1 00:00:08,520 --> 00:00:11,640 Speaker 1: Hey, Kelly, I've got a weird question for you. You You know, 2 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:15,280 Speaker 1: we are going to have to recalibrate weird after all 3 00:00:15,280 --> 00:00:17,440 Speaker 1: of the strange questions that you asked me on this show. 4 00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:21,360 Speaker 1: All right, we'll leaves the question what's the most common 5 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:25,320 Speaker 1: ingredient in your pantry? Wow? I was expecting you to 6 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:28,200 Speaker 1: ask about the ways the universe might incinerate my children. 7 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:32,320 Speaker 1: All right, So in the pantry, let's see by volume. 8 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:37,400 Speaker 1: Probably flower, thanks to Zack's you know, pandemic baking experiments. 9 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:40,960 Speaker 1: I love here and that, but what about like buying number, 10 00:00:41,080 --> 00:00:43,760 Speaker 1: do you have more bags of flower than like cans 11 00:00:43,800 --> 00:00:46,800 Speaker 1: of beans? You know? The answer to that is also flower. 12 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:50,240 Speaker 1: So we have like loads of weird kinds of flower 13 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:52,840 Speaker 1: thanks to all of Zack's baking experiments. So we've got 14 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:59,280 Speaker 1: like rye buck wheats, wheats, chickpeas, almonds. If it's been creative, 15 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:02,200 Speaker 1: we've probably tried it. We don't have any cricket flower yet. 16 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:04,320 Speaker 1: I know that that's you can get that on the market, 17 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:07,399 Speaker 1: but almost anything else we've probably tried. Sounds like your 18 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:13,080 Speaker 1: family is a flower powered. Okay, flower and butter are 19 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:16,400 Speaker 1: the fundamental particles of baking. Maybe I should get to 20 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:19,640 Speaker 1: work on a butter collider. See that's the kind of 21 00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:23,520 Speaker 1: weird thing I was expecting from you. I'm here to 22 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:42,600 Speaker 1: live up to your expectations. Bravo. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm 23 00:01:42,640 --> 00:01:45,960 Speaker 1: a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and 24 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,840 Speaker 1: I really do like colliding butter and flower. I'm Kelly 25 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:53,640 Speaker 1: Wayner Smith, a parasitologist with Rice University, and I love 26 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:56,640 Speaker 1: consuming the collision of butter and flour. But I tend 27 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:58,960 Speaker 1: to stay out of the kitchen for everyone's sake, and 28 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,920 Speaker 1: give us a sense for how often Zack's baking experiments 29 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:04,640 Speaker 1: have a positive outcome. Like when the kids here of 30 00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:07,919 Speaker 1: dad's baking, are they excited or are they a little worried? 31 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: They're almost always excited. Zach is actually really good in 32 00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:13,120 Speaker 1: the kitchen, and most of the time he's not trying 33 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:17,280 Speaker 1: to make like healthy foods. He's definitely making like cakes 34 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:20,880 Speaker 1: and pies and muffins and very kid friendly things. So yeah, 35 00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:23,119 Speaker 1: most of the time the outcome of those collisions is good. 36 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:27,320 Speaker 1: I see no cricket flour pastry crusts yet. No. No, 37 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:29,720 Speaker 1: He's a vegetarian, and I think for him that extends 38 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:34,640 Speaker 1: to crickets. All right, and welcome to the podcast. Daniel 39 00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:38,680 Speaker 1: and Jorge explain the universe, in which we experiment with 40 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:42,320 Speaker 1: cooking up the universe into bite sized chunks for you. 41 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:45,160 Speaker 1: We want to take everything that's out there in the universe, 42 00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:49,480 Speaker 1: the crazy black holes, the cosmic swirls of quasars, the tiny, 43 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:52,960 Speaker 1: little frothing quantum particles. We want to weave together a 44 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:57,600 Speaker 1: story that makes sense to your human brain, because, amazingly, incredibly, 45 00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:00,960 Speaker 1: we think that the human brain is capable of fashioning 46 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,720 Speaker 1: stories about the nature of our universe that makes sense 47 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:07,000 Speaker 1: to us. That our little mathematical capsules allow us to 48 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:09,360 Speaker 1: predict the future, but also to get a sense of 49 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:13,040 Speaker 1: explanation and understanding of why the universe is this way 50 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:16,400 Speaker 1: and not some other way. My friend and co host 51 00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:18,359 Speaker 1: or Hey Champ, can't be with us today. He is 52 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:21,240 Speaker 1: somewhere in the jungles of Panama, and so we've invited 53 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:23,800 Speaker 1: our frequent guest host, Kelly were Smith to join as Kelly, 54 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:26,399 Speaker 1: thanks very much for coming on the pot again. I'm 55 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:30,000 Speaker 1: excited to be here to cook up brain snacks with you, Daniel. 56 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,520 Speaker 1: One of the most amazing things to me about brain 57 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:37,080 Speaker 1: snacks and real snacks. Is that when we look out 58 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:39,600 Speaker 1: in the universe, there's such a huge variety of them. 59 00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:41,720 Speaker 1: We're lucky to get to eat lots of different kinds 60 00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:43,560 Speaker 1: of things when we live. You know, so many different 61 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:47,600 Speaker 1: kind of fruits and vegetables and pastries filled with incredible stuff. 62 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:49,520 Speaker 1: But also just as you look out in the universe, 63 00:03:49,520 --> 00:03:52,840 Speaker 1: there's just a lot of different kinds of stuff out there. 64 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:56,120 Speaker 1: I mean there's like blueberries and plants and bushrooms and 65 00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:59,119 Speaker 1: iPhones and exploding stars. And you know, if you're trying 66 00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:01,240 Speaker 1: to tackle the quest and of like what's out there 67 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:02,960 Speaker 1: in the universe and how do we make sense of it, 68 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:06,040 Speaker 1: there's a lot of different kinds of things to make 69 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:09,000 Speaker 1: sense of, right, so much different kinds of things to 70 00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:11,120 Speaker 1: make sense of. Yes, and as people who have just 71 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:14,800 Speaker 1: started gardening, the like production of those things is mind blowing, 72 00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:17,960 Speaker 1: Like the facts that are chrome soil produces spicy peppers. 73 00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:22,640 Speaker 1: How does that happen? It is incredible that we have 74 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,960 Speaker 1: these little biological machines for assembling spicy peppers basically out 75 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:30,920 Speaker 1: of dirt, sunlight and air. Right, amazing chemistry done by 76 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:34,160 Speaker 1: those plants. Yes, it is amazing. And at the same time, 77 00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:37,880 Speaker 1: the universe at its smallest level, Like the tiniest little 78 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:40,080 Speaker 1: bits that I study in my research seemed to be 79 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:43,080 Speaker 1: fairly small in number. I mean, there's just like a 80 00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:46,800 Speaker 1: few particles that make up everything. We know. You boil 81 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:51,360 Speaker 1: down those peppers or your lunch or your husband into particles, 82 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:54,240 Speaker 1: then you get a hundred elements, right, that basically make 83 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:58,600 Speaker 1: up everything. You tear those apart into protons and neutrons 84 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:01,680 Speaker 1: and electrons, and you hair the protons and neutrons apart, 85 00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:04,200 Speaker 1: and you're down to just like up corks and down 86 00:05:04,279 --> 00:05:08,600 Speaker 1: corks and electrons. With those three things, you can basically 87 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:11,720 Speaker 1: put together everything. So it's a natural sort of philosophical 88 00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:16,400 Speaker 1: puzzle to understand, Like where does complexity arise? Why isn't 89 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:19,320 Speaker 1: the universe just a bunch of really simple combinations of 90 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:22,080 Speaker 1: these tiny little bits. Why is it possible to make 91 00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:25,520 Speaker 1: all sorts of complicated things like kittens and husbands and pies. 92 00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:29,120 Speaker 1: I'm a little concerned that you suggested boiling down my husband, 93 00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:31,280 Speaker 1: but I'm interested in the topics, so I'm going to 94 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:34,600 Speaker 1: move forward with you here. It's just a thought experiment, right, 95 00:05:34,640 --> 00:05:37,800 Speaker 1: It's definitely a thought experiment. Nobody should try that at home, 96 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:41,040 Speaker 1: either with kittens or husbands. But you know, kittens and 97 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:44,839 Speaker 1: husbands and lava do have something really fascinating in common, 98 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:48,160 Speaker 1: which is that they're made of the same ingredients. You know, 99 00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:51,680 Speaker 1: if you take a kilogram of lava and a kilogram 100 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:55,520 Speaker 1: of flower, for example, that's only used non living examples 101 