Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you think physicists and scientists will ever
Speaker 1: come up with some equation that just describes everything, the
Speaker 1: whole thing, you know, like one line of one line
Speaker 1: of symbols that just that sums up the entirety of
Speaker 1: all of existence, the whole universe, on a T shirt.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of two minds about it. Like one, I
Speaker 1: would love for that to happen because it means it
Speaker 1: would be a singular achievement in the human intellectual history.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, actually unravel all of the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe, which part to come up with it
Speaker 1: or to put it on a T shirt? Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: to get down to the base layer of knowledge and
Speaker 1: reveal like the source code of the universe, that would
Speaker 1: be amazing. On the other hand, that would kind of
Speaker 1: mean physics is over right, Like that's the fundamental goal
Speaker 1: of physics. And if we get there and then we're done,
Speaker 1: like what are we gonna do? So, you know, we
Speaker 1: have a whole raft of physicists becoming cartoonists or something.
Speaker 1: So be careful. So your fear is that you'll be unemployed,
Speaker 1: that's right. Don't work too hard, you know, if you
Speaker 1: get too productive then you know, you work yourself out
Speaker 1: of a job. That's exactly the concern. Maybe you'll just
Speaker 1: take a little bit extra time to figure it out.
Speaker 1: That's right. I'll figure out the theory of everything, and
Speaker 1: I'll just keep it in a drawer in my office. Right,
Speaker 1: and then the day before you retire, you're like, boom,
Speaker 1: Nobel prize. Please before I die quickly, Let's put Daniel
Speaker 1: out of a job. Let's make this physicist unemployed. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Ran and I'm Daniel, and this is our podcast
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explain the universe, where we take the
Speaker 1: entire universe and we roll it up into a burrito
Speaker 1: so you can eat it for lunch or put it
Speaker 1: on your T shirt. That's right. Our goal is to
Speaker 1: take everything in the universe and make us that you
Speaker 1: can actually understand it. We're not eager to have you
Speaker 1: feel like you're in the presence of a great scientist
Speaker 1: hearing things you'll never really understand. We want to break
Speaker 1: things down so you can really understand them, you know,
Speaker 1: explain them to your grandma or that fat uncle or
Speaker 1: family reunions. That's the goal of this podcast. Or show
Speaker 1: off to your court, or is it the next water
Speaker 1: cooler break, Yeah, or point out that they actually don't
Speaker 1: understand what they're talking about, because you do, because you
Speaker 1: listen to this awesome podcast. Today. On the podcast, we're
Speaker 1: going to tackle the biggest question in human knowledge. Right,
Speaker 1: that's right, the most fundamental, the deepest, the biggest question
Speaker 1: in human intellectual history. What is that question? For him?
Speaker 1: Is it possible for humans to know everything? Do you
Speaker 1: mean to know everything? Like? Where is that sock I
Speaker 1: lost in the eighth grade? Yeah? Everything, some formula that
Speaker 1: tells you where that so, you know, know, a theory
Speaker 1: of everything does not include location of all lost socks.
Speaker 1: That's impossible, right, And then we could just end the
Speaker 1: podcast right now, because that's just impossible. No, A theory
Speaker 1: of everything tries to describe the way things work. Right,
Speaker 1: They can't possibly explain to all the details of everything
Speaker 1: that has happened because there's a lot of chaos there.
Speaker 1: But you know, a theory of everything tries to say,
Speaker 1: we understand the way everything works. We have a system
Speaker 1: that explains it, even the things we don't see or
Speaker 1: where we can't see. That's right. It would have to
Speaker 1: be a theory of everything. It would have to be
Speaker 1: something that describes the universe at the deepest level, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of like the the end of our quest to
Speaker 1: take the universe apart into its tiny little bits, to
Speaker 1: understand it at every level. That's right. Yeah, to have
Speaker 1: a theory which from which anything can be derived. Right,
Speaker 1: all of physics and biology and chemistry and economics and
Speaker 1: everything would just be the emergent phenomena that flow naturally
Speaker 1: from this one fundamental theory, and then we'll know everything basically, right,
Speaker 1: except for where those songs are. Yeah, So I went
Speaker 1: out and I asked people, do you think it's possible,
Speaker 1: given the fullness of time and a bunch of geniuses
Speaker 1: in the future, that physics could eventually describe everything, explain
Speaker 1: everything in a single formula that goes onto a T shirt.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a theory of everything? Here's what
Speaker 1: people had to say. Yes, Yeah, with due time, I
Speaker 1: think research will elucidate everything that we're looking for. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm religious, I'm a Christian, so I believe that there
Speaker 1: are some things that got made that just can't be
Speaker 1: described by you know, sciences. So necess what I believed
Speaker 1: that cool, I think it could happen. Gives you such
Speaker 1: confidence it's math, and math in essence can describe everything.
