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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I'm worried about how long I'm going to live? Man,

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Speaker 1: aren't we all these days? I know, but I mean

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Speaker 1: like down to the particle level, Like, are my who

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Speaker 1: electrons going to be around forever? Well, we actually have

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Speaker 1: good news there. We do think that electrons can live forever.

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Speaker 1: All right, that's cool. What about my protons? I got

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Speaker 1: some tough news there. Didn't last very long. Currently we

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Speaker 1: think protons live for only a trillion trillion trillion years.

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Speaker 1: I don't. Well, that's good. I guess even my protons

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Speaker 1: are procrastinators. They are professional protonic procrastinators. I am more

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Speaker 1: handmade cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi. I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, but I might one day decay

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Speaker 1: into something else, into a lighter Daniel or a lower

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Speaker 1: energy state. Unfortunately, I seem to be violating the laws

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Speaker 1: of physics and decaying into a heavier Daniel as to

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Speaker 1: all humans. Unfortunately that seems to be the direction. But

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Speaker 1: welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio in which we take

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Speaker 1: the universe and crack it in half and pour all

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Speaker 1: those little explain eons into your brain. We take you

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Speaker 1: on a tour of all the amazing, the massive, the enormous,

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Speaker 1: the crazy and all the tiny, mysterious, weird quantum stuff

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Speaker 1: of the universe and explain it all to you. That's right,

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Speaker 1: so it lives in your head, possibly forever. Hopefully you

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Speaker 1: won't forget us. Will always be there in your brain,

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Speaker 1: because we all know that once you've understood something in physics,

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Speaker 1: you know it forever. I have never forgotten a single

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Speaker 1: thing that matter where Really it's hard to unlearn. Huh No,

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Speaker 1: that's exactly the opposite of true. I'm the kind of

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Speaker 1: person that can learn something fairly quickly and then forget

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Speaker 1: it fairly quickly. I guess, um, does the information decay

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Speaker 1: in your brain or it dissipates or I think it

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Speaker 1: just gets replaced by all the stuff on Twitter that

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Speaker 1: I scroll through and shoves it back out the other

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Speaker 1: side of my brain, pushes it out the other ear.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Information understanding decay. Yeah. We like to talk

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Speaker 1: about science and the cosmos and the universe and everything

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Speaker 1: in between, and including all the things that are out

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Speaker 1: there and all the things that are not yet out there,

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Speaker 1: and all the things that will not be out there

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Speaker 1: in the future. That's right because everything that you wonder

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Speaker 1: about the universe are the same things that scientists wonder

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Speaker 1: about the universe. Where did it come from, how did

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Speaker 1: it get here? How long will it last? And how

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Speaker 1: long will you last? Yeah, so big question is how

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Speaker 1: long do particles stay around? Do they live forever? Or

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Speaker 1: at some point are they not around? That's right because

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Speaker 1: particles are these weird, fleeting quantum objects, and I don't

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Speaker 1: always obey the same rules that you and I obey

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Speaker 1: that we're from earlier with that makes sense to us,

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Speaker 1: and yet we are made out of them. Everything in

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Speaker 1: the universe is made out of particles. So it's essential

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Speaker 1: that we understand how they work and the rules under

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Speaker 1: which they operate, because they might very well determine our future,

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Speaker 1: even if you have to wait a trillion trillion trillion

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Speaker 1: years to find out. Yeah, because we know that. You know,

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Speaker 1: as humans, we don't live forever, at least not yet.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I've never died so far. How about you.

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Speaker 1: I think, probabilistically speaking, you are unlikely to be around

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Speaker 1: for a few years. Yeah, But it's mostly because the

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Speaker 1: arrangement of our particles and our atoms at some point

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Speaker 1: doesn't work and it dissipates in our particles go back

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Speaker 1: into the soil and back into dust. And so I

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Speaker 1: think an interesting question is, like how long do your

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Speaker 1: particles last? That's right? Like the particles that you're made

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Speaker 1: out of right now, are they gonna be there at

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Speaker 1: the end of the universe? That's right? Even if that

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Speaker 1: arrangement that makes you isn't around anymore. With that little

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Speaker 1: bit of your fingernail and that tip of your knows

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Speaker 1: will it be around inside some starr and get fused

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Speaker 1: into a piece of gold someday and get blown out

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Speaker 1: in a supernova and have trillions and trillions more cycles,

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Speaker 1: or will it only last a few more years and

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Speaker 1: decay into something totally unrecognizable? Right? Because I guess particles

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Speaker 1: come from nothing, right, Like you know, at some point

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Speaker 1: there weren't any particles and then they suddenly sort of

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Speaker 1: popped down, And we know that particles pop into existence

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Speaker 1: all the time in the vacuum, and so, but the

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Speaker 1: question is, once you form a particle, does it stay

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Speaker 1: around forever as a particle or do things happen to

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Speaker 1: it to make it disappear? Yeah, particles certainly were formed

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Speaker 1: in the very early universe. We had this hot, dense state,

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Speaker 1: all this energy stored in the fields, and then as

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Speaker 1: the universe cooled, that energy sort of isolated into these

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Speaker 1: discrete packets that we now call particles. And we'd like

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Speaker 1: to play this mental game as particle physicists say, you

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Speaker 1: had just one particle in the universe, what would it do?

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Speaker 1: Would it sit there forever or would it eventually spontaneously

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Speaker 1: break into lighter particles? And so that's the game we

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Speaker 1: play with electrons, and we think a single universe filled

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Speaker 1: with just one electron would stay that way forever. But

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Speaker 1: the open question is is that also true for proton

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Speaker 1: So to be on the podcast will be asking the

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Speaker 1: question do protons live forever? And if so, how do

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Speaker 1: they plan for their retirements? Right? Do they have professional

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Speaker 1: protonic um retirement accountant? I hope they've been proactive in

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Speaker 1: saving Yeah, I hope that there is paraded. If you

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Speaker 1: live forever, you would have like an infinite number of grandchildren,

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Speaker 1: which I suppose could support you in your old old age.

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Speaker 1: There you think they still like you after an infinite

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Speaker 1: number of years, Great great great great great Grandpa die

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Speaker 1: already and give us all your stuff. Now you have

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Speaker 1: to go great trade for infinity. Nobody wants to call you.

