WEBVTT - Listener Questions #7

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<v Speaker 1>What if another universe shared our Big Bang? Why do

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<v Speaker 1>figs have a waspy tang?

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<v Speaker 2>Could the Higgs make the Big Bang? Relte? Why is

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<v Speaker 2>dark chocolate so much better than white?

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<v Speaker 1>Biology? Physics, archaeology, forestry, and today fortunately no chemistry.

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<v Speaker 2>Whatever question keeps you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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<v Speaker 2>answer will make it all right.

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to another Listener's Questions episode on Daniel and Kelly's

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<v Speaker 1>Extraordinary Universe. Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I'm a parasitologist who

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<v Speaker 1>loves questions.

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<v Speaker 2>Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist with a deep voice.

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<v Speaker 2>That's even deeper because I was shouting at a UCI

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<v Speaker 2>basketball game on Saturday.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh, and you said you were sick. Recently, There's been

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of things happening to your voice.

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<v Speaker 2>So I hope you enjoy an extra baritone version of

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<v Speaker 2>the podcast today.

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<v Speaker 1>It'll be fun. I just spent four hours on my

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<v Speaker 1>tractor this morning plowing our roads. So what is the

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<v Speaker 1>most exciting power tool you've ever used, Daniel.

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<v Speaker 2>Other than the large hadron collider. That's a power tool,

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<v Speaker 2>isn't it.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah?

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<v Speaker 2>Thirty three kilometers around accelerates protons to nearly the speed

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<v Speaker 2>of light, but it can't cut through a two by four.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, but I guess you win. I was feeling

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<v Speaker 1>pretty cool about my tractor, but now I think you win.

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<v Speaker 2>I want a particle beam to melt the snow off

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<v Speaker 2>my sidewalk. No, that's a collective tool. What power tool

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<v Speaker 2>have I personally used that's most impressive? Hmm, that's a

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<v Speaker 2>good question. We have like a cool machine shop here

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<v Speaker 2>at UCI, so we have some pre impressive power tools

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<v Speaker 2>that can, like you know, put rivets into stuff. Or

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<v Speaker 2>we have the metal cutting bandsaw, which terrifies me. Oh

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<v Speaker 2>my gosh, every time I go near that thing. I'm wondering,

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<v Speaker 2>is today the day I lose a finger?

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<v Speaker 1>Wait, because you're using it? Or do you just mean,

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<v Speaker 1>like even walking by it freaks you out?

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<v Speaker 2>Even walking near it? You know, I've seen enough videos

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<v Speaker 2>of somebody like tripping and putting their hand out and

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<v Speaker 2>then zoom and then it's gone.

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<v Speaker 1>In our place, we try to buy the like safest

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<v Speaker 1>power tools. Have you seen the videos where like it's

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<v Speaker 1>a table saw and they put a like hot dog

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<v Speaker 1>into the blade and it immediately stops and everything disappears.

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<v Speaker 1>So like everything we have at our property is like

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<v Speaker 1>the safest version. Like our tractor is low to the ground.

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<v Speaker 1>It's got double tires so that it's less like lit

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<v Speaker 1>a flip over. Does an electro fishing boat count as

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<v Speaker 1>a power tool, because now I'm thinking that maybe that's

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<v Speaker 1>cooler than a tractor.

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<v Speaker 2>I don't even know what that is. Electro fishing boat.

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<v Speaker 2>It fishes electrically.

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<v Speaker 1>It puts an electrical current in the water to stun

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<v Speaker 1>the fish, and then you catch them in a net

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<v Speaker 1>and you put them in a live well, so it's

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<v Speaker 1>that flowing water that's well oxygenated. People who work in

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<v Speaker 1>fisheries use these to survey a different population. And once

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<v Speaker 1>we were stunning the water and a fish got past

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<v Speaker 1>the people with the net, and I thought, I would

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<v Speaker 1>like save the day because we really wanted to catch

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<v Speaker 1>this fish. So I reached in to get it and

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<v Speaker 1>I forgot.

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<v Speaker 2>I was like, you made a shocking discovery.

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<v Speaker 1>I made a shocking discovery. That's right. That's why it's

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<v Speaker 1>probably not smart for me to use big power tools,

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<v Speaker 1>but I use them anyway.

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<v Speaker 2>I am awed by the power of these tools and

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<v Speaker 2>amazed that people used to build whole civilizations without them.

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<v Speaker 1>Yes, Oh, that's so amazing. Yeah, when I think about

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<v Speaker 1>the Pyramids, like, I know, that's like a cliche example,

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<v Speaker 1>but holy crow.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, people have lots of questions about how the Pyramids

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<v Speaker 2>were built. We know it wasn't ancient aliens. We know

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<v Speaker 2>humans have been in genius and modern day humans are

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<v Speaker 2>ingenious about thinking about the universe and asking questions about it.

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<v Speaker 2>And we love on this podcast hearing about your questions,

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<v Speaker 2>not just answering the questions in my mind or in

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<v Speaker 2>Kelly's mind, but answering the questions on the tips of

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<v Speaker 2>everybody's tongues.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, so let's start to me. This is a

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<v Speaker 1>very exciting day because we have questions from a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of different countries represented, well, almost a few different countries represented.

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<v Speaker 1>So let's start with Brazil, and let's hear Marcella's question.

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<v Speaker 3>Hello, Daniel and Kelly, how are you doing. My name

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<v Speaker 3>is Marcella. I am from Brazil and I was talking

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<v Speaker 3>with a friend about the Big Bang and if we

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<v Speaker 3>were to reproduce it using the exact same seed, so

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<v Speaker 3>the particles would interact in the exact same way, moved

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<v Speaker 3>in the same exact directions, would that create a clone universe?

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<v Speaker 3>Or is there no such thing. I'm very curious about this.

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<v Speaker 3>Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to hearing from

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<v Speaker 3>you on the podcast.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, Daniel, So let's start with what is the

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<v Speaker 1>Big Bang? To make sure we're all on the same page,

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<v Speaker 1>because I feel like this is one of those topics

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<v Speaker 1>that I hear about and I seem to remember you

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<v Speaker 1>telling me that the popular conception of this idea is

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<v Speaker 1>like totally not right. So let's make sure we're all

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<v Speaker 1>on the same page.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. It's amazing to me and kind of endlessly frustrating

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<v Speaker 2>that this incredible concept in science that's been so talked

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<v Speaker 2>about is still so widely misunderstood. That like, the mental

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<v Speaker 2>image most scientists have of the Big Bang is very

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<v Speaker 2>different from the mental image in the public's mind. And

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<v Speaker 2>I had a long conversation with Zach about this when

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<v Speaker 2>we talked about one of his recent books on cosmology

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<v Speaker 2>about this discrepancy and how these things go awry. But briefly,

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<v Speaker 2>most people, when they think about the Big Bang, imagine

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<v Speaker 2>a tiny dot of matter in empty space, and then

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<v Speaker 2>an explosion of all that stuff flying out, filling out

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<v Speaker 2>that once empty space and zooming through the universe and

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<v Speaker 2>then fourteen billion years later, things are still flying out.

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<v Speaker 2>That's what people imagine. And I wonder, when Marcella is

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<v Speaker 2>talking about a single seat to reproduce the Big Bang,

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<v Speaker 2>the particles flying in various directions, if this is what

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<v Speaker 2>she's imagining, because in contrast, the scientific view of the

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<v Speaker 2>Big Bang is quite different. There's no dot in empty space,

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<v Speaker 2>and also wasn't the beginning of the universe. The Big

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<v Speaker 2>Bang is a time thirteen point six billion years ago

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<v Speaker 2>when the universe was very hot and very dense. But crucially,

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<v Speaker 2>there was not a dot in empty space. It was

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<v Speaker 2>filled with this hot dance matter. It was everywhere. The

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<v Speaker 2>whole universe was filled with hot, dense stuff. There was

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<v Speaker 2>no empty space. It also wasn't the beginning of the universe.

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<v Speaker 2>It's just the earliest moment we can think about, or

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<v Speaker 2>we can describe with our laws of physics. So ditch

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<v Speaker 2>the idea of a hot danse dot exploding into space

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<v Speaker 2>and imagine a whole universe filled with hot, dense matter.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay, yeah, I think that differs significantly from what I

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<v Speaker 1>was told when I first heard about the Big Bang.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, so let's take the scenario that you just

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<v Speaker 1>laid out for us. If everything was exactly the same

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<v Speaker 1>as it was about fourteen billion years ago, and then

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<v Speaker 1>you hit play and you started it again, would you

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<v Speaker 1>get the exact same thing.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this is such a great question, and I think

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<v Speaker 2>it's so important philosophically because it makes us wonder about

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<v Speaker 2>whether the life we're living is random or determined. And

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<v Speaker 2>if it's determined, is that mean I'm just a robot

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<v Speaker 2>and I was predetermined to say this thing on the

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<v Speaker 2>podcast and to make these dumb jokes, And so I'm

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<v Speaker 2>not responsible for all my terrible humor.

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<v Speaker 1>You're not getting out of it. It's your responsibility.

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<v Speaker 2>That was my philosophical backdoor. Anyway, It's a fascinating question

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<v Speaker 2>and one that's been debated for a long time in physics,

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<v Speaker 2>and in classical physics, the answer is yes, the past

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<v Speaker 2>perfectly predicts the future. It determines the future. The classical

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<v Speaker 2>way to think about this is like a billiard ball.

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<v Speaker 2>If you shoot the cue ball at the eighth ball,

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<v Speaker 2>and you do it again and again with exactly the

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<v Speaker 2>same setup, you should get the same answer. Because the

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<v Speaker 2>laws of physics tell you exactly how momentum travels and

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<v Speaker 2>exactly how that bounce happens, and even at the microscopic scale,

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<v Speaker 2>if you think about the atoms. As long as you're

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<v Speaker 2>talking about classical physics, then the past completely predicts the future.

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<v Speaker 2>There is no wiggle room at all. The universe is

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<v Speaker 2>like a clock. It's like a big mechanism, and the

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<v Speaker 2>current state addicts the future, and the current state can

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<v Speaker 2>be predicted by the past. So if you have two

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<v Speaker 2>universes with the same setup and you just hit play,

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<v Speaker 2>as you say, they should end up fourteen billion years

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<v Speaker 2>later with exactly the same mushroom over here and the

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<v Speaker 2>same blueberry over there. If the universe is governed by

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<v Speaker 2>classical physics.