Speaker 1: So in theory, we can use math to describe everything.
Speaker 1: I think eventually, um, that can happen, but it's going
Speaker 1: to take a long time and lots of work. All right,
Speaker 1: So some people felt pretty off in in physicist. I
Speaker 1: know those people. I love those people. They also sort
Speaker 1: of terrified me, you know, I really appreciate their like, well,
Speaker 1: physics has figured a bunch of about so I'm sure
Speaker 1: given enough time, they'll figure it out, you know, Like
Speaker 1: and the guy who said, like math describes everything, so
Speaker 1: of course that's kind of cool. But also it's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure. You know, like if you feel like, well,
Speaker 1: physics can figure everything out, then all you have to
Speaker 1: do is sit in your office with pencil and paper
Speaker 1: and eventually all the answers in the universe will come
Speaker 1: to you. You know. It's um, yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. So I appreciate those people having
Speaker 1: so much faith in us, but it's you know, if
Speaker 1: we do figure out a theory everything, it's still a
Speaker 1: lot of work. You want to leave a little bit
Speaker 1: of room for like, hey, maybe we won't do it well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Um, and some people, some people definitely
Speaker 1: felt like it's impossible, you know, there's a gap. There
Speaker 1: are things that humanity can never understand, you know. And
Speaker 1: there was the one guy who thought, well, God creates
Speaker 1: some things that cannot be understood. And there's some people
Speaker 1: who just thought humans are not smart enough, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and maybe we've been watching too many political tuctures or something,
Speaker 1: which you know, I might be of the same opinion
Speaker 1: if you watch enough of those things. So it's like
Speaker 1: people generally had faith in physicists, but not in human
Speaker 1: beings in general, that's right, Yeah, yeah, And maybe those
Speaker 1: people don't realize that physics is just people, right, Physics
Speaker 1: is just people thinking. Um, there's no like deep physics
Speaker 1: that's absent of humanity, right. Everything we do in physics
Speaker 1: is a model inside our head, our attempt to understand
Speaker 1: the universe. But it's always going to be inherently human, right,
Speaker 1: it's nothing extra human about it. Well, you don't think
Speaker 1: people like Einstein had some sort of extra capacity than
Speaker 1: most people. Oh no, I think Einstein was a super
Speaker 1: duper human. But we're all human, right, and we think
Speaker 1: about the universe in a certain way. We perceive it
Speaker 1: in a certain way. Things make sense to us in
Speaker 1: a certain way. I mean, imagine if we met alien scientists, right,
Speaker 1: what fraction of our human physics would be understandable to them?
Speaker 1: Skip over the part where we have to like develop
Speaker 1: a common language and you know, agree not to kill
Speaker 1: each other. And you know, you've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: the best alien physicists in the room and a bunch
Speaker 1: of the best human physicists in the room. Everybody's wearing
Speaker 1: the same lab coat, and you know, start comparing notes.
Speaker 1: How does that go? Well? I think that's a really
Speaker 1: deep question. I think probably we would learn more about
Speaker 1: the way the human mind works, like the human mind,
Speaker 1: than the way the universe works, because I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of the theories we've built reflect the way we
Speaker 1: think and feel. Do you think it would be sort
Speaker 1: of like if we got together with a bunch of
Speaker 1: chimpanzees and we're like, hey, guys, let's talk physics. How
Speaker 1: would that? You know? How that would go? They would
Speaker 1: be trying to explain to them cut of physics, and
Speaker 1: it just they just wouldn't be intellectually capable of grasping it, right,
Speaker 1: even if you could speak to our language. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: would probably just be throwing throwing poop at us while
Speaker 1: we're talking about cloning physics, which you know, I think
Speaker 1: I've had that experience in the classroom, you know, lecturing
Speaker 1: to a bunch of people who just totally uninterested. Never
Speaker 1: actually got to the throwing poop part of the equation.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I do feel like people aren't interested. Did
Speaker 1: you just call your students a inticence, None of my
Speaker 1: current students, of course. No, They're all are all very
Speaker 1: they're wonderful. No, it's not a question of whether the
Speaker 1: aliens are smarter than us. I just think that the
Speaker 1: theories we've come up with as humans are going to
Speaker 1: be indelible human. You know, there are product of a
Speaker 1: human mind, and they cannot be separated from that. So
Speaker 1: I think it's until we meet alien physicists, until we
Speaker 1: find another intelligence with different set of biases and perspective
Speaker 1: and fundamental thoughts structure, that we can learn what about
Speaker 1: the physics we've developed is just human and what of
Speaker 1: it is actually fundamental and inescapable. It could be that
Speaker 1: we're seeing everything in the wrong way totally. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: everything we've learned is filtered through our experience, our consciousness. Right,
Speaker 1: So we have these few senses. If you have a
Speaker 1: different set of senses, you experience the universe differently, you
Speaker 1: think very differently about the way the universe might be structured.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of deeply flawed sci fi
Speaker 1: movies which touch on this really important issue, like Arrival, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the Aliens and Arrival think about time differently,
Speaker 1: and so I'm sure their physics is built in a
Speaker 1: completely different way. Ours is built on our limited experience,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, absolutely, and a limited, very limited grant funding. Well,
Speaker 1: let's bring it down. What does it actually mean to
Speaker 1: have a theory of everything? Yeah? Does it mean an equation?