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Speaker 1: I ran at a time there. Yeah, alright, So electrons

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Speaker 1: live forever, we know that. That's like fact number one.

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Speaker 1: They never what does that mean? They never decayed or

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Speaker 1: they never like spontaneously disappear. It's an important distinction. Like

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Speaker 1: an electron, you can destroy it. You throw an electron

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Speaker 1: against a positron, you can turn that energy into something else.

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Speaker 1: You can turn it into a photon. Right, that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff happens. But so you can kill an electron, yes,

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Speaker 1: but they just don't die on the that's right. And

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Speaker 1: you know in some superhero movies that is the definition

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Speaker 1: of immortal, like elves or in fantasy novels are often

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Speaker 1: immortal but can be killed in battle, which always confused me.

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Speaker 1: But electrons are sort of like elves. They will sit

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Speaker 1: around forever. Like you put an electron in its own universe,

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Speaker 1: it will just sit there forever, you know, learning how

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Speaker 1: to sing valid essentially, but never turning into anything else,

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Speaker 1: or not even spontaneously like you know, some particles just

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Speaker 1: they're sitting around, they can split into other particles, right,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Almost every particle decays. It's only the ones

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Speaker 1: that are the lightest ones that can turn into anything

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Speaker 1: else that are sort of stuck. Those are the ones

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Speaker 1: that we call stable. So an electron is a stay

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Speaker 1: able particle. A single electron universe will stay a single

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Speaker 1: electron universe basically forever. Like it can't break down into

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Speaker 1: something else spontaneously, or it probably won't know if it could,

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Speaker 1: it will eventually. So this is a statement about like,

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Speaker 1: not a statement about probability, but about possibility. If an

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Speaker 1: electron is really alone in the universe, if there's not

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Speaker 1: not even any like weird quantum positrons popping out of

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Speaker 1: the vacuum to annihilate it, it will sit there forever,

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Speaker 1: has zero chance of decaying into anything else, because what

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Speaker 1: could it decay into. There is no particle lighter than

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Speaker 1: the electron that the electron can turn into that follows

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Speaker 1: all the rules, and we'll dig into all of that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So electrons are like elves, probably l ron or electron.

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Speaker 1: What would be his elf name or her name? Elvin,

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Speaker 1: elvin name Sorrylfish elfish or Elvin. Oh man, I'm way

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Speaker 1: on my depth here. So we're made out of electrons

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Speaker 1: and also protons. Under the question is do protons live forever?

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Speaker 1: That's right, and this is one of the deepest open

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Speaker 1: questions in modern physics. Does a proton sitting in the

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Speaker 1: universe by itself eventually turn into something else? Or will

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Speaker 1: it last forever? So that's an awesome question, and so

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Speaker 1: as usual, Daniel went out there and ask people on

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Speaker 1: the internet if they thought protons lived forever. So, as usual,

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Speaker 1: before you hear these answers, think about it for a second.

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Speaker 1: Do you think protons live forever? Here's what people had

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Speaker 1: to say. I don't really understand what living forever means

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Speaker 1: for protons, but I do understand that they are converted

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Speaker 1: into different forms. Seeing a bita plas t K where

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Speaker 1: the proton gets converted into a neutron and a positroon

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Speaker 1: is released. I believe protons, if kind of like left alone,

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Speaker 1: just by themselves, they probably could live till the end

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Speaker 1: of the eternity, till the end of the universe, unless

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Speaker 1: some external effects can either destroy them or change them

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Speaker 1: like maybe you know fusion or fish, and protons can

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Speaker 1: change from one to another, but they are still protos.

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Speaker 1: I do not believe they live forever. I know electrons

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Speaker 1: live forever because you guys covered that in a previous podcast.

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Speaker 1: But I believe protons can be broken down obviously, you

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Speaker 1: guys do it as certain by smashing them and creating

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Speaker 1: new particles. Intitively, I would say that, um, we know

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Speaker 1: that like prodom is made up of two upquarks and

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Speaker 1: one dunk parks. I think so that I would think

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Speaker 1: that a prodom may not live forever in a form

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Speaker 1: of a proto. I have no idea about this. I

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Speaker 1: would say that they probably do not live forever, because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense that they would not decay at

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Speaker 1: some point. I would have to assume that protons don't

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Speaker 1: live forever, because before the Big Bang, we think the

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Speaker 1: universe was a big, hot, dense ball of energy, and

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Speaker 1: so I would have to guess that the universe could

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Speaker 1: return to such a state. I guess that decaying all

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Speaker 1: of time, and if the next holiday destination is Geneva,

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Speaker 1: then they really have a short time left. I don't

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Speaker 1: think so, alright. I feel like it's a lot of

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Speaker 1: confidence here in these answers. People are like no, and

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Speaker 1: some people are like yes, and some people are like

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Speaker 1: depends on what you mean living forever exactly. Got some

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Speaker 1: legalistic answers also, but it's fair because it's a bit

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Speaker 1: of a vague question, Like it's possible obviously to destroy

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Speaker 1: a proton. We do it every twenty five nanoseconds the

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Speaker 1: large change on collider by smashing them together. But really

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Speaker 1: the deep physics question is if you leave a proton alone,

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Speaker 1: will it decay into something else? Can you turn it

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Speaker 1: into something else? And that has deep implications for our

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Speaker 1: understanding of the very beginning of the universe, why our

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Speaker 1: universe is made out of matter, and also for like

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Speaker 1: our understanding of the fundamental theory of everything, how it

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Speaker 1: all links together. It turns out proton decay is really

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Speaker 1: little lynch pin for a lot of big questions. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot of stuff to hang on one simple question.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing, And it turns out proton decays really really

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Speaker 1: frustrating for particle theorist. Right, So it seems like we

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Speaker 1: can kill protons, but the question is do they spontaneously

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Speaker 1: die at some point or breakdown or did you have

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Speaker 1: a proton does it sit around forever? So maybe, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: let's step through it one thing at a time. First,

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Speaker 1: of all, let's talk about particles dying in the first place,

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Speaker 1: or I guess you use the term decay. That's right.

