1 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:12,520 --> 00:00:15,400 Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 3 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:19,080 Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb, and Hey on today's episode, I am 4 00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:22,440 Speaker 2: welcoming back to the show. Daniel Whitson, co host of 5 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:27,480 Speaker 2: the new podcast Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. Daniel's been 6 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:29,960 Speaker 2: on the show, I believe twice before. It's always a 7 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:34,360 Speaker 2: fun chat talking about you know, the nature of the universe, 8 00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:39,360 Speaker 2: human science and everything in between. So without further ado, 9 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:45,840 Speaker 2: let's just jump right into this fun conversation. Hi, Daniel, 10 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:46,720 Speaker 2: welcome back to the show. 11 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:49,120 Speaker 3: Hey, thanks so much for having me on. So excited 12 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:49,960 Speaker 3: to be here to talk to you. 13 00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:53,159 Speaker 2: Absolutely so. When we last spoke, and I guess it's 14 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:56,360 Speaker 2: been probably a couple of years now, the podcast was 15 00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:59,200 Speaker 2: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. But we're onto a 16 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:01,279 Speaker 2: new chapter. I can you tell us a little bit 17 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:04,440 Speaker 2: about Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. 18 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:08,800 Speaker 3: Yeah, This new podcast, The Extraordinary Universe, is with an 19 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:12,560 Speaker 3: old friend of mine, Kelly Wiener Smith. She's a very 20 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:16,319 Speaker 3: well known and highly awarded author of popular science books 21 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:18,800 Speaker 3: like A City on Mars, and also an old friend 22 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:21,920 Speaker 3: of mine and a wife of Zach Weener, smith of 23 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,840 Speaker 3: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and together we have this podcast 24 00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:29,880 Speaker 3: about everything we find amazing and wonderful and mysterious and 25 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:33,160 Speaker 3: delightful in the universe, which is basically the whole universe, 26 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:36,759 Speaker 3: from tiny particles to big black holes, to the mysteries 27 00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:39,880 Speaker 3: of the Big Bang, to leeches and all sorts of 28 00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:43,399 Speaker 3: crazy mysteries. In biology, we basically just have a lot 29 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,559 Speaker 3: of fun gazing in awe at the universe and wondering 30 00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:47,680 Speaker 3: how it all works. 31 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:50,960 Speaker 2: So would you say this kind of like opens up 32 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:53,200 Speaker 2: the concept a bit into more of like the general 33 00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:55,320 Speaker 2: science realm. 34 00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 3: Yeah. Kelly's background is in biology. She's a parasitologist, so 35 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:02,440 Speaker 3: she studies like, you know, wasps that get infected and 36 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:05,520 Speaker 3: then change their behavior, and you know, things that crawl 37 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:08,320 Speaker 3: in your body and take advantage of you. And so 38 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:12,400 Speaker 3: she brings an alternative science background, not aalt science, but 39 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:15,200 Speaker 3: like a different kind of science background, and so we 40 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:18,000 Speaker 3: can ask different kinds of questions. And you know, when 41 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:21,120 Speaker 3: I talk about particles, she can ask questions for the 42 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:23,920 Speaker 3: audience like what do you mean higgs boson? What is that? Anyway? 43 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:28,320 Speaker 3: And when she talks about the details of parasocial behavior. 44 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:29,919 Speaker 3: I can be like, hold on, what does that mean? 45 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:32,240 Speaker 3: So we play off each other really well, and you know, 46 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:33,800 Speaker 3: she's an old friend, so we have a lot of 47 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:34,400 Speaker 3: fun talking. 48 00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:38,120 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I tuned into an episode or two there, 49 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:39,919 Speaker 2: and yeah, you guys seem to have a good vibe. 50 00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:45,200 Speaker 2: Ky you talking about turkey and Thanksgiving, which is time license, 51 00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:47,400 Speaker 2: you know, just coming off of Thanksgiving break here in 52 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:47,880 Speaker 2: the US. 53 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, we were talking about the physics of Thanksgiving, you know, 54 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,680 Speaker 3: like how many turkeys could you cook with a nuclear 55 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:57,200 Speaker 3: bomb explosion? And also the biology of Thanksgiving, like is 56 00:02:57,240 --> 00:02:59,280 Speaker 3: tripped a fan or real thing or is that just 57 00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:02,320 Speaker 3: a myth? So you know, we dig trying to we 58 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:04,360 Speaker 3: try to dig deep into the science and then also 59 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 3: keep it fun. 60 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:08,359 Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned a book that she co wrote, as 61 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:10,360 Speaker 2: she co wrote this with her husband, I Believe a 62 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:13,960 Speaker 2: City on Mars, which I haven't read, but it sounds 63 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,000 Speaker 2: sounds like a very interesting read. I need to pick 64 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,040 Speaker 2: it up because I was recently looking at a book 65 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:21,600 Speaker 2: titled Dinner on Mars by Leonora Newman and Evan Frazier. 66 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:26,640 Speaker 2: It tis more like a food oriented approach to some 67 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,520 Speaker 2: of the same questions. I imagine you know, how how 68 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,320 Speaker 2: would colonization on Mars? Look, how did it work? And 69 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:35,839 Speaker 2: what are the extreme challenges of carrying it out. 70 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:38,520 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really good book. I recommend it for everybody. 71 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:41,360 Speaker 3: It's a City on Mars by Zach and Kelly Weener Smith. 72 00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:44,200 Speaker 3: And it came about they're like tech boosters. You know, 73 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:46,880 Speaker 3: these guys are nerds. They're big fans of the future 74 00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:48,880 Speaker 3: and technology and science and this kind of stuff. And 75 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:51,040 Speaker 3: they started out trying to write a book about how 76 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 3: awesome it would be to colonize Mars and what it 77 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,120 Speaker 3: would be like and the technology we're going to use there. 78 00:03:56,600 --> 00:03:58,480 Speaker 3: And what they found when they were doing the research 79 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:01,120 Speaker 3: was like, people haven't figured out a lot of really 80 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:03,839 Speaker 3: basic stuff about what it would be like to live 81 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 3: on Mars. For example, can you get pregnant in zero G? 82 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:10,480 Speaker 3: Nobody knows? Can you just state in zero G? What's 83 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:12,360 Speaker 3: it like when you have a baby in zero G? 84 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:16,560 Speaker 3: Can you do surgery in low gravity environments? All this 85 00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:19,440 Speaker 3: kind of stuff. Nobody's figured out a lot of these questions. 86 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,559 Speaker 3: So they ended up kind of writing a throw cold 87 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:26,559 Speaker 3: water on the idea of colonizing Mars book, which turned 88 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:29,240 Speaker 3: out to be very timely because of the rise of 89 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:32,240 Speaker 3: Elon Musk and his you know, let's just go and 90 00:04:32,279 --> 00:04:35,679 Speaker 3: do it, move fast and break things. Might mean breaking 91 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:37,800 Speaker 3: like a million people's lives if you send a lot 92 00:04:37,839 --> 00:04:40,560 Speaker 3: of people to Mars without figuring out some of this stuff. 93 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:42,839 Speaker 3: So in the book they dig into the science stuff 94 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:44,839 Speaker 3: at what we do know, we don't know how we 95 00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:47,880 Speaker 3: might figure it out. It's a great read and really 96 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:51,159 Speaker 3: really well researched. Recently won a Hugo Award and a 97 00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:53,200 Speaker 3: bunch of other prizes for popular science. 98 00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:58,200 Speaker 2: Speaking of Elon Musk and Mars, do you think that 99 00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:02,760 Speaker 2: recent political event have pushed up the timeline regarding possible 100 00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:05,960 Speaker 2: human travel to Mars and even colonization. Do you think 101 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:09,800 Speaker 2: it's going to have any impact at all on how 102 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:12,159 Speaker 2: soon or how far off something like that would be. 103 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:13,000 Speaker 2: M M. 104 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:15,240 Speaker 3: It's a really good question, and it's so hard to 105 00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:18,760 Speaker 3: know because on one hand, he has a great track 106 00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:23,760 Speaker 3: record of pushing hard on difficult technical tasks and succeeding, 107 00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:27,960 Speaker 3: you know, like his reusable rockets amazing, right, nobody thought 108 00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:31,359 Speaker 3: that was possible. He made it happen, even you know, 109 00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:34,279 Speaker 3: electric cars, all this kind of stuff. He also has 110 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:37,680 Speaker 3: a track record of promising stuff and then not delivering, 111 00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:42,080 Speaker 3: you know, the boring company for example, hyper loop, all 112 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,920 Speaker 3: this kind of stuff. Sometimes his proclamations, you know, people 113 00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:49,040 Speaker 3: argue like he pushed the hyper loop to kill California 114 00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:52,640 Speaker 3: high speed rail. So it's not always clear whether his 115 