Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcomed up Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and said, we're waxing
Speaker 1: down our surfboards. We can't wait for June. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick. And today is going to
Speaker 1: be Is it gonna be? What do we call it?
Speaker 1: Part two? It's at least going to be a follow
Speaker 1: up to our most recent podcast, the one that came
Speaker 1: out right before this, which was about the discovery of
Speaker 1: gravitational waves at the Ligo facilities in September. Yes, and
Speaker 1: so in that last episode we talked about how the
Speaker 1: discovery happened, what gravitational waves are, and how they were
Speaker 1: eventually found. But in this episode, we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about what it all means now that we have found
Speaker 1: and confirmed the existence of gravitational waves in our universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's let's talk a little bit about some more
Speaker 1: specifics about Ligo and also what this is going to
Speaker 1: You know, how we see this unfolding doesn't have any
Speaker 1: practical impact on your life as a what I am
Speaker 1: assuming is a normal human being out there you might
Speaker 1: be a crawfish monster. You could be. We talked a
Speaker 1: lot about those in their last episode two. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to judge either way, but I do either way
Speaker 1: want to tell you about some cool things about LIGO,
Speaker 1: and that's that well, and in the discovery process in general.
Speaker 1: So you know, even though like three dudes started this
Speaker 1: whole crazy ride back in the paper that announced the discovery,
Speaker 1: which is titled by the way, Observation of Gravitational Waves
Speaker 1: from a Binary black Hole Merger has over a thousand
Speaker 1: authors scientific cooperation, y'all. Just that's so cool. It's very
Speaker 1: inspirational to see. And you know, like we mentioned before
Speaker 1: the fact that LIGO had to had to go through
Speaker 1: an upgrade process from fifteen and that was an international
Speaker 1: collaboration also really inspiring. Yeah. Yeah, And and now that
Speaker 1: LGO is is working in this way, researchers expected to
Speaker 1: make tens of observations every year. And usually when you
Speaker 1: say tens of tens of anything, you're kind of making
Speaker 1: fun of it. But in this case, that's really cool
Speaker 1: because it will give us so much more data to
Speaker 1: work with. And again, you know, we're talking about events
Speaker 1: that are happening billions of years ago. So uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's stuff that like, you know, if if it happened
Speaker 1: a billion years ago, but the event was four billion
Speaker 1: light years away, there's no way for us to detect
Speaker 1: it because gravitational waves are limited, as is everything else
Speaker 1: by the speed of light. They can only travel as
Speaker 1: fast as the speed of light. Maybe not everything else,
Speaker 1: Maybe not the expansion of space during inflation. Well that's different.
Speaker 1: That's different. That's that's the universe itself, not stuff within
Speaker 1: the universe. I admitted, I got you, Jonathan. I admit
Speaker 1: nothing except that I did accidentally say gravity waves in
Speaker 1: the last episode SI gravitational waves. I will admit that
Speaker 1: it's on tape. Okay, okay, But back to what it
Speaker 1: all means. So we have discovered gravitational waves that with
Speaker 1: the Lego facility, we hope to discover many more and
Speaker 1: and learn more about them all the time. But what
Speaker 1: does this all mean for the state of physics today? Well, first,
Speaker 1: it is yet another piece of evidence that supports Einstein's
Speaker 1: theory of general relativity. So darn and I hate Einstein
Speaker 1: being right all the time. Props to you, Mr Einstein.
Speaker 1: I want him to crash and burn someday. Well he's dead,
Speaker 1: so he got that going, I mean his theories. I
Speaker 1: want us to discover that in fact, Newton was right.
Speaker 1: I mean his brain was stolen for a while. So
Speaker 1: there's that too. Yeah, yeah, you're you're already two up
Speaker 1: on Einstein. Your brain is exactly where it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be in yours. It was his eyeballs too, wouldn't it,
Speaker 1: I think? So, yeah, yeah it was. That's a lacky
Speaker 1: story for another time at any rate. Uh So, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that the general theory of relativity is going
Speaker 1: to become a scientific law, that's friend. But it does
Speaker 1: support yet more predictions that were made from general relativity.
