Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? What's that? Mango? I can't
Speaker 1: believe it, but we are already halfway through our countdown
Speaker 1: to the twenty five best science ideas from the past
Speaker 1: twenty five years.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So twelve and a half in exactly twelve and a
Speaker 1: half in, and I don't know about you, but I
Speaker 1: feel like these stories keep getting better and better.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's kind of how it countdown works, but
Speaker 2: I feel like you should tell people what is coming
Speaker 2: up next, preview it well.
Speaker 1: Today's episode has five stories, including what NASCAR does to
Speaker 1: our brains, a clock that changed the way we think
Speaker 1: about time, and our attempt to explain particle physics through music.
Speaker 2: Is that even possible?
Speaker 1: There's only one way to find out, so let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listener is welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: mungkish Heatikaur and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend Will Pearson and our palam producer Dylan is over
Speaker 1: there in the booth wearing his lucky sunglasses. So I
Speaker 1: have a good feeling about today's episode. So in case
Speaker 1: you're wondering. Yes, he does have unlucky sunglasses. We had
Speaker 1: to ask him to stop wearing them during the show.
Speaker 1: Only the lucky sunglasses. That's right, it was a whole thing.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Before we get into the countdown, I just want
Speaker 1: to remind you to subscribe to Part Time Genius on
Speaker 1: your favorite podcast app, which should be iHeart the iHeart app.
Speaker 1: And if you enjoy the show, which I hope you do,
Speaker 1: please give us a nice rating and review. It really
Speaker 1: helps us out. And also we actually read the comments.
Speaker 1: Someone has to do a show on three D printing
Speaker 1: and we're planning one in the works. And this week
Speaker 1: someone named Elliott wrote the best podcast My name is Elliot?
Speaker 2: Oh I like that, which is the greatest narrative. You know,
Speaker 2: went from how he felt about the podcast to his name.
Speaker 2: You know, it was good, good stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, Elliott, if you're listening messages on our Instagram so
Speaker 1: we can send you something fun. But let's get into
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Actually, it just hit me Dylan is probably wearing those
Speaker 2: glasses because you know what's next on our countown mango.
Speaker 1: That Dylan is so clever. Okay, so the first thing
Speaker 1: we're covering today is NASCAR now. Over the years, there
Speaker 1: have been lots of studies on NASCAR to improve the
Speaker 1: safety for drivers. There have been research papers on how
Speaker 1: the car's bodies and safety measures affect injuries. NASCAR also
Speaker 1: awarded a grant to Michigan State University to study everything
Speaker 1: from heat exhaustion and drivers to figure out better exercises
Speaker 1: and diet regimen for the athletes. And there have been
Speaker 1: studies on why fatherhood affects driver is because NASCAR drivers
Speaker 1: often drop one point six places on average the year
Speaker 1: after having a kid.
Speaker 2: Wow, it does kind of make you wonder like if
Speaker 2: it's at all related to the fact that they're probably
Speaker 2: sleeping less.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably part of it. But scientists also
Speaker 1: hypothesize that when you have a kid, you think about
Speaker 1: your mortality. Mon Yeah, and so you might be less
Speaker 1: prone to make risky moves on the course. That makes
Speaker 1: sense anyway. The most interesting study I read about was
Speaker 1: done by this psychologist, Guy Vidioloni from West Virginia University
Speaker 1: Institute of Technology, and it's a four year study called
Speaker 1: quote Driving under the Influence of Nascar. It isn't so
Speaker 1: much about what happens on the track as it is
Speaker 1: how the races influence people watching at home. So, according
Speaker 1: to NPR, Vidilioni looked at all the traffic accidents that
Speaker 1: took place in West Virginia and then whittled it down
Speaker 1: to accidents that mimicked what happened on a racetrack. So
Speaker 1: these were things like pile ups of multiple cars or
Speaker 1: accidents where there was aggressive driving. And his conclusion was
Speaker 1: that five days after major NASCAR races, there's a big
Speaker 1: spike in traffic accidents. Now Villelioni actually put in a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of controls to make sure he wasn't just
Speaker 1: saying something wild. He wanted to be really conservative about
Speaker 1: his conclusions. But he counted about six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: extra accidents on West Virginia roads in the days after
Speaker 1: the races, essentially because people were quote acting out NASCAR
Speaker 1: in their own driving this wild.
