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Speaker 1: Can science be communicated without math but with art? Listen

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Speaker 1: to these science inspired pieces and try to tell them apart.

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Speaker 2: A Chili day gave a listener a puzzling thought. Does

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Speaker 2: the universe have an absolute hot or not?

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Speaker 1: Why do some rocks and creators glow? Listener gloee. Dan

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Speaker 1: very much wants to know.

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Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 2: answers will make it right.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe Listener Questions, Episode

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Speaker 1: forty two.

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Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Kelly Winnersmith. I study parasites and space, and

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Speaker 2: today we're bringing my husband on the show, which has

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Speaker 2: been questioned by listener. So there you go everyone.

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist who likes to

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Speaker 1: think about aliens. And when I bring my wife onto

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Speaker 1: the show, she usually out votes me and sides with you.

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Speaker 1: So what's gonna happen when Zach is here today?

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Speaker 2: I hope that you side with me and we outvote

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Speaker 2: Zach because our marriage is a competition and I have

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Speaker 2: to win.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think we all win listening to

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Speaker 1: you too argue.

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Speaker 2: All right, well, let's bring him on the show. And

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Speaker 2: get started. Zach Weenersmith is a resident of Wienersmith Manor,

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Speaker 2: where he can be seen sporting socks and sandals. Despite

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Speaker 2: what you often see in the Red Button comics on

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Speaker 2: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, he is dressed at Wiersmith Manor

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Speaker 2: more often than you might think. And his middle school

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Speaker 2: book Sawyer Lee and the Quest to Just Stay Home

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Speaker 2: is out. Now. Welcome to the show, Zach Wienersmith.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, doctor Kelly Wienersmith. I'm glad to have Zach

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Speaker 1: on to defend himself against Kelly's thinly veiled swipes.

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Speaker 2: What are yeah? I was gonna say, I object strongly

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Speaker 2: to the suggestion that I veiled them at all. I'm

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Speaker 2: not afraid.

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Speaker 1: Well, often when I hear a comment, I wonder, like

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Speaker 1: I wonder how Zach's face changes when he hears that expression,

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Speaker 1: or if he's even listening to that part.

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Speaker 2: Well, he is one of our biggest fans, so he

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Speaker 2: listens to all of them.

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Speaker 1: All right. Well, today we have Zach joonatas on the

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Speaker 1: show because we have a special segment for today's Listener

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Speaker 1: Questions episode. I got an email from a listener who's

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Speaker 1: also a musician and who is very interested in the

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Speaker 1: overlap between science and art, And we got into a

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Speaker 1: conversation about whether music could be used to communicate science.

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Speaker 1: And it's great to have Zach on because we are

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Speaker 1: all here as part of a community of folks who

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Speaker 1: like to use are to communicate science. In Zach Kelly's case,

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Speaker 1: it's often cartoons, but there's a broader community of folks

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Speaker 1: who use, for example, dance to communicate science. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if you guys ever seen the Higgs Boson dance performance?

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Speaker 2: No, did it win? Isn't there a dancer PhD contest

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Speaker 2: every year? Did it win?

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Speaker 1: This was actually an academic piece of work by two

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Speaker 1: professors at Yale who I know won a dance professor

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Speaker 1: and one a physicist.

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Speaker 2: Wow, well, everybody should look it up. It sounds like

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Speaker 2: do you feel like it conveyed the nature of the Higgs.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of arm waving around, I think

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Speaker 1: to convey like quantum fields in motion.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I thought it was because you guys don't understand

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Speaker 2: it much, a.

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Speaker 1: Lot of shrugging, a lot of confusion. But you know,

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Speaker 1: as a member of the audience, I was wondering, like,

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Speaker 1: would I get the Higgs boson from this if I

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Speaker 1: didn't already know the inspiration. And so, as I was

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Speaker 1: writing back and forth with this listener, I thought, let's

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Speaker 1: do an experiment. And here's somebody who knows some science

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Speaker 1: and has some musical skills. So I suggested that he

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Speaker 1: write five pieces of music, very short, each one inspired

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Speaker 1: by different scientific concept, and then we could see if

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Speaker 1: people listening to those pieces of music could infer which

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Speaker 1: science concept had inspired each one. Can we actually communicate

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Speaker 1: science via music?

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Speaker 2: What are the five categories?

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Speaker 1: So I sent him five topics that span the DKUU

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Speaker 1: topic universe. We have black holes, vaccines, dark matter, parasites.

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Speaker 2: And now is that dark matter poop or dark matter

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Speaker 2: for physics? Sorry, physics or biology? Dark matter?

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Speaker 1: I did not specify, so I left that one a

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Speaker 1: little intentionally ambiguous. All right, all right, So we had

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Speaker 1: black holes, vaccines, dark matter, parasites, and quantum fields.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I see you did one more fit biology.

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Speaker 1: I knew you were gonna take objection to that. That's

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Speaker 1: why I left dark matter ambiguous. See it's the tiebreaker.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that's fair, that's fair.

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Speaker 1: And we are going to do the experiment right here

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Speaker 1: on the show with you listeners, you're gonna hear the pieces,

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Speaker 1: and so I want you to get a piece of paper,

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Speaker 1: or if you have a great memory, you could just

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Speaker 1: keep track. We're going to play the pieces, and I

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Speaker 1: want you to guess which one lines up with which

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Speaker 1: scientific concept. Zach and Kelly have not heard the music before,

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Speaker 1: and so we're going to score them live on the show,

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, to see if science can be communicated through music.

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Speaker 1: You guys ready, We're ready.

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Speaker 2: So we're wait.

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Speaker 3: Wait, this is a competition, right, this is not We're

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Speaker 3: not just having fun.

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Speaker 2: Zach and I don't do fun.

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Speaker 1: Ok We're going to take score, Zach. How you guys

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Speaker 1: decide to adjudicate that later's up to you. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: all right. So here is the first piece of music.

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Speaker 1: So think about it. What science was in the mind

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Speaker 1: of the composer when they wrote that piece? Was it

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Speaker 1: black holes, dark matter, quantum fields, vaccines or parasites?

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Speaker 2: All right, Zach? Are you done or are we going

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Speaker 2: to wait for you all day? I get a point

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Speaker 2: for being done first.

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Speaker 3: That's not other point scoring. You should lose a point

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Speaker 3: for rudeness.

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Speaker 2: That's not how it works in our house.

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Speaker 1: Tone policing all right, yeah, thank you.

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Speaker 4: All right, I've entered a guest.

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Speaker 1: All right, here is the second piece. Wow, you guys

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Speaker 1: were quick this time. Huh, Zach you won the first

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Speaker 1: one in I was, yeah, I was before killing bonus

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Speaker 1: points forgetting it right.

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Speaker 2: You said, we weren't playing that way.

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Speaker 1: We're changing the rules constantly. It's just like biology. All right.

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Speaker 1: Third pieces, Third piece of music?

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Speaker 5: H h.

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Speaker 2: Done.

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Speaker 3: You didn't listen to the whole thing I did. I'm

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Speaker 3: just trying to appreciate the effort this musician went to.

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Speaker 3: But you do it your way.

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Speaker 2: Gosh, you are constantly changing the goalpost.

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Speaker 6: Did you load it before? He said anything?