00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:58,159 Speaker 1: for now, then they're made of the same bits, the 102 00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:00,520 Speaker 1: same up corks and down corks and elect drowns, just 103 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:04,039 Speaker 1: put together in different ways. Even if you think about 104 00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:07,039 Speaker 1: like different elements, different atoms, they're just made out of 105 00:06:07,080 --> 00:06:10,560 Speaker 1: different numbers of protons and neutrons, but they basically all 106 00:06:10,600 --> 00:06:13,840 Speaker 1: have the same ratio of one proton to one neutron 107 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:16,680 Speaker 1: to one electron. There's not a lot of variation from 108 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 1: that in the periodic table, and so everything is just 109 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:22,040 Speaker 1: different arrangements of the same stuff. And so by the 110 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:25,080 Speaker 1: end of this podcast, I'd like to have a physicists 111 00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:29,760 Speaker 1: understanding of Carl Sagan's were all star stuff statements? Are 112 00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:31,039 Speaker 1: you going to give me that by the end of 113 00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:32,880 Speaker 1: this episode. By the end of the episode, I'm going 114 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:35,320 Speaker 1: to give you a recipe to make literally anything in 115 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:38,920 Speaker 1: your kitchen. Start with upcuorks and down corks at electrons 116 00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:41,960 Speaker 1: and you're done. There you go. That's how particle physicists cook, 117 00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:44,480 Speaker 1: you know, like it's it's some sort of crazy artistic 118 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:48,560 Speaker 1: license that all cookbooks don't start at the quarks stage. 119 00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:50,839 Speaker 1: But what are you going to do with these authors? 120 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:53,520 Speaker 1: But it is amazing how many different things you can 121 00:06:53,600 --> 00:06:56,599 Speaker 1: make out of these basic ingredients, right, It's incredible the 122 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:59,039 Speaker 1: complexity that we see out there in the universe, and 123 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:02,840 Speaker 1: not even just the biological complexity, but the chemical complexity 124 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:05,479 Speaker 1: and the physical complexity. You know, if you started with 125 00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:09,720 Speaker 1: basic ingredients in your lego set, you can build essentially anything. Right. 126 00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:13,000 Speaker 1: Having a small number of building blocks but lots of 127 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:15,760 Speaker 1: different ways to assemble them does allow you to introduce 128 00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:19,680 Speaker 1: complexity in the arrangement. But philosophically, it's fascinating to think 129 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:22,760 Speaker 1: about what makes you you and what makes lava lava 130 00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:25,720 Speaker 1: is not the particles that you are made out of, 131 00:07:25,760 --> 00:07:28,480 Speaker 1: but just how they are put together. That means that, 132 00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:32,520 Speaker 1: like the information the units of you is somehow just 133 00:07:32,680 --> 00:07:35,840 Speaker 1: in the relationship between particles, which makes it seem sort 134 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,920 Speaker 1: of like ineffable. I'd like to imagine that I'm built 135 00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:40,840 Speaker 1: out of bits of Daniel and you're built out a 136 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:43,480 Speaker 1: bit of Kelly, but you're not the Kelly. Noess is 137 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:46,120 Speaker 1: really just how those same pieces are put together, and 138 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:48,400 Speaker 1: you could have put them together to make somebody else. 139 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:52,080 Speaker 1: So I feel like the choice of your example matters 140 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:55,160 Speaker 1: so much and whether the story is uplifting or not. So, 141 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:56,840 Speaker 1: you know, when you were like, bits of Kelly are 142 00:07:56,840 --> 00:07:59,360 Speaker 1: sort of like lava, I'm like, oh, that's that's kind 143 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:02,200 Speaker 1: of a downer. But you know, like as a biologist, 144 00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:04,160 Speaker 1: if you're like, oh, the bird in the sky you 145 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:06,720 Speaker 1: share bits with that, that's sort of a beautiful idea, 146 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:09,440 Speaker 1: although maybe a geologist would be like, tone it down, Kelly, 147 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:11,600 Speaker 1: Lava is great. Yeah, you'd like to be compared to 148 00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:13,920 Speaker 1: a pigeon rather than lava. I mean, pigeons are basically 149 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:17,080 Speaker 1: sky rats. You know. Rosemary Moscow wrote a great book 150 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,600 Speaker 1: on pigeons recently and turns me around on pigeons, and so, yes, 151 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,240 Speaker 1: I'm fine with being a pigeon. I love rats, though 152 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,080 Speaker 1: I don't say sky rats as a negative description. You know, 153 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:28,800 Speaker 1: we used to have rats living with us. They're wonderful pets, 154 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,080 Speaker 1: very smart. So I'm also pro pigeons, but I gotta 155 00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:33,560 Speaker 1: say I'd rather be compared to lava. Lava is definitely 156 00:08:33,559 --> 00:08:36,679 Speaker 1: hotter than pigeons, and that's the measure for goodness in 157 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:40,240 Speaker 1: your life. What has the highest temperature? Hey, you gotta 158 00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:43,000 Speaker 1: go with some quantifiable metric, right, So does it make 159 00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:46,880 Speaker 1: the sun the best? The Sun is pretty cool? Actually, 160 00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:49,440 Speaker 1: you know, there are definitely hotter things in the universe, 161 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:52,720 Speaker 1: the interiors of new drawn stars, for example, cork gluon 162 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:55,840 Speaker 1: plasmas created the large Hadron collider, or hotter than the 163 00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:59,000 Speaker 1: center or the service of the Sun. So maybe that 164 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:02,160 Speaker 1: should be my point of reference. Perhaps, perhaps, But today 165 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,240 Speaker 1: we are not interested in diving deep to understand the 166 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:09,240 Speaker 1: core fundamental nature of reality and its materials, tearing apart 167 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:11,760 Speaker 1: the upcork and down cork into the basic bits that 168 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:13,440 Speaker 1: they might be made out of. We're going to do 169 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:15,360 Speaker 1: something a little different. We're going to take a step 170 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:18,920 Speaker 1: back and try to understand how those things come together 171 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:22,560 Speaker 1: to make the amazing complexity and variety that we do 172 00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:26,240 Speaker 1: see in our universe. Because even if the elements of 173 00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:30,240 Speaker 1: the periodic table are not a fundamental description of the universe, 174 00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:33,439 Speaker 1: there are pretty important part of our lives. You get 175 00:09:33,480 --> 00:09:35,960 Speaker 1: too much mercury in your breakfast, cereal your life is 176 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,280 Speaker 1: going to be different. You are built out of carbon 177 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:42,000 Speaker 1: and you breathe oxygen. These things are important to understanding 178 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:44,920 Speaker 1: how life starts in the universe and where life can 179 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:46,920 Speaker 1: go if it wants to move to different places in 180 00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:50,400 Speaker 1: the universe, exactly. And so if you're interested in building kittens, 181 00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:54,400 Speaker 1: or baking pies or assembling podcast hosts, then you want 182 00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,040 Speaker 1: to know where you can find the ingredients. And so 183 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:00,440 Speaker 1: today on the podcast, we'll be answering exactly that question. 184 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:09,120 Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about what elements are most common 185 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:12,120 Speaker 1: in the universe. And we said a minute ago that 186 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:14,880 Speaker 1: everything is made out of up corks and down corks 187 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:16,880 Speaker 1: and electrons, and so you might get the sense that 188 00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:20,080 Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter, but there is an important categorization here. 189 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:22,800 Speaker 1: When you put the upcorks and down corks together to 190 00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:26,000 Speaker 1: make protons and neutrons, and you put those together to 191 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:29,360 Speaker 1: make elements, we tend to count those by the number 192 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:33,080 Speaker 1: of protons inside the nucleus. Right, So if you have 193 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:36,880 Speaker 1: just like a proton with one electron around it, that's hydrogen. 