1
00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, tell me a good physics story. Oh you

2
00:00:11,119 --> 00:00:13,000
Speaker 1: came to the right place. Okay, but don't tell me

3
00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:15,680
Speaker 1: you said a story about amazing physics. I want something

4
00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:19,799
Speaker 1: with drama, because like the universe isn't dramatic enough for you.

5
00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:22,119
Speaker 1: I mean I want a story with like intrigue and

6
00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:27,040
Speaker 1: sabotage and conflict and you know, people fighting and you know, revolutions. Oh,

7
00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:30,080
Speaker 1: I see you want like Jason Bourne in a lab coat. Yeah,

8
00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:33,159
Speaker 1: you know, don't you look like Matt Damon or Tom Cruise.

9
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,800
Speaker 1: You can make a movie called Thesis Impossible. All right,

10
00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:39,720
Speaker 1: you asked for it. I have got a juicy story

11
00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:58,640
Speaker 1: for you. Hi, I am more handmad cartoonist and the

12
00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,080
Speaker 1: creator of PhD comment. Hi, I'm Daniel Whitson. I'm a

13
00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:04,800
Speaker 1: particle physicist, and I like to imagine that my dramatic

14
00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:07,760
Speaker 1: life would be well adapted to a telenovelt with a

15
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:11,280
Speaker 1: lot of twists and turns and evil twins. Twin particles.

16
00:01:11,319 --> 00:01:13,480
Speaker 1: I guess there are twin particles and physics, there are

17
00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:15,920
Speaker 1: twin that we don't know which ones are good and

18
00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:18,800
Speaker 1: which ones we could be the evil twins, that's right,

19
00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:22,280
Speaker 1: And lots of dramatic revelations that your advisor has other

20
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:28,000
Speaker 1: grad students you didn't even know about. Well, Welcome to

21
00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,399
Speaker 1: our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explained the Universe, a production

22
00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:33,319
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, in which we take you on

23
00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:35,959
Speaker 1: a tour of all the drama in the universe, the

24
00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:40,039
Speaker 1: black holes, the neutron stars, that tiny particles, the discovery

25
00:01:40,280 --> 00:01:43,399
Speaker 1: of those particles, and try to make you understand what

26
00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:47,480
Speaker 1: scientists are thinking about, what people on the very forefront

27
00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:50,600
Speaker 1: of human understanding are puzzling over today. Yeah, because we

28
00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:53,080
Speaker 1: like to talk about all the amazing things out there

29
00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:55,360
Speaker 1: to discover and all the things that we have discovered,

30
00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 1: and sometimes we like to talk about how we discovered

31
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:01,320
Speaker 1: these things, because you know, sometimes the store is pretty

32
00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:04,280
Speaker 1: dramatic or you know, interesting, or tells us a little

33
00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:06,360
Speaker 1: bit about how signs were. That's right, because you can

34
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:08,360
Speaker 1: look back at history and say, oh, if I had

35
00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:11,079
Speaker 1: been around, I would have discovered the electron. Or it's

36
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:13,840
Speaker 1: pretty simple actually to figure out what the photon is,

37
00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:17,080
Speaker 1: and it's a quantum mechanical object. But when you're standing there,

38
00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 1: I think you might be alone there, then yeah, I

39
00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:22,160
Speaker 1: would sit around thinking, you know, I could have discovered

40
00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:25,600
Speaker 1: the electronic Hey, Einstein when the Nobel Prize for interpreting

41
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:28,920
Speaker 1: other people's experiments that were already published. It's like, you know,

42
00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:32,360
Speaker 1: sit around for an afternoon, read some papers, boom, Nobel Prize,

43
00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:35,079
Speaker 1: Noel change the course of history. So if you know

44
00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:36,640
Speaker 1: how to do it, if you know where to go,

45
00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:40,359
Speaker 1: it's pretty straightforward. But when you're standing at the forefront

46
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:42,880
Speaker 1: of human ignorance and you don't know what the solution is,

47
00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:45,400
Speaker 1: it's much more complicated. So I think it's really worthwhile

48
00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:48,680
Speaker 1: rewinding our understanding and remembering, like what were people thinking

49
00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:50,919
Speaker 1: at the moment, What were the questions they were asking,

50
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,079
Speaker 1: what was confusing, what was simple? What were the ideas

51
00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:56,240
Speaker 1: of the time. I think what you're saying, Daniel, is

52
00:02:56,280 --> 00:03:00,080
Speaker 1: that there's a fine line between a thought experiment and

53
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,080
Speaker 1: just making stuff that's right. And that's why I prefer

54
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:07,239
Speaker 1: to do real experiments in the collider and actually ask

55
00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:10,320
Speaker 1: nature questions. All right, Well, today on the program will

56
00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:14,280
Speaker 1: be continuing our series about how particles weren't discovered? You know,

57
00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:16,880
Speaker 1: particles and things that matter and all the things in

58
00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:19,360
Speaker 1: the universe are made out of How did we actually

59
00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:21,800
Speaker 1: discover these things and know that they existed and know

60
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,239
Speaker 1: what they look like, and know how much they weigh

61
00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:26,359
Speaker 1: and what they would like to wear in the morning.

62
00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:29,480
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to respond to did that.

63
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,400
Speaker 1: I'm imagining a photon getting dressed or something. But but

64
00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:34,960
Speaker 1: I think this is really fascinating because currently we have

65
00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,760
Speaker 1: fantastic theoretical understanding of all the particles, how they fit together,

66
00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:42,520
Speaker 1: what they are, and of course lots of outstanding questions.

67
00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:45,400
Speaker 1: But there's a wonderful history there. Each particle is like

68
00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:48,320
Speaker 1: a hard fought victory. Each one was like, how do

69
00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:51,480
Speaker 1: we figure out that this particle is also there? And

70
00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:54,559
Speaker 1: you know, in the end, our theory has to describe experiments.

71
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:57,520
Speaker 1: We've developed a theory in order to describe all the

72
00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:00,720
Speaker 1: crazy experiments that we've seen that review of the existence

73
00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:03,040
Speaker 1: of those partners. So it's a lot of fun to

74
00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:06,480
Speaker 1: to sort of reimagine and understand how each one was discovered,

75
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,080
Speaker 1: because you know, I think that looking at history now

76
00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:10,640
Speaker 1: and looking at it science now, it's kind of hard

77
00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:13,080
Speaker 1: to believe sometimes that there was a time where we

78
00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:15,640
Speaker 1: didn't know anything. We didn't know any of these things.