00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:56,400 Speaker 3: grand visions are to push his companies forward or to 116 00:05:56,440 --> 00:06:00,359 Speaker 3: slow down another track. Something I do worry about, though, 117 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:04,640 Speaker 3: is the rise of anti science popularism. You know, you 118 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:09,880 Speaker 3: see the rounds. It's cost cutting strategy, picking out individual 119 00:06:09,920 --> 00:06:12,440 Speaker 3: elements of science and saying, look, how ridiculous it is 120 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:16,080 Speaker 3: that we're studying the reproduction health of beetles. What a 121 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:18,719 Speaker 3: waste of tax payer dollars. And you know, it's not 122 00:06:18,839 --> 00:06:22,240 Speaker 3: hard to draw dotted lines between like understanding beetles and 123 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:27,040 Speaker 3: a billion dollars in agriculture for wheat for example. So 124 00:06:27,320 --> 00:06:30,320 Speaker 3: you know, in the funding, basic science is a great 125 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:33,800 Speaker 3: way to advance technology and colonization on Mars. And so 126 00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:36,840 Speaker 3: I think there's a danger that if we cut basic 127 00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:40,200 Speaker 3: science too much, we could be inhibiting these kinds of 128 00:06:40,279 --> 00:06:44,359 Speaker 3: visions that he's espousing, that he's pushing, right, he wants 129 00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:47,120 Speaker 3: us to be a multiplanetary species. I think the best 130 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:49,359 Speaker 3: way to get there is to do the science and 131 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:53,320 Speaker 3: fund basic research, not cut anything that doesn't have obvious 132 00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:54,680 Speaker 3: value immediately. 133 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:58,640 Speaker 2: Plus, I mean, obviously, you know, we have such challenges 134 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:03,520 Speaker 2: here on this planet and they're not abating. So I suppose, 135 00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:06,279 Speaker 2: on one hand, it just feels even more ludicrous that 136 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:10,280 Speaker 2: we would accelerate in this direction, you know, setting our 137 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:12,920 Speaker 2: sights on such a prospect and a world that is 138 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:17,520 Speaker 2: so lifeless, that is not this shining gem that we 139 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:19,120 Speaker 2: are squandering here. 140 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:22,679 Speaker 3: Yeah, and as Kelly and Zach point out in their book, 141 00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:25,960 Speaker 3: you know, the goal of making humans multiplanetary is a 142 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,960 Speaker 3: great one, but it's sort of impossible to achieve on 143 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:30,960 Speaker 3: a short time scale in the way that he wants 144 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:34,280 Speaker 3: to achieve it. I think his idea is, let's make 145 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:36,400 Speaker 3: sure we don't have all of our eggs in one basket. 146 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:38,880 Speaker 3: If an asteroid hits the Earth and wipes out everybody, 147 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:43,520 Speaker 3: it'd be great to have civilization and consciousness already established 148 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:46,800 Speaker 3: on Mars, right, But any sort of realistic colony on 149 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:49,480 Speaker 3: Mars is going to be utterly dependent on Earth for 150 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:53,080 Speaker 3: so long that there's really no chance of having an 151 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:57,200 Speaker 3: independent Mars that could survive that kind of cataclysm. On 152 00:07:57,320 --> 00:07:59,520 Speaker 3: Earth for a long long time. I mean that doesn't 153 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:01,560 Speaker 3: mean we should figured that out and we shouldn't get there, 154 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:04,760 Speaker 3: and we shouldn't push hard now to make it happen. 155 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:06,840 Speaker 3: But the way to do it isn't just send a 156 00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:09,400 Speaker 3: million people to Mars. Is to figure out those technical 157 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:11,680 Speaker 3: challenges so that it's more successful. 158 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:25,040 Speaker 2: Now, your focus, of course, is the world of physics. 159 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:27,960 Speaker 2: And this past year, of course, there's been a lot 160 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:30,560 Speaker 2: going on. It's been easy to focus and ruminate on 161 00:08:30,600 --> 00:08:33,600 Speaker 2: all these other issues, but what's been going on in 162 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:36,400 Speaker 2: the world of physics, Like what was exciting in the 163 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:39,200 Speaker 2: realm of physics in twenty twenty four, and how does 164 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:40,720 Speaker 2: it look going into twenty twenty five. 165 00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:44,199 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, physics is a lot of fun. 166 00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:46,520 Speaker 3: There's always a lot of things going on. My particular 167 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:50,560 Speaker 3: realm is particle physics, and these days the conversation in 168 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:54,480 Speaker 3: particle physics is essentially what's next. We've been running the 169 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:58,520 Speaker 3: Large Hadron Collider for a lot of years now, since 170 00:08:58,559 --> 00:09:01,800 Speaker 3: around two thousand and eight, so almost twenty years we 171 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:04,760 Speaker 3: found the Higgs boson, we measured the particle properties out 172 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:07,800 Speaker 3: the wazoo, and people are wondering, like, should we build 173 00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:11,440 Speaker 3: another one. A big question in the field is can 174 00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:15,200 Speaker 3: we ask for another ten twenty fifty billion dollars to 175 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:19,120 Speaker 3: build another particle collider to try to discover something new, 176 00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:22,800 Speaker 3: especially if we don't know in advance what we're going 177 00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:26,199 Speaker 3: to find. So a lot of discussions and particle physics 178 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:28,880 Speaker 3: are about that, what should we build? Do we have 179 00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:32,000 Speaker 3: the political will to ask for all that money? How 180 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:35,239 Speaker 3: do we defend that? Are we at risk at overshooting 181 00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:37,680 Speaker 3: if we ask for something too big and having another 182 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:42,480 Speaker 3: debacle like the superconnecting SuperCollider in Waxahachie, Texas in the nineties. 183 00:09:42,880 --> 00:09:44,640 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's part of that kind of slides back into 184 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:47,800 Speaker 2: what we were just saying about, like anti science, popularism 185 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,200 Speaker 2: and so forth. You know, it's like, how how do 186 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:52,520 Speaker 2: you end up making an argument for these kinds of 187 00:09:52,559 --> 00:09:55,960 Speaker 2: projects in that kind of climate? And if you do, 188 00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,079 Speaker 2: how do you do so like responsibly? 189 00:09:58,160 --> 00:10:02,120 Speaker 3: Right? Yeah? And I don't have a hard time making 190 00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:04,640 Speaker 3: that kind of argument. I mean, I'm a particle physicist. 191 00:10:04,679 --> 00:10:07,880 Speaker 3: I have an interest in this obviously, But to me, 192 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:11,440 Speaker 3: the conversation is funny because people say, we need to 193 00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:13,640 Speaker 3: promise some kind of discovery if we're going to ask 194 00:10:13,679 --> 00:10:16,360 Speaker 3: for a twenty billion dollar project, and I don't think 195 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:18,960 Speaker 3: that at all. I think that we should be arguing 196 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:22,520 Speaker 3: for the value of pure research research without knowing in 197 00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:25,920 Speaker 3: advance what you're going to discover. To me, it's like exploration, 198 00:10:26,559 --> 00:10:30,240 Speaker 3: Like is it worthwhile to send a probe to sample 199 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,840 Speaker 3: the oceans of Europa? Absolutely yes, because we could discover 200 00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,240 Speaker 3: alien life and blow our minds and learn incredible things. 201 00:10:37,679 --> 00:10:41,760 Speaker 3: You know, the history of basic research is surprises, right, 202 00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:46,880 Speaker 3: and those surprises very often lead to transformational technologies and developments. 203 00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:49,800 Speaker 3: The way to move forward as a society is not 204 00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:52,280 Speaker 3: to pull back, but to invest in ourselves. And the 205 00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:57,000 Speaker 3: best investment we can make is basic research. Yes, particle physics, yes, 206 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:02,040 Speaker 3: you know, viruses, Yes, all sorts of stuff. It costs money, 207 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:04,840 Speaker 3: but it pays for itself. So if you believe in humans, 208 00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:07,480 Speaker 3: and you believe in our ingenuity, and you're amazed at 209 00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:09,679 Speaker 3: the mysteries of the universe and believe that we can 210 00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:13,600 Speaker 3: crack them, then everybody should think, hey, we should ten 211 00:11:13,880 --> 00:11:16,640 Speaker 3: x our research budget because it's going to pay off, 212 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:19,400 Speaker 3: and we have the money now, we should spend it 213 00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:22,199 Speaker 3: because it's going to help our kids and our grandkids 214 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,520 Speaker 3: and everybody in the future. The present that we live 215 00:11:25,559 --> 00:11:29,000 Speaker 3: in today is because people made those investments fifty years ago, 216 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:33,559 Speaker 3: one hundred years ago in basic research, which transformed our society. 217 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:36,400 Speaker 3: So particle physics is just one example of that. I 218 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:38,800 Speaker 3: don't think we need to be able to promise we're 219 00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:41,640 Speaker 3: going to discover the squiggly on particle in order to 220 00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:44,839 Speaker 3: ask for twenty billion dollars. We just need to say, hey, look, 221 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:48,160 Speaker 3: the universe is worth figuring out. Let's go do it. 222 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:52,000 Speaker 3: Let's explore. Who knows what we're going to find? Yeah? 223 00:11:52,120 --> 00:11:54,840 Speaker 2: Yeah, and in doing so, yeah, avoiding stagnation. 