194 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:39,320 Speaker 1: You can add a neutron to it. You still call 195 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:41,959 Speaker 1: that hydrogen, right, it's a little bit different. You've added 196 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:44,840 Speaker 1: a neutron, but you still call it hydrogen. It's like, 197 00:10:44,920 --> 00:10:49,000 Speaker 1: neutrons aren't as important as the proton and the electron, 198 00:10:49,080 --> 00:10:51,240 Speaker 1: but if you add another proton to it, then boom, 199 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:54,880 Speaker 1: it's another element. It's helium because now in order to 200 00:10:54,880 --> 00:10:58,120 Speaker 1: make it neutral, you also need another electron. And that's 201 00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:01,120 Speaker 1: the key. The reason that we count things as different 202 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:03,760 Speaker 1: elements when you add a proton but not a neutron, 203 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:06,240 Speaker 1: is that you also have to add that electron, and 204 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 1: that change is fundamentally the chemical behavior of the thing 205 00:11:10,160 --> 00:11:13,160 Speaker 1: in a dramatic way, because now the bonds that conform 206 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,720 Speaker 1: are different, and its reactivity and whether it emits light 207 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:19,000 Speaker 1: or absorbs, like whether it likes to stick to stuff 208 00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:22,160 Speaker 1: or not, really changes. And so while like hydrogen and 209 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,760 Speaker 1: deuterium are different, adding a neutron to that proton does 210 00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:28,840 Speaker 1: change it, it's not as big a change as adding 211 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:31,199 Speaker 1: a proton. So we tend to categorize this stuff in 212 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:34,079 Speaker 1: the universe by the number of protons in the nucleus. 213 00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:36,400 Speaker 1: So it's adding another proton means you have to get 214 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:40,120 Speaker 1: another electron. Why don't we categorize things by the number 215 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:44,000 Speaker 1: of electrons that are in there? A great unanswered question 216 00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:47,080 Speaker 1: in the history of science. I think it's probably because 217 00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:50,959 Speaker 1: protons are more massive, and so we used to before 218 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:54,120 Speaker 1: we understood what was inside these things, we used to 219 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:58,160 Speaker 1: categorize these things by atomic mass, just like how heavy 220 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:01,199 Speaker 1: is a mole of these atoms, and that's account of 221 00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:04,480 Speaker 1: the number of protons and neutrons together, and so all 222 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:06,800 Speaker 1: we could measure was sort of the atomic mass and 223 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:09,480 Speaker 1: the overall charge. So I think it probably comes down 224 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:11,760 Speaker 1: just to a bias in terms of the protons because 225 00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:14,880 Speaker 1: they're heavier and they also contribute to the atomic mass. 226 00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:18,200 Speaker 1: But you know, the pro electron folks have a good argument, 227 00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:21,640 Speaker 1: Oh that is that still a live debate. No. I 228 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:24,320 Speaker 1: would like to imagine that there's like an ancient Victorian 229 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,280 Speaker 1: society out there that feels like electrons have been overlooked, 230 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:29,200 Speaker 1: got it? And I mean, I'm sure there's still somebody. 231 00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:32,560 Speaker 1: Everyone's got their thing. But the fascinating thing when you 232 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:35,240 Speaker 1: look out into the universe is that we don't see 233 00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:37,920 Speaker 1: all of these elements in equal numbers. You don't have 234 00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:41,000 Speaker 1: as much uranium in the universe as you do nickel, 235 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:44,400 Speaker 1: or as much nickel as you do hydrogen, for example. 236 00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:47,840 Speaker 1: And understanding where all these things come from, requires you 237 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:49,920 Speaker 1: to do a deep dive into the history of the 238 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:53,840 Speaker 1: universe itself and to understand how all of these things 239 00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:56,720 Speaker 1: come together. What engines there are out there in the 240 00:12:56,800 --> 00:13:01,440 Speaker 1: universe capable of manufacturing these cre easy elements. Let's see 241 00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:04,480 Speaker 1: what the audience thought. The answer was yes, So as usual, 242 00:13:04,520 --> 00:13:07,120 Speaker 1: I went out there to our cadre of volunteers to 243 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:10,280 Speaker 1: ask them if they knew what the most common elements 244 00:13:10,360 --> 00:13:13,200 Speaker 1: in the universe were. If you like to participate in 245 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:18,000 Speaker 1: this segment of the podcast and contribute your uneducated speculation 246 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:21,480 Speaker 1: for our entertainment purposes only, then please write to me 247 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:24,880 Speaker 1: two questions at Daniel and Jorgey dot com. We'd love 248 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:27,480 Speaker 1: to hear your voice on the podcast. So think about 249 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:29,960 Speaker 1: it for a minute. Do you know which elements are 250 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:33,640 Speaker 1: most common in the universe? Here's with some of our 251 00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:35,720 Speaker 1: listeners had to say. First of all, I have a 252 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:39,360 Speaker 1: fundamental lack of understanding of the periodic table and what 253 00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:44,160 Speaker 1: an element actually is. But let I guess hydrogen and 254 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:47,800 Speaker 1: maybe helium. I don't know. I think hydrogen is the 255 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:51,120 Speaker 1: most common that's kind of everywhere because it's the one 256 00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:54,920 Speaker 1: with it's you know, it's number one on the periodic 257 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:57,319 Speaker 1: table when it's absolutely everywhere, and I think the next 258 00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:00,360 Speaker 1: one is helium, which is number two. AT don't if 259 00:14:00,360 --> 00:14:03,040 Speaker 1: it then continues, and I know that as atoms get 260 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:06,080 Speaker 1: more protons and neutrons and they get heavier, they become 261 00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:09,679 Speaker 1: less common, I think, but definitely hydrogen. I think it's 262 00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:12,640 Speaker 1: dark marter. I don't know if it's really an element 263 00:14:12,800 --> 00:14:15,920 Speaker 1: that you are thinking about. What's the definition of an 264 00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:18,800 Speaker 1: element in that case? I don't know. The most common 265 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:23,120 Speaker 1: elements in the universe is hydrogen, and because of the 266 00:14:23,160 --> 00:14:27,640 Speaker 1: way fusion works, I think after that is helium. If 267 00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:31,360 Speaker 1: I remember correctly, I think the most abundant elements in 268 00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:36,600 Speaker 1: the universe is hydrogen, helium, and oxygen and maybe carbon. 269 00:14:37,280 --> 00:14:40,160 Speaker 1: So basically just a few elements on top of the 270 00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:47,320 Speaker 1: periodic table. The most common universe should be hydrogen and helium. 271 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:53,080 Speaker 1: But hydrogen by far and oxygen too added then that 272 00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:58,280 Speaker 1: is dark mellon element. We don't know, but that should 273 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:01,840 Speaker 1: be the top three elements. Stuff we know, and we're 274 00:15:01,880 --> 00:15:04,440 Speaker 1: getting direct with I think in terms of all the 275 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,240 Speaker 1: question and answer sessions that I've been around for on 276 00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:09,360 Speaker 1: this podcast, this is the one that had the most 277 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:13,640 Speaker 1: consistency in the answers, it seems like most people you 278 00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:17,000 Speaker 1: know argued it was hydrogen, followed by helium. But then 279 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:19,440 Speaker 1: there was some question about dark matter and whether it 280 00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:22,960 Speaker 1: counts as an element or not, and I think that 281 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:25,920 Speaker 1: the answer is no. But yeah, what did you think 282 00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:28,520 Speaker 1: of these answers? Yeah, I was very glad to see 283 00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:31,840 Speaker 1: that everybody knew the basic story that hydrogen is the 284 00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:34,520 Speaker 1: most common thing out there, and we even heard some 285 00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:37,360 Speaker 1: ideas about why and how these things are made, and 286 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:39,480 Speaker 1: so I was very pleased to hear that. I also 287 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:42,400 Speaker 1: love the legalistic loophole of like, dark matter, is that 288 00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:44,680 Speaker 1: a thing? Is that an element? Does that count? When 289 00:15:44,720 --> 00:15:46,720 Speaker 1: you really ask me, is this a trick question? There's 290 00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:50,120 Speaker 1: a little bit of paranoia there. Is he trying to 291 00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:51,920 Speaker 1: kill me? That's the other question I think when I 292 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,840 Speaker 1: talked to you exactly, because it's important to remember that 293 00:15:54,920 --> 00:15:57,720 Speaker 1: when we talk about elements, we're talking about atomic matter. 294 00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:00,640 Speaker 1: We're talking about things made out of adam. But in 295 00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:04,520 Speaker 1: the larger accounting of the universe, atomic matter is less 296 00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:08,520 Speaker 1: than five percent of the energy density of the universe. 