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Speaker 1: The universe is beautiful and amazing and strange and confusing,

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Speaker 1: and we struggle sometimes or a lot of times, to

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Speaker 1: make sense of it. One reason is that we have

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Speaker 1: a limited vocabulary to explain it to ourselves, not just

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Speaker 1: limited to the words that we choose, but the concepts

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Speaker 1: that we find familiar, the things we accept as explanations.

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Speaker 1: Most of physics is about explaining the weird, bonkers rules

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Speaker 1: of our universe in terms that do make sense to us,

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Speaker 1: like eating some new, weird fruit nobody's ever tasted before,

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Speaker 1: and then describing it in terms of familiar childhood staples.

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit like an orange, but with hints

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Speaker 1: of cherry and BlackBerry. That's what we try to do.

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Speaker 1: For example, with photons, we say, oh, they're kind of

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Speaker 1: like waves, they're kind of like particles, even though we

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Speaker 1: know that neither of those fully capture the alien of

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Speaker 1: the photon. But today's episode isn't about oranges or about photons,

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Speaker 1: at least not directly. We're going to dig into another

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Speaker 1: basic concept and try to understand what it really is.

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Speaker 1: Electric charge. What is it? Where is it? Why do

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Speaker 1: some particles have it? Why do some have more than others?

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Speaker 1: How is it connected to electric forces? And once we

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Speaker 1: have something of a handle on that, we're going to

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Speaker 1: see if we can extend it to something less familiar,

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Speaker 1: the weak force. How do charges work for those other forces?

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Speaker 1: And why, oh why did physicists call the charge for

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Speaker 1: the weak force hypercharge? Is it weak or is it hyper?

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Speaker 1: Make up your minds, physicists. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 1: hyper Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hello, what smith? I am a parasitologist and weak hypercharge

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Speaker 2: is a phrase that makes really no sense to me.

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Speaker 1: Huh. I'm Daniel Watson. I'm a particle physicist, and so

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Speaker 1: I should understand weak hypercharge, but it still gets scrambled

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Speaker 1: up in my head.

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Speaker 2: Well that's all right, we're going to clear it all

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Speaker 2: up today. And so you and I are very well

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Speaker 2: organized people, so we record our episodes a few months

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Speaker 2: before they actually come out. So for you and I,

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Speaker 2: it actually has recently become the new year, So welcome

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Speaker 2: to twenty twenty five. Do you believe in resolutions?

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Speaker 1: I believe in self improvement. You know, I think people

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Speaker 1: can take positive steps to change their life. I'm not

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Speaker 1: one of those naysayers who says people never change, because

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Speaker 1: my life has changed significantly in various ways over the years.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's good for people to have introspection,

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Speaker 1: think about their life, think about how it could change

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Speaker 1: in the new year, especially when you're reaching out to

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Speaker 1: folks who are in your community or used to be

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Speaker 1: in your community. You know, personal connection is the thing

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Speaker 1: that makes life wonderful. So reach out to somebody you

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Speaker 1: haven't talked to in a while and make that connection again.

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Speaker 2: That is a way deeper answer than I was expecting. Like, so,

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Speaker 2: my resolutions aren't usually like think about how you could

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Speaker 2: improve your personality and do something better, or reach out

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Speaker 2: to an old friend. It's like, I want to get

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Speaker 2: done this five resolution. I want two little baby ducks.

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Speaker 1: That's not a resolution, that's a wish list.

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Speaker 2: I resolved to build their habitat and make time in

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Speaker 2: my life for you know, a happy, relaxing pens.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to improve myself by adding ducks.

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Speaker 2: Hell, that will make me happy. That's a happiness improver.

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Speaker 2: Getting baby ducks and renovating my kitchen. Those are my

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five I guess they're goals now instead of resolutions.

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Speaker 2: Do you have a resolution you want to share, then

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Speaker 2: or a goal.

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Speaker 1: I do have a resolution for the year, and it's

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Speaker 1: about the podcast and its response to an email I

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Speaker 1: got on January first at eight am, where somebody wrote

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Speaker 1: in and says Happy New Year. Unfortunately, I can't listen

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Speaker 1: to the show anymore because of the perpetual giggling, which

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Speaker 1: of course just made me giggle. And I thought to myself, man,

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Speaker 1: who doesn't like a podcast with giggling in it? And

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Speaker 1: so this year, I'm gonna lean into the giggling.

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Speaker 2: I resolve to giggle with you a lot over we

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Speaker 2: hypercharges and strong forces and all sorts of other things.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna have a blest.

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Speaker 1: But it made me wonder about giggling, because you know,

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Speaker 1: I have a bit of a deeper voice, and I've

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Speaker 1: always thought myself as more of a chuckler than a giggler.

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Speaker 1: And so I don't know, what are your thoughts, where's

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Speaker 1: the distinction between giggling and chuckling.

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Speaker 2: After we record an episode, our editor does the editing,

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Speaker 2: he sends it to us. We listened to it to

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Speaker 2: make sure we didn't get anything wrong, and I was

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Speaker 2: listening to my laugh and I was like, I've got

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Speaker 2: a really like sort of obnoxious, dude ish kind of laugh,

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Speaker 2: But I don't care. It's unique. I'm happy and that's

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Speaker 2: all I care about.

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Speaker 1: Your laugh is not obnoxious. It's expressive. You know, you

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Speaker 1: are really showing us how funny you think something is.

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Speaker 1: It's very it's very New Jersey also though it is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I was born in New Jersey and

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Speaker 2: am proud of that. Yeah. I don't hold back it.

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Speaker 2: So I don't feel like either one of us do

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Speaker 2: what I would call giggling. But whatever, we're having fun

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Speaker 2: and let's resolve to lean into it absolutely.

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Speaker 1: And I think a key to understanding difficult concepts is

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Speaker 1: to giggle a little bit, right. You can't just always

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Speaker 1: go deep on these concepts. You got to lighten the

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Speaker 1: mood a little bit. That's kind of our brand, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: make a few mom jokes along the way, throwing a

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Speaker 1: few dad ponds, keep it light as we go deep

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Speaker 1: on the topics.

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Speaker 2: A couple jokes about Urinus.

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Speaker 1: So hey, if you're here to learn some deep concepts

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Speaker 1: about the universe and you are allergic to giggling, you

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Speaker 1: might have found the wrong podcast.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, there's got to be something else out there for you.

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Speaker 1: But we are going to go deep into topics, and

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Speaker 1: especially today, we're going to dig into one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite concepts in physics, not just because it tells you

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Speaker 1: something about how the universe works, but it shows you

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Speaker 1: the mechanics of how physics as a field struggles with

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Speaker 1: try to grapple with something alien. How we start from

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Speaker 1: intuitive concepts and we build this precarious scaffolding to help

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Speaker 1: us understand something even weird or and translate it back

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Speaker 1: into something we might be able to make sense of.

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Speaker 2: And I'm super excited today because you sent me the

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Speaker 2: outline for this topic and there's a bunch of things

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Speaker 2: when I was reading it through that made me think,

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Speaker 2: oh gosh, I thought I knew the difference between like

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Speaker 2: charge and force, but maybe I really don't. And I

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Speaker 2: think a bunch of that's going to get cleared up today,

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Speaker 2: and I'm glad that I'll be giggling along the way.

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Speaker 2: And you know what's good for giggles.

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Speaker 1: What's good for giggles, Kelly.