224 00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:55,560 Speaker 3: Yeah. 225 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:58,440 Speaker 2: Which leads me to something. We were chatting back and 226 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,160 Speaker 2: forth on email about things you might want to chat about, 227 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:03,880 Speaker 2: and you brought up an idea that I wasn't really 228 00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:07,600 Speaker 2: plugged into all that much. This idea that some people 229 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:12,480 Speaker 2: say that physics itself is stagnating, that fundamental physics is 230 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:14,840 Speaker 2: like in a rut, or it's going down the wrong path. 231 00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:19,679 Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit about this idea, and then 232 00:12:19,679 --> 00:12:20,640 Speaker 2: how you feel about it. 233 00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:24,000 Speaker 3: Yeah, this is something you hear about a lot in 234 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,200 Speaker 3: sort of popular science. I don't want to name any names, 235 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:29,640 Speaker 3: but there's quite a few folks who are sort of 236 00:12:29,640 --> 00:12:34,119 Speaker 3: on the edge of theoretical physics, not really in the mainstream, 237 00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,840 Speaker 3: who criticize the mainstream of theoretical physics and say, we 238 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:41,800 Speaker 3: haven't figured out anything in fifty years, and those guys 239 00:12:41,800 --> 00:12:46,720 Speaker 3: are wasting their time and our money. And you know, 240 00:12:46,760 --> 00:12:51,400 Speaker 3: it's part of this sort of broader anti science, anti elite, 241 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:56,960 Speaker 3: anti expertise movement in America that we've seen various political 242 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:01,720 Speaker 3: figures and business figures encouraging. And I think it's troubling, 243 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:04,400 Speaker 3: and I think it's dangerous, and I think also there 244 00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:07,000 Speaker 3: is some merit to it. But you know, I think 245 00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:09,600 Speaker 3: it's worth teasing that apart and thinking like, what can 246 00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:12,640 Speaker 3: we learn about the progress or lack of progress in 247 00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:16,079 Speaker 3: fundamental physics and how should we move forward. We shouldn't 248 00:13:16,120 --> 00:13:19,440 Speaker 3: just tear everything apart because it's easy to criticize things 249 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:20,359 Speaker 3: from the outside. 250 00:13:21,480 --> 00:13:23,559 Speaker 2: It also seems like it's probably a real cherry picking 251 00:13:23,559 --> 00:13:27,240 Speaker 2: of the idea of progress, scientific progress, right, Like I was, 252 00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:29,080 Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of us probably did 253 00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:32,960 Speaker 2: some traveling over the last couple of weeks at least, 254 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,760 Speaker 2: and like, you know, sometimes you might ask yourself, well, 255 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:38,400 Speaker 2: am I really getting anywhere? I haven't driven through a 256 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:41,480 Speaker 2: major city in an hour, Like, well, yeah, maybe not, 257 00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:44,920 Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean I'm not progressing towards a destination 258 00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:49,960 Speaker 2: or into new territory, right, I Mean it's like, like 259 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,880 Speaker 2: what is progress? Yeah, if you want to really in 260 00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:57,880 Speaker 2: a zero win on like huge events and huge revelations, maybe, 261 00:13:57,920 --> 00:13:59,520 Speaker 2: so maybe you can make that case, But then you've 262 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:02,360 Speaker 2: got a discount out a lot of just the other 263 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,520 Speaker 2: knowledge that and all the other findings that have been accumulated. 264 00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:09,480 Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think that physics or fundamental physics has 265 00:14:09,480 --> 00:14:12,840 Speaker 3: made itself vulnerable to this kind of criticism because for 266 00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:16,439 Speaker 3: many years it did oversell itself. You know, the problem 267 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,360 Speaker 3: that fundamental physics is trying to solve. One of the 268 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:22,720 Speaker 3: crucial questions in physics today is what is the nature 269 00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:24,920 Speaker 3: of the universe at the smallest scale? How can we 270 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:27,400 Speaker 3: describe it? And the problem is that we have two 271 00:14:27,520 --> 00:14:31,160 Speaker 3: different descriptions of it. We have relativity, which tells us 272 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:34,960 Speaker 3: what space is and time is, and how they interact 273 00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:37,880 Speaker 3: and how they bend and curve to create the appearance 274 00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:41,520 Speaker 3: of the illusion really of gravity. It's wonderful theory, and 275 00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:44,400 Speaker 3: it describes the expansion of the universe and motion of 276 00:14:44,440 --> 00:14:48,000 Speaker 3: the planets and basically everything that's big. And then we 277 00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:51,320 Speaker 3: have quantum mechanics, which tells us that nothing in the 278 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,000 Speaker 3: universe is continuous, everything is made of little chunks, and 279 00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:59,120 Speaker 3: that at the fundamental particle level things are probabilistic and random. 280 00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:03,880 Speaker 3: That works beautifully and describes particle collisions and all sorts 281 00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:07,080 Speaker 3: of details about the early universe that we've been able 282 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:10,720 Speaker 3: to observe and calculates an incredible theory. And the problem is, 283 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:13,280 Speaker 3: nobody knows how to bring these two theories together, to 284 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,920 Speaker 3: make them work together, to do things like figure out, well, 285 00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:18,960 Speaker 3: what happens if you have a bunch of particles that 286 00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:22,120 Speaker 3: have enough mass to bend space time and then space 287 00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:26,160 Speaker 3: time effects those particles in a probabilistic way. This classical 288 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:30,040 Speaker 3: theory of relativity and the quantum fundamentally random theory of 289 00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:32,880 Speaker 3: quantum mechanics. Nobody's been able to pull those two things together. 290 00:15:32,920 --> 00:15:36,240 Speaker 3: That's the open question for like literally one hundred years. 291 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:39,880 Speaker 3: And in the eighties and nineties there was this sense 292 00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:42,600 Speaker 3: that maybe we had a glimmering of the answer. String 293 00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:46,800 Speaker 3: theory rows up out of failed efforts to describe another 294 00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:52,200 Speaker 3: fundamental quantum theory. Fundamental quantum phenomenon the strong force, and 295 00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:55,040 Speaker 3: it was very promising and it was very mathematical, and 296 00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:57,480 Speaker 3: people had this sense like, wow, maybe we're just getting 297 00:15:57,520 --> 00:15:59,800 Speaker 3: our fingers around the solution. And there were a lot 298 00:15:59,840 --> 00:16:02,200 Speaker 3: of bold claims that were made about how we were 299 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:05,400 Speaker 3: going to figure this out quickly and all sorts of stuff, 300 00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:07,960 Speaker 3: and that hasn't come to pass. That doesn't mean, as 301 00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:10,600 Speaker 3: you say, that we haven't made progress. The mathematics of 302 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:13,680 Speaker 3: string theory has helped people figure out a lot of stuff, 303 00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:17,200 Speaker 3: and they've been definitely making a lot of progress. But 304 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:19,720 Speaker 3: some people feel like, hey, we haven't figured that out yet. 305 00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:22,240 Speaker 3: And there were all these big claims, and so clearly 306 00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:25,320 Speaker 3: these guys are wasting our time. And also maybe they're 307 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,440 Speaker 3: doing it and in bad faith. Maybe they're just writing 308 00:16:28,480 --> 00:16:31,280 Speaker 3: grants to get government money and they know they're wasting 309 00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:33,760 Speaker 3: their time and they're just fooling themselves. And this is 310 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:38,160 Speaker 3: cabal at the heart of fundamental physics that's like captured it, 311 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:41,120 Speaker 3: and they're just like writing grants for themselves and supporting 312 00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:43,760 Speaker 3: each other. And that's the part that troubles me, Like 313 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:46,960 Speaker 3: you can disagree with what people are doing and the 314 00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:49,760 Speaker 3: questions they're asking and even the methods they're useding to 315 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:53,080 Speaker 3: ask those questions. But once you start suggesting that physicists 316 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:56,640 Speaker 3: are like lying that, you know, they're not actually interested 317 00:16:56,640 --> 00:16:59,560 Speaker 3: in solving the problem. They're just interested in like getting 318 00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:03,920 Speaker 3: their you know, academic salaries, which, let's be clear, physics 319 00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:07,439 Speaker 3: academic salaries are not really that impressive compared to like 320 00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:10,359 Speaker 3: what physicists earn when they go off into Wall Street, 321 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,800 Speaker 3: for example. Then I think you entered a different kind 322 00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:17,760 Speaker 3: of discourse. You know, you're really implying that people are 323 00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:20,160 Speaker 3: lying and acting in bad faith. That's not the physics 324 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:22,840 Speaker 3: that I see, and that's that's not physicists I recognize. 325 00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:25,920 Speaker 3: I think everybody's doing their best trying to figure stuff out. 326 00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:28,359 Speaker 3: Some people are excited by string theory, some people are 327 00:17:28,359 --> 00:17:31,960 Speaker 3: excited by alternatives loop quantum gravity or post quantum gravity, 328 00:17:32,440 --> 00:17:34,679 Speaker 3: or all sorts of other ideas. I think there's a 329 00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:37,199 Speaker 3: healthy debate, and I think you never know what's going 330 00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:40,040 Speaker 3: to lead to success. You should fund all of these things. 331 00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:42,480 Speaker 3: You should fund crazy ideas on the fringe, you should 332 00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:47,240 Speaker 3: fund them the mainstream. The real tragedy is that we 333 00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:51,000 Speaker 3: have such a timey amount of money for fundamental physics 334 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:53,879 Speaker 3: I mean the amount of money we spend training lms 335 00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,399 Speaker 3: to make ridiculous hallucinations versus the amount of money we 336 00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:59,880 Speaker 3: spend trying to understand the fundamental nature of the universe. 