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Speaker 2: Sure? Did? All right? Fourth file of hit and play?

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Speaker 1: All right, Here is the fourth piece of music. Is

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Speaker 1: it black holes, dark matter, quantum fields, vaccines or parasites?

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Speaker 1: Kelly is rocking out to this one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, loving it? Done and I appreciated the work the

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Speaker 2: artist did.

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Speaker 1: All right, And here is the last piece of music. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So before we score your guesses, I just want to

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Speaker 1: let you know that the first person to do this

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Speaker 1: experiment was my daughter Hazel, and she scored a perfect

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Speaker 1: five out of five, much to her surprise.

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Speaker 2: Did she wow? Way to go Hazel.

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Speaker 1: But after she scored five out of five, she said, wait,

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Speaker 1: what's the difference between a black hole and dark matter?

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Speaker 6: Oh oh, and then.

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Speaker 2: She scored zero out of zero in the whites and

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Speaker 2: House exactly.

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Speaker 1: So I went from proud to embarrassed. And then she

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Speaker 1: made a good point. She said, well, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if I understand the science better or worse than the musician,

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Speaker 1: which is a fair question. Also, yeah, that's true, that's true.

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Speaker 2: Well, if the musician is a listener to dKu, I

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Speaker 2: suspect they've got a pretty good understanding of the difference.

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Speaker 2: You know, we should do this again with Matt Kesselman

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Speaker 2: at some point. I'm sure he'd be happy to make

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Speaker 2: some audio for us.

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Speaker 1: All right, so let's hear your answer. It's the first

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Speaker 1: piece of music, did you guys say? Zach?

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Speaker 3: I said vaccines because it kind of lightened up toward

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Speaker 3: the end, so it was like moving from injecting yourself

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Speaker 3: with cowpus to a delightful outcome.

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Speaker 2: Kelly, I said, quantum fields.

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Speaker 1: Oh, Zach is correct, it is vaccines. And I had

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Speaker 1: the same impression. I was like, it's a hopeful message,

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Speaker 1: it's triumphant at the end.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was obvious, to be honest.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god. But the third one also is happy

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Speaker 2: and upbeat.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, let's not give ahead the second one.

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Speaker 1: Would you guys think the answer was? Which science concept

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Speaker 1: was the second one?

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Speaker 2: Communicating Kelly, I was a little torn between black holes

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Speaker 2: in dark matter, but I went with black holes.

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Speaker 3: I too went black holes because of the drop and pitch.

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Speaker 1: Black holes is correct. Two for two, Kelly is one

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Speaker 1: out of two so far, all right? And then the

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Speaker 1: third piece. What did you guys take away from that one? Zach?

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Speaker 6: This was a tough one.

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Speaker 3: I originally wrote quantum fields because when I picture a

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Speaker 3: quantum field, I picture sort of wobble, and this one

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Speaker 3: was a little wobbly. But then the one after was

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Speaker 3: even more wobbly, so I revised it to dark matter,

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Speaker 3: and so I'm gonna stick with dark matter for three,

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Speaker 3: all right?

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Speaker 2: And Kelly, I had vaccines because it was happy, But

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Speaker 2: I want to switch to quantum fields. I think it's

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Speaker 2: quantum fields.

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Speaker 1: Quantum fields.

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Speaker 3: Wait, you had it?

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Speaker 4: Wait wait wait wait, wait, hold on, you mean you

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Speaker 4: had it like and then changed it during the accepted

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Speaker 4: changing period, or that you want to change it now

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Speaker 4: after that time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't change it now. You already put too late.

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Speaker 3: You've already got information about the first two.

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Speaker 2: Well, if you get one wrong, then you automatically have

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Speaker 2: to get two wrong.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, all right, So your original answer, Kelly.

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Speaker 2: Was quantum fields.

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Speaker 1: Was quantum field? Why you have a superposition of truth

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Speaker 1: and line. You're wrong in both counts because it was

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Speaker 1: dark matter. Zach is three out of five so far,

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Speaker 1: so Zach might get them. All right, let's.

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Speaker 3: See without cheating.

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Speaker 2: That's cool, how boring.

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Speaker 1: The next one, which was quite rhythmic, Zach, did you

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Speaker 1: think this one was quantum fields? I went with quantum fields,

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Speaker 1: all right? And Kelly, I just heard some eracing. You

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Speaker 1: said quantum field for three out of four ans or

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Speaker 1: so far.

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Speaker 2: I had dark matter. I had dark matter dark matter.

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Speaker 1: Well, the answer is quantum fields. Zach is correct. Again.

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Speaker 4: What happened to the last one?

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Speaker 1: So by process of elimination, Kelly got this one. We

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Speaker 1: know that the last one is parasites. Kelly, what did

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Speaker 1: you put for the last one? You've put parasites. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so we end on a high note.

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Speaker 6: Okay, you did the best you could.

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Speaker 2: I won the race at the beginning and you won

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Speaker 2: this thing at the end.

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Speaker 3: Everyone, if you got a point for the race, you're

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Speaker 3: three points behind on the score, so it doesn't matter.

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Speaker 2: I got five out of five on the race because

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Speaker 2: I beat you each time.

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Speaker 1: So I think this is a fascinating experiment and we

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Speaker 1: can learn a lot about the Wiier Smith marriage from

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Speaker 1: the data we got to stay on the show. But

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Speaker 1: I was also interested more broadly, like you know, at

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Speaker 1: higher statistic sampling, so I put this out there for

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Speaker 1: our listeners and also for UCI physics majors to contribute.

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Speaker 1: I got more than one hundred people playing this game

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Speaker 1: on a website, and I was able to collect some

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Speaker 1: statistics here, and so if you're just guessing by a

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Speaker 1: random chance, you would get about one out of five

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Speaker 1: of these right. But over one hundred data points, we

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Speaker 1: had people average two answers correct, which means there's a

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Speaker 1: real signal here. There's definitely some information being communicated. And

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Speaker 1: the one that people most often got right was black holes,

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Speaker 1: then parasites, than vaccines, So those are the ones that

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Speaker 1: most effectively communicated that concept.

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Speaker 2: My hypothesis, although I got them wrong, so maybe I'm

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Speaker 2: not maybe I shouldn't be positive hypotheses, is that it

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Speaker 2: had something to do with like how deep the notes

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Speaker 2: were and how positively these topics are imagined, So like

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Speaker 2: vaccines was like the happy one. And then I feel

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Speaker 2: like as you went down, you got closer to like,

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Speaker 2: as the pitch got lower, got closer to like black

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Speaker 2: holes in dark matter, and so I feel like that

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Speaker 2: was part of what was being conveyed. What do you

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Speaker 2: all think there's a correlation there between pitch and how

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Speaker 2: we feel about a topic.

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Speaker 3: You just got to feel the music man, what a

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Speaker 3: non scientific, real left.

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Speaker 1: Brand answer over there. Yeah, I mean, I think it's

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Speaker 1: definitely information rich. Right. Music has a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: going on in there, but it's symbolic, right, how he

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Speaker 1: chooses to represent these ideas in the music. We have

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Speaker 1: to guess at his intention and then reverse engineer it.