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Speaker 1: We prefer the term decay. Or you have transformed into

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Speaker 1: something else, something lighter and more femoral. We don't like

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Speaker 1: to talk about them dying. We call it passing, not dying.

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Speaker 1: You're graduating to the next phase of your particle existence,

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Speaker 1: you're leveling up. But yes, in general, particles do like

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Speaker 1: to decay, and that's just a function of time moving

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Speaker 1: forward and entropy. You know, the same way that you

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Speaker 1: can't have a bunch of gas particles in the corner

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Speaker 1: of a box and have them to stay there. They

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Speaker 1: like to spread out because energy likes to diffuse. That

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Speaker 1: increases entropy and disorder in the universe. You can't have

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Speaker 1: that much energy isolated in a quantum field, so that

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Speaker 1: a particle is in a really heavy state. They like

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Speaker 1: to decay down to the lowest state. They like to

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Speaker 1: spread that energy out. They give off a photon or

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Speaker 1: they eject another particle. They turned into multiple particles, and

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Speaker 1: they just essentially stepped down the ladder as far as

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Speaker 1: they and again we're not talking about like particles disassembling

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Speaker 1: you know, like if if I build a lego in

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Speaker 1: my house, you know, with my kids, it's not gonna

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Speaker 1: last very long. It's kind of eventually get dissembled. We're

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Speaker 1: talking really about like quantum transformation, like a particle literally

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Speaker 1: like transforms into other things. Yeah, let's take an example

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Speaker 1: of the muan. The muan is a heavy version of

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Speaker 1: the electron, and the muan turns into an electron and

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Speaker 1: then a couple of neutrinos to satisfy some conservation laws.

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Speaker 1: But the muan doesn't last very long at all, last

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Speaker 1: for micro seconds and it just turns into the electron.

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Speaker 1: And as you said, it's not like the muan is

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Speaker 1: just the electron with a couple of neutrinos bound together,

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Speaker 1: and then it breaks apart and those little internal pieces

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Speaker 1: fly out. This really is like alchemy. Like the muon

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Speaker 1: is an excited state of the muan field and then

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Speaker 1: it transforms into an excited state of the electron field

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Speaker 1: and to neutrino fields. And so that's our current understanding

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Speaker 1: of how this muon decay happens. You have isolated heavy

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Speaker 1: particle turns into three lighter particles. Right, it's not a

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Speaker 1: rearrangement and it just it doesn't spontaneously like it's just

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Speaker 1: sitting there. A muon is just sitting there and then

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Speaker 1: suddenly pop, it just turns into an electron and two neutrinus. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's one of the real quantum randomness is in our universe,

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Speaker 1: Like it has a probability at any moment to decay.

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Speaker 1: When an individual muan actually decays is determined by some

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Speaker 1: random quantum toss of the dice. If you have like

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Speaker 1: a thousand muons in a bottle, then half of them

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Speaker 1: will decay after a certain time, then another half after

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Speaker 1: another certain time, etcetera. On average, but each individual one

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Speaker 1: is determined by a random toss of the dice. It's

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Speaker 1: just like radioactive decay of a nucleus, which is exactly

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Speaker 1: the same kind of process. I see. It's not that

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Speaker 1: it's delicate and like you know, you're stacking blocks and

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Speaker 1: then suddenly when passed by or you push a little

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Speaker 1: bit and it topples over it. It's literally like you know,

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Speaker 1: in its fabric of its existence, to just spontaneously turn

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Speaker 1: into something else. Yeah. The picture I have in my

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Speaker 1: head is that it's like you know, flipping a coin

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Speaker 1: or rolling a die, every microsecond, and if it gets

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Speaker 1: the right answer, boom, it decays, and if it doesn't,

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Speaker 1: it sticks around it a new one for a while. Um.

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Speaker 1: And so it's just like keeps rolling that die or

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Speaker 1: picking a random number until it gets the right one

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Speaker 1: and then it decides. All right, now it's time for

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Speaker 1: me to become an electron and a couple of neutrinos. Right,

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Speaker 1: but you're telling me that it needs to have like

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Speaker 1: a path for the decay, like it has to have,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of a solution for its decay. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can't just turn into anything, right. A muan can't

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Speaker 1: just like say, hey, I'm going to become a photon. Cool,

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Speaker 1: that sounds like fun. The universe has rules, and these

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Speaker 1: rules determine what particles can decay into other particles. The

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Speaker 1: important thing to understand about these rules is that mostly

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Speaker 1: we have no idea where they come from. They're just

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Speaker 1: like our description. It's like you watch a bunch of particles,

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Speaker 1: you see what happens. You try to notice patterns, and

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Speaker 1: you codify those patterns into rules. That doesn't mean you

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Speaker 1: know why that rule exists. So when we say, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, charge is conserved, doesn't mean we know why

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Speaker 1: it's conserved. It just means that we've never seen this

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Speaker 1: rule broken, so we think it's a fundamental rule of

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Speaker 1: the universe. And so that's one of them. Right. Why

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Speaker 1: can't a muan just turn into a photon. Well, muan

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Speaker 1: has electric charge and a photon doesn't, so to do

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Speaker 1: that would break that rule of conserving electric charge. Right,

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Speaker 1: it has to be a decay that makes sense to

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Speaker 1: the universe. Okay, it's not like a total magic like

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Speaker 1: an el can just turn into a dwarf, that's right.

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Speaker 1: You have to like fill out a big application and

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Speaker 1: submitted to the universe's lawyers and they have to check

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Speaker 1: all the boxes and they say, all right approved. It's

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Speaker 1: more like getting a bank loan than magically transforming, all right.