337 00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:03,240 Speaker 3: It dwarfs it. It's you know, it's factors of millions 338 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:06,359 Speaker 3: and millions, so you know there, I think there is 339 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:09,800 Speaker 3: progress being made in fundamental physics. People can disagree about 340 00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:11,760 Speaker 3: how it happens, but I think we should remember that 341 00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:13,360 Speaker 3: everybody's doing their best. 342 00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,880 Speaker 2: Now, how long is this this? I guess we can 343 00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:20,399 Speaker 2: sort of think of it like anti physics establishments mentality, 344 00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:23,280 Speaker 2: Like how long has this been cooking? And is it 345 00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:26,439 Speaker 2: is it something that like stems out of like some 346 00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:30,480 Speaker 2: of the like the anti climate change ideas out there, 347 00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:34,000 Speaker 2: or is it been sort of percolating in its own column. 348 00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:36,840 Speaker 3: It has a long history. You know, there have always 349 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:40,560 Speaker 3: been folks who think science is taking the wrong path. 350 00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:43,840 Speaker 3: And you know, I get emails from retired engineers every 351 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:46,560 Speaker 3: day saying, look, I figured out the universe. I have 352 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:49,600 Speaker 3: a theory, and why won't anybody listen to me? Why 353 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:53,520 Speaker 3: won't anybody read my paper? How come my paper isn't 354 00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:57,919 Speaker 3: getting discussed and criticized the same way ed Witten's paper 355 00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:01,160 Speaker 3: is about superstring theory, you know, and I get that 356 00:19:01,359 --> 00:19:04,439 Speaker 3: it's frustrating, like, you are a smart person, you have 357 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:06,639 Speaker 3: a great idea, Why won't anybody listen to you? So 358 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:09,280 Speaker 3: I think there's always been a community of people who 359 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:12,400 Speaker 3: feel like they're on the outside of academia, and academia 360 00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:16,879 Speaker 3: is insular and doesn't listen to ideas from everybody, because 361 00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:20,400 Speaker 3: there is this conception that academia is like this faceless 362 00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:24,320 Speaker 3: meritocracy where ideas come in and something happens where they 363 00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:27,960 Speaker 3: want best ones rise to the top. And so if 364 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:29,600 Speaker 3: you have an idea and you try to get attention 365 00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:32,520 Speaker 3: for it and nobody responds to your email, then you 366 00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:34,640 Speaker 3: get the feeling like, oh, this is an insular bunch. 367 00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:37,119 Speaker 3: The only want to hear ideas from their friends. So 368 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:40,440 Speaker 3: I think that's a long standing problem, and I'm personally 369 00:19:40,640 --> 00:19:44,000 Speaker 3: trying to overcome that in my small way because I 370 00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:46,760 Speaker 3: answer every single email I get from the general public. 371 00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:49,280 Speaker 3: You send me a theory of physics, I give you 372 00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:51,359 Speaker 3: twenty minutes. I'm gonna read your theory, I'm gonna comment 373 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:53,560 Speaker 3: on it. I'm going to write you back. People don't 374 00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:55,639 Speaker 3: always like my comments, but you know, they get what 375 00:19:55,680 --> 00:19:58,760 Speaker 3: they ask for a little bit of attention, whether you 376 00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:00,480 Speaker 3: like it or not. Sometimes I find a flaw on 377 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,720 Speaker 3: page one, and that's got to be disheartening. Another time, 378 00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:06,639 Speaker 3: some woman wrote to me because she had found in 379 00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,199 Speaker 3: her father's papers a theory that he'd been working on 380 00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:12,720 Speaker 3: in retirement, in secret for like ten years after retiring 381 00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:15,720 Speaker 3: from Boeing as an engineer, and she just wanted to know, like, Hey, 382 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:17,960 Speaker 3: can you look at this and tell me is this anything? 383 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:21,119 Speaker 3: This is my father's project in his retirement, and I 384 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:23,960 Speaker 3: hate to think it just went ignored. So I took 385 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:25,800 Speaker 3: a look at it for her and tried to gently 386 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:27,919 Speaker 3: let her know that, you know, there were some interesting 387 00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:30,960 Speaker 3: ideas there, but nothing really new. So I feel I 388 00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:32,560 Speaker 3: think a lot of people feel like they're on the 389 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,840 Speaker 3: outside of science and it's hard to break in because, look, 390 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:39,080 Speaker 3: science is just people. You know, I'm a person. A 391 00:20:39,119 --> 00:20:41,440 Speaker 3: science is nothing more than just a bunch of people 392 00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:44,479 Speaker 3: trying to figure out the universe and also run their lives. 393 00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:47,160 Speaker 3: And people have too much to do. So most people 394 00:20:47,200 --> 00:20:49,680 Speaker 3: you send them at your theory of everything, they're like, thanks, man, 395 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:51,320 Speaker 3: but I'm working on my own theory. I don't really 396 00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:55,280 Speaker 3: have time for yours. So I think that's the root 397 00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:58,000 Speaker 3: of it. And then there are some folks, you know, 398 00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,560 Speaker 3: Eric Weinstein, for example, who are on the fringes and 399 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,760 Speaker 3: have their own theory, and I don't know whether they 400 00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:09,440 Speaker 3: actually want it to be examined in detailed, because Eric Weinstein, 401 00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:12,119 Speaker 3: for example, has a theory called geometric unity, and it 402 00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:15,600 Speaker 3: has received some attention and some criticism, which to my understanding, 403 00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:18,560 Speaker 3: he's mostly disregarded, so that he can continue to say 404 00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:21,440 Speaker 3: that it's that his theory hasn't been given any attention. 405 00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,400 Speaker 3: For some folks, I think there's a you know, there's 406 00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:28,879 Speaker 3: a benefit to being ignored by the mainstream, and they 407 00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:31,879 Speaker 3: might want to preserve that. But I think more broadly, 408 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,000 Speaker 3: there's this rise recently in the last you know, twenty 409 00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:38,960 Speaker 3: years of rejection of expertise, of saying, as you say, 410 00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:43,359 Speaker 3: climate scientists, you know, try to undermine their expertise by saying, oh, 411 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:45,560 Speaker 3: they're doing it for the grant money. And I think 412 00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:47,720 Speaker 3: that's a shame. I think it's a tragedy if there's 413 00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,400 Speaker 3: a disconnect between the academic elite to people who are 414 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:53,159 Speaker 3: trained to think deeply about these topics, which we definitely 415 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:55,920 Speaker 3: need in our society. We need experts on all sorts 416 00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:58,600 Speaker 3: of stuff to guide us and the general public who 417 00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:02,240 Speaker 3: are funding it, who's curiosity city is the reason it exists. 418 00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:04,560 Speaker 3: We need a better connection between those two. We need 419 00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:07,359 Speaker 3: everybody to feel like they're part of it in some way. 420 00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,399 Speaker 3: And you know, not to shamelessly plug our podcast, but 421 00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,119 Speaker 3: one of the reasons why this podcast is important to 422 00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:14,439 Speaker 3: me is because I feel like there are a lot 423 00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,200 Speaker 3: of people who are out there who want to understand. Hey, 424 00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:21,120 Speaker 3: what's going on in physics or in biology? I want 425 00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:23,600 Speaker 3: to understand better, And that's what we try to do 426 00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:26,080 Speaker 3: on the podcast, is like, let's break these ideas down 427 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,440 Speaker 3: and make them accessible to everybody, so people understand why 428 00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:31,880 Speaker 3: are we trying to build a new collider, or why 429 00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:35,159 Speaker 3: are those graduate students purposely letting themselves get beaten by 430 00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:39,119 Speaker 3: leeches or whatever. We want to make science accessible because 431 00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:41,800 Speaker 3: it's in the end for the people and by the people. 432 00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,440 Speaker 2: That's a great point, Yeah, because you need to make 433 00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:50,840 Speaker 2: the h the core scientific ideas accessible, because it's been 434 00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:56,000 Speaker 2: my observation that the fringeier ideas are often inherently accessible. 435 00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,879 Speaker 2: You know, they're on the fringes, you know, for a reason, 436 00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 2: but there is often something about them that is attractive 437 00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:08,280 Speaker 2: in that it seems to explain everything, or it seems 438 00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:11,080 Speaker 2: to or of course it'll scratch other itches that are 439 00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:15,960 Speaker 2: there in one's identity or values, you know, And I like, 440 00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:18,359 Speaker 2: you know, I instantly think to some examples from like 441 00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:22,199 Speaker 2: theories of hypotheses of consciousness, you know, ideas that are 442 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:27,320 Speaker 2: not like well regarded in the mainstream, but you know 443 00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,879 Speaker 2: there's something about them that you know that that really, 444 00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,439 Speaker 2: you know, enraptures you on the outside. And I imagine 445 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,600 Speaker 2: it's that way with a lot of a lot of 446 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:38,840 Speaker 2: these these fringier ideas. 