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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, if you ever discovered a particle, what would

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Speaker 1: you name it? Oh? I feel a little bit put

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Speaker 1: on the spot and no pressure. I mean, you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: just name it the white sun or the white cuno, did, DANIELO. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, over the course of these podcasts, I've come

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Speaker 1: to get a feeling of, I don't know, judgment from

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Speaker 1: you by the quality of particle names. So I guess

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Speaker 1: I feel some responsibility to like do it right and

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Speaker 1: meet your high standards. Well, I'm glad I'm doing my

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Speaker 1: bid to make physics better. You know. I just hope

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Speaker 1: you don't give it a silly name, you know, like

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Speaker 1: a random name, like a squiggly on or something. You know,

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Speaker 1: those quiglyons. That would be a silly name. Well, I

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Speaker 1: promised to do my best. I won't like name it

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Speaker 1: after a random laundry detergent or something. All right, if

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Speaker 1: you do that, this podcast is over. Hi am Orhammad,

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Speaker 1: cartoonist and the creator of PhD comics. Hi. I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist who has never discovered a particle,

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Speaker 1: at least one that nobody else has discovered. That's right.

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Speaker 1: I found particles this morning when I had breakfast and

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Speaker 1: I planned to find some more for lunch. But they're

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Speaker 1: all your everyday running the mill quirks and electron Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I find particles all the time in my belly button.

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Speaker 1: That's probably not a picture we want to paint this

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Speaker 1: really in the episode. That's probably what dark matter is. Jorge.

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Speaker 1: It's just your belly button. Oh yeah, my billy win

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Speaker 1: is full of dark matter and dark energy and physicists

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Speaker 1: also can't explain it. But welcome to our podcast, Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio in which we try to tackle the biggest questions

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Speaker 1: in the universe. What is dark matter, what is everything

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Speaker 1: made out of? What is that weird thing in Jorge's

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Speaker 1: belly button? And we try to do it in a

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Speaker 1: way that educates you and entertains you along the way.

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Speaker 1: And we like to talk about not just the science

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Speaker 1: and what we know about the universe and what we

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Speaker 1: don't know, but we also kind of like to talk

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Speaker 1: sometimes about the process of science, like how are things

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Speaker 1: discovered or what are scientists thinking about or what are

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Speaker 1: they looking for. That's right, because the forefront of science,

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Speaker 1: the edge of human curiosity, it belongs to everybody, and

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Speaker 1: we want you to know what are scientists thinking about,

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Speaker 1: what are they wondering about, what do they not know?

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Speaker 1: And what are they doing to figure it out? How

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Speaker 1: do we go from clueless too, slightly clued in, slightly

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Speaker 1: less clueless, diminishing cluelessness. That'll be the title of my autobiography. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we would like to kind of stand at the precipice

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Speaker 1: of ignorance. I'd like to call it like, we're right

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Speaker 1: at the edge of what scientists know and don't know

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Speaker 1: and what they're discovering right now at the moment. Do

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Speaker 1: you think we are in danger of falling into that

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Speaker 1: precipice or we're pushing it back. I think it's possible

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Speaker 1: to go a little bit too deep into the rabid

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Speaker 1: hole here of what we don't know in physics. Just

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Speaker 1: following up on your metaphor there, does that make the

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Speaker 1: rabbit is ignorance or rabbits are ignorant? Well, I don't

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Speaker 1: want to insult any rabbits. We're definitely pro rabbit on

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Were we are we like rabbits here? But

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Speaker 1: you know, one question is that you know there are

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Speaker 1: all these particles out there in the universe and there's

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of particles we've discovered in the universe,

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Speaker 1: and and so the kind of the question is like,

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Speaker 1: how do people find new particles? How do you physicists

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Speaker 1: discover them? Yeah, there's sort of two big ways to

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Speaker 1: do it. One is to look at the list of

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Speaker 1: particles we have now and say it doesn't seem complete.

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Speaker 1: We need another one. And this is the case when

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Speaker 1: we talked about the top cork, for example, we had

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Speaker 1: a nice little pattern of particles with a missing square

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Speaker 1: in it. There was one particle that didn't have a

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Speaker 1: partner and everything else was paired off, so we thought

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Speaker 1: there must be one there. And sometimes, more abstractly, we

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Speaker 1: say there's just a larger pattern that would make sense

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Speaker 1: if we added one more particle. That's how the Higgs

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Speaker 1: boson was discovered, for example. So you're saying particle physics,

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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like pokemon collecting or baseball card collecting. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: except we can't trade. You know, if the aliens come,

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Speaker 1: maybe we could trade our discoveries for their for theirs. Right,

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, your nerve brain just exploded. I'll give

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Speaker 1: you a Higgs boson for the dark matter. Please? Do

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Speaker 1: you have dark matter? We want dark matter? Boy? That

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Speaker 1: would be uh, that does sound kind of like fun.

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Speaker 1: You know, you can get together the neighborhood and you

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Speaker 1: exchange what do you know about the universe. I'm looking

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Speaker 1: forward at that party. But there's a whole other way

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Speaker 1: to discover particles, which is just to sort of stumble

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Speaker 1: across them, to like find them in nature and see

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Speaker 1: them and go what's that and then figure out how

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Speaker 1: does it fit into the larger puzzle, where does this go?

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Speaker 1: How do we connected? And we haven't done too much

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Speaker 1: of that recently. Mostly we've been predicting particles and then

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Speaker 1: find I see. So how would you stumble upon a

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Speaker 1: particle like you're running the collider or any kind of

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Speaker 1: collider and then suddenly you see something you weren't expecting. Yeah, precisely.

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Speaker 1: This is how mu ones were discovered. For example, they

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Speaker 1: had big blocks of photographic materials up on the tops

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Speaker 1: of mountains and they saw these streaks of particles going

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Speaker 1: through them, and the particles weren't consistent with electrons or

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Speaker 1: anything else, and so they said, well, this must be

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Speaker 1: some new particle we haven't seen before. And colliders are

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Speaker 1: actually the best place to discover a new, unexpected particle

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Speaker 1: because you smash the protons together and you get this

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Speaker 1: little blob of energy which can turn into anything. Anything

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Speaker 1: the universe is capable of making, and so you could

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Speaker 1: just pop out some crazy new particle you've never seen

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Speaker 1: before without you knowing that it exists. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to know it's there in order to find it. That's

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Speaker 1: the amazing thing about exploring the universe with colliders. You'd

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Speaker 1: be like, who ordered that exactly where that? That's exactly

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Speaker 1: literally what they said when they heard about the mule,

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Speaker 1: and they said, what, we don't need that. That doesn't

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Speaker 1: make any sense. Go take that somewhere else. Well, we've

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Speaker 1: had several episodes where we talk about the discovery and

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Speaker 1: the search for different particles. We had one about the

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Speaker 1: top cork and the electron and all these other particles.