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<v Speaker 1>And the same Daniel on a podcast like all the

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<v Speaker 1>way to those details like no free will at all.

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<v Speaker 2>No free will at all if the universe is governed

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<v Speaker 2>by classical physics, because otherwise where can it creep in? Right,

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<v Speaker 2>You either have to add some sort of dualistic thing

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<v Speaker 2>where you have like, yes, the universe is controlled by

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<v Speaker 2>classical physics, but there's a special thing where people get

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<v Speaker 2>to make decisions, and there's this like an unexplained force

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<v Speaker 2>somehow where my brain decides how neurons fire and how

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<v Speaker 2>my hand moves. You know, there's no room at all

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<v Speaker 2>for wiggles in classical physics. Right, you throw the ball

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<v Speaker 2>the same way twice, it will fly the same way

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<v Speaker 2>twice if you've captured all of those details. And that's

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<v Speaker 2>tremendously difficult, like to imagine setting up a whole universe

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<v Speaker 2>with every particle moving in exactly the same direction. But

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<v Speaker 2>you know, it's a philosophical question, so we get to

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<v Speaker 2>be unrealistic in practice. If you are building universes, it's

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<v Speaker 2>going to be very, very difficult to have exactly the

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<v Speaker 2>same starting conditions. But that's what Marcella is asking about,

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<v Speaker 2>because she's not interested in is it hard to make

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<v Speaker 2>two universes start the same way? She's interested in if

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<v Speaker 2>you do what happens, and yes, you get exactly the

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<v Speaker 2>same Daniel on the same podcast, not liking chemistry or

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<v Speaker 2>with a growing interest in biology.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh good, good answer, and hating white chocolate. So I

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<v Speaker 1>really don't want to lose hope that there's free will

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<v Speaker 1>out there, and so I'm going to cling to my

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<v Speaker 1>knowledge that general relativity and quantum mechanics don't always agree.

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<v Speaker 1>So probably at a different scale, this deterministic stuff breaks

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<v Speaker 1>down and so what happens if you're thinking about the

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<v Speaker 1>quantum realm.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so then people say, oh, okay, well, the universe

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<v Speaker 2>is not classical. There's quantum mechanics, and electrons don't obey

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<v Speaker 2>these rules of classical physics. They aren't like billiard balls.

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<v Speaker 2>And as you zoom down to the microphysics of the universe,

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<v Speaker 2>there are different set of rules and quantum mechanics dot

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<v Speaker 2>dot dot randomness, dot dot dot free will. But there's

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<v Speaker 2>a lot that's being lost in those dot dot dots.

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<v Speaker 2>And there's important subtlety about quantum mechanics which is deterministic

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<v Speaker 2>also just in a different way that I really want

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<v Speaker 2>people to understand. So quantum mechanics does not say that

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<v Speaker 2>if you shoot an electron at some experimental setup, you'll

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<v Speaker 2>get the same answer twice, even if the initial conditions

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<v Speaker 2>are the same, which is different from classical physics. Classical

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<v Speaker 2>physics says throw a baseball the same way twice, you

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<v Speaker 2>get exactly the same trajectory. Quantum mechanics says you throw

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<v Speaker 2>an electron at a wall, you don't always get the

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<v Speaker 2>same outcome. But quantum mechanics does say you always get

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<v Speaker 2>the same probability distribution of possible outcomes that is deterministic.

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<v Speaker 2>So quantum mechanics is not like, hey, the universe is random.

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<v Speaker 2>Do anything you like, folks. Right, there are still rules,

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<v Speaker 2>it's just the rules don't govern the individual outcomes. Instead,

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<v Speaker 2>they govern the probability of various outcomes. So if you'd

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<v Speaker 2>like to think about two options, if an electron can

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<v Speaker 2>go left or right, and quantum mechanics is very specific

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<v Speaker 2>about the odds of going left or the odds of

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<v Speaker 2>going right.

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<v Speaker 1>But once you have many, many, many of these sort

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<v Speaker 1>of decision points where it goes left or right, things

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<v Speaker 1>can get very different between for example, the moment the

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<v Speaker 1>Big Bang happened, and now like we wouldn't necessarily have

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<v Speaker 1>Daniel with a deep voice on the show today if

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<v Speaker 1>we started everything again from the exact same materials.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and that's exactly where it gets messy, these decision points, right, Like,

0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.160
<v Speaker 2>if we throw electrons at the wall, quantum mechanics says

0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.319
<v Speaker 2>they have the same probability. But then you're suggesting, Okay,

0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.640
<v Speaker 2>now let's ask where the electrons are, let's observe them.

0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.720
<v Speaker 2>They end up in different places. And we duck into

0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.880
<v Speaker 2>this recently with Scott on our listener questions episode. But

0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.439
<v Speaker 2>it's interesting to play another philosophical game and say, well,

0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.080
<v Speaker 2>what if we don't ever ask, like, take your universe,

0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.199
<v Speaker 2>make it quantum mechanical, started from the same initial conditions,

0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.920
<v Speaker 2>run it forward fourteen billion years, but never make an observation,

0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.960
<v Speaker 2>then those two universes are this same quantum mechanically. They

0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.959
<v Speaker 2>have the same probabilities distribution of outcomes because nobody's ever

0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.640
<v Speaker 2>collapsed those wave functions, and so because you never made

0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:14.480
<v Speaker 2>any choices, quantum mechanics is completely deterministic about the probability

0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.920
<v Speaker 2>distributions of the various outcomes fourteen billion years later. And

0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.840
<v Speaker 2>so if you let the universe stay quantum mechanical, you

0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.839
<v Speaker 2>never collapse it into classical physics or make observations, then

0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.000
<v Speaker 2>the deterministic of quantum mechanics says, the answer is that

0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.480
<v Speaker 2>you get the same universe, the same quantum mechanical universe.

0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.200
<v Speaker 2>Or if you like to think about many worlds version

0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.360
<v Speaker 2>of quantum mechanics, you get the same set of possible

0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.920
<v Speaker 2>universes in the future if you haven't picked one at

0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.000
<v Speaker 2>any moment, and you're making that face because you're wondering, like,

0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:46.199
<v Speaker 2>how is it possible to not pick one. Doesn't the

0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:47.520
<v Speaker 2>universe force you to do that?

0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:49.880
<v Speaker 1>Well, that's one of the things that I'm wondering, But

0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.600
<v Speaker 1>I could see this on multiple levels, I think. Right, Okay,

0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:54.680
<v Speaker 1>So if the electron can go left or right, and

0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.559
<v Speaker 1>you know, say, getting from fourteen billion years ago to now,

0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.960
<v Speaker 1>that has to happen, you know, a trillion time. Why

0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.960
<v Speaker 1>during those trillion times in a quantum mechanical universe, would

0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.480
<v Speaker 1>the electron always make exactly the same decision as it

0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.520
<v Speaker 1>made initially. Why wouldn't each time it would be a

0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.280
<v Speaker 1>separate coin flip to make the decision and you could

0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.640
<v Speaker 1>end up somewhere else. Why does observing it mess that up?

0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.800
<v Speaker 2>Because there is no coin flip until you observe it.

0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.400
<v Speaker 2>Like if you shoot electrons through this double slit experiment

0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.920
<v Speaker 2>but there is no screen, then the electron could have

0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:29.480
<v Speaker 2>gone through the left or could have gone through the right.

0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.520
<v Speaker 2>You don't know. Even after the experiment is over, you

0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.440
<v Speaker 2>haven't collapsed the wave function, the probability still remains. And

0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.120
<v Speaker 2>if it only ever interacts with quantum objects and influences

0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.520
<v Speaker 2>those that, then those probabilities are just propagated. Say, for example,

0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.880
<v Speaker 2>we have our double slit experiment, the electron could have

0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:47.760
<v Speaker 2>gone through the left or the right, and that I

0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.199
<v Speaker 2>don't have a screen. Instead, downstream I have two more

0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.880
<v Speaker 2>double slit experiments which capture electrons that went left, to

0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.079
<v Speaker 2>capture electrons that went right, and does another split. Now

0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.439
<v Speaker 2>I have four possible outcomes for the elector and could

0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.000
<v Speaker 2>goone left, left, left, right, right, left or right right,

0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.160
<v Speaker 2>and all the four possibilities exist now downstream from that,

0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.040
<v Speaker 2>at another set of experiments, Now I have eight possible

0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.960
<v Speaker 2>outcomes right now, say I do this for fourteen billion years, right,

0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.760
<v Speaker 2>I have a huge number of possible outcomes for this electron.

0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.200
<v Speaker 2>And because I never had a screen, I allowed all

0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.440
<v Speaker 2>those possibilities to propagate forwards. And if I start from

0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.640
<v Speaker 2>the same initial conditions, I will always have the same

0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.480
<v Speaker 2>possible set of outcomes for that electron. Same thing for

0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.840
<v Speaker 2>the whole universe. If there's no screen. Now, how can

0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:36.920
<v Speaker 2>you avoid having a screen?

0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:37.080
<v Speaker 4>Right?

0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.720
<v Speaker 2>Because electrons will hit something, and the universe has planets

0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.440
<v Speaker 2>in it and there are people in it and whatever.