447 00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,000 Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I'm not an expert in it at all, 448 00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:45,880 Speaker 3: but I'm watching with fascination almost the same phenomena happening 449 00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:50,040 Speaker 3: in the field of archaeology. You have Graham Hancock, for example, 450 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:53,159 Speaker 3: He's got this Netflix special about where he has this 451 00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,840 Speaker 3: theory that there was a civilization many many thousands of 452 00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,920 Speaker 3: years ago that was much more advanced. And anybody thinks 453 00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:05,960 Speaker 3: and he's claiming archaeologists or ignoring this idea, and you 454 00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,760 Speaker 3: know that the mainstream is protecting some narrative. It's exactly 455 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,840 Speaker 3: the same story people tell about fundamental physics, but now 456 00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,639 Speaker 3: just transplanted to archaeology. And as you say, it's a 457 00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:18,879 Speaker 3: very compelling idea that, you know, the concept that our 458 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,639 Speaker 3: history could be different from what we imagined and it 459 00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:23,840 Speaker 3: could be maybe hidden from us in a sort of 460 00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:26,880 Speaker 3: you know, Dan Brown sort of way, and we could 461 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,440 Speaker 3: be pulling back the veil and understanding the truth. It's 462 00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:32,640 Speaker 3: it's exciting, right. I wish it were true. It would 463 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:37,720 Speaker 3: be fantastic. And I know archaeologists and just like fundamental physicists, 464 00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:40,439 Speaker 3: they're busy people and they're curious people. But if you 465 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,800 Speaker 3: came to them with some evidence of some world changing, 466 00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:48,560 Speaker 3: transformational discovery of an ancient civilization, their instinct wouldn't be like, 467 00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:52,000 Speaker 3: oh my gosh, we better bury that because that challenges 468 00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:54,600 Speaker 3: the narrative. It would be like, let's go find some 469 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:56,560 Speaker 3: more evidence, let's go figure this out. Oh my god. 470 00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,800 Speaker 3: How exciting, because that's why scientists got into this, to 471 00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,760 Speaker 3: figure yourself out, not to protect some ridiculous mainstream narrative. 472 00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:08,120 Speaker 3: But it's frustrating because Graham Hancock, he's got a Netflix special, 473 00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,560 Speaker 3: two of them. Keanu Reeves was on the second one. Like, 474 00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:14,000 Speaker 3: the guy's a huge audience. He's on Joe Rogan all 475 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,560 Speaker 3: the time. This stuff is compelling, it's very easy to sell, 476 00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:19,600 Speaker 3: and it's very hard to back up in a sort 477 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,639 Speaker 3: of rigorous scientific way, which is why archaeologists are like, 478 00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:26,200 Speaker 3: that's crazy, there's no evidence for that. And we saw 479 00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,439 Speaker 3: a flint dibble go on Joe Rogan and you know, 480 00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,439 Speaker 3: bring receipts and all sorts of data and you know, 481 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,960 Speaker 3: carefully dismantle this, and then later Joe Rogan just dismisses 482 00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,400 Speaker 3: him and calls him a liar. You know. So it's 483 00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,399 Speaker 3: hard to engage with these folks because it's not always 484 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,400 Speaker 3: clear that they're operating in good faith, and their stories 485 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,560 Speaker 3: are easier to tell. You're right, they're compelling, and they 486 00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,080 Speaker 3: don't have the same rules of evidence and logic that 487 00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:54,439 Speaker 3: you know, like understanding the nature of the universe and 488 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,880 Speaker 3: making progress in archaeology requires you know, real detailed evidence 489 00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,440 Speaker 3: and careful work. So it's a problem. Yeah, it's a problem, 490 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,600 Speaker 3: and I think we need to bring more people into 491 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,440 Speaker 3: the fold and make people feel like science is that 492 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,800 Speaker 3: that they're part of the scientific process. 493 00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,639 Speaker 2: Because the irony here is that, to use the the 494 00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:20,760 Speaker 2: alternative archaeology example is that often they're they're they're promising 495 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,840 Speaker 2: something that is already present in mainstream archaeologist, like the 496 00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:27,800 Speaker 2: idea that oh, the past isn't what you think it is. Okay, 497 00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,000 Speaker 2: that that is always in my experience, it's always the 498 00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,120 Speaker 2: case when I start reading about the past, it's like, oh, 499 00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:35,199 Speaker 2: it is different than what I thought it was. And 500 00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,359 Speaker 2: people were more advanced than I sometimes give them credit for. 501 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,200 Speaker 2: You know, like all of these things are true if 502 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,480 Speaker 2: you take the the the deeper, longer path of like 503 00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:50,159 Speaker 2: legitimate research and instead of this promise shortcut that ultimately 504 00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,320 Speaker 2: does not lead to a place of truth. 505 00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:57,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And these alt science folks often describe mainstream 506 00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,480 Speaker 3: archaeology or mainstream physics in not such a charitable way 507 00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,280 Speaker 3: and not such a fair way. It's really it's a 508 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:07,320 Speaker 3: straw man that they're attacking, not the real, thoughtful process 509 00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:11,399 Speaker 3: at the heart of science. And it's unfortunate because you know, 510 00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,120 Speaker 3: if we had that kind of energy in that platform 511 00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,840 Speaker 3: Joe Rogan and Netflix Specials for real science, we could 512 00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,600 Speaker 3: really engage people. We could inspire young people to come 513 00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,600 Speaker 3: and do science and contribute. We could encourage you know, 514 00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:28,359 Speaker 3: elected representatives to put more money towards researching these things. 515 00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:31,760 Speaker 3: I think everybody would want that and everybody would benefit 516 00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,760 Speaker 3: from that from my perspective, Like, I don't understand why 517 00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:40,000 Speaker 3: basic research isn't a bipartisan winner. Like you want future 518 00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:44,439 Speaker 3: economic power, fund basic research. You want military power, that's 519 00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,160 Speaker 3: the most important thing to you. Cool, fund basic research. 520 00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,719 Speaker 3: You want cultural dominance like, fund basic research, Like it 521 00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:55,359 Speaker 3: gets you all of these things, you know, education, it's 522 00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:57,760 Speaker 3: it's something for everybody, no matter where you are in 523 00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,240 Speaker 3: the spectrum. You want freedom of you want truth, you 524 00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:04,399 Speaker 3: want you know, more tools to help the poor, or 525 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,160 Speaker 3: all this stuff comes from basic research. It's the best 526 00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,480 Speaker 3: investment anybody's ever made in anything, basically. 527 00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:13,119 Speaker 2: The foundation, right, and that's what you build on. 528 00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:15,880 Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So it seems to me like a classic 529 00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,040 Speaker 3: mistake to say, oh, we're rich now, we don't need 530 00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,399 Speaker 3: to spend money on basic research. Like that seems like 531 00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:22,159 Speaker 3: the kind of thing that we're going to regret in 532 00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:26,000 Speaker 3: twenty or fifty or one hundred years. But anyway, you know, 533 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,399 Speaker 3: I'm a physicist and I benefit directly from basic research funding. 534 00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,320 Speaker 3: So yes, I have a conflict of interest there, but 535 00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,960 Speaker 3: you know, it's really just that I'm excited about this 536 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,360 Speaker 3: stuff and I think everybody should be I think these 537 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,160 Speaker 3: questions are amazing, and you know, understanding the nature of 538 00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,280 Speaker 3: the universe, the origin of the universe, These are fascinating 539 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:45,520 Speaker 3: mysteries that go right to the heart of like what 540 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,080 Speaker 3: is it like to be a human? Why are we here? 541 00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:51,440 Speaker 3: How should we live our lives? And everybody deserves to 542 00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,600 Speaker 3: be a part of that and to understand what we 543 00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,240 Speaker 3: know and what we don't know, and what we're working 544 00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,880 Speaker 3: on and how we're trying to figure it out. I 545 00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:00,840 Speaker 3: want to do as much as possible to bring people 546 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:05,040 Speaker 3: into the fold and share with them these incredible mysteries 547 00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:06,480 Speaker 3: and what we're doing to figure it out. 548 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,600 Speaker 2: Well, let's go ahead and get back into another mystery here, 549 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,080 Speaker 2: so as we move to close out another year. It's 550 00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:23,800 Speaker 2: of course easy to get caught up in ideas of 551 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,880 Speaker 2: endings and beginnings, and of course it's easy for our 552 00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,160 Speaker 2: minds to turn to the Big Bang. But I understand 553 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,440 Speaker 2: you'd like to settle some misunderstandings out there regarding the 554 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,600 Speaker 2: Big Bang, right, Yeah. 555 00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:39,520 