Speaker 2: Although the thing that stands out to me, Mango is like,
Speaker 2: why is this on the fifth day after a race
Speaker 2: instead of like immediately after. I don't think he figured
Speaker 2: that part out exactly.
Speaker 1: Like he theorized that maybe it's because races tend to
Speaker 1: take place on weekends and so a Thursday or Friday
Speaker 1: after it tends to be the days that you let
Speaker 1: loose after a rough week. But his study is really
Speaker 1: pointing to the subtle ways that media affects behavior in
Speaker 1: the real world. Now, NASCAR is just one example of this.
Speaker 1: Another famous case is of the MTV show sixteen Pregnant,
Speaker 1: where the reality show actually captured the difficulties for high
Speaker 1: school students trying to raise kids, and people were really
Speaker 1: affected by it. The show led to a five point
Speaker 1: seven percent reduction in teen births, which apparently was a
Speaker 1: third of the overall decline in teen berths in the country.
Speaker 3: Oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Academics actually sometimes refer to it as the you are
Speaker 2: what you watch phenomenon, and it's pretty interesting to see,
Speaker 2: sort of like how MLK talked about the interracial kiss
Speaker 2: on the original Star Trek being one of the most
Speaker 2: important moments on television, or how President Joe Biden credited
Speaker 2: Will and Grace with changing America's perception of gays more
Speaker 2: than just about anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. So anyway, this whole NASCAR thing won't
Speaker 1: be a problem ten to fifteen years from now, when
Speaker 1: we're all taking way Mos everywhere and getting chow for
Speaker 1: around and robotic cars. But until then, all you NASCAR
Speaker 1: watchers out there, he doctor Vilioni's advice, and be a
Speaker 1: little mindful of how you're driving the week after a
Speaker 1: big race. We want to keep you safe.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: All right, Mago. Let's say you are a clockmaker. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to say that. Okay, Now you've built a
Speaker 2: beautiful time piece that counts hours and minutes. But now
Speaker 2: you've got a problem. You want your clock to count
Speaker 2: each second with pinpoint accuracy. So how do you do it.
Speaker 2: It turns out you need to crack open the periodic
Speaker 2: table because according to the International System of Units, this
Speaker 2: is how you measure a second. Quote. The second is
Speaker 2: defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the cesium frequency,
Speaker 2: the unperturbed ground state high per fine transition frequency of
Speaker 2: the cesium one thirty three atom to be nine billion,
Speaker 2: one hundred and ninety two million, six hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: one thousand, seven hundred and seventy when expressed in the
Speaker 2: unit hurts, which is equal to s the power of
Speaker 2: negative one. You got it.
Speaker 1: So that is the definition of a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the definition of a second. I got lost
Speaker 2: in the reading of it, but as you may have noticed,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit complicated. So the only way to
Speaker 2: measure it is with an atomic clock. And the way
Speaker 2: this work sounds completely made out, but I promise it's
Speaker 2: actually real. Basically, an atomic clock is a machine that
Speaker 2: shoots laser beams at caesium ions, measures frequency at which
Speaker 2: their electrons jump to different energy levels, and then sends
Speaker 2: the readings to a place called the International Bureau of
Speaker 2: Weights and Measures. So this is a real place. It's
Speaker 2: a real inner governmental organization. Yeah, and it's actually based
Speaker 2: in France.
Speaker 1: So we've got laser clock sending data to friends. I
Speaker 1: guess I'm with you that far.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm glad you're keeping up. So there are around
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty atomic clocks in the world, all
Speaker 2: sending these readings. So timekeepers at the International Bureau of
Speaker 2: Weights and Measures they crunch these numbers from the clocks
Speaker 2: and then vote on the quote official time, which they
Speaker 2: publish in a monthly publication that comes out monthly called
Speaker 2: Circular Tea.
Speaker 1: I never thought i'd say this about anything that involves caesium,
Speaker 1: but uh, that is pretty adorably whimsical.
Speaker 2: It is in a way, but it's all so pretty
Speaker 2: serious stuff like this process is how we determine what's
Speaker 2: called international atomic time. And a standard atomic clock made
Speaker 2: with caesium is so accurate it can keep time for
Speaker 2: about one hundred million years without skipping a beat.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But starting in the mid ads, researchers at the National
Speaker 2: Institute of Standards and Technology, or in IST, a federal
Speaker 2: lab in Colorado, they began developing a new generation of
Speaker 2: atomic clocks that could make caesium seem outdated.