0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.640
<v Speaker 2>And this is where we don't know the answer, because

0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.200
<v Speaker 2>we don't understand the distinction between quantum things which don't

0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.760
<v Speaker 2>force the collapse of the wave function and can happily

0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.320
<v Speaker 2>allow superpositions to propagate in classical things like my eyeball

0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.440
<v Speaker 2>or your brain that do force individual outcomes. Because I

0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.920
<v Speaker 2>can't be in a superposition. I can't be Daniel who

0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.440
<v Speaker 2>saw the electron on the left side and Daniel who

0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.520
<v Speaker 2>saw the electron on the right side simultaneously. I'm a

0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.880
<v Speaker 2>classical thing. And this is where we don't have a

0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.800
<v Speaker 2>philosophical answer to the question of why does the wave

0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.440
<v Speaker 2>function collapse sometimes and how does an observation work? We

0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.400
<v Speaker 2>don't know. So to answer Marcella's question, like, if you

0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.480
<v Speaker 2>start from the same quantum state I mean, the same probabilities,

0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.040
<v Speaker 2>same undetermined reality, and you let that propagate forward, you

0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.160
<v Speaker 2>would get a clone of the universe's quantum states today,

0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.600
<v Speaker 2>which includes all the uncertainties and all the unknowns, because

0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:37.560
<v Speaker 2>quantum mechanics is deterministic about the probabilities. Right, But you

0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.240
<v Speaker 2>were right, the collapse can't be cloned. If people do

0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.960
<v Speaker 2>experiments and there are observations in those universes, then those

0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.080
<v Speaker 2>will be individual coin flips, and those are drawn from

0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.400
<v Speaker 2>those probability distributions, but they are fundamentally random, and so

0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.400
<v Speaker 2>they will go different ways. Like a ball bouncing down

0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:55.240
<v Speaker 2>one of those games, it's going to end up in

0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.080
<v Speaker 2>a different slot, and that's going to cascade down the road.

0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.200
<v Speaker 2>So if you have quantum mechanics and you have collapsing

0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.160
<v Speaker 2>wave functions, that it's essentially impossible to end up with

0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.000
<v Speaker 2>the same universe twice fourteen billion years later starting from

0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.000
<v Speaker 2>the initial conditions. But if you never collapse the wave function,

0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.120
<v Speaker 2>then you get the same quantum mechanical probabilities for all

0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:15.280
<v Speaker 2>those various outcomes.

0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.360
<v Speaker 1>All right, that was trippy, but I think I followed it.

0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.239
<v Speaker 1>Let's see what Marcella thinks.

0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.400
<v Speaker 3>Hey, Daniel and Kelly, thank you so much for answering

0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:29.200
<v Speaker 3>my question. It was very trippy. Indeed, I think I

0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.920
<v Speaker 3>prefer classical physics. I don't really understand it that deeply,

0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.440
<v Speaker 3>as I am a psychology major, but I feel like

0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:39.880
<v Speaker 3>it wraps around my head a little bit easier than

0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:44.760
<v Speaker 3>quantum physics. Quantum physics is a whole different realm. But

0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.760
<v Speaker 3>it was very interesting to listen to you guys discussing

0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.520
<v Speaker 3>it and learn a little bit more about this. I

0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.960
<v Speaker 3>will have to take this to my friend now, with

0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.120
<v Speaker 3>whom I had this conversation in the beginning, and we're

0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.080
<v Speaker 3>going to discuss and if I have any further questions,

0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.760
<v Speaker 3>I will definitely send it your way. Thank you so much.

0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:23.640
<v Speaker 2>Guys. All right, we are back and we're zooming out

0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.320
<v Speaker 2>from the whole universe and the Big Bang, and now

0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:28.639
<v Speaker 2>we're going to answer our some questions about the gooey

0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:29.960
<v Speaker 2>treats that we all eat.

0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.200
<v Speaker 1>And we're talking about wasps, which makes me very happy.

0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.560
<v Speaker 1>So we have a question from Petrie. Let's go ahead

0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:37.000
<v Speaker 1>and listen.

0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:38.320
<v Speaker 2>Hello.

0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.160
<v Speaker 5>My name is Petrie and I'm from Waterloo, Canada, and

0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.840
<v Speaker 5>I recently learned a little bit about figs and wasps.

0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.679
<v Speaker 5>And my question is am I really eating dissolved wasp

0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.359
<v Speaker 5>carcasses when I eat figs? Thank you?

0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.080
<v Speaker 2>So I'm very excited to hear your answer to this

0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.199
<v Speaker 2>question because just the other day at dinner, as I

0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.200
<v Speaker 2>was enjoying fig one of my son's friends said to me, Hey,

0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.200
<v Speaker 2>you know you're eating wasp babies, right, And I thought

0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.359
<v Speaker 2>to myself, that is a very cool little popsie fact.

0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.800
<v Speaker 2>I wonder if it's true or if Kelly would throw

0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.359
<v Speaker 2>cold water on it. Petrie and I are both very

0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.440
<v Speaker 2>curious to know whether or not we're eating wasp babies.

0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.360
<v Speaker 1>Well, this is a question about biology, so the answer

0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:26.000
<v Speaker 1>has to be it depends, because nature's never that easy.

0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.680
<v Speaker 1>Let's dig into the biology here. So first of all,

0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.320
<v Speaker 1>there's over seven hundred and fifty species of fig trees,

0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.520
<v Speaker 1>and almost all of them have their own wasp that

0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.280
<v Speaker 1>pollinates them, and so there's a lot of different kinds

0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.200
<v Speaker 1>of these and so the answer that you're going to

0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.520
<v Speaker 1>get in the end depends on what species of fig

0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:45.760
<v Speaker 1>it is that you're eating and how it was cultivated.

0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.040
<v Speaker 2>All right, First, I have some questions. Yeah, okay, seven

0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.040
<v Speaker 2>hundred and fifty species of figs. I've had like three

0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.359
<v Speaker 2>different kinds of figs, like the black figs and the

0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.960
<v Speaker 2>tiger figs. Are there a lot more figs out there

0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.240
<v Speaker 2>that I should learn to enjoy? Or are these all

0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.000
<v Speaker 2>like invisible variations on bloe?

0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.040
<v Speaker 1>There are people who forage on wild figs, and they

0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.480
<v Speaker 1>would tell you that each one is its own unique

0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.680
<v Speaker 1>flavor escapade that you should go on. And so.

0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.919
<v Speaker 2>I like flavor escapades. That sounds great, It does.

0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.280
<v Speaker 1>Sound great, but I can't say that I have tried them.

0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:18.600
<v Speaker 1>I've just tried, like, you know, the typical figs that

0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.480
<v Speaker 1>you get yeah, okay, but the biology is trippy. Okay,

0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.480
<v Speaker 1>So because they're seven hundred and fifty different species, this

0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:26.400
<v Speaker 1>works in a lot of different ways, and so I'm

0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:28.120
<v Speaker 1>just going to give you like an overview of how

0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.080
<v Speaker 1>it works a lot of the time, but if you

0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.639
<v Speaker 1>dig into a particular system, the details probably different. All right,

0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:33.679
<v Speaker 1>So here's the deal, right.

0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:35.280
<v Speaker 2>So give us a background on like what it means

0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.879
<v Speaker 2>for a wasp to pollinate a fig, because I'm familiar

0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.639
<v Speaker 2>with like bees and pollen a little bit, but like

0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:43.800
<v Speaker 2>tell us how it works for figs and why they

0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:44.760
<v Speaker 2>have to use wasps.

0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.560
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right, So figs, So usually you think of

0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.639
<v Speaker 1>flowers getting pollinated. A fig is a flower, but instead

0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.320
<v Speaker 1>of it opening outwards, it actually kind of closes in

0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.399
<v Speaker 1>on itself and it's got a little tiny hole at

0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.960
<v Speaker 1>the bottom called the osteole, and and it's ready to

0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.480
<v Speaker 1>be pollinated. It secretes a smell that attracts the wasps

0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:06.280
<v Speaker 1>that pollinate it.

0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:09.560
<v Speaker 2>All right. So usually for fruit, you have like a

0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:11.600
<v Speaker 2>flower and then it's pollinated and then you get the

0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.199
<v Speaker 2>fruit laders, like you'll see cherry trees bloom and then

0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.240
<v Speaker 2>later you have cherries. But you're saying figs are the

0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:18.919
<v Speaker 2>blooms themselves.

0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:19.560
<v Speaker 1>Yes, and then they ripe it.

0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:25.440
<v Speaker 2>Wow yeah, wow, Okay, fascinating plants are nuts. Nuts are plants.

0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:26.040
<v Speaker 2>It's amazing.

0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.920
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh. This is deep. So there's this little

0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.840
<v Speaker 1>hole at the bottom, and when it's ready to get pollinated,

0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.480
<v Speaker 1>it attracts the wasp. And the hole is so small

0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:38.560
<v Speaker 1>that when the female wasp, and it's always a female

0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.720
<v Speaker 1>in this case, when the female wasp goes in there,

0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.280
<v Speaker 1>she has to like squeeze in and her wings fall

0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.760
<v Speaker 1>off and sometimes part of her antennae fall off. She's

0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.399
<v Speaker 1>really like wedging herself in there because she's.

0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.480
<v Speaker 2>So desperate to eat this smelly thing.

0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:53.280
<v Speaker 1>To lay her eggs in the smelly thing.

0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:56.240
<v Speaker 2>Oh, to lay her eggs in my delicious tree.

0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.639
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah. This is just the beginning of the gross

0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.760
<v Speaker 1>pyramid or the gross ice, if you will. So she

0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:03.800
<v Speaker 1>wiggles her way to the inside of the fruit. And

0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:05.600
<v Speaker 1>if you've opened up a fig, you've maybe noticed that

0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:07.439
<v Speaker 1>the inside has a little bit of an open space,

0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.680
<v Speaker 1>and so she gets to that open space. And you

0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:12.879
<v Speaker 1>might have also noticed that when you open up a

0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.320
<v Speaker 1>fig often there's lots of little seeds in there. So

0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:16.800
<v Speaker 1>the good news is that when you bite into a

0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.080
<v Speaker 1>seed and you feel something crunchy, it is the seed.

0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.440
<v Speaker 1>It's not the wasp, So like, don't start panicking already.

0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.280
<v Speaker 1>So the mom gets in there and all of the

0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.240
<v Speaker 1>little like projections and the inside of the fig are

0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.760
<v Speaker 1>as I understand it. They're like ovaries, and so they

0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.880
<v Speaker 1>can either get pollinated, and the wasp has pollen on her,

0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:37.919
<v Speaker 1>and we'll get to how she got that pollen on

0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.080
<v Speaker 1>her towards the end of the story. But she's got pollen,

0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.000
<v Speaker 1>and so in some of those little ovaries she deposits

0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.879
<v Speaker 1>her egg and then induces the fig to make a

0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:47.800
<v Speaker 1>gall where her offspring will develop.

0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.440
<v Speaker 2>Tamika, what a gall? What's a gall?