Speaker 3: It's incredible to me when there's a gap between how 556 00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:43,200 Speaker 3: science describes something and the story in the mind of 557 00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,920 Speaker 3: the public and something I run into all the time 558 00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,920 Speaker 3: is people's confusion about what we mean by the Big Bang. 559 00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,080 Speaker 3: So I think in the minds of most of the public, 560 00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,920 Speaker 3: the Big Bang is an event that began the universe 561 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 3: around fourteen billion years ago, when a tiny dot of 562 00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,400 Speaker 3: matter exploded out into empty space. I think this is 563 00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:07,040 Speaker 3: the concept a lot of people have in their minds 564 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,239 Speaker 3: when you say the Big Bang, And that's not the 565 00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,680 Speaker 3: concept that most scientists have. It's not the scientific view 566 00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,840 Speaker 3: of what happened thirteen point six billion years ago in 567 00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:21,400 Speaker 3: a couple of crucial and really fundamentally different ways. And 568 00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:23,080 Speaker 3: I see this all the time because people write to 569 00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,360 Speaker 3: me and ask me questions about stuff, and I see, oh, 570 00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:27,360 Speaker 3: you must have the wrong idea of what the Big 571 00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,560 Speaker 3: Bang is, which is why you're asking this question. And 572 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,000 Speaker 3: the two misconceptions there are one. The Big Bang in 573 00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,120 Speaker 3: no way is the start of the universe. I mean, 574 00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,000 Speaker 3: what I really should say is we have no idea 575 00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,680 Speaker 3: what happened before a moment thirteen point six billion years ago. 576 00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:44,719 Speaker 3: We don't know that it was the start of anything. 577 00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,000 Speaker 3: It's just as far back as we can tell the 578 00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:51,480 Speaker 3: story before that because we don't know how quantum mechanics 579 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,160 Speaker 3: and general relativity merged together. We don't even know how 580 00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,080 Speaker 3: to think about it. We have no idea what happened, 581 00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,960 Speaker 3: what the rules were. So it's not the beginning of 582 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,760 Speaker 3: the universe in any sense. That's number one, and we 583 00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:03,800 Speaker 3: can dig deeper into it into how we know that 584 00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,560 Speaker 3: and what that means. And number two is that it 585 00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,480 Speaker 3: wasn't a tiny dot in empty space. It was everywhere. 586 00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,400 Speaker 3: The Big Bang filled the universe. There's no special point 587 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,800 Speaker 3: from which the Big Bang came. But the universe is 588 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:22,400 Speaker 3: infinite now we think, and probably was infinite always, which 589 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:26,640 Speaker 3: means the Big Bang was infinite. Is literally everywhere in 590 00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,120 Speaker 3: an infinite universe. And that's a very different conception in 591 00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,480 Speaker 3: your mind, from a tiny dot exploding out into infinite 592 00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:39,320 Speaker 3: space to a universe already filled infinitely with stuff. And 593 00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,160 Speaker 3: this is something we know very well. And so when 594 00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,320 Speaker 3: you talk to scientists about the Big Bang, they think, Okay, 595 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,680 Speaker 3: we're talking about a moment when the universe was very dense, 596 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:50,480 Speaker 3: almost fourteen billion years ago, and then the expansion that 597 00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:53,560 Speaker 3: comes afterwards. You know, how things spread out. That's what 598 00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:55,959 Speaker 3: scientists mean by the Big Bang. But the general public 599 00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,760 Speaker 3: they think of this dot that began the universe and 600 00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,960 Speaker 3: exploded out into empty s. People often write to me 601 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,080 Speaker 3: and say, hold on a second. If the universe began 602 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,960 Speaker 3: as a tiny dot of stuff and now we think 603 00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,280 Speaker 3: it's infinite, how do you go from one to the other, 604 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 3: Which is a great question, because you can't go from 605 00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,400 Speaker 3: one to the other. You can't go from a tiny 606 00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,280 Speaker 3: finite dot of stuff which explodes out and then have 607 00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:23,040 Speaker 3: a universe that's infinite with stuff everywhere. And this is 608 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,520 Speaker 3: my frustration with these misconceptions is that people get confused 609 00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:28,160 Speaker 3: and when they try to think about it for themselves, 610 00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,640 Speaker 3: which they definitely should do, they can't match up what 611 00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,440 Speaker 3: we know because they have this misunderstanding, this misconception of 612 00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:38,280 Speaker 3: what the big bang is. Instead of thinking about the 613 00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,560 Speaker 3: universe as starting from a tiny dot, they should think 614 00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:46,400 Speaker 3: about the whole universe filled with stuff that expanding space itself, 615 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:50,160 Speaker 3: stretching out so that stuff becomes more and more dilute, 616 00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,000 Speaker 3: more and more spread apart and colder, and that's what 617 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:57,040 Speaker 3: leads to an infinite universe filled with infinite stuff. It 618 00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:00,200 Speaker 3: always was infinite, It always had an infinite line of 619 00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,160 Speaker 3: stuff in it. What came before that, where that stuff 620 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,400 Speaker 3: came from, we don't know. We don't have an answer 621 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,000 Speaker 3: for that. That's another problem with the misconception is people 622 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:13,400 Speaker 3: imagine that the Big Bang theory claims to explain why 623 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,400 Speaker 3: we have a universe, why we have something rather than nothing, 624 00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,840 Speaker 3: where it all came from. But it doesn't not at all. 625 00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,640 Speaker 3: It says, hey, we can rewind the clock using the 626 00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,040 Speaker 3: laws of physics to go back about thirteen point eight 627 00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,800 Speaker 3: billion years to the moment when everything was hot and 628 00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,719 Speaker 3: dense and filled the universe before that question mark. I mean, 629 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,400 Speaker 3: there are theories, there are ideas, there's speculations, have formed, 630 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:38,040 Speaker 3: prospects and research and progress, but nobody knows what happened 631 00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,720 Speaker 3: before that. And so if people think that science is 632 00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:46,400 Speaker 3: making that claim, becomes very easy to criticize, especially you know, 633 00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:48,920 Speaker 3: from an anti science crowd. They're like, look at the 634 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,280 Speaker 3: hubris of these scientists who claim that the universe began 635 00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:54,840 Speaker 3: in this ridiculous way for which there's no evidence, and 636 00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,600 Speaker 3: yet science not making that claim. It's sort of analogous 637 00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,600 Speaker 3: to like people who criticize the theory of evolution when 638 00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,920 Speaker 3: they say, how could you possibly explain how you got 639 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:10,000 Speaker 3: life from abiotic chemicals? But the theory of evolution doesn't 640 00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,640 Speaker 3: claim to explain that it says, if you have life, 641 00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,040 Speaker 3: we can explain this development. We don't know how it began. 642 00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:20,239 Speaker 3: It becomes very easy to criticize evolution if you say 643 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,279 Speaker 3: it's making claims that it isn't making. And in the 644 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:26,120 Speaker 3: same way, physics, I think suffers because people misunderstand some 645 00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,239 Speaker 3: of the central concepts in it, and it's actually fascinating. 646 00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:31,239 Speaker 3: I dug through the history of it a little bit 647 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:35,040 Speaker 3: to understand, like, where did we go so wrong? Why 648 00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:37,320 Speaker 3: is it that we have this gap between the public's 649 00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:41,400 Speaker 3: understanding and the concepts in the minds of the scientists 650 00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:42,440 Speaker 3: who are working on it. 651 00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:47,120 Speaker 2: So to refresh. We have a dense infinity that then 652 00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:51,239 Speaker 2: expands into a less dense infinity. But this is not 653 00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,600 Speaker 2: the beginning. This is not book one in the series. 654 00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,000 Speaker 2: This is book question mark in the series, and we 655 00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,840 Speaker 2: don't know how many volumes come before it exactly. 656 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,239 Speaker 3: We have no idea. It could be the universe began 657 00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,120 Speaker 3: just before that in some crazy event, or it could 658 00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,279 Speaker 3: be the universe is infinitely old. It could be that, 659 00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,000 Speaker 3: you know, time itself doesn't have a meaning. Time is 660 00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,239 Speaker 3: some weird emerging thing and only coalesced just before that. 661 00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,000 Speaker 3: We really just don't know. Any of these answers could 662 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,799 Speaker 3: very plausibly be the reality. So calling the Big Bang 663 00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,320 Speaker 3: the beginning of the universe, or saying that science claims 664 00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,239 Speaker 3: that it is not fair because that's not our theory 665 00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:32,440 Speaker 3: of the Big Bang. It's definitely an open question. This 666 00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,720 Speaker 3: is one of the fuzziest things, I think for folks 667 00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:38,920 Speaker 3: outside of physics to understand what is solidly known and 668 00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,200 Speaker 3: what it's sort of like, h, here's a speculative idea 669 00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,120 Speaker 3: and we're working on which is kind of fun, so 670 00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,360 Speaker 3: maybe worth telling you about, or like, what's an idea 671 00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:48,360 Speaker 3: we had and we kind of moved on from, but 672 00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:50,560 Speaker 3: it sort of stuck in the minds of the public. 