297 00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:10,800 Speaker 1: If you take like a cubic light year of the 298 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:14,000 Speaker 1: universe and you add of all of the energy in there, 299 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:17,560 Speaker 1: then like seventy percent of the energy in that chunk 300 00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:21,000 Speaker 1: of the universe is devoted to dark energy, which contributes 301 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,520 Speaker 1: to the accelerating expansion of the universe. Something like twenty 302 00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:27,920 Speaker 1: five percent is dark matter, some weird kind of stuff 303 00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:31,280 Speaker 1: that's out there, but it's invisible and almost intangible, so 304 00:16:31,280 --> 00:16:33,840 Speaker 1: it's hard to know exactly what it's made out of. 305 00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:35,920 Speaker 1: And the rest of it. This five percent is the 306 00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:38,040 Speaker 1: kind of stuff we're talking about today that I'm made 307 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:39,600 Speaker 1: out of, and you are made out of, and kittens 308 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:42,040 Speaker 1: are made out of, and pastry crusts are made out of. 309 00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:45,960 Speaker 1: Atomic matter. Things build out of protons, neutrons, and electrons, 310 00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:49,720 Speaker 1: and in understanding what flavor of those elements we have 311 00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:51,720 Speaker 1: and in what proportion, we're gonna understand a lot about 312 00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:53,440 Speaker 1: the history of the universe and also the role that 313 00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:56,440 Speaker 1: dark matter played in shaping this universe. Even though we 314 00:16:56,480 --> 00:17:00,120 Speaker 1: currently don't think that dark matter itself is made of atoms, 315 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,720 Speaker 1: so that means it doesn't have any quarks, so like 316 00:17:02,760 --> 00:17:05,720 Speaker 1: even one level lower dark matter doesn't have that either. Yeah, 317 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:07,840 Speaker 1: we think that dark matter is made of something else, 318 00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:11,919 Speaker 1: not quarks, not electrons, something totally different. And weird a 319 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:16,200 Speaker 1: completely different kind of particle, or maybe not even a particle, 320 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:20,280 Speaker 1: or maybe many different kinds of particles, or maybe tiny 321 00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:22,880 Speaker 1: cosmic kittens. I mean, we're kind of a little bit clueless. 322 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:25,879 Speaker 1: You might get the sense I'm hoping for the cosmic kittens. 323 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:29,879 Speaker 1: So you mentioned hydrogen is the most common thing in 324 00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:32,720 Speaker 1: the universe by atoms or that we're gonna be talking 325 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:36,240 Speaker 1: about today. Where is that coming from? And hydrogen is 326 00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:38,320 Speaker 1: the most common thing in the universe, and it's not 327 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,600 Speaker 1: even close, like not even a little bit. It's a 328 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:45,399 Speaker 1: pretty good approximation to say the universe is hydrogen. If 329 00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:47,600 Speaker 1: you just said everything in the universe was hydrogen, you'd 330 00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:51,560 Speaker 1: be getting correct, which is, hey, that's an a right, 331 00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:54,080 Speaker 1: So you can just like move on. That's your description 332 00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,080 Speaker 1: of the universe. You're done. You're satisfied with your grade. 333 00:17:57,160 --> 00:17:59,720 Speaker 1: So that means that like, of the atoms that exist 334 00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:04,120 Speaker 1: in the universe, of them have only a single proton, right, 335 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:07,880 Speaker 1: And it's incredible, like most of the universe hydrogen. It's 336 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:10,040 Speaker 1: really just a tiny little bit Like the rest of 337 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:12,600 Speaker 1: the universe is just like the spice in the recipe, 338 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:15,200 Speaker 1: and so like, as a biologist always think about parsimony, 339 00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:16,960 Speaker 1: and so to me, I feel like, well, maybe that 340 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,240 Speaker 1: makes sense because like the one proton doesn't need to 341 00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:21,399 Speaker 1: find anything else or bind up with anything else, and 342 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:24,720 Speaker 1: so maybe just like it's easiest to get one proton 343 00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:27,199 Speaker 1: and that's why you've got a lot of it. But 344 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:29,480 Speaker 1: that's not the answer at all, is it. No, that's 345 00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,679 Speaker 1: actually exactly the answer, right. It's the simplest thing you 346 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:35,520 Speaker 1: can do with these particles that is stable. And so 347 00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:37,719 Speaker 1: the critical thing to understand is like, well, where do 348 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:40,560 Speaker 1: any elements come from? You know, are they just like 349 00:18:40,680 --> 00:18:43,360 Speaker 1: created during the Big Bang or the same level? How 350 00:18:43,359 --> 00:18:45,800 Speaker 1: does this actually come together? How do you make elements 351 00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:49,040 Speaker 1: from the sort of early universe cosmic soup? Where do 352 00:18:49,119 --> 00:18:52,440 Speaker 1: they emerge? And so in understanding that story, you'll understand 353 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:57,000 Speaker 1: very quickly why basically almost all started as hydrogen and so, 354 00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:59,480 Speaker 1: you know, going way back to the very very beginning, 355 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:03,080 Speaker 1: before they was any atoms, any even corks, any elements 356 00:19:03,119 --> 00:19:06,440 Speaker 1: at all. Go back to like the pre Big Bang, right, 357 00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:09,239 Speaker 1: what was the universe at the very very beginning, Well, 358 00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:12,000 Speaker 1: there was some hot and dense state something. We don't 359 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:14,239 Speaker 1: know what it was really at all, We just know 360 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:16,080 Speaker 1: that it had a lot of energy, and it was 361 00:19:16,119 --> 00:19:19,040 Speaker 1: hot and dense. And a common misperception about the Big 362 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:22,119 Speaker 1: Bang is that it was already like a tiny dot 363 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:26,200 Speaker 1: of stuff which then exploded out into the universe. But instead, 364 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:28,600 Speaker 1: the modern perception of the sort of pre Big Bang 365 00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:32,159 Speaker 1: early universe is that the universe was already filled with stuff. 366 00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:34,800 Speaker 1: It wasn't like mostly empty space with a tiny dot 367 00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:37,920 Speaker 1: which then exploded. Was filled with this hot, dense stuff 368 00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:41,720 Speaker 1: which then expanded and cooled rapidly. So the temperature is 369 00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:44,760 Speaker 1: dropping as space is expanding, So you should think the 370 00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:47,359 Speaker 1: Big Bang is sort of happening everywhere all at once, 371 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:49,920 Speaker 1: not from a tiny little dot. And this is why 372 00:19:50,119 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 1: I worry about teaching my eight year old anything, because 373 00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:55,159 Speaker 1: I swear when I was in high school, I watched 374 00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:58,120 Speaker 1: a video where like started as a dot and it exploded, 375 00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:01,480 Speaker 1: and you just blew my mind that it wasn't that 376 00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:04,160 Speaker 1: and that matter was everywhere. And now I feel like, 377 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:06,480 Speaker 1: how many other things that I learned in high school 378 00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:09,360 Speaker 1: are not the way we view things anymore. And anyway 379 00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:11,440 Speaker 1: you blew in my mind, let's move on. There's a 380 00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:13,280 Speaker 1: lot of misperception about that, and part of that is 381 00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,399 Speaker 1: because the whole idea of the Big Bang has evolved. 382 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,080 Speaker 1: Now we think of Big Bang is sort of like 383 00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:20,280 Speaker 1: the inflationary epic. We have some of the sort of 384 00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:23,359 Speaker 1: like question mark, hot dense stuff which then expanded very 385 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:26,480 Speaker 1: very rapidly via cosmic inflation. And for those of you 386 00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,760 Speaker 1: interested in more details on about exactly how that happened 387 00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:31,639 Speaker 1: what we do and don't know about that, check out 388 00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:34,520 Speaker 1: our episode called Did this Particle Create the Big Bang? 389 00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,240 Speaker 1: Which goes into detail about some theories about what might 390 00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: have caused that. Anyway, you have this hot, dense question 391 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,480 Speaker 1: mark stuff, and then it gets less hot and less 392 00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:45,280 Speaker 1: dense as things cool. Right now, we talk a lot 393 00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:47,680 Speaker 1: on the podcast about what space is, and we say 394 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:51,359 Speaker 1: that space is filled with quantum fields. Right, You have 395 00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:53,560 Speaker 1: a unit of space that has quantum fields in it, 396 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:55,879 Speaker 1: like a field for the electron and a field for 397 00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,479 Speaker 1: the cork, and of field for the photons, right, and 398 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:02,040 Speaker 1: particles are just like apples in those fields. Now, you 399 00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:04,800 Speaker 1: go back to the very very early universe, everything was 400 00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:08,280 Speaker 1: so hot and so dense and so filled with energy 401 00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:10,879 Speaker 1: that it doesn't even really make sense to talk about 402 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:14,280 Speaker 1: particles yet. It's like looking at the ocean and asking, like, 403 00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:16,800 Speaker 1: are there any drops in the ocean and you say, like, no, 404 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:19,280 Speaker 1: it's just sort of like filled with water. In the 405 00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:22,800 Speaker 1: same way, these quantum fields were so energized because everything 406 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:25,400 