0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.159
<v Speaker 1>Oh? Man? I love galling insects. We need to get

0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:54.560
<v Speaker 1>my friends. Got Egan on the show one day to

0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:56.760
<v Speaker 1>talk about galling insects because he freaks out because they're

0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:57.240
<v Speaker 1>so great.

0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.040
<v Speaker 2>Gallic is different from galic Gaalic is like French.

0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:03.240
<v Speaker 1>Right, yeah, right, this is gall Gall. A plant is

0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.560
<v Speaker 1>manipulated into producing a compartment in which an insect will grow,

0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.400
<v Speaker 1>and that compartment is called a gall. Yikes, And they

0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.760
<v Speaker 1>take lots of different crazy forms, some of them are

0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:13.840
<v Speaker 1>super fuzzy. Some of them have spikes. This is not

0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.560
<v Speaker 1>in the figs. This is in like oaks and stuff.

0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.679
<v Speaker 1>But here it's just a tiny little compartment that the

0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:20.800
<v Speaker 1>insect grows in.

0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.040
<v Speaker 2>So the fig manipulates the wasp to crawl in, and

0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.720
<v Speaker 2>the wasp manipulates the fig to make a little nest

0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:27.439
<v Speaker 2>for its baby.

0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.240
<v Speaker 1>Yes, while it is also depositing pollen. There's all of

0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.760
<v Speaker 1>these little like projections in the gall Some of them

0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:35.919
<v Speaker 1>are the right height for eggs to get laid in,

0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.199
<v Speaker 1>and some of them are not, and those get pollen

0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.520
<v Speaker 1>on them. And so you get some insect babies inside

0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:43.560
<v Speaker 1>of these projections, and then in some of them you

0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.040
<v Speaker 1>just get the production of like seeds. Is that making

0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:46.600
<v Speaker 1>sense so far?

0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? Absolutely? Okay, right, so they're like sharing this thing,

0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:51.440
<v Speaker 2>like you grow some of your babies and I'll grow

0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:53.640
<v Speaker 2>some of my babies. So basically figs and wasps are

0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:55.200
<v Speaker 2>like siblings that grow up together.

0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.160
<v Speaker 1>This is a mutualism, so they both benefit. The listener

0:22:58.200 --> 0:22:59.680
<v Speaker 1>should let us know if you want a whole show

0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:01.360
<v Speaker 1>on this, because I would love an excuse to read

0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.680
<v Speaker 1>about the evolution of like how this came into being.

0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:06.439
<v Speaker 1>But that is not the question I was asked to answer.

0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.240
<v Speaker 1>So we're going to stay on focus.

0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.240
<v Speaker 2>I want a whole show in this, depending on how

0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.000
<v Speaker 2>gross this gets and whether this ruins figs for me

0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:13.320
<v Speaker 2>in the end.

0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:15.560
<v Speaker 1>All right, stick with me, Stick with me. Okay. So

0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.080
<v Speaker 1>the mom, when she's done pollinating and laying her eggs,

0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.399
<v Speaker 1>dies and that's usually the wasp that people are talking

0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.800
<v Speaker 1>about you eating. And the good news is at the

0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:28.320
<v Speaker 1>point where this process is happening, the fig is not

0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:30.879
<v Speaker 1>usually ripe enough that you would pick it and eat it.

0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.720
<v Speaker 1>So the mom dies and then the mom essentially gets

0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.919
<v Speaker 1>digested by the fig, so it releases this enzyme I

0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.880
<v Speaker 1>think it's called fiking ficin, and it digests the mom,

0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:43.760
<v Speaker 1>and I think it just uses that protein for like

0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:44.479
<v Speaker 1>its own stuff.

0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:46.040
<v Speaker 2>So the fig eats the wasp.

0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:47.200
<v Speaker 1>So the fig eats the wasp.

0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:49.000
<v Speaker 2>Wow, what amazing.

0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:51.520
<v Speaker 1>There's other wasps in there, right, because you've just created

0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.199
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of goals, right, And so those gulls hatch

0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.560
<v Speaker 1>and the males come out first, and often more than

0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.280
<v Speaker 1>one female wasp gets in and lays her eggs. Sometimes

0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:04.600
<v Speaker 1>it's only one, but the males come out first. And

0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:06.320
<v Speaker 1>the reason it's important to know if it was one

0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:09.320
<v Speaker 1>or more moms is because what those males do is

0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:11.720
<v Speaker 1>they open up the gulls that contain the females and

0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.000
<v Speaker 1>they start impregnating those females.

0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:15.159
<v Speaker 2>Which might be their sisters, which might be.

0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:17.920
<v Speaker 1>Their sisters, and often it is their sisters.

0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:22.280
<v Speaker 2>And so gross problematic, wasp men problematic, that's right.

0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:26.080
<v Speaker 1>Work on that wasps, work on it. So the females

0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.760
<v Speaker 1>get impregnated, and then the males, having done that job,

0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:32.160
<v Speaker 1>start chewing their way out of the fig to create

0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:33.400
<v Speaker 1>exit holes for the females.

0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:35.160
<v Speaker 2>I'm losing track of who's eating who here.

0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:37.480
<v Speaker 1>Oh, you know, there's a lot of bags and forth right.

0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:40.520
<v Speaker 1>It's a mutualism. It's give and take. And so the

0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:43.119
<v Speaker 1>males they start chewing these exit holes for the females

0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:45.560
<v Speaker 1>who have wings, and they manage to get out. A

0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:47.720
<v Speaker 1>lot of times the males like chew these exit holes

0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:50.399
<v Speaker 1>and then they get like picked off by ants that

0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:52.040
<v Speaker 1>are like waiting on the outside of the fig to

0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:54.800
<v Speaker 1>eat these other insects. Because nature is just mean, and

0:24:54.840 --> 0:24:57.680
<v Speaker 1>so the males are like sacrificial. Some of them never

0:24:57.720 --> 0:24:59.399
<v Speaker 1>get out of the fig. A lot of them that

0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:01.159
<v Speaker 1>get out of the they get eaten by ants. And

0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:03.439
<v Speaker 1>while they are being consumed by ants, that gives the

0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:05.240
<v Speaker 1>females a chance to go off.

0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:07.440
<v Speaker 2>Is this the whole job of the males to dig

0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:09.399
<v Speaker 2>the women out and pregnate them and then let them

0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:11.320
<v Speaker 2>miscave the wasp or do they have a life cycle

0:25:11.320 --> 0:25:12.280
<v Speaker 2>outside of the wasp.

0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:15.359
<v Speaker 1>Well, that's it, that's it. Yeah, they impregnate the females,

0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:17.880
<v Speaker 1>they help them get out, then they sacrifice themselves and die.

0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:18.280
<v Speaker 1>That's it.

0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:21.199
<v Speaker 2>So if you're a male wasp, your whole existence is

0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.000
<v Speaker 2>inside a fig. Your fig is your universe. Yes, that's crazy.

0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:30.000
<v Speaker 1>And so if you are eating a wasp in a fig,

0:25:30.480 --> 0:25:33.960
<v Speaker 1>I think you're probably eating the males m that get

0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:36.960
<v Speaker 1>left behind in there. So the females they get impregnated,

0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.480
<v Speaker 1>and before they go out and leave to go find

0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:44.159
<v Speaker 1>another fig, the fig that they're in starts producing pollen,

0:25:44.280 --> 0:25:46.320
<v Speaker 1>and the females go and they collect the pollen. They've

0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:48.879
<v Speaker 1>got like a little compartment and they collect the pollen,

0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:50.800
<v Speaker 1>they hold onto it, and then they go off in

0:25:50.840 --> 0:25:52.359
<v Speaker 1>search of another fig.

0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:54.520
<v Speaker 2>Why did they do that? They just do that to

0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:56.360
<v Speaker 2>be nice to the fig, or there's a benefit to them.

0:25:56.720 --> 0:25:58.200
<v Speaker 1>This is why I would love to have a whole

0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:00.600
<v Speaker 1>show on this. But the quick answer that I found

0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:03.480
<v Speaker 1>when I did a little bit of research was that

0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:07.040
<v Speaker 1>when females get into a fig and they lay their

0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:11.040
<v Speaker 1>eggs but they don't do any pollinating, the fig trees

0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:14.840
<v Speaker 1>are more likely to drop that fig. So it's like

0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:18.480
<v Speaker 1>they're punishing the wasp for not pollinating it. But there's

0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:20.320
<v Speaker 1>got to be some cheating. So, like, you know, if

0:26:20.320 --> 0:26:24.040
<v Speaker 1>two fig wasps get into a fig and one pollinates

0:26:24.040 --> 0:26:26.320
<v Speaker 1>and one doesn't, then how do you punish the one

0:26:26.359 --> 0:26:27.359
<v Speaker 1>that didn't pollinate?

0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:27.959
<v Speaker 2>Wow?

0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:29.919
<v Speaker 1>And so I'd love an excuse to read more about it,

0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:32.159
<v Speaker 1>but it sounds like there's some punishment going to like

0:26:32.280 --> 0:26:35.040
<v Speaker 1>maintain this mutualism. There's consequences if you don't play along.

0:26:35.680 --> 0:26:38.280
<v Speaker 2>Mutualism is that the grown up word for symbiosis that

0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:40.200
<v Speaker 2>I learned as a young biologist.

0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:44.159
<v Speaker 1>So symbiosis means a long term interaction between two organisms.

0:26:44.160 --> 0:26:46.600
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes it can be bad or sometimes it can be good.

0:26:46.640 --> 0:26:49.720
<v Speaker 1>And so mutualism is when it is good. When a

0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:51.560
<v Speaker 1>symbiosis is good for both partners.

0:26:52.119 --> 0:26:54.560
<v Speaker 2>I see, even though they eat each other, the fig

0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:57.080
<v Speaker 2>eats the wasp, the wasps eats the fig, it's good

0:26:57.080 --> 0:26:57.639
<v Speaker 2>for both of them.

0:26:57.760 --> 0:27:00.360
<v Speaker 1>It's good for both of them, that's right, right. That's

0:27:00.400 --> 0:27:02.080
<v Speaker 1>like a general overview of how it works. And so

0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:05.360
<v Speaker 1>now let's get into the specifics. So figs have been

0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:09.040
<v Speaker 1>cultivated by humans for something like eleven thousand years.

0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:10.600
<v Speaker 2>Wow, how do we know that?

