610
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: at all because the wasps can't survive, but you could

611
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: still get fig fruits.

612
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 2: So it sounds like I'm unlikely to be eating wasps

613
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 2: if I'm eating like cultivated figs that I'm buying in

614
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 2: the grocery store. Whereas if I have a fig tree

615
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: just like out in my backyard and I'm eating bows,

616
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 2: am I more likely to be eating wasps?

617
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: Depends on where you live. I think it was the

618
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: common fig and we took it from Turkey the country

619
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: to California. We didn't bring the wasp with us. Initially,

620
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: the fig trees weren't doing what they thought they should

621
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: be doing, and so we ended up figuring out what

622
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: was going on, and then we brought the wasp over.

623
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: And so there's some parts in California where the wasp

624
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: can survive and the wasp does its thing, maybe even

625
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: in Irvine. I don't know.

626
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 2: Irvine probably has a law against it somehow.

627
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: Glad to know. It's a bureaucratic sort of city. But

628
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: if you go farther north, probably aren't the wasps. There's

629
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: other ways of like injecting the pollen in and pollinating

630
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: without the wasps. But I believe that figs from like

631
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: Turkey in southern California, you've got the wasps, and so

632
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: they might be in there. But I think it depends

633
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: on like the species, depends on where you are. It's

634
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: really complicated. So the answer I think is it depends.

635
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: I heard in a couple different sources that dried figs

636
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 1: tend to come from Turkey, where you do get the

637
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: wasp pollination, and so the dried figs are maybe more

638
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: likely to have wasps in them than a fresh fig

639
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: from northern California or something. The answer is, it depends

640
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: what happened to your fig?

641
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: All right? Well, my last question then is can I tell, like,

642
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,239
Speaker 2: if I bite into a fig, can I tell if

643
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 2: as a wasp? But it's a crunch. Differently, I mean,

644
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 2: should I notice? Does it matter?

645
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 4: No?

646
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: I would not think too hard about it. They're like

647
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:51,239
Speaker 1: teeny tiny I mean, if you've looked at like a

648
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: seed in a fig, those are super tiny. I you know,

649
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: imagine something like living inside of one of those or

650
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: something like really tiny. I mean, if you looked really close,

651
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: you put it under a microscope, maybe you would see

652
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: some remnants. But just pop the thing in your mouth,

653
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: put some goat cheese on it and some honey, smile,

654
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: and don't think about the wasps that have brought you

655
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: this amazing fruit.

656
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: I think you're right actually that the smaller the insect,

657
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 2: the less gross. It is. Like, if I imagine a

658
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 2: wasp basically filling out the inside of the fig, and

659
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 2: I'm biting the figure, I'm basically eating an entire wasp.

660
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 2: That's super gross. Yeah, but I know that everything I

661
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 2: eat is covered in all sorts of microbes and mites

662
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 2: and little critters All the time. As I'm speaking, I'm

663
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 2: probably consuming some tiny flies or whatever, and I'm honestly

664
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 2: grossed out by that. So I'll just shrink those wasps

665
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 2: in my mind until I don't worry about eating them.

666
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: I think the FDA, for a bunch of different kinds

667
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: of foods, has criteria for how many like insects or

668
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: insect parts are allowed to be in there, like per

669
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: gram because insects are, like, they're just really hard to avoid.

670
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are eating insects, whether

671
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: we mean to or not, whether we're vegan or not.

672
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: Cockroach legs and everything.

673
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: Ugh, No, I don't want to think about that. Cockroaches

674
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: do creep me out. You found my kryptonite.

675
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 2: What about tiny littlelady bad ones, super tiny microscopic cockroaches.

676
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, if they're so small that I can't see them,

677
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: I'll eat them. That's fine.

678
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 2: We'll do a blind taste test one day. I'll sprinkle

679
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 2: tiny cockroaches into a platter of hummus and mix it

680
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 2: in and see if you can tell.