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Speaker 2: The hilarious answers we get from our audience. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we get lots of great, serious answers, but we also

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Speaker 2: usually get some pretty funny ones when folks don't know

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Speaker 2: what it is. So let's go ahead and giggle at

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Speaker 2: lots of amazing answers.

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Speaker 1: So today we're talking about electric charge and the weak fours,

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Speaker 1: and specifically weak hypercharge. So I went out there to

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Speaker 1: our volunteers and I asked them if they knew what

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Speaker 1: weak hypercharge was. Think about it for yourself. Do you

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Speaker 1: know what a weak hypercharge is? Here's what audience members

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Speaker 1: had to say, All right, sort of.

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Speaker 3: A permeter of property. It might even be a mathematical

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Speaker 3: concept to describe the weak force. The week hypercharge is

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Speaker 3: the value assigned to a particle participant.

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Speaker 4: It's either some extortionate tax imposed by a cowardly government,

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Speaker 4: or it's something associated with the weak field, which mirrors

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Speaker 4: the electric charge in the electromagnetic field.

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Speaker 1: Hypercharge combinds with isospin to somehow give a charge under

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Speaker 1: the electro weak force.

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Speaker 3: A charge state of the weak force.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea weaknd hyper sounds like my childhood Nope,

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Speaker 1: it's related to.

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Speaker 3: Quantum physics.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea what the hypercharge part would be

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Speaker 1: and how I would tie it to the weak force.

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Speaker 1: The weak hypercharge is the charge of the weak force.

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Speaker 3: Encapsulates a particles in some particular force along with its

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Speaker 3: spin and maybe mother information. I don't know what the

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Speaker 3: weak Harper charge is, but it sounds like there's a

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Speaker 3: stronger version of it somewhere.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's pretty easy. That's when you try to do

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Speaker 1: a hypercharge CAU and it's so weak it doesn't really.

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Speaker 3: Charge a single factor that enumerates both like a particle's

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Speaker 3: electric charge. It's weak charge and I don't know it's magnetic.

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Speaker 2: All right, So I chuckled at sounds like my childhood

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Speaker 2: and the one about attacks put on by a cowardly

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Speaker 2: governmental agency. So thank you everyone for the giggles and

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Speaker 2: the serious answers as well.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and some of these serious answers are right on

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Speaker 1: the money, so I was really impressed.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm not surprised.

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Speaker 1: We have a brilliant and good looking too. Wow, that's right.

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Speaker 2: That's what I think. It's called the halo effect. When

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Speaker 2: somebody is good at one thing and then you just

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Speaker 2: assume they're good at everything else. They're probably also like

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Speaker 2: fits and fast.

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Speaker 1: They smell good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, way to go, guys. All right, so let's start

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Speaker 2: like super back at the beginning. Let's make sure we're

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Speaker 2: all on the same page. With just even what is charge?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh wow, I'm supposed to answer that question. Whate'relie physicists?

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Speaker 2: Yea, what is charge?

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Speaker 1: So yeah, let's begin with charge, and let's just talk

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Speaker 1: about charge descriptively first before we get into the philosophy

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Speaker 1: of like what is it? Man? We know that electrons

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Speaker 1: have negative charge, Protons have positive charge, right, electrons or

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Speaker 1: minus one protons or plus one. So already we know

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Speaker 1: something about charge, which is that it's associated with the

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Speaker 1: number line. Right, it's a number. It can be zero,

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Speaker 1: it can be positive, it can be negative, right, It

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Speaker 1: also can be fractional. Quarks have two thirds of a

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Speaker 1: charge or minus one third of a charge, so it's

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Speaker 1: not an integer, right, So it's associated with the real

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Speaker 1: number line. We don't know if they're rational or irrational charges.

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Speaker 1: We've only ever seen fractional charges. But this tells us

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Speaker 1: something that charge lies along this spectrum. It's important to

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Speaker 1: keep that in mind because later on, when we get

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Speaker 1: to the week four the strong force, that's no longer true.

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Speaker 1: But let's stay on the safe ground of electricity. Particles

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Speaker 1: have this thing we call charge. It can be positive,

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Speaker 1: it can be negative, and there are mirrored versions of

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Speaker 1: it like there's the electron that has negative one charge,

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Speaker 1: and then there's another particle, the anti particle of the electron,

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Speaker 1: which is a version of it with positive charge. We

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Speaker 1: call that the positron. And every particle we've observed that

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Speaker 1: has a charge, there's also a partner particle that has

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Speaker 1: the opposite charge. The anti matter version of it has

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Speaker 1: the opposite charge. So a cork might have one third charge,

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Speaker 1: but the anti cork would have minus one third.

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Speaker 2: For example, I'm thinking of like a number line, and

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Speaker 2: we've got electrons with negative one and we've got protons

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Speaker 2: with one. Are the magnitude of those charges the same

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Speaker 2: in the different directions? Even though electrons are smaller and

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Speaker 2: protons are bigger, they still have opposite charges.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And when to put your finger on one of

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Speaker 1: the deepest mysteries in physics right there. Because electrons and

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Speaker 1: protons have opposite sign charges and exactly the same magnitude.

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Speaker 1: It's like electrons are minus one point zeros or zeros

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Speaker 1: z z is their infinite zeros and protons are plus

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Speaker 1: one point zero zero. And how do we know they

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Speaker 1: match exactly? Well, if they didn't match, you couldn't have

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Speaker 1: neutral atoms. Right. You use a proton and an electron

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Speaker 1: to make hydrogen, and then it's neutral, and it's crucial

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Speaker 1: that hydrogen is neutral, right, Like hydrogen gas clouds are

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Speaker 1: what forms most of the universe and the dynamics of

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Speaker 1: that and the reason they gravity can pull them together

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Speaker 1: to form stars is because it's neutral. Electricity, which is

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Speaker 1: much more powerful than gravity, has been literally neutralized because

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Speaker 1: these things cancel each other out. But as you say,

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Speaker 1: the electron is much smaller than the proton. The electron is,

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Speaker 1: we think fundamental, made of nothing but electron. The proton

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Speaker 1: is made of three quarks. Two of them have two

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Speaker 1: thirds charge, one of them has minus one third charge,

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Speaker 1: which add up to plus one. Why is that? Why

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Speaker 1: does the electron exactly balance this combination of quarks. Why

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Speaker 1: isn't it like off by a little bit, Because in

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Speaker 1: our theory those are just two different numbers, like there

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Speaker 1: are parameters in our theories, knobs that you could change,

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Speaker 1: and we think still have a valid universe, but a

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Speaker 1: very different universe. We don't know why these two knobs

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Speaker 1: happen to be set in exactly the way, so that

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Speaker 1: the charge of the proton and the charge of the

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Speaker 1: electron balance. It's like if I asked you to pick

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Speaker 1: two random numbers between zero and a zillion and you

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Speaker 1: picked the same number twice, or the number and its opposite, Like,

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Speaker 1: what are the chances of that? So it's a screaming

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Speaker 1: clue that there's a deep connection between the quarks and

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Speaker 1: the electrons, but we don't know what it is.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So a positron is an electron with a positive charge,

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Speaker 2: and that positive charge is that positive charge now plus one,

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Speaker 2: like the same quantity of charges a proton. Yes, you're

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Speaker 2: shaking your head exactly, but it's not done with that's right, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So an electron doesn't switch its charge to become

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Speaker 1: a positron. The universe can do two things. The universe

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Speaker 1: can make electrons. The universe can also make positrons. And remember,

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Speaker 1: electrons are ripples in a field, right the way like

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Speaker 1: photons are ripple in the electromagnetic field. Electrons are also

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Speaker 1: ripples in a field. They're ripples in the electron field.