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Speaker 1: And so today we'll tell the story of another particle,

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Speaker 1: one that was proposed almost forty years ago and that

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Speaker 1: we are still looking for. That's right, this is a

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Speaker 1: particle which may or may not exist, and if it

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Speaker 1: does exist, it may simultaneously solve two of the biggest

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Speaker 1: problems in particle physics and weirdly, it's a particle almost

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Speaker 1: nobody outside the field has even heard of. Wow, well,

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Speaker 1: I guess we we don't know if it exists, and

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Speaker 1: so if it doesn't exist, we have to erase this

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Speaker 1: podcast episode. Daniel or no, we get paid Either way,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. Okay, forget about that. Well apparently

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Speaker 1: has the one of the citiest names in the history

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Speaker 1: of particles. Yes, I'm looking forward to hearing your reaction

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Speaker 1: to how this particle was named. It ends up with

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Speaker 1: a really pretty cool name. But the reason for that

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Speaker 1: name is really pretty ludicrous and whimsical. Oh man, I

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Speaker 1: am not looking forward to that. But anyway, So today

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be asking the question, what is

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Speaker 1: the most important particle you've never heard of? It's just

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Speaker 1: like a trendy band that everyone should listen to but

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Speaker 1: nobody knows about. Yeah, this is the particle your teenager

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Speaker 1: knows about, but you are clueless about it. It's super

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Speaker 1: hot on TikTok You're like, what what is TikTok? That's

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Speaker 1: precisely you don't even know the name of the social

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Speaker 1: media app on which this particle is cool. That's how

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Speaker 1: uncool you are. No, but it is. It is a

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Speaker 1: really cool name. I like. I like the sound of

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Speaker 1: the name of this particle. It's this particle is called

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Speaker 1: the axion. That does sound pretty cool. It does sound

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. What doesn't invoke in your mind or him

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Speaker 1: like a robot or you know, like um like access

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Speaker 1: maybe Unfortunately, the word for armpits in Spanish is kind

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Speaker 1: of close to it, So it is making me think

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Speaker 1: a little bit of art pits. But we won't go

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Speaker 1: there is an unfortunate name. It makes me think of

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Speaker 1: sort of like double edged axes being thrown in space

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Speaker 1: along three different axes, you know, like X and y

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Speaker 1: ax and your y ax and your zo throwing an

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Speaker 1: X and X around. I don't know, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but it is a cool name. It's fun to say.

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Speaker 1: It's got that same sound in their idea. I think

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Speaker 1: as long as it sounds like a transformer, it sounds

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Speaker 1: I think cool. In physics, you know, synchrotron, graviton megatron

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Speaker 1: is not a particle, though the awesome there you go,

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Speaker 1: that will be the name of a particle. Some of

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Speaker 1: you may have heard about the new interesting axon result

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Speaker 1: from the Zenon experiment. Now today we'll be talking about

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Speaker 1: the axon more generally, but we're going to dig into

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Speaker 1: the zenon solar axon question in a dedicated episode coming

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Speaker 1: very soon. But as usual, I was curious, what did

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Speaker 1: people know about the axon? Is this something people actually

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Speaker 1: have heard of or is this something that only the

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Speaker 1: cool kids on physics TikTok know about? And so is

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Speaker 1: Daniel went out there into the files of the Internet

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Speaker 1: to ask people what they know about the axion particle.

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Speaker 1: So thank you to everybody who volunteered to answer random

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Speaker 1: Internet questions and sending in your responses. If you'd like

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Speaker 1: to participate in random person on the street internet questions,

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Speaker 1: then please write to us at questions at Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Jorge dot com. Before you hear these answers, think about

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Speaker 1: it for a second and someone as you if you

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Speaker 1: knew what the axion particle was, what would you say.

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Speaker 1: Here's what people had to say. I think this is

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Speaker 1: a way to classify particles. They like they can be axion,

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Speaker 1: some boat songs and it has to do with them,

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Speaker 1: for example, having mass or not. I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: guess action access would perhaps be some sort of particle

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Speaker 1: that other particles turn around. I have no idea but

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Speaker 1: since it sounds like the word axel, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: guess it has something to do with joining other particles together.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea. I don't know. I think that's

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Speaker 1: to do with what doll matter is might of I

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Speaker 1: believe there are two options, are actions or whimps. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: I have no idea. Because it has the word ion

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Speaker 1: in it, maybe it's some kind of ion. It's got

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Speaker 1: no idea. I never heard about something called axiom. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course that's an elementary particle of an action figure

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Speaker 1: the Caveman scientists in your book discussing what the most

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Speaker 1: fundamental particle of a stone ax would be. I assume

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Speaker 1: it's not a standard particle. Maybe it's more like strange matter.

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Speaker 1: All right, not a lot of positive recognition there. I

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Speaker 1: like the one that said it's it's an action figure,

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Speaker 1: or it's related to an action figure, the fundamental element

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Speaker 1: of an action figure. That makes a lot of sense. Well,

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Speaker 1: if it does exist and it is part of nature,

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Speaker 1: it could be part of all action figures. It could be.

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Speaker 1: And the other great idea was the that maybe it's

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Speaker 1: related to axles, so maybe like joins particles together at

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Speaker 1: this some really creative responses here, I'm impressed, or maybe

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Speaker 1: they were thinking like Axel Rose and like oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: a gone some Roses fan, in which case the Axon's

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Speaker 1: career has to also be in the dusk. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: better get on that physics TikTok right away. Some silly dances.

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Speaker 1: But it did seem like none of these folks had

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Speaker 1: heard of this particle or really had any clue about

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Speaker 1: its incredibly important role in particle physics. Man, well, I

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Speaker 1: would count myself among those numbers. I had no idea

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Speaker 1: what this and have no idea of what this particle

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Speaker 1: is before he sent me the outline for today's episode.

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Speaker 1: But let's get into it, Daniel, what is the axion?

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Speaker 1: It sounds kind of important but maybe not yet discovered. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the axion particle is totally theoretical, so we do not

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Speaker 1: know if it's part of our universe at all. It

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Speaker 1: may just be an idea in people's minds. And remember

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Speaker 1: there's been a lot more ideas than actual particles. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes these ideas are beautiful, they make perfect sense, and

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Speaker 1: when the physicist has them, they go, Wow, everything is

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Speaker 1: connected and this is the way the universe works. But

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Speaker 1: then you go and you ask the universe like is

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Speaker 1: it real? And Uver says, nice idea, but no, isn't

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Speaker 1: that kind of strange? I feel like that's almost like

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Speaker 1: trying to discover new animals by thinking of them before

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Speaker 1: you actually find. It's like, oh, what if there's an

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Speaker 1: animal with a duck bill, but then at a dinosaur

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Speaker 1: nag and then butterfly wings, and then you go out

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Speaker 1: looking for them. Wouldn't that be kind of not productive? Yeah? Well,

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Speaker 1: but to stretch the you know, mixed metaphor of our

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Speaker 1: rabbit holes here, it's more like that you see evidence

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Speaker 1: for this animal. It's like what's eating all the deer?