Speaker 1: Does it mean a set of axioms you know, or statements?
Speaker 1: Or does it mean like a little computer to which
Speaker 1: you can input anything and will tell you what the
Speaker 1: universe would do? Yeah? And it doesn't mean something which
Speaker 1: will tell you where your lost socks are? Right? Um,
Speaker 1: then what's the point and why are we even doing this? Man? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, the entire physics enterprises just to help you
Speaker 1: find lost socks. Um. In my view, a theory of
Speaker 1: everything would be a set of equations that describe the
Speaker 1: way the universe works at its most fundamental level, meaning
Speaker 1: that from that anything else can be explained. You know,
Speaker 1: take for example, our current understanding of chemistry, right, molecules interacting, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Now can you use that to explain hurricanes, right, or
Speaker 1: whether or you know, the solar system. Our current laws
Speaker 1: of physics and chemistry can explain things that are larger
Speaker 1: emergent phenomenon that arise from those more fundamental aspects. Right,
Speaker 1: So that works. So when you say explain, you actually
Speaker 1: mean like, we see something and then we can go
Speaker 1: back to your magic formula, and your magic formula would say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see how that came to be. Or if
Speaker 1: I run it then we get the same result. That's right.
Speaker 1: Or you can encode those rules into a simulation and
Speaker 1: predict exactly what's going to happen. Or you can be
Speaker 1: super smart and do it in pencil and paper and say,
Speaker 1: these equations predict that hurricanes will happen, or these equations
Speaker 1: predict that planets will orbit the Sun. In this way,
Speaker 1: all these things that we see that we experience, these
Speaker 1: are emergent phenomenon. Right. There are higher level events that
Speaker 1: arise out of deeper, lower level rules. Right. So there
Speaker 1: was actually happening. You know, when example, you throw a baseball,
Speaker 1: is all those particles are moving in tandem, and there's
Speaker 1: all this quantum field theory that's happening um while that happens,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can describe the way baseball moves
Speaker 1: using a very simple parabolic formula. That parabolic formula can
Speaker 1: be derived from the lower level set of rules. So
Speaker 1: it's sort of like an onion. You know, we think
Speaker 1: about theories of the universe in layers. It's like the
Speaker 1: equations to describe the way things work in the macroscopic level,
Speaker 1: you know, baseballs. Then there's equations that describe how things
Speaker 1: work at the atomic level, and then there's equations to
Speaker 1: describe the way things work at the cork level or
Speaker 1: the the electron level. Right, And so the idea is
Speaker 1: a theory of everything would be the lowest level would
Speaker 1: be one from which everything else could be derived. In principle,
Speaker 1: it's like the rules at the very very very very
Speaker 1: center of the onion exactly. Uh, if the universe is
Speaker 1: a simulation, right, then this would be like the source
Speaker 1: code of that simulation would be the basic rules for
Speaker 1: which everything results. It's like you can have a rule
Speaker 1: about economics Magrican makes you know, people respond to their
Speaker 1: best interests where they go for the lowest price. That's
Speaker 1: a good theory, and it describes this complex phenomenon, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually tell you the most basic thing that's
Speaker 1: going on. That's right, and the most basic dance going
Speaker 1: on is, you know, a bunch of particles are slashing
Speaker 1: around inside their head, you know, and you can describe
Speaker 1: at different levels. You can describe at the particle level,
Speaker 1: which is very cumbersome because there's so many particles that
Speaker 1: doing these kind of calculations would be almost impossible. Or
Speaker 1: you can describe it at the biochemical level. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: these dopamine and this sort of neurotransmitter and all these
Speaker 1: things are happening. A lot of these things. You can
Speaker 1: describe at lots of different levels, and you pick the
Speaker 1: level that's most appropriate. Right, you want to solve a
Speaker 1: problem involving a baseball, You're gonna do a simple parabolic calculation.