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Speaker 1: So I wonder if, like people from a different culture

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Speaker 1: would interpret it differently. I don't even know where in

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Speaker 1: the world this listener is, but there must be a

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Speaker 1: lot of cultural baggage in how you represent these things

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Speaker 1: or in what sounds sound triumphant or scary or ominous

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Speaker 1: or massive.

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Speaker 2: Right, Gosh, there's got to be someone who's studied that

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Speaker 2: across cultures to see if there's a universal feeling that

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Speaker 2: like a no note is like for a scary moments

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Speaker 2: or something.

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Speaker 1: Actually, I know somebody who studies ethnomusicology.

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Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I mean, why are we talking to zach

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Speaker 2: Yah because he's a.

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Speaker 1: Winner instead of just speculating basistly about how culture might

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Speaker 1: shape an artists translation of science into music, or how

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Speaker 1: our ears would recognize those translations. I reached out to

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Speaker 1: a good friend who's an expert in this area. Professor

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Speaker 1: Lilliana Carrizzo is an ethno musicologist whose work focuses broadly

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Speaker 1: on music and culture, especially migration. She has studied the

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Speaker 1: music of the Middle East, Mongolia, and South America, among others.

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Speaker 1: I sent her these clips and asked her to share

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Speaker 1: her thoughts. Here's what she had to say.

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Speaker 7: Thanks for reaching out to your friendly neighborhood ethnomusicologist. So

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Speaker 7: fair warning, if you ask an ethno musicologist whether music

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Speaker 7: contains universal meetings, there's a decent chance we'll spend twenty

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Speaker 7: minutes explaining why that answer is. Well, it's complicated.

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Speaker 8: Within ethno musicology, music is generally understood as a deeply

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Speaker 8: social and cultural phenomenon. Many of us are skeptical of

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Speaker 8: claims about musical universals because ideas that may seem obvious

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Speaker 8: to someone like ones conveyed by melody, rhythm, consonants, or

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Speaker 8: even what counts as music in the first place, can

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Speaker 8: really vary enormously across cultures and historical contexts. So something

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Speaker 8: that sounds spooky, ominous, or suspenseful to one listener might

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Speaker 8: communicate something entirely different to someone else. So your interpretation

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Speaker 8: isn't just about the sounds themselves, It's also shaped deeply

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Speaker 8: by the cultural worlds you've inhabited and the listening habits

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Speaker 8: you've developed over time. That said, ethna, musicologists aren't necessarily

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Speaker 8: anti universality. What many of us find compelling is the

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Speaker 8: possibility that music communicates in ways that differ from language

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Speaker 8: but are still central to what it means to be human.

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Speaker 7: Music can be remarkably.

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Speaker 8: Effective at conveying affect, emotion, mood, intensity, that sort of thing,

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Speaker 8: all sorts of felt experiences without necessarily being tied to

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Speaker 8: a single precise meaning. A piece of music might not

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Speaker 8: tell everyone exactly the same thing informationally, but it still

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Speaker 8: can create overlapping frames of understanding and interpretation among listeners

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Speaker 8: who share certain cultural assumptions, while still leaving plenty of

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Speaker 8: room for individual interpretation. So in other words, music may

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Speaker 8: be less like a dictionary and more like a really

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Speaker 8: good dinner conversation. Everyone leaves with a slightly different takeaway,

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Speaker 8: but somehow we're all talking about similar themes and ideas.

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Speaker 1: Well, Zach, what do you think more broadly about like

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Speaker 1: communicating science, you know, not through language or through math,

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Speaker 1: but through visuals or music or dance or other you know,

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Speaker 1: left brain kind of stuff.

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Speaker 3: I am Kelly knows this and profoundly in favor of

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Speaker 3: personal irresponsibility. I enjoy communicating science purely because it amuses me.

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Speaker 9: I don't have any broader goals, and.

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Speaker 6: I don't know if it works, but I'm having a

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Speaker 6: nice time.

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Speaker 3: Kelly probably has more uplifting to you.

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Speaker 2: But I mean, I think I think art can be

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Speaker 2: used the kind of art that Zach does. For example,

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Speaker 2: I think we found it very useful for conveying complicated ideas,

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Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of ideas that for people who

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Speaker 2: have trouble picturing things in their heads sort of like

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Speaker 2: I do. Having Zach do the comics helps and having

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Speaker 2: a bit of comic relief or having a like an

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Speaker 2: opportunity for your brain to just sort of like take

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Speaker 2: a little break and enjoy itself for a moment before

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Speaker 2: you jump back into like the details is helpful.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think with comics, and for some reason,

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Speaker 3: I don't really understand if you take the same paragraph

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Speaker 3: and put it across four panels with a picture of

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Speaker 3: a face, humans just kind of tune in a little more.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think if you were trying to get

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Speaker 2: someone through a difficult scientific topic and then you took

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Speaker 2: some musical breaks to like sort of help you visualize

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Speaker 2: what was happening and also just sort of like take

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Speaker 2: a moment to let your brain do something else, then

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Speaker 2: I think that could be helpful.

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Speaker 1: Well, we use music all the time in storytelling in movies,

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Speaker 1: right the background music tells you how to feel. Is

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Speaker 1: somebody who can jump out of the wall? Is this

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Speaker 1: a good moment? But I've never seen that done like

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Speaker 1: in a science talk. Oh should I have like a

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Speaker 1: background music during my presentation? Like this was a really

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Speaker 1: tricky bit and then we made it work at.

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Speaker 3: The time when the guy who was wrong, you put

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Speaker 3: up his picture and then you do the mean music, Yes.

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Speaker 2: My colleague who disagrees. I'm hoping this ushers in a

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Speaker 2: new era of a lot more music behind scientific presentations.

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Speaker 2: That's all I've got to say. And thank you so

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Speaker 2: much to Max for playing along and for coming up

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Speaker 2: with these great clips for us.

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Speaker 1: Yes, thank you very much. Let's send this backward to

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Speaker 1: Max to hear his reaction to our reactions to his music.

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Speaker 10: Hi, Daniel, Kelly and Zach. This is Max or Max

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Speaker 10: Maroon or my actual name is Matthew and I'm actually

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Speaker 10: up in Massachusetts, where all the greatest minds and comedians

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Speaker 10: of the world come from. Anyways, I do want to

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Speaker 10: thank Daniel for having me be a part of this experiment,

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Speaker 10: though I have to admit that I did mess up

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Speaker 10: the file names and actually sorry, Zach Kelly got five

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Speaker 10: out of five and she was the winner, but no,

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Speaker 10: I'm just kidding. So it was really cool to see

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Speaker 10: the results, especially Zach's live five out of five and

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Speaker 10: hearing that Hazel got the five out of five and Daniel,

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Speaker 10: I'll say that Hazel I'm sure is a lot younger

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Speaker 10: than me, and I'm sure she understands the concepts far

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Speaker 10: better because the youth is where it's at It was

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Speaker 10: interesting to see the results because the ones that did best,

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Speaker 10: like black holes, parasites, and vaccines were the ones when

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Speaker 10: I did the pieces that I was most confident with.