79
00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:18,640
Speaker 1: We didn't know that electronic existed, or protons existent, or

80
00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,800
Speaker 1: protons existed, or what they wore in the morning, and

81
00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:23,599
Speaker 1: so it's it's kind of interesting to kind of put

82
00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:26,480
Speaker 1: yourself in the mindset of the people who didn't know anything,

83
00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:30,640
Speaker 1: but they discovered what actually reality is like absolutely, And

84
00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,600
Speaker 1: it gives you another fun exercise, which is to imagine

85
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:36,200
Speaker 1: somebody in a hundred years, how would they look back

86
00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:39,000
Speaker 1: at what we know now. They will have hopefully a

87
00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:41,359
Speaker 1: grasp of, you know, the shape, the size of the

88
00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,279
Speaker 1: universe and why it's accelerating, and maybe what the smallest

89
00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:46,120
Speaker 1: particles are, and they'll look back at us and they'll

90
00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:48,640
Speaker 1: be like, oh my gosh, those guys knew nothing about

91
00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:50,720
Speaker 1: the universe. How did they even go to work? They

92
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:55,120
Speaker 1: were making stuff off on podcasts? And I like to

93
00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:57,080
Speaker 1: think of, you know, human knowledge is one of these

94
00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,760
Speaker 1: exponentially growing graphs, and at every point it seems like,

95
00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:02,320
Speaker 1: why we know a hundred times what we knew fifty

96
00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:05,080
Speaker 1: years ago, and then in fifty years we will again

97
00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:08,040
Speaker 1: dwarf human knowledge. So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah,

98
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:11,560
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to being dwarfed. There are positive exponential graphs,

99
00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:15,719
Speaker 1: not just negative ones. So we've done this podcast episode

100
00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:19,960
Speaker 1: on electrons and positrons and photons and muons, and so

101
00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:22,040
Speaker 1: did they. On the program, we'll be asking the question

102
00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 1: our quarks discovered. Is this a quirky story, Daniel? You know,

103
00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:34,080
Speaker 1: this is one of the most dramatic stories in all

104
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 1: of particle physics. There really are crazy things in these stories.

105
00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:41,960
Speaker 1: You know. There is sabotage, There are competing public announcements,

106
00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,240
Speaker 1: There are arguments about how to name particles. There are

107
00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:48,960
Speaker 1: stories about leaked information being slipped from one experiment to

108
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,760
Speaker 1: the other. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. No, there is real drama.

109
00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:58,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm waiting for the six episode mini series

110
00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:02,920
Speaker 1: on Netflix about this. Said of the murder explosions, Now

111
00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:07,480
Speaker 1: we didn't get that far. That's right, Tiger Kings becomes

112
00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:12,760
Speaker 1: particle kings. Oh, I see, like the true crime. That

113
00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:16,240
Speaker 1: could be the new genre of Netflix true physics. But

114
00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:18,640
Speaker 1: as usually, we were wondering how many people out there

115
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:23,039
Speaker 1: know the story of how courts were invented because you know,

116
00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:26,760
Speaker 1: quarks and just a quick recap, there are the mini particles, Dad,

117
00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:29,279
Speaker 1: everything else is kind of made out of most of

118
00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:32,320
Speaker 1: everything else, protons and neutrons are made out of quarks,

119
00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,520
Speaker 1: and so these are pretty fundamental particles, right, Daniel. They're

120
00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:37,920
Speaker 1: not just like you know some novelty butts, right, They're

121
00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:39,599
Speaker 1: not just some random thing you pick up in the

122
00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:42,920
Speaker 1: store on the way home and then throw away unused.

123
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:45,039
Speaker 1: There are the things that make up me and you.

124
00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:47,680
Speaker 1: I am made out of atoms, and those atoms have

125
00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 1: neutrons and protons at the center, and all those neutrons

126
00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:53,760
Speaker 1: and protons are made of quarks. And all the matter

127
00:06:53,839 --> 00:06:57,240
Speaker 1: that you've ever tasted and touched and tripped over or

128
00:06:57,320 --> 00:06:59,839
Speaker 1: thrown at each other is made of quarks and electrons.

129
00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:02,400
Speaker 1: So they're pretty important. So, as Daniel does, he went

130
00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:04,440
Speaker 1: out into the streets and ask people if they knew

131
00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:07,080
Speaker 1: how corks were discovered. Now, as usually, we'll think about

132
00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:10,640
Speaker 1: it for a second, then put yourself a hundred years ago,

133
00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:13,280
Speaker 1: and as yourself if you know how corks were discovered.

134
00:07:13,320 --> 00:07:16,680
Speaker 1: Here's what people had to say. Some scientists in the

135
00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:21,520
Speaker 1: colder found it. Uh. I don't actually don't know how

136
00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:25,440
Speaker 1: they were discovered. You know, I've been learned about that.

137
00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:29,120
Speaker 1: Was it m colectron cloud chamber or something. No, that's

138
00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:31,960
Speaker 1: not the quirks. That's for something else, that's like positrons

139
00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:36,960
Speaker 1: or something using a particle accelerator. I don't know all right,

140
00:07:37,120 --> 00:07:39,679
Speaker 1: that's cool. I don't even know what they are, so

141
00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:45,120
Speaker 1: I just discovered by the inclusion of items. I mean much,

142
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,239
Speaker 1: I don't I don't remember the name of the machine,

143
00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:51,560
Speaker 1: but this clusion of particles, all right. Not a lot

144
00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:54,680
Speaker 1: of deep knowledge of history of physics in the public, No,

145
00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:57,640
Speaker 1: not so much. There's some pretty good answers here, like

146
00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:00,120
Speaker 1: the guy who knows how positive arms were discus were

147
00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:04,000
Speaker 1: in cloud chambers. And you know, people giving credit to

148
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:06,680
Speaker 1: the Hadron collider, which is, you know, not too far

149
00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:10,400
Speaker 1: off the certainly we're discovered in collisions. Interesting, so you know,

150
00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,000
Speaker 1: some knowledges. It seems like some people thought of courts

151
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,920
Speaker 1: were discovered recently, like the LHC. You know, this thing

152
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:19,040
Speaker 1: is twenty years old, tops and the quarks we've known

153
00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:21,640
Speaker 1: about since the sixties and seventies, so it definitely was

154
00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:25,000
Speaker 1: not the large Hadron Collider responsible for discovering corks. And

155
00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:27,040
Speaker 1: I'm just curious here, how did you get these questions?

156
00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:29,680
Speaker 1: Did you go out into the street before the pandemic

157
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:31,640
Speaker 1: or or during the pandemic? Do you have now like

158
00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:35,800
Speaker 1: a six foot selfie stick with a microphone? I, shockingly,

159
00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:38,080
Speaker 1: I actually work on these things kind of far in

160
00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:41,120
Speaker 1: advance so that I'm prepared for a PANDAMA. I have

161
00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:44,600
Speaker 1: a stockpile of questions. I have asked people on the street.

162
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,520
Speaker 1: I see you have a federal stockpile, the National Strategic Reserve,

163
00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,200
Speaker 1: A random questions. All right, good, So people were still

164
00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,480
Speaker 1: feeling optimistic about signs. All right, it seems like not

165
00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:56,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people know the stories, and you're saying

166
00:08:56,760 --> 00:08:59,080
Speaker 1: that it's full of drama and interesting twist and turns.

167
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:01,680
Speaker 1: So tell us story, Daniel said the scene. What was

168
00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:03,920
Speaker 1: it like back then? And what year are we talking about?

169
00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:08,040
Speaker 1: So let me take you back to seven, A dramatic world,

170
00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:13,000
Speaker 1: A cold winter blew into Chicago. Now you have to

171
00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:16,560
Speaker 1: sort of rewind back to before the clues were found

172
00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:19,680
Speaker 1: for quarks, and back in seven, we actually had a

173
00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:23,160
Speaker 1: pretty clear picture we thought of how the universe looked.