Speaker 1: Actually, so what makes these atomic clocks so special?
Speaker 2: Well, they use aluminum instead of caesium, so basically a
Speaker 2: positive aluminum twenty seven ion. In two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: NIST scientists built something they call the quantum logic clock.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: It contains a single aluminum ion cooled to nearly absolute zero,
Speaker 2: shot with an ultraviolet laser, and the aluminum ion acts
Speaker 2: like the second hand on a clock, so it ticks
Speaker 2: by jumping up and down between energy levels. But instead
Speaker 2: of ticking once for every secondecond, it takes a quadrillion
Speaker 2: times per second. That is a big number, man, And
Speaker 2: it's so accurate it won't lose a second for thirty
Speaker 2: three billion years. That's almost triple the age of the
Speaker 2: observable universe.
Speaker 1: That is really hard to imagine, yeah, or hard to
Speaker 1: put to the test, I think.
Speaker 2: And this aluminum clock does more than just tell time.
Speaker 2: It's even changing our understanding of space time because researchers
Speaker 2: have used it to test Einstein's theory of relativity. According
Speaker 2: to Einstein's theory, gravity affects the passage of time, So
Speaker 2: the stronger the pull of gravity, the slower the time.
Speaker 2: And as a result of this, somebody who lives in
Speaker 2: the mountains of Colorado, where gravity's pull is slightly lower,
Speaker 2: they'll age faster than somebody who lives at sea level. Now,
Speaker 2: the quantum logic clock is so sensitive it actually proved
Speaker 2: that a person's standing at the top of a staircase
Speaker 2: or someone standing on a stool experienced a faster passage
Speaker 2: of time. It showed that each additional foot of height
Speaker 2: adds about ninety bills adience of a second to your lifetime.
Speaker 1: So NBA players would live longer than jockeys as well.
Speaker 1: I have a dumb question to ask, why do we
Speaker 1: need clocks to be this accurate.
Speaker 2: It's a fair question, but take GPS for example. GPS
Speaker 2: isn't just a location tracking technology. It's also a type
Speaker 2: of clock. So if you're driving down the highway and
Speaker 2: the GPS is five seconds late telling you to take
Speaker 2: an exit, you'd be pretty mad about this.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: For the GPS to be useful, it needs to show
Speaker 2: both an accurate location and an accurate time. It needs
Speaker 2: that time to be precise down to the second. And
Speaker 2: it turns out that's true for a lot of other
Speaker 2: technologies as well. Take telecommunications, satellite networks, radio signals, lots
Speaker 2: more things like this. Anyway, it's hard to overstate the
Speaker 2: importance of this quantum logic clock in the nerdy and
Speaker 2: wonderful world of timekeeping. Those caesium clocks that impressed you
Speaker 2: at the start of this segment will eventually end up
Speaker 2: being obsolete. And while experiments with other elements are ongoing
Speaker 2: right now, aluminum is the leading contender to become the
Speaker 2: ticking heart of what we call a second.
Speaker 1: Hey, listeners, do not go anywhere. We've got to pause
Speaker 1: for a quick break. But there is so much weird
Speaker 1: science right after Welcome back to part time Genius. When
Speaker 1: we're talking the twenty five greatest science ideas of the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years, and we're up to number. So
Speaker 1: it probably won't surprise you to learn that water is
Speaker 1: the most consumed material on Earth. But can you guess
Speaker 1: what comes in second m I'm gonna go with coffee.
Speaker 1: You know, I might have guessed that too, but know
Speaker 1: the answer is concrete.
Speaker 2: Oh really?