681
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: I am not inviting you to parties anymore. But I've

682
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: been writing parasitologists to ask them if they infect themselves

683
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: with parasites, and one of them did tell me that

684
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: they mixed some beetles in with hummus so that they

685
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: wouldn't know that they were eating the beetle that was

686
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 1: infected by a tapeworm when they tried to infect themselves

687
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: with the tapeworm. And I was like, wow, So anyway,

688
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: hummus will always be for me. I guess the food

689
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:37,719
Speaker 1: that you hide things in.

690
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 2: There's got to be a Beatles joke. There is there

691
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 2: a Beatles song that sounds like it's about insects.

692
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: Here comes the infection, It's a stretch. Here comes the

693
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: wasp in your hummus. Yeah, I don't know. I don't

694
00:32:58,280 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: really like the beetles.

695
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 2: So lucy in the hummus with cockroaches. That's the Beatles

696
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 2: song you never heard before.

697
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: Oh all right, Petrie, did we answer your question? My friend?

698
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 4: Hello, Daniel and Kelly, thank you very much for answering

699
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 4: my question on the podcast. And I would like to

700
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 4: say that your answer was very thorough and detailed and

701
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 4: much more explicit than I bargained for, and I thought

702
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 4: it was absolutely fantastic.

703
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 2: Thank you.

704
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: All right, Daniel, let's bring on the Funk.

705
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 2: We are zooming back out from tiny microscopic things that

706
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 2: might gross you out to imagining the fate of the

707
00:33:55,400 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 2: whole universe as controlled by tiny microscopic particles. See all

708
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 2: the connections we're making today. Next, we're answering a question

709
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: from Tim Funk about the Higgs Boson and the Big Bang.

710
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 6: As I was listening to listener questions, episode fifty eight

711
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 6: about the Higgs fields collapse.

712
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: It made me wonder, could a Higgs field collapse be

713
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: just like the Big Bang? Thanks? All right, so this

714
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:21,240
Speaker 1: is great. We've got a bit of a Big Bang

715
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: theme going on. So we've already talked about what the

716
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: Big Bang is. What has happened since the Big Bang? Daniel,

717
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 1: It's been a while.

718
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been a while. A lot of stuff has happened.

719
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: Let's summarize the whole history of the universe. I think

720
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 2: it's important to understand what's happened since the Big Bang

721
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 2: in order to answer this question, because we'll see that

722
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 2: the Higgs field collapse can be considered it's just like

723
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 2: one more stage in the history of the universe. So

724
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 2: we talked about the Big Bang as starting from this

725
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 2: moment when the universe was very hot and was very dense.

726
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 2: And what happens next is that the universe expands, it

727
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 2: spreads out. You get new space created everywhere between in

728
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,240
Speaker 2: these particles, and what that means is that the universe

729
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 2: is getting more sparse, right, it's getting less dense. So

730
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 2: the universe goes from more dense to less dense. So

731
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 2: we get a universe that starts out young, hot and dense,

732
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 2: and as it expands it cools and becomes old, cold

733
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 2: and sparse. Right, And this is actually fascinating how the

734
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 2: different parts of the universe react as the universe expands.

735
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 2: Like matter, when the universe expands, just becomes more dilute

736
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 2: because you have like more volume and the same amount

737
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 2: of stuff. You don't get more protons made, you just

738
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 2: have more space, and so the proton density goes down.

739
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 2: Same thing is true for photons. You have the same

740
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:43,319
Speaker 2: number of photons, more volume, so lower density of photons.

741
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 2: But photons also get red shifted. They get stretched into

742
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 2: longer wavelengths as the universe expands, which means they lose energy.

743
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 2: So the energy density of photons goes down faster than

744
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 2: the energy density of matter. Matter loses energy density because

745
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 2: you know, space is expanding, but photons lose energy density faster,

746
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 2: which is really interesting, not just because hey, if you're

747
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 2: a nerd, this is cool, but because it tells us

748
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 2: something about dark matter. We can measure the energy density

749
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 2: of dark matter over time, and we see that it

750
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 2: decreases the same way as matter, not the same way

751
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 2: as photons, which is one reason why we think dark

752
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:25,800
Speaker 2: matter is matter. People say, oh, it's just a fudge

753
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 2: factor in galactic rotations, but like man, it plays a

754
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 2: crucial role in the whole history of the universe in

755
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 2: so many ways.