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Speaker 1: And if there's nothing for you to decay to, like

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Speaker 1: in according to the laws of the universe, then you

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Speaker 1: can't decay. You're like stuck, that's right. And that's the

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Speaker 1: situation with the electron. There's nothing lighter than the electron,

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Speaker 1: like the muon can decay to electron because the muon

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Speaker 1: is heavier than the electron. It can go down, but

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Speaker 1: to go up. It's not spontaneous decay. The electron can't

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Speaker 1: decay up into the muan. There's nothing for it to

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Speaker 1: go down to. It's the lightest thing on its ladder. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are other lower mass particles, like a photon for example,

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Speaker 1: but again an electron can't get to be a photon

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Speaker 1: because that would violate the conservation of electric charge. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so then there are rules. And if there's no step

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Speaker 1: down for you to go down to, then you're stuck.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And you know, there's another particle that's very

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Speaker 1: similar to the proton. It's the neutron. And the neutron

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Speaker 1: is almost the same as a proton. It's a slightly

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Speaker 1: different arrangement of quarks. Like the proton is made out

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Speaker 1: of these smaller particles called quarks, and the proton is

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Speaker 1: two ups and and down. The neutron is two downs

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Speaker 1: and an up. Now, the neutron is slightly heavier than

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Speaker 1: the proton, a tiny bit more mass, so the neutron

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Speaker 1: can turn into a proton, no problem. And it also

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Speaker 1: shoots off an electron to conserve electric charge. So that happens.

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Speaker 1: And if you have like a neutron sitting around and

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Speaker 1: on average, after about nine hundred seconds, it will turn

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Speaker 1: into a proton. But because the proton is lighter than

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Speaker 1: the neutron, there's nowhere for the proton to go. Because

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Speaker 1: there's this weird rule we have observed that says you

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Speaker 1: have to keep constant the number of cork triplets, like

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Speaker 1: the number of particles made out of three quarks cannot change,

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Speaker 1: all right, And there's kind of a rule that says

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Speaker 1: that when you decayed down into something, you need like

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Speaker 1: a force to help you do it. That's right. All

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Speaker 1: these decays happen through some force, right, Like when the

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Speaker 1: muon decays into the electron, he uses the weak force.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean, Like like the weak force has

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Speaker 1: to be involved or you actually need to like inject

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Speaker 1: some weak force into it. It means that the weak

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Speaker 1: force is involved. What actually happens when it decays is

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Speaker 1: that the mu and turns into immuon neutrino and a

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Speaker 1: w boson, and that w boson then turns into an

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Speaker 1: electron and a second neutrino, so it like mediates the decay.

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Speaker 1: It's like every time you feel a force the wall

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Speaker 1: is pushing back on you for example, Really that's happening

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Speaker 1: by the exchange of energy from photons, and so all interactions.

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Speaker 1: Every time particles talk to each other, it happens through

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Speaker 1: one of the forces. Okay, so then when you decay,

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Speaker 1: you need this force to kind of like pass the

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Speaker 1: energy around between the resulting bits. Yeah, exactly. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, another example is a particle called the pion.

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Speaker 1: Pion is two corks, a cork and an anti cork,

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Speaker 1: and this thing can turn into two photons, and that

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Speaker 1: happens via electromagnetism. Essentially, the cork and the anti cork

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Speaker 1: and decide to annihilate each other and turn into these

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Speaker 1: two photons. And so that there's something for it to

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Speaker 1: turn into doesn't break any of the rules, and there's

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Speaker 1: a force to make it happen. All right, So we

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Speaker 1: know that particles can decay if there's thing, you know,

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Speaker 1: less energetic that they can decay into, and if you

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Speaker 1: follow the rules of the universe. So now the question

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Speaker 1: is do protons de case So mostly you and I

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Speaker 1: are now to protons and electrons and neutrons, and so

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Speaker 1: the question is due protons decay? So let's get into that.

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Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break, all right, Dianiel,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about whether protons live Forever, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like that's like an eighties song or something. Do Protons

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Speaker 1: Live Forever? Sounds like a heavy metal you know, hair band,

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Speaker 1: sounds like a love The protons of my love will

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Speaker 1: be here to the end of the universe. That's probably

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Speaker 1: in the next bill. There you go, Yeah, you have

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Speaker 1: a rock band in your garage with other physicists. No,

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Speaker 1: definitely not, And if I did, I would not admit

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Speaker 1: it here on the podcast. How I see you do

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Speaker 1: it under an alias another particle name. That's right exactly.

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Speaker 1: The rock and electrons, all right, So we're all made

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Speaker 1: out of electrons, protons and neutrons, and so the question

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Speaker 1: is do protons a because we know electrons cannot decay

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Speaker 1: spontaneously into someone else, but do protons decay? And so

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Speaker 1: the protons are different than electrons because protons are made

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Speaker 1: out of other particles. Right, Protons are made out of quarks.

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Speaker 1: So you take a proton, you look inside it, deep

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Speaker 1: inside it, and you find three particles. You find two

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Speaker 1: up corks and a down cork, and that means that

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Speaker 1: like it's made out of these three particles. It's just

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Speaker 1: an arrangement of those particles, right, But we have this

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Speaker 1: rule in the universe that we don't understand. And this

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Speaker 1: rule says that there's a fixed number of these cork triplets.

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Speaker 1: We call this a barrion. It's just three quirks together,

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Speaker 1: and you can make three qurks together and loss of

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Speaker 1: different arrangements. And for some reason, every time you have

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Speaker 1: an interaction, the number of baryons doesn't change. What do

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Speaker 1: you mean, like interactions, but corks always have and three. No,

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Speaker 1: but if you do have a triplet of quarks involved,

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Speaker 1: then you'll have the same number of triplets when you're done. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, a neutron decays to a proton. He started

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Speaker 1: with one triplet the neutron, which is an up down down,

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Speaker 1: and you ended up with one triplet the proton up

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Speaker 1: up down. Like, you can't go from one barrion to

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Speaker 1: zero baryons, or from ten burrions to eight burrions. You

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Speaker 1: have to have the same number of burrions when you

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Speaker 1: start and when you finish, which is not something we

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Speaker 1: understand at all. So it's not related to threes, like

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Speaker 1: if I start with two, I have to end up

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Speaker 1: with two as well. No, there's no conservation on cork pairs.

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Speaker 1: Cork triplets have this special property. If you have a

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Speaker 1: qurk triplet, you have to end up with a cork triplet.

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Speaker 1: And so, for example, when we smash protons together at

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Speaker 1: the large change on collider, two protons come in. We

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Speaker 1: destroy those two protons. We always make at least two

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Speaker 1: baryons that come out. Okay, So then neutrons, which were

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Speaker 1: also made out of those don't live forever. You're saying,

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Speaker 1: like a neutron, if you just leave it alone in

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Speaker 1: the universe, it's gonna not be a neutron for law.