Speaker 1: You're not going to go with a heavy hitting quantum
Speaker 1: field theory calculation. Right, But the theory of everything in
Speaker 1: principle could derive anything else. Right, You can derive those
Speaker 1: laws of parabolic motion, from the deepest level, from that
Speaker 1: the core of the onion. So that's the goal of
Speaker 1: the theory everything describe everything that happens in terms of
Speaker 1: the smallest, most fundamental units. Well, I think an even
Speaker 1: bigger question is, how do you even know such a
Speaker 1: thing is possible? Like, how do you know that everything
Speaker 1: can be described by one equation or two equations or
Speaker 1: three equations? Right? Like, what makes you think it's possible
Speaker 1: to even understand everything? I know? It seems like hubrists right,
Speaker 1: Like somebody eat a bunch of mushrooms and had a
Speaker 1: vision and now they're like, yes, I saw it, man,
Speaker 1: Like the universe makes sense man um Right, So it's
Speaker 1: either a weed field dream or enormous hubrists um. What
Speaker 1: makes us think it's possible is that we're making steady progress,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. I think about the way the world
Speaker 1: used to be a total mystery to people, you know,
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago, so much about everyday life as
Speaker 1: a mystery. And you know, we've cracked a lot of
Speaker 1: those nuts. You know, everything that we thought was strange
Speaker 1: or mysterious so we had to attribute to some bizarre
Speaker 1: god with you know, unknown motives. We've understood in terms
Speaker 1: of natural phenomenon that which follow rules. So for some
Speaker 1: rea sas and we don't understand, it appears that the
Speaker 1: universe follows a set of rules. And those rules are
Speaker 1: fairly constant, and so we can discover them by experimenting
Speaker 1: and tinkering and trying stuff. And humans seem to have
Speaker 1: the capability, the mathematical, the logical, the scientific capability to
Speaker 1: reveal these rules and then you know, use them for
Speaker 1: good or evil. Right, So you're saying you have faith
Speaker 1: in physicists and humans. I have some faith. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at what look at what we have accomplished, and
Speaker 1: I look upon my great arts, look upon my works,
Speaker 1: he mighty and despair. Now I love that poem Asymandias
Speaker 1: because it's both positive and negative. Right, be jealous of
Speaker 1: what I've accomplished, because you are so small, Or if
Speaker 1: you think you're so great, remember that I was ones
Speaker 1: great and have now fallen into dust. Um. Yes, So
Speaker 1: maybe that future physics looks at us and and says
Speaker 1: they accomplished nothing. But I would say, what makes us
Speaker 1: think it's possible is that we're making steady progress. I mean,
Speaker 1: the kind of things we understand about the universe now
Speaker 1: are incredible compared to what we understood a hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: five years ago, five thousand years ago. But is there
Speaker 1: maybe a limit? And let's get into it. But first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. So my favorite thing about
Speaker 1: the theory of everything is it's acronym, its initials T
Speaker 1: O E. So really, when you're talking about the theory
Speaker 1: of the universe, you're talking about the universe? Is big
Speaker 1: toe right? Right? Such a grand idea humbled by its acronym? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: not not a great pr move there by physicists. Now
Speaker 1: we have to find that secret circle of scientists who
Speaker 1: are in charge of naming this stuff, because they got
Speaker 1: some real work to do. I mean, I got notes,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. I mean, the particles got ridiculous names.
Speaker 1: The theory of everything is a silly name. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what the history of it is. Like. Who
Speaker 1: was the first person to say theory of every Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know that Einstein was one of the first people
Speaker 1: would like, seriously go after it. Of course he didn't
Speaker 1: make much progress. Why not the everything theory? Right? Better
Speaker 1: everything theory? Yeah? I like that? All right, Um, you
Speaker 1: should file a trademark for that. You'll get one penny
Speaker 1: every time somebody says it. We talked about what it
Speaker 1: means to say the theory of everything and what it
Speaker 1: could be, and what we think when is possible? So
Speaker 1: what do we know? Like, why isn't what we know
Speaker 1: now a good theory of everything? What makes us think
Speaker 1: that we don't have it yet? Right? Well, we do
Speaker 1: know a lot. We've learned a lot about the universe.
Speaker 1: And one thing that persuades us that things might be understandable,
Speaker 1: that it might be a simple theory of everything is
Speaker 1: that we're making a lot of progresses have been saying.
Speaker 1: But it's more than that. Every time we peel back
Speaker 1: a layer of reality and see what's underneath the description
Speaker 1: that beneath it is simpler, right, Think, the level of
Speaker 1: complexity required to describe the universe keeps getting simpler and simpler.
Speaker 1: Like you know, for example, think about the objects in
Speaker 1: the universe. You want to describe everything in the universe.