174
00:09:23,640 --> 00:09:26,400
Speaker 1: We felt like we knew things were mandat of Adams

175
00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:29,160
Speaker 1: and Adams were manat of some bits inside. Yeah, we

176
00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:31,360
Speaker 1: knew there were atoms, and we knew those atoms had

177
00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:35,240
Speaker 1: protons and neutrons and electrons. We also knew they were photons.

178
00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:37,640
Speaker 1: And we felt like, hey, that's a pretty good picture

179
00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:39,320
Speaker 1: of the universe. And I think a lot of people

180
00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:41,840
Speaker 1: in physics felt like that might be it, Like maybe

181
00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:44,440
Speaker 1: you know, we're coming up to the last end of

182
00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:46,920
Speaker 1: the road and we're gonna answer all the questions, and

183
00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:49,439
Speaker 1: that's going to give us a sort of last sense

184
00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:51,840
Speaker 1: for what the universe has meant. There can't be anything

185
00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:54,400
Speaker 1: smaller than these particles. These are it. These are the

186
00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,719
Speaker 1: basic building blocks of life, the universe and everything in it.

187
00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:00,920
Speaker 1: That's right, But of course there were a few lo threads, right,

188
00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:03,360
Speaker 1: There are a few things which didn't quite fit into

189
00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,920
Speaker 1: that picture. And that's a lesson. Right, every time there's

190
00:10:06,920 --> 00:10:09,680
Speaker 1: a little loose thread, one thing that doesn't quite fit

191
00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,360
Speaker 1: into the hole you wanted to, you should pull on

192
00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:15,360
Speaker 1: that thread, you should mix that. Metaphor, until you figure

193
00:10:15,360 --> 00:10:17,520
Speaker 1: out the secret of the universe, you should just ignore it,

194
00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:22,280
Speaker 1: repress it. And some of those those threads were things

195
00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:25,720
Speaker 1: like muans. Like remember we talked about how muans were discovered,

196
00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:28,000
Speaker 1: and when they were first found, people were like, what, who,

197
00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:30,360
Speaker 1: what are that? We don't need those muans. They're not

198
00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:32,840
Speaker 1: part of the atoms. They're just particles that seemed to

199
00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:36,839
Speaker 1: have been there, but they weren't part of regular matter exactly.

200
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:39,320
Speaker 1: That was the kind of clue we're talking about. And

201
00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:42,320
Speaker 1: there were other particles like pions that were found in

202
00:10:42,360 --> 00:10:44,800
Speaker 1: cosmic rays and people are like, hum, what are these

203
00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:48,000
Speaker 1: particles about? We don't need them to build matter. Interesting,

204
00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:50,880
Speaker 1: but they can't exist. Why do they even exist? What's

205
00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:53,840
Speaker 1: the idea? And so you see them, but they're they're

206
00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:56,240
Speaker 1: not part of most of things. So I guess that's

207
00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,200
Speaker 1: a weird thing, right, It's a pretty weird thing, but

208
00:10:58,280 --> 00:10:59,960
Speaker 1: it also gives you a clue. It gives you a

209
00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:03,640
Speaker 1: clue for like what kind of particles can be out there?

210
00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,240
Speaker 1: And in the end, remember, what you're looking for is

211
00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:09,200
Speaker 1: an answer to the deepest question right to understand, like

212
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:11,880
Speaker 1: the nature of reality. So you want the full menu.

213
00:11:12,160 --> 00:11:15,800
Speaker 1: And those few little threads then turned into I don't

214
00:11:15,800 --> 00:11:18,559
Speaker 1: know what's the metaphor here, a whole rug, I suppose,

215
00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:22,160
Speaker 1: or a whole pile of yarm, giant haystack, the giant

216
00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:25,800
Speaker 1: haystack because originally we had these weird, unstable particles muans

217
00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:28,079
Speaker 1: and pions just from looking them come down from the

218
00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:31,560
Speaker 1: sky and cosmic rays. But then people built particle accelerators.

219
00:11:31,679 --> 00:11:34,880
Speaker 1: They weren't satisfied just to sort of look at high

220
00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:37,320
Speaker 1: energy particles that we already found in nature. They wanted

221
00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:39,920
Speaker 1: to create their own collisions to explore these things with

222
00:11:39,960 --> 00:11:43,920
Speaker 1: more control. So people build particle accept smash things in

223
00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:47,160
Speaker 1: front of them, not just wait wait till they come

224
00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 1: reigining down. Yeah, you want to do it on your terms.

225
00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:50,840
Speaker 1: You know, you want to have control. I want to say,

226
00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:52,240
Speaker 1: I want to turn up the energy, I want to

227
00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:54,320
Speaker 1: turn down the energy. I want to call this kind

228
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:56,040
Speaker 1: of particle that kind of particle, right, I want to

229
00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:57,520
Speaker 1: see what it feels like when I stick my hand

230
00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:01,680
Speaker 1: into it. I mean, that's a basic reiosity, right. Um.

231
00:12:01,760 --> 00:12:04,960
Speaker 1: And so what they found when they built these accelerators

232
00:12:05,440 --> 00:12:09,040
Speaker 1: was a whole lot of new particles. They found kaons

233
00:12:09,160 --> 00:12:11,960
Speaker 1: and strange particles and all sorts of stuff. We talked

234
00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:15,439
Speaker 1: a little bit about strange matter on the program recently.

235
00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:17,960
Speaker 1: And this is an era we call the particle zoo

236
00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:21,480
Speaker 1: because basically, every time they turned on the accelerator they

237
00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:23,600
Speaker 1: found some new party. Did you guys have a theme

238
00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:30,640
Speaker 1: song jingle like particles particle zoo ra Welcome to our

239
00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:34,280
Speaker 1: particles Zoo. Yeah, so I guess you didn't have particle accelerators.

240
00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:36,679
Speaker 1: But he thought, hey, let's see what else happened when

241
00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:38,920
Speaker 1: things smashed together, because that's I guess that's what you

242
00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:41,520
Speaker 1: knew was happening in the atmosphere. Yeah, we had a

243
00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:45,160
Speaker 1: sense that these things needed more energy. Right, These unstable

244
00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:48,600
Speaker 1: particles were heavier, meaning that they contained more energy, and

245
00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:51,719
Speaker 1: then they decayed down to lighter particles. To to try

246
00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:55,400
Speaker 1: to create new heavy particles, you want to create localized

247
00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,079
Speaker 1: energy density. You want to smash two particles together, so

248
00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:00,560
Speaker 1: you've got a little like blob of energy right there,

249
00:13:00,800 --> 00:13:03,600
Speaker 1: maybe enough to create something new. And so that's what

250
00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:07,400
Speaker 1: these first particle accelerators did was create these high energy

251
00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:10,559
Speaker 1: density situations where you could create these new particles. And

252
00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:13,200
Speaker 1: we found zillions and zillions of these because at this

253
00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:15,600
Speaker 1: point you sort of new about equals mc square and

254
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,360
Speaker 1: then you knew that you know, things can matter can

255
00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:20,920
Speaker 1: come from pure energy. That's right, you can create new matter.