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Speaker 1: That's right. It only lasts about eight hundred and eighty

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Speaker 1: seconds on its own. Now, the neutrons in your body

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Speaker 1: are much more stable because the environment in your body

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Speaker 1: keeps them sort of stuck together. But if you had

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Speaker 1: a neutron by itself in the universe, after about eight

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Speaker 1: hundred eighty seconds, it would turn into a proton and

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Speaker 1: an electron. And you notice that keeps the number of

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Speaker 1: baryons a number of cork triplets constant, because the neutron

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Speaker 1: is one and the proton is one. Oh, I see,

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Speaker 1: so alright, So a neutron by itself candycy, but it

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Speaker 1: turns into a proton basically turns into a proton plus

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Speaker 1: an electron to carry off the other half of the

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Speaker 1: electric charge. To follow that one rule. And so what

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Speaker 1: happens there for the neutron, like the quarks inside just

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Speaker 1: kind of flipped and then it becomes something else. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: one of the down corks becomes an up cork, and

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Speaker 1: it gives off a w boson, which is where you

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Speaker 1: get the electron and actually a little neutrino, which is

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Speaker 1: how neutrinos were discovered. But these arrangements of quarks, like

427
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,880
Speaker 1: one arrangement of quarks and up down, down, it gives

428
00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 1: you a neutron, a different set of quarks up up,

429
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 1: down that gives you a proton. The proton is the

430
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 1: lowest mass arrangement of quarks, Like, there's no way to

431
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 1: make an arrangement of quarks that has a lower mass

432
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 1: in the protons. So it's sort of like the lightest

433
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:15,000
Speaker 1: thing on the ladder of bury on. But for quark triplet, Yes,

434
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,240
Speaker 1: for quark, you can make something out of two quarks.

435
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 1: You can make something out of two quarks, like a

436
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: pion has lower mass. But the cork triplet ladder, for

437
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: some reason, it's on its own. It's like a special

438
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 1: thing in the universe. And if you're on that ladder,

439
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 1: you have to stay on that ladder, and the proton

440
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,120
Speaker 1: is the bottom rung of that ladder. There's no lighter

441
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 1: arrangement of three quarks than the proton. So that's why

442
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 1: the proton seems to be stuck unless you can somehow

443
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:42,399
Speaker 1: jump off this ladder. I see, it's like once he

444
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: has three quarks, instead of stuck having three quarts, exactly,

445
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,959
Speaker 1: you can do something, make a different arrangement of three quarks.

446
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 1: You can move up or down the ladder by injecting energy.

447
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,919
Speaker 1: You're waiting for it to decay. But you have to

448
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,199
Speaker 1: have something on the ladder. Once you have something on

449
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,239
Speaker 1: the ladder. But couldn't I like, you know, split up

450
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: that triplet. Can't three quarts make up a proton just

451
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: like you know, when they decide to go their separate ways,

452
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: then you destroy the proton. Basically, you can do that

453
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: if you create a larger system, right, so you like

454
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: involve it in some other bonds and some other configurations,

455
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: then you can destroy a proton, for example. But a

456
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: proton on its own will never decay. We think it

457
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 1: might be stable. We've never seen a proton jump off

458
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: the ladder, and every interaction we've ever seen keeps the

459
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,360
Speaker 1: same number of these barrier I see. But I mean,

460
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: like can quarks exists on their own, you can't have

461
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: quirks on their own. They have such a strong interaction

462
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: with other corks, and the strength of that interaction gets

463
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: stronger and stronger as quirks get further and further apart,

464
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 1: which creates so much energy around them that they create

465
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,160
Speaker 1: particles out of the vacuum to make these pairs and triplets.

466
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: So you never see corks by themselves. They're always in

467
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: these pairs or triplets or maybe in weird exotic larger

468
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 1: combinations tetra corks and hexa corks. But there's a special

469
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: relationship that the universe has with these triplets of quirks

470
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: that we don't understand. We've never seen a proton decay,

471
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 1: and so we think there might be some special rule

472
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: that protects these cork triblets. On the other hand, we

473
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 1: have very good reason to think that protons might decay

474
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 1: or that they should, So it's not for certain. It's

475
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,959
Speaker 1: definitely not for certain. No, it's something we don't understand

476
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,239
Speaker 1: it's a core mystery at the heart of physics. All right,

477
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 1: So you've never seen a proton spontaneously decay, and what

478
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: does that mean? Like, have we actually like put a

479
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: proton on their microscope and left it there for a

480
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: couple of hours or days or years. Yeah? Actually we

481
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: put like ten to the thirty four protons under a

482
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: microscope and we waited a few years to see if

483
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:42,199
Speaker 1: any of them decay. What do you mean, like you

484
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,439
Speaker 1: actually put them in a little container and left them

485
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,719
Speaker 1: there a really big container. Right. One way to do this,

486
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:50,360
Speaker 1: one way to ask, like does a proton decay? Can

487
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: we measure it? Is to take a single proton and wait.

488
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: But if you think that a proton might take like

489
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: a trillion trillion trillion years to decay, then your experiment's

490
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 1: going to take the trillion trillion trillion years. Instead, what

491
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: you can do is say, well, I'm gonna take a

492
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: trillion trillion trillion protons, which is not that hard to

493
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: make because every piece of matter has a lot of

494
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: protons and see if any of them decay. Because if

495
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: none of them decay within a year or two years,

496
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: then I can make a statistical argument about how long

497
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: they live. Oh, I see, So that's what you have

498
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: in the in the large hattern collider, not in the

499
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: large hedge and collider. That's not where we study proton decay.

500
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: But in big underground experiments like super Commo Conda and

501
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: the upcoming do and experiment are perfect for looking for

502
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: proton decays. All right, So you don't think that they

503
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: can decay, but do you think they might? What makes

504
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: you think they might decay? Well, the universe sort of

505
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:44,360
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense if protons can't decay. Like, if protons

506
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: could decay, the whole universe would make a lot more sense,

507
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 1: which makes us want them to decay, even though we've

508
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: never seen them. And the reason it is that, well,

509
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: you know, we have more baryons in the universe than

510
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: anti barions. Well, we talked about earlier how you have

511
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: to have the same umber of barrions in the universe.