Speaker 1: was so hot and dense that the concept of a particle, 407 00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,159 Speaker 1: like a little localized packet of energy moving through the 408 00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:31,720 Speaker 1: universe doesn't really make sense, just like the wrong phase 409 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,560 Speaker 1: of the universe. And it wasn't until a little bit 410 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,280 Speaker 1: later after like ten to the minus thirty two seconds, 411 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:41,000 Speaker 1: that things cooled down enough that you could say, here's 412 00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,680 Speaker 1: a particle. There's a particle. There's a particle. So that's 413 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:48,040 Speaker 1: when like corks and gluons and photons and dark matter 414 00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:52,439 Speaker 1: all emerged from this early universe question mark stuff. So 415 00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:55,520 Speaker 1: the thing that triggered that then was cooling. So first 416 00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:58,840 Speaker 1: year have everything mixed up and they start separating when 417 00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:02,680 Speaker 1: it's cooling, and the cooling started just because time had 418 00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:05,359 Speaker 1: passed and things cool with time. Is that right? Or 419 00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:11,760 Speaker 1: did something trigger the movement from homogeneous whatever to like 420 00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:15,120 Speaker 1: specific things. It's the expansion that's the key. So space 421 00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:18,960 Speaker 1: is expanding, inflation is pulling space apart, and the same 422 00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,320 Speaker 1: process is happening right now. The universe is expanding. Currently 423 00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:25,639 Speaker 1: we call it dark energy, where space is making more space. 424 00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:28,040 Speaker 1: So between the atoms and your body, and between the 425 00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:31,000 Speaker 1: Earth and the Sun, and between our galaxy and other galaxies, 426 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:34,560 Speaker 1: space is producing new chunks of space, so distances between 427 00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:37,080 Speaker 1: stuff is increasing. We don't understand why it's doing that 428 00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:38,920 Speaker 1: or how it's doing that. But in the very early 429 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,080 Speaker 1: universe a very similar process happened, but much more dramatic 430 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,680 Speaker 1: and much faster. And so this expansion then cools everything down. 431 00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:49,879 Speaker 1: So the overall arc of history of the universe is 432 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:53,120 Speaker 1: start very hot and dense and then cool and expand 433 00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:56,520 Speaker 1: and become less dense and more dilute. And as that happens, 434 00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,520 Speaker 1: we sort of like move through different temperature regions, we 435 00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:01,440 Speaker 1: get differ and sort of effects, you know, the same 436 00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:03,560 Speaker 1: way like you have a gas and then a liquid 437 00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,560 Speaker 1: and a solid. We have different phases of matter. We 438 00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:09,199 Speaker 1: had different phases of sort of the physical laws of 439 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,399 Speaker 1: the universe when it made sense to talk about the 440 00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:14,640 Speaker 1: universe in different ways. So only when things cooled down 441 00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,480 Speaker 1: enough could we even like talk about particles as phenomena 442 00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,240 Speaker 1: in quantum fields. So that went on for like ten 443 00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:24,760 Speaker 1: to the mine is twelve seconds, and then things kept cooling, 444 00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:28,400 Speaker 1: and the Higgs field is really weird field that interacts 445 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:30,800 Speaker 1: with the particles and gives them mass. It cooled down 446 00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:32,639 Speaker 1: and sort of got stuck on a shelf, and we 447 00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:34,879 Speaker 1: talked about this in several episodes, how the Higgs field 448 00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,600 Speaker 1: is very weird because it doesn't relax down as much 449 00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,439 Speaker 1: as other fields, and that sort of stuck in a 450 00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:41,840 Speaker 1: high potential and it has a lot of energy stored 451 00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,280 Speaker 1: in it, and that's what gives a lot of particles mass. 452 00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:46,040 Speaker 1: We have a bunch of episodes on the Higgs boson 453 00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:48,160 Speaker 1: if you want to learn more details about that. So 454 00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,680 Speaker 1: here the particles now get mass. So you have the 455 00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,320 Speaker 1: quarks and the electrons. They used ton't have no mass, 456 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,600 Speaker 1: now they do have mass. So the universe still has 457 00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,720 Speaker 1: no protons in it, but now it has like quarks 458 00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,600 Speaker 1: and electrons and gluons in this big hot suit called 459 00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:07,400 Speaker 1: cork gluon plasma. And we also have a whole episode 460 00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,560 Speaker 1: about what that is and how people make it at 461 00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:12,160 Speaker 1: a large change on collider to study the early universe. 462 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,080 Speaker 1: So saying, you know, this happened at tend to the 463 00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:16,159 Speaker 1: negative thirty two seconds, and this other thing happened at 464 00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:18,800 Speaker 1: tend to the negative twelve seconds, Like, those are really 465 00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:22,400 Speaker 1: short time periods. Right to the negative something means that 466 00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:24,840 Speaker 1: many zeros after the decimal, right, So how do we 467 00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,520 Speaker 1: figure out down to that level of precision? Is that 468 00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:30,200 Speaker 1: too off course to be asking that question. No, it's 469 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,760 Speaker 1: a great question. How well do we know these numbers? 470 00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,679 Speaker 1: We don't know them very well at all. All of 471 00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:37,920 Speaker 1: these come out of sort of our models for we 472 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,720 Speaker 1: think happened, and of these huge question marks here we 473 00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:42,920 Speaker 1: could be off by, you know, big factors. So this 474 00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:45,760 Speaker 1: is sort of the current understanding, and so we should 475 00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,440 Speaker 1: put like big uncertainties on these numbers. For sure, it 476 00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:50,879 Speaker 1: couldn't have taken like a million years, because what happened 477 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,679 Speaker 1: in the very early universe crystallized very quickly and it 478 00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,200 Speaker 1: has long term impacts on the rest of the universe 479 00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,840 Speaker 1: as we'll see. So we're pretty sure that this stuff 480 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,080 Speaker 1: been very very quickly. That the specific numbers are a 481 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,280 Speaker 1: little fuzzy, all right. So in like the blink of 482 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,399 Speaker 1: an eye, we've got quarks but not yet protons exactly, 483 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,720 Speaker 1: And so it's too hot for protons to form, Like 484 00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,320 Speaker 1: there's just too much energy because what is a proton? 485 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,520 Speaker 1: You have three quarks, and they're bound together by the gluons. 486 00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,119 Speaker 1: But protons can get broken up, right, if you smash 487 00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,760 Speaker 1: them together, you put enough energy into your collider, you 488 00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:24,639 Speaker 1: can break them up. If you heat up the whole universe, 489 00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,040 Speaker 1: then protons sort of melt into their constituents, right, And 490 00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,160 Speaker 1: so what you need to do to make protons form 491 00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:32,439 Speaker 1: is you need the universe to cool down even further. 492 00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,800 Speaker 1: So then like ten to the minus six seconds, then 493 00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,960 Speaker 1: protons formed. The universe was now too cold for quarks 494 00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,600 Speaker 1: and gluons to just like fly around in this plasma, 495 00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:45,119 Speaker 1: and so that cooled down, and then you've got hadrons, 496 00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,120 Speaker 1: you've got protons, and you've got neutrons, and you have electrons, 497 00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:53,040 Speaker 1: and that's basically hydrogen. Right. Remember that protons are hydrogen. 498 00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,199 Speaker 1: Astronomers don't really care if there's an electron on it 499 00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,080 Speaker 1: or not. If there's a proton there, they call that hydrogen. 