256
00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:22,880
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's alchemy, right. People have been trying

257
00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:25,800
Speaker 1: to do this for thousands of years, and we actually

258
00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:28,480
Speaker 1: were able to do it. By smashing particles together at

259
00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:31,240
Speaker 1: high energy. You can create new kinds of matter and

260
00:13:31,280 --> 00:13:34,000
Speaker 1: that's exciting, right, like wow, Look, every time you turn

261
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:35,800
Speaker 1: it on, you create a new particle and then you

262
00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:37,840
Speaker 1: get to name it after your puppy or whatever. But

263
00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,760
Speaker 1: it's also continge name it after their puppy. I don't

264
00:13:41,760 --> 00:13:43,839
Speaker 1: have a record of that. No, Back in that day,

265
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:46,280
Speaker 1: they were mostly naming them after Greek letters, so you

266
00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:49,400
Speaker 1: got lots of you know, sigmas and theatas and upsilons

267
00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:51,960
Speaker 1: and this kind of stuff. But it was also confusing.

268
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,520
Speaker 1: Maybe they named their puppies after it's probably lots of

269
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:58,920
Speaker 1: puppies named upsilon and data. But you know, once you're

270
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:01,679
Speaker 1: once you sort of your even satisfied you've created all

271
00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:03,880
Speaker 1: these new particles, then you're looking at it and you're

272
00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:06,720
Speaker 1: looking for patterns. You're like, Okay, why are there these

273
00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:09,880
Speaker 1: particles and not other particles? What does this mean about

274
00:14:09,920 --> 00:14:13,000
Speaker 1: the nature of the universe? Like how are they related? Yeah,

275
00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:15,800
Speaker 1: because we don't want an answer that says, oh, there's

276
00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,520
Speaker 1: ninety two different kind of fundamental particles, right, we suspect

277
00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:22,280
Speaker 1: that the answer is a small number of particles. We

278
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:25,480
Speaker 1: want to explain the whole universe using a small set

279
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:28,200
Speaker 1: of pieces, right, like the legos. We want to build

280
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:32,680
Speaker 1: everything out of a small number of basic blocks seventy

281
00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:34,840
Speaker 1: four And we often talk about how we had the

282
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:37,520
Speaker 1: periodic table of elements, and how that was kind of

283
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:39,280
Speaker 1: something that told us that when you have a lot

284
00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:41,480
Speaker 1: of these things out there in the universe, there's probably

285
00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 1: some kind of pattern or some kind of underlying building

286
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:47,760
Speaker 1: block to them. Yeah, every time you see unexplained phenomena,

287
00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:52,240
Speaker 1: weird patterns, trends you don't understand, it's probably an emergent

288
00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:55,480
Speaker 1: phenomenon from the arrangement of smaller bits. Just like in

289
00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:58,080
Speaker 1: the periodic table. You see all these patterns, and that

290
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:00,400
Speaker 1: tells you that there's something else go going on, And

291
00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:03,680
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. Every feature of the periodic table comes

292
00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:08,280
Speaker 1: from how the electrons sit in their orbitals around the nucleus,

293
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:11,400
Speaker 1: and so people suspected They're like, well, maybe all these

294
00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:15,320
Speaker 1: new crazy particles we found are reflective of something smaller,

295
00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:19,520
Speaker 1: something tinier, and all these patterns that masters these particles

296
00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:22,120
Speaker 1: in the way they interact come from how those little

297
00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:24,720
Speaker 1: bits are fit together. That was sort of the nugget

298
00:15:24,760 --> 00:15:27,200
Speaker 1: of the idea. And so they found a pattern, right,

299
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:30,120
Speaker 1: and all of these particles in the particle zoo, They're like,

300
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:32,440
Speaker 1: wait a minute, the lions are sort of like smaller

301
00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:35,360
Speaker 1: versions of the elephants, and the zeros are sort of

302
00:15:35,520 --> 00:15:37,800
Speaker 1: have four legs, just like the lines kind of thing. Yeah,

303
00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:40,280
Speaker 1: so we had a decade of discovering new particles and

304
00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:43,840
Speaker 1: then in nineteen sixty one, a theorist came up with

305
00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:46,840
Speaker 1: an idea. He said, well, I noticed that if I

306
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:51,040
Speaker 1: categorize the particles in two ways, one by their electric

307
00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:55,120
Speaker 1: charge and the other way by their strangeness. And remember,

308
00:15:55,200 --> 00:15:58,000
Speaker 1: some of these particles are strange in the sense that

309
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:00,680
Speaker 1: they last a lot longer than you would expect. And

310
00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:03,320
Speaker 1: you can listen to our whole podcast episode about strangeness.

311
00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:07,120
Speaker 1: And so people postulated this new property of particles strangeness,

312
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:09,960
Speaker 1: and they give particles strangeness zero like the proton and

313
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:13,280
Speaker 1: the neutron, or strangeness one, or strangeness too, And then

314
00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:15,760
Speaker 1: they just made a table and meaning like, it's strange

315
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:19,400
Speaker 1: because given how massive it is, how munched ways, it

316
00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:22,200
Speaker 1: shouldn't be around this lng like kNs last a lot

317
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:24,880
Speaker 1: longer than you would expect, and the reason is that

318
00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:28,400
Speaker 1: they have strangeness. Then the universe likes to preserve strangeness,

319
00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:30,680
Speaker 1: so it tries to find a way for the kon

320
00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:34,200
Speaker 1: to dec to keep the strangeness into the products, and

321
00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,760
Speaker 1: that takes longer. It's a weaker interaction. But protons are

322
00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:39,880
Speaker 1: pretty stable, and they're supposed to be stable, so they

323
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:42,360
Speaker 1: have zero strange protons have no Now we know that

324
00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:45,280
Speaker 1: strangeness actually reflects the strange quarks inside of it, but

325
00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:46,920
Speaker 1: at the time they didn't know. They were just like,

326
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:49,680
Speaker 1: this is a property, these particles, and a lot of

327
00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:53,000
Speaker 1: particle physics, it's just like writing down properties we observe

328
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:56,240
Speaker 1: and wondering where they come from, and wondering if we

329
00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:59,040
Speaker 1: can see patterns and then explain those patterns in terms

330
00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:01,800
Speaker 1: of something deeper. And so at the time, you know,

331
00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:04,239
Speaker 1: they knew the charge of these particles, they could measure that,

332
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:07,120
Speaker 1: and they had sort of invented this idea of strangeness

333
00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:10,080
Speaker 1: just by observing how the particles decayed and labeling them

334
00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:14,199
Speaker 1: strangeness one, strangeness zero. And then they noticed this pattern.

335
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:17,040
Speaker 1: They called it the eightfold way because they noticed that

336
00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:20,639
Speaker 1: if you arrange the particles according to strangeness versus charge,

337
00:17:20,920 --> 00:17:24,840
Speaker 1: that they formed these octagons, right, and they formed these

338
00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:28,240
Speaker 1: triangles and all these really interesting geometric patterns. All right,

339
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:31,280
Speaker 1: So they found a bunch of particles and they found

340
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:36,080
Speaker 1: a pattern maybe a clue to what all these particles. Yeah,

341
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:38,399
Speaker 1: and they found these geometric patterns and that suggested to

342
00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:41,320
Speaker 1: them that, like, you know, maybe there's something going on here,

343
00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:44,280
Speaker 1: maybe there's a reason for all these patterns. And the

344
00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:46,879
Speaker 1: theorist that came up with this eightfold way found a

345
00:17:46,920 --> 00:17:49,720
Speaker 1: hole in those patterns, like there was one triangle that

346
00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:52,760
Speaker 1: was missing a corner and said, okay, well, maybe there's

347
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:55,439
Speaker 1: a particle there. You would have to have this strangeness

348
00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:57,679
Speaker 1: and this charge to be in that corner, and he

349
00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:00,480
Speaker 1: predicted its existence and then they found it, like, oh,

350
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:03,399
Speaker 1: you were right, this new particle does exist. So that

351
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 1: was the first clue that maybe this pattern really reflected

352
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:10,960
Speaker 1: something because it wasn't just imaginary, like they weren't just

353
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:15,120
Speaker 1: imagining things. You could actually find particles using these patterns. Yeah,

354
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:17,159
Speaker 1: just like with the periodic table. We started putting it

355
00:18:17,160 --> 00:18:19,639
Speaker 1: together and we noticed some holes and we're like, where's

356
00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: this element number or whatever that we don't see in nature.