Speaker 1: Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have poured nearly nine hundred
Speaker 1: billion tons of concrete, and nowadays we're pouring the stuff
Speaker 1: at a breakneck speed, especially in the developing world. For example,
Speaker 1: in the time period between twenty eleven and twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: China poured more cement than the US did during the
Speaker 1: entire twentieth century. Oh wow, isn't that incredible? But all
Speaker 1: that concrete has a big downside. It's responsible for eight
Speaker 1: to nine percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Speaker 2: I never thought of concrete as being such a big
Speaker 2: pollution problem. I know, it's not a great thing. I
Speaker 2: think of, you know, the sidewalks and things that cars
Speaker 2: drive on, but I didn't think of it in that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't realize it either. But apparently making concrete
Speaker 1: is an energy intensive process. So it starts by taking
Speaker 1: limestone and baking it to temperatures over twenty six hundred
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. That kind of heat requires powerful kilns fired
Speaker 1: by fossil fuels, and that's just to make cement. To
Speaker 1: turn cement into concrete, you have to add aggregates like sand,
Speaker 1: and really lots of it. As a result, sand mining
Speaker 1: is a big business around the world. We've actually talked
Speaker 1: about this before. There's even a burgeoning black market for sand,
Speaker 1: backed by a so called sand mafias. Anyway, this dangerous
Speaker 1: mix of pollution, mining and mafias got scientists wondering how
Speaker 1: to make concrete production more green, Like what if we
Speaker 1: supplemented sand with something else, something more sustainable, something that
Speaker 1: could reduce concrete carbon footprint. And it's something that you
Speaker 1: mentioned just a few minutes ago. Wait, coffee, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: so coffee nic Every day humans drank two billion cups
Speaker 1: of coffee and most of the coffee grinds just end
Speaker 1: up in a landfill. But in twenty twenty three, Australian
Speaker 1: engineering researchers had an idea, what if we used those
Speaker 1: ground up beans to make concrete. So that's what they did.
Speaker 1: They scorched coffee grounds to about six hundred degrees, which
Speaker 1: made the grounds break down into a substance called biochar,
Speaker 1: which is basically charcoal, and when they began testing, they
Speaker 1: discovered that if you replaced just fifteen percent of the
Speaker 1: sand in concrete with coffee fueled biochar, the concrete becomes
Speaker 1: thirty percent stronger.
Speaker 2: And how does that actually work.
Speaker 1: It turns out the biochart retains water better than sand,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the concrete dries slower than usual,
Speaker 1: which reduces the risk of shrinking and cracking, helping it
Speaker 1: maintain its strength. There are actually two benefits to this discovery. One,
Speaker 1: by using spent coffee, it reduces the demand for sand,
Speaker 1: and two, by making concrete stronger, it reduces the amount
Speaker 1: of cement required for each bag, and with less cement
Speaker 1: and sand required, the total carbon footprint of each bag
Speaker 1: of concrete could drop significantly. As it happens, a major
Speaker 1: industry group called the Global Cement and Concrete Association has
Speaker 1: pledged to go carbon neutral by twenty fifty and thanks
Speaker 1: to those coffee loving Aussies, they've got a really strong
Speaker 1: foundation to work with.
Speaker 2: It's an incredible discovery and asoso pun mego, I'll take
Speaker 2: it all right now, mego. We happen to be living
Speaker 2: through one of the most polarizing moments in recent history
Speaker 2: if you've noticed this, But I think one thing we
Speaker 2: can all agree on is that dinosaurs are really really cool.
Speaker 2: It feels like this should be the thing that brings
Speaker 2: us together. In fact, that might be some of the
Speaker 2: firmest common ground we have left at this point. What
Speaker 2: do you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'd like to think a little more
Speaker 1: positively than that, but in general, yeah, I mean, everyone
Speaker 1: loves dinosaurs exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's always struck me that, even though we're dealing
Speaker 2: with creatures that are over one hundred million years old
Speaker 2: in some cases, to this day, we are still finding
Speaker 2: new things out about them. In the last quarter century
Speaker 2: has been particularly generous. We've onearthed so many new fossils
Speaker 2: and developed so many breakthrough research techniques that some scientists
Speaker 2: are now calling this the Golden Age of paleontology.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: There are way too many of these dino revelations for
Speaker 2: us to cover today, but singling out just one didn't
Speaker 2: seem right either, So instead I thought I would walk
Speaker 2: us through some of my favorite highlights and they can
Speaker 2: kind of all share this spot together. What do you think.
Speaker 1: I love it like a big heap of Dino discoveries
Speaker 1: is exactly what this science series needs.
Speaker 2: I'd absolutely I thought you'd approve of this. So what
Speaker 2: stuck out to me most is all this research that
Speaker 2: sort of challenges what we thought we knew about dinosaurs,
Speaker 2: which for most of us is just what we saw
Speaker 2: in the Jurassic Park movie. For instance, in one of
Speaker 2: the most famous scenes of the original movie, we see
Speaker 2: a t rex chasing after a speed jeep and nearly
Speaker 2: catching up to it. So that didn't happen in real life.
Speaker 2: That was the movie, Yeah, exactly. In fact, she was
Speaker 2: even closer than she appeared to remember because of that
Speaker 2: whole mirror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we all remember that.