512
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 1: That's the opposite for anti berrions. Like you can actually

513
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: create a burrion and anti berion together because it keeps

514
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: the number of burrions the same because anti berrions count

515
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 1: for minus one. And again, a barion is a triplet

516
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: of court that's right. Yeah, And so we think that

517
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: the universe started off with no particles, as you said,

518
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: and then particles were made, which must have made the

519
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: same number of burions and anti burions, but somehow we

520
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: ended up with a lot more protons than anti protons. Like,

521
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: we think there are almost no antiberians out there, so

522
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: there must be something out there which lets us either

523
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: create burions on their own or destroy anti berions preferentially.

524
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 1: There's something out there to explain why we have so

525
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: much more matter than anti matter. Something allows us to

526
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: make these buryons. Right, But isn't it just sort of

527
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: like electrons to like, you know, you can create and

528
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: destroy electrons. What makes us think that then electrons can't

529
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: decay but protons might be able to so, right, the

530
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: same argument goes for electrons that we think, you know,

531
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: why do we have more electrons in the universe than positrons? Right?

532
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: This is this whole question of antimatter. But there are

533
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: other reasons that we think that protons might decay, and

534
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 1: that comes from like looking at the patterns of the forces.

535
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,679
Speaker 1: We have the electromagnetism, which is a force. We have

536
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 1: the weak force, we have the strong force, and we

537
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 1: have gravity. And people like to try to put these together,

538
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: they say, well, it's weird to have like four different

539
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: forces or five different forces. Can we fit these together

540
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: into a larger pattern that has just one overarching you know,

541
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: ring to rule them all, so to force. And every

542
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: time the theorists do this, every time they put those

543
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: pieces together, it always ends up predicting a new little

544
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: force that we haven't seen very much anymore, that hasn't

545
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: been around since the beginning the universe, that can decay protons,

546
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: that turns protons into a pion and a pository. What So,

547
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: when you try to, you know, kind of squish all

548
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: the forces together like you think they're radically Like if

549
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: I try to come up with a like a super

550
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: megaporce that includes all the other forces, you're saying, I

551
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: have to come up with a new fifth force. Yeah, well,

552
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: it's sort of like it's a part of this megaporce

553
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen very much anymore. So put all these

554
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: forces together into one megaphorce. And that megaphorce because it

555
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: was around in the early universe, before the universe cooled

556
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: and the forces broke into these different forces that we

557
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: know today, it would have treated all the particles equally

558
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: like quarks and electrons and all those stuff. And so

559
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: this force should be able to turn quirks into leptons

560
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 1: for example, and back and forth. And currently our forces

561
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: can't do that, Like, none of the forces that we

562
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:43,239
Speaker 1: have today are capable of turning quirks into leptons. They

563
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: aren't capable of doing that. But this leftover force, there

564
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: might be a particle which exists in the universe but

565
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: requires so much energy to create that we hardly ever

566
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: see it, which means it's very unlikely for it to

567
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: do anything. But it might vary occasionally every true brillion

568
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: trillion trillion years be responsible for the decay of a proton.

569
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: I see, maybe protons have this secret weakness, that this

570
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: is hidden force that hasn't been around since the beginning

571
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, and maybe that's the key, right, because

572
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: every time they put one of these theories together, it

573
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: always predicts that protons will decay. It's just like a

574
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: natural consequence of making this megaphorce. It has this symmetry

575
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: where it treats the quarks and the leftons in the

576
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: same way. It always predicts this new X particle. The

577
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 1: X particle would take like the two up corks inside

578
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: the proton and turn them into like a positron and

579
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: a down cork, and that gives you a proton turning

580
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: into a pion and a positron. And so it's just inescapable.

581
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: And every time the theorists make one of these theories,

582
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 1: they're like, darn it, my theory predicts proton decay. It's

583
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: very frustrating for them that I can't escape this prediction.

584
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: I say, all right, well, let's get into how we

585
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: might be looking experimentally for evidence that the proton case

586
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: and when we can expect an answer. But first let's

587
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: take another quick break. All right, Daniel, do protons and

588
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: love live forever? It's the question, But I guess we're

589
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: only tackling the proton partire today. Yeah, don't come to

590
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: a particle physicist for questions about love unless it's about

591
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: love of particles. A right. So, um, there are reasons

592
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: to think maybe the proton does decay. One is that,

593
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: you know, it might explain antimatter, and the other one

594
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: is that the theory set of point to maybe a

595
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: possible kind of new force which would allow protons to decay.

596
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: Second of the idea, Yeah, and remember this is all theoretical.

597
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: This is like, we look at the way the universe

598
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: is arranged, and we think it would make more sense

599
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: if we added this one other piece, but that piece

600
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: would mean that protons should decay. So then we go

601
00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: when we look for it, we said, well, maybe they do,

602
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: we just haven't noticed. Maybe it takes a long long time,

603
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: and so we just need to be really patient. Okay,

604
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: So it is that theoretically we don't think that the

605
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: proton can decay, but if it does, it kind of

606
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: means the existence of a new force. Is that kind

607
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: of the significance of this decay. Yeah, so we have

608
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: to invent this rule. This number of barriyons is fixed rule,

609
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: which we don't really like because it doesn't really make

610
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: any sense and it violates our understanding of matter and

611
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: antimatter asymmetry, and it keeps us from having this new

612
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: mega force, etcetera. So we'd love to get rid of

613
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: that and replace it with this new force and allow

614
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: protons to decay. But for that to be true, we

615
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: have to actually see one decay, and we have to

616
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,479
Speaker 1: prove that they can, because nobody's ever seen. So if

617
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: you see one decay, then it's like you have to

618
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: break the laws of physics. Kind yes, if you see

619
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: one decay, that's guaranteed Nobel Prize because you get to

620
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: rewrite the laws of physics in a way that makes

621
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: much more sense to everybody, that like fits together with

622
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: some real symmetry and beauty. And so everybody's sort of

623
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: hoping that protons will decay. I mean not your protons,

624
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: not my protons, but some proton somewhere we hope will

625
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: eventually decay. Did they already print that Nobel Prize? Like

626
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize for the decay of the proton. It's just

627
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: sitting on the shelf waiting for people to claim it.