0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:13.600
<v Speaker 1>We know that because we have found figs and archaeological

0:27:13.680 --> 0:27:16.480
<v Speaker 1>digs and it looks like it's been going on for

0:27:16.520 --> 0:27:17.840
<v Speaker 1>about eleven thousand years.

0:27:17.920 --> 0:27:22.120
<v Speaker 2>Figs and archaeological digs like remnants of fossilized figs, or

0:27:22.160 --> 0:27:24.960
<v Speaker 2>like depictions of people eating figs or what does that mean?

0:27:25.160 --> 0:27:28.000
<v Speaker 1>I think it's remnants of fossilized figs.

0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:29.159
<v Speaker 2>Wow. Incredible.

0:27:29.200 --> 0:27:30.800
<v Speaker 1>But again, if we did a whole hour on this,

0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:33.119
<v Speaker 1>I'd be happy to find a lot more. All right,

0:27:33.160 --> 0:27:34.920
<v Speaker 1>And here's where we really get out of my area

0:27:34.960 --> 0:27:38.080
<v Speaker 1>of expertise, and this is in how plants reproduce. But

0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:41.040
<v Speaker 1>here is my best guess at answering the question. Okay,

0:27:41.119 --> 0:27:44.280
<v Speaker 1>so through that process of cultivation, we have come up

0:27:44.320 --> 0:27:47.639
<v Speaker 1>with some figs that don't produce seeds at all. So

0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:51.199
<v Speaker 1>you've had seedless watermelon. Probably this is sort of the

0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:53.720
<v Speaker 1>same idea. I think what's happening is you like pull

0:27:53.720 --> 0:27:55.359
<v Speaker 1>a branch off, and then you stick a branch in

0:27:55.400 --> 0:27:57.560
<v Speaker 1>the ground and it'll just start like propagating that way,

0:27:58.200 --> 0:28:00.960
<v Speaker 1>and so those fruits will still ripen, you can still

0:28:00.960 --> 0:28:03.000
<v Speaker 1>eat them. And if they don't have seeds, then they

0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:07.200
<v Speaker 1>didn't need a wasp. And so a lot of the

0:28:07.240 --> 0:28:11.480
<v Speaker 1>figs that you eat in grocery stores have been propagated

0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:13.359
<v Speaker 1>that way and have never encountered a wasp.

0:28:14.080 --> 0:28:14.480
<v Speaker 2>Wow.

0:28:14.920 --> 0:28:18.720
<v Speaker 1>There are also some figs that you can induce to

0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:23.200
<v Speaker 1>ripen by spraying them with plant hormones, and even though

0:28:23.200 --> 0:28:25.639
<v Speaker 1>the wasp wasn't there, it will go ahead and ripen

0:28:25.840 --> 0:28:26.720
<v Speaker 1>and then you can eat it.

0:28:27.320 --> 0:28:30.879
<v Speaker 2>So figs in the wild originally had this complex dance

0:28:31.119 --> 0:28:34.480
<v Speaker 2>with wasps to evolve and propagate, and that gives us

0:28:34.520 --> 0:28:36.879
<v Speaker 2>natural selection and all the kind of useful stuff. But

0:28:37.000 --> 0:28:41.040
<v Speaker 2>humans have intervened and been cultivating figs and taking them

0:28:41.040 --> 0:28:43.400
<v Speaker 2>out of their sort of natural cycle which might exclude

0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:45.000
<v Speaker 2>the wasps. Is that what I'm understanding.

0:28:45.160 --> 0:28:47.280
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And it wouldn't surprise me if in those seven

0:28:47.360 --> 0:28:50.600
<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty fig species there were some that had

0:28:50.680 --> 0:28:53.120
<v Speaker 1>dropped the wasp and get pollinated in some other way,

0:28:53.200 --> 0:28:56.400
<v Speaker 1>because plants are just kind of crazy. But yes, in general,

0:28:56.480 --> 0:28:58.560
<v Speaker 1>you need the wasp. But when we took this system

0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:01.440
<v Speaker 1>and cultivated it as many cases as we can, we

0:29:01.520 --> 0:29:03.760
<v Speaker 1>try to cut that wasp out. And that wasp also

0:29:04.400 --> 0:29:06.920
<v Speaker 1>has environmental conditions that can't live under. So when it

0:29:06.920 --> 0:29:09.240
<v Speaker 1>gets too cold, for example, and you're growing a fig

0:29:09.320 --> 0:29:11.560
<v Speaker 1>too far north, then you probably don't have that wasp

0:29:11.560 --> 0:29:13.960
<v Speaker 1>at all because the wasps can't survive, but you could

0:29:13.960 --> 0:29:14.920
<v Speaker 1>still get fig fruits.

0:29:15.560 --> 0:29:18.400
<v Speaker 2>So it sounds like I'm unlikely to be eating wasps

0:29:18.440 --> 0:29:21.480
<v Speaker 2>if I'm eating like cultivated figs that I'm buying in

0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:23.960
<v Speaker 2>the grocery store. Whereas if I have a fig tree

0:29:24.120 --> 0:29:26.240
<v Speaker 2>just like out in my backyard and I'm eating bows,

0:29:26.280 --> 0:29:28.360
<v Speaker 2>am I more likely to be eating wasps?

0:29:28.560 --> 0:29:30.800
<v Speaker 1>Depends on where you live. I think it was the

0:29:30.840 --> 0:29:34.120
<v Speaker 1>common fig and we took it from Turkey the country

0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:38.080
<v Speaker 1>to California. We didn't bring the wasp with us. Initially,

0:29:38.320 --> 0:29:41.160
<v Speaker 1>the fig trees weren't doing what they thought they should

0:29:41.200 --> 0:29:43.280
<v Speaker 1>be doing, and so we ended up figuring out what

0:29:43.320 --> 0:29:45.120
<v Speaker 1>was going on, and then we brought the wasp over.

0:29:45.840 --> 0:29:48.080
<v Speaker 1>And so there's some parts in California where the wasp

0:29:48.120 --> 0:29:51.200
<v Speaker 1>can survive and the wasp does its thing, maybe even

0:29:51.200 --> 0:29:52.320
<v Speaker 1>in Irvine. I don't know.

0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:55.560
<v Speaker 2>Irvine probably has a law against it somehow.

0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:59.720
<v Speaker 1>Glad to know. It's a bureaucratic sort of city. But

0:29:59.760 --> 0:30:02.600
<v Speaker 1>if you go farther north, probably aren't the wasps. There's

0:30:02.600 --> 0:30:04.960
<v Speaker 1>other ways of like injecting the pollen in and pollinating

0:30:05.000 --> 0:30:07.320
<v Speaker 1>without the wasps. But I believe that figs from like

0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:11.040
<v Speaker 1>Turkey in southern California, you've got the wasps, and so

0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:13.280
<v Speaker 1>they might be in there. But I think it depends

0:30:13.320 --> 0:30:15.400
<v Speaker 1>on like the species, depends on where you are. It's

0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:18.440
<v Speaker 1>really complicated. So the answer I think is it depends.

0:30:18.520 --> 0:30:21.720
<v Speaker 1>I heard in a couple different sources that dried figs

0:30:22.200 --> 0:30:25.360
<v Speaker 1>tend to come from Turkey, where you do get the

0:30:25.400 --> 0:30:28.520
<v Speaker 1>wasp pollination, and so the dried figs are maybe more

0:30:28.600 --> 0:30:31.200
<v Speaker 1>likely to have wasps in them than a fresh fig

0:30:31.240 --> 0:30:34.800
<v Speaker 1>from northern California or something. The answer is, it depends

0:30:34.800 --> 0:30:35.760
<v Speaker 1>what happened to your fig?

0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:39.240
<v Speaker 2>All right? Well, my last question then is can I tell, like,

0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:41.239
<v Speaker 2>if I bite into a fig, can I tell if

0:30:41.240 --> 0:30:44.040
<v Speaker 2>as a wasp? But it's a crunch. Differently, I mean,

0:30:44.120 --> 0:30:45.640
<v Speaker 2>should I notice? Does it matter?

0:30:45.760 --> 0:30:45.840
<v Speaker 4>No?

0:30:45.960 --> 0:30:49.200
<v Speaker 1>I would not think too hard about it. They're like

0:30:49.320 --> 0:30:51.239
<v Speaker 1>teeny tiny I mean, if you've looked at like a

0:30:51.280 --> 0:30:53.320
<v Speaker 1>seed in a fig, those are super tiny. I you know,

0:30:53.400 --> 0:30:55.320
<v Speaker 1>imagine something like living inside of one of those or

0:30:55.360 --> 0:30:58.280
<v Speaker 1>something like really tiny. I mean, if you looked really close,

0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:00.320
<v Speaker 1>you put it under a microscope, maybe you would see

0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:02.560
<v Speaker 1>some remnants. But just pop the thing in your mouth,

0:31:02.800 --> 0:31:05.520
<v Speaker 1>put some goat cheese on it and some honey, smile,

0:31:05.800 --> 0:31:07.920
<v Speaker 1>and don't think about the wasps that have brought you

0:31:07.960 --> 0:31:08.920
<v Speaker 1>this amazing fruit.

0:31:09.240 --> 0:31:11.880
<v Speaker 2>I think you're right actually that the smaller the insect,

0:31:12.160 --> 0:31:14.640
<v Speaker 2>the less gross. It is. Like, if I imagine a

0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:17.040
<v Speaker 2>wasp basically filling out the inside of the fig, and

0:31:17.040 --> 0:31:19.640
<v Speaker 2>I'm biting the figure, I'm basically eating an entire wasp.

0:31:19.800 --> 0:31:22.280
<v Speaker 2>That's super gross. Yeah, but I know that everything I

0:31:22.320 --> 0:31:25.040
<v Speaker 2>eat is covered in all sorts of microbes and mites

0:31:25.080 --> 0:31:28.080
<v Speaker 2>and little critters All the time. As I'm speaking, I'm

0:31:28.080 --> 0:31:31.880
<v Speaker 2>probably consuming some tiny flies or whatever, and I'm honestly

0:31:31.920 --> 0:31:35.000
<v Speaker 2>grossed out by that. So I'll just shrink those wasps

0:31:35.000 --> 0:31:37.160
<v Speaker 2>in my mind until I don't worry about eating them.