Speaker 2: That scene was considered plausible for nearly a decade after
Speaker 2: the film's release, with many paleontologists speculating that a real
Speaker 2: t rex could run as fast as forty five miles
Speaker 2: an hour. But in two thousand and two, researchers John
Speaker 2: Hutchinson and Mariano Garcia used some clever math to show
Speaker 2: that the res likely had a much slower role than
Speaker 2: we previously thought, so, using biomechanical data from the dinosaur's
Speaker 2: closest living relatives, those would be birds, Now was able
Speaker 2: to extrapolate just how much muscle mass it would take
Speaker 2: for an animal the size of a t rex to
Speaker 2: actually be able to run. As a general rule, no
Speaker 2: more than fifty percent of an animal's body mass is
Speaker 2: composed of muscle, and only a fraction of that muscle
Speaker 2: is allocated to the legs. But for a t rex
Speaker 2: to run forty five miles an hour, its leg muscles
Speaker 2: would need to account for eighty six percent of its
Speaker 2: total body Some real.
Speaker 1: Masks, those are monster legs. It feels like the leg
Speaker 1: muscles would be up to its eyeballs. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in that case, there's no room for anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't add up there. So even though the
Speaker 2: researchers had poked a giant hole in one of Jurassic
Speaker 2: Park's best scenes, the filmmakers didn't hold it against them.
Speaker 2: In fact, Hutchinson was even hired to consult on one
Speaker 2: of the Jurassic Parks sequels based on the strength of
Speaker 2: this breakthrough.
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome, But I'm curious, do we know what
Speaker 1: a t rex's top speed would be?
Speaker 2: Well, the two thousand and two study concluded that t
Speaker 2: rex would have had a hard time topping twenty five
Speaker 2: miles an hour. According to a twenty seventeen study from
Speaker 2: the University of Manchester, they probably can only reach speeds
Speaker 2: of around twelve miles a mile, so any faster and
Speaker 2: the seven ton predators would risk shattering their bones.
Speaker 1: Actually wow, so it's almost like at speeds that a
Speaker 1: human could outrun. At this pace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember that's the top speed. The t Rex
Speaker 2: was even slower when walking. Exactly how slow remained a
Speaker 2: mystery until twenty twenty one, when Dutch researchers built on
Speaker 2: those earlier findings and used computer modeling to prove that
Speaker 2: Rex walked at a leisurely pace of between two and
Speaker 2: three miles an hour. Now, another point of departure from
Speaker 2: the Jurassic movies is that the predatory dinosaurs, including t Rex,
Speaker 2: did not have permanently exposed teeth. Researchers and artists have
Speaker 2: long believed that bipedal carnivores have lipless mouths where their
Speaker 2: upper teeth would hang over their lower jaws, not unlike
Speaker 2: you know, maybe like a crocodile or something like that.
Speaker 2: But according to a twenty twenty three study from the
Speaker 2: University of Portsmouth, the dinos actually kept their choppers, this
Speaker 2: greatly covered with a pair of thick lizard lips. Isn't
Speaker 2: that kind of funny to imagine? So the researchers found
Speaker 2: that toothwaar and lipless reptile groups was much different from
Speaker 2: that of carnivorous dinosaurs, and based on computer modeling, it
Speaker 2: would have been impossible for a lipless t rex to
Speaker 2: close its mouth without the lower jaw actually crushing the
Speaker 2: very bones that supported it.
Speaker 1: That is really interesting, and you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: with all these breakthroughs, they've kind of defanged this idea
Speaker 1: of a really frightening t rex right like suddenly they're
Speaker 1: like only strolling around at two miles per hour. They're
Speaker 1: like they don't have those goofy grins anymore, right, you know,
Speaker 1: bearing their teeth and a dinosaurs supposed to have feathers,
Speaker 1: right like on top of everything else, they're fluffy.
Speaker 2: Actually, I've got some good news on that front because
Speaker 2: while many dinosaurs are now believed to have sported feathers,
Speaker 2: including raptors and a few of the t rex's cousins,
Speaker 2: the rex itself is thought to have had smooth, more
Speaker 2: scaly skin. The exception would have been juvenile t rexes,
Speaker 2: whose small bodies may have needed feathers for thermal insulation.