Speaker 1: So there's like an infinite number of kinds of things. Right,
Speaker 1: there's gas and stars and hamsters and ice cream and
Speaker 1: lamas and cartoonists and all this stuff. And you can
Speaker 1: explain all of that using a hundred basic building blocks.
Speaker 1: Periodic table. You can explain the periodic table everything that's
Speaker 1: in that using just quirks and leptons. Right, you can
Speaker 1: build any atom out of out of just quirks and leptons.
Speaker 1: So the number of pieces you need to describe basically
Speaker 1: everything we've encountered keeps getting smaller. So so to me,
Speaker 1: that's progress. You're asking earlier, like why do we think
Speaker 1: it's this is possible? How do we know we get there?
Speaker 1: So we're making this progress, and I feel like, how
Speaker 1: will we know we get there when we get to
Speaker 1: the simplest possible theory, You know, a theory that has
Speaker 1: the smallest number of bits and the smallest number of parameters,
Speaker 1: and has no hanging questions, no room to say, well
Speaker 1: why this and not that, or why these two different
Speaker 1: things instead of just one thing. So when you can
Speaker 1: simplify it no longer, that's how you know you got there.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of about the number of ingredients that
Speaker 1: we think things are made out of. Kind of, right,
Speaker 1: we went from a hundred elements in the periodic table
Speaker 1: of elements to like an electron and small particles. You're
Speaker 1: saying that maybe one day will get to one particle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, if you go from
Speaker 1: infinity to a hundred to three, the next step is
Speaker 1: just two and one, right, right? That when the goal
Speaker 1: is to get to one. Right, And the deepest goal
Speaker 1: in particle physics is to simplify the universe and explain
Speaker 1: it in terms of just one thing. And I've just
Speaker 1: had like a sort of personal epiphany, which is I
Speaker 1: realized that one of the reasons that physics appeals to
Speaker 1: me so much is this attempt to simplify. Like in
Speaker 1: my life, I'm always trying to simplify everything, Like, can
Speaker 1: I get this simplify? Can I explain all these two
Speaker 1: different things in terms of just one thing? Can I
Speaker 1: just send one email to everybody? Is there a rule
Speaker 1: that you know it kind of tells me how to
Speaker 1: live my whole life? How do I respond to a
Speaker 1: party invite? Or you know, is there a strategy for
Speaker 1: making small talk and that works in any situation? And
Speaker 1: I love that what you mean, You're you're always trying
Speaker 1: to look for the underlying rules something. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: the theory of every conversation, right, I want to know
Speaker 1: how to handle how to navogate a party conversation, no
Speaker 1: matter what happens. That would be a fantastic theory. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you'll figure it out before you start a podcast or
Speaker 1: something a conversational too late. Is there a basic building
Speaker 1: block of the universe out of which everything is built,
Speaker 1: because right now we have twelve basic building blocks, so
Speaker 1: we're definitely not there. Right we have six quarks and
Speaker 1: six leftons. Only three of those twelve particles are ever
Speaker 1: used to make atoms, and those twelve particles don't even
Speaker 1: describe like the dark matter and everything else that's out
Speaker 1: there in the universe. So not only do we know
Speaker 1: there are other particles that we haven't discovered, but we
Speaker 1: also have questions about these particles, like why are there
Speaker 1: so many? It would be great to narrow that down.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that we think there might be a
Speaker 1: theory of everything because there's plenty of still stuff still
Speaker 1: left to explain, basically, right, like, we're not there yet
Speaker 1: because there's a lot we haven't explained. That's right, we're
Speaker 1: not there yet, and we've been making steady progress and
Speaker 1: at every stage things get simpler, and so we suspect
Speaker 1: that if we keep cracking the nut, then we'll get
Speaker 1: simpler and simpler nuts. Until eventually maybe we'll get down
Speaker 1: to the one thing that it built everything else is
Speaker 1: built out of, and that would explain everything the peanut
Speaker 1: of the universe. God, if we find that particle and
Speaker 1: so many names at peanut, I'm gonna blame you for
Speaker 1: that horrid that's right, it's because then there's going to
Speaker 1: be the anti peanut, you know, um peanut on I um,
Speaker 1: you know bound states of peanuts and oh man, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a disaster. But you know that's not the
Speaker 1: whole story. Right. There's particles, but there's then there's also forces.
Speaker 1: So what do you think a theory of everything would
Speaker 1: look like? Like, Like, it'd be like everything is made
Speaker 1: out of the peanut, and the peanut can be form
Speaker 1: an electron if it stacks up this way, or it
Speaker 1: can form a cork if it stacks up this other way.