756
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: Does dark energy respond the same way as photons, then.

757
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 2: Dark energy does its own super weird third thing, which

758
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 2: is that it doesn't get diluted at all. It is

759
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 2: constant density. You double the volume of space, you double

760
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 2: the dark energy. It's weird. It's just like an inherent

761
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 2: property of space we don't understand at all. But as

762
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,759
Speaker 2: the universe expands the amount of dark energy increases because

763
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 2: the density is constant, totally weird and crazy.

764
00:36:57,680 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: We got to add that to our episode list.

765
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. And so what's happening quantum mechanically is think

766
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,280
Speaker 2: of the universe as space filled with quantum mechanical fields,

767
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 2: and you have like electron fields and photon fields, et cetera.

768
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 2: And as the universe is expanding, these fields are losing energy,

769
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 2: and so they go from being like totally filled with energy,

770
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 2: like an ocean of frothing energy inside these fields, to

771
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 2: being mostly empty, with little blips of energy here and there.

772
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 2: And so it's at that point we can start to

773
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: talk about particles. It's like take the ocean and drain it,

774
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 2: and now you have a bunch of drops left over

775
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 2: on the bottom. Those you can call particles. Doesn't really

776
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 2: make sense to talk about particles before that. It's just

777
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 2: a big frothing ocean. And so the universe cools, and

778
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 2: these fields deplete, and they lower with their energy density,

779
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 2: and they go down, down, down, down down. They never

780
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 2: actually get all the way to zero, right, they get

781
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 2: down to some sort of quantum minimum energy. No field

782
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 2: and quantum mechanics can actually have zero energy because of uncertainty.

783
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: I follow you there, now, can you tell what the

784
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: Higgs field is?

785
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 2: Right? So what role does the Higgs field play in

786
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 2: the sort of evolution of the universe and its future?

787
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 2: So all these fields we talked about are similar in

788
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 2: one really important way, which is that they want to

789
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 2: relax to zero, right. They want to go down to

790
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 2: zero energy density. That's sort of the most relaxed state.

791
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 2: And as the universe is expanding and cooling things relaxing,

792
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 2: they head down to zero particles and never get all

793
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: the way to zero, but they all head down to zero.

794
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 2: The Higgs field is different. It's weird in this one

795
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 2: particular way, which is that it doesn't relax to zero.

796
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 2: It relaxes to some non zero state. It's like if

797
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 2: you had a guitar and you plucked all the strings

798
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 2: and they all relaxed back down to like not vibrating

799
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 2: at all, but one of them relax down to like vibrating,

800
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 2: or relax down to being bent. Actually is a better analogy,

801
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 2: because the Higgs field relaxes not down to non zero

802
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 2: kinetic energy, but non zero potential energy. So like if

803
00:38:55,719 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 2: one of your guitar strings after you pluck it, it

804
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 2: relaxes down to a position which is not straight but

805
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 2: a little bit bent. That would be weird, right. That's

806
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 2: the Higgs field. So as the universe cools, all the

807
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 2: fields go to zero or close to it, except for

808
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 2: the Higgs field, which gets like stuck in this higher

809
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 2: energy state. And that's what Tim is asking about. He's

810
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 2: asking about if that field could collapse, if that field

811
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 2: could eventually decay all the way to zero, because we

812
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 2: don't understand the Higgs field well enough. It's pretty new

813
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 2: that we even know it it's a thing, and that

814
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 2: we're measuring all of its properties to know if it's

815
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 2: stuck in that state and stable or just sort of

816
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 2: temporarily paused there and eventually going to relax down to zero.

817
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 2: Like when I say it prefers to relax at a

818
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 2: non zero state, that's a hypothesis based on what we've

819
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 2: seen so far. We don't actually understand the field well

820
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 2: enough to know long term where it will eventually relax.