500 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,119 Speaker 1: So that was the birth of hydrogen. Ten of the 501 00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:05,960 Speaker 1: minus six seconds into the universe. Hydrogen was born. So 502 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,920 Speaker 1: does that mean that hydrogen is also the first element 503 00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,639 Speaker 1: that was ever made or just the most abundant that 504 00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:13,760 Speaker 1: was made at this point? I think both of those 505 00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,119 Speaker 1: things are true. Hydrogen was the first element made and 506 00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:19,800 Speaker 1: the most abundant, and in the next few seconds you'll 507 00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:22,400 Speaker 1: see that a little bit of other stuff was made 508 00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,520 Speaker 1: in this sort of like ending days of the Big Bang, 509 00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,800 Speaker 1: But basically it just formed huge amounts of hydrogen. That 510 00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,399 Speaker 1: also means that all the hydrogen in the universe is 511 00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,520 Speaker 1: super duper old. It's been around except for the first 512 00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,760 Speaker 1: ten to the minus six seconds of the universe. It's 513 00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,240 Speaker 1: been here. All hydrogen that's in the atmosphere or in 514 00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,640 Speaker 1: the sun or in the stars, it's as old as 515 00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,919 Speaker 1: the universe except for ten to the six seconds. So 516 00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:49,560 Speaker 1: we're all old souls. We are all old souls. So 517 00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:51,920 Speaker 1: that hydrogen has been hanging out for a long time, 518 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,920 Speaker 1: and it's spent like three hundred and eighty thousand years 519 00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,359 Speaker 1: before it found its electrons, before the universe cooled even 520 00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,960 Speaker 1: further to make new trull hydrogen gas. So it's been 521 00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,800 Speaker 1: neutral hydrogen for a very, very very long time. But 522 00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,800 Speaker 1: it's been technically hydrogen since the very beginning. I guess 523 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:09,520 Speaker 1: it took so long to get the electrons because you 524 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,960 Speaker 1: needed just a whole lot more cooling before the electrons 525 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,560 Speaker 1: came around. Yeah, things were still too hot, so electrons 526 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,800 Speaker 1: had too much energy to get trapped by the protons. 527 00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,640 Speaker 1: So electrons and protons were flying around near each other, 528 00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,920 Speaker 1: but they were just moving too fast for the bonds 529 00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:26,960 Speaker 1: to form for them to pull into each other and 530 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:28,919 Speaker 1: form hydrogen. So you just to wait for the universe 531 00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,920 Speaker 1: to keep cooling until like gelled into neutral hydrogen. Well, 532 00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,040 Speaker 1: speaking of cooling, the audience is going to have to 533 00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,240 Speaker 1: cool their heels for a little while because it's time 534 00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:52,360 Speaker 1: for a break. Alright, we're back. So we talked about 535 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,879 Speaker 1: hydrogen already, which is the most abundant and the earliest 536 00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:00,560 Speaker 1: formed elements. So who takes the number two? But so 537 00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:05,320 Speaker 1: number two, no surprise is helium, right, Helium is element 538 00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,440 Speaker 1: number two. It's made out of two protons in the 539 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,760 Speaker 1: nucleus with two electrons going around it, and there's usually 540 00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,359 Speaker 1: also some number of neutrons in there. And helium is 541 00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,440 Speaker 1: seven point one percent of the universe by atoms. So 542 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,679 Speaker 1: if you just like lined up all the atoms in 543 00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:24,879 Speaker 1: the universe and counted them, helium would be about seven 544 00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,439 Speaker 1: point one percent. Remember that hydrogen is so already. In 545 00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,160 Speaker 1: hydrogen and helium together you have ninety hind point one 546 00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,240 Speaker 1: percent of all the atoms in the universe. Everything else 547 00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,440 Speaker 1: is now less than one percent of the stuff in 548 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:43,320 Speaker 1: the universe. Wow, Is it possible that there's some universe 549 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,400 Speaker 1: out there where there's more helium than hydrogen and everybody's 550 00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,640 Speaker 1: got a squeaky voice? Or you just have to always 551 00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:54,080 Speaker 1: have hydrogen first. I love thinking about that universe, and 552 00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,080 Speaker 1: I imagine for a moment maybe I would try to 553 00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:58,560 Speaker 1: do an Alvin Chipmunk voice to answer your question, and 554 00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:00,840 Speaker 1: then I realized I just couldn't do it. But it's 555 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,160 Speaker 1: a good question, because you know, where did that helium 556 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,480 Speaker 1: come from. It came from that primordial hydrogen in the 557 00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:08,360 Speaker 1: sort of ending days of the Big Bang, and its 558 00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,720 Speaker 1: immediate aftermath form that helium, and so we'll learn about 559 00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,200 Speaker 1: exactly how that happened. But it's hard to imagine converting 560 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,160 Speaker 1: a majority of the hydrogen into helium in this early 561 00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,080 Speaker 1: universe fusion process, But it might be possible. You have 562 00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,400 Speaker 1: to tweak some of the laws of physics to make 563 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,200 Speaker 1: that happen. A worthwhile endeavor, no doubt. And you know 564 00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:30,080 Speaker 1: what's funny about these elements is that astrophysicists think about 565 00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:32,920 Speaker 1: hydrogen and helium is basically most of the universe, and 566 00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,200 Speaker 1: everything else is the leftovers, which they call metals. You know, chemists, 567 00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,800 Speaker 1: when they talk about metals, they talk very specifically about 568 00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,320 Speaker 1: part of the periodic table that has you know, high 569 00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,600 Speaker 1: conductivity and is shiny. For example, the kind of things 570 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,720 Speaker 1: that you and I think of as a metal. We 571 00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:49,880 Speaker 1: don't think like oxygen as a metal. We don't think 572 00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:54,240 Speaker 1: about the cells is like breathing metal gas. But to astronomers, 573 00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,040 Speaker 1: it's hydrogen, helium and metals. Why would they do that? 574 00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,280 Speaker 1: Is it just because it's a very different process, and 575 00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,160 Speaker 1: so they want a category. Is it as something else? 576 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,040 Speaker 1: Ye As we'll see basically everything else is made after 577 00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:08,840 Speaker 1: the Big Bang inside stars, and they like to think 578 00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:12,880 Speaker 1: of stars as creating medals, and so for them, it's 579 00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,120 Speaker 1: just a totally different categorization. I think. Also it's just 580 00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,240 Speaker 1: because hydrogen helium are the big players, so they want 581 00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,320 Speaker 1: like a name for everything else, and like we often 582 00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,240 Speaker 1: do in physics, they took a name which exists and 583 00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,400 Speaker 1: means something else, and they gave it a new, confusing definition. 584 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:29,840 Speaker 1: Find that very frustrating about, y'all. So let's continue with 585 00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,440 Speaker 1: the history of the universe to understand how other stuff 586 00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:34,600 Speaker 1: was made. So we're like ten of the minus six 587 00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,320 Speaker 1: seconds into the universe. We have protons, we have electrons, 588 00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,560 Speaker 1: we have neutrons. But everything is flying around really really hot, 589 00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,080 Speaker 1: and we also have a lot of anti matter. And 590 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,000 Speaker 1: we think that in the very early universe we created matter, 591 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:52,200 Speaker 1: but we also created antimatter, so that means anti protons 592 00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,920 Speaker 1: and anti electrons. And we imagine that the Big Bang 593 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,640 Speaker 1: created this stuff in equal numbers. That when it's like 594 00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:02,880 Speaker 1: pre matter energy cooled down to create particles, it created 595 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:06,240 Speaker 1: all the particles basically in equal numbers, and so we 596 00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,280 Speaker 1: think that antimatter was created at the same rate as matter. 