0:31:37.440 --> 0:31:39.360
<v Speaker 1>I think the FDA, for a bunch of different kinds

0:31:39.400 --> 0:31:43.240
<v Speaker 1>of foods, has criteria for how many like insects or

0:31:43.240 --> 0:31:45.560
<v Speaker 1>insect parts are allowed to be in there, like per

0:31:45.640 --> 0:31:48.920
<v Speaker 1>gram because insects are, like, they're just really hard to avoid.

0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:51.160
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of us are eating insects, whether

0:31:51.200 --> 0:31:53.320
<v Speaker 1>we mean to or not, whether we're vegan or not.

0:31:53.600 --> 0:31:54.840
<v Speaker 2>Cockroach legs and everything.

0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:57.760
<v Speaker 1>Ugh, No, I don't want to think about that. Cockroaches

0:31:57.800 --> 0:32:00.600
<v Speaker 1>do creep me out. You found my kryptonite.

0:32:00.640 --> 0:32:05.040
<v Speaker 2>What about tiny littlelady bad ones, super tiny microscopic cockroaches.

0:32:05.240 --> 0:32:06.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, if they're so small that I can't see them,

0:32:06.840 --> 0:32:07.840
<v Speaker 1>I'll eat them. That's fine.

0:32:10.360 --> 0:32:12.640
<v Speaker 2>We'll do a blind taste test one day. I'll sprinkle

0:32:12.680 --> 0:32:15.120
<v Speaker 2>tiny cockroaches into a platter of hummus and mix it

0:32:15.120 --> 0:32:16.040
<v Speaker 2>in and see if you can tell.

0:32:16.200 --> 0:32:19.080
<v Speaker 1>I am not inviting you to parties anymore. But I've

0:32:19.080 --> 0:32:21.920
<v Speaker 1>been writing parasitologists to ask them if they infect themselves

0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:24.000
<v Speaker 1>with parasites, and one of them did tell me that

0:32:24.000 --> 0:32:26.880
<v Speaker 1>they mixed some beetles in with hummus so that they

0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:29.520
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't know that they were eating the beetle that was

0:32:29.520 --> 0:32:31.720
<v Speaker 1>infected by a tapeworm when they tried to infect themselves

0:32:31.760 --> 0:32:34.120
<v Speaker 1>with the tapeworm. And I was like, wow, So anyway,

0:32:34.160 --> 0:32:36.800
<v Speaker 1>hummus will always be for me. I guess the food

0:32:36.800 --> 0:32:37.719
<v Speaker 1>that you hide things in.

0:32:39.760 --> 0:32:41.680
<v Speaker 2>There's got to be a Beatles joke. There is there

0:32:41.720 --> 0:32:44.760
<v Speaker 2>a Beatles song that sounds like it's about insects.

0:32:44.960 --> 0:32:55.200
<v Speaker 1>Here comes the infection, It's a stretch. Here comes the

0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:58.280
<v Speaker 1>wasp in your hummus. Yeah, I don't know. I don't

0:32:58.280 --> 0:32:59.280
<v Speaker 1>really like the beetles.

0:32:59.280 --> 0:33:02.920
<v Speaker 2>So lucy in the hummus with cockroaches. That's the Beatles

0:33:02.920 --> 0:33:03.960
<v Speaker 2>song you never heard before.

0:33:04.200 --> 0:33:08.440
<v Speaker 1>Oh all right, Petrie, did we answer your question? My friend?

0:33:10.120 --> 0:33:14.040
<v Speaker 4>Hello, Daniel and Kelly, thank you very much for answering

0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:17.360
<v Speaker 4>my question on the podcast. And I would like to

0:33:17.360 --> 0:33:21.480
<v Speaker 4>say that your answer was very thorough and detailed and

0:33:22.160 --> 0:33:24.920
<v Speaker 4>much more explicit than I bargained for, and I thought

0:33:24.960 --> 0:33:26.640
<v Speaker 4>it was absolutely fantastic.

0:33:26.720 --> 0:33:27.040
<v Speaker 2>Thank you.

0:33:44.040 --> 0:33:48.520
<v Speaker 1>All right, Daniel, let's bring on the Funk.

0:33:49.560 --> 0:33:52.920
<v Speaker 2>We are zooming back out from tiny microscopic things that

0:33:53.040 --> 0:33:55.360
<v Speaker 2>might gross you out to imagining the fate of the

0:33:55.400 --> 0:34:00.640
<v Speaker 2>whole universe as controlled by tiny microscopic particles. See all

0:34:00.680 --> 0:34:04.200
<v Speaker 2>the connections we're making today. Next, we're answering a question

0:34:04.360 --> 0:34:07.680
<v Speaker 2>from Tim Funk about the Higgs Boson and the Big Bang.

0:34:08.480 --> 0:34:11.200
<v Speaker 6>As I was listening to listener questions, episode fifty eight

0:34:11.239 --> 0:34:12.719
<v Speaker 6>about the Higgs fields collapse.

0:34:12.960 --> 0:34:16.040
<v Speaker 1>It made me wonder, could a Higgs field collapse be

0:34:16.360 --> 0:34:19.640
<v Speaker 1>just like the Big Bang? Thanks? All right, so this

0:34:19.719 --> 0:34:21.240
<v Speaker 1>is great. We've got a bit of a Big Bang

0:34:21.280 --> 0:34:23.319
<v Speaker 1>theme going on. So we've already talked about what the

0:34:23.320 --> 0:34:27.360
<v Speaker 1>Big Bang is. What has happened since the Big Bang? Daniel,

0:34:27.440 --> 0:34:28.400
<v Speaker 1>It's been a while.

0:34:29.239 --> 0:34:32.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's been a while. A lot of stuff has happened.

0:34:32.360 --> 0:34:35.560
<v Speaker 2>Let's summarize the whole history of the universe. I think

0:34:35.600 --> 0:34:38.719
<v Speaker 2>it's important to understand what's happened since the Big Bang

0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:40.960
<v Speaker 2>in order to answer this question, because we'll see that

0:34:41.160 --> 0:34:43.719
<v Speaker 2>the Higgs field collapse can be considered it's just like

0:34:43.840 --> 0:34:46.920
<v Speaker 2>one more stage in the history of the universe. So

0:34:46.960 --> 0:34:49.560
<v Speaker 2>we talked about the Big Bang as starting from this

0:34:49.719 --> 0:34:53.080
<v Speaker 2>moment when the universe was very hot and was very dense.

0:34:53.480 --> 0:34:56.400
<v Speaker 2>And what happens next is that the universe expands, it

0:34:56.560 --> 0:35:00.080
<v Speaker 2>spreads out. You get new space created everywhere between in

0:35:00.200 --> 0:35:03.240
<v Speaker 2>these particles, and what that means is that the universe

0:35:03.320 --> 0:35:06.400
<v Speaker 2>is getting more sparse, right, it's getting less dense. So

0:35:06.400 --> 0:35:09.480
<v Speaker 2>the universe goes from more dense to less dense. So

0:35:09.480 --> 0:35:12.640
<v Speaker 2>we get a universe that starts out young, hot and dense,

0:35:13.000 --> 0:35:16.680
<v Speaker 2>and as it expands it cools and becomes old, cold

0:35:16.840 --> 0:35:20.960
<v Speaker 2>and sparse. Right, And this is actually fascinating how the

0:35:21.000 --> 0:35:24.239
<v Speaker 2>different parts of the universe react as the universe expands.

0:35:24.719 --> 0:35:27.760
<v Speaker 2>Like matter, when the universe expands, just becomes more dilute

0:35:27.800 --> 0:35:30.680
<v Speaker 2>because you have like more volume and the same amount

0:35:30.680 --> 0:35:33.279
<v Speaker 2>of stuff. You don't get more protons made, you just

0:35:33.320 --> 0:35:36.239
<v Speaker 2>have more space, and so the proton density goes down.

0:35:37.120 --> 0:35:38.879
<v Speaker 2>Same thing is true for photons. You have the same

0:35:38.960 --> 0:35:43.319
<v Speaker 2>number of photons, more volume, so lower density of photons.

0:35:43.600 --> 0:35:48.920
<v Speaker 2>But photons also get red shifted. They get stretched into

0:35:49.000 --> 0:35:53.480
<v Speaker 2>longer wavelengths as the universe expands, which means they lose energy.

0:35:54.120 --> 0:35:58.239
<v Speaker 2>So the energy density of photons goes down faster than

0:35:58.239 --> 0:36:02.080
<v Speaker 2>the energy density of matter. Matter loses energy density because

0:36:02.120 --> 0:36:05.720
<v Speaker 2>you know, space is expanding, but photons lose energy density faster,

0:36:06.280 --> 0:36:09.480
<v Speaker 2>which is really interesting, not just because hey, if you're

0:36:09.480 --> 0:36:12.000
<v Speaker 2>a nerd, this is cool, but because it tells us

0:36:12.040 --> 0:36:15.080
<v Speaker 2>something about dark matter. We can measure the energy density

0:36:15.120 --> 0:36:17.640
<v Speaker 2>of dark matter over time, and we see that it

0:36:17.719 --> 0:36:20.600
<v Speaker 2>decreases the same way as matter, not the same way

0:36:20.640 --> 0:36:22.799
<v Speaker 2>as photons, which is one reason why we think dark

0:36:22.800 --> 0:36:25.800
<v Speaker 2>matter is matter. People say, oh, it's just a fudge

0:36:25.840 --> 0:36:28.440
<v Speaker 2>factor in galactic rotations, but like man, it plays a

0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:31.160
<v Speaker 2>crucial role in the whole history of the universe in

0:36:31.239 --> 0:36:32.040
<v Speaker 2>so many ways.

0:36:32.320 --> 0:36:34.880
<v Speaker 1>Does dark energy respond the same way as photons, then.

0:36:35.080 --> 0:36:38.279
<v Speaker 2>Dark energy does its own super weird third thing, which

0:36:38.320 --> 0:36:40.840
<v Speaker 2>is that it doesn't get diluted at all. It is

0:36:41.000 --> 0:36:44.760
<v Speaker 2>constant density. You double the volume of space, you double

0:36:44.800 --> 0:36:47.800
<v Speaker 2>the dark energy. It's weird. It's just like an inherent

0:36:47.880 --> 0:36:51.200
<v Speaker 2>property of space we don't understand at all. But as

0:36:51.239 --> 0:36:54.759
<v Speaker 2>the universe expands the amount of dark energy increases because

0:36:54.800 --> 0:36:57.640
<v Speaker 2>the density is constant, totally weird and crazy.