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Speaker 1: So we have two different fields that sound very similar.

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Speaker 1: Bad naming becausists the electron field and the electromagnetic field.

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Speaker 1: Ripples in the electron field are called electrons. Or it

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Speaker 1: turns out that same field, not a different field. The

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Speaker 1: same field can ripple in another way, and that way

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Speaker 1: is a positron. So the electron field can ripple to

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Speaker 1: make electrons, or can ripple slightly differently to make positrons.

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Speaker 1: And this is something to Rack noticed years and years

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Speaker 1: and years ago when he was looking at the math

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Speaker 1: for electrons in field theory. He was like, hmm, if

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Speaker 1: the universe can do this, why can't it also do that?

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Speaker 1: In fact, I predict that it does. Then a couple

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Speaker 1: of years later, boom, we found positrons. So you're right,

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Speaker 1: positrons have the same electric charge as protons, but they're

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Speaker 1: fundamentally very different. Positrons, we think, are fundamental particles ripples

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Speaker 1: in the electron field that are different from the way

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Speaker 1: electrons make that field ripple, and protons are a combination

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Speaker 1: of three quarks, each of which is a ripple in

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Speaker 1: its own field.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so this is.

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Speaker 1: All descriptive, right, we're talking about what we've seen in

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Speaker 1: the universe. We've seen this charge, we've seen that charge,

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Speaker 1: and explaining in terms of fields makes us wonder like, well,

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Speaker 1: what is this thing anyway? Like, why is it that

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Speaker 1: some fields have charge, Like the electron field when it ripples,

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Speaker 1: it has a charged particle, but when the photon field ripples,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have a charge, Like photons aren't neutral, right,

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Speaker 1: So makes us wonder like what is charge anyway? Fundamentally?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, go on, what's the answer?

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Speaker 1: I was curious because I was like, is that just me?

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Speaker 1: Like interested in philosophy and physics? Is a biologist like, well,

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Speaker 1: we just grind it and we've given it a name.

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Speaker 1: So let's move on.

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Speaker 2: No, no, I following you. Let's go down the rabbit hole.

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Speaker 2: Let's go one more level of why.

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Speaker 1: And so we don't fundamentally know what charge is, but

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Speaker 1: we have a bunch of interesting clues. And when I

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Speaker 1: was growing up thinking and learning about charge, I used

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Speaker 1: to think about charge as a property of a particle

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Speaker 1: that could be like removed from it, you know, or

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Speaker 1: it's like a description of how the particle is. You know,

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Speaker 1: Like if you paint something red, Okay, now it's red,

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Speaker 1: but you could also paint it blue and it's still

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Speaker 1: the same thing. Right, Like you take an apple and

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Speaker 1: it's red, you paint a blue. It's blue now, but

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Speaker 1: it's still an apple, right? Or is it a fundamental

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Speaker 1: part of the thing that helps define what it is.

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Speaker 1: Is it something that you can take off of it,

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Speaker 1: like you can peel an apple and then you still

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Speaker 1: have an apple, right even though it's peeled. Can you

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Speaker 1: take an electron and remove the charge from it and

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Speaker 1: have like an peeled electron an uncharged electron, you know?

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Speaker 1: Or is the charge fundamentally part of the electron? This

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Speaker 1: is something I was always wondering about as I was

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Speaker 1: learning about particle physics as a kid, and it's not

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Speaker 1: something we have a solid answer for, but thinking about

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Speaker 1: it in terms of fields helps. And so let's go

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Speaker 1: back to thinking about particles in terms of ripples of fields,

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Speaker 1: and I'll show you the role the charge plays in

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Speaker 1: the field picture and it gives you a very different

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Speaker 1: feel for what charge is fundamentally.

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Speaker 2: My first thought was, Okay, is charge going to be

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Speaker 2: just like an arbitrary thing that humans use in our

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Speaker 2: definition for an electron, like charge in mass or is

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Speaker 2: it going to be like do you use the example

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Speaker 2: of painting it red or blue? And that doesn't change

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Speaker 2: anything fundamental about it. But I think the fact that

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Speaker 2: when you change the charge and you get like a positron,

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Speaker 2: but they annihilate each other. They're behaving totally different, and

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Speaker 2: so that feels different than just painting it red or blue.

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Speaker 2: But okay, now let's talk about fields and see if

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Speaker 2: we can dig into that.

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Speaker 1: Deeper, because the field's picture of physics is going to

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Speaker 1: tell us that charge is not a property of particles.

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Speaker 1: It's actually a relationship between fields.

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Speaker 2: I should have seen that coming. The field's always throw

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Speaker 2: me off.

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Speaker 1: So remember in the field picture, we still have particles.

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Speaker 1: There are things we call particles. We have a different

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Speaker 1: mental image for what they are. They're not little bits

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Speaker 1: of stuff. There are ripples in these fields, and these

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Speaker 1: fields fill the universe, and sometimes these fields can interact

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Speaker 1: with each other. So now let's talk about forces. What

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Speaker 1: happens to an electron when it's flying through space and

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Speaker 1: it encounters an electric field, Well, it accelerates, either it

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Speaker 1: slows it down or it speeds it up, but it

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Speaker 1: changes its velocity. That's what an electric field is. That's

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Speaker 1: what electric field does, right, And that means that there's

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Speaker 1: a force on it. You accelerate something, you have to

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Speaker 1: put a force on it. That's f equals ma A.

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Speaker 1: But a neutral particle like a neutrino flying through the

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Speaker 1: same electric field totally ignores it. Right, it will fly

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Speaker 1: right through. It has no charge, and it ignores the

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Speaker 1: electric field. Yeah, it's there, but it doesn't interact with

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Speaker 1: it. It doesn't matter to It does not accelerate the neutrino.

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Speaker 1: So you shoot an electron to an electric field, it accelerates.

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Speaker 1: You shoot a neutral particle through electric field, nothing happens.

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Speaker 2: So electric fields exert force on electrons, but electric fields

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Speaker 2: don't exert force on neutrons exactly.

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Speaker 1: Electric fields exert force on any particles with charge.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: And you might think, okay, well that's a useful way

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Speaker 1: to describe what an electric field does. It's actually a

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Speaker 1: description of what charge is. Charge is a label we

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Speaker 1: put on particles that are accelerated by electric fields.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So charge is the ability to be sped up

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Speaker 2: or slowed down. Can you get slowed down by an

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Speaker 2: electric field too?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, you can get slowed down. Yeah, if you

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Speaker 1: flip the direction of it. So charge is a label

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Speaker 1: we put on it. Like let's say I give you

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Speaker 1: an electric field and they give you a bunch of particles.

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Speaker 1: I don't tell you anything about them. You throw them

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Speaker 1: all into an electric field. Some of them slow down,

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Speaker 1: some of them don't. The ones that slow down, you say, oh,

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Speaker 1: this notices the electric field. I'm gonna put a label

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Speaker 1: on that one. This notices the electric field in the

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Speaker 1: opposite direction. I'm gonna put the negative label on that one.

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Speaker 1: This one, it ignores the electric field. I'm putting a

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Speaker 1: zero on that one. All right, So charge is a

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Speaker 1: label we put on on particles that sense electric fields.

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Speaker 1: So now let's go back to the fields. Picture what's

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Speaker 1: happening there. The electron is flying through space. It's a

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Speaker 1: ripple in the electron field. Now, an encounter is an

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Speaker 1: electric field, which is energy in the electromagnetic field. What

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Speaker 1: happens is those two fields are coupling with each other.