673 00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:52,880 Speaker 3: And I think that might be the case with the 674 00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,279 Speaker 3: Big Bang. I went back and read some of the 675 00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,240 Speaker 3: original science journalism on this topic, and there's an article 676 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,080 Speaker 3: in nine teen sixty five in the New York Times 677 00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,560 Speaker 3: by Walter Sullivan, who's a famous science journalists got a 678 00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,160 Speaker 3: bunch of prizes in science journalism named after him. He 679 00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,680 Speaker 3: won all the prizes and now they're naming the prizes 680 00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:13,319 Speaker 3: after him, and he wrote this article in the New 681 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:16,040 Speaker 3: York Times like a paper of record, and you know, 682 00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:20,080 Speaker 3: he describes the Big Bang incorrectly in that article, you know, 683 00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:23,600 Speaker 3: he describes it as galaxy's receding from a single point 684 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,440 Speaker 3: out into infinite space. And I read a bunch of 685 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,879 Speaker 3: science journalism that followed that, and I suspect that that 686 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,960 Speaker 3: sort of misdescription of it planted the seed, because I 687 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,080 Speaker 3: think a lot of science journalists they don't read the 688 00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:39,440 Speaker 3: original science papers, They read the other coverage, They talk 689 00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:41,120 Speaker 3: to their friends, they try to get an idea of 690 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:45,759 Speaker 3: the concepts, and I think then it gets reinforced and reinforced, 691 00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,600 Speaker 3: and I think that probably led to a lot of 692 00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:52,160 Speaker 3: misunderstanding about the nature of our understanding of the beginning 693 00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,160 Speaker 3: of the universe. And there's also a lot of blame 694 00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,360 Speaker 3: on the part of the scientists also, you know, scientists 695 00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:00,719 Speaker 3: have used the same words to mean different and things. 696 00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,480 Speaker 3: When I say the big Bang, I'm talking about the 697 00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:07,200 Speaker 3: evolution of the universe from this dense state. But Stephen 698 00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:10,000 Speaker 3: Hawking wrote a paper in the seventies about a big 699 00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,600 Speaker 3: bang singularity where he was proposing exactly what people have 700 00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,920 Speaker 3: in mind, like singularity where time began and the universe 701 00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,640 Speaker 3: was born. So he sort of reused that word to 702 00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:23,840 Speaker 3: mean something new which must be very confusing for well 703 00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:27,040 Speaker 3: meaning science journalists who have a very very difficult job 704 00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:30,799 Speaker 3: to translate these ideas into something that's understandable for the 705 00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,640 Speaker 3: general public. So, you know, I think it was all 706 00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,000 Speaker 3: very well meaning and everybody tried their best, but there 707 00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,839 Speaker 3: was a you know, a game of telephone there where 708 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,880 Speaker 3: things were lost in translation and then preserved in the 709 00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,200 Speaker 3: minds of journalists and just propagated on and on and 710 00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:47,920 Speaker 3: so it's important to me to try to correct some 711 00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,520 Speaker 3: of these to like make people understand, Hey, what do 712 00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,160 Speaker 3: scientists actually think about when they think about the Big Bang? 713 00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:56,799 Speaker 3: How do we know that? So I think it's fun 714 00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:58,600 Speaker 3: and I think it's worth doing because again it's part 715 00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,240 Speaker 3: of a larger project of like, let's make people feel 716 00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,719 Speaker 3: like they're involved in science because they are. It's the 717 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,440 Speaker 3: curiosity of the whole public that means we get to 718 00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:09,839 Speaker 3: do our jobs and and you know, we have an 719 00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:10,680 Speaker 3: audience for it. 720 00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,799 Speaker 2: Do you think that the sort of stickiness of this 721 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,960 Speaker 2: incorrect idea of the Big Bang might have to do 722 00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,360 Speaker 2: as well with the idea that it matches up with 723 00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:26,400 Speaker 2: some of these religious models and mythological models of the 724 00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,080 Speaker 2: creation of things, you know, the idea that you know, 725 00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,640 Speaker 2: there's like a flip that is switched by some great 726 00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,360 Speaker 2: invisible hand, you know, and we go from nothing to something, 727 00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,120 Speaker 2: we go from you know, from from from otion to 728 00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,520 Speaker 2: sky and so forth. And therefore, like, even though that 729 00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,080 Speaker 2: the model is is not exactly what the scientists were explaining, 730 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:46,359 Speaker 2: it sticks to us because it matches up with these 731 00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:47,440 Speaker 2: other cultural ideas. 732 00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,440 Speaker 3: Yeah, it could be that. It's also fascinating to see 733 00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:57,040 Speaker 3: how the different stories feel natural or unnatural through time. 734 00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,359 Speaker 3: Like about one hundred years ago, before we under stood 735 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,360 Speaker 3: that the universe was expanding, the general idea was that 736 00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,560 Speaker 3: the universe was static. It was just like stars hanging 737 00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,240 Speaker 3: in space the way they always had. And the idea 738 00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,160 Speaker 3: that the universe exists and it always existed it was 739 00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:17,600 Speaker 3: very natural to scientists. So the idea that the universe 740 00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,640 Speaker 3: was changing, it was expanding, it was getting less dense 741 00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,680 Speaker 3: over time, and maybe in the deep deep past was 742 00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:27,000 Speaker 3: incredibly dense beyond our ability to describe. That was a 743 00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:31,080 Speaker 3: weird and unnatural idea was sort of initially rejected, you know, 744 00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,759 Speaker 3: sort of like you know, uugh what by a lot 745 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,000 Speaker 3: of folks, And now it feels much more natural. It 746 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:39,640 Speaker 3: feels like, well, of course the universe had to have 747 00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:43,399 Speaker 3: a beginning. It's weirder to imagine an infinite past, right, 748 00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:48,319 Speaker 3: a universe without cause? I think so philosophically, we tend 749 00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:52,680 Speaker 3: to have intuition and biases and prejudices that are difficult 750 00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:55,840 Speaker 3: to pin down. And I wondered the same thing that 751 00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,680 Speaker 3: you did. And I actually read some folks who were 752 00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:02,720 Speaker 3: writing about con between religious thoughts and Big Bang theory. 753 00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,680 Speaker 3: And some folks do find, you know, credence in the 754 00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,839 Speaker 3: Big Bang theory for their religious beliefs, about as you say, 755 00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,120 Speaker 3: flipping a switch. But other people find contradiction because like 756 00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,080 Speaker 3: in the Bible, it says God created the heavens and 757 00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,959 Speaker 3: the earth, So in the first moment of creation, there's 758 00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:23,719 Speaker 3: the earth, whereas in our scientific description of the evolution 759 00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:26,160 Speaker 3: of the universe, the earth doesn't appear until like nine 760 00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:29,360 Speaker 3: billion years in right when when our solar system is 761 00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:31,960 Speaker 3: formed and our star is formed. So there's a little 762 00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,919 Speaker 3: bit of a you know, an issue there to reconcile 763 00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,719 Speaker 3: for the folks looking to bring together the scientific and 764 00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:43,000 Speaker 3: religious aspects. But yeah, I think that there's something appealing 765 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:44,840 Speaker 3: in some of these stories, Like you were saying, earlier. 766 00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,080 Speaker 3: These all science stories. Some of them have a real 767 00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,840 Speaker 3: appeal to us about being told the true story or 768 00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,840 Speaker 3: ancient aliens building the pyramids or whatever. You know, there's 769 00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,640 Speaker 3: some things we want to hear, and so it's easier 770 00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,360 Speaker 3: for us to accept those stories, and we have to 771 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,120 Speaker 3: really guard it. And that's why science is so valuable. 772 00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:07,400 Speaker 3: It demands it requires evidence and logic and mathematics to 773 00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,120 Speaker 3: make sure that we're not just telling ourselves the story 774 00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,920 Speaker 3: we want to hear, but that we're actually revealing something 775 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:14,320 Speaker 3: true about the universe. 