628
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: You know. It's one of those experiments out there that

629
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: if you make it work, if you see this thing,

630
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: it's basically a guaranteed Nobel Prize. There are a few

631
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: things like that, you know, find the Higgs boson, see

632
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: gravitational waves, find a magnetic monopole. These things that people

633
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: have been looking for forever. They think should exist, but

634
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: nobody's ever seen one. If you found and it would

635
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: really you know, fill in a missing box in our

636
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: understanding of the universe. So yeah, go look for one.

637
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: Exposed the proton get a prize. That's right, This is

638
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: particle is ten most wanted list, right, So then there

639
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: are a couple of experiments out there that are actually

640
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: trying to win this Nobel prize. They're trying to see

641
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: if protons decay and and so what's involved here, Daniel?

642
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: Are they just put a bunch in a box and

643
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: then stare at them or or do you shake it?

644
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: Do you shake the box? What do you have to do?

645
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: He's trying not to shake the box. And in fact,

646
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: you know, you can play a sort of simple calculation

647
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: with any blob of protons like you. You know, you,

648
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: for example, have like ten to the twenty eight protons,

649
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: something like a trillion quadrillion protons in your body, so

650
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: you know already that protons lived for more than, you know,

651
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: a hundred years, because people don't tend to die of

652
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: proton decay, you know, like people just like suddenly disintegrate,

653
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: like Thanos snapping his thumbs. But also, I mean you

654
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: said that the protons in my body are kind of

655
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: bound together with other protons and neutrons, and that helps

656
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: him live longer. Yeah, but unfortunately that's the only kind

657
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 1: of proton we can really study like, we can't take

658
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 1: pure individual free protons and study them on their own.

659
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: All we can do is study protons that exist in matter,

660
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,720
Speaker 1: which are in bound states. And so that's a big

661
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: asterisk on all of the results that we're going to

662
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,760
Speaker 1: talk about today that none of them actually involves studying

663
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: free protons. Okay, So then stepping through, what are these

664
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: experiments and what are they doing? Well, the most powerful

665
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 1: result right now, the one that tells us the most

666
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: about proton decay, comes from this experiment in Japan. It's

667
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 1: super Commoo Conda, and they basically have a thirteen story

668
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: stack of water and it's just a huge container filled

669
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 1: with water, and it's surrounded by cameras essentially, and it's

670
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: totally dark and it's underground. And this is an experiment

671
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: that's mostly designed to look for neutrinos coming from the

672
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: Sun or coming from deep space or from supernovas, but

673
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: it's also good for looking for proton decay because if

674
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: proton decays in this tank, they think they will see it. Oh,

675
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: I see so, but it's filled with water. I guess

676
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: water has hydrogen oxygen, and those all have protons and

677
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: they have something like ten to the thirty two protons

678
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: basically sitting in the tank, and so if none of

679
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: them decay in a year, then you know that the

680
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 1: half life of the proton is more than ten to

681
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: the thirty two years. But these are not isolated protons.

682
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: They're in these bound states within the atoms. That doesn't

683
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 1: that protect them, it does protect them potentially. And so

684
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: as we were saying early here, like this is a

685
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: big asterisk in all of these results. We would love

686
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: to have ten to the thirty two free protons in

687
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: the container that we could study and then we could

688
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: directly understand this question. But we don't all the protons

689
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: we have our inbound states, and we don't have ionized

690
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,760
Speaker 1: hydrogen gas in large enough containers that we build cameras around,

691
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: and so we just have to sort of like make

692
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: the measurement on bound protons and assume that it also

693
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: works for free protons. But it's a big assumption, but

694
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: it's also all we can do currently. All right, So,

695
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: staring at water, what expery went you make? Particle physics

696
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: sounds so exciting. I mean, look for variations and the

697
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: loss of physics in violations of symmetry of matter and

698
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: antimatter otherwise known as staring at water. If it happened,

699
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 1: it would be kind of dramatic because you would have

700
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 1: this special signature because you would get a pion on

701
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: one side, which turns into two photons. You get these

702
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 1: two little splashes in your camera, and on the other

703
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: side you would get a positron, which makes a little splash.

704
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: So they've simulated exactly what this would look like in

705
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: their cameras and it's very weird and unusual and different

706
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 1: from anything they've ever seen before. And so they've been

707
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: running this thing for years and years and years and

708
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: they've never seen a single one, and so that means

709
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: that they can pretty confidently say that the lifetime of

710
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: the proton is more than ten to the thirty four years,

711
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: which is a huge number because remember the universe, the

712
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 1: entire universe is only thirteen billion years old, so like,

713
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: this is many orders of magnitude longer than the history

714
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 1: of the universal But again, these are in bound states,

715
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 1: or do you calibrate for that as well? These are

716
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 1: in bound states. No, we can't really calibrate for that.

717
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: We don't really know how to extrapolate from bound state

718
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:53,399
Speaker 1: protons to unbound protons to free protons. We just sort

719
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: of like assume it's going to be something similar. Okay,

720
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 1: So then that's one experiment. The super Cameo super co

721
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: Neo Conda Conda all right, sounds like superhero or something.

722
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,240
Speaker 1: Is an awesome experiment in Japan, and then we're building

723
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,239
Speaker 1: one here in the United States that we talked about

724
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: on a recent episode called Dune Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

725
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 1: And these neutrino experiments essentially for free, you get a

726
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 1: proton decay experiment because the same thing they can be

727
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: used to look for neutrinos in Dune's case from a

728
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,879
Speaker 1: neutrino beam or from the Sun or from supernovas, can

729
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 1: also look for decays of protons. And this is kind

730
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 1: of a similar idea to write, like you have a

731
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,360
Speaker 1: big vat of stuff and you wait for it to change. Yeah, exactly.

732
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: And in the case of Dune is not water, it's

733
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: liquid argone. They're pioneering a new technology to take this

734
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: noble gas argone and they cool it down until it's

735
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: a liquid, but it has the same property that it's

736
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: very quiet. So mostly if you have a huge several

737
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: ton container of liquid argone underground and you put cameras

738
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: on it, it'll stay dark. But if you see an

739
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: interaction like a new trino or or a proton decaying,

740
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: you should be able to spot that, because it's like

741
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: taking a picture of a single tiny flash of light

742
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:09,839
Speaker 1: in a very dark room. Since it's camera can pick

743
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: that up. Cool, and so far they haven't seen it.