0:36:57.680 --> 0:36:59.239
<v Speaker 1>We got to add that to our episode list.

0:37:01.719 --> 0:37:04.560
<v Speaker 2>It's fascinating. And so what's happening quantum mechanically is think

0:37:04.600 --> 0:37:08.280
<v Speaker 2>of the universe as space filled with quantum mechanical fields,

0:37:08.320 --> 0:37:11.160
<v Speaker 2>and you have like electron fields and photon fields, et cetera.

0:37:11.760 --> 0:37:15.240
<v Speaker 2>And as the universe is expanding, these fields are losing energy,

0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:18.840
<v Speaker 2>and so they go from being like totally filled with energy,

0:37:18.920 --> 0:37:22.040
<v Speaker 2>like an ocean of frothing energy inside these fields, to

0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:25.200
<v Speaker 2>being mostly empty, with little blips of energy here and there.

0:37:25.680 --> 0:37:27.560
<v Speaker 2>And so it's at that point we can start to

0:37:27.600 --> 0:37:31.200
<v Speaker 2>talk about particles. It's like take the ocean and drain it,

0:37:31.239 --> 0:37:33.200
<v Speaker 2>and now you have a bunch of drops left over

0:37:33.239 --> 0:37:35.759
<v Speaker 2>on the bottom. Those you can call particles. Doesn't really

0:37:35.800 --> 0:37:37.719
<v Speaker 2>make sense to talk about particles before that. It's just

0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:41.239
<v Speaker 2>a big frothing ocean. And so the universe cools, and

0:37:41.280 --> 0:37:44.040
<v Speaker 2>these fields deplete, and they lower with their energy density,

0:37:44.280 --> 0:37:46.560
<v Speaker 2>and they go down, down, down, down down. They never

0:37:46.560 --> 0:37:49.279
<v Speaker 2>actually get all the way to zero, right, they get

0:37:49.360 --> 0:37:52.760
<v Speaker 2>down to some sort of quantum minimum energy. No field

0:37:52.760 --> 0:37:56.560
<v Speaker 2>and quantum mechanics can actually have zero energy because of uncertainty.

0:37:56.640 --> 0:38:00.200
<v Speaker 1>I follow you there, now, can you tell what the

0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:01.000
<v Speaker 1>Higgs field is?

0:38:01.840 --> 0:38:04.200
<v Speaker 2>Right? So what role does the Higgs field play in

0:38:04.239 --> 0:38:07.000
<v Speaker 2>the sort of evolution of the universe and its future?

0:38:07.640 --> 0:38:10.239
<v Speaker 2>So all these fields we talked about are similar in

0:38:10.320 --> 0:38:12.880
<v Speaker 2>one really important way, which is that they want to

0:38:13.000 --> 0:38:16.200
<v Speaker 2>relax to zero, right. They want to go down to

0:38:16.400 --> 0:38:19.239
<v Speaker 2>zero energy density. That's sort of the most relaxed state.

0:38:19.280 --> 0:38:22.120
<v Speaker 2>And as the universe is expanding and cooling things relaxing,

0:38:22.320 --> 0:38:25.040
<v Speaker 2>they head down to zero particles and never get all

0:38:25.040 --> 0:38:27.160
<v Speaker 2>the way to zero, but they all head down to zero.

0:38:27.560 --> 0:38:29.920
<v Speaker 2>The Higgs field is different. It's weird in this one

0:38:29.960 --> 0:38:32.640
<v Speaker 2>particular way, which is that it doesn't relax to zero.

0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:36.600
<v Speaker 2>It relaxes to some non zero state. It's like if

0:38:36.600 --> 0:38:40.160
<v Speaker 2>you had a guitar and you plucked all the strings

0:38:40.560 --> 0:38:43.200
<v Speaker 2>and they all relaxed back down to like not vibrating

0:38:43.239 --> 0:38:46.200
<v Speaker 2>at all, but one of them relax down to like vibrating,

0:38:46.520 --> 0:38:49.480
<v Speaker 2>or relax down to being bent. Actually is a better analogy,

0:38:49.520 --> 0:38:52.399
<v Speaker 2>because the Higgs field relaxes not down to non zero

0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:55.719
<v Speaker 2>kinetic energy, but non zero potential energy. So like if

0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:57.960
<v Speaker 2>one of your guitar strings after you pluck it, it

0:38:58.040 --> 0:39:00.600
<v Speaker 2>relaxes down to a position which is not straight but

0:39:00.680 --> 0:39:03.800
<v Speaker 2>a little bit bent. That would be weird, right. That's

0:39:03.840 --> 0:39:06.680
<v Speaker 2>the Higgs field. So as the universe cools, all the

0:39:06.719 --> 0:39:09.080
<v Speaker 2>fields go to zero or close to it, except for

0:39:09.120 --> 0:39:11.960
<v Speaker 2>the Higgs field, which gets like stuck in this higher

0:39:12.080 --> 0:39:15.560
<v Speaker 2>energy state. And that's what Tim is asking about. He's

0:39:15.600 --> 0:39:19.040
<v Speaker 2>asking about if that field could collapse, if that field

0:39:19.120 --> 0:39:22.320
<v Speaker 2>could eventually decay all the way to zero, because we

0:39:22.360 --> 0:39:24.799
<v Speaker 2>don't understand the Higgs field well enough. It's pretty new

0:39:24.840 --> 0:39:26.640
<v Speaker 2>that we even know it it's a thing, and that

0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:29.359
<v Speaker 2>we're measuring all of its properties to know if it's

0:39:29.360 --> 0:39:32.160
<v Speaker 2>stuck in that state and stable or just sort of

0:39:32.239 --> 0:39:36.719
<v Speaker 2>temporarily paused there and eventually going to relax down to zero.

0:39:37.400 --> 0:39:39.759
<v Speaker 2>Like when I say it prefers to relax at a

0:39:39.800 --> 0:39:43.200
<v Speaker 2>non zero state, that's a hypothesis based on what we've

0:39:43.200 --> 0:39:45.640
<v Speaker 2>seen so far. We don't actually understand the field well

0:39:45.760 --> 0:39:49.640
<v Speaker 2>enough to know long term where it will eventually relax.

0:39:49.520 --> 0:39:52.560
<v Speaker 1>And we don't know why it stays at the non

0:39:52.680 --> 0:39:55.359
<v Speaker 1>zero state for as long as we've been watching it, right,

0:39:55.400 --> 0:39:56.320
<v Speaker 1>that's also a mystery.

0:39:57.320 --> 0:39:59.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, we can describe it mathematically. We can constru

0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:02.360
<v Speaker 2>dructive field that has those properties. You just have to

0:40:02.400 --> 0:40:05.040
<v Speaker 2>give it sort of a weird potential energy form. But

0:40:05.080 --> 0:40:06.600
<v Speaker 2>then the question is like, well, well why does that

0:40:06.640 --> 0:40:08.880
<v Speaker 2>field exist? Yeah, that we don't know. This is just

0:40:08.960 --> 0:40:12.560
<v Speaker 2>descriptive so it's possible to accommodate mathematically, but that doesn't

0:40:12.560 --> 0:40:15.759
<v Speaker 2>answer the philosophical question of why the universe is this way.

0:40:16.480 --> 0:40:18.880
<v Speaker 2>But if the Higgs field does collapse, it means the

0:40:18.880 --> 0:40:22.880
<v Speaker 2>whole universe changes in its fundamental nature, because the Higgs

0:40:22.920 --> 0:40:25.959
<v Speaker 2>field is why particles have mass. For example, electrons have mass,

0:40:26.000 --> 0:40:27.960
<v Speaker 2>and quarks have mass and all this kind of stuff,

0:40:28.160 --> 0:40:31.000
<v Speaker 2>and that only happens if the Higgs field has that energy.

0:40:31.040 --> 0:40:33.960
<v Speaker 2>If the Higgs field collapses down to zero, those particles

0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:37.880
<v Speaker 2>lose their mass. Electrons suddenly massless. Now they start moving

0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:40.600
<v Speaker 2>like photon. They move at the speed of light, same

0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:45.000
<v Speaker 2>with quarks. So every atom unbounds right, all matter in

0:40:45.040 --> 0:40:49.160
<v Speaker 2>the universe would explode and travel outwards at the speed

0:40:49.160 --> 0:40:51.759
<v Speaker 2>of light. It would be catastrophic for life as we

0:40:51.840 --> 0:40:54.239
<v Speaker 2>know it. The universe would go on, it would just

0:40:54.280 --> 0:40:58.000
<v Speaker 2>have very different nature. The effective laws of physics that

0:40:58.040 --> 0:40:59.960
<v Speaker 2>we're used to would be totally different.

0:41:00.320 --> 0:41:02.799
<v Speaker 1>But to stick with Tim's question real quick, how would

0:41:02.800 --> 0:41:04.759
<v Speaker 1>that be qualitatively different than the Big Bang?

0:41:05.000 --> 0:41:08.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? So Tim's question is would the Higgs field collapse

0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:11.560
<v Speaker 2>be like the Big Bang? Well, I mean it would

0:41:11.640 --> 0:41:16.520
<v Speaker 2>be big, and it would be dramatic, and in some

0:41:16.719 --> 0:41:18.799
<v Speaker 2>sense it makes a lot of sense to think of

0:41:18.840 --> 0:41:21.759
<v Speaker 2>it as part of the Big Bang, not just like

0:41:21.800 --> 0:41:24.160
<v Speaker 2>the Big Bang, but sort of like a natural extension

0:41:24.560 --> 0:41:27.040
<v Speaker 2>of the Big Bang, because the Big Bang, again, is

0:41:27.080 --> 0:41:30.360
<v Speaker 2>not just like a moment in time, it's the expansion

0:41:30.400 --> 0:41:33.120
<v Speaker 2>of the universe. In some sense, the universe is still

0:41:33.160 --> 0:41:35.960
<v Speaker 2>big banging because the universe started out very hot and

0:41:36.040 --> 0:41:38.680
<v Speaker 2>dense and the expansion that follows is what we call

0:41:38.760 --> 0:41:40.919
<v Speaker 2>the Big Bang. So the Big Bang is still kind

0:41:40.920 --> 0:41:44.560
<v Speaker 2>of happening, and if the Higgs field collapses, that's sort

0:41:44.600 --> 0:41:47.200
<v Speaker 2>of like the natural next step, Like the Big Bang

0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:50.680
<v Speaker 2>is all these quantum fields gradually relaxing down to zero.