776 00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:16,560 Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to give any ammunition to 777 00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:21,520 Speaker 2: intelligent design folks and anti science movements, but the one 778 00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:23,480 Speaker 2: that always gets me is and no one's using this 779 00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:26,360 Speaker 2: to make this argument, so I hesitate to give it 780 00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,440 Speaker 2: to them. But anytime I cut into a spaghetti squash, 781 00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,120 Speaker 2: that's my moment of doubt where I'm like, well, maybe 782 00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,640 Speaker 2: this is, you know, the will of God, or God's 783 00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,200 Speaker 2: revealed because I just cut into this squash and now 784 00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:44,439 Speaker 2: it is spaghetti. Maybe I'm standing on the wrong side 785 00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:44,880 Speaker 2: of things. 786 00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:46,919 Speaker 3: Yeah, well maybe you should join me in the Church 787 00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:50,759 Speaker 3: of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You know, you have it 788 00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:56,600 Speaker 3: raw men, No, it is amazing. The natural world is 789 00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:59,040 Speaker 3: mind boggling. And every time we look out into the 790 00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,920 Speaker 3: stars or cut open something, or we find some new 791 00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,320 Speaker 3: critter or living in a place we thought it was impossible. 792 00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:10,000 Speaker 3: I'm just so impressed by the universe. The universe could 793 00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,640 Speaker 3: have been boring, it could have been sterile, it could 794 00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,880 Speaker 3: have been simple. It's incredible to me that the universe 795 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,919 Speaker 3: is complicated enough that it's taking us a long time 796 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,719 Speaker 3: to figure it out, but simple enough that we can't 797 00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:26,720 Speaker 3: actually make progress. Right to me, that's the fascinating fine tuning, 798 00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,799 Speaker 3: Because if the universe was so simple that, like Aristotle 799 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:32,880 Speaker 3: had figured it out in an afternoon, and like physics 800 00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,520 Speaker 3: was really done five thousand years ago, that would be 801 00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:39,480 Speaker 3: too bad. It wouldn't be as fun. It's like a puzzle. 802 00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:41,279 Speaker 3: It's like trying to play tic tac toe. It's like, well, 803 00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,920 Speaker 3: that was boring. But if the universe is so complicated 804 00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:46,600 Speaker 3: that we could never figure it out, we can't even 805 00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:49,520 Speaker 3: make progress, you know, like a toddler trying to play go. 806 00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,560 Speaker 3: That would be really frustrating, and we can like throw tantrums, 807 00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:55,000 Speaker 3: But the universe seems to be perfectly balanced. It's like 808 00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,560 Speaker 3: we're playing a game that's right at the edge of 809 00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:02,839 Speaker 3: our abilities. Incredible to me that the universe, that it 810 00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,359 Speaker 3: can't make sense at all, That our mathematics and our 811 00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,640 Speaker 3: concepts can explain the universe, and that it steadily feeds 812 00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:13,239 Speaker 3: us these mysteries so that we can stay engaged. It 813 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:18,279 Speaker 3: makes me really excited to talk to alien scientists to wonder, like, 814 00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,279 Speaker 3: what was their experience of figuring out the universe? Are 815 00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:22,920 Speaker 3: they much smarter than we are and the whole thing 816 00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:26,480 Speaker 3: took their Aristotle in afternoon? Are they dumber than we 817 00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:28,160 Speaker 3: are but it took them a billion years and now 818 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,080 Speaker 3: they're more advanced, you know? Or is most of our 819 00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,640 Speaker 3: science just in our minds? Is just our description of 820 00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,239 Speaker 3: our mental thought patterns to make sense of the stimulus 821 00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,520 Speaker 3: we receive. I think we'll learn a lot about the 822 00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,400 Speaker 3: nature of the universe and ourselves when we get to 823 00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:47,080 Speaker 3: sit across the table at the first like intergalactic science conference. 824 00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,719 Speaker 2: Until that day, though, we have science podcasts to listen 825 00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:55,040 Speaker 2: to this right and the podcast in question here is 826 00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,800 Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe Podcast. A question I always 827 00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,080 Speaker 2: ask folks when they come on the show and they 828 00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,120 Speaker 2: have a podcast that they're promoting is okay, We're going 829 00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,719 Speaker 2: to have some new listeners coming in. What is a 830 00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,560 Speaker 2: current episode or a past episode that they should seek 831 00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,279 Speaker 2: out for a first listen, and then what's coming off 832 00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:14,759 Speaker 2: on the horizon that they should look out for. 833 00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:18,120 Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, great question. So you know, we have 834 00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,279 Speaker 3: a fun mix of physics and biology. If you're interested 835 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,600 Speaker 3: in fundamental physics. We have some episodes about what is space, 836 00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:28,960 Speaker 3: what is time? Digging into like very basic questions about 837 00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,920 Speaker 3: the nature of the universe and what are modern theories 838 00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,160 Speaker 3: of them? You know, what is a particle? We have 839 00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:37,760 Speaker 3: an episode coming out next week about more applied things 840 00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:40,640 Speaker 3: called why do Planes Fly? Because it turns out there's 841 00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,120 Speaker 3: still a lot of controversy about why planes hang in 842 00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:48,840 Speaker 3: the air. And then we have biology episodes about cannibalism. 843 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:52,440 Speaker 3: We have one about leeches coming out very soon. We 844 00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,719 Speaker 3: have a bunch of fun episodes where Kelly digs in 845 00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:58,640 Speaker 3: to life on Mars, how do you grow crops on Mars? 846 00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,640 Speaker 3: How do you have babies on more Ours? All sorts 847 00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:04,799 Speaker 3: of stuff. So with a big spectrum of concepts there, 848 00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:06,960 Speaker 3: pick and choose or listen from the beginning. 849 00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,719 Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, Daniel, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming 850 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,880 Speaker 2: back on the show and chatting with me about the 851 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,200 Speaker 2: universe and human civilization everything between. 852 00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,640 Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks very much, and thanks to all your listeners. 853 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,000 Speaker 2: All right, thanks once more to Daniel Whitson for taking 854 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:29,160 Speaker 2: time out of his day to chat with me here 855 00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:31,360 Speaker 2: on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Again. There are a 856 00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:33,560 Speaker 2: number of episodes already out there that you can dive 857 00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:35,880 Speaker 2: right into, and it sounds like there's some exciting episodes 858 00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,960 Speaker 2: on the way. Just a reminder that this podcast, Stuff 859 00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,760 Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, 860 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,400 Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes 861 00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,120 Speaker 2: on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious 862 00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,360 Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird 863 00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,719 Speaker 2: House Cinema. If you want to follow us on Instagram, 864 00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,560 Speaker 2: we are stb ym podcast. If you want to follow 865 00:45:57,640 --> 00:45:59,880 Speaker 2: us on a letterbox to keep up with what's going 866 00:45:59,920 --> 00:46:02,040 Speaker 2: on on with Weird House Cinema, we are a weird 867 00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,040 Speaker 2: house on that platform, and you know we're probably on 868 00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:07,000 Speaker 2: some other social media platforms as well, but I mean 869 00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,359 Speaker 2: those are the ones that I'm more likely to look 870 00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,279 Speaker 2: at myself. And as always, thanks to the excellent JJ 871 00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:15,480 Speaker 2: Possway for producing the show and stitching everything together and 872 00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:18,360 Speaker 2: making sure it sounds right. Couldn't do it without him. 873 00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,279 Speaker 2: And if you want to reach out to any of 874 00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:23,759 Speaker 2: us here at stuff to Blow Your Mind, if you 875 00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:28,400 Speaker 2: have you know, questions about books or films that we reference, 876 00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:34,160 Speaker 2: if you have ideas for future episodes or as always interesting, 877 00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,160 Speaker 2: if you have just feedback experiences that line up with 878 00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,160 Speaker 2: things we're talking about and you want to share those 879 00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,279 Speaker 2: with us, well, you can email us at contact at 880 00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:51,520 Speaker 2: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 881 00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,120 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 882 00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:58,000 Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 883 00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:13,960 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listen to your favorite shows,