Speaker 1: So if you say, if general relativity is correct, then
Speaker 1: we would expect X. This was one of those X
Speaker 1: things that we would expect, and in fact, we've now
Speaker 1: discovered it that we've we've found that the evidence of it,
Speaker 1: we can say, yes, this is definitely correct, which is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Right that that yet, again we've seen how general relativity
Speaker 1: matches up with reality as we see it, as we
Speaker 1: can observe it. Now, that doesn't mean that general relativity
Speaker 1: is going to be absolutely all encompassing. There's still big
Speaker 1: gaps for us to fill in. How about the quantum
Speaker 1: level exactly. But it is really an awesome display of
Speaker 1: Einstein's ability to suss things out to a level that
Speaker 1: is almost inhuman as far as I'm concerned, Like, it's
Speaker 1: so amazing to me that he can make these actions
Speaker 1: that he had absolutely no way of testing. And then
Speaker 1: a hundred years later we get the news that, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: he was totally right about that. Well, they did eventually
Speaker 1: have ways of testing the predictions of general relativity. But yeah,
Speaker 1: what you're you're correct about is that Einstein didn't have
Speaker 1: a test that he used to come up with general relativity.
Speaker 1: You're correct. I was specifically thinking about the prediction of
Speaker 1: gravitational waves that there was no way for him to
Speaker 1: test for that. There were certainly ways to test for
Speaker 1: other elements of general relativity, but the specific prediction of
Speaker 1: gravitational waves that was something that they could not easily
Speaker 1: test for. Back in nineteen sixteen when he published the theory,
Speaker 1: other things that were becoming more sure about as a
Speaker 1: result of this black holes, black holes. Yeah, so finally
Speaker 1: we're we've got, like I mentioned in the previous episode,
Speaker 1: the strongest evidence so far for the existence of black holes.
Speaker 1: I think by and large the astronomy and astrophysics community
Speaker 1: was convinced of the existence of black holes already, but
Speaker 1: this is another really good piece of evidence for them. Well,
Speaker 1: they were also convinced of the existence of gravitational waves.
Speaker 1: But again it's one of those things where you say,
Speaker 1: this evidence is yet more support for this thing that
Speaker 1: we cannot directly observe, right so uh. And and furthermore,
Speaker 1: that that black holes can exist in binary systems. Yes,
Speaker 1: that you can get two black holes orbiting one another
Speaker 1: and then coalescing into a a single black hole while
Speaker 1: vaporizing three solar masses worth of material, which again still
Speaker 1: blows my mind. Um. Beyond that, we also are are
Speaker 1: now able to track celestial objects that don't emit visible
Speaker 1: light or any electromagnetic radiation at all, as long as
Speaker 1: they are massive enough, if the event that they are
Speaker 1: undergoing is violent enough to generate gravitational waves, clearly, if
Speaker 1: they're if they're small, if the gravitational waves are very
Speaker 1: tiny and weak and really far away so that by
Speaker 1: the time they get here, they're they're so weak as
Speaker 1: to be under textable, that's not gonna the Lego is
Speaker 1: not gonna make any difference in that. But for stuff
Speaker 1: that we cannot see but does create significant gravitational waves,
Speaker 1: now we have a way of detecting that, and that
Speaker 1: that means that we're going to get information about stuff
Speaker 1: that we know about but haven't been able to directly observe,
Speaker 1: and potentially find out about stuff we didn't even know existed,
Speaker 1: Like we literally had no clue because there was no
Speaker 1: way to observe it. Now we've got a new way
Speaker 1: to Yeah. I've read quotes from a couple of different
Speaker 1: scientists involved with this project who have compared the ligo
Speaker 1: method to essentially gaining a new sense for a person.
