WEBVTT - Extraordinary Universe, with Daniel Whiteson 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.400 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:19.080 is Robert Lamb, and Hey on today's episode, I am 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.440 welcoming back to the show. Daniel Whitson, co host of 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:27.480 the new podcast Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. Daniel's been 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.960 on the show, I believe twice before. It's always a 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.360 fun chat talking about you know, the nature of the universe, 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.360 human science and everything in between. So without further ado, 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:45.840 let's just jump right into this fun conversation. Hi, Daniel, 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:46.720 welcome back to the show. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.120 Hey, thanks so much for having me on. So excited 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:49.960 to be here to talk to you. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.159 Absolutely so. When we last spoke, and I guess it's 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.360 been probably a couple of years now, the podcast was 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.200 Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. But we're onto a 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.279 new chapter. I can you tell us a little bit 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.440 about Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.800 Yeah, This new podcast, The Extraordinary Universe, is with an 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.560 old friend of mine, Kelly Wiener Smith. She's a very 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.319 well known and highly awarded author of popular science books 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.800 like A City on Mars, and also an old friend 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.920 of mine and a wife of Zach Weener, smith of 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.840 Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and together we have this podcast 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.880 about everything we find amazing and wonderful and mysterious and 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.160 delightful in the universe, which is basically the whole universe, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.759 from tiny particles to big black holes, to the mysteries 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.880 of the Big Bang, to leeches and all sorts of 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.399 crazy mysteries. In biology, we basically just have a lot 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.559 of fun gazing in awe at the universe and wondering 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:47.680 how it all works. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.960 So would you say this kind of like opens up 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.200 the concept a bit into more of like the general 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.320 science realm. 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.280 Yeah. Kelly's background is in biology. She's a parasitologist, so 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.440 she studies like, you know, wasps that get infected and 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.520 then change their behavior, and you know, things that crawl 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.320 in your body and take advantage of you. And so 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.400 she brings an alternative science background, not aalt science, but 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.200 like a different kind of science background, and so we 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.000 can ask different kinds of questions. And you know, when 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.120 I talk about particles, she can ask questions for the 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.920 audience like what do you mean higgs boson? What is that? Anyway? 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.320 And when she talks about the details of parasocial behavior. 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:29.919 I can be like, hold on, what does that mean? 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.240 So we play off each other really well, and you know, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:33.800 she's an old friend, so we have a lot of 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:34.400 fun talking. 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.120 Yeah. Yeah, I tuned into an episode or two there, 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:39.919 and yeah, you guys seem to have a good vibe. 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:45.200 Ky you talking about turkey and Thanksgiving, which is time license, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.400 you know, just coming off of Thanksgiving break here in 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:47.880 the US. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.040 Yeah, we were talking about the physics of Thanksgiving, you know, 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.680 like how many turkeys could you cook with a nuclear 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.200 bomb explosion? And also the biology of Thanksgiving, like is 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.280 tripped a fan or real thing or is that just 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.320 a myth? So you know, we dig trying to we 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.360 try to dig deep into the science and then also 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:05.040 keep it fun. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.359 Now, you mentioned a book that she co wrote, as 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.360 she co wrote this with her husband, I Believe a 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.960 City on Mars, which I haven't read, but it sounds 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.000 sounds like a very interesting read. I need to pick 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.040 it up because I was recently looking at a book 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.600 titled Dinner on Mars by Leonora Newman and Evan Frazier. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.640 It tis more like a food oriented approach to some 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.520 of the same questions. I imagine you know, how how 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.320 would colonization on Mars? Look, how did it work? And 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.839 what are the extreme challenges of carrying it out. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.520 Yeah, it's a really good book. I recommend it for everybody. 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.360 It's a City on Mars by Zach and Kelly Weener Smith. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.200 And it came about they're like tech boosters. You know, 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.880 these guys are nerds. They're big fans of the future 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:48.880 and technology and science and this kind of stuff. And 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.040 they started out trying to write a book about how 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:53.440 awesome it would be to colonize Mars and what it 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.120 would be like and the technology we're going to use there. 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.480 And what they found when they were doing the research 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.120 was like, people haven't figured out a lot of really 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.839 basic stuff about what it would be like to live 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.200 on Mars. For example, can you get pregnant in zero G? 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.480 Nobody knows? Can you just state in zero G? What's 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.360 it like when you have a baby in zero G? 