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Speaker 1: Energy is going from the electromagnetic field to the electron field. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's accelerating the electron or it's decelerating whichever, but energy

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Speaker 1: is passing. These two fields are coupling together. So instead

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Speaker 1: of just having like one field slashing through space doing

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Speaker 1: its own thing and another field slashing through space doing

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Speaker 1: its own thing, think of them as like tied together. Right,

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Speaker 1: there's a connection between them. It's like having two guitar strings.

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Speaker 1: But now you have like a rubber band connecting them.

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Speaker 1: So when one oscillates, the other one's gonna oscillate. Also,

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Speaker 1: that's what charge is. Charge is a coupling between two

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Speaker 1: fields for two different fundamental particles. So when the electron

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Speaker 1: moves through space, it makes ripples in the electromagnetic field,

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Speaker 1: and if there's a field there, it pushes on the electron.

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Speaker 1: It slashes back and forth between electrons and the electromagnetic field,

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Speaker 1: and charge tells us how that works. If you have

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Speaker 1: a zero, then there's no coupling. If you have a one,

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Speaker 1: then they are coupled. If you have a mindus one,

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Speaker 1: you couple the opposite direction.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so first we're talking about strings, but

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Speaker 2: it has nothing to do with string theory.

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Speaker 1: Now we talk about strings because strings follow the wave equation,

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Speaker 1: and so do the fields. The wave equation is everywhere.

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Speaker 2: Okay, great, perfect. When we're talking about electron fields, we're

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Speaker 2: talking about a bunch of electrons acting together. When we

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Speaker 2: talk about electric fields, what is an electric field made of?

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Speaker 1: Electric field is energy in the electromagnetic field, which is

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Speaker 1: just another field in the universe, the same way the

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Speaker 1: electron field is, and ripples in the field are photons, right,

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Speaker 1: And so in the particle picture, you have electrons which

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Speaker 1: shoot photons back and forth at each other, and that's

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Speaker 1: how electrons repel each other. In the field's picture, you

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Speaker 1: have ripples in the electron field which couple to the

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic field and exchange energy that way.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I've caught up.

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Speaker 1: So that's another way to think about charge. Charge. Here

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Speaker 1: is a coupling between fields, right, it says this field

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Speaker 1: connects to that field. This field connects to that field.

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Speaker 1: These two fields don't connect at all. You put a zero.

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Speaker 1: So instead of thinking of charge as something attributed to

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Speaker 1: the particle, like the charge is the electrons, it's the

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Speaker 1: relationship between the electron and the photon, or the electron

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Speaker 1: field and the electromagnetic field. Are they connected? If so,

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Speaker 1: put a one. Are they anti connected or do they

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Speaker 1: ignore each other? So charge is how the fields couple.

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Speaker 1: But it might not just be our description. It might

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Speaker 1: be something important to the universe, because this is something

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Speaker 1: the universe respects.

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Speaker 2: And let's talk about RSPCT. After the break, we're back

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Speaker 2: and we're talking about fields respecting each other. And where

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Speaker 2: are we going with this?

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Speaker 1: So you might think all right, Well, if we are

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Speaker 1: just putting label on particles and it's just a relationship

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Speaker 1: between fields, then these are just numbers. We made them

433
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 1: up and they shouldn't have any special properties, right. But

434
00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:35,640
Speaker 1: we know that charge has a really interesting special property,

435
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,800
Speaker 1: which is if you count up all the charges on

436
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:41,919
Speaker 1: all the particles in some system and then you let

437
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: it do its thing. Let physics happened for a second,

438
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:46,439
Speaker 1: for a billion years whatever, and you come back and

439
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 1: you count up all the charges again, and you might

440
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: have you know, some of the electrons are gone, and

441
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 1: now you've made protons or whatever. The particles have all changed,

442
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: but the total number of charge has not changed. Charge

443
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: is conserved in the universe. Every microphysical process and electron

444
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 1: radiates a photon, or electron and positron annihilate. None of

445
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: those violate electric charge. So you can do zillions of

446
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,440
Speaker 1: them and they don't add up to any violation of

447
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:15,199
Speaker 1: the electric charge. It's exactly conserved in the universe in

448
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: a way, very very few things are exactly conserved. And

449
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: for a physics that's like whoa, that's a big screaming

450
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: clue that this might be an important thing to the universe,

451
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 1: not just something we made up.

452
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 2: So first of all, I'm finding myself wondering if there

453
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:33,360
Speaker 2: are more religious people in physics than there are in biology,

454
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 2: because the more we get into this, it feels like

455
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 2: something is making these things be symmetrical. Maybe you've hinted

456
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:42,159
Speaker 2: at the fact that the universe could not be otherwise,

457
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 2: like when we were talking about the Big Bang and

458
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 2: why are there electrons and we've lost the positrons and

459
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 2: if we had equal numbers, everything would annihilate, there'd be nothing, right,

460
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,640
Speaker 2: So this is the only thing that could have arisen

461
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 2: from the chaos, this symmetry. Is that the right way

462
00:23:57,920 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 2: to be thinking about it? Or are we going in

463
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 2: a different direction with this conversation.

464
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:03,640
Speaker 1: No, this is definitely the right part of your brain

465
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 1: to be using here, because the whole juice of physics

466
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: for me is like, let's reveal what the rules are,

467
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: and then let's be odd that the rules are what

468
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: they are and wonder if they could have been different, right,

469
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: And my whole fantasy is that we will work hard

470
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,919
Speaker 1: to unify all of our understanding of the universe and

471
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: be left with an equation and then it will be

472
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:29,400
Speaker 1: self evident. We're like, oh, yeah, I can see how

473
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 1: this is the only way you could put a universe together.

474
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: There is no other way to do it. Of course,

475
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: it's got to be this way. The alternative is you

476
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: get to some equation and you're like, huh, well, I mean,

477
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: I see how that works. But you could have also

478
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: made this a six or that a nine, Like why

479
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 1: don't we live in that universe? Then you got a

480
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: bunch of open questions. I don't know which is going

481
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 1: to be the outcome. But along the way you have

482
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:54,159
Speaker 1: these moments where something emerges from the math that you

483
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: didn't build in. Right. You didn't say I'm going to

484
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 1: create this concept of charge and I'm going to insist

485
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:03,560
Speaker 1: that it's conserved. You just discover that, right. It's like

486
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 1: it comes out in our experiments. We notice that charge

487
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: is concerved, and then we also see it in the mathematics,

488
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: and that seems like ooh. You are digging deep into

489
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 1: the firmament of the universe and you clanged onto something

490
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: hard and you're like, whoa, there's something here. Let's dig

491
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: out this corner and see what this is. And it

492
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: turns out there is a really interesting, very very deep

493
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: realization here which I don't think has penetrated nearly enough

494
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: into like the broader culture of what it means for

495
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: something to be conserved. And it also connects to our

496
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 1: goal of uplifting overlooked women who've contributed to science, because

497
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: there's a very influential theorem from the mind of Emmy Nuther.

498
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: She was a mathematician working around the same time as Einstein,

499
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 1: and she just like dabbled occasionally in physics on her

500
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: coffee breaks and came up with these incredible realizations, you know,

501
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: just while gooving around before going back to real stuff

502
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: like mathematics. And her theorem tells us that every time

503
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: something is conserved in the universe, like electric charge or

504
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: momentum for example, that's because there's a symmetry in the universe,

505
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: there's something the universe respects, and so for momentum, it's

506
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: very straightforward. We have momentum conservation in the universe because

507
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: the universe doesn't care where something happens. The rules are

508
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 1: the same everywhere. So you set up some physics experiment,

509
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: you do it, you get an answer. If you could

510
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 1: set it up ten meters to the right or ten

511
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: thousand meters to the left, it shouldn't matter. The rules

512
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: of the universe should be the same no matter where

513
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 1: you are. There's no like absolute origin to the universe.