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Speaker 1: And you know, I see all these strange footprints, and

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Speaker 1: maybe that would be explained if there was this new

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Speaker 1: predator out there I've never seen before. And so you're

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Speaker 1: trying to like tie up loose ends and complete the

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Speaker 1: picture by suggesting an explanation. And that's exactly what the

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Speaker 1: axion and a lot of other theoretically motivated particles do,

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Speaker 1: is they sort of trying to tie together what we

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Speaker 1: see in a small all are more compact explanation. It's

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Speaker 1: just been a pretty horrible picture of this animal. Daniel

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Speaker 1: because around eating deer. Oh my goodness, it's like a

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Speaker 1: wolf man. You're trying to go for a cool animal wolf,

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Speaker 1: the duck bill and butterfly wings. It does sound pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: That does sound pretty cool. I want to see that

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Speaker 1: animal if it exists, and you can name it. We

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Speaker 1: already use that name for something else. That would be

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Speaker 1: so confusing. But what if you find animal first, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: what if you find animal and call it the axion

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Speaker 1: before you discover this particle. I think we've already used

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Speaker 1: up the name though. That's sort of like, you know

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Speaker 1: how the Space Force television show on Netflix has trademarked

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Speaker 1: the term Space Force before the actual US Space Force

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Speaker 1: got around doing it. Oh that's a problem. That's a problem, yeah, exactly. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: back to particle physics, the axion, if it exists, is

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Speaker 1: a lot like a photon, but it doesn't have zero mass.

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Speaker 1: It has a super tiny, little whispy mask really massive photon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's not very massive. Like the mass if it

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Speaker 1: has some is like two hundred billion of the mass

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Speaker 1: of the electron, which is already one of the lightest particles.

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Speaker 1: So it's like a light light particle. It's like light light. Exactly.

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Speaker 1: It's very light light light, but not quite light, not

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Speaker 1: quite light. It's not coke zero. It's like coke light, Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: it's that coke with a tiny little bit of real

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Speaker 1: sugar in it, right, Um, And why did somebody come

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Speaker 1: up with this, Well, they came up with it to

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Speaker 1: sort of answer the biggest problem in physics that nobody

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Speaker 1: ever heard of, which is, we're looking at the way

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Speaker 1: that interactions happen in physics, and we noticed something weird,

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Speaker 1: something that we cannot explain. And so it's sort of

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Speaker 1: thought up to explain this other mystery the same way

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Speaker 1: you know, you might hypothesize wolves if you see your

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Speaker 1: dear missing. This is sort of like hypothesizing the axon

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Speaker 1: to explain this other problem, which is called the strong

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Speaker 1: CP problem. Interesting, and now is its official title, the

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Speaker 1: biggest problem with notity has ever heard of? Like, do

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Speaker 1: you guys talk about it that way? Yeah, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of a famous problem that nobody really has any answer

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Speaker 1: to except the axio. And so that's why people think

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Speaker 1: the axon might really be real. And then we'll talk

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Speaker 1: later in the program about how it could also simultaneously

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Speaker 1: solve another huge problem, which makes the axon sort of

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Speaker 1: a sexy particle right now. But it was originally dreamt

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Speaker 1: up to solve this other problem called the strong CP problem.

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Speaker 1: So what what's the strong CP problem? So this problem

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Speaker 1: has to do with basically, why does the strong force

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Speaker 1: not break some symmetries and particle physics, we have all

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Speaker 1: these symmetries like charge symmetry and parity symmetry and time symmetry.

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Speaker 1: These symmetries tell us whether something works the same when

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Speaker 1: you flip it the other way. Like, if we say

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Speaker 1: something could happen to an electron, we ask, well, can

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Speaker 1: the same thing happen to a positron, which is the

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Speaker 1: opposite charge version of it. Because we like symmetries in

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Speaker 1: particle physics, we like the smallest set of rules, so

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Speaker 1: we don't want a different set of rules for electron

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Speaker 1: ones and for positrons for example. So it's kind of like,

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Speaker 1: you know, like if two negative electrons propel each other,

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Speaker 1: you can ask, like to positive electrons propel each other too,

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Speaker 1: and if they do, then that means it's like symmetric.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's symmetric in charge. If you flip the

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Speaker 1: charge and you get the same thing, and then it's

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Speaker 1: symmetric in charge, and so we call that C for

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Speaker 1: charge symmetry, and we ask that question about everything, and

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Speaker 1: electromagnetism is charge symmetric. Everything that happens in electromagnetism would

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Speaker 1: happen the same way if you flipped all of the charges,

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Speaker 1: not just one, but all of the charges, okay. And

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Speaker 1: then the second one is called P for parity violation,

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Speaker 1: and that says, would the same thing happen if you

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Speaker 1: did it in the mirror. So, if you like set

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Speaker 1: up some particle experiment or particle decays to two other ones,

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Speaker 1: or two particles collide into each other or whatever, and

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Speaker 1: then you put that experiment in front of a mirror,

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Speaker 1: the thing that happens in the mirror is not exactly

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Speaker 1: the same as the thing that's happening in real life.

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Speaker 1: It's flipped in one dimension. Yeah, a mirror will flip

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Speaker 1: like the Z axis, for example, the axis perpendicular to

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Speaker 1: the mirror, but not the other two. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: if you hold up your left hand in front of

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Speaker 1: a mirror, then it looks like your right hand doesn't

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Speaker 1: look like your left hand, and so your hand has parody.

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Speaker 1: It's not parody symmetric, right, because it doesn't look the

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Speaker 1: same in the mirror. Doesn't look the same, but like

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Speaker 1: a like a ball does sort of look like a

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Speaker 1: perfectly round ball with no drawings or features on it

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Speaker 1: does is parody symmetric because it looks the same in

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Speaker 1: the mirror exactly. So for a long time, this is

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Speaker 1: this thought that all of particle physics was charged symmetric

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Speaker 1: and parody symmetric because it just sort of made sense, right,

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Speaker 1: and this is like to do that. They say, the

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Speaker 1: universe is beautiful and natural, and so it should follow

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Speaker 1: this rule, Like it'd be weird if the electron looked

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Speaker 1: like my right hand in front of the mirror, or

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Speaker 1: if you had electrons for hands, that would also be weird,

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Speaker 1: but for different reasons. And for a long time, everybody

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Speaker 1: assumed that everything followed all these rules. And then in

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Speaker 1: the fifties people realized, oh, nobody had ever actually checked this.