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.560 Can you do surgery in low gravity environments? All this 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.440 kind of stuff. Nobody's figured out a lot of these questions. 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.559 So they ended up kind of writing a throw cold 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.559 water on the idea of colonizing Mars book, which turned 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.240 out to be very timely because of the rise of 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.240 Elon Musk and his you know, let's just go and 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.679 do it, move fast and break things. Might mean breaking 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.800 like a million people's lives if you send a lot 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.560 of people to Mars without figuring out some of this stuff. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:42.839 So in the book they dig into the science stuff 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.839 at what we do know, we don't know how we 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.880 might figure it out. It's a great read and really 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.159 really well researched. Recently won a Hugo Award and a 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.200 bunch of other prizes for popular science. 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:58.200 Speaking of Elon Musk and Mars, do you think that 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:02.760 recent political event have pushed up the timeline regarding possible 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.960 human travel to Mars and even colonization. Do you think 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.800 it's going to have any impact at all on how 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.159 soon or how far off something like that would be. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:13.000 M M. 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.240 It's a really good question, and it's so hard to 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.760 know because on one hand, he has a great track 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.760 record of pushing hard on difficult technical tasks and succeeding, 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.960 you know, like his reusable rockets amazing, right, nobody thought 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.359 that was possible. He made it happen, even you know, 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.279 electric cars, all this kind of stuff. He also has 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.680 a track record of promising stuff and then not delivering, 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.080 you know, the boring company for example, hyper loop, all 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.920 this kind of stuff. Sometimes his proclamations, you know, people 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.040 argue like he pushed the hyper loop to kill California 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.640 high speed rail. So it's not always clear whether his 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.400 grand visions are to push his companies forward or to 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.359 slow down another track. Something I do worry about, though, 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.640 is the rise of anti science popularism. You know, you 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.880 see the rounds. It's cost cutting strategy, picking out individual 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.440 elements of science and saying, look, how ridiculous it is 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.080 that we're studying the reproduction health of beetles. What a 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.719 waste of tax payer dollars. And you know, it's not 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.240 hard to draw dotted lines between like understanding beetles and 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:27.040 a billion dollars in agriculture for wheat for example. So 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.320 you know, in the funding, basic science is a great 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.800 way to advance technology and colonization on Mars. And so 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.840 I think there's a danger that if we cut basic 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.200 science too much, we could be inhibiting these kinds of 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.359 visions that he's espousing, that he's pushing, right, he wants 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.120 us to be a multiplanetary species. I think the best 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.359 way to get there is to do the science and 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.320 fund basic research, not cut anything that doesn't have obvious 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:54.680 value immediately. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.640 Plus, I mean, obviously, you know, we have such challenges 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:03.520 here on this planet and they're not abating. So I suppose, 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.279 on one hand, it just feels even more ludicrous that 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.280 we would accelerate in this direction, you know, setting our 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.920 sights on such a prospect and a world that is 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.520 so lifeless, that is not this shining gem that we 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:19.120 are squandering here. 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.679 Yeah, and as Kelly and Zach point out in their book, 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.960 you know, the goal of making humans multiplanetary is a 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.960 great one, but it's sort of impossible to achieve on 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:30.960 a short time scale in the way that he wants 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.280 to achieve it. I think his idea is, let's make 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.400 sure we don't have all of our eggs in one basket. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.880 If an asteroid hits the Earth and wipes out everybody, 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:43.520 it'd be great to have civilization and consciousness already established 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.800 on Mars, right, But any sort of realistic colony on 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.480 Mars is going to be utterly dependent on Earth for 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.080 so long that there's really no chance of having an 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.200 independent Mars that could survive that kind of cataclysm. On 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.520 Earth for a long long time. I mean that doesn't 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.560 mean we should figured that out and we shouldn't get there, 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.760 and we shouldn't push hard now to make it happen. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:06.840 But the way to do it isn't just send a 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.400 million people to Mars. Is to figure out those technical 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.680 challenges so that it's more successful. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.040 Now, your focus, of course, is the world of physics. 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.960 And this past year, of course, there's been a lot 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.560 going on. It's been easy to focus and ruminate on 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.600 all these other issues, but what's been going on in 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.400 the world of physics, Like what was exciting in the 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.200 realm of physics in twenty twenty four, and how does 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:40.720 it look going into twenty twenty five. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.199 Yeah, well, you know, physics is a lot of fun. 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.520 There's always a lot of things going on. My particular 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.560 realm is particle physics, and these days the conversation in 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.480 particle physics is essentially what's next. We've been running the 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.520 Large Hadron Collider for a lot of years now, since 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.800 around two thousand and eight, so almost twenty years we 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.760 found the Higgs boson, we measured the particle properties out 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.800 the wazoo, and people are wondering, like, should we build 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.440 another one. A big question in the field is can 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.200 we ask for another ten twenty fifty billion dollars to 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.120 build another particle collider to try to discover something new, 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.800 especially if we don't know in advance what we're going 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.199 to find. So a lot of discussions and particle physics 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.880 are about that, what should we build? Do we have 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.000 the political will to ask for all that money? How 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.239 do we defend that? Are we at risk at overshooting 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.680 if we ask for something too big and having another 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:42.480 debacle like the superconnecting SuperCollider in Waxahachie, Texas in the nineties. 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.640 Yeah, it's part of that kind of slides back into 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.800 what we were just saying about, like anti science, popularism 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.200 and so forth. You know, it's like, how how do 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.520 you end up making an argument for these kinds of 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.960 projects in that kind of climate? And if you do, 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.079 how do you do so like responsibly? 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.120 Right? Yeah? And I don't have a hard time making 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.640 that kind of argument. I mean, I'm a particle physicist. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.880 I have an interest in this obviously, But to me, 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.440 the conversation is funny because people say, we need to 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.640 promise some kind of discovery if we're going to ask 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.360 for a twenty billion dollar project, and I don't think 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.960 that at all. I think that we should be arguing 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.520 for the value of pure research research without knowing in 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.920 advance what you're going to discover. To me, it's like exploration, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.240 Like is it worthwhile to send a probe to sample 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.840 the oceans of Europa? Absolutely yes, because we could discover 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.240 alien life and blow our minds and learn incredible things. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.760 You know, the history of basic research is surprises, right, 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:46.880 and those surprises very often lead to transformational technologies and developments. 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.800 The way to move forward as a society is not 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.280 to pull back, but to invest in ourselves. And the 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:57.000 best investment we can make is basic research. Yes, particle physics, yes, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:02.040 you know, viruses, Yes, all sorts of stuff. It costs money, 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.840 but it pays for itself. So if you believe in humans, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.480 and you believe in our ingenuity, and you're amazed at 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:09.679 the mysteries of the universe and believe that we can 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.600 crack them, then everybody should think, hey, we should ten 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.640 x our research budget because it's going to pay off, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.400 and we have the money now, we should spend it 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.199 because it's going to help our kids and our grandkids 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.520 and everybody in the future. The present that we live 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.000 in today is because people made those investments fifty years ago, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.559 one hundred years ago in basic research, which transformed our society. 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.400 So particle physics is just one example of that. I 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:38.800 don't think we need to be able to promise we're 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.640 going to discover the squiggly on particle in order to 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.839 ask for twenty billion dollars. We just need to say, hey, look, 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.160 the universe is worth figuring out. Let's go do it. 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.000 Let's explore. Who knows what we're going to find? Yeah? 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.840 Yeah, and in doing so, yeah, avoiding stagnation. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:55.560 Yeah. 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.440 Which leads me to something. We were chatting back and 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.160 forth on email about things you might want to chat about, 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.880 and you brought up an idea that I wasn't really 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.600 plugged into all that much. This idea that some people 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:12.480 say that physics itself is stagnating, that fundamental physics is 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:14.840 like in a rut, or it's going down the wrong path. 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.679 Tell us a little bit about this idea, and then 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:20.640 how you feel about it. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.000 Yeah, this is something you hear about a lot in 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.200 sort of popular science. I don't want to name any names, 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.640 but there's quite a few folks who are sort of 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:34.119 on the edge of theoretical physics, not really in the mainstream, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.840 who criticize the mainstream of theoretical physics and say, we 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.800 haven't figured out anything in fifty years, and those guys 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.720 are wasting their time and our money. And you know, 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:51.400 it's part of this sort of broader anti science, anti elite, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:56.960 anti expertise movement in America that we've seen various political 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:01.720 figures and business figures encouraging. And I think it's troubling, 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.400 and I think it's dangerous, and I think also there 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.000 is some merit to it. But you know, I think 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.600 it's worth teasing that apart and thinking like, what can 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.640 we learn about the progress or lack of progress in 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.079 fundamental physics and how should we move forward. We shouldn't 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.440 just tear everything apart because it's easy to criticize things 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:20.359 from the outside. 