514
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: You can't tell where you are in the universe. That

515
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: makes sense, right, there's a symmetry there. That symmetry is

516
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: why we have conservation of momentum. So notre connected these

517
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: two ideas of symmetries and conservations. And we can do

518
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: a whole other episode where I try to explain the

519
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: mathematics of that and intuitive way, but today's episode just

520
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: accept like every symmetry means a conservation, and now we

521
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: have a conservation of something electric charge. So you're like, okay, well,

522
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: you know they're telling me, what's the symmetry, right, what

523
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: is the universe respecting here? And it turns out this

524
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: is incredible that what is respecting is some weird internal

525
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: angle that electrons have. Like when we say electrons are

526
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: ripples in the field, that's true, but the mathematics gives

527
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: us another degree of freedom, like electrons ripple through the field,

528
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,400
Speaker 1: but they also have an angle to them as they go,

529
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: and this angle is mostly unimportant, like you can't measure

530
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, you can't see it, and you could

531
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 1: have a universe whether the electron angles are just like

532
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:38,160
Speaker 1: willy nilly. But if you insist that the universe respects

533
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,959
Speaker 1: this angle, that it's symmetric with respect to this angle,

534
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,160
Speaker 1: that you can change this weird internal electron angle and

535
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: not change any of the physics the same way you

536
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: can change the location or direction of an experiment and

537
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: always get the same answer. The only way to do

538
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: it if you have electrons in the universe and you

539
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 1: want that symmetry preserve this weird internal angle is to

540
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 1: have photon. You could only preserve this symmetry, this weird

541
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: electron angle if you add photons to the universe. Electrons

542
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: can't do it by themselves, so it's sort of like

543
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: you derive the existence of photons. You're like, Okay, I

544
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:16,119
Speaker 1: have electrons and they have charge, and they have this

545
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: weird angle inside them. If I insist for whatever reason

546
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: that this weird internal electron angle has a symmetry, that

547
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: the universe is the same if I spin that angle,

548
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 1: then I got to add photons. Otherwise it doesn't work.

549
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 1: You can like derive the existence of photons just from

550
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: this requirement. And of course we know that photons are

551
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: what do the thing that charges do right, they're there

552
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: to provide the forces. So there's this deep connection between

553
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: charge and photons and this bizarre internal angle that electrons

554
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: have and we don't quite understand it, but we know

555
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: that for some reason, the universe really wants to be

556
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: symmetric with respect to this internal angle that electrons have,

557
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: and that's why we have charge conservation in the universe.

558
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: And you have to have photons to make that whole

559
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: thing work.

560
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 2: All right. So first, when we were talking about symmetry,

561
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 2: I was thinking that positrons where the symmetrical thing with electrons,

562
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 2: and so that's a symmetrical thing with electrons, but there's

563
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 2: another symmetrical thing with electrons, which is this angle. Absolutely,

564
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 2: you said, we can't measure the angle, So how do

565
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 2: we know this?

566
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: You can't measure an electrons angle directly. It has to

567
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: do with like what fraction of its wave function is

568
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: real and what fraction is complex? And you can't measure

569
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: complex properties of an electron. But it exists and affects

570
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: how the wave function propagates, so we can make predictions

571
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: based on it in a statistical way. So you're asking, like,

572
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: how do we know this angle is real? Well, it's

573
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: sort of like asking, how do we know the wave

574
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 1: function is real? We can't see it directly, but it's

575
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: an important part of our model. So yeah, it's a

576
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: deep question in philosophy, like is this real? It's a

577
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: necessary component of the model which predicts the outcome of experiments,

578
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: since that makes it feel real ish. But is anything

579
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: that's complex valued act? I don't know. I mean technically

580
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: mathematicians are like, real numbers are real. Complex numbers are

581
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: not real. But I think we mean real philosophically there

582
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's a long way of saying, yeah, we

583
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: don't know.

584
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I feel like fifty percent of the conversations

585
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 2: you and I have gets down to what is real,

586
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 2: what exists?

587
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 1: So I don't know.

588
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: So you could have symmetry with respect to charge and

589
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 2: with respect to angle. Are there other features of electrons

590
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 2: that have symmetries?

591
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: Yeah? So there are lots of these pairings from Notther's theorem.

592
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: You know. One of them is like where are you

593
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: in the universe doesn't matter? That gives you conservation and momentum.

594
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: There's also angles, like hey, what if you send your

595
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: X axis this direction or that direction doesn't matter? No,

596
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: the universe has no preferred angle that gives you angular

597
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: momentum conservation. And there's also symmetries with respect to time,

598
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: like due to the laws of physics change over time, we

599
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: don't think, So that's where energy conservation comes from. So

600
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: all the big conservation laws can be translated into symmetries

601
00:30:58,000 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: or vice versa, and you can actually think of them

602
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: as sort of two sides of the same coin. And

603
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: all those I think are clues. They tell us like

604
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: how the universe works, Like if energy is concerned, that

605
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: means that the laws of physics don't change with time.

606
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: That's kind of a big deal. And in fact, it

607
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: turns out energy not exactly conserved in our universe because

608
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: the laws of physics are changing slightly with time as

609
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: the universe expands and dark energy is increasing, and that

610
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: changes a factor that we conclude in the laws of physics.

611
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: So that's a whole other rabbit hole. But this one

612
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: is exactly conserved. The universe conserves electric charge exactly, which

613
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:39,479
Speaker 1: means this weird internal electron angle that seems bizarre and

614
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 1: just sort of like abstract is important to the universe.

615
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: The universe respects it. It's built in deep, deep to

616
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: the mechanics of the universe. I feel like that's a clue,

617
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: that's something hard we're clinging on in the firmament of physics.

618
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 2: So protons and electrons have opposite charges of the same magnitude,

619
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 2: but they don't have the same mass. Does that tell

620
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 2: us something about mass not being conserved or am I

621
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 2: clinging to a not relevant factor here?

622
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 1: The mass of these particles is a totally separate topic,

623
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: And you're right, mass is not conserved. Electrons and positrons

624
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: do have the same mass because of the ripples in

625
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: the same fundamental field. But yeah, mass is definitely not

626
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: conserved in the universe. I mean we destroy mass all

627
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: the time in the large Hadrunk glider unilate protons you

628
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: use their mass to make new stuff that has lower

629
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: mass and higher velocity. You also gain mass all the

630
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: time from energy. You go out and feel the sun,

631
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: the photons that your body absorbs, increase the internal energy

632
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: of your molecules and gain mass. You charge your tesla,

633
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: it gains mass. So yeah, mass is definitely not conserved

634
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: in the universe. But this concept of charge turns out

635
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more general than even electric charge.

636
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: We've talked about charge as a way that the photon

637
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: the electric fields coupled to each other, right, but also

638
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: somehow deeply connected to the universe. And that turns out

639
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: to be the simplest way to thy think about it,

640
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: because you have just like one kind of charge can

641
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: be positive or negative, and just one field, the photon field,

642
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: that it couples to. And you know, muans coupled to

643
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: the photon field, and quarks couple to the photon field.