597 00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:12,520 Speaker 1: So then you had like big flashes of life. Because 598 00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:16,520 Speaker 1: what happens when matter hits antimatter is it annihilates. You 599 00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,840 Speaker 1: have an electron hit and anti electron also called a positron, 600 00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,680 Speaker 1: you get a photon, and so huge amounts of matter 601 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:28,120 Speaker 1: and antimatter disappeared very quickly, and a lot of photons 602 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,920 Speaker 1: were made, and so after about ten seconds of living 603 00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,560 Speaker 1: it out in a crazy particle party, the universe then 604 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:39,080 Speaker 1: became dominated by photons from matter antimatter annihilation. But if 605 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,800 Speaker 1: you're wearing the star screen that you and I started 606 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,120 Speaker 1: selling a couple of weeks ago. You'll be okay. But 607 00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,320 Speaker 1: so I'm trying to like match up the vision in 608 00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:47,880 Speaker 1: my head from when I was in high school. So 609 00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,160 Speaker 1: in that case, the light in like the video that 610 00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,800 Speaker 1: I'm remember, it was all in one center location and 611 00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:56,120 Speaker 1: then spread out. But here, like the photons being made, 612 00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,640 Speaker 1: it would be like everything would be lighting up at once, right, 613 00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:00,680 Speaker 1: it wouldn't be in one central local aation. It's all 614 00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:02,960 Speaker 1: over the place. That's right. Because we think the Big 615 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,040 Speaker 1: Bang happened everywhere. It also means there's no center to 616 00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,240 Speaker 1: the universe, not like this stuff all happens somewhere and 617 00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,800 Speaker 1: it's flying out from there. It happened everywhere. It happened here. 618 00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:15,560 Speaker 1: You are right now at the place where the Big 619 00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:19,520 Speaker 1: Bang happened. Literally right. It happened everywhere, all at once, 620 00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,560 Speaker 1: And so the whole universe was filled with matter and antimatter, 621 00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:25,360 Speaker 1: which then annihilated very rapidly. And they know the universe 622 00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,240 Speaker 1: with the enormous amounts of high energy photons flying around. 623 00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,160 Speaker 1: So we call this the radiation dominated epoch of the universe, 624 00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:34,959 Speaker 1: when most of the energy was in photons and not 625 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:37,880 Speaker 1: in like things we call matter, but there were small 626 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,360 Speaker 1: amounts of matter that were left over for reasons we 627 00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,400 Speaker 1: still don't understand. There are mysterious processes that either created 628 00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,840 Speaker 1: more matter than antimatter or preferably converted some of the 629 00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,760 Speaker 1: antimatter to matter. So it's a little bit of an imbalance, 630 00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:52,479 Speaker 1: and some matter was left over. So you end up 631 00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,880 Speaker 1: with a universe with lots of photons and a little 632 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,080 Speaker 1: bit of protons, electrons and neutrons left over all, right, 633 00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,560 Speaker 1: So then how do we get from all of those 634 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:09,000 Speaker 1: photons to having mercury? I love this phrase murdering. It 635 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:11,320 Speaker 1: makes it sound like a legal thing, like the protons 636 00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,480 Speaker 1: and the lawyers got together and they're like, let's talk 637 00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,160 Speaker 1: about the future of these particles. Well, I said, I 638 00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,040 Speaker 1: said mercury, but I prefer what you said. That what 639 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,720 Speaker 1: you said is way more interesting, So we're going with that. 640 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:24,440 Speaker 1: That's what I said. I made up a great new work. 641 00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,600 Speaker 1: You made up particle murdering. And so what happened next 642 00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:30,280 Speaker 1: is that you have a universe basically filled with hydrogen, 643 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,040 Speaker 1: and this hydrogen also with not just pure proton plust electron, 644 00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,640 Speaker 1: A lot of them had a neutron tagging along. So 645 00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,360 Speaker 1: we call this deuterium. Where do means like too? So 646 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,320 Speaker 1: you have two nucleons in their proton and a neutron 647 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:47,160 Speaker 1: surrounded by an electron, and the universe was cool enough 648 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,600 Speaker 1: to form that, but still hot enough for fusion, right, 649 00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,400 Speaker 1: So fusion is when you take two pieces of hydrogen, 650 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:57,360 Speaker 1: two protons essentially, even though they repel each other electrically, 651 00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,480 Speaker 1: because they're both positively charged, you squeeze them together. Then 652 00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,480 Speaker 1: you can form helium. And so this happens in the 653 00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:06,960 Speaker 1: heart of stars all the time, and we're trying to 654 00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,239 Speaker 1: make it happen here on Earth in fusion reactors that 655 00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,719 Speaker 1: can release energy, but it requires very high temperatures and 656 00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,360 Speaker 1: very high densities. But for a few minutes after the 657 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:19,959 Speaker 1: Big Bang of these conditions existed. So three minutes after 658 00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:23,879 Speaker 1: this unknown state expanded very very rapidly, the conditions were 659 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:28,480 Speaker 1: perfect for hydrogen fusion into helium, and that's where most 660 00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:32,160 Speaker 1: of the helium in the universe was made after three minutes. 661 00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,839 Speaker 1: So this is my monthly moment of existential dread. All 662 00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:37,960 Speaker 1: of this talk about like heating and cooling, does that 663 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,400 Speaker 1: mean that, like, if things had cooled down much faster, 664 00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,479 Speaker 1: none of this stuff would have happened, and like there's 665 00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:47,320 Speaker 1: you know we're talking about you know, ten to the 666 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,320 Speaker 1: negative thirty two seconds, like these tiny little time scales. 667 00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:53,319 Speaker 1: If the timing had been a little bit different, whit 668 00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:57,359 Speaker 1: we have never gotten the photons to join together or whatever. Well, 669 00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:59,880 Speaker 1: the things had happened much faster than we wouldn't have 670 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:01,960 Speaker 1: had as much time to make helium, so we'd have 671 00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:04,960 Speaker 1: more hydrogen in the universe. But hydrogen is sort of 672 00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,440 Speaker 1: the basic most stable thing, is sort of the inevitable endpoint. 673 00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,239 Speaker 1: If you take the universe and you cool it down, 674 00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,480 Speaker 1: you're gonna end up with hydrogen because it's got to 675 00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,160 Speaker 1: fall into up corks and down corks and electrons, and 676 00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:17,479 Speaker 1: as the universe cools, those things are going to form 677 00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,960 Speaker 1: stable objects. But it does determine how much helium you get. 678 00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,399 Speaker 1: So if you had like less time in that hot 679 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,000 Speaker 1: phase when it was perfect to make helium, you get 680 00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:29,200 Speaker 1: less helium. Also, the density of the universe controls like 681 00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,800 Speaker 1: how much helium you get, and also how much lithium 682 00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,080 Speaker 1: you get. We'll talk about that in a moment. But 683 00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,600 Speaker 1: in this early phase you also sometimes we're able to 684 00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,319 Speaker 1: few things together to get lithium right, to get the 685 00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:43,520 Speaker 1: next element. But the ratio of hydrogen and helium and 686 00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,120 Speaker 1: lithium that you get is very very sensitive to the 687 00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,920 Speaker 1: temperature and to the cork density. So by understanding like 688 00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,759 Speaker 1: how much helium and hydrogen and lithium was made in 689 00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,719 Speaker 1: the early universe, we can tell what the cork density 690 00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,600 Speaker 1: was before that. Right, we know, for example, if you 691 00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,560 Speaker 1: had higher cork density, you would have gotten a different distribution. 692 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:03,840 Speaker 1: You would have gotten more helium and more lithium. He 693 00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,319 Speaker 1: had less. Lower cork density, you would have gotten less 694 00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:08,640 Speaker 1: helium and less lithium. So what that means is that 695 00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:10,960 Speaker 1: we can account for the corks. We can say, look 696 00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:13,880 Speaker 1: out into the universe and we see the ratio hydrogen 697 00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,240 Speaker 1: and helium and lithium in the early universe. That tells 698 00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,000 Speaker 1: us about the cork density very early on. And that's 699 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,440 Speaker 1: how we know that dark matter is not made of quarks, 700 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,680 Speaker 1: because we can account for all those corks. We say, 701 00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,080 Speaker 1: we know how many corks were made very very early on. 702 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,520 Speaker 1: Those all ended up in hydrogen and helium and lithium. Therefore, 703 00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,359 Speaker 1: the dark matter that's out there can't be made out 704 00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,360 Speaker 1: of corks. It's an important part of the argument for 705 00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:39,200 Speaker 1: why we think dark matter is not made of quarks 706 00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,160 Speaker 1: and not atomic matter at all. We are very clever. 