Speaker 1: One example I want to quote is from Miriam Kramer's
Speaker 1: piece on mash Double about gravitational waves, where she interviewed
Speaker 1: the LEGO scientists Subull Schmarka who explained it this way quote,
Speaker 1: Imagine that you have all of your senses, but you
Speaker 1: can't year and the first day you gain hearing, you
Speaker 1: get a new life. Imagine how your life would change
Speaker 1: if you can actually observe since your surroundings in a
Speaker 1: very different way. This is what we actually gain with
Speaker 1: gravitational waves. And another one along the same lines was
Speaker 1: David Rights to Physics World. He said, we have been deaf,
Speaker 1: but now we can hear them. We now expect to
Speaker 1: hear things we never expected as we opened a new
Speaker 1: window of astronomy. This was a scientific moon shot, and
Speaker 1: we did it. We landed on the moon. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I've seen that analogy of being able to listen to
Speaker 1: the universe and hear what was going on in the universe.
Speaker 1: I've seen that over and over from multiple people who
Speaker 1: worked on this project and other physicists who didn't work
Speaker 1: directly on the project but are obviously very much interested
Speaker 1: and invested in its outcome. And that particular phrase, you know,
Speaker 1: listening or hearing what is going on, has been used
Speaker 1: multiple times, and I think it is a very elegant
Speaker 1: way of putting it. This side. Yeah, and again it
Speaker 1: kind of uh compares gravitational waves to sound waves. This
Speaker 1: idea of this thing propagating out through the universe, but
Speaker 1: at the speed of light and passing through everything it encounters.
Speaker 1: It's not blocked by other bodies, so it will eventually
Speaker 1: make its way throughout the universe, maybe not strong enough
Speaker 1: for us to detect, but it will come to us
Speaker 1: at some point. Uh. And it means that we're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to study lots of stuff much more um
Speaker 1: intricately than we could before, things like supernova explosions and
Speaker 1: neutron stars and more information about black holes and learn
Speaker 1: you know, all there is to learn that we can
Speaker 1: so far. Uh, it expands that that possibility. Like if
Speaker 1: you think about the things that um that we could
Speaker 1: potentially learn before we had observatories like Lego, there was
Speaker 1: a limit, right, there was there was a hard limit
Speaker 1: to what we could learn just because of the limitations
Speaker 1: on our instrument taition our knowledge. Now we've got a
Speaker 1: brand new way to observe, so who knows what we
Speaker 1: will learn. It is probably one of the most exciting
Speaker 1: things about astronomy right now, in fact, maybe the most
Speaker 1: exciting thing about astronomy at the moment. And it's already
Speaker 1: changing some of what we thought we knew about about
Speaker 1: black holes specifically, Yeah, it's changing what we know about
Speaker 1: black holes. For example. One of the things that was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting was they said they were looking at
Speaker 1: the angular momentum, essentially the spin of the black holes,
Speaker 1: so not the orbits of the black holes, but the
Speaker 1: actual individual spins and they said that it ended up
Speaker 1: the spin of the whole collision ended up being different
Speaker 1: from what they had expected. Uh, and they're not sure why.
Speaker 1: They don't know why. They they have no idea this.
Speaker 1: This is really exciting because now we have to ask
Speaker 1: ourselves why we're the black holes spinning at a different
Speaker 1: rate than what we had anticipated. Was it perhaps that
Speaker 1: the two angular momentums of the individual black holes interfered
Speaker 1: with one another and therefore that's what caused the the issue?
Speaker 1: Or is it something totally new, some some kind of
Speaker 1: physics we don't even know. Is there is there variable
Speaker 1: out there that we've totally missed before. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: could be something well, and it could be called crawfish. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's not go down that dark road yet again. But
Speaker 1: but it could be something that isn't predicted by general relativity.
Speaker 1: It could be something totally new, which again really exciting. UM.