644
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: Anything with electric charge couples to the photon field. But

645
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: the other charges for the other forces that are mediated

646
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: by other fields and particles turned out to be an generalization,

647
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: a more complex version of the same basic idea thinking

648
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: about how fields couple to each other.

649
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 2: Okay, so how is that a more subtle point than

650
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 2: what we had talked about before. So we had already

651
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 2: talked about how protons have two two thirds quarks and

652
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 2: then a negative one third quark or something. And so

653
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 2: with what you just said, what did we learn that

654
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: was different than what we had known before? Because I

655
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 2: think I didn't catch it.

656
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: No, we didn't learn anything new. I'm just now trying

657
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: to set us up to think about the other forces.

658
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: In terms of this framework. So we introduced this new

659
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: way of thinking about the electric charge, like not as

660
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: paints you put on some part and other particles, but

661
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: as a relationship between fields. Right now, let's try to

662
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: use that same sort of intellectual framework and think about

663
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 1: the other forces, the other kinds of charges in the

664
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:14,760
Speaker 1: same way, because implicit there is the idea that forces

665
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 1: and charges are linked. Right. Electric charges are how we

666
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: used to label particles that feel forces in electric fields.

667
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: There are other forces in the universe, and some particles

668
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,280
Speaker 1: ignore them. Some particles don't. So, for example, the strong

669
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: force strongest force out there, electrons totally ignore it. Electrons

670
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: that have electric charge have no strong charge. So if

671
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a bunch of particles and

672
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: you're going to throw them through a what we call

673
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,280
Speaker 1: a color field, that's the field for the strong nuclear force.

674
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: Electrons fly right through, it doesn't matter. But if you

675
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: throw a QRK through there all sorts of crazy interactions.

676
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it gets accelerated like crazy. So now

677
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: we have another kind of label, right like, okay, well,

678
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,800
Speaker 1: every particle has a label for whether it ignores electric

679
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 1: fiel fields or not. It also has a label for

680
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 1: whether it ignores color fields fields from the strong force.

681
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: But instead of thinking about as a label in the particle,

682
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: think about it as a way those fields interact. So

683
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: the electron field does not interact with the gluon field.

684
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: That's the analogy in the strong nuclear force of the

685
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field. Right, we have these gluons, and so electrons

686
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: just don't interact with gluon fields. You kind of intense

687
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: buzzing energy in the gluon field. Electron field is not

688
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 1: linked to it at all. They oscill it completely independently.

689
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: But a quark field in that same region of space

690
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: where the gluon fields a lot of energy, those are

691
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: tied very strongly together, and so they buzz together.

692
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 2: Okay, so we talked about charge as the direction of

693
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 2: the response to the electromagnetic field. That's our baseline. And

694
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 2: now when you move on to strong force, it's no

695
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 2: longer really helpful to think of negative and positive because

696
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 2: it's just like do they respond to these forces or not.

697
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: You're right that we shouldn't think about strong nuclear charges

698
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: as zero, positive or negative, but it's not truth that

699
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: they're simpler. It's not just like a yes or no

700
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: In fact, they're more complicated. There are three different axes

701
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: along which you can have a color charge. So for

702
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: electric forces it's just one axis, right, and you're the zero,

703
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,280
Speaker 1: positive or negative. For the strong force, there are three

704
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: different ones and they call them red, green, and blue.

705
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 1: And so for example, you can have a quirk that's

706
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 1: green or an anti green cork, or you can have

707
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: a red cork or an anti blue cork, and so

708
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 1: it's more complicated than the electromagnetic field. It's a generalization

709
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 1: of it. The fundamental ideas are the same, but instead

710
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 1: of like a single number zero, negative one, whatever, you

711
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 1: have like a vector, you have like three different numbers.

712
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: You have a green, a red, and a blue charge,

713
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: and if you're zero in all of those, that's what

714
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: we call colorless or white. So, for example, the proton

715
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: has quarks inside of it, and each of those quarks

716
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,760
Speaker 1: has a charge. But if you have a red, a green,

717
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: and a blue, the math works out that they add

718
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: up to zero, and.

719
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 2: So electrons have a red, a green, and a blue.

720
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: You mean protons, Well, I thought you said.

721
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 2: Protons do respond to the force, but electrons don't.

722
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 1: So quarks respond to the force. Quarks are charged right,

723
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: But quarks can add up to neutralize themselves to have

724
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: zero color charge, the same way that like an electron

725
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: positron together have zero electric charge. Three quarks that make

726
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: a proton have zero color charge. So if you have

727
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: a red, a green, and a blue cork together, the

728
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: math adds up that they add up to zero total charge,

729
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: so they're not three totally independent directions in this weird way.

730
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,040
Speaker 1: So there's two different ways that you can have zero

731
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: color charge. You can either have one red, one green,

732
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,479
Speaker 1: one blue, or you can have red and anti red.

733
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: So for example, a quark and an antiquark can come

734
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: together to make a colorless object, which is like a pion.

735
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: All these particles we call masons are two quarks together

736
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 1: in a colorless state. They have no strong charge total,

737
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: same with a proton and a neutron. There's lots that

738
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: you can make it with three quarks. You can also

739
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: make it with six quarks for really crazy particles, but

740
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: most of the stuff we see in the universe is

741
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: either three quarks together colorless or two quarks together overall colorless.

742
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: And there's not just one gluon field because there's so

743
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: many different colors. You need eight different gluon fields, and

744
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: the glue on fields each have two colors, so you

745
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: could have like a red green gluon or a blue

746
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: anti red gluon, and the math is very complicated, it's

747
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: really crazy, but it's an analogy to the way we

748
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:47,359
Speaker 1: think about electric charge and electric forces and the interactions

749
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,720
Speaker 1: between the fields. So you have these eight gluon fields

750
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: filling the universe with all their color, and they interact

751
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:54,879
Speaker 1: with quarks, but not with electrons.

752
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 2: Okay, they interact with quarks, but at the level of

753
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 2: a proton they usually cancel out full proton usually doesn't

754
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 2: respond to the strong force, and electrons don't usually respond

755
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 2: to the strong force.

756
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly right. And these quarks also have weird

757
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: internal angles to them, and the universe likes to conserve those.

758
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 1: It's more complicated than just conserving one number because a

759
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: three dimensional color thing. But the universe can serves strong

760
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: nuclear color, which means it's symmetric with respect to all

761
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: those weird internal quark angles. So that's all. I'm still

762
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 1: very similar to electromagnetism.

763
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 2: All right, so I think I've followed all that. After

764
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:51,879
Speaker 2: the break, let's talk about the weak force. We're back,

765
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,319
Speaker 2: all right. So we've talked about charge and force as

766
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 2: it relates to electromagnetic forces and the strong force, and

767
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 2: so now let's let's get to the weak force. We're

768
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 2: two thirds of the way through the episode. We're at

769
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 2: the weak force of our goal of talking about the

770
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 2: weak hyperforce. So tell me about the weak force, right, So.

771
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: The weak force super fascinating because it touches everything in

772
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: the universe. Like, there are some particles out there with

773
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: zero electromagnetic charge, right, like neutrons or neutrinos. They ignore

774
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 1: electric fields. There are particles out there with no strong charge. Right,

775
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: Electrons ignore the strong force. There's nothing in the universe

776
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,760
Speaker 1: that ignores the weak force. Everything out there except maybe

777
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: dark matter, which we haven't figured out yet. It might

778
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: not be a particle. Da da da da feels the

779
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: weak force. It's fascinating. It's like unavoidable, but it's also

780
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 1: super duper feeble. Right, It's the weakest force out there

781
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 1: except for gravity. Probably not a force anyway, but it's

782
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: much weaker than electromagnetism and the strong force. But it's pervasive.