Speaker 1: Basically like the idea of the peanut and how it
Speaker 1: stacks up and how it gives rise to everything we
Speaker 1: see around this. That would be sort of like the
Speaker 1: theory of everything. Yeah. Well, the current form what we
Speaker 1: use for to describe the deepest level of nature that
Speaker 1: we currently know is quantum field theory and quantum field
Speaker 1: theory works by describing the fields and the way the
Speaker 1: fields interact with each other. So the fields give us
Speaker 1: the particles, because particles are excited states of these fields.
Speaker 1: And then the way the fields interact with us give
Speaker 1: us forces. And so currently you can describe everything we
Speaker 1: know about particle physics just by describing these fields and
Speaker 1: how they interact with each other, and so that we
Speaker 1: can write down in a single equation it's called the Lagrangin,
Speaker 1: and from that lagrange and we can derive all the
Speaker 1: rules of how everything works, how everything interacts with each other,
Speaker 1: and from that you get electrons and quirks and atoms.
Speaker 1: That everything comes from this one equation, the Lagrangin. But
Speaker 1: of course their problems with it. As we said earlier,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different kinds of fields, you know,
Speaker 1: which generate all these different particles, and not everything is
Speaker 1: described by this lagrangin. So that's what it would look like,
Speaker 1: I think if it turns out that quantum fields are
Speaker 1: the fundamental building block of the universe. But you know,
Speaker 1: we don't nobody he believe that. But aren't aren't we
Speaker 1: saying that maybe there's just one field that maybe results
Speaker 1: in these other multiple fields, that's right, or like these
Speaker 1: these other fields are just combinations of maybe one fundamental
Speaker 1: field exactly. If quantum field theory is the right way
Speaker 1: to think about the universe, then a theory of everything
Speaker 1: as a quantum field theory would be a single field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it could interact with itself, and that could give
Speaker 1: all sorts of interesting stuff. In coming up with quantum
Speaker 1: field theories, we've made a lot of progress and bringing
Speaker 1: together lots of different kinds of things to describe them
Speaker 1: in terms of just one thing. You know. For example,
Speaker 1: we used to think of electricity and magnetism is completely
Speaker 1: different things. You know. Electricity was like zapping stuff, and
Speaker 1: magnetism was these weird rocks that pushed away each other
Speaker 1: or attracted each other. Until people figured out, oh, actually
Speaker 1: electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 1: They go hand in hand. They're like the same field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just two parts of that. There are two manifestations
Speaker 1: of the same field. Right, So they go us to
Speaker 1: it down to like a theory with one field. It's
Speaker 1: called the peanut field. And alright, alright, alright, I'm on
Speaker 1: board with the peanut field. Let's do it let's describe
Speaker 1: the universe into So we got the peanut and we
Speaker 1: got the toe. We got the mixed metaphors forhead the
Speaker 1: universe a peanut or is it a toe? Maybe you
Speaker 1: can eat peanuts with your toes and then you wouldn't
Speaker 1: eat slocks. So hey, that solves all of our problems.
Speaker 1: Let's leave folks with that visual and then take a
Speaker 1: quick break while you think about eating peanuts with your toes. Alright,
Speaker 1: So we were talking about the theory of everything, and
Speaker 1: currently we have quantum fields, and we were saying that
Speaker 1: the theory of everything, if it was described using quantum fields,
Speaker 1: would be a single field, and that field would generate
Speaker 1: all the particles because they would be excited states of
Speaker 1: that field, and it would describe the way those particles
Speaker 1: interact with each other and and form other sorts of
Speaker 1: bound states, which would be more complex things like electrons,
Speaker 1: and everything would be made out of these one fundamental
Speaker 1: particle which came from this field, the peanut, the peanut
Speaker 1: field exactly. Yes, what's interesting is that you're saying that
Speaker 1: even if we have LATA in the future twenty years
Speaker 1: from now, um, you know, I discovered the peanut field
Speaker 1: and it describes the other all the other fields that
Speaker 1: we know about. Right now, you're saying, we still wouldn't
Speaker 1: know if that was it, if that was like the
Speaker 1: ultimate theory. Well, it's hard to know for sure when
Speaker 1: you're done, something is the ultimate theory, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: say we have the peanut field, and it solves all
Speaker 1: the open problems in physics and Jorgego's and collects like
Speaker 1: five Nobel Prizes for discovering this thing. Right. It unifies
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics and gravity, and it explains everything we know
Speaker 1: and dark matter and all that stuff. It tells what's
Speaker 1: what happened at the Big Bang, right exactly whether we're
Speaker 1: in a multiverse, right, and this is totally possible. Right.