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Speaker 10: Quantum fields and dark matter are you know, they're kind

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Speaker 10: of at the edge of human understanding. But Kelly alluded

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Speaker 10: to the fact of the low tones, and with those

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Speaker 10: that's what I was kind of trying to do. So

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Speaker 10: quantum fields, I was playing like a low and a

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Speaker 10: high ian a g And I know I was doing

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Speaker 10: some hammer ons like the ripples, you know, coming out

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Speaker 10: of the quantum field and dark matter. I was trying

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Speaker 10: to do the low note of the eighty five percent

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Speaker 10: of matter and having the high harmonics is like the actual,

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Speaker 10: you know, matter we see and experience. So I do

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Speaker 10: want to thank Daniel again for having me be a

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Speaker 10: part of this. Science and math and philosophy have been

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Speaker 10: main drivers of my creative writing and music and my

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Speaker 10: writing lyrics and poetry and everything like that. So it

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Speaker 10: was really neat to be a part of this and

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Speaker 10: to see actual results and to see what people could

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Speaker 10: or could not get out of it. So thanks again.

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Speaker 6: Guys.

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Speaker 1: All Right, we are back and we aren't done. Playing

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Speaker 1: games and adjudicating disputes between the Wiener Smiths. We are

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Speaker 1: ready to get down to some serious science.

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Speaker 2: Yes, we have gotten rid of Zach and it is

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Speaker 2: just you and me again. And so let's bring on

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Speaker 2: a veterinarian in Daytona Beach, Florida to hear what Mark

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Speaker 2: wants to know about.

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Speaker 5: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, this is Mark. I'm a veterinarian

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Speaker 5: in Daytona Beach, Florida. We had a cold snap the

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Speaker 5: other night which got me thinking about temperature. As I

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Speaker 5: understand it, temperatures an emergent property of the energy of

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Speaker 5: a group of particles, and there's an absolute lowest temperature

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Speaker 5: that can be reached. My question is does the universe

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Speaker 5: have an absolute highest temperature allowed? And if so, what

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Speaker 5: is it and what are the parameters that determine it.

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Speaker 5: Thanks for taking my question. Keep up the great podcast.

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Speaker 5: And by the way, Kelly, remind Daniel that without biology

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Speaker 5: there would be no physicists.

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Speaker 2: Daniel, without biology, there would be no physics. Oh, there

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Speaker 2: would be no physicists. That's what it said. That's true.

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Speaker 2: Without biology, there would be no physicists.

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Speaker 1: You're welcome, that's right. I'm very grateful to biology for

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Speaker 1: laying the foundation on which physics can reach towards true understanding.

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Speaker 1: But thank you also to Mark for asking such deep,

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Speaker 1: such tough questions. Oh my gosh, what is temperature anyway?

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Speaker 1: Such a fascinating topic.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so let's jump in. What is temperature?

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Speaker 1: So before we can understand whether there is a maximum temperature,

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Speaker 1: we have to understand what are we're talking about? Anyway.

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Speaker 1: Temperature turns out to be a really complicated topic. It

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Speaker 1: feels really simple until you start to think about exactly

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Speaker 1: what it means, And it turns out that temperature is

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Speaker 1: something that is defined in several different ways, especially in

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Speaker 1: different regimes. It's not something fundamental to the universe like

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Speaker 1: momentum or location. It's more like an emergent property that

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Speaker 1: describes something about our experience, and as we try to

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Speaker 1: extend it in different directions, we end up trying to

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Speaker 1: do that in different, sometimes contradictory ways. So let's start

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Speaker 1: with the easy definition of temperature is what we call

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Speaker 1: sort of the operational definition of temperature, which is, like,

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Speaker 1: some things feel hotter, some things feel colder. Can we

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Speaker 1: measure that? So we invent stuff like a thermometer right

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Speaker 1: where you have mercury in a column, or you have

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Speaker 1: a wire whose resistance changes, and we define temperature according

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Speaker 1: to that. You know, we say the temperature is whatever

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Speaker 1: the thermometer reads. It's fifty, it's seventy, it's forty two,

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Speaker 1: or whatever, and it seems to scale with our intuitive

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Speaker 1: experience of temperature. And so we like that and we

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Speaker 1: say that's what temperature is.

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Speaker 2: But what is it really measuring? It's just the rate

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Speaker 2: at which it makes mercury expand or yeah, what are

442
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 2: we really measuring when we say we're measuring that kind

443
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 2: of temperature?

444
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 1: So here we're relying on some chemical property of a gas,

445
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 1: or of mercury, or of a wire, and how that

446
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: changes as things get hotter and colder. And then it's

447
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,199
Speaker 1: a bit of a circular definition, right. You hear me

448
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: saying hotter and colder. And then we define temperature to

449
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: be like zero when the thermometer reads zero in one hundred,

450
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: when the thermometer reads one hundred, and so it's just

451
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,639
Speaker 1: sort of an operational definition because we are linking temperature,

452
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: the whole concept of it, to whatever the thermometer reads,

453
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: without wetting ourselves to like the underlying details of how

454
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: that is happening. And you can even get like mercury

455
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: thermometer and alcohol thermometer, who're both calibrated to agree at zero,

456
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: one, one hundred, disagreeing in between that because they expand at

457
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 1: different rates or they respond differently, and so you just

458
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: have to like pick one and define it and say,

459
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: my mercury thermometer is what defines the temperature. It's not

460
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: very satisfying, but it's actually the most intuitive and useful

461
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: definition of temperature.

462
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 2: Well, I'd argue what you really want when you're measuring

463
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 2: temperature is to understand biology better in some way, and

464
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 2: so that works for me. Are we done?

465
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: You're not done. There's also a definition of temperature that

466
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 1: comes from thermodynamics, right, and this essentially asks like what

467
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 1: direction does heat flow? Because we know that things move

468
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: from hot to cold? Right, you put a hot thing

469
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: next to a cold thing, the cold thing is going

470
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 1: to get hotter and the hot thing is going to

471
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: get colder. How does that work? How can you convert

472
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: that flow into energy? That's what thermodynamics is all about,

473
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: and that's a new definition of temperature. Right. In thermodynamics,

474
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: the ratio of two temperatures equals the ratio of heat

475
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: exchanged by those reservoirs. So that's what temperature means. In thermodynamics.

476
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: It's about the rate at which heat moves. And so

477
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,679
Speaker 1: it's not linked to mercury or to alcohol or to resistance.

478
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,479
Speaker 2: No, but you wouldn't say that you're like transferring the

479
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 2: heat from your mouth into the thermometer to make the

480
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 2: mercury move. And so don't these definitions sort of overlap

481
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:45,199
Speaker 2: in some way? Oh?

482
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:48,239
Speaker 1: Absolutely, these things definitely overlap in lots of ways. Right.

483
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: They often give similar answers, but it's a different story

484
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: about what temperature is. Right, one is saying it's just

485
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: the number on the thermometer. The other is saying, no,

486
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: it's the heat that's flowing. And then we have even

487
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: more views, like the physicist would be like, yeah, but

488
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 1: what's happening underneath? Right, And this is what people commonly

489
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 1: think about, like the kinetic theory of temperature. It's like

490
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: molecules and they're jiggling and they're moving. The idea that

491
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,400
Speaker 1: hot gases have molecules that are moving faster, or hot

492
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: solids have molecules that are jiggling more. It's about the

493
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: microscopic motion turning into this emergent experience of temperature.