821
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: And we don't know why it stays at the non

822
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:55,359
Speaker 1: zero state for as long as we've been watching it, right,

823
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:56,320
Speaker 1: that's also a mystery.

824
00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we can describe it mathematically. We can constru

825
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 2: dructive field that has those properties. You just have to

826
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 2: give it sort of a weird potential energy form. But

827
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 2: then the question is like, well, well why does that

828
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 2: field exist? Yeah, that we don't know. This is just

829
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 2: descriptive so it's possible to accommodate mathematically, but that doesn't

830
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 2: answer the philosophical question of why the universe is this way.

831
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 2: But if the Higgs field does collapse, it means the

832
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 2: whole universe changes in its fundamental nature, because the Higgs

833
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,959
Speaker 2: field is why particles have mass. For example, electrons have mass,

834
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 2: and quarks have mass and all this kind of stuff,

835
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 2: and that only happens if the Higgs field has that energy.

836
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 2: If the Higgs field collapses down to zero, those particles

837
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 2: lose their mass. Electrons suddenly massless. Now they start moving

838
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 2: like photon. They move at the speed of light, same

839
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 2: with quarks. So every atom unbounds right, all matter in

840
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 2: the universe would explode and travel outwards at the speed

841
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 2: of light. It would be catastrophic for life as we

842
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 2: know it. The universe would go on, it would just

843
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 2: have very different nature. The effective laws of physics that

844
00:40:58,040 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 2: we're used to would be totally different.

845
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 1: But to stick with Tim's question real quick, how would

846
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: that be qualitatively different than the Big Bang?

847
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 2: Yeah? So Tim's question is would the Higgs field collapse

848
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 2: be like the Big Bang? Well, I mean it would

849
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 2: be big, and it would be dramatic, and in some

850
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 2: sense it makes a lot of sense to think of

851
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 2: it as part of the Big Bang, not just like

852
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 2: the Big Bang, but sort of like a natural extension

853
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 2: of the Big Bang, because the Big Bang, again, is

854
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:30,360
Speaker 2: not just like a moment in time, it's the expansion

855
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 2: of the universe. In some sense, the universe is still

856
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 2: big banging because the universe started out very hot and

857
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 2: dense and the expansion that follows is what we call

858
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 2: the Big Bang. So the Big Bang is still kind

859
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 2: of happening, and if the Higgs field collapses, that's sort

860
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 2: of like the natural next step, Like the Big Bang

861
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 2: is all these quantum fields gradually relaxing down to zero.

862
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 2: The Higgs field got stuck for a while, but if

863
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 2: it collapses down to zero, if it's not actually stable,

864
00:41:56,719 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 2: then that's just like you know, episode seven of the

865
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,800
Speaker 2: Big Bang. So it's not a lot like the initial

866
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 2: stages of the Big Bang, where everything was very hot

867
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 2: and very dense and a very very high temperature, so

868
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 2: hot we can't even really imagine it. It's more like

869
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 2: the end game of the Big Bang, the closing chapters,

870
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 2: when things are finally relaxing closer to zero.

871
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: So just so people like me can sleep at night,

872
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily know that the Higgs field is going

873
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: to go to zero. It's just if it did, it

874
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: would be bad. But it's not necessarily going to happen

875
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 1: because we just don't know.

876
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily going to happen. We don't know. We're

877
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 2: making measurements right now with the particle colliders to try

878
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 2: to understand the Higgs field and better, so we can

879
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 2: get a better handle on the chances that it could collapse.

880
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 2: We don't really know it. On the other hand, you

881
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 2: might ask, well, what could trigger its collapse? Like if

882
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,919
Speaker 2: the Higgs field is stuck in this state and that's metastable,

883
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 2: it's like it could stay there, or it could get

884
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 2: knocked off, you know, sort of like a ball balanced

885
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,879
Speaker 2: on the top of a hill. It could veer off,

886
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 2: or it could just hang out there if nothing touches it. Well,

887
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 2: one thing that could trigger it are very high energy

888
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:06,399
Speaker 2: particle collisions creating moments of energy density. Who knows right,

889
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,280
Speaker 2: that could trigger the Higgs field to collapse. So you know, yes,

890
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 2: we are trying to study it so that you can

891
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 2: sleep better at night. But you know, as with all experiments,

892
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 2: there are existential risks here, and those experiments could potentially

893
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 2: maybe possibly dot dot dot. The lawyer Shay insists, I

894
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 2: had a bunch of qualifiers here trigger the Higgs field collapse.