Speaker 2: By the time they reach adulthood, though their forty foot
Speaker 2: long bodies were so good at retaining heat that they
Speaker 2: no longer needed those downy coats. So, if anything, an
Speaker 2: adult t rex may have had a stripe of bristles
Speaker 2: on its back and shoulders, but those would have been
Speaker 2: used to attract a mate rather than to keep warm.
Speaker 1: All right, so that's at least one thing the movies
Speaker 1: seem to have gotten right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's still room for improvement on that front too,
Speaker 2: because while the t rex was scally, they likely weren't
Speaker 2: the drab uniform color they're often depicted as. You know,
Speaker 2: you always picture that exact same colors. Recent analysis of
Speaker 2: t rex fossils have turned up evidence of melanin, the
Speaker 2: same pigment found in human skin and bird feathers, and
Speaker 2: that suggests that the rex's skin may have had patches
Speaker 2: of several different colors, possibly even like a camouflage pattern,
Speaker 2: which makes sense you think about the stripes and spots
Speaker 2: of modern predators.
Speaker 1: That is crazy, you know. I imagine like being given
Speaker 1: like a t rex as a kid and told to
Speaker 1: color it, and like, you know, you pinted with fancy colors,
Speaker 1: and that seems completely wrong, right. I also had no
Speaker 1: idea that melanin could fossilize.
Speaker 2: Well, paleontologists didn't either until two thousand and eight, and
Speaker 2: since then discovery has led to all kinds of new
Speaker 2: insights about the appearance of dinosaurs, including some pretty solid
Speaker 2: guesses about the exact colors of their skin and feathers.
Speaker 2: Now More than anything, though, all the advances we've talked
Speaker 2: about show us that the dinosaurs weren't the straightforward terrors
Speaker 2: that we often see in pop culture. Like any other animal,
Speaker 2: they live full lives. That included some quieter moments as well.
Speaker 1: I like how you're trying to make it seem like
Speaker 1: we should all be adopting them from shelters that feel
Speaker 1: like it's the right thing to do. I would still
Speaker 1: be terrified one, Oh totally mean you know me, I'm
Speaker 1: terrified when I see a cat can imagine dinosaur? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: because dinosaurs are so cool, we decided today on our
Speaker 1: Instagram we're going to give away some super special, scientifically
Speaker 1: accurate dinosaur action figures. It is important to call them
Speaker 1: action figures. I called it adults earlier. Gabe got very
Speaker 1: does not like that. I didn't like it.
Speaker 2: He is our resident toy expert, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: have to lean on that, and I will agree to
Speaker 2: call it an action figure. So head over to our
Speaker 2: instagram at part Time Genius and find out how you
Speaker 2: can win.
Speaker 1: Okay, listeners, you've got to pay for the show with
Speaker 1: some ads. But uh, we'll be right back after this
Speaker 1: quick break. Welcome back to part Time Genius, where we're
Speaker 1: listing out the best ideas in science at the last
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Nay, okay, Well, so how much do
Speaker 1: you know about sub atomic particles?
Speaker 2: All right, Well, my knowledge of subatomic particles would, if
Speaker 2: I'm being honest, probably fit inside a subatomic particle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I thought. So here's a quick overview
Speaker 1: that will help you understand our next great science discovery.
Speaker 1: So let's start with protons. These tiny particles hang out
Speaker 1: in the nucleus of every atom, and they're made up
Speaker 1: of even tinier particles called quirks, which in turn are
Speaker 1: held together with even tinier particles called gluons. Now, gluons
Speaker 1: have no mass, but they do carry energy, specifically something
Speaker 1: called the strong force, and in terms of nuclear physics,
Speaker 1: it basically means it holds stuff together. Now stay with me,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure you know that deep in a tunnel
Speaker 1: near Geneva there's something called the large Hadron particle collider,
Speaker 1: and a hadron is any clump of two or three quirks.
Speaker 1: And what this thing does is it blasts particles like
Speaker 1: protons at each other at insane speeds, so scientists can
Speaker 1: find out what happens when they crash into each other.
Speaker 1: And even before this technology existed, scientists have been thinking
Speaker 1: about the outcomes of proton collisions. So one hypothesis they
Speaker 1: came up with was that protons might exchange a couple
Speaker 1: of the gluons that hold them together, creating a super weird,
Speaker 1: massless little particle made up of only gluons, which they
Speaker 1: called And this is true a glue ball.