494
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 2: I guess I'd always imagine that the microscopic motion is

495
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 2: like what is changing the temperature of the colder thing

496
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 2: that's near a hot thing, and then you measure it

497
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 2: with a thermometer. And to me, these don't feel like

498
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 2: different definitions. They just feel like you're looking at it

499
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 2: at a different level, like you're digging one more why

500
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 2: down because the thermometer one doesn't even seem like a definition,

501
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 2: it's just like that's a way you measure a thing.

502
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: For the most part, these things really do agree with

503
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: each other, and in everyday life, you know, around normal temperatures,

504
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: they all give simi explanations. The thing you measure on

505
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: the thermometer and the kinetic theory of a jiggling and

506
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: the motion of heat flow, they all agree, right, But

507
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: these things break down sometimes near the extremes, like when

508
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: you try to go to absolute zero, then kinetic theory

509
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: breaks down because you can't bring particles all the way

510
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: to rest, whereas thermodynamic theory says you can get to

511
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: absolute zero. So it's really at the extremes, which is

512
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: I think the places where you really illuminate, like what

513
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 1: something means that things things break down, And so it's

514
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: all about you know, what theory are we using in

515
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: order to extrapolate to really hot or to really cold regimes?

516
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 2: All right, and Mark is an extreme sort of person

517
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: and that is what his question was about.

518
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: So actually, there is one more view of temperature, which

519
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: is the sort of statistical theory, and this is more

520
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: about entropy, and it tells us that like, for example,

521
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: a cold system is one where adding energy opens up

522
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: many new arrangements, and a hot system, one with high temperature,

523
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: gains few new arrangements per unit of energy. So it

524
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: defines temperature as this relationship between entropy and energy. And

525
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: you might say, Kelly, well that just tells us why

526
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: heat flows from a hot system to a cult system.

527
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: And you're right, but this is a weird definition of

528
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: temperature because in some systems you can even get like

529
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: negative temperatures, right, because you get systems with really weird

530
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: setups between the entropy and the energy, and so you

531
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: can get negative. So thermodynamics says you can get to zero,

532
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: Kinetic theory says you can't get to zero. Statistical theory

533
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: says you can get even negative. So it's at the

534
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: extremes that these things really.

535
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 2: Disagree, okay, and they disagree a lot. And so I'm

536
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 2: excited because at the end of this episode you're going

537
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 2: to tell us which understanding of temperature is correct, and

538
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 2: so this is exciting.

539
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: We're not, actually, but we are going to try to

540
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: extrapolate to the extreme that Mark wants, which is to

541
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: think about the maximum heat of the universe. And so

542
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: I think for this exploration, I think kinetic theory is

543
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: the right way to go. Kinetic theory relies on quantum mechanics.

544
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: It thinks about everything as particles in motion. You have

545
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: charged particles emitting light, you have black body radiation. Everything

546
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,959
Speaker 1: is built together with these bonds. It ignores gravity, right,

547
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: which is very very weak, and so it thinks of

548
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: about an object as a bunch of microscopic particles that

549
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: are jiggling and moving and how they emit energy. And

550
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: from that point of view, you know, how hot can

551
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: things get? Is a fun question?

552
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm having fun already. So how hot can things get? Daniel?

553
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 2: What's the hottest thing we know about?

554
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: Yeah? So the universe is filled with hot stuff. Let's calibrate,

555
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: you know, and we'll use the Celsiat scale. So ice

556
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: of course at zero C. Normal human bodies at thirty seven.

557
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: The hottest fever ever measured, here's a biology take for you,

558
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: is forty six point five C. Right, not good. The

559
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth is seventy one C wow.

560
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: Wow.

561
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: All right, so that gets pretty warm. The average daytime

562
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: temperature on them the moon is one hundred sea.

563
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 2: Wow.

564
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: So like, yes, pretty toasty.

565
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 2: It's not going to be fun to live on the Moon.

566
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: The hottest temperature survived by any living thing a tartar

567
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: grade is one hundred and fifty one sea. Those guys

568
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: are tough.

569
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 2: They're tough. I'm gonna go ahead and be a wet

570
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 2: blanket and say that every time I've looked into a

571
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 2: claim about tartar grades. They can survive the extreme thing,

572
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 2: but not like forever. Right, So it probably lived at

573
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty one sea for like, I don't

574
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 2: know thirty seconds before it died, but that's thirty seconds

575
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 2: longer than I would So way to go tartar grades.

576
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: All right. So up next is the surface of Venus

577
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: at four hundred and sixty CE. Not a place i'd

578
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: go on vacation. The breaks on a Formula one racing

579
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: car get to about seven hundred and fifty c oh

580
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: wow wow.

581
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

582
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 5: Holy.

583
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: A typical wood burning fire is it about one thousand

584
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: sea okay. Lava that you can like visit in Hawaii,

585
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: though don't dip your feet into it is twelve hundred

586
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: sea wow.

587
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 2: Okay.

588
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: The surface of the Sun gets up to about fifty

589
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: five hundred wow.

590
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:01,479
Speaker 2: Okay.

591
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: The core of the Earth is at six thousand, so

592
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 1: we're getting really really hot here. Yeah, but even in

593
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: our atmosphere we have hotter things like a lightning bolt

594
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: is very briefly twenty eight thousand kelvin wow, which is

595
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: very close to twenty eight thousand C.

596
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: That is like really even more amazing that people ever survive.

597
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 2: Holy cow. Okay.

598
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: The corona of the Sun is much hotter than the

599
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: actual surface of the Sun. It has plasma at around

600
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: a million sea wow.

601
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have guessed the corona was going to be

602
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 2: harder than the surface.

603
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, really fascinating solar physics there. Now go to like

604
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: the core of a nuclear bomb exploding and you have

605
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: a range of like ten to fifty million sea wow.

606
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: Gas coming out of a supernova is like fifty million sea.

607
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:49,479
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay.

608
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: And now here's the one that surprises a lot of folks,

609
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: which is the intercluster medium. Right, So like we have

610
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: solar system, it's part of the galaxy. Galaxies come together

611
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: in kluster and there's tendrils of mass between the galaxies.

612
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: Not all the atoms and the universe are any galaxies,

613
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: and then there's stuff between the galaxies inside the cluster.

614
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,399
Speaker 1: It comes out to like ten percent of the mass

615
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 1: of the cluster. And it's really really hot. It's like

616
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:16,439
Speaker 1: one hundred million sea.

617
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:19,280
Speaker 2: I would have guessed it would be really cooled out there.

618
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: Well, it's weird because if I dropped you out there

619
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: in space, you would freeze, but you'd be surrounded by

620
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: a plasma at one hundred million sea. And the reason

621
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: is that it's very hot, right, we're relying here on

622
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 1: the kinetic theory of temperature. It's really hot. The particles

623
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: are moving really really fast, right, But there's not a

624
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,399
Speaker 1: lot of energy there, and so you go out there,

625
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: you would radiate away your energy. You know, a very

626
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 1: very dilute gas that's very very hot. You're gonna cool

627
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: down when you're in that gas because it's not delivering

628
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,800
Speaker 1: a lot of heat to you. See how the energy

629
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: flow versus the kinetic theory can give different answers.