895
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: I thought that you got into this field because you

896
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: didn't want to do anything catastrophic. You've somehow managed to

897
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: up maybe do something even more catastrophic than anyone has

898
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 1: ever done before.

899
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know the irony is not lost

900
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 2: on me. But the good news is if the Higgs

901
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 2: field does collapse, that collapse would propagate out at the

902
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 2: speed of light, and so it all happened very quickly.

903
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 2: There'd be no long, slow biological torture where you're eating

904
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 2: from the inside out by wasps like some sort of

905
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 2: weird fig You would just stop existing instantaneously and you

906
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 2: wouldn't even know it.

907
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,399
Speaker 1: If the wasps are bringing about the end of days,

908
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: we've got a chance to fight back, But it sounds

909
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: like we don't have a chance with your end of

910
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: day's scenario.

911
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 2: Maybe we just need to evolve wasps that can fight

912
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 2: the Higgs field or prop it up, right, yea, some

913
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 2: sort of mutualism there between the Higgs and the wasps.

914
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 2: Problem solved, Yeah, exactly. I mean they're focused on the figs.

915
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 2: It's just like one letter off to be focused on

916
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 2: the Higgs.

917
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Wait, doesn't Higgs have two g's.

918
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,240
Speaker 2: Yes, Higgs's have a little bit.

919
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 1: Farther off, but it's close. This is why I think

920
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:32,720
Speaker 1: interdisciplinary discussions are so important, you know, because we're solving

921
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 1: everything here.

922
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 2: That's right. Nobody's ever had a podcast about the Higgs

923
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 2: figs before we're breaking new grounds.

924
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Higgs liked figs. There's got to be

925
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: a biography or a biographer we could ask.

926
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 2: Somebody must know the answer that question.

927
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:49,240
Speaker 1: Is Higgs still alive.

928
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Higgs died in April of twenty twenty four, so

929
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 2: that question, if it's not already answered, we will never

930
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 2: know the answer.

931
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 1: To the mysteries abound. All right, Well, well, Tim, have

932
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: we answered your question? Yeah?

933
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 2: I think I got it.

934
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 6: It did raise more questions that I'll say for another day.

935
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 6: I really appreciate the reminder that the Big Bang continues

936
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 6: to be not the greatest choice of names, and that

937
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 6: carries along a lot of misconceptions by using those particular words. Otherwise,

938
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 6: I think I'm calmly reassured that if death by Higgs collapse,

939
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 6: whatever happened, is probably the best way for us to go.

940
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 2: Thanks all right, Thank you everybody for asking these questions,

941
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 2: for writing in, and for powering this whole show with

942
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 2: your curiosity. You know, the reason we do this is

943
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 2: because you are curious about the universe, because you desperately

944
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 2: want answers to how the universe works, how the guy

945
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 2: and creepy bits of biology work and how the fundamental

946
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 2: particles in the universe can affect everything on the grandest scale.

947
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 2: And we'd love to hear more from you. Please do

948
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 2: send us your questions to questions at Danielankelly dot org.

949
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 2: Everybody gets an answer.

950
00:45:54,600 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced

951
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you, We

952
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: really would.

953
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 2: We want to know what questions you have about this

954
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,240
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe.

955
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:17,359
Speaker 1: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

956
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:20,399
Speaker 1: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

957
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:20,839
Speaker 1: back to you.

958
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 2: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

959
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 2: at questions at Danielandkelly dot.

960
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: Org, or you can find us on social media. We

961
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on all

962
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,800
Speaker 1: of those platforms. You can find us at d and Kuniverse.

963
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:38,440
Speaker 2: Don't be shy write to us.