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Speaker 1: For the weak force, we had a whole episode we

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Speaker 1: dug into how the weak force actually violates parity. Interesting, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you have a reaction in the mirror, it looks

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Speaker 1: different than the reaction you're having like in your actual laboratory.

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Speaker 1: And when we're talking about these These are particles, right,

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Speaker 1: so they don't have features like hands, but they'll do

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Speaker 1: things like they'll turn a certain way in a magnetic field,

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Speaker 1: or they'll they'll react a certain way when they hit

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Speaker 1: something else. Right. Yeah, the experiment that discovers the violation

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Speaker 1: of parody did just that. It like takes a bunch

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Speaker 1: of nuclei, aligns them in a magnetic field, and then

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Speaker 1: watches the direction that they emit electrons. Is it like

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Speaker 1: in the same direction as the magnetic field or backwards?

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Speaker 1: And that's a fascinating experiment that if you're interested in

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Speaker 1: you should dig into that whole podcast episode. But for

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Speaker 1: a whild people thought, okay, parody is violated by the

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Speaker 1: weak force. What about the combination of charge and parody?

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Speaker 1: So put it in the mirror and flip the charge,

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Speaker 1: so that says, will an electron look the same if

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Speaker 1: you put it in the mirror and turn it into

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Speaker 1: a positron? And then we discovered that that the weak

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Speaker 1: force actually violates this also, so we call this c P.

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Speaker 1: If an interaction or a particle physics thing that happens

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Speaker 1: violates CP, it means that it doesn't look the same

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Speaker 1: when you flip the charge and put it in the mirror.

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Speaker 1: So and so the weak force violates parody, and it

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Speaker 1: also violates charge and parody. That's right now violates parody

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Speaker 1: big time. It's like a really big violation. And that

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Speaker 1: was a Nobel prize. And then people thought, well, it

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Speaker 1: must then preserve CP. It must be that parody is violated,

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Speaker 1: but the combination of these two things is still preserved.

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Speaker 1: And then they discovered that they violates CP, and that

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Speaker 1: was another Nobel prize. So that's the weak force. A

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Speaker 1: weak force violates CP, and that was sort of surprising.

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Speaker 1: But then people realized, well why not, I mean, why

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Speaker 1: shouldn't these things violate CP. They looked at the way

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Speaker 1: that we write down these interactions and the way we

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Speaker 1: understand these theories, and we say, well, it's actually totally

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Speaker 1: natural for them to violate CP. So like the theorist

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Speaker 1: went from that's impossible, that's absurd, to actually make a

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Speaker 1: perfect sense. All right, Well, it sounds like there's a

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Speaker 1: lot going on with the weak force here. It violates

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Speaker 1: all kinds of symmetries, and so let's talk about some

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Speaker 1: of the other forces and how that could maybe lead

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Speaker 1: people to come up with a brand new particle called

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Speaker 1: the axion. But first let's take a quick break. All right, Diane,

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Speaker 1: we're we're talking about a potentially existing particle with a

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Speaker 1: cool name called the axion, and you're telling me that

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Speaker 1: it's definitely related to this idea of the CP problem,

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Speaker 1: which is like a problem in theoretical physics about the

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Speaker 1: symmetry of particles and whether or not they act the

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Speaker 1: same way in all kinds of situations. And so we

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Speaker 1: talked about how the weak force doesn't follows parody or

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Speaker 1: charged parody symmetry, and so and and that's now become

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Speaker 1: the normal. Before we gave them people a norval price.

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Speaker 1: We're figuring that out. But now it's like, okay, that's

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Speaker 1: the way, that's right. We realize that it's actually not

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Speaker 1: outrageous for the weak force to violate CP. And then

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Speaker 1: we looked at the other forces. We said, you know,

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Speaker 1: the same thing that allows the weak force to violate CP,

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Speaker 1: why doesn't it also allow the strong force to do it? Like,

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Speaker 1: the strong force could also violate CP, No big deal,

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Speaker 1: as the sort of same freedom inside it. It also

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Speaker 1: interacts with corks, which is what the weak force does

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Speaker 1: when it violates parody, and so people thought, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: the strong force, maybe that also violates CP. But but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't. But it doesn't. And we've made really really

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Speaker 1: precise measurements of this, like crazy precise measurements, and so

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Speaker 1: the strong force observes CP sort of for no good reasons. Interesting, so, like,

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Speaker 1: if you try the strong force, it seems to be symmetric.

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Speaker 1: It follows the rules. It's like, it follows the rules.

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Speaker 1: It's the good citizen of physics. Yeah, it's like if

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Speaker 1: you were watching people drive down the highway and every

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Speaker 1: single one of them was driving exactly at the speed limit,

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Speaker 1: no higher, no lower, to like one billions of a

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Speaker 1: mile per hour, you'd be like, that's weird. That would

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Speaker 1: be suspicious precisely, and you'd wonder, like, oh, maybe there's

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Speaker 1: a speed trap out there or something like that. Ord

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Speaker 1: their engines are fixed or something. You look for a reason, right,

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Speaker 1: or they're all using cruise control. Yeah, precisely, and it's

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Speaker 1: automated by the government or something. And so that's what

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Speaker 1: makes us wonder. We see this parameter in the strong

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Speaker 1: force that would very naturally allow for the strong force

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Speaker 1: to violate CP, but it doesn't. It's like this angle

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Speaker 1: that would allow it is set to exactly zero, and

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Speaker 1: that seems weird. It seems like it needs an explanation.

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Speaker 1: And that's the strong CP problem is why doesn't the

426
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:51,439
Speaker 1: strong force violate CP. It's called I just got it, Daniel.

427
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: It's called the strong CP problem because it applies to

428
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:59,400
Speaker 1: the strong force, that's right, not because it's a strong problem. Well,

429
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 1: you know something, problems are called like the you know,

430
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,120
Speaker 1: like in uh, I don't know, the hard problem of consciousness, etcetera. Yeah,

431
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,240
Speaker 1: or in computer science and they're like, you know, strong

432
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:10,680
Speaker 1: there is the strong and thropic principle and the weakend

433
00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:13,360
Speaker 1: thropic principle. Yeah there you go. Yeah, I'm not crazy

434
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: that those exist. But that doesn't mean you're not crazy, Okay, Right,

435
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 1: it's not an exclusionary all right. So, um, it's the

436
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: strong city people, But it's not actually a problem. It's

437
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 1: more like it's like a strong why does it follow

438
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 1: the rules? Yeah? Question, it's not really a problem, right,

439
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:31,479
Speaker 1: Like it's not causing any problem. It's just something that's

440
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: it's hard to understand why it doesn't break the rules. Yeah,

441
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: it's not gonna like fundamentally rip the universe. Apart or something.