630
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 2: Yeah wait, okay, but my mind's been blown. Okay, but

631
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 2: so if you freeze out there, doesn't that tell you

632
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 2: which of the definitions is like the one that is

633
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:12,240
Speaker 2: meaningful that's from.

634
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: A biological point of view, I suppose that's the one

635
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: that counts. But you know, a physicist using Kennedy theory

636
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: would say, well, that plasma in which you froze to

637
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: death is very very hot.

638
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, it's confusing, right, Yeah.

639
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: But there are hotter things in the universe. The quasars,

640
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: the active galactic nuclei that are emitting huge amounts of radiation,

641
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: often powered by supermassive black holes. These things, the gas

642
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: around them gets to fifty trillion sea who and this

643
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: is just gravitational friction, This is spaghetification. This is tidal

644
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: forces from the black hole heating up gas and the

645
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: accretion disk.

646
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 2: Crazy.

647
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 1: So the hottest thing out there in the universe is

648
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: probably a newly born neutron star. But we can also

649
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: make really hot stuff here on Earth. It gets up

650
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 1: to trillions of kelvin, and that's in particle colliders. When

651
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 1: we smashed together atomic nuclei like lead and gold, we

652
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: briefly make a state called a quark gluon plasma where

653
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: the quarks inside the protons and neutrons have become free

654
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: and slosh around in this really hot state that can

655
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: get up to tens or maybe even hundreds of trillions

656
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: of Sa. So these extreme temperatures can be reached even

657
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 1: here on Earth.

658
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 2: And so this is not the reactors where we're trying

659
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 2: to contain fusion, because you're not shooting lead and gold

660
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,800
Speaker 2: in those. But these are like the LHC reactors.

661
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, exactly. At the LAHC we mostly collide protons

662
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:41,800
Speaker 1: and protons, okay, but for a few months of the

663
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 1: year we collide heavy atomic nuclei because we want to

664
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: study what happens when you smash big blobs of stuff

665
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 1: and the other big blobs of stuff and it turns

666
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: out you get a big hot mess.

667
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 2: Well, did that like burn through a part of the

668
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:56,399
Speaker 2: reactor the first time you all did it? Or did

669
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 2: you expect it and were prepared?

670
00:36:58,120 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: They expected it, and they were prepared, and it's most

671
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: contained I mean, it makes a huge explosion and particles

672
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: fly out, but that's standard stuff at the LEDC constantly

673
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: bathed and that kind of radiation from the collisions.

674
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it doesn't make it sound like a safe

675
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 2: place to work when you put it that way.

676
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 1: He's one hundred meters undergrad there's plenty of shielding, okay.

677
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: But Mark's question is not just like what is the

678
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:24,720
Speaker 1: hottest thing. He's asking is there an absolute highest temperature allowed? Right?

679
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: And here's where we really come to the edge of

680
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: our knowledge. In kinetic theory, there is an absolute maximum

681
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: temperature if you heat up stuff enough. Then the assumption

682
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: that's at the heart of kinetic theory that we can

683
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 1: just think about particles defined by quantum mechanics and emitting

684
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: radiation and wiggling and stuff and ignore gravity, that assumption

685
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: goes away. That assumption breaks because at really really high temperatures,

686
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: gravity comes back. If there's really high energy density, then

687
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: curvature is important. Remember gravity is the weakest force, but

688
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: it grows with importance as energy density increases, So really

689
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,759
Speaker 1: high temperatures gravity becomes important again, and this is called

690
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: the Plank temperature. So essentially our theory, our extrapolation from

691
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: what happens at a certain temperature makes this assumption that

692
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: you can ignore gravity, and that assumption works up to

693
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 1: a certain temperature, which is what we call the Plank

694
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: temperature or absolute hot, and beyond that we just don't know.

695
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: We cannot predict with kinetic theory what would happen past

696
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 1: that temperature. We need quantum gravity because we need to

697
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: account for the gravitational effects. Ignoring that is sort of

698
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: like extrapolating the Big Bang backwards using only general relativity

699
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: and ignoring quantum mechanics, or saying that the heart of

700
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,800
Speaker 1: a black hole is a singularity, which ignores quantum mechanics.

701
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 1: You can't just ignore one tentative modern physics when you

702
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 1: in a place where you know it's relevant.

703
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 2: How many physicists have used absolute hot as a pickup

704
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 2: line and have failed to get a date? That's what

705
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:04,359
Speaker 2: I need to know them. Oh, no, okay, So one

706
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 2: of the theories has an absolute hot but the other

707
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 2: ones don't. Is that right?

708
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: So all these different theories of temperature have different extremes

709
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: in different boundary conditions because of the assumptions that go

710
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: into them. Thermodynamic temperature doesn't have an intrinsic maximum. It

711
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: can be extended infinitely, but again those extensions rely on

712
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 1: assumptions which break down at the plank scale, So I

713
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: would not reliably use thermodynamic temperature to predict what happens

714
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,919
Speaker 1: past the plank scale. Statistical temperature, this is a really

715
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: weird one, right, This is the one that can go negative.

716
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: This is the one about how entropy flows. And it

717
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: has a different maximum temperature. It's called the Hagadorn temperature,

718
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: which is at just about a trillion or two kelvin,

719
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: right around the temperature of a quarklowan plasma. And it

720
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: argues that as a system's density of states grows with exponentially,

721
00:39:57,440 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 1: that there's a maximum that you can reach there where

722
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: you can pump in more and more energy and the

723
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: temperature doesn't climb anymore because of how the entropy is changing.

724
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: But you told me about things that are hotter than

725
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 2: the corek glue on plasma. So does that mean that

726
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 2: we don't have to pay attention to that theory of

727
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 2: temperature anymore.

728
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 1: It's like everything, it has a range in which you

729
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: should apply it, right, Okay, It's like we're saying we

730
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: prove Newtonian mechanics is wrong when we flew a spaceship.

731
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: Does that mean I can't use it to predict a baseball? Yes,

732
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: you still can, and you still should in some settings.

733
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: But you should always keep in mind that none of

734
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: our theories of physics are fundamental or absolute. They're all approximate,

735
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: they're all emergent, and they all have regimes in which

736
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: you can use them and regimes in which you should

737
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:41,879
Speaker 1: not rely on them.

738
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 2: Got it, Okay? It depends that works in physics.

739
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: Too, especially at the extremes. Right in our comfortable, cozy

740
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: world of California. These definitions of temperature all agree with

741
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: each other, but when you get to very very cold

742
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: or very very hot, then they say different things about

743
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: or entropy flow, or what the thermometer reads, or what's

744
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: happening inside these objects.

745
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 2: Got it all right? Well, let's see what Marque has

746
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 2: to say about your absolute hot answer.

747
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 5: Thank you, Daniel for answering my question. That was great,

748
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 5: and Kelly, thank you for asking insightful questions to clarify

749
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 5: it as it went along. I really appreciate it. I

750
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 5: do understand it a lot better now, and keep doing

751
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 5: what you're doing. Love the show and thanks again.

752
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 9: Bye.

753
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 2: All right, and we're back and we have a question

754
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 2: from another Daniel. And like dKu, Daniel not a big

755
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 2: fan of biology.

756
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: Not why I picked this question, not why at all?

757
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 2: All right, all right, I pick.