0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:53.279
<v Speaker 2>The Higgs field got stuck for a while, but if

0:41:53.280 --> 0:41:56.440
<v Speaker 2>it collapses down to zero, if it's not actually stable,

0:41:56.719 --> 0:41:59.360
<v Speaker 2>then that's just like you know, episode seven of the

0:41:59.360 --> 0:42:02.800
<v Speaker 2>Big Bang. So it's not a lot like the initial

0:42:02.840 --> 0:42:06.120
<v Speaker 2>stages of the Big Bang, where everything was very hot

0:42:06.160 --> 0:42:08.920
<v Speaker 2>and very dense and a very very high temperature, so

0:42:09.040 --> 0:42:11.719
<v Speaker 2>hot we can't even really imagine it. It's more like

0:42:12.200 --> 0:42:15.200
<v Speaker 2>the end game of the Big Bang, the closing chapters,

0:42:15.400 --> 0:42:18.400
<v Speaker 2>when things are finally relaxing closer to zero.

0:42:18.840 --> 0:42:21.000
<v Speaker 1>So just so people like me can sleep at night,

0:42:21.280 --> 0:42:24.000
<v Speaker 1>we don't necessarily know that the Higgs field is going

0:42:24.080 --> 0:42:26.239
<v Speaker 1>to go to zero. It's just if it did, it

0:42:26.280 --> 0:42:28.680
<v Speaker 1>would be bad. But it's not necessarily going to happen

0:42:28.680 --> 0:42:29.520
<v Speaker 1>because we just don't know.

0:42:29.960 --> 0:42:32.600
<v Speaker 2>It's not necessarily going to happen. We don't know. We're

0:42:32.640 --> 0:42:35.160
<v Speaker 2>making measurements right now with the particle colliders to try

0:42:35.200 --> 0:42:37.200
<v Speaker 2>to understand the Higgs field and better, so we can

0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:40.680
<v Speaker 2>get a better handle on the chances that it could collapse.

0:42:41.239 --> 0:42:43.480
<v Speaker 2>We don't really know it. On the other hand, you

0:42:43.560 --> 0:42:46.400
<v Speaker 2>might ask, well, what could trigger its collapse? Like if

0:42:46.440 --> 0:42:49.919
<v Speaker 2>the Higgs field is stuck in this state and that's metastable,

0:42:49.960 --> 0:42:52.000
<v Speaker 2>it's like it could stay there, or it could get

0:42:52.040 --> 0:42:54.640
<v Speaker 2>knocked off, you know, sort of like a ball balanced

0:42:54.640 --> 0:42:56.879
<v Speaker 2>on the top of a hill. It could veer off,

0:42:56.960 --> 0:42:59.520
<v Speaker 2>or it could just hang out there if nothing touches it. Well,

0:42:59.600 --> 0:43:01.960
<v Speaker 2>one thing that could trigger it are very high energy

0:43:01.960 --> 0:43:06.399
<v Speaker 2>particle collisions creating moments of energy density. Who knows right,

0:43:06.640 --> 0:43:10.280
<v Speaker 2>that could trigger the Higgs field to collapse. So you know, yes,

0:43:10.400 --> 0:43:11.920
<v Speaker 2>we are trying to study it so that you can

0:43:11.960 --> 0:43:15.640
<v Speaker 2>sleep better at night. But you know, as with all experiments,

0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:20.000
<v Speaker 2>there are existential risks here, and those experiments could potentially

0:43:20.120 --> 0:43:23.360
<v Speaker 2>maybe possibly dot dot dot. The lawyer Shay insists, I

0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:26.600
<v Speaker 2>had a bunch of qualifiers here trigger the Higgs field collapse.

0:43:26.920 --> 0:43:28.880
<v Speaker 1>I thought that you got into this field because you

0:43:28.920 --> 0:43:32.279
<v Speaker 1>didn't want to do anything catastrophic. You've somehow managed to

0:43:32.520 --> 0:43:35.120
<v Speaker 1>up maybe do something even more catastrophic than anyone has

0:43:35.160 --> 0:43:35.920
<v Speaker 1>ever done before.

0:43:36.520 --> 0:43:39.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I know, I know the irony is not lost

0:43:39.680 --> 0:43:42.480
<v Speaker 2>on me. But the good news is if the Higgs

0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:45.520
<v Speaker 2>field does collapse, that collapse would propagate out at the

0:43:45.560 --> 0:43:47.960
<v Speaker 2>speed of light, and so it all happened very quickly.

0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:51.759
<v Speaker 2>There'd be no long, slow biological torture where you're eating

0:43:51.800 --> 0:43:54.080
<v Speaker 2>from the inside out by wasps like some sort of

0:43:54.239 --> 0:43:57.360
<v Speaker 2>weird fig You would just stop existing instantaneously and you

0:43:57.360 --> 0:43:58.120
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't even know it.

0:43:58.280 --> 0:44:00.399
<v Speaker 1>If the wasps are bringing about the end of days,

0:44:00.440 --> 0:44:02.359
<v Speaker 1>we've got a chance to fight back, But it sounds

0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:04.239
<v Speaker 1>like we don't have a chance with your end of

0:44:04.320 --> 0:44:05.120
<v Speaker 1>day's scenario.

0:44:06.160 --> 0:44:08.520
<v Speaker 2>Maybe we just need to evolve wasps that can fight

0:44:08.520 --> 0:44:11.239
<v Speaker 2>the Higgs field or prop it up, right, yea, some

0:44:11.280 --> 0:44:13.880
<v Speaker 2>sort of mutualism there between the Higgs and the wasps.

0:44:13.960 --> 0:44:17.480
<v Speaker 2>Problem solved, Yeah, exactly. I mean they're focused on the figs.

0:44:17.520 --> 0:44:19.719
<v Speaker 2>It's just like one letter off to be focused on

0:44:19.719 --> 0:44:20.200
<v Speaker 2>the Higgs.

0:44:20.200 --> 0:44:22.880
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, Wait, doesn't Higgs have two g's.

0:44:25.280 --> 0:44:27.240
<v Speaker 2>Yes, Higgs's have a little bit.

0:44:27.080 --> 0:44:28.799
<v Speaker 1>Farther off, but it's close. This is why I think

0:44:28.840 --> 0:44:32.720
<v Speaker 1>interdisciplinary discussions are so important, you know, because we're solving

0:44:32.719 --> 0:44:33.319
<v Speaker 1>everything here.

0:44:33.840 --> 0:44:36.120
<v Speaker 2>That's right. Nobody's ever had a podcast about the Higgs

0:44:36.160 --> 0:44:38.320
<v Speaker 2>figs before we're breaking new grounds.

0:44:38.320 --> 0:44:44.000
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, Higgs liked figs. There's got to be

0:44:44.040 --> 0:44:46.399
<v Speaker 1>a biography or a biographer we could ask.

0:44:46.719 --> 0:44:48.520
<v Speaker 2>Somebody must know the answer that question.

0:44:48.360 --> 0:44:49.240
<v Speaker 1>Is Higgs still alive.

0:44:50.160 --> 0:44:53.000
<v Speaker 2>Unfortunately, Higgs died in April of twenty twenty four, so

0:44:53.120 --> 0:44:55.680
<v Speaker 2>that question, if it's not already answered, we will never

0:44:55.800 --> 0:44:56.799
<v Speaker 2>know the answer.

0:44:56.520 --> 0:45:01.759
<v Speaker 1>To the mysteries abound. All right, Well, well, Tim, have

0:45:01.880 --> 0:45:04.080
<v Speaker 1>we answered your question? Yeah?

0:45:04.120 --> 0:45:05.200
<v Speaker 2>I think I got it.

0:45:05.200 --> 0:45:07.799
<v Speaker 6>It did raise more questions that I'll say for another day.

0:45:08.160 --> 0:45:10.920
<v Speaker 6>I really appreciate the reminder that the Big Bang continues

0:45:10.960 --> 0:45:13.759
<v Speaker 6>to be not the greatest choice of names, and that

0:45:13.880 --> 0:45:17.960
<v Speaker 6>carries along a lot of misconceptions by using those particular words. Otherwise,

0:45:18.280 --> 0:45:22.040
<v Speaker 6>I think I'm calmly reassured that if death by Higgs collapse,

0:45:22.160 --> 0:45:24.840
<v Speaker 6>whatever happened, is probably the best way for us to go.

0:45:25.239 --> 0:45:28.560
<v Speaker 2>Thanks all right, Thank you everybody for asking these questions,

0:45:28.560 --> 0:45:31.279
<v Speaker 2>for writing in, and for powering this whole show with

0:45:31.360 --> 0:45:34.080
<v Speaker 2>your curiosity. You know, the reason we do this is

0:45:34.120 --> 0:45:37.600
<v Speaker 2>because you are curious about the universe, because you desperately

0:45:37.640 --> 0:45:40.400
<v Speaker 2>want answers to how the universe works, how the guy

0:45:40.480 --> 0:45:43.120
<v Speaker 2>and creepy bits of biology work and how the fundamental

0:45:43.160 --> 0:45:47.319
<v Speaker 2>particles in the universe can affect everything on the grandest scale.

0:45:47.400 --> 0:45:49.440
<v Speaker 2>And we'd love to hear more from you. Please do

0:45:49.560 --> 0:45:52.799
<v Speaker 2>send us your questions to questions at Danielankelly dot org.

0:45:53.120 --> 0:45:54.280
<v Speaker 2>Everybody gets an answer.

0:45:54.600 --> 0:46:05.760
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced

0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:08.600
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0:46:08.840 --> 0:46:09.520
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0:46:09.680 --> 0:46:12.400
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0:46:24.600 --> 0:46:27.360
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