Speaker 1: This also could lead to us having a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of how our universe is expanding and why it's expanding
Speaker 1: at the rate that it is. Um. It also could
Speaker 1: end up giving us a very precise look at how
Speaker 1: much dark energy is in the universe, much more precise
Speaker 1: than any estimation that we have ever made before. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it could open new doors to all sorts of
Speaker 1: new disciplines that we can't anticipate right now. There's a
Speaker 1: term being used called gravitational toronomy. That's really all about
Speaker 1: taking the data from these gravitational waves that we detect
Speaker 1: and then finding out what we can learn from that information.
Speaker 1: And we don't know yet. It's so new that we
Speaker 1: don't even know what to expect. We know that it
Speaker 1: will allow us to look into supernova and neutron stars
Speaker 1: and black holes, but who knows what else will learn?
Speaker 1: But let's let's skip past all of this boring human curiosity.
Speaker 1: I want I want to practical application for this stuff.
Speaker 1: How is it going to work for me? Um? All right, well,
Speaker 1: I want key line pie, but I'm not getting it.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is that you want to why
Speaker 1: aren't you getting it? There's a Kroger right next, because
Speaker 1: I'm recording a podcast right now. Uh No. My point
Speaker 1: here is that wanting a practical application of gravitational waves
Speaker 1: is sort of being a little premature. I would argue
Speaker 1: that we don't have any practical application for gravitational waves.
Speaker 1: Uh right now, apart from the fact that it is
Speaker 1: expanding our knowledge to a degree that that we otherwise
Speaker 1: would you know, I would have no access to where's
Speaker 1: my warp drive? Okay, so warp drive. That's an excellent
Speaker 1: that's an excellent way of looking at Well, could gravitational
Speaker 1: waves lead to warp drive? Who knows, maybe centuries from now.
Speaker 1: So gravitational waves do show that spacetime is folding in
Speaker 1: these little ripples, and you could argue that, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole idea behind warp drive or warp systems is
Speaker 1: that you could warp space to decrease the distance between
Speaker 1: you and your destination. So by decreasing that space, you
Speaker 1: decrease the amount of time it takes for you to
Speaker 1: get to where you're going. It's kind of cheating that
Speaker 1: that fact that you cannot travel faster than the speed
Speaker 1: of light. Well, you don't need to trouble faster than
Speaker 1: the speed of light if you can make your destination
Speaker 1: closer to your departure. Right, Yes, But hold on a second. Now,
Speaker 1: what was that figure we had earlier that uh So,
Speaker 1: a gravitational wave of the kind we sensed with lego,
Speaker 1: uh it would take the distance of a kilometer and
Speaker 1: shorten that by one the width of a proton something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, so that's not going to be shaving
Speaker 1: a whole lot, maybe if you're a hyper miler in space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and especially considering that you have to like like vaporize
Speaker 1: three sons in order to do it, not to make
Speaker 1: an omelet without destroying a few star systems, Okay, at
Speaker 1: least not a warp omelet um. So yeah, here's here's
Speaker 1: the thing is that one, we have no practical means
Speaker 1: of warping space time at the moment, apart from like
Speaker 1: some some very experimental science that is of uh questionable
Speaker 1: uh authenticity. And I use that not meaning that I
Speaker 1: personally questioned. I just know that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: argument within the space itself and physics about various engines
Speaker 1: that are at least intended to be a war drive
Speaker 1: of some sort. Well, I mean, I think we're inherently
Speaker 1: talking about a gigantic scale problem, a mass energy scale problem,
Speaker 1: because once you're talking about the kinds of events that
Speaker 1: cause these big gravitational waves, these large perturbations in size
Speaker 1: and distance in space time, you're talking about things on
Speaker 1: the order of the mass of stars and or even yeah,
Speaker 1: in that case, you're talking about like a stellar engineering
Speaker 1: level of technology. Anyway, that we wed have to be
Speaker 1: like a Cardassiev level two system or something. I I
Speaker 1: I am extremely skeptical we will ever create a system
Speaker 1: capable of warping space on any meaningful scale any time
Speaker 1: in the foreseeable future without destroying everything around it in
Speaker 1: the process. If you put that limitation on it, then
Speaker 1: even more so. Yes, okay, alright, warp drives out. But
Speaker 1: what about warping time? Okay, so yeah, we're talking about
Speaker 1: space times. Time travel is clearly going to come up.