758
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 1: This question because I love the nickname Glowy Dan. So

759
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: let's hear gloe Dan's question.

760
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 11: Hey, Daniel and Kelly, this is Daniel from Fort Collins, Colorado.

761
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 11: I've always had a love for the natural sciences, except

762
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 11: for biology, sorry Kelly, but especially for geology and physics,

763
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 11: both of which I studied a bit in college, and

764
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 11: recently my interest in geology and mineralogy has manifested itself

765
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 11: as a rapidly growing collection of interesting rock and mineral specimens.

766
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 11: I have a particular love for those that have cool

767
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 11: and industring reactions to the ultraviolet light spectrum, which, by

768
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 11: the way, has earned me the nickname of Glowy Dan

769
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,760
Speaker 11: amongst my rock friends. This leads us into my question

770
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 11: for you guys today, why does ultraviolet light cause these

771
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 11: incredible reactions in rocks and a plethora of other things

772
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 11: that are less cool than rocks, like scorpions. Thank you

773
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 11: guys so much for taking my question. Have a great one.

774
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 2: All right, glowy Dan, I'm going to look past your

775
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 2: poor taste in subjects and focus on the fact that

776
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 2: this is actually a really fascinating topic that includes some biology.

777
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 2: So I'm here for you.

778
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: Let's I think Gloey Dan is just engaging in the

779
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: long tradition to dKu you good natured ribbing, because he

780
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 1: clearly is curious about biology.

781
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 2: Yes, well, and dk you appreciates honesty, so it is

782
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 2: all good. You like what you like, gloe Dan.

783
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: So why do rocks glow super fun? There's actually two

784
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: different physical processes happening here. We have sort of similar names.

785
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: The first one is fluorescence and the other one is phosphorescence.

786
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about both of them. But first let's

787
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 1: remind ourselves what is light and how is stuff absorbed

788
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 1: and emitted? Anyway, because this is going to be important

789
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: to understand what's going on inside these glowy rocks.

790
00:43:58,320 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 2: Enlighten me.

791
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 5: Today.

792
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 2: Your jokes are brilliant today.

793
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 1: I wonder Zach would agree. So remember that light is

794
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation. We have all these fields around us, many

795
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,839
Speaker 1: of there are matterfields that make us up, and one

796
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: of them is the electromagnetic field. Photons are wiggles in

797
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: this field, and from the infrared to the visible to

798
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: the ultraviolet, all of light are just wiggles in the

799
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field. So ultraviolet light is not different from visible light.

800
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: It's just out of the range that we can see

801
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: because it has a higher frequency. It's a difference in degree,

802
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: not in kind, and the same as true of radio

803
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: waves and of infrared light. All this stuff is just

804
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation at different frequencies. Okay, cool, yep, we're cool now.

805
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: Atoms can absorb and emit some of these frequencies, but

806
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: only specific ones because of quantum mechanics. When an atom

807
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: absorb orbs light, what's happening is the electron that's around

808
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: the nucleus absorbs that photon and it jumps up an

809
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,359
Speaker 1: energy level. But it can only do that for photons

810
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: whose energy matches the gap in energy levels. If an

811
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: electron wants to take a step up a ladder, it

812
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: has to eat a photon of the energy of that step.

813
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: If the photon has too much energy, it can't eat

814
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:24,320
Speaker 1: it because it would put it between steps, and the

815
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: electron cannot be between steps, So it can eat a

816
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:29,840
Speaker 1: photon that takes it up one step or two steps

817
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: or nine steps, but not four point seven.

818
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 2: Steps, okay. And so if it gets hit with a

819
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 2: photon that isn't going to bring it up the right amount.

820
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 2: Does the photon just pass right through it?

821
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: That's right. That's transparency basically, Okay. That's why some materials

822
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: are opaqu to visible light and other materials are transparent. Right.

823
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: They can pass through atoms without being absorbed, or they

824
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: pass through atoms and do get absorbed. And so every

825
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: atom has a different set of frequencies at which it

826
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: can absorb based on those electron energy levels. And this

827
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: is super powerful and super fascinating. It lets us, for example,

828
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: identify what's in the atmosphere of distant stars without ever

829
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: going there. Just by looking at the pattern of radiation.

830
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: We could say, oh, look it's hydrogen. Oh, this helium there. Oh,

831
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 1: this one has something weird in it. I wonder if

832
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 1: aliens are dumping their trash into this star. We can

833
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 1: tell a lot about distant stars just by looking at

834
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: the pattern of emission. We can tell what's in the

835
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 1: atmosphere around exoplanets by seeing how light from their stars

836
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: is absorbed as it passes through the atmosphere incredibly powerful

837
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: tool because different atoms have different signatures. It's like a fingerprint. Now,

838
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: they can absorb and they can emit at these frequencies.

839
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:43,839
Speaker 1: So an electron can jump down energy levels and when

840
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 1: it does so, it emits a photon, and that photon

841
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: has the energy of the difference in the electron's energy levels,

842
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: which has a specific frequency. So you can see this

843
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 1: emission spectrum and absorption spectrum. For example, the Sun has

844
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: an atmosphere and when light frons when the surface of

845
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: the Sun passes through it, it gets absorbed at certain frequencies,

846
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: and we can tell what's in the atmosphere of the

847
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: Sun based on those gaps where the Sun has absorbed

848
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 1: those photons. If you have a gas in the lab

849
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: and you heat it up, it will emit at those frequencies,

850
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: so you can tell what's in your gas based on

851
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: those emissions.

852
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 2: And does it emit at just like a constant rate

853
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 2: or does something have to happen to get it to

854
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 2: emit a photon?

855
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:31,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. Everything in the universe that's made of

856
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: charged particles is constantly emitting photons because those particles are

857
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: in motion, and anytime things are wiggling or moving or accelerating,

858
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: they are emitting photons. The frequency at which they emit

859
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,919
Speaker 1: is dependent on their temperature. So for example, a piece

860
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: of metal that's sitting on your desk and feels cool

861
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,239
Speaker 1: is actually emitting light, but just below the range where

862
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: you can see it. As you heat it up, it

863
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 1: starts to glow visibly. That's because now those atoms inside

864
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: it are moving faster according to kinetic theory, and so

865
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:03,760
Speaker 1: they emit at higher frequencies. That's the black body spectrum.

866
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: That's a smooth spectrum, So that's a different way that

867
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: atoms can emit. That's like looking at a block of

868
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 1: matter on a whole it's going to be emitting a

869
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 1: smooth spectrum, but individual atoms emit it specific frequencies. So

870
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: what's going on with fluorescence, Well, what happens here is

871
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,919
Speaker 1: that you have a source of ultraviolet light and that

872
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: matches up very well with the atomic energy levels. So

873
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 1: the atoms inside the glowy rock can absorb those ultraviolet

874
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 1: photons because it lines up with a step for the electrons,

875
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: multiple steps actually, So the electron absorbs that ultraviolet photon,

876
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:42,399
Speaker 1: it goes up a bunch of energy levels, and now

877
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: you might imagine what it would do next is jump

878
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: back down and emit an ultraviolet photon right the same

879
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: frequency that came in. But that's not what happens. What

880
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 1: happens is that it takes a couple of steps down,

881
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: so it loses some of that energy to heat it

882
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 1: like transfers it to other molecules to make them wiggle it.