744
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: But again, this one is also you're looking at argons,

745
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 1: so you're looking at protons in a bound state inside

746
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: of the nucleus of the argon at them. That's right,

747
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: But hey, that's all we can do. Dune hasn't turned

748
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: on yet. They're still building it. It's gonna be turning

749
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: on in a few years. But because it's a much

750
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,720
Speaker 1: larger volume, they have many more tons. It will provide

751
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: even more stringent limits on the lifetime of the proton.

752
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,760
Speaker 1: Or maybe they'll get lucky, maybe they'll see one decay.

753
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: But I guess, why can't you just like isolate a

754
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: proton and look at it. Is that hard? I mean,

755
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: you guys do it at the large hattern collider. Yeah,

756
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: you can isolate a proton and you can look at it,

757
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 1: But a single proton will not tell you much about

758
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:50,879
Speaker 1: the lifetime of the proton unless you wait a very

759
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: very long time. So you either need a lot of

760
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: protons or a lot of time, and a lot of

761
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 1: protons are very hard to keep isolated. I mean, could

762
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 1: have a gas of protons. We do that the hydrunk glider,

763
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: but you know we have like tend of the twelve

764
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: protons tend to thirteen protons. You need to keep these

765
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,759
Speaker 1: things isolated. You need to watch them and then you

766
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: need to instrument it, right, You need to be watching

767
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: for them to decay. And so that's much easier to

768
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 1: do when you have a neutral substance, something which is quiet,

769
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: which doesn't otherwise make lots of flashes of light. Oh,

770
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 1: I see, it's like you can isolate a whole bunch

771
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: of protons, but then you actually have to notice if

772
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: like one of them the kids. Yeah, because a bunch

773
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,760
Speaker 1: of protons together, it's called the plasma, and a plasma

774
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: is not a quiet thing to instrument, right, That's like

775
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: where we try to do fusion and stuff like that.

776
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: So it's a pretty trick the experiment to do for

777
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: actual free protons, which is why we only ever do

778
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: it for protons in a bound state. But you're right

779
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: that doesn't actually tell us about free proton. All right,

780
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: So there are people looking for this decay of the proton.

781
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: Then there's people staring at water and argon waiting for

782
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: one of these protons to suddenly die. That's right, staring

783
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: at water waiting for a Nobel prize to about out

784
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: of a little tiny proton. Hey, if I told you

785
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: stare at this tank, a Nobel prize might appear. You know,

786
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: you might devote a couple of years to that. Yeah,

787
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: shorter than a PhD. A couple of trillion years, why not?

788
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: Or you might not see anything. Unfortunately, that's usually the

789
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: case in particle physics. You're looking for something crazy. You're

790
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: hoping you might see something spectacular, but you see nothing.

791
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: But the good news is that most of our experiments

792
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: are still interesting even if you don't see anything, because

793
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,760
Speaker 1: you can still say something. You can say, we didn't

794
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: see the proton decay. Therefore we know it doesn't decay

795
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: on average in less than tend of the thirty four

796
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: tend of the thirty five years. So you still get

797
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: to say something interesting about physics. Alright. So it sounds

798
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 1: like you're pretty confident then that we can say that

799
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 1: the proton does not decay or won't die, or we'll

800
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: live for at least ten to the thirty four years,

801
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 1: which is pretty much forever, right, it's almost forever. I mean,

802
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 1: it's a lot longer than our universe has been around

803
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: so far. But it's also still a real problem for

804
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: theoretical physicists when they try to construct their grain unified theories,

805
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: their theories of everything, when they want to understand what

806
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 1: happened to the very beginning of the universe, they have

807
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: to do it in a way that keeps the proton

808
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: from decaying, and that's theoretically very tricky. It's like, you know,

809
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 1: they have to pass through the eye of a needle

810
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 1: to keep the proton from decaying in their theory. And

811
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: so everybody would be very happy to see a proton decay, oh,

812
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: I see, because it would make the equations easier to solve.

813
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: It would mean that all the theories which predict proton

814
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: decay might actually be correct. And those equations are beautiful

815
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: and they make a lot of sense, and they answer

816
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: a lot of other questions about like matter and antimatter

817
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: and the forces being unified. But those equations can't be

818
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: right if the proton doesn't decay. If the proton doesn't decay,

819
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: those equations are just wrong, even though they're beautiful and

820
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: they're simple and they're attractive. So then we need to

821
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: find some other way to solve those problems. And theoretically

822
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: that's just much harder without proton decay. So it's not

823
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:02,839
Speaker 1: just a whole bunch of physicists looking staring at water.

824
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: You're staring at water waiting for the proton to die, hoping, hoping.

825
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: You're hoping for the proteon to die here. That's right,

826
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,439
Speaker 1: that's the big twist. You thought we would be rooting

827
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: for the proteon to lift forever, but instead we're anti protons.

828
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 1: You're like, just die already. We're cheering on its demise

829
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: to retire and win my noble pride. That's right. Somebody

830
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: in a very future universe will finally see a proton

831
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: decay in a trillion trillion trillion years. I hope they're

832
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,720
Speaker 1: still giving out Nobel prizes. Then I hope our protons

833
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: are still around. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed

834
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: that and got a little bit of a sense of

835
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: how long things live in the universe. Apparently, some things do,

836
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 1: some things don't, and it's amazing the cosmic importance of

837
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: one little proton, a single proton in a vat of

838
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: water in Japan, decaying could crack open the answer to

839
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: these deep mysteries about the beginning of our universe, the

840
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 1: balance between matter and antimatter, how everything fits together. It's

841
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: incredibly import And then it just really highlights the connection

842
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: between particle physics and cosmology and astrophysics, and really, particle

843
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: physics is basically the whole universe. That's what I'm saying.

844
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: She's saying, give us more money. We're studying everything that's right.

845
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: That's what everything I say translates to effectively. All right, Well,

846
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 1: I hope that give you some stuff to think about.

847
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: The protons in your body and the electrons might live forever,

848
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 1: but particle physicists are hoping they don't see you next time.

849
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain

850
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. Or

851
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

852
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,399
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

853
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Yea