Speaker 1: Here's the secret, guys. We can all time travel. You're
Speaker 1: doing it right now. Just it's just called waiting around,
Speaker 1: and you travel through time forward at a scale that
Speaker 1: is remarkably consistent dependent upon your speed relative to an
Speaker 1: independent observer. Though another thing we've talked about on the
Speaker 1: podcast before is that it is just an inherent consequence
Speaker 1: of Einstein's theories that travel into the future based on
Speaker 1: your initial reference frame is entirely possible, like accelerating beyond
Speaker 1: the reference frame from which you originated. So if you
Speaker 1: get into a space ship and you travel near the
Speaker 1: speed of light and take a round trip and come
Speaker 1: back to planet Earth. You will have you will have
Speaker 1: aged slower than you would have if you just stayed
Speaker 1: on Earth. Right relative to the people who were back
Speaker 1: on Earth, you would have experienced less time, like you
Speaker 1: would have felt the passage that there have been a
Speaker 1: smaller amount of time passed on the ship than people
Speaker 1: who were still on Earth had felt, because you were
Speaker 1: traveling at this much faster speed. Yeah, you know. And
Speaker 1: it's not just by traveling near the speed of light.
Speaker 1: You could also do this by being next to an
Speaker 1: extremely massive object, and you could hang out next to
Speaker 1: a black hole or something for a while. Yeah. These
Speaker 1: these are both things that will warp time so effectively
Speaker 1: it would be like traveling into the future. It looks
Speaker 1: like from everything we've ever seen that traveling into the
Speaker 1: past is essentially a no go um. There's nothing that
Speaker 1: we've seen that has suggested that that would be that
Speaker 1: would be a possibility based upon uh, these particular theories.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are other alternative theories that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with what we're talking about, where people have
Speaker 1: positive the possibility. But based upon what we're chatting about
Speaker 1: right now, especially with gravitational waves, not so much. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to go back and have an
Speaker 1: excellent adventure or a bogus journey. Okay, I'm willing to
Speaker 1: scale back my expectations. If I don't to use a
Speaker 1: warp drive or write a t rex, what about what
Speaker 1: about just reconciling quantum physics with classical physics. I have
Speaker 1: heard people say that the did you hear it through
Speaker 1: a grapevine? I did not, not much longer. Will you
Speaker 1: be mine? Joe? I don't think you ever were, honestly,
Speaker 1: when I look at you at all? This took a turn.
Speaker 1: Do you guys want to be alone? Not anymore? Okay?
Speaker 1: So yeah, alright, So so I have I have read
Speaker 1: at least a couple of different accounts that have suggested
Speaker 1: that perhaps the information we learned from gravitational waves could
Speaker 1: help us bridge some gaps between quantum physics and classical physics.
Speaker 1: When I tried to find out what they meant, like,
Speaker 1: how would this bridge any gaps? I started coming up empty.
Speaker 1: So I don't know precisely if the person who was
Speaker 1: saying that was just kind of yeah, just just like maybe,
Speaker 1: or if they were saying it from a place of
Speaker 1: expertise and they just didn't verbalize how they meant it um.
Speaker 1: I on the face of it, I don't know how
Speaker 1: it would bridge gaps. But then I'm not a quantum physicist.