442
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 1: It's not gonna bring the apocalypse upon us or anything.

443
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: We don't have to call Bruce Willis. It's not that

444
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: kind of problem. It's the why does this work that

445
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: way when it doesn't have to? You know, it's it's strange.

446
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: And anytime you see something unexplained and weird, a pattern

447
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: you don't understand in physics, you've got to ask why,

448
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: and you've got to think, is there a simpler explanation?

449
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: Is there something that's making this happen? So some people,

450
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: I guess I had to think of this question, right

451
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,679
Speaker 1: because before you thought that was totally normal. It was

452
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: following the rules, but now it's weird. Suddenly became weird

453
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: that it was following the rule. Yeah, exactly. Once we

454
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 1: realized the rules could be broken, we thought, hey, how

455
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 1: come everybody's gonna breaking the rules? Right? Why is the

456
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: strong force over there being so nice but you can

457
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:21,920
Speaker 1: drive as fast as you want in the highway? Why

458
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: is everyone driving under the speed limit? Yeah? The weak

459
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: forces like driving the wrong way, it's driving any speed,

460
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: it's driving the mill of the night, it's like going

461
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,719
Speaker 1: off road. And the strong forces like driving Miss Daisy

462
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: right down in the right in the correct lane. Oh man,

463
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: all right, so um, so that's weird. And so people

464
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 1: started asking this question in the seventies. Yeah, it was

465
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,119
Speaker 1: in the seventies that people came up with maybe the

466
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: first answer to this question. People started asking this question

467
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: basically after CP violation was discovered, which is, you know,

468
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: just a few years earlier. And then people came up

469
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: with his explanation, and it's from Roberto Pechy and Helen Quinn.

470
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: There's the nineteen seventy seven and of course very three

471
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: is let's think up a new quantum field that fills

472
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: the whole universe. Like that's the go to course. Let's

473
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: just add more things to the zoo, I know. And

474
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: it feels complicated, right, it feels counterintuitive, like we're trying

475
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: to simplify things, and to simplify things, we have to

476
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: add a new complicated bit. Like yeah, that's all right,

477
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: It's that seems counterintuitive. But it's like say you're trying

478
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: to describe how an engine worked and you were missing

479
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: the pistons. You'd be like, well, this doesn't really make sense.

480
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna add one more piece. Oh look, it all

481
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 1: clicks together now it makes sense and so sometimes you

482
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,159
Speaker 1: have to add one missing piece in order to make

483
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: the whole machine work, or your understanding of the machine

484
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 1: work at least. Right. Well, I imagine it's weird because

485
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: you know, really, you guys, I sort of just looking

486
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: at some equations on a page, right, But it's like, oh,

487
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: if I, if I could add just one number here

488
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: would work. But really you're like you're adding a whole

489
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: new field to the entire universe just by putting that number.

490
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: Some of us experimentalists do more than just look at

491
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:01,919
Speaker 1: pencils and paper, you know, we actually go out and

492
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: smash particles and try to make this stuff. Oh sorry, yeah,

493
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: you also look at computer screens. That's right. That is

494
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: fundamentally different. Okay. My wife used always tease me that

495
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: my research was just quote on the computer and therefore

496
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: wasn't real research. I see, you don't make chemicals, or

497
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: you don't have to wear a lab code. I'm not

498
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: wearing a lab coade, So how can it be science? Right, exam,

499
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: you can, but it's just strictly cosmetic, that's right. And

500
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: so they thought of this field, and they said, well,

501
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 1: what if there's this new field that fills up all

502
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 1: of space, and it's connected to the same field that

503
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 1: controls the strong force, this field of quantum chromodynamics, the

504
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: field of the gluons, these particles that mediate the strong force,

505
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: and what if it talks to those, It like interacts

506
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: with those, and it basically keeps it in line. And

507
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: so there's this new field created in a very early

508
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: universe with everything else, and it sort of pushes the

509
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 1: strong force in the direction of having no CP violation

510
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: I see, but not the other forces like it only

511
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 1: somehow affects the strong force. That's right, only affects a

512
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: strong force. And it was created just with everything else.

513
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: And then in the first sort of a few moments

514
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: of the universe, it pushed the strong force towards having

515
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 1: a zero value for this angle that controls the CP violation.

516
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: So not instantaneously like there may be in like a

517
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 1: bill of second there in the very early universe where

518
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: the strong force could violate CP. But then it was

519
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 1: sort of like pushed in line by this other field. Really,

520
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 1: but I guess my question is why do you need

521
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 1: this special field? Couldn't did just say that the strong

522
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,719
Speaker 1: force that's the way it is, like it was born

523
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: with this angle. Why do you need to bring in

524
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 1: like a field that accent it and then somehow disappears. Yeah,

525
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: you could go with the non answer right to say,

526
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 1: you know, physics doesn't have explanations, so stop asking questions.

527
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: You know, like the numbers just are what they are.

528
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: It's not really satisfying. You wonder like why is it

529
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,199
Speaker 1: this and not that? Especially when the numbers are a

530
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: simple value. I mean, if the number is like point

531
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: four to one seven, you wonder what it is. But

532
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: when the number is like zero or one's just it

533
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: hints at something else happening. It hints at something else

534
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: controlling it. Just like seeing those people drive down the

535
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: street at all the same speed. You wonder what's doing it?

536
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 1: But I guess you know, like how does it adding

537
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 1: a whole new field help Because we had a whole

538
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: new field. Then you have to ask why does that

539
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: field exist? Yeah, exactly, just like you have to ask

540
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: why do the pistons exist in the engine. But if

541
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: you think them up, it does simplify all the parts

542
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: working together in the way that you observe. And so

543
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: they thought of this field and they try to make

544
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 1: it as simple as possible and very naturally connected to

545
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: the strong force, and in in that connection between the

546
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: strong force and this new field forced the strong force

547
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:45,880
Speaker 1: sort of automatically to have zero CP violation. It's sort

548
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: of like transforming one question into another. You're saying, you know,

549
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: why is this angle? Zero gets transformed into why does

550
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: this field exist? Sure? Okay, and that's I guess that's

551
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: a more comfortable question for you, guys, because because we

552
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: like fields, man, because then without it you get out

553
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 1: of a job. Well, also, the field is something we

554
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: could discover, right, and so if this field exists, we

555
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: can go out and find it, and then you can ask, Okay,

556
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: why does that field exists? Why do we need all

557
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: these fields? Is it part of some larger strategy. I

558
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: don't know, but it is something that we can test

559
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: and fine, right, as opposed to like just some weird

560
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: property of the strong force. Yeah, you can measure this

561
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: property the strong force all day long and say zero.