783
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 2: Even neutrons are responding to the weak force.

784
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: Yes, neutrons respond to the weak force. Protons respond to

785
00:40:56,160 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: the weak force, neutrinos respond to the weak force. Absolutely yes,

786
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: And we can think about the weak force in the

787
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 1: same sort of framework as we thought about electromagnetism and

788
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 1: generalize it in the way we did also for the

789
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: strong force. So the weak force, like the strong force,

790
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,239
Speaker 1: doesn't just have one charge. It has multiple charges. Right,

791
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: So remember electromagnetism, which seemed complicated at the time, was

792
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 1: actually nice and simple because it was just a number. Right,

793
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: It's like negative one plus two thirds, what's the big deal? Well,

794
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: weak forces have two charges, and because they were discovered

795
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: at different times and then like adapted from different theories historically,

796
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: the names for the mer disaster. We don't just have

797
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: like week charge one, week charge two or whatever, or

798
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: even the strong force is like nice colors which unify it.

799
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 1: So that's why we have two different charges and they're

800
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,360
Speaker 1: called weak isospin in weak hypercharge.

801
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 2: I hate you, guys, it's.

802
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: Terrible, and I hate the word weak hyper charge because

803
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: to me, hyper suggests like it's strong, it's intense, it's powerful,

804
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: it's overwhelming, but then it's weak, So you're like, what

805
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,320
Speaker 1: is it more powerful? Is what's powerful. I can't even tell. Well,

806
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: it's like super big tiny something what And.

807
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I understand what isospin either.

808
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: Means Oh, that's even worse.

809
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 2: And the colors were throwing me too. I think you

810
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 2: guys need to start back at the drawing board. But

811
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 2: all right, all right, let's work with what we've got.

812
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: Isospin comes from another theory which kind of failed and

813
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: then was adapted later on. It was like, maybe this

814
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 1: could be reused, Like this happens in physics all the time.

815
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: Somebody studies something for like twenty years, it seems like

816
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: it's going to work out in the universe, says no, thanks,

817
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: that was a nice idea, but no, and then somebody

818
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: else comes along, so well, maybe I could adapt that

819
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: actually to answer this other question. That's what happened with

820
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 1: string theory. String theory was originally an attempt to explain

821
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: color forces and the strong nuclear force, and it failed.

822
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:46,959
Speaker 1: But then it turns out to explain much more deep things,

823
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: so that can work sometimes. But you know, come up

824
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: with a new name. Yeah, so the's two different charges,

825
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: and every particle it now has two numbers. Right, you

826
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: have your isospin number and your hypercharge number, and these

827
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: numbers are a little weird, like isospin Electrons have minus

828
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: a half and neutrinos have plus a half, and so muons,

829
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: for example, of minus a half tows of minus a half,

830
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: but all the neutrinos have plus a half. And hypercharge

831
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 1: is just like another number, and electrons and neutrinos both

832
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: have hypercharge minus one, whereas quarks have hypercharge plus a third.

833
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:28,399
Speaker 2: Could you have predicted what these charges would be once

834
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 2: you knew about the weak force or these things where

835
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 2: you had to measure it and then you were like, huh,

836
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 2: negative a half, wouldn't I guess that? But now we

837
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 2: know that's a feature of the universe, Like, can you

838
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 2: predict these things or did you just measure them and

839
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 2: then work with that?

840
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Electric charges we definitely just measured. Week

841
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: charges are much harder to measure because the weak force

842
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 1: is very weak, and these are numbers that we came

843
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: up with later to explain particles we've already seen. Because

844
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: there's a deep connection between the weak force and the

845
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: electromagnetic force. These things are not totally separate. We've unified

846
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: them into one theory called electro week and This is

847
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: really interesting because it turns out that electromagnetism is just

848
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: part of the weak force. So remember how the strong

849
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: force had like a bunch of different gluon fields to

850
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 1: handle all the complexity. There are four fields in the

851
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: electroweak force, and one of them is the photon, and

852
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: the other three are fields that we call the weak force,

853
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 1: two W fields, and then the Z field. And the

854
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:32,839
Speaker 1: electric field is like the weird sibling in the electroweak

855
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: force because it's so simple and well preserved. Like the

856
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: universe preserves the electric charge and respects this weird symmetry.

857
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: But more broadly, the weak charges are not conserved. So

858
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 1: for example, isospin not conserved in the universe, hypercharge not

859
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 1: conserved in the universe. The universe doesn't respect this symmetry.

860
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: This is how Higgs made his discovery, because he saw

861
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: that the weak force does not respect these things. His

862
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 1: whole theory is in a contact we call electroweak symmetry.

863
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: Breaking the weak force is kind of a big, sloppy mess.

864
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 1: But electric charge turns out to be a weird combination

865
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: of isospin and hypercharge. You have this big, messy weak

866
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 1: force when nothing is conserved everything is very weak and

867
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 1: flimsy in sloshing around. But if you look at it

868
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: from just one angler, you take one slice of it,

869
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 1: you say, oh, this is beautiful. This is the photon

870
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: field on electromagnetism, and everything is perfectly concerned in this

871
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 1: one weird slice of a larger, messy field. So it

872
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:36,439
Speaker 1: turns out electric charge is connected to weak hypercharge. It's

873
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: like a combination of hypercharge and isospin together.

874
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,879
Speaker 2: Okay, so the weak force is actually measured in four

875
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 2: different ways, one of which is the electromagnetic field, and

876
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 2: that is conserved, yes, But the other three are a

877
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 2: freaking mess. Yes, And we don't understand why, and we

878
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:01,280
Speaker 2: don't think that we are misunderstanding something. It's just actually

879
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 2: not conserved, which maybe tells us something about what's important

880
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 2: about the universe. Was the conservation for the strong force, Yes,

881
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 2: conservation for the strong force. These three kinds of weak forces,

882
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: you don't get conservation because.

883
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: Of the Higgs. The Higgs and messes up those other fields.

884
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,320
Speaker 1: In fact, that's how Higgs knew the Higgs was there.

885
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, how do you mess up these three

886
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: fields and not the photon. I'm gonna invent this thing

887
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: to mess up those three fields and not mess up

888
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: the photon. That's the Higgs boson, and that's how we

889
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 1: knew that that was there, because the weak field is

890
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: messed up in this weird particular way that preserves one

891
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: corner of it. It's like if you have four siblings

892
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: sharing a room and three of them are total Slavs,

893
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 1: and somehow one of the siblings is like military corners

894
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: on the bed, not a piece of dust on the floor,

895
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:50,399
Speaker 1: and you're like, all the way down to the edge

896
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: and you measure it, like down to the micron. You

897
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: have like an electron microscope, and you can't find a

898
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: tiny little bit of dust that goes past that barrier,

899
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: and you're like, wow, there's something going on here. That's

900
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: what Higgs saw. He's like, all right, I'm going to

901
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: invent this mechanism that messes up this part of the

902
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 1: universe and not that part at all and doesn't even

903
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: touch it.

904
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 2: Okay, So Higgs has a field and a boson, right.

905
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,279
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. The boson is a ripple in the field.

906
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: So it's really just one concept.

907
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 2: So we've got the Higgs field. What is the connection

908
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 2: between the field and the weak force.