Speaker 1: I have a very very basic grasp of some elementary
Speaker 1: some some some basic elements I should say, of quantum physics,
Speaker 1: and beyond that it is completely uh mystery to me.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not sure if gravitational waves, if our
Speaker 1: our study of them, will lead to this, the bridging
Speaker 1: of gaps. But if it does, that would be great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I think it's easy for people to
Speaker 1: lose sight of the extent in some ways to which
Speaker 1: gravity is still mysterious to us, Like we understand gravity
Speaker 1: very well. Einstein's theories give us an extremely accurate model
Speaker 1: of gravity that we can use to predict the behavior
Speaker 1: of objects in the universe, and it were is great,
Speaker 1: So it's not like Einstein was wrong with general relativity.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there are these lingering questions like how come
Speaker 1: gravity does not reign at the quantum level? Uh, what effect,
Speaker 1: if any, does gravity have on various quantum processes? Well,
Speaker 1: I remember hearing the problem is wise gravity so relatively
Speaker 1: weak compared to the other fundamental forces of the universe, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the strong and weak nuclear force, that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a These are all questions that we're still looking,
Speaker 1: you know, to try and find those answers. Gravity for
Speaker 1: the longest time has been kind of the big like
Speaker 1: where do we fit this in with our other or
Speaker 1: other models, And maybe through gravitational waves and through studying them,
Speaker 1: will be able to answer some of those questions and
Speaker 1: come up with a more complete model of the universe,
Speaker 1: which means we understand reality a little bit better and
Speaker 1: that is phenomenal. Uh. One thing I would say about
Speaker 1: all this, while I I've been kind of you know,
Speaker 1: dismissing these practical application ideas, is that we can never
Speaker 1: anticipate what sort of practical applications may come of scientific discovery,
Speaker 1: and in fact, there may be some awesome practical applications
Speaker 1: that we cannot even guess at right now that in
Speaker 1: twenty years time will just be a part of everyday lives.
Speaker 1: And it's hard for us to imagine that. This is
Speaker 1: one of those times where when people make predictions about
Speaker 1: the future, they hit that stumbling block because it's something
Speaker 1: you could not possibly have anticipated unless you were you know,
Speaker 1: some brilliant madman like Einstein and you had really considered
Speaker 1: this to a point where you had reached that logical
Speaker 1: progression and said, if this is true, then we could
Speaker 1: do this. Um. But I am certainly not at that point.
Speaker 1: I'm not nearly an expert on the subject. So I
Speaker 1: think that we probably will end up seeing some practical
Speaker 1: applications as a result of this. You're saying gravity bombs,
Speaker 1: aren't you. Uh, who knows? Maybe, you know, maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be one of those things where you know, everyone will
Speaker 1: have that extra you know, that one switch in your
Speaker 1: house that doesn't seem to control anything. Maybe in the
Speaker 1: future that's just gravity, and like everything just starts floating,
Speaker 1: and like, oh, that's what that one does. You know,
Speaker 1: you flip it in the and the TV remote is
Speaker 1: width of a proton closer to your hand. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: that saves me that that much effort of getting up
Speaker 1: and picking it up, so now I can finally switch
Speaker 1: it to America's funny film videos. Alright, So that wraps
Speaker 1: up this quick discussion about the future implications of our discovery.
Speaker 1: Gravitational waves are our our actual uh you know, measurement
Speaker 1: of them, the analysis of them, what that might lead to.
Speaker 1: The best part about this the reason why it's so
Speaker 1: short is because there's so little that we can know
Speaker 1: right now. But that's the exciting part because we will
Speaker 1: will fill those gaps in in our knowledge. Like you know,
Speaker 1: ten years from now, think of all the things that
Speaker 1: we know if we were to still be doing this,
Speaker 1: which would amaze me. But here's from now. If we
Speaker 1: were still doing this, we could revisit this topic and
Speaker 1: talk about here's all the stuff we didn't anticipate when
Speaker 1: we recorded that episode back in and that's really exciting. Guys.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future episodes beforeward Thinking,
Speaker 1: whether it is about science, technology, culture, anything. Really, if
Speaker 1: you just want to know how is X what's that
Speaker 1: going to be like in the future, you should write
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