562
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 1: That doesn't help you understand why it happens. If it,

563
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: if it can transform into it's forced to happen because

564
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: this field exists, and we can prove that field exists,

565
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: then we can start to think about the larger puzzle

566
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: and like, well, why this field and does this mean

567
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: other fields have to exist? And what does this tell

568
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: us about the pattern of all the fields, which is

569
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: sort of the larger mission of particle physics is to

570
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: understand how all the fields fit together into one. Right.

571
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: And I guess it's not totally crazy because that's how

572
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: they discovered the Higgs boson, right, Like you thought of

573
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: a field to patch something in your theories, and then

574
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: you found the particle that belonged to that field. So

575
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 1: it's all sort of been buttoned up. Yeah, exactly. The

576
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: question there was like, why does the photon have no

577
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: masks and these other particles do have masks? Can you

578
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: explain that? And some people were like, hey, just accept

579
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 1: it and move on, man, but Higgs was like, no,

580
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to create a new field that explains it.

581
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: And he was right. And so now we can of

582
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: course ask a questions like why is there a Higgs

583
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: field dot dot We get to get onto the next question.

584
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: And so just like that, this new field creates a

585
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: new particle, and that new particle is something we could discover,

586
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: all right. And so there's a fun story and by

587
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: fun I mean crazy story about how it was name,

588
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: how they name axion came about, so tells the story.

589
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: So it's it's sort of funny for two reasons. First

590
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: of all, Petchi and Quinn, who thought of this field,

591
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: forgot to name the particle. Like they came up with

592
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: this field, and of course, naturally the field exists, that

593
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: it's possible for the field to get like an excited

594
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: bundle of energy, which we call a particle. But they

595
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: didn't name the particle. And so another physicist came along,

596
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: Frank will Check, who's famous and he won a Nobel

597
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: Prize for understanding how quirks interact with each other with

598
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: a strong force. He decided to name it. He's like, well,

599
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,959
Speaker 1: let's think about this field and how we might see it.

600
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: And of course he thought about the particle, and then

601
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: he had to give it a name. No how he

602
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: got to name it, but the particle already had parents.

603
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 1: How can you just go in and like name somebody

604
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: else's kids. Say you met a family and they didn't

605
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: give their kids a name, you would probably come up

606
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: with a nickname for it, right, You wouldn't want to

607
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: say that kid's name. I would tell the parents to

608
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: give him a name. I would ask the parents, what

609
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: do they call what do they say when they want

610
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: the kid to come over? Well, then you are more

611
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: modest than Frank will Check, which is true for almost

612
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,239
Speaker 1: all of humanity anyway. Oh my goodness. So wait they

613
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: but did they name? Did Peshi and Helen Quinn name

614
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: the field at least? Or did they just say like

615
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: a field? Yeah, a field? They just gave it a

616
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: mathematical symbol, right. They didn't give a name to the

617
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: particle that comes from it. And so you know, if

618
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: Frank Wilcheck had been less modest, he would have called

619
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: it the Petchy Quinn particle or something, or the field

620
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: or what will Check called the field? Yeah, well now

621
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: it's called the Axion field. Oh man, he totally took

622
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: it over. He totally took it over. And on top

623
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: of that, he gave it a totally ridiculous name, like

624
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: Axon is a cool name. But he got the idea

625
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,239
Speaker 1: when he was grocery shop. Oh no, what happened. He

626
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: was in the aisle for laundry detergent and he saw

627
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 1: this laundry detergent called Axion detergent booster, and he thought Axion,

628
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: that's kind of a cool name. Oh no, well, he

629
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: was what was he thinking, like this particle that I'm

630
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: earth surfing and stealing from this other other physicists would

631
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: clean everything up pretty well. So, hey, laundry detergent makes

632
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: perfect sense. It's a physics booster, so we need a

633
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: detergent booster. Yeah, so somebody in some marketing department created

634
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: the name for this laundry detergent, which ended up naming

635
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: a theoretical particle. But didn't they copyrighted? Can you do that?

636
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: That's a great question. Can you name a particle after

637
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: like U copyrighting your name in a particle like the

638
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: Nintendo Switch particle or like the Netflix particle. Can't do that?

639
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: You know, that's a question for our legal department, for

640
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: the physics lawyers. You stumped me on that one. Through

641
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: the physics lawyers, of whom I am not one. And

642
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: you know, there was competition. There were other famous Nobel

643
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: Prize winning physicists like Stephen Weinberg. He wanted to call

644
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: it the Higgs lit because he thought, oh, this is

645
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: only reminds me a little bit of the Higgs boson,

646
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: So he wanted to call it things you're gonna say.

647
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: You wanted to name it clox or Kleenex or the

648
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: tidy no particle um no and accalon sort of stuck.

649
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: And you know, these things are not fair, and they're

650
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: not always done the right way. Like we talked about

651
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: how quirks are named quarks because the famous physicists came

652
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: up with the name, even though a young physicist came

653
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: up with the name aces before that and it was

654
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: sort of buried in obscurity. But these things are not

655
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: always done correctly. They're not always given to the people

656
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: who to That's right, Yeah, it's not always fair. It's

657
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: just sort of like what people end up calling something.

658
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: All right, Well let's get into why this action is

659
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: super duper cool and why we think it could be real.

660
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, Daniel,

661
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Axon and it got its name

662
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: from a laundry detergent, which is I guess not too

663
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: surprising in physics, because you know, I'm not impressed by

664
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: the general imagination and naming things. But it is a

665
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: cool sounding name at least, you know, it satisfies your

666
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 1: transformer principle. Well well, why then did you still Megatron's name,

667
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: you know, Optimus Prime? Yeah, maybe they had better lawyers. Right,

668
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: the detergent companies lawyers are not as good as the

669
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,760
Speaker 1: transformers has bro. Yeah, that is a little bit scarier. Alright.

670
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: So you're telling me that this particle is cool because

671
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: it would answer the question of why the strong force

672
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: the is not violate some of these symmetry conditions in

673
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: the universe and that. But it could also be cool

674
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 1: because it explained another big problem. Yeah, there's another big

675
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: problem in particle physics, which is where is all the stuff? Right,

676
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 1: we know that most of the stuff in the universe

677
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: is not made of quarks and electrons or any other

678
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: kind of familiar matter. It's a man of this new

679
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: thing that we call dark matter, even though we don't

680
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: really know what it is. And just like with the

681
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: other sort of physics mysteries, we see evidence for it

682
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 1: and how galaxy spin and how light bends through space,

683
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: but we don't know what it is and what it's

684
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: made out of. So it's one of the biggest pressing

685
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: questions in particle physics, or I think in modern science,

686
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: what is the matter of the unit? What is dark matter? Right?

687
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: And so it could be axios, it could be laundry detergent,

688
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: it could be exactly the dark matter could be scrubbing

689
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: the universe. It seems ironic that dark matter would be

690
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: something that's supposed to get the stains out reisely. Well,

691
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: it satisfies a lot of the requirements you need for

692
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: a dark matter doesn't interact with normal matter, so we

693
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: wouldn't have seen it. That's what makes it dark. It

694
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: has some mass to it, although it's very very light.