Speaker 1: But then you have that theory you write on a
Speaker 1: piece of paper, and you're gonna have questions about that theory, right,
Speaker 1: Like say, for example, the theory has a number in it,
Speaker 1: you know, because all of all of our theories currently
Speaker 1: have numbers in it, you know, like speed of light,
Speaker 1: or there's basic physical units, but there's also sometimes just
Speaker 1: numbers like one or four or two or pie or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you have to wonder, like what do those numbers mean?
Speaker 1: Do those numbers reveal something deep about the universe, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if your peanut theory has the number you know, five
Speaker 1: in it, then that tells you that the universe is
Speaker 1: fundamentally like five ish in some way. And what does
Speaker 1: that mean? And that's a question, right, like why does
Speaker 1: the theory of the everything have the number five in it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to have a number. What if my theory
Speaker 1: is so pure and amazing and abstract that it just
Speaker 1: doesn't have any numbers in it, right, exactly, So your
Speaker 1: peanut theory has the number five in it. And then
Speaker 1: a few years later some cleroscientists comes along with her
Speaker 1: theory that has no arbitrary numbers in it, right, and
Speaker 1: she's like, actually, my theory is simpler than professor Jorges theory,
Speaker 1: and so um, he's got to deliver me all of
Speaker 1: his Nobel prizes. And so you know, that's how we
Speaker 1: judge theories. We judge them by their simplicity. And that's
Speaker 1: sort of what I was talking about earlier, Like it's
Speaker 1: our human desire to explain the universe in terms of
Speaker 1: a simple set of rules. Right. Maybe aliens think about
Speaker 1: things differently and they don't look for one single equation
Speaker 1: to describe everything, or a simplest equation, or maybe what
Speaker 1: they what they think is beautiful is a huge chaotic
Speaker 1: mess of an equation and for some reason that really
Speaker 1: satisfies their itch to understand the universe. Right, I think
Speaker 1: there must be something deeply human about this whole process,
Speaker 1: and it's a bias we can't see because we've only
Speaker 1: ever talked to humans about it. Interesting, like maybe aliens
Speaker 1: are happy with this crazy theory that explains where socks
Speaker 1: are and you know, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like it's not reductive, it's maybe just like super complicated
Speaker 1: because its all the little things exactly that could be
Speaker 1: It could very well be, and they could be like,
Speaker 1: you guys are totally wasting your time. I don't even
Speaker 1: know why you care. Right, And you know, there's another
Speaker 1: stability and we haven't even talked about, which is that
Speaker 1: there is no deepest level. Right. It could be that
Speaker 1: it goes on forever. Things just get smaller and smaller,
Speaker 1: and like particle A is made out a little bits
Speaker 1: of B and and then you can make bees out
Speaker 1: a little bit of C, and C is made a
Speaker 1: little bit of D and Okay, so I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: on the Particle Physics pr name and Committee obviously because
Speaker 1: I can't come up with clever stuff on the top
Speaker 1: of my head. But it could just go on forever,
Speaker 1: then wouldn't it stop at P for peanut? Absolutely? What
Speaker 1: I mean is what could be smaller than the unit one?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, what could be more
Speaker 1: fundamental at one than one field and one particle? You
Speaker 1: can't split one. Right. If you discover at some level
Speaker 1: that everything the universe could be described in terms of
Speaker 1: one field, that's great. But where does that field come from? Right?
Speaker 1: Is that field the fundamental thing in the university? Was
Speaker 1: like the first thing made and first thing coded in
Speaker 1: the simulation? Or is it itself an emergent phenomena from
Speaker 1: something simpler. Just because there's only one kind of particle
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's not made out of little bits of
Speaker 1: another kind of particle, Right, It could be made out
Speaker 1: of two halves or something else. Yeah, exactly, you know
Speaker 1: two units of sub peanuts, you know, um that come
Speaker 1: together to make the glorious peanut. Or you're saying it
Speaker 1: could be sort of infinitely divisible, you mean, like you know,
Speaker 1: like peanut butter, like maybe the universe doesn't have a
Speaker 1: peanut in the middle. It's just this continuous, yummy smooth.
Speaker 1: I think in the future you should have lunch before
Speaker 1: we record these podcasts. Um. Yeah, it could be right,
Speaker 1: It certainly could be. Although it seems so far everything
Speaker 1: we understand about the universe is that it seems to
Speaker 1: be quantized. You know that it's the smallest level. Everything
Speaker 1: is quantized. So we think that particles or quantized excitations
Speaker 1: of quantum fields um ruled the day. But you know,
Speaker 1: it couldn't be that as you get deeper that you
Speaker 1: get some sort of scale invariant matter that looks the
Speaker 1: same no matter how close you get up to it, right,
Speaker 1: that it doesn't resolve into tiny little bits. It's just
Speaker 1: infinitely smooth. Yeah, that could totally be a post ability. Well,
Speaker 1: you're going to do an interesting idea a little bit before,
Speaker 1: which is, why do we even want the theory of everything?
Speaker 1: Is it really going to help us cure cancer or
Speaker 1: is it really going to solve global warming? If we
Speaker 1: figure out these super quantum fields, what's motivating us as
Speaker 1: a species to look for these simplifications. I can't believe
Speaker 1: that an artist, a cartoonist is demanding practical, immediate benefits
Speaker 1: for my for my profession. And excuse me, you didn't
Speaker 1: even mention the possibility that there could be like a
Speaker 1: deep human need to understand. You know that it adds
Speaker 1: the experience of being human to reveal mysteries of the universe. Right,
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to necessarily give you a better widget, right,
Speaker 1: or cure cancer. It's just for me at least. It's
Speaker 1: a deep desire to understand the world around me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it comes out of evolutionary desires
Speaker 1: to understand how things work so I can like better
Speaker 1: protect myself from a saber tooth tier or something. But
Speaker 1: humans have a deep desire to understand the way things work,
Speaker 1: to reveal the rules and manipulate them. And so I
Speaker 1: just really want to understand. And you know, of course
Speaker 1: along the way, like funding for basic research has always
Speaker 1: yielded tremendous technological advancements. I mean, we wouldn't be recorded
Speaker 1: as podcast if it wasn't for funding for basic research.
Speaker 1: So I can sing the praises of basic research um
Speaker 1: for decades because of all the spinoff it's generated incidentally accidentally, right,
Speaker 1: not intentionally, but fundamentally. The reason we want to do
Speaker 1: is just because we have this deep desire to know right,
Speaker 1: to understand the way the universe works. I mean, if
Speaker 1: somebody told you, hey, Jorree, I have the theory of everything,
Speaker 1: do you want to know it? You wouldn't be like
Speaker 1: past off, I'm I'm busy making a peanut butter sandwich. Right,
Speaker 1: that would be an important moment, that would be like
Speaker 1: a deep thing to understand. So we've made a lot
Speaker 1: of progress and understand the theory of everything. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: we have boiled down matter into twelve particles. We have
Speaker 1: described all the forces in terms of just a few.
Speaker 1: You know, we unified electricity and magnetism, and then we
Speaker 1: also unified that with the weak nuclear force. We have
Speaker 1: one force is called the electro weak force that describes
Speaker 1: electricity and magnetism and the weak force. We still have
Speaker 1: the strong nuclear force, which we haven't understood how to
Speaker 1: put together with the other ones, right, and then we
Speaker 1: still have gravity, which is a whole other mystery. We
Speaker 1: can talk about a whole other podcast, which resists all
Speaker 1: efforts to give it a quantum description and unify it
Speaker 1: with everything. And even Einstein was not able to bring
Speaker 1: gravity to heal um. And then of course there's lots
Speaker 1: of things in the universe we don't understand which are
Speaker 1: not described by these bits. So we made a lot
Speaker 1: of progress in understanding, but we still have a lot
Speaker 1: to go. So your basic message is keep physicists employed.
Speaker 1: Is that the kind of that's right funding into physics, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's worthwhile. People got a long way to go. People
Speaker 1: think that we scientists have everything figured out, you know,
Speaker 1: we can know these amazing phones and amazing technologies and
Speaker 1: airplanes and rockets. You know, people sort of assumed that
Speaker 1: why why do we need more physics, but there could
Speaker 1: be a whole lot of amazing things ahead of us, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know folks a thousand years ago who were
Speaker 1: surrounded by mysteries, there are lot of opportunities that ever
Speaker 1: scientists to explain the way things work. These days, it's
Speaker 1: pretty unusual if you walk down the street for you
Speaker 1: to see something that you don't think has a scientific explanation, right, Like,
Speaker 1: very few people see miracles or ghosts or things that
Speaker 1: they think are outside of the realm of science. And
Speaker 1: that used to be every day, and now it's like
Speaker 1: pretty rare. I mean people go to magic shows just
Speaker 1: to have that experience, right, Um, but but there are
Speaker 1: lots of things that we still don't understand. There're are
Speaker 1: things that appear in your everyday life there at the
Speaker 1: particle level or the tiny little level, or the cosmic scale.
Speaker 1: But there are huge questions about the universe that we
Speaker 1: we still have to unravel. All right, Well, I hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed dipping your toes into this topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed this slice of everything and peanuts
Speaker 1: and peanut butter, the peanut butter theory of the universe.
Speaker 1: It's spreading. It's really jiffy. Come see you next time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. If you still have a question after
Speaker 1: listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
Speaker 1: at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's
Speaker 1: one word, or email us at Feedback at Daniel and
Speaker 1: Jorge dot com.