357
00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 1: It turns out, you know, it does exist. You can

358
00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:28,159
Speaker 1: create it. It's just very unstable. In the same way,

359
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:30,760
Speaker 1: they were able to fill out these triangles and these

360
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:33,800
Speaker 1: octagons of the eightfold way. All right, Well, let's get

361
00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:37,920
Speaker 1: into what this pattern actually meant or means and how

362
00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:41,639
Speaker 1: it helped them make sense of the particle zoo as

363
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:56,040
Speaker 1: far as let's take a quick break, all right. You know,

364
00:18:56,119 --> 00:18:58,000
Speaker 1: so they found a bunch of particles and they saw

365
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:00,720
Speaker 1: that there was some kind of pattern to the meaning

366
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:03,040
Speaker 1: that there is something going on here. Yeah. Yeah. Every

367
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:05,920
Speaker 1: time you see a pattern, that's your first clue because

368
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,400
Speaker 1: it lets you sort of play games with what's going

369
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,679
Speaker 1: on underneath. Right, you want to find some way to

370
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:15,600
Speaker 1: explain a very complicated set of things. You've observed ninety

371
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:19,280
Speaker 1: two different particles with all weird masses and behaviors in

372
00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 1: terms of a smaller set of objects, And so finding

373
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 1: that pattern gave them a clue as to how to

374
00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:26,879
Speaker 1: put that together. And so they came up with the

375
00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 1: idea that maybe there are even smaller particles that kind

376
00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:33,040
Speaker 1: of put together to make these bigger parties. Yes, exactly,

377
00:19:33,320 --> 00:19:35,600
Speaker 1: And that's sort of the idea that particle physicists are

378
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:38,320
Speaker 1: always looking to write, like everything is made of smaller bits.

379
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 1: That's like the oldest idea in particle physics. And so

380
00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:43,760
Speaker 1: they thought, well, we have all these particles, can we

381
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:46,000
Speaker 1: explain them in terms of smaller bits, right, They're like,

382
00:19:46,040 --> 00:19:50,360
Speaker 1: we're particle physics. You only have particles, right, that's right,

383
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:52,679
Speaker 1: that's our hands. Like when you have a particle, everything

384
00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,440
Speaker 1: looks like a particle. T that's our hammers. So everything's

385
00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:59,200
Speaker 1: the nail exactly. And this idea actually came up independently

386
00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:02,760
Speaker 1: by two different theorists, and they came up with the

387
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:06,879
Speaker 1: same idea that there could be these three little particles that,

388
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:09,760
Speaker 1: if you put them together in different combinations, explain all

389
00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:12,000
Speaker 1: the particles that we see, but not all of them, right,

390
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:14,720
Speaker 1: Like some of them like the muan. Isn't the muon

391
00:20:14,880 --> 00:20:17,080
Speaker 1: kind of like an electron, it can't be split. Yeah,

392
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:19,960
Speaker 1: they don't explain all those particles, like the muan is

393
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:24,520
Speaker 1: not made of quarks. But all those particles discovered, the

394
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:28,160
Speaker 1: particle zoo, the pions, the chons, the sigma particles, all

395
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:30,840
Speaker 1: those kind of particles. They could explain all these new

396
00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:34,880
Speaker 1: ones in terms of these little basic particles. And so

397
00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:37,920
Speaker 1: Murray Gelman came up with this idea and he called

398
00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:40,679
Speaker 1: them quarks based on a word that he saw in

399
00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:44,680
Speaker 1: a James Joyce novel. And at the same time another

400
00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:48,240
Speaker 1: theorist named Zwag came up with exactly the same idea

401
00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:51,760
Speaker 1: mathematically and published it. But he called them seeming mathematically

402
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,159
Speaker 1: like the mass predicted there would be three of these. Well,

403
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:56,320
Speaker 1: at the time, all these particles were only made out

404
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:58,680
Speaker 1: of these three quarks. Now we know that there were

405
00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:01,919
Speaker 1: up quarks, down quirks, and strange corks. Right up and

406
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 1: down is what you need to make the proton and

407
00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:06,200
Speaker 1: the neutron. You add in strange to make all these

408
00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:09,720
Speaker 1: other strange particles like the kon and the omega and

409
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:12,359
Speaker 1: the sigma particles. And so at the time they only

410
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,400
Speaker 1: needed three, and the particles they were creating only used

411
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:17,720
Speaker 1: those three lego pieces I see. But now we know

412
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:19,920
Speaker 1: there are more. Now we know there are more. Yeah,

413
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:22,560
Speaker 1: the stories was on and on sort of mathematically to

414
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:25,200
Speaker 1: explain the ones they had. They thought they were three,

415
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:27,600
Speaker 1: that's right. And they discovered that if you postulate the

416
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:30,560
Speaker 1: existence of these three particles, that you could put them

417
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:34,320
Speaker 1: together in pairs and triplets to explain all the particles

418
00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:37,159
Speaker 1: that they were seeing. So it's like peeling back a

419
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 1: layer of reality and saying, oh, all these things are

420
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: just different ways to combine these basic building blocks. And

421
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:46,919
Speaker 1: not only could they explain all the particles that we

422
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,760
Speaker 1: had seen. They could show which particles we hadn't yet seen, Like, oh,

423
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:53,880
Speaker 1: nobody's tried this combination that would give you this particle

424
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:56,160
Speaker 1: and predicting it, and then we find it. And that's

425
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 1: exactly what happened with this omega minus particle that we

426
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,120
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. That's what they've They've found particles that were

427
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:06,000
Speaker 1: predicted by these acism quirks. Yeah, exactly, And so that's

428
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 1: pretty convincing. And you know, if you ask me, I

429
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 1: would have believed it. Like at that point, I would

430
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,439
Speaker 1: have been sold on this quirk idea. I would have

431
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:15,560
Speaker 1: been like, well, this, this explains it. It describes all

432
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:19,240
Speaker 1: the particles we see. It simplifies things and old together.

433
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: But you hadn't seen them. I guess they were just

434
00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: sort of like an idea that seems to predict things,

435
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 1: but you hadn't directly seen them. Yeah, and so most

436
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:30,200
Speaker 1: physicists were like, all right, that's a cute idea, but

437
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: is it an idea or is it real? Right? Is

438
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: that what's actually happening inside these particles or is it

439
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 1: just a nice thing you can calculate in your mind.