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.559 It also seems like it's probably a real cherry picking 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.240 of the idea of progress, scientific progress, right, Like I was, 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:29.080 you know, I think a lot of us probably did 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.960 some traveling over the last couple of weeks at least, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.760 and like, you know, sometimes you might ask yourself, well, 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.400 am I really getting anywhere? I haven't driven through a 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.480 major city in an hour, Like, well, yeah, maybe not, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.920 but that doesn't mean I'm not progressing towards a destination 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:49.960 or into new territory, right, I Mean it's like, like 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.880 what is progress? Yeah, if you want to really in 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:57.880 a zero win on like huge events and huge revelations, maybe, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.520 so maybe you can make that case, But then you've 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.360 got a discount out a lot of just the other 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.520 knowledge that and all the other findings that have been accumulated. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.480 Yeah. And I think that physics or fundamental physics has 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.840 made itself vulnerable to this kind of criticism because for 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.439 many years it did oversell itself. You know, the problem 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.360 that fundamental physics is trying to solve. One of the 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.720 crucial questions in physics today is what is the nature 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.920 of the universe at the smallest scale? How can we 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.400 describe it? And the problem is that we have two 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.160 different descriptions of it. We have relativity, which tells us 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.960 what space is and time is, and how they interact 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.880 and how they bend and curve to create the appearance 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.520 of the illusion really of gravity. It's wonderful theory, and 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.400 it describes the expansion of the universe and motion of 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.000 the planets and basically everything that's big. And then we 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.320 have quantum mechanics, which tells us that nothing in the 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.000 universe is continuous, everything is made of little chunks, and 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.120 that at the fundamental particle level things are probabilistic and random. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.880 That works beautifully and describes particle collisions and all sorts 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.080 of details about the early universe that we've been able 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.720 to observe and calculates an incredible theory. And the problem is, 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.280 nobody knows how to bring these two theories together, to 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.920 make them work together, to do things like figure out, well, 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:18.960 what happens if you have a bunch of particles that 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.120 have enough mass to bend space time and then space 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.160 time effects those particles in a probabilistic way. This classical 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.040 theory of relativity and the quantum fundamentally random theory of 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.880 quantum mechanics. Nobody's been able to pull those two things together. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.240 That's the open question for like literally one hundred years. 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.880 And in the eighties and nineties there was this sense 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.600 that maybe we had a glimmering of the answer. String 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.800 theory rows up out of failed efforts to describe another 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:52.200 fundamental quantum theory. Fundamental quantum phenomenon the strong force, and 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.040 it was very promising and it was very mathematical, and 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.480 people had this sense like, wow, maybe we're just getting 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.800 our fingers around the solution. And there were a lot 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.200 of bold claims that were made about how we were 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.400 going to figure this out quickly and all sorts of stuff, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:07.960 and that hasn't come to pass. That doesn't mean, as 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.600 you say, that we haven't made progress. The mathematics of 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.680 string theory has helped people figure out a lot of stuff, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.200 and they've been definitely making a lot of progress. But 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.720 some people feel like, hey, we haven't figured that out yet. 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.240 And there were all these big claims, and so clearly 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.320 these guys are wasting our time. And also maybe they're 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.440 doing it and in bad faith. Maybe they're just writing 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.280 grants to get government money and they know they're wasting 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.760 their time and they're just fooling themselves. And this is 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:38.160 cabal at the heart of fundamental physics that's like captured it, 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.120 and they're just like writing grants for themselves and supporting 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.760 each other. And that's the part that troubles me, Like 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.960 you can disagree with what people are doing and the 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.760 questions they're asking and even the methods they're useding to 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.080 ask those questions. But once you start suggesting that physicists 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.640 are like lying that, you know, they're not actually interested 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.560 in solving the problem. They're just interested in like getting 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:03.920 their you know, academic salaries, which, let's be clear, physics 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.439 academic salaries are not really that impressive compared to like 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.359 what physicists earn when they go off into Wall Street, 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.800 for example. Then I think you entered a different kind 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.760 of discourse. You know, you're really implying that people are 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.160 lying and acting in bad faith. That's not the physics 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.840 that I see, and that's that's not physicists I recognize. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.920 I think everybody's doing their best trying to figure stuff out. 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.359 Some people are excited by string theory, some people are 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.960 excited by alternatives loop quantum gravity or post quantum gravity, 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.679 or all sorts of other ideas. I think there's a 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.199 healthy debate, and I think you never know what's going 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.040 to lead to success. You should fund all of these things. 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.480 You should fund crazy ideas on the fringe, you should 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:47.240 fund them the mainstream. The real tragedy is that we 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:51.000 have such a timey amount of money for fundamental physics 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.879 I mean the amount of money we spend training lms 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.399 to make ridiculous hallucinations versus the amount of money we 0:17:57.440 --> 0:17:59.880 spend trying to understand the fundamental nature of the universe. 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.240 It dwarfs it. It's you know, it's factors of millions 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.359 and millions, so you know there, I think there is 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.800 progress being made in fundamental physics. People can disagree about 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:11.760 how it happens, but I think we should remember that 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:13.360 everybody's doing their best. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.880 Now, how long is this this? I guess we can 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.399 sort of think of it like anti physics establishments mentality, 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.280 Like how long has this been cooking? And is it 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.439 is it something that like stems out of like some 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.480 of the like the anti climate change ideas out there, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.000 or is it been sort of percolating in its own column. 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:36.840 It has a long history. You know, there have always 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.560 been folks who think science is taking the wrong path. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.840 And you know, I get emails from retired engineers every 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.560 day saying, look, I figured out the universe. I have 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.600 a theory, and why won't anybody listen to me? Why 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.520 won't anybody read my paper? How come my paper isn't 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.919 getting discussed and criticized the same way ed Witten's paper 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.160 is about superstring theory, you know, and I get that 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.439 it's frustrating, like, you are a smart person, you have 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.639 a great idea, Why won't anybody listen to you? So 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.280 I think there's always been a community of people who 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.400 feel like they're on the outside of academia, and academia 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:16.879 is insular and doesn't listen to ideas from everybody, because 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.400 there is this conception that academia is like this faceless 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.320 meritocracy where ideas come in and something happens where they 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.960 want best ones rise to the top. And so if 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:29.600 you have an idea and you try to get attention 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.520 for it and nobody responds to your email, then you 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.640 get the feeling like, oh, this is an insular bunch. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.119 The only want to hear ideas from their friends. So 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.440 I think that's a long standing problem, and I'm personally 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.000 trying to overcome that in my small way because I 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.760 answer every single email I get from the general public. 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.280 You send me a theory of physics, I give you 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.359 twenty minutes. I'm gonna read your theory, I'm gonna comment 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:53.560 on it. I'm going to write you back. People don't 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.639 always like my comments, but you know, they get what 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.760 they ask for a little bit of attention, whether you 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:00.480 like it or not. Sometimes I find a flaw on 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.720 page one, and that's got to be disheartening. Another time, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.639 some woman wrote to me because she had found in 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.199 her father's papers a theory that he'd been working on 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.720 in retirement, in secret for like ten years after retiring 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.720 from Boeing as an engineer, and she just wanted to know, like, Hey, 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:17.960 can you look at this and tell me is this anything? 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.119 This is my father's project in his retirement, and I 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:23.960 hate to think it just went ignored. So I took 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:25.800 a look at it for her and tried to gently 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:27.919 let her know that, you know, there were some interesting 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.960 ideas there, but nothing really new. So I feel I 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:32.560 think a lot of people feel like they're on the 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.840 outside of science and it's hard to break in because, look, 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.080 science is just people. You know, I'm a person. A 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.440 science is nothing more than just a bunch of people 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.479 trying to figure out the universe and also run their lives. 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.160 And people have too much to do. So most people 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.680 you send them at your theory of everything, they're like, thanks, man, 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:51.320 but I'm working on my own theory. I don't really 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:55.280 have time for yours. So I think that's the root 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.000 of it. And then there are some folks, you know, 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.560 Eric Weinstein, for example, who are on the fringes and 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.760 have their own theory, and I don't know whether they 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.440 actually want it to be examined in detailed, because Eric Weinstein, 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.119