883
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to lose energy by emitting a photon.

884
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 1: It can lose energy in other ways, like let's say,

885
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,359
Speaker 1: for example, it goes up ten energy levels and then

886
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: it slides down a few energy levels, giving up that

887
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: energy to neighboring molecules making them wiggle. Then it jumps

888
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: down the rest of the energy levels and gives off

889
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: a photon. So it absorbs a high energy photon and

890
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: it emits a lower energy photon because some of the

891
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: energy is lost to heat. Now that photon is in

892
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: the visible So effectively the rock has transformed an invisible

893
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: ultraviolet high energy photon to a visible lower energy photon.

894
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 2: WHOA, that's pretty cool.

895
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Rocks are just out there like changing

896
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: photons from invisible to visible. Who very cool, And that's

897
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:50,720
Speaker 1: fluorescence shine an ultraviolet light on something and it glows

898
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 1: in the visible. And this is what happens that like

899
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:55,719
Speaker 1: black light parties right or raves when they turn on

900
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: the ultraviolet light and some people who are wearing certain

901
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 1: kinds of shirts or certain glasses or whatever that fluoresce,

902
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 1: they absorb the ultra violet light and they glow in

903
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: the visible and it looks really really cool.

904
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:10,399
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, it's going to make a joke about

905
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,279
Speaker 2: people with glasses not usually being invited to raves, but

906
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 2: surely there are cool people with glasses who are just

907
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 2: not me.

908
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And this happens in nature, right. So there's lots

909
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: of different rocks out there that glow in the visible

910
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: in different ways based on these energy levels. This calcite

911
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 1: that glows red, blue, white, or orange. Fluorite glows blue,

912
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:33,840
Speaker 1: violet or green. This willemite that glows really bright green

913
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 1: opal and high light also glow in the green. There's

914
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,240
Speaker 1: whole web pages where you can see like glowy rocks.

915
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: It's really really cool.

916
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 2: That is really really cool. Now I'm dying to have

917
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 2: a room in my house filled with these rocks where

918
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 2: the light is always off but the black light is

919
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 2: always on.

920
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 1: And lots of biological critters also have stuff inside them

921
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: that can do this. So scorpions do this. It's not

922
00:50:55,440 --> 00:51:00,160
Speaker 1: fully understood to my knowledge. Why exactly scorpions fluoress. You

923
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 1: put scorpions under a black light and they will glow.

924
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: It might be related to signaling somehow, or to reproduction.

925
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 1: I don't think it's well understood.

926
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 2: I don't think it's well understood either. Wait, and so

927
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 2: this is not a thing that you can run out of, right,

928
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 2: because your electrons will do this over and over and

929
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 2: over and over and over again forever. Is that right?

930
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 1: That's right?

931
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 2: Okay?

932
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 1: Exactly. They have this beta carboline in their cuticles which

933
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,359
Speaker 1: does this, and it's not like it gets used up.

934
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 1: You know, you are inputting new energy every time you

935
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:29,560
Speaker 1: do it. But if you turn off the ultraviolet light,

936
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:30,280
Speaker 1: it will stop.

937
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:30,800
Speaker 2: Okay.

938
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: The other kind of glowy is different. It's the kind

939
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:39,320
Speaker 1: which continues after the light is removed. So this is phosphorescence.

940
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: What's happening here is very similar. But the photon comes in,

941
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: the electron absorbs the energy. But because of a weird

942
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: quirk and the quantum states of some of these guys,

943
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 1: the electrons get trapped briefly in an intermediate state, so

944
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,840
Speaker 1: they don't emit immediately. It's sort of like a little battery.

945
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 1: It stores the energy for a little while and then

946
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:05,239
Speaker 1: gradually releases it, and so it decays from this intermediate

947
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: state more slowly, which means that like you can shine

948
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: ultraviolet light and stuff for a while and it'll get

949
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:13,880
Speaker 1: a bunch of electrons higher up an energy, and then

950
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:16,439
Speaker 1: you can turn off the ultraviolet light and it'll glow.

951
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: It won't glow as brightly at first, but it'll glow longer.

952
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: And so for example, glow in the dark stickers or watches.

953
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: That's how these work. They absorb ultraviolet light when you're

954
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: out around during the day, and then when you turn

955
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 1: off the light, they are slowly dribbling that energy back out,

956
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: and that's phosphorescence. It's very similar to fluorescence, but there's

957
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:38,440
Speaker 1: this delay that happens because of the nature of the

958
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: quantum states in between.

959
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 2: Where do we see that in nature? So we've talked

960
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 2: about glowing the dark stickers and watches.

961
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 1: It's more rare. There are some like deep sea unearthy

962
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 1: creepers that do this. There's like certain species of millipedes

963
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 1: and then emit a brief whitish phosphorescent afterglow if you

964
00:52:55,960 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: zap them with ultraviolet light. Some plants, like if they've

965
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: dried them, like sunflower seeds, also can emit this phosphorescence.

966
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:07,839
Speaker 1: But I think it's accidental. I don't know that there's

967
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:09,879
Speaker 1: any like biological reason for this.

968
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like if it is useful, but it

969
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 2: only lasts for a little while.

970
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's different from like bioluminescence, where you are

971
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 1: producing light, right, You're not just absorbing it, changing its

972
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 1: frequency and then emitting it. You're doing some chemistry to

973
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:28,280
Speaker 1: convert internal energy into photons. So bioluminescence is a different

974
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:29,040
Speaker 1: kind of process.

975
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 2: We should have an episode on that. And I want

976
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 2: to do an episode on iridescence because I want to

977
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 2: figure out why there are those beautiful wasps that are

978
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 2: iridescent even though they spend a bunch of their time

979
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 2: in the dark.

980
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: Why is that helpful? It's probably for some horrifying reason

981
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: that's going to give me nightmares, I hope. So all right, well,

982
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 1: let's send this answer back to Gloe Dan and see

983
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: if we have scratched his physics. Itch.

984
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 11: Hey, guys, thank you for the great answer. Of course,

985
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,959
Speaker 11: biology is very interesting, it's just not so much fun

986
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 11: for some of us to stuff. I was very interested

987
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 11: to learn that the electrons actually jump up several energy

988
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:06,879
Speaker 11: levels and then lose some of their energy to heat

989
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 11: before re emitting a photon. Considering that there are three

990
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:13,799
Speaker 11: main peaks in the ultraviolet spectrum that can induce a

991
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 11: fluorescent reaction, this makes me wonder if there are other

992
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 11: wavelengths that can produce some other visible reaction, especially in

993
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 11: heavier elements that have higher energy electrons. It's also very

994
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 11: interesting to me that only about ten percent of mineral

995
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:31,400
Speaker 11: species fluoresce, while some of those that do not have

996
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 11: very similar chemical makeup in crystal structure. We'll have to

997
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 11: unearth some more of that groundbreaking geology research to delve

998
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 11: even deeper into the subject.

999
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 2: Thanks again, well, thank you to everyone who participated today

1000
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 2: and sent us their questions. We hope you'll send us

1001
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 2: your questions too at questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org.

1002
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:52,120
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1003
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1007
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1009
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1012
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1013
00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:29,920
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1014
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1015
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1016
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1017
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