440
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 1: And the sort of deep philosophical question there about whether

441
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:44,680
Speaker 1: any of our theories are more than just ideas we

442
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: calculate in our mind, and whether we actually see anything directly.

443
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:52,120
Speaker 1: But physicists were skeptical. I guess they're like aces. I'm

444
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 1: not I'm not sure I would call that a name. Yeah,

445
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: And I don't know the history of why quarks took

446
00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 1: off instead of aces. Actually like aces better than quarks works.

447
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: It's kind of a weird Quirks sounds like yogurt, you know,

448
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 1: I think yogurt sounds like quarks. There is a yogurt

449
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: called corks that I guess why would you call them as?

450
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:13,639
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's a positive thing, you know,

451
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: it's celebratory in some way, or it's like, hey, look

452
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 1: we found a little list bit. It's like the number

453
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:20,680
Speaker 1: one particle. I don't know, it's it's in a nice

454
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: spot somewhere in my brain, I see. But maybe Gilman

455
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: was barely thinking like, hey, these are weird odd and

456
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 1: you let's find an award that's kind of weird odd

457
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: And perhaps perhaps and I guess the field liked his

458
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 1: idea better because quarks is what we call them. Really,

459
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 1: it was totally just a name popularity. Con I don't

460
00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 1: I've done something really try to figure out, like why

461
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: Quirks took off. It might not just be a name popularity.

462
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: I think Gelmont had a larger personality and was more

463
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: famous and influential, and so, you know, it's a bit

464
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:51,360
Speaker 1: of a political thing. Doesn't it depend on who published first? Yeah,

465
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 1: but you know it was just about the same time.

466
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: But sometimes like the second counts, right, the minute counts.

467
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: I think that's ridiculous. But we'll hear a story later

468
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: on in this program about two discoveries announced on the

469
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: same day. All right, so they were theoretical and some

470
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 1: people didn't believe them. But then what happened? How did

471
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 1: we say, hey, look, quarts are real. So then we

472
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,719
Speaker 1: got some actual evidence because they did some experiments, and

473
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: experimentalist said, well, if these things are real, we should

474
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 1: be able to see them, meaning we should be able

475
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,719
Speaker 1: to like take a proton and shoot particles at it

476
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: and see this internal structure. I mean, if protons are

477
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 1: not just like tiny perfect dots or perfectly smooth, if

478
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:32,959
Speaker 1: they're actually made of three like hard nuggets bound together,

479
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: we should be able to see them. If we shoot

480
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:38,159
Speaker 1: electrons adament with high enough internet and what made them

481
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 1: think that the proton was deconstructible or breakable but not

482
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 1: the electron. Oh boy, that's a good question. Um, we

483
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: don't know if the electron is deconstructible. We are doing

484
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: experiments to try to figure that. We had a podcast

485
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: episode about whether the electron has stuffed inside it. I

486
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: guess the short answer is, we don't know, and we're

487
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: trying to see if the electron has stuff inside of it.

488
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: We've never seen any evidence. They're just like, hey, let's

489
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 1: match these two things together and see what happened. Yeah,

490
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 1: but the theory went that the proton was built out

491
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: of quirks, and so that's what they were testing. The

492
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: suggestion was you could maybe see these things inside protons.

493
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: Nobody suspected that electrons were made out of quirks, And

494
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: we know today that the electron doesn't feel a strong

495
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: force and so it can't be made out of quarks.

496
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 1: We don't know why and what the difference is not

497
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: the whole other podcast episode, But anyway, they used electrons

498
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 1: because they're cheap and fast and small to shoot at

499
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,199
Speaker 1: protons to try to see what was inside. Because, like

500
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 1: I guess, protons are heavier. Protons are much heavier than

501
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 1: the electrons, and the idea was that maybe they had

502
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 1: this structure. And so you shoot electrons at a proton,

503
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: it will bounce off. But if you shoot it high

504
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 1: enough energy, then it can get to break it. They

505
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: have to break it. It can get between those bonds. Right.

506
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: A proton we now know is made it of quarks

507
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: that are held together by really strong bonds. But if

508
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: you shoot at it with electrons that have energy more

509
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: than the energy those bonds, then those bonds are sort

510
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: of irrelevant and you can bounce off the individual corks, right,

511
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: And and so they did that. They shot the proton

512
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: with the revolver in the library, and they found that

513
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: the proton split into three. Yeah, they found not necessarily

514
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: that it's split into three, because remember these corks can't

515
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 1: be alone, and so if you break up a proton,

516
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: it just the corks inside of it just form a

517
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: new proton and new other particles. But what they found

518
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: was that there were three sort of hard centers in

519
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: the proton, three places where if you hit it just right,

520
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 1: you would bounce back at a great angle rather than

521
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: passing through. Oh, they were looking at the bounce rate. Yeah,

522
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: they were looking at the bounce rate and the bounce

523
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: angles essentially, And so if the proton is a totally

524
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: solid sphere, then you'll always sort of get the same angles.

525
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 1: Whereas if the proton is mostly transparent with three hard

526
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: nuggets in it, then often you'll just go your electron

527
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: will go right through it, and sometimes it'll bounce. But

528
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: how did they know there was three of them? Like,

529
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: can you could they actually aim electrons with the You

530
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: can't aim, it's all statistical. You can't aim an individual

531
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: a cork, but you can count how many hard centers

532
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 1: there are by how often you get a hard bounce back.

533
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: And you know, this is very similar to the way

534
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: the nucleus of the atom was discovered back in the

535
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: day or in the turn of the century, before we

536
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: even knew that the atom had an electron with the

537
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,640
Speaker 1: nucleus in it. Rutherford discovered the nucleus in this exact

538
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: same way. He shot particles at nuclei and found that

539
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: mostly they went through, but occasionally they bounced right back,

540
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: and that's how he discovered the nucleus. Is we're still

541
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: not convinced they saw these hard centers nucod centers and

542
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: physics are still like, yeah, I don't know if that's

543
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: those are Its amazing with me. I don't understand what

544
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: physicists were thinking at the time, Like you had this

545
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 1: beautiful idea of these tiny particles that explained this big

546
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: mystery that had been going on for twenty years about

547
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: the particle zoo, and then you have this evidence that

548
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: these particles really were made out of smaller particles, and

549
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: still physicists were like, I don't know, And I think

550
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: part of it is that they couldn't see the corks

551
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: on their own, right, They couldn't like create independent, standalone

552
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: corks and study them, like with all the other parts.

553
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,479
Speaker 1: They're only looking at X rays and not at you know,

554
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: holding the bones in their hands. Yeah, and you know, quarks,

555
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: you can't see them by themselves. They can never be

556
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: on their own. They're always tightly bound into these in

557
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 1: combinations of other corks, into other particles. So maybe that's

558
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: what motivated this skepticism. But you know, I would have

559
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:20,919
Speaker 1: been I would have been on that train long before this.

560
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: He would have been wearing the cork hat. Yeah, all right,

561
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: So it sounds like it was still sort of an idea,

562
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: maybe a little unproven. People were unconvinced. But then something

563
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: amazing happened, and so let's get into that. But first

564
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break, all right, Daniel, tell me

565
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: about the November Revolution. It sounds like the October Revolution.