695
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: So if it were dark matter, you would need like

696
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 1: a ridiculous number of these things. You need like two

697
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 1: hundred billion just to make the mass of one electron,

698
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: and we need enough to make five times as much

699
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: mass as everything in the universe. And so like, if

700
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: axions are the dark matter and they are real, then

701
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: we are swimming and swimming and jillions of axions all

702
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:41,720
Speaker 1: the time, meaning that um, if these particles exist and

703
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: they explained this strong force problem, they could also be there,

704
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: but we wouldn't see them. Like they don't interact with

705
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: the electromagnetism. That's right, they don't interact with electromagnetism, and

706
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: they do connect to the strong force, but only in

707
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 1: this way that they make the strong force not violate CP.

708
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: The field also has some other super duper heavy particles

709
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: in it that do interact with a strong force, but

710
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: they're so heavy that they potentially don't exist, and so

711
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: we don't have to worry about them. And so effectively,

712
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: axions are totally inert except for the fact that they

713
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 1: have a small mass. And so if they have this mass,

714
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: then they contribute to gravity. And that's what dark matter is.

715
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: It's something mysterious out there that's adding gravity to the universe,

716
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: and so it could be the act All right, well,

717
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: would that be sort of a coincidence that we have

718
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,799
Speaker 1: this particle and it just so happens to fill in

719
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 1: the blankford dark matter? It would be amazing, Like who

720
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to solve two big problems in physics at once, Right,

721
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,280
Speaker 1: you think of this particle to solve one problem, and boom,

722
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: it turns out to solve the other problem at the

723
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: same time. You can collect two Nobel Prizes in one trip.

724
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 1: I mean that sounds pretty. You get to like, do

725
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: you get too in the same ceremony? I wonder I

726
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: think you have to come back the next year. I'm

727
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: not sure, but that's attractive but also makes you a

728
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: little suspicious, Like we thought this particle up to explain

729
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: the strong ep problem, and then we have this other problem.

730
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: We're gonna try to sort of squeeze this particle into

731
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: solving the dark matter problem. It actually sort of reflects

732
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 1: something else about the dark matter problem, which is that

733
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: we're getting a teensy bit desperate. Like we thought we

734
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: would have figured out dark matter by now. We had

735
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: better ideas for what dark matter could be, these weakly

736
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: interacting massive particles stuff like that, and none of that

737
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: has really panned out, and so now we're sort of

738
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: like dragging along the bottom of the barrel looking for

739
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: other ideas that might explain dark matter. And so that

740
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,320
Speaker 1: sort of led to a resurgence and interest in the axons.

741
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: People think, wait a second, what about axons? Maybe those

742
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: could be the dark matter. Like so desperate, you're reaching

743
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: for the non brand laud exactly what you're saying, that's

744
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: exactly where we are. And it could also maybe solve

745
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 1: another big problem, right it could it could solve another

746
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: big problem. That was a really fascinating paper out there

747
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,360
Speaker 1: last year that talked about those first few moments in

748
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: the universe when this field was created and it forced

749
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,479
Speaker 1: the strong field to not violate CP and it turns

750
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,359
Speaker 1: out when it did that, it had sort of two directions.

751
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: It could go sort of like imagine a marble in

752
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 1: an upside down hat, and it's rolling towards the bottom,

753
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: and that's how it forces the strong force to not

754
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: violate CP. But if instead of just rolling strength down,

755
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:18,359
Speaker 1: what if it had like a little bit of a kick,

756
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: so it sort of went around in a circle and

757
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: then relaxed to the center, then it could have done

758
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: it clockwise or counterclockwise. Oh boy, it's like another symmetry.

759
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: It's another symmetry. And it turns out if it goes clockwise,

760
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: then the universe is filled with matter, and if it

761
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 1: goes counterclockwise, the universe is filled with anti matter. What

762
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: it's like flipping a coin. We could have been made

763
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: out of antimatter. Yes, And that's a big question in physics,

764
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: is like why is the universe made out of matter

765
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: and not antimatter? And we don't know. And it feels

766
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: like a coin was flipped and it could be that

767
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:55,280
Speaker 1: this was the coin. It was a laundry detergent coin

768
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 1: that determined the entire universe. Yeah, and so the axon

769
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,280
Speaker 1: could solve this other problem also, so it really could

770
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: be key to a lot of these big, big mysteries

771
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 1: in particle physics. And I guess you're because I imagine

772
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: you were saying that this is not the only idea,

773
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: like this is not the only field or particle that

774
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: people have dreamed of, but this one is somehow more

775
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: attractive because it's sort of makes more sense, well, because

776
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: the other ones have been sort of ruled out. You know,

777
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: you have your first idea, you go look for it,

778
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 1: the experiment says no, sorry. Then you go for your

779
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: second idea, you know, and you just keep looking through

780
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 1: ideas until you find one that the universe says yes to.

781
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 1: And so that's sort of led to a resurgence. And

782
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 1: you know, also theoretical physics, there are trends, there are fads.

783
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: People get excited about an idea and they work on

784
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 1: it furiously, and then they get bored with it. Somebody

785
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 1: else comes up with a new idea, and so the

786
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,959
Speaker 1: idea sort of have cycles. You know, People get bored

787
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: of an idea, put it aside, and then twenty years later,

788
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: some new young woman says, hey, I have found a

789
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: new way to use this old idea, and then everybody

790
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 1: gets excited about it. Again, it's a human endeavor, all right.

791
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: So then the action is is trending is what you're saying,

792
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: Like it's it's having a popularity, surgeon popularity. And so

793
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,839
Speaker 1: I guess the question is is it real? Like does

794
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: it actually exist? And can I find it in places

795
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: not my laundry the diurgent aisle at my grocery store. Well,

796
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 1: we don't know, but there are experiments out there to

797
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: look for it, sort of two different categories of experiments

798
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 1: that both use magnetic fields. The idea is that the

799
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 1: axion is still or like a photon and it doesn't

800
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: interact with photons and normally, but it turns out that

801
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 1: if you put the axion into a super duper strong

802
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 1: magnetic field, then sometimes it will turn into photons. Wait,

803
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: a magnetic magnetic field can cause particles to change. Yes,

804
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: the magnetic field will change the way the particles interact. Right,

805
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: it has energy in it, and if those particles can

806
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: feel photons in any sort of way, then they can

807
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,240
Speaker 1: get enhanced and they can change the way they decay.