909
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: So the Higgs field is another field, and it interacts

910
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: with all of these fields, and it messes up the

911
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 1: symmetry of the Week field. So if you didn't have

912
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: the Higgs field, the weak charges would be perfectly conserved

913
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 1: and the internal angles of the weak field would be

914
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: crystal and beautiful, just like the other forces. But the

915
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: Higgs field messes up the weak field. It breaks electroweek

916
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 1: symmetry in a way that messes up those fields and

917
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: breaks the conservation of weak hypercharge and weak isospin. So separately,

918
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: these two things are not conserved, but this one combination

919
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: of them is preserved by the Higgs boson.

920
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 2: Okay, so the Higgs field messes up the three different

921
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: measurements for the weak force. And remind me of what

922
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 2: a weak hypercharge now that I've got that in my head.

923
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:04,280
Speaker 1: All right, and we hypercharge is one of these charges

924
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: of the weak force. So the electro week force week

925
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: plus electromagnetism has three charges. Electric charge, weak hypercharge, weak isospin.

926
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 1: Electric charge is actually a special combination of those two.

927
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 1: The Higgs field messes up the conservation of it. Generally, right,

928
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: they're not separately conserved, but this combination of them. Electric

929
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: charge is conserved in the universe. So we have this

930
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: fields description of all the ripples of energy in the universe,

931
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: and we know which fields talk to which other fields,

932
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 1: and that's what we call charge. And fields can talk

933
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: to each other in different ways. Right. They can talk

934
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: to each other through the photon field, in which case

935
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: they both have electric charge, because that's what it means

936
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: to send energy through the photon field. It means you

937
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: have an electric charge you're coupling to the photon field.

938
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 1: Or they can talk to each other through weak fields

939
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 1: because all particles have weak hypercharge or weak isospin. Or

940
00:48:57,960 --> 00:48:59,959
Speaker 1: they can talk to each other through the gluon field

941
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 1: if they couple to the gluon fields, and that's what

942
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: it means to have color charge. So we hypercharge is

943
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: an example how matterfields fields to describe electrons and muons

944
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: and quarks and all this kind of other stuff can

945
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: interact with each other through these force fields, through the

946
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field and the gluon fields and the W field

947
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 1: and the Z field and all these other fields that

948
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 1: help particles interact with each other. And so it's fascinating

949
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: that electric charge is conserved and strong charge is concerned,

950
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: but we hypercharge is not right. The universe mess that

951
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,760
Speaker 1: up created the Higgs boson gave it this weird energy.

952
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: But I hope that this gives you like a different

953
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: view of like what charge is. It's not just about electricity.

954
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:43,399
Speaker 1: It's not a label we put on particles. It's about

955
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 1: how fields talk to each other. And a lot of

956
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: particle physics is understanding how energy slashes back and forth

957
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: between these fields. And like you can ask the philosophical

958
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: questions like what is an electron anyway? And our description

959
00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: of electron isn't just a particle flying through space. It's

960
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:02,479
Speaker 1: a buzzing and a rippling in the electron field that's

961
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 1: also constantly coupled to the photon field, and energy is

962
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:07,839
Speaker 1: slashing back and forth between them. And that's what we

963
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,239
Speaker 1: mean by the electron we measure in the lab. And

964
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,240
Speaker 1: when we talk about a cork, it's got a cloud

965
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 1: of gluons around it, or you can think about it

966
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: as a ripple in the quark field, constantly slashing energy

967
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 1: back and forth via gluon fields. That's really what charges about.

968
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,400
Speaker 1: It's about coupling of the fields and the weak hypercharge

969
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: is that a great example because it shows off how

970
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: the universe can be beautiful and symmetric and crystalline, and

971
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: then sometimes it can just be the messy sibling leaving

972
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 1: dirty dishes under its bed.

973
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, a total disaster. Yeah. So I feel like I

974
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 2: thought that I understood charge and force going in, and

975
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 2: it's totally different. I'm thinking about it now in a

976
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 2: totally different way than I had before, which is really exciting.

977
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 2: One quick step back, isospin is also not conserved.

978
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:53,360
Speaker 1: Isospin is also not concerved?

979
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so did we decide that we wanted this

980
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 2: episode to be about the weak hypercharge because it's a

981
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: funny name. Why are we emphasizing that charge as opposed

982
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 2: to talking about isospin? Yeah, and the weak hypercharge because

983
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 2: they seem to be telling us the same thing. As

984
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 2: far as I can tell.

985
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: You're right, week isospin and week hypercharge are on the

986
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: same footing. Two reasons why this episode started out about

987
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: hypercharge and not isospin. One is it has the word

988
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 1: charge in it, So I thought I would at least

989
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 1: give the listeners a clue when we're asking them about it, Like, otherwise,

990
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: what is this thing? It's just a bunch of words

991
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 1: physicists invented. And also because at least one person wrote

992
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 1: in and said, I was reading the Wikipedia page on

993
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 1: week hypercharge and what is this? Can you explain it?

994
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: So I thought, all right, let's try to dig into.

995
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 2: This perfect Those are two great reasons. Okay, now I'm

996
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:41,280
Speaker 2: with you, and I'm never going to see the world

997
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 2: the same way again.

998
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: And for those of you who want to learn more,

999
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: all the mathematics of these fields and how they interact

1000
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 1: is described with this beautiful piece of theory called group theory,

1001
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: which shows you how these things rotate and how energy

1002
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 1: flows between them. It's a great example also of how

1003
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 1: mathematicians will develop a new branch of mathasthematics just for fun.

1004
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,760
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, this is cool. Let's create these rules

1005
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: and then just play games with them for one hundred years,

1006
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: and they totally did that. Then one hundred years later

1007
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 1: physicists are like, oh my gosh, these games you've been playing,

1008
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 1: just like you know, sipping tea and being nerds, turns

1009
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: out to be perfect description of this complex mathematics of

1010
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 1: these fields we discovered, thanks guys, and just plugged it

1011
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: right in. And now group theory is like at the

1012
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: heart of our understanding of the universe.

1013
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 2: Were the mathematicians just devastated when they found out their

1014
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 2: work was applied and then like, oh, I have.

1015
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: To move on and invent another irrelevant game.

1016
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, it must have been a bad day for

1017
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 2: the mathematicians.

1018
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: I think there are two kinds of mathematicians, those who

1019
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,399
Speaker 1: are disappointed in, those who are excited yeah yeah, yeah,

1020
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 1: those who have a little bit of physicist in them,

1021
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 1: and those that don't. Yeah yeah, because in the end,

1022
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: you know, the dotted lines we draw between math and

1023
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: physics and philosophy, these are just the way humans like

1024
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: to categorize people, right as you always say, this a spectrum.

1025
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 2: Yep, agree, Nature and humanity don't like to be in categories.

1026
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you for joining us for this

1027
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,800
Speaker 1: tour along the spectrum of complexity of all the forces,

1028
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 1: from the crisp, beautiful nature of electromagnetism to the messiness

1029
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 1: of the week force. So I hope that helped you

1030
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:16,799
Speaker 1: get a new view of how the universe worked. And

1031
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: I hope we giggled just the right amount.

1032
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 2: Fick everyone. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by

1033
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,840
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1034
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1035
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: extraordinary universe.

1036
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:42,680
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1037
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,719
Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1038
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:46,160
Speaker 2: back to you.

1039
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,879
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1040
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: at Questions at danieland Kelly dot.

1041
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 2: Org, or you can find us on social media. We

1042
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:58,359
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1043
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:00,799
Speaker 2: of those platforms. You can find us at D and

1044
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:02,120
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1045
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:03,759
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