566
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:55,719
Speaker 1: This happened a month later, or this is a totally

567
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: different thing. I know, it sounds like something that should

568
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: have happened at you know, at the Alamo or some thing.

569
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,959
Speaker 1: But this is a revolution with stars and you know,

570
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: and as far as i'm where, nobody died on this revolution.

571
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: But this is sort of the day that physics changed

572
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: its mind. We went from like, corks are an idea,

573
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: two corks are a real thing, and there's an actual date.

574
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: There's an actual date. Yeah, and that's because that's the

575
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: date of the dueling press conferences that are the end

576
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: of this story. Yeah. And the idea was, if corks

577
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: are real, maybe there are more of them, Like we

578
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: only needed three up, down and strange to explain all

579
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: the particles that we've seen before. But how do we

580
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: know there aren't more corks like a fourth cork? Or

581
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: now we know there are six corks and there are

582
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: actually some theorists that said, you know, it's weird to

583
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: have three because the up and down are sort of

584
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: a pair. They go together. What about the strange cork? Like,

585
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: where is its partner? And you can associate the down

586
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: cork and the strange cork they have the same electric charge.

587
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: Where's the partner of the upcord? Right? Where is the

588
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: version of the upcork that has its electric m You

589
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: mean the Catholics weren't like, three sounds good to me.

590
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: It sounds like a trinity to me. Yeah, there there

591
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: are reasons three seems nice. But also if you have

592
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: corks at pair off, it's weird to have an odd number.

593
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: And so they predicted this fourth cork. They said, well,

594
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: we predicted another cork out there, and they called it Charm,

595
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: and this cork would be a heavy version of the

596
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: up cork. So the way the up and the down

597
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: are a pair, this cork, the Charm and the strange

598
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: would be a pair. So this pair, the Charm and

599
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: Strange are like the heavy version of the up and down.

600
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: There was a fourth beatle missing there, like, yeah, there

601
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: was a fourth needle. And this sold some complicated theoretical problems,

602
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: like people are trying to do some calculations, and the

603
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: calculations didn't work unless you had this other cork also

604
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: in the calculations. So sort of the first clue maybe

605
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: the universe made more sense mad if you had another

606
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: one yes math and so then then people went off

607
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: to look for it. So then November tenth, nineteen four,

608
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 1: people were like, I didn't know what was coming. And

609
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 1: then people went off to look for it, and there

610
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: was a guide and my team named Sam Ting. He

611
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 1: had an idea for how to look for it. It

612
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: was a very nice experiment, very clean. He was shooting

613
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: protons at a target and he was hoping to create

614
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: essentially this cork and its anti cork. He was hoping

615
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: if you smash protons into his target, then occasionally you

616
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: create a charm cork and an anti charm cork into

617
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: this new particle, and then he could see that new party.

618
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: And it was a very nice experiment, except it had

619
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: one weakness, which is that it was sort of slow,

620
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: like it wasn't making a lot of these every day.

621
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: It was going to take him like a year, year

622
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: and a half to get enough of these things where

623
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: he could claim discovery. Because in particle physics you have

624
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: to do things a lot, and then from the sort

625
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: of the statistics, then you say, hey, look that bump

626
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: in the data looks is probably a particle exactly. And

627
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,479
Speaker 1: so he ran his experiment and he was cranking it up,

628
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: and his bump was building up and up and up

629
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: and up. Now, meanwhile, on the other side of the

630
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,239
Speaker 1: country at Stanford, there's a guy named Bert Richter, and

631
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: Bert Richter had access to a much more powerful machine.

632
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: This is a collider that would smash electrons and positrons

633
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: against each other. And this thing was capable of discovering

634
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: a new particle in like an hour. But the problem

635
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: was he'd have to tune it to exactly the right energy.

636
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: Like if you knew exactly the energy you needed to

637
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: create this new particle and you tuned the beams, boom,

638
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: you could produce like a hundred of them in an

639
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: hour and be done. But you had to know how

640
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: to tune the beams. If you didn't know where to look,

641
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: it could be you know, you could be searching forever.

642
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: Like Stanford had a huge microscope, but they just didn't

643
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: know where to look. Yeah, had a huge microscope, but

644
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: they were searching a beach, right and they had to

645
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: like put here, put it here, put it here. If

646
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: they knew where to look for this new particle, they

647
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: could prove it existed right away. Something maybe had a

648
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: giant sifter which was slow, but you know, it would

649
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: cover a wider ring exactly. And so they were racing

650
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: and bert Richter and his team did these scans. They

651
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: started low energies and they scanned up and they didn't

652
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: see anything. And then they scanned down and they scanned

653
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: back up and they didn't see anything. They didn't see anything.

654
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, Sam Ting is accumulating this data and he

655
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: knows exactly where Bert Richter needs to look, but he

656
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: doesn't want to tell him because if bert Richter finds

657
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: out this one piece of information, then he can scoop

658
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: him in just a day. So these two guys across

659
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: the United States, they knew what each of them were

660
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: doing and what they could do. They knew what the

661
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: other one could do. There's a lot of controversy about

662
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: exactly what they knew about each other's experiments and with

663
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: the connections between them. And there's also lots of crazy

664
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: stories here, Like I've heard stories that Sam Ting was

665
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: so desperate to get time to run his experiment, that

666
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: he actually sabotaged other experiments that were using the same word.

667
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: They had to share time with them, and there are

668
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: stories that the other experiments kept having these weird electronics

669
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: problems and every time they would come in after a night,

670
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: their electronics were fried. So finally installed a video camera

671
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: and they're like, what's going on? And the story goes

672
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: that Sam tinge would come in every evening and piss on.

673
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: This is the story. Their story is. There's video evidence.

674
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: I have never seen this video. This is pre internet.

675
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: I do not know if this story is true. What

676
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: do you smell it? Would would they be able to

677
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,760
Speaker 1: tell that somebody was doing this. It's an interesting story

678
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: and it actually reveals something I think about the time

679
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 1: because at the time field of particle physics was dominated

680
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: by white American dudes mostly, and Sam ting is a

681
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: Chinese guy. He's at M I T, but he's sort

682
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: of an outsider and so this, you know, maybe shades

683
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: of racism in this story. It's not clear whether this

684
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: story is true, but it's a story that exists and

685
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: is out there, and it sort of is the flavor

686
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: of the time. Because Sam ting finally accumulated enough data.

687
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,839
Speaker 1: He's planning to announce his result. He's, you know, calls

688
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: the press conference for the next day, and this is

689
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:56,359
Speaker 1: like November t right, And meanwhile at slack on November ten,

690
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 1: they figure out exactly where to look, and they figure

691
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: it out or they figured from Sam. We don't know,

692
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: Like there are stories that maybe there was a leak.

693
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: Sam certainly didn't tell them, but somehow they knew exactly

694
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: where did they look? They turned, They turned the collider there,

695
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: they ran the experiment, they got the plot, they wrote

696
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: the paper the same day. It is all one day.