Speaker 2: A glugall. Is that the actual scientific time, though it
Speaker 2: is so woh way.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three researchers put forward a very specific
Speaker 1: version of this theory. They said that it was possible
Speaker 1: for three gluons to briefly stick together after a collision. Now,
Speaker 1: at the time, there was no actual proof of this
Speaker 1: it was just an idea, and they called this hypothetical
Speaker 1: particle the oderon.
Speaker 2: All right, so I want to make sure I understand.
Speaker 2: So an oduron is what like a triple glue ball. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it's weird. I had never thought of particle
Speaker 2: physics involving this much fun vocabulary. I feel like I
Speaker 2: might have majored in it if I had known all this.
Speaker 2: But all right, so are you going to tell me
Speaker 2: that someone finally proved this odoron thing is real?
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty one, a group of scientists using
Speaker 1: the Large Hadron Collider in fact find evidence of odon. So, yes,
Speaker 1: when protons collide in this thing, about three quarters of
Speaker 1: the time they get smashed apart, but about twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of the time the protons survive intact. They just
Speaker 1: kind of balance off each other. And that's because at
Speaker 1: the point of impact they exchange gluons, sometimes two, sometimes three,
Speaker 1: and those gluons keep them together. So are you still
Speaker 1: with me here?
Speaker 2: I think so?
Speaker 1: Right. So, quirks carry a charge kind of like a
Speaker 1: positive or negative electric charge, but this is expressed in
Speaker 1: terms of color, so they can be red, green, or blue.
Speaker 1: And when you have all three of those stuck together.
Speaker 1: The charge is said to be white or balanced. But
Speaker 1: there's also something called an anti color, which is the
Speaker 1: property of anti quarks. Is this like antimatter, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the antiquirk is the antimatter evil twin of the quirk,
Speaker 1: and it's either anti red, anti green, or anti blue.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is gluons have both colors and anti colors,
Speaker 1: So you could have a gluon that carries red and
Speaker 1: anti green, which sounds like a very strange Christmas ornament.
Speaker 1: A spokesperson for the Oderon experiment told Gizmoto that the
Speaker 1: math of Vaultier is quote too hard to explain, but
Speaker 1: suffice it to say, researchers observe frequency differences in proton
Speaker 1: proton collisions versus proton anti proton collisions, and they realized
Speaker 1: the difference had to do with changing color balances that
Speaker 1: could only be explained by the existence of a triple
Speaker 1: gluon clump the otter on.
Speaker 2: I'm trying real hard here, Mango, but I gotta be honest.
Speaker 2: This is making my head heard a little bit.
Speaker 1: I know it is complicated stuff, but it's also an
Speaker 1: incredible discovery. But to make the story a little more personal.
Speaker 1: We asked our pal David Nagler, who is an incredibly
Speaker 1: talented musician and composer, to write a song about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was hiding in plain sight.
Speaker 4: Now I'm in the light light because of a proton
Speaker 4: proton and a proton anti proton condition.
Speaker 3: I was the difference between the two three glue on
Speaker 3: stuff like glue.
Speaker 4: Thanks to the particle physicists for clearing up being decision.
Speaker 3: I'm an out, but I'm not that odd and out
Speaker 3: a roun. I'm a real hot rod. It's not monochromatic light.
Speaker 3: I'm red, green and blue making white. It may seem
Speaker 3: like a fax, it's only quantum chromo dynamics. Folks deepen
Speaker 3: the particle.
Speaker 4: Exceleerator, keeping proton longevity greater.
Speaker 3: So how can the green The force is strong in
Speaker 3: me strong. I'm an autoba, but I'm not that ard
Speaker 3: and auta. I've got a real hot bond.
Speaker 4: And it's squaw.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: It seems so complicated, but you know what, Mengo, it
Speaker 2: also makes me want to dance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the song or the science that you know, all
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: I'm just feeling good after this.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more. And big thanks to David Nagler
Speaker 1: for helping us out with this. We'll put a link
Speaker 1: to his website in the show notes so that you
Speaker 1: can check out his music. It's not usually about physics. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's it for today's episode, but be sure to tune
Speaker 1: in tomorrow when our countdown continues with a scientific secret,
Speaker 1: lurking and home depot, some lively molecules, and a medical
Speaker 1: treatment that began in a really, really gross place. You
Speaker 1: won't want to miss it, And if you'd like to
Speaker 1: win that realistic dinosaur action figure, head on over to
Speaker 1: our instagram at part Time Genius to check out today's
Speaker 1: giveaway contest. As always from Will, Gabe, Mary and Dylan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening.