WEBVTT - What are quantum glasses? 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.600 Daniel, where are you recording the podcast from these days? 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.880 Today I'm in my office at the university. Kind of disappointed. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.480 Wanted you to be like at the control center of 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.160 the L C or right next to where the particles collide, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.360 kind of like a sportscaster. Nothing so glamorous, but I 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.160 mean pain a picture for us. What is your office 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:31.200 look like? Is it like in a dark dungeon, or 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.080 is it at the top of the in the Penthouse, 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.559 at the Corner Office? You know, something in between. I've 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.320 got a nice window here with a view outside of 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.800 the southern California landscape, but it's not like the biggest 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.320 office on the floor. We've got some real big shots 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:49.080 around here. You're more of a meeting shot, small shot. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.159 I'm a just right shot, your podcast shot now. Is 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.200 Everything in your office super organized, or are there like 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.080 huge stacks of papers everywhere? Well, I'm not the kind 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.000 of person who's at risk for because his desk collapses 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.960 under a huge tower of papers, but it's not exactly 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.200 like a well organized museum or anything. It looks lived in. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.640 You know, I think lived in his code for missing. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:13.679 I don't know. What do you call something that's like 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.280 halfway between being neat and missing. Well, I'm a physicist, 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.560 so I would call it a phase transition. It's like 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.880 a melting point. You're kind of like a slush, like 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.039 a slushy. I'm hoping that if they crank of the 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.000 A C maybe my office will organize itself into a 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.520 crystal and you'll freeze to death, also for serve for 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.319 future generations, but at least I'll look neat doing it 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:51.680 and you'll be pretty cool too. Hi, I'm poor. Hey, 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.360 I'm in a cartoonists and the CO author frequently asked 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.760 questions about the universe. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a professor 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.560 at U C Irvine and a particle is this who 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.320 worked at the large Hadron collider and I like to 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.640 think of myself as just messy enough, messy enough for what, 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.560 before not being neat, messy enough to have that lucky 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.920 stroke of insight, you know, when that pile of notes 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.040 you took three years ago at a seminar just sort 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.880 of falls into your view and provides that crucial piece 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.040 of information to unlock the puzzle you're working on. If 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.160 you're too neat and organized and everything's tucked away and 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.800 you never have that sort of serendipity. I see, and 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.120 I assume that because your scientists, you have this tested right, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.959 you've a scientificity proven, like you've done the control of 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.080 studies where you're really neat and more missy. Yeah, I 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.240 have a bunch of other Daniels in the basement and 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.160 I make them be really neat and messy and I 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.920 keep track of their careers also, and I guess you're 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.200 the most successful one because you're not at the basement right, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.440 so that proves your theory. I guess I'm the only 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:50.840 one with a podcast, which maybe means I'm a failure 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.520 as a scientist. I'm not sure the other ones are 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.400 actually doing physics. Is that what you're saying? They're still 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.959 newon research exactly, but anyways, welcome to our PODCAST, Daniel 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.120 and Jorge explain the universe, a production of my heart radio, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.919 in which we try to find order in this messy universe, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.840 this chaotic swirl of particles going to and fro weaving 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.760 themselves together into this incredible, beautiful reality that we want 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.320 to make sense of. While galaxies smash into each other 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.320 and particles annihilate each other, we step back and try 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.560 to organize all the things that are happening out there 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.480 in the universe into a crystalline set of ideas that 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:32.000 we can transmit along these audio waves into your brains. 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.519 It's right, because it is a pretty messy universe, full 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.800 of amazing and exciting things happening out there, particles crashing 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.680 into each other's black holes sucking up things. And yet 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.480 somehow we have, as humans, figured out that there is 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.120 a little bit of a order to all of this, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.960 even if we aren't very ordered ourselves. And of course 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.960 we don't know if that order exists in the universe 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.720 or if it's just something we have imposed on it. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.360 Does the universe actually makes sense? Are we just telling 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.880 ourselves these stories of UN in the philosophy of physics? 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.520 But so far it works for us. It lets US 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.400 build airplanes and transistors and all kinds of new materials 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.440 that ruin and save our lives. Are you saying the 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.160 universe is just messy enough? I'm saying it melts my 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.760 brain sometimes melts in your mouth. All that knowledge, I wonder, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:19.800 what would you like if the universe melted in your 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:21.560 hand instead of your mouth? Well, first of all, can 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.760 you hold the universe in your hand? Only has a 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.640 thin candy coating, right, but you are in the universe 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.320 also putting your hand the inside the Eminem two. We 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.080 are all EMINEM's. That's the philosophy on this show. But 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:35.719 are you the chocolate or are you the candy? and 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.839 which color is your eminem? Knowledge is the chocolate and 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.359 this show is the candy coating. That helps it go 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.360 down smooth keeps it from melting in your mouth or 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.000 in your hand exactly as you crunch on through it, 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.120 or in your ears. That would be pretty messy. You 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.080 know what melt the chocolate in your ears. Are you 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.960 suggesting people do or do not put Eminem's in their ears? 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.040 That's sort of lost track here. I know children do 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.080 and we have kids listening. Are you saying you know 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.279 the results of that experiment, that if you put Eminem's 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.280 in your ears they do not melt? I can guess 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.040 what happens, but thing it's science is not about guessing. 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.000 It's about going out there and doing experiments and discovering 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.520 what actually happens when you make new arrangements that nobody 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.720 has ever thought of before. Sometimes it's adding weird metals 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.920 to other metals, sometimes it's putting eminem's in ears. That's right, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.480 because we know the universe is made out of particles 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.240 and bits of energy out there. But as it turns out, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.000 there are lots of different ways you can put together 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.640 those bits of matter and energy and which gives you 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.039 all kinds of different results, and there are people still 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.800 figuring this out. You know, I'm a particle physicists. Of 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.359 My natural inclination for understanding how the world works is 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.600 to take it apart, is to reduce it to its smallest, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.440 most fundamental elements. But there are other people who work 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.560 in a completely different direction. Their basic question is, how 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.360 do we make some new kind of Goo? And can 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.640 we make good that can do things that Goo never 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.479 did before? They combine those fundamental pieces of the universe 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.000 in new ways to try to make him dance and 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.839 Jiggle and do things that no other kinds of Google 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.680 have done before. Yeah, because there are many different ways 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.720 that matter can arrange itself. They're called states of matter. Right, 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.720 there's liquid and gas and solids and plasma. Right that 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:16.240 those are the states of matter that we know of. 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.360 Those are the famous classical states of matter. But as 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.240 we explore the universe and push on these things we 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.040 discover the matter, can do all sorts of weird kinds 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.159 of things. We talked on the podcast recently about Cork 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.040 gluon plasma, or you called it Quasma, a great name, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.600 by the way. Yes, I'm still waiting for my noble price. Well, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.680 just keep eating Banasma as you wait. Yeah, yeah, that 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.200 might slip with the Noble Price Committee, but it's amazing 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.160 to me all the things that emerge in our universe. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.400 You know, one deep answer to the question what is 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.279 the universe made out of is to reveal its fundamental bits. 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.239 But I think it's equally important to understand what those 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.760 bits do when they work together, because you can't explain 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.440 the entire universe from the fundamental pieces. Even if you 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.240 had a complete and unique string theory that described the 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.480 fundamental theory of everything, you couldn't use it to predict 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.960 hurricanes or traffic on the four oh five, because these 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.800 are properties that emerge at a different scale. When you 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.640 zoom out from the universe from this time, these little bits, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.040 you notice these incredible properties, places where we find these 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.760 interesting and simple mathematical stories that we can tell about 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.920 the universe, whether or not they are fundamental. Yeah, so 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.360 there are these four basic states of matter that most 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.680 people are familiar with, solid gas, liquid plasma, and we're, 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.000 I guess they're popular and people know them because we 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.120 see them in our everyday lives. Right. They're sort of 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.120 what how matter usually sticks together. But, as you were saying, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.560 there are many other ways that matter can stick together 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:45.320 if you go down into the weirder realm of quantum physics. Yeah, 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.840 if you stick things together in weird ways and Zap 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.520 them with lasers, you can find stuff that does things 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.800 that no other kind of stuff can do. You've probably 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:58.240 heard of Bose Einstein condensates, for example, weird collections of 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.920 particles that act all together as a single quantum state, 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.680 a macroscopic blob of stuff with quantum properties. That's another 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.720 example of how you can squeeze and tweak matter into 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.160 weird configurations to do new kinds of stuff and new 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.840 kinds of stuff. Is What we'll be talking about here today. 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.400 So to be on the PODCAST, we'll be asking the question. 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.760 What are quantum glasses? Now, Daniel, I'm guessing these are 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.760 not just things you wear to see quantum things better. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.120 When we go to a quantum physics conference, everybody puts 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.640 these things on. It's not going to a three D movie, right. 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.760 It's for cure and quantum myopia. Is that what it's 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:44.120 there for? Or are they for drinking quantum wine or juice? 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.719 Quantum juice? So you can say I'm not sure if 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.160 I drink that glass of wine or if somebody else did, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.120 shrouding your drink my glass of wine, I meaning glasses 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.280 of quantum. Have you drunk today? One and zero at 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.800 the same time. There's a probability distribution that I'm drunk 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.720 quantum glasses. So these are two words I'm familiar with, 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.320 but I've never seen them together in the same phrase. 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.640 These are really interesting kind of materials. Sometimes they're also 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.400 called spin glasses, as we'll learn about later, because they 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.080 involve quantum spin. So it's a really fun topic and 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.520 something a bunch of listeners have been emailing me about 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.560 because they saw articles about spin glasses and quantum glasses 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.560 and they wanted to understand. Hey, what are these things anyway? 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.280 Interesting and can you make a spin bottle out of glass? 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:31.319 Is that the same thing? I think you're thinking of 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.360 the game spin, the boss Spin right. Well, as usually, 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.199 we were wondering how many people out there had heard 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.160 of this phrase quantum glasses or had any idea of 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.520 what they are. So thank you very much to those 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:44.960 of you who are willing to answer these questions. It's 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.319 really helpful to give us a sense for what people 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.840 are thinking and what they already know. If you'd like 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.040 to participate for future episodes, please don't be shy. Right 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.000 to me two questions at Daniel and Jorge Dot Com 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:57.839 and I'll set you up. So think about it for 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.439 a second. What do you think quantum glass this are, 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:02.760 and what could you see with them? Here's what to 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.040 be glad to say. Quantum glasses, I guess, are not 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.280 spectacles to view through, but they should be a kind 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.640 of material. In material science, glasses are a class of 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:19.200 materials that are characterized by being that it disorganized. So 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:26.120 quantum glasses should be a quantum soup that is disorganized. 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.320 I have no idea. I don't think they're the tiny 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.080 little reading glasses that some people perched on the end 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.839 of their nose, nor are they the tiny little shot 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.720 glasses one might use for a very strong drink. Even 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.199 those are not quite quantum level, and one should use 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.640 distance glasses, if any, rather than reading glasses and not 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:49.160 drink alcohol while driving a Volkswagen Quantum. So I'm going 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.079 to take a wild guess that there's something that refocuses 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.880 beams of quantum particles, much like how eyeglasses and other 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.800 such lenses refocusames of light. I have absolutely no idea 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.280 what quantum glasses could be, so this is going to 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.040 be a completely uneducated guest in every way. My mind 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.120 originally went to glasses, like glasses who wear, but then 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.120 I also thought of glasses as like a container for 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.480 a liquid. So my guess is that it is some 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:23.920 type of container through which we can better observe quantum events, 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.640 events on a quantum scale. I think quantum glasses is 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:35.240 a system physicists use two negotiate quantum theory. Either that 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.960 or it's the glasses I used to use when I 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.439 was a heavy drinker. But take a guess. Quantum glasses 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:51.400 helps you see shrodingerl's cat, exactly what that cat is doing, 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.760 and it's no whereabouts. If I was to reduce, I 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.400 reckon it's some way of being able to utilize something 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.600 to view or to assess the way the quantum world 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.079 is behaving, similar to a spectacles on to say the world. 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.560 I wonder if it's got something to do with our 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.200 ability to say or interact with the quantum world. All Right, 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.880 a lot of interesting ideas. I love the tiny little 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:21.640 reading glasses. They're like little quantum particles you put in 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.280 your eyeballs. Is that what they're saying? No, I'm imagining 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.280 like literal tiny glasses perched at the very, very tip 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.680 of my nose, and they're there and they're not there 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.960 at the same time. But I'm most impressed with this 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.600 one guest that says glasses are disorganized. So maybe quantum 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.839 glasses are a disorganized quantum soup. That is so close 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.040 to correct I'm amazed. Yeah, yeah, I feel like maybe 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.000 they cheated or something that. I wonder if they read 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:51.199 an article about this. I don't know the rules are. 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.160 You're not allowed to Google. So, you know, maybe they 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:58.240 just intuited it. Maybe this person just is a physics genius. Wow, 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.280 maybe you should be hiring them, or maybe you already 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.800 hird them. I don't know. Did you ask your Grad Students? Sometimes? 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.640 I do sometimes, but these are all random Internet people, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.520 although you know, some of our listeners are physics Grad 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.079 students and some of them aren't. So there's a pretty 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.440 wide spectrum of backgrounds. Yes, in the end we're all 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.480 random Internet people, Daniel, but anyways, lots of great ideas, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:21.439 and so let's dig into it. What is a quantum glass? Daniel, 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:23.760 break it down for us. So, basically, our listener gave 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.880 us the answer. A quantum glass is a material where 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.920 the quantum states are disordered in a way that's similar 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.439 to way like a window glass is a disordered solid 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.800 rather than like an ordered crystal. You know. That means 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.800 that things on the inside are not like arranged, so 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.840 everything points in the same direction. It's sort of scrambled 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:48.120 a little bit. MM interesting because I guess bits of matter, 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:52.360 atoms and quantum particles, they have a specific direction, aren't 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.240 they just like little blobs? They do have specific directions 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.040 because they have quantum spins, right, and luxurns are not 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.160 just tiny particles with charred gen mass. They also have 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:05.320 other quantum properties, including this weird thing quantum spin, that 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.920 we don't fundamentally know what it is. We don't think 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.360 that these electrons are actually spinning because we think of 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.160 them as point particles. And even if you account for 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.720 the width of their wave function, if they were literally spinning, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.200 then their surfaces would have to go faster than the 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.000 speed of light to explain all of this energy. It's 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.520 some other weird property. We have a whole podcast episode 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.520 about what is quantum spin. For today, all we need 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.000 to know is that it can have a direction. Electron 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.760 is gonna be like spin up or spin down, and 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.200 this is true for other particles. Protons and neutrons and 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.480 even for atoms, can have an overall spin. So that 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.680 gives them a directionality. They're not just points, right. They 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.960 have a property that somehow points in a certain specific 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.400 direction in space. And you said it's just sort of 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.920 like normal glass to like maybe let's start with that. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.000 What is a normal glass? Yeah, so a normal glass 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.360 is something that feels solid. Like you go to Your 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.320 Window Pane Ene and you touch it, it it feels solid, right. 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.280 But most solids out there are not like glass. Most 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.560 solids are ordered. They're organized like a crystal, you know. 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.320 They're sort of like built out of a bunch of 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.680 tiny bricks that are all stacked together very nicely and 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.040 neatly into like a big cubic lattice. You can think 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.200 of them as like a bunch of atoms where the 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.120 atoms all line up in three directions. You know, if 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.560 you like sort of looked down it, you could line 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.480 up all the atoms sort of like in front of 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.760 you and then along the surface and this kind of thing. 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.680 So most stuff that's out there is fairly well organized, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.080 but a glass is not a glass. It's just sort 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.080 of like a pile of stuff that's stuck together, but 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.720 it's not well organized. What do you mean? Mean? Like, 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.760 my wooden desk is neatly organized, but it looks pretty messy. 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.160 Your wooden desk is even more complicated because it has 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.160 all sorts of structure in the wood itself. But you know, 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:52.520 if you take it like a block of ice, it's 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.480 a single kind of stuff. It's cold and the atoms 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.920 inside of it are arranged in a lattice. There's like 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.480 the distance between two atoms is pretty much a single number, 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.160 and that's true for most things like metals, et CETERA. 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.600 But they're both solid, right, like a piece of glass 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.400 is solid, just like a piece of ice is solid too. 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.840 That's right. A piece of glass is solid because its 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.520 volume doesn't change and it's shape doesn't change. The build 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.480 just sit there, right. But if you zoomed in with 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.240 a microscope, an amorphous solid like glass would look very 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.800 different from a crystal solid, a crystal slid. You would 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:24.520 zoom in and it would look like it's built out 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.000 of these little pieces that are all arranged very nicely, 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.440 like somebody stacked a bunch of legos together, whereas an 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.480 amorphous solid would look like, you know, the inside of 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.720 your Lego bin before you built something would be like 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.720 a disorganized pile of stuff that's still somehow stuck together. 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.840 And you know, glass is an example of it. And 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.200 then we call these things glasses. But there are other examples, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.720 like a lot of plastics are like this, gels are 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.040 like this. You know, sand is like this. If you 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.600 zoom in close enough, it's not like stacked up in 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.760 little bricks, it's just sort of like a big jumble. 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.760 But you're right, it is solid. It manages to stick 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.400 together well enough still have the properties of a solid, right, 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.280 although I've heard glasses actually a liquid, like a really 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.760 slow liquid, right, isn't it? That is something that is 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.800 said often, but I don't think it's actually true. I 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.360 think the people have been misled by old windows, for example, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.320 that are thicker on the bottom than on the top. 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.439 That's mostly because of the glass making process at the time. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.920 Glass itself, I don't think, actually flows on a time 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.240 scale that humans can measure, but on a long time 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.679 scale it sort of does. Right technically, it's true that 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.920 these things can flow on very, very long time scales, 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.080 but most of the things where you see it's like 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.320 thicker on the bottom than on the top is not 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.280 because the glasses flowed. It's a little bit unclear exactly 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.960 what the time scale is for glass to flow into 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.720 a puddle, for example. It might be a very, very 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.359 long time scale. Well, Um, I guess maybe a question 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.879 I have is what's the difference between something that is 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.280 a glass and something that is not a glass? Like 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:55.760 what makes some materials arrange themselves into crystal structure, lattices, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.840 and what makes them just stick together morphously? The answer 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.040 is that it is complicated. For some materials it depends 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.120 on how they are cooled. So if you cool things really, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.320 really fast, they don't have a chance for the crystal 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.840 to organize itself. Other materials just don't fall into a 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.160 crystal because of the way their interactions work. They can't 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.760 build a regular lattice it depends a lot on the 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.639 exact material and also on how you get it to 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.800 its state. So some things can be crystals or can 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.600 be glasses, and it just depends on how quickly they 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.920 are cooled down. Doesn't a lot of it also depend 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.640 on like the structure of the molecules in the material? 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.160 For example, you know, like maybe what I think, water 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.159 falls into crystals because the two H and the o 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.840 kind of form a kind of a weird shape and 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:41.920 there there are only so many different ways you can 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.359 kind of make those shapes stick together. Yeah, that's what 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.160 I mean by the interactions of the materials. They imagine. 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.119 For example, you have a weird shaped tile, a question 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.639 you can ask is like can I tile this across 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.960 the floor in a regular pattern? And that's basically what 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.119 you're trying to do when you build a crystal is 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:58.560 like fill up a space with a regular pattern with 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.040 a weird shape that you have. So, as you say, 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.320 for example, water has kind of a weird shape, but 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:05.800 it's capable of building crystal. But actually it can build 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.840 lots of different kinds of crystals based on the temperature 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.760 and pressure of its formation. There's like ice four and 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.400 ice six and ice. Nine. These are all different crystal 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.359 arrangements of the same basic thing, based on the temperature 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.879 and the pressure and the conditions in which it was formed. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.800 So it's a really complicated question. Yeah, and I think 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.960 it also depends on like what makes the molecules stick 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.080 together right like an h do. It could be the 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.440 forces between the OHS, for example, what I'm just giving 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:34.560 out random example, or it could be, you know, the 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.960 forces between the H is and things like that, right exactly, 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.600 and some parts of it are stickier than others, right, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.320 depending on the energy levels of their electrons. So it's 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.400 something that's not always easy to predict. Sometimes the best 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:48.240 way to figure it out is just to try. It's 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:50.960 just to go out and see what happens. So we 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.800 have people whose entire careers are just like mapping out 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.560 the phase diagram of various kinds of materials, understanding what 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.080 it does under certain configurations. Think maybe the takeaway is 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.320 that stuff sticks together in general and there are there 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.199 are many different ways for it to stick together and 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.240 sometimes they stick together in regular patterns, like in a grid, 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.640 and sometimes they just kind of bundle up like randomly, right, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.000 and that's what a class is and classes is an 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.679 example of this category. You also have like plastics and 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.160 polymers and Thoms and gels. These all follow the same 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.880 kind of structure as glasses. They are amorphous rather than crystalline, right, 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.320 and those are the in the macro scale there are 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.240 morphous materials, kind of like the atom level, right. We're 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.800 not yet at the quantum level. Yeah, these are things 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.480 at the atom level exactly. So then you're saying a 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.840 quantum glass is a material in which stuff is stuck together, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.520 but Um, it's a morphous in its quantum states. Yeah, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.760 and I predict you're gonna be pretty unhappy with this 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.760 distinction about what's a quantum state or not, because in 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.440 the end all of these interactions are quantum, like when 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.560