697
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: Next day. They also call it press currently at the

698
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: same time, now November the same time, So you have

699
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: to press conferences two parts of the country making announcements

700
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: of the same discovery at the same moment. But Sam

701
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: was in Eastern Times and he wins, I don't know,

702
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's down to the minute, a

703
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: suspicious you know, like they've been looking for years and

704
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 1: then suddenly, the day before this guy is about to

705
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: go public, they find the right parameters. And so they

706
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: didn't talk to each other, and so they gave the

707
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: particles different names, like Sam called it the j particle

708
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:56,720
Speaker 1: and the guys a slack called it the side particle

709
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: is Greek letter. And so we had the same particle

710
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: discovery announced by two different groups on the same day,

711
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: and so and you told me they called the official

712
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: name for this particle is the J side particle. Yeah,

713
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: we never resolved this dispute, like people still argue about it.

714
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: There are people in the J camp, people in the

715
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: side camp, but the official name is J slash SI,

716
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: which is like such a cop out. And to this

717
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: day there are people bitter that it's not called the

718
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 1: SI slash J probably probably, and people who think it

719
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: should just be the J particle, and people who think

720
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: it should just be the side particle. They should just

721
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 1: call it off and call it something. But they did

722
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 1: give them the Nobel Prize for this, the nineteen Nobel Prize,

723
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 1: and they shared it, all right. That's that's a good,

724
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: happy ending for everybody. They were all happy. Probably, No,

725
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: I think there's still a lot of grumpiness in the

726
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: field over this. But the end of the story is

727
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: that this is what really led people to believe that

728
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: corks are real, because we predicted a new one and

729
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: then found it, and that told us that corks are

730
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: not just like an idea for how to explain all

731
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: the particles we've seen so far. They really are sort

732
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: of a more basic fundamental building block of the universe.

733
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: And they saw it on its own, or they saw

734
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: it kind of in the same way of hitting something

735
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: inside of something else. Can't see the charm cork by itself,

736
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: but they were able to create a particle which is

737
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,479
Speaker 1: made of just charm corks. So it's a charm cork

738
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 1: and an anti charm cork put together. That's the jape

739
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: side park. I see that the should just end the

740
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 1: controversy and not call it a name. Just call it

741
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: the charm the charm cork particle. Somebody else wanted to

742
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: call it ortho charmonium, like a yeah, seriously, that was

743
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 1: the technical proposal. Charming, forget it, forget it. Let's not

744
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:44,240
Speaker 1: leave this up to physicists exactly exactly. That's what happens

745
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 1: when you leave it up to the physicist, right. But

746
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 1: I guess that what you're saying is the point is

747
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: that course are real, and that's how they were discovered. Yeah,

748
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: it was a sort of slow accumulation of evidence. People

749
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: were not convinced for a while, but then seeing them

750
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,919
Speaker 1: inside the proton discovering that there was a new one,

751
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: and finding it actually out there in reality, like it's real.

752
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: That's really what convinced people. And since then we've thought

753
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: of corks as real and we've gone on to find

754
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: someone that's right. There are now six corks, that's right.

755
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:13,879
Speaker 1: Just after the charm cork was discovered, just a few

756
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 1: years later they discovered the bottom cork. That was the

757
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: fifth one. And you know, we don't like odd numbers

758
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: of quirks, and so then people thought, well, there must

759
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: be another one that goes along with the bottom cork,

760
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: and so they called it the top cork. And and

761
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: there was actually competing ames for those two. Also there's

762
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:32,399
Speaker 1: a whole camp of people who wanted to call them

763
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: the truth and beauty corks instead of top and bottom. Wow,

764
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 1: even more confusing. But the top cork took a long

765
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 1: time to discover. We'll do a whole podcast episode about that.

766
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: They were also dueling press conferences for that discovery. Well,

767
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: I guess you know, there's all sort of points to

768
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 1: how science has made you know, first it starts off

769
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: with just looking at what's out there, and then people

770
00:38:57,520 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 1: reading these papers and thinking about what it could be,

771
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: and then it involves then more people than taking those

772
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: ideas and proving them right. Yeah, I think that's ah,

773
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful process. And I love how you can

774
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: sort of see that happen many times in science. You

775
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: go from like all the stuff around us to the

776
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: periodic table, and then from the periodic table down to protons,

777
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: neutrons and electrons, and then you know, you get an

778
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: idea that there are other particles out there, and then

779
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: you boil that list down to basic quirks and the

780
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: hope is the the the idea is that maybe we

781
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: can do that again. And now we have this new

782
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: list of particles, all these quirks and all these leptons.

783
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: We don't understand what the patterns are there. We don't understand,

784
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: you know, why we have all of them. Were sort

785
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: of at the the new particle Zoo. It's like the

786
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 1: cork and lepton zoo. We don't understand it, and we're

787
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: looking for that new idea, the one that will maybe

788
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: explain how these particles are made out of even smaller

789
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 1: ones and they have to subside the mini and farm.

790
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: Maybe acens will come back, right, I guess, but we

791
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: should probably come deuces now smaller. I think that has

792
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: another meaning. Maybe we should avoid I don't think I

793
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 1: want to drop a douce some particle physics, but you could, Daniel.

794
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: If you're the discoverer, you get to name it. Tell

795
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 1: me about your deepest scientific goals. Well, I want to

796
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: drop a deuce on the field. I want to call

797
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: it the poop particle that I could finally align my

798
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: research with my wife's research. There you go, alright, family,

799
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: white sand unity, that's what size it's all about. Yeah,

800
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: but you know we're far from that. We don't have

801
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: any ideas for what could be underlying the quarks. We

802
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: don't know your question earlier. Our electrons also made out

803
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: of smaller things. We know they're not made out of quarks.

804
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: We don't know why. We don't know any connections are

805
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 1: The one thing we do know is that there are

806
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: not more quarks out there. Really know that there are six.

807
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: And that's it. That's it, that's it, that's the end

808
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 1: of the story. We don't know why six. You're for sure,

809
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 1: for real, for sure, for really because more would violate

810
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: the laws of physics or what Because we have ways

811
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: to tell how many quarks there are, and that's from

812
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: how they talk to the higgs boson. Interesting, the higgs

813
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: boson talks to all the particles that have mass. So

814
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 1: if there were more quirks and there are no more

815
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: ways to talk to the higgs boson, well, if there

816
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: were more quirks, we would be making the higgs boson

817
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,439
Speaker 1: more often at colliders. So by the rate at which

818
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: we make higgs boson is how often we make one,

819
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 1: we can tell how many quarks there are out there.

820
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: It's a really powerful, subtle argument. Well, you know, I

821
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: wouldn't put it past nature to still have an ace. Obviously,

822
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: maybe nature will drop a deuce on the field. I mean,

823
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: maill poop all over your theories as usually. All right, Well,

824
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: that was a pretty interesting history, and it's almos exciting

825
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 1: to put your head in the minds of these scientists

826
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 1: who were at the forefront, staring at the big unknown

827
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: and trying to make sense of all the weird things

828
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:54,720
Speaker 1: that we find in nature. That's right, and what seems

829
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: obvious to us now was confusing and bewildering at the time.

830
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: And there were lots of other excellent nations and competing

831
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: ideas that we now no longer recall. And so while

832
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: history seems like a linear story, there are lots of

833
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: twists and turns and false starts, even inside quirks and quarks,

834
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: lots of aces indidios. All right, well, thank you for

835
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: joining us, see you next time. Thanks for tuning in

836
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: before you still have a question after listening to all

837
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to

838
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

839
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or

840
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,720
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

841
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

842
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

843
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart

844
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

845
00:42:54,280 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 1: favorite shows.