808
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 1: And so the axion and if it's in a chamber

809
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 1: that sort of resonates with it and it's that chamber

810
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: is filled with magnetic field, and this magnetic fields is

811
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty thousand times the strength of

812
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic field, then it could sometimes turn into

813
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: like little microwave photons. So they have this cavity up

814
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: in University of Washington where they have very cold and

815
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 1: they have a very powerful magnetic field, and they're just

816
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 1: listening for a little microwave blip, so that we can't

817
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 1: see them, but they might turn into things. We can

818
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: see them precisely into in need these weird conditions, in

819
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 1: very strange, very strong conditions, they might turn into photons. Really,

820
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 1: you can predict that with the equations. The equations say

821
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: should happen if you get the magnetic field at the

822
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: right frequency and you get it down to cold enough conditions,

823
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: and they've been running it for a while and they

824
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: haven't seen them, but they're sort of like tuning the

825
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,439
Speaker 1: magnetic field, like are they over here? Are they over there?

826
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 1: And so far they haven't seen anything, but it's sort

827
00:42:56,200 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: of getting more and more powerful. The device pretty cool.

828
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: All So that's one way. What's the other way that

829
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: we might see them? The other way, sort of the opposite,

830
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: is to try to turn light into axions, Like instead

831
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 1: of having axon turn into photons, turn that around. Take

832
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 1: a beam of light and try to turn it into

833
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: axions by putting the light. Yeah, like make light disappear. Yes,

834
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: And so this experiment is called light shining through walls

835
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: because you basically have a wall and a really strong

836
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: magnetic field and then a beam of light and the

837
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: ideas maybe the light will turn into axions which can

838
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,399
Speaker 1: then pass through the wall with no problem, which will

839
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: then turn back into light and you can sort of

840
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: like have your light, you know, passed through the wall

841
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 1: by phase through the wall, by becoming an axon as

842
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: it's going through the wall. I feel I feel like

843
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: you're getting to the point where you're like, we need

844
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,479
Speaker 1: ideas or what's what's this is? This is a comic book?

845
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: What there was a superhero that can go through walls?

846
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:53,839
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds like a great idea. Yeah, well it's

847
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 1: pretty cool because if we figured out then we could

848
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 1: actually build beams of light that go through walls. Right.

849
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: So also sort a cool experiment because you just need

850
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: like a light beam and a wall and then you

851
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: just look for light making it through the wall. Right,

852
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: So it's pretty dramatic, seething magical X rays. Yeah yeah,

853
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 1: turning light and X rays making them penetrate just like

854
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: X rays. And it's pretty fun, you know, to see

855
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: these experiments. These are clever ideas, These are wacky ideas,

856
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: and personally, I never expect these experiments to actually discover

857
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 1: the axion. What though, isn't this your field? This is

858
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: my field? Yes, but the accon has always seems sort of,

859
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: I don't know, out there to me, like too crazy.

860
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 1: An idea just feels like a little bit out there

861
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: in left field, like yeah, it's a little too sutsy.

862
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: Like I've read this interview with Helen Quinn, one of

863
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:46,800
Speaker 1: the two people who came up with the original idea,

864
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 1: and even she's a little amused that this idea is

865
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: still lacks She's like, I don't know what all the

866
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: fuzzes about. Direct quote from her is Roberto and I

867
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: spent a few months cooking up this theory, and now

868
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 1: the experimentalist has spent forty years look for it. She's

869
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: laughing at you, Daniel, It's like she's she's amused by you.

870
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: The whole thing was a joke to begin with. What

871
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: you guys doing wasting your time, Like that's what. We

872
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,439
Speaker 1: didn't give it a name. It was all a big

873
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: practical joke, and then we planted the detergent for Frank

874
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 1: whil Chick to find it using their time travel device, right,

875
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: their magical X ray life. But it's fun, and you know,

876
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 1: sometimes an idea can begin from a silly place, just exploring,

877
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: just fuxing around with the math, and then turn into

878
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: something real. I mean, if the axion is real and

879
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: it solves these big open questions in physics, then that

880
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: would have been a productive few months cooking up that

881
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: crazy theory and productive forty years because you know, like

882
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: the it's almost like the Higgs boson, right, do you

883
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,439
Speaker 1: predicted it? And like forty years later they found it. Yeah,

884
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: it took almost fifty years to find the Higgs. So

885
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,240
Speaker 1: sometimes you come up with a theory for a particle

886
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: that's really really hard to find. It's not always easy

887
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: to go out and just like look for this thing,

888
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:58,840
Speaker 1: even if you know what it's supposed to do and

889
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: how it's supposed to look, creating those conditions to find

890
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: it is not always easy, especially if it's elusive. I mean,

891
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 1: if it's the dark matter. Then it's been hiding for

892
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: a long time, and and the stakes are pretty high, Like,

893
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 1: if you find it, it would explain to so many things,

894
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: including dark matter and antimatter and strong CP problem. Yeah,

895
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,399
Speaker 1: it would really close off a lot of big open

896
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: questions in physics. So from that point of view, I

897
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: sort of hope it is real because they would be

898
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: a fascinating inside into the universe. And then, like as

899
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 1: always with physics, when we get to ask the next question,

900
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: like all right, well, why is there an axion? What

901
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: does that mean? Is there another axion? You know, the

902
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: whole spectrum of axion particles, And so the questions never

903
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 1: really end right whenever there are lawyers that the Axon Corporation,

904
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: they're like just waiting for you guys to discover it

905
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: to give them that marketing boost in popular culture, or

906
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 1: that's when they're going to see right there you go,

907
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: They're gonna they're waiting, like, we own this. You can't

908
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,359
Speaker 1: you can't make X rays light special laser beams without us.

909
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: That's right, We demand you pack up all your axions

910
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 1: and boxes and send them to us immediately. Alright, Well,

911
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 1: I think as usual, this just points to the things

912
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: we don't know and how you know, science is actively

913
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 1: still trying to explain the universe. That's right, And then

914
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 1: a hundred years we could look back and think, what

915
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,720
Speaker 1: was it like before physics knew about the axion particle

916
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: or the chlorox particle or whatever it is we're going

917
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: to discover in twenty years, but before we know it,

918
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: it's just an idea. It feels very different to be

919
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 1: on the ignorance side of a discovery than on the

920
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: knowledge side, because you never know what could turn out

921
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 1: to be true. That's right, because the universe is no

922
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 1: strangers to weirdness. All right, Well, we hope you enjoyed that.

923
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: And the next time you're going down the grocery store

924
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: laundry detergent, I'll look around. You might discover a new

925
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: particle that explains the universe. Keep your eyes open, or

926
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:52,439
Speaker 1: at least discover a cool name for somebody else's good idea.

927
00:47:52,680 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 1: You go. Thanks for joining us. Let's see you next time. Yeah,

928
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain

929
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

930
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: more podcast for my heart Radio, visit the i Heart

931
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:16,359
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your

932
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: favorite shows,