707 00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,480 Speaker 1: Apes It's really incredible, And you know the folks who 708 00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,200 Speaker 1: think about, well, maybe dark matter is this other thing, 709 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,120 Speaker 1: or maybe dark matter is a misunderstanding of gravity. This 710 00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,040 Speaker 1: is an important argument or why dark matter is matter 711 00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,440 Speaker 1: and why it's not just like dark heavy rocks floating 712 00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,160 Speaker 1: out in space that we haven't observed yet. So it's 713 00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,680 Speaker 1: really interesting how much you learn about the universe just 714 00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:06,040 Speaker 1: by understanding, like where these elements were crystallized and how 715 00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,920 Speaker 1: that process happened. That's awesome. We've talked about how you 716 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,160 Speaker 1: make helium. Are there other ways to make helium or 717 00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,760 Speaker 1: did all of it come from this moment? So helium 718 00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,280 Speaker 1: is produced in the early universe, in the Big Bang, 719 00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:20,840 Speaker 1: but also much later right like our sun is a 720 00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,120 Speaker 1: helium factory because this process we talked about where hydrogen 721 00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,680 Speaker 1: comes together to make helium. That's exactly what's happening inside 722 00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,520 Speaker 1: our star. That's why it's like hot right now outside 723 00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:35,360 Speaker 1: because the energy from hydrogen burning inside the star is 724 00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,319 Speaker 1: producing helium. You have this complicated multi step process. We 725 00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,320 Speaker 1: actually need like two hydrogen nuclei to come together to 726 00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,480 Speaker 1: make deuterium. So you have two protons come together and 727 00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,759 Speaker 1: one of them actually converts into a neutron, which then 728 00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,920 Speaker 1: becomes an element of deuterium. You have it like another 729 00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,600 Speaker 1: hydrogen comes in and you make helium three, and then 730 00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:56,040 Speaker 1: those helium three merged together and you end up with 731 00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,319 Speaker 1: helium four. So it's a complicated, multi step process. But 732 00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:02,000 Speaker 1: this is what we call hydrogen burning, and it produces 733 00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:04,560 Speaker 1: most of the energy in the cores of most of 734 00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:06,600 Speaker 1: the stars out there. So when you look out in 735 00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,560 Speaker 1: the night sky and you see all that twinkling, mostly 736 00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,280 Speaker 1: you're observing hydrogen being turned into helium. Is that fusion 737 00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,600 Speaker 1: or fusion slightly different than what you just described. That 738 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:18,960 Speaker 1: is exactly fusion that powers the stars, because you know, 739 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,759 Speaker 1: there's a long gap here. We're talking about helium made 740 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,840 Speaker 1: primordially during the Big Bang, the first three minutes of 741 00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:28,280 Speaker 1: the universe, but there were hundreds of millions of years 742 00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,520 Speaker 1: before the universe got to a place where it recreated 743 00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:34,720 Speaker 1: those conditions in the hearts of stars to make more helium, 744 00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,080 Speaker 1: because the universe was just vast clouds of hydrogen for 745 00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,600 Speaker 1: a long long time. We call these the dark ages 746 00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:44,040 Speaker 1: of the universe. Before gravity pulled those clouds together and 747 00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,239 Speaker 1: created the conditions for stars, so we could fuse this 748 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,960 Speaker 1: hydrogen together to make more helium. So the universe have 749 00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:52,520 Speaker 1: been working on that be fourteen billion years or so, 750 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,799 Speaker 1: and it still hasn't really changed the balance. You know, 751 00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,520 Speaker 1: most of the stuff out there is still just hydrogen. Wow, 752 00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,040 Speaker 1: helium doesn't usually go back to hydrogen, right, so you 753 00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:04,000 Speaker 1: still end up with that balance despite constantly turning hydrogen 754 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,160 Speaker 1: into helium exactly. We've been working on it for a 755 00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,520 Speaker 1: long time, but it's a long process, and there's so 756 00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:10,880 Speaker 1: much hydrogen out there that it's going to take a 757 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:12,920 Speaker 1: long time before we burn through it. We have an 758 00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,719 Speaker 1: episode about like how many generations of stars there will be, 759 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,560 Speaker 1: and we think the universe has like trillions of years 760 00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,440 Speaker 1: of fuel potentially to burn stars. All Right, so I 761 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:24,120 Speaker 1: can tell my kids about that because I won't scare 762 00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,759 Speaker 1: them to all Right, we've gotten hydrogen and helium, which 763 00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,239 Speaker 1: were the most common guesses from the audience. Let's take 764 00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,560 Speaker 1: a break, and then let's hear about who the runner 765 00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:48,120 Speaker 1: up is. Who's in third place? Alright, so the universe 766 00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:53,759 Speaker 1: is mostly hydrogen. Second place way far behind is helium. 767 00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,480 Speaker 1: Who's coming in third. You might think by extrapolation that 768 00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,239 Speaker 1: number three would be the element with three protons in it, 769 00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,680 Speaker 1: that you could like take helium and hydrogen infuse them 770 00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:05,880 Speaker 1: together to make lithium, which is three protons, But actually 771 00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:08,480 Speaker 1: lithium is very very rare in the universe. There only 772 00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:13,120 Speaker 1: trace amounts of lithium. Number three is actually oxygen. Oxygen 773 00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,040 Speaker 1: is the third most common element in the universe. So 774 00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:17,520 Speaker 1: we'll get to that in a minute, but let's talk 775 00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:20,800 Speaker 1: about lithium and like why it's so weird. It turns 776 00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,600 Speaker 1: out that lithium is really unstable, and so they are 777 00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,960 Speaker 1: produced in nuclear fusion, but only very briefly because they 778 00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,200 Speaker 1: basically fall apart very rapidly, So unlike helium or other stuff, 779 00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:34,320 Speaker 1: when you make lithium, it doesn't last very long. It 780 00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,360 Speaker 1: just sort of like falls back apart, and oxygen is 781 00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,440 Speaker 1: more stable. Oxygen is much more stable. So you might 782 00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,400 Speaker 1: be wondering, like, what makes something stable or not stable? 783 00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:45,439 Speaker 1: What were we talking about here? Remember that we're talking 784 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:49,640 Speaker 1: about gluing protons and neutrons together, which is complicated. It's 785 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:53,960 Speaker 1: well beyond the like chemistry of pluses and minuses. Everything 786 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,719 Speaker 1: inside the nucleus is either positively charged or neutral. So 787 00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,480 Speaker 1: what's sticking them together anyway? Why can you stick to 788 00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,719 Speaker 1: protons together to make helium or even heavier stuff. The 789 00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,640 Speaker 1: answer is the strong nuclear force. The gluons that are 790 00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,960 Speaker 1: inside these protons and neutrons can also talk to each other. 791 00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,440 Speaker 1: So when you get two protons close enough to each other, 792 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,560 Speaker 1: and the gluons that are inside them can sort of 793 00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:19,120 Speaker 1: grab onto each other and overcome their electrostatic repulsion. And 794 00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:22,600 Speaker 1: that's very complicated, and it's good in some configurations but 795 00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:25,800 Speaker 1: not in others, which is what makes some elements stable 796 00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,600 Speaker 1: and other elements not. And so you tend to form 797 00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,200 Speaker 1: these things in shells. Just like we have shells of 798 00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,520 Speaker 1: electrons inside the nucleus, we think there are shells of 799 00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:38,759 Speaker 1: protons and neutrons that arrange themselves in various configurations. Some 800 00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,400 Speaker 1: of those configurations are like very nicely packed, like a 801 00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:45,160 Speaker 1: roman arch that's stable, and other configurations are very unstable. 802 00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:48,879 Speaker 1: And lithium turns out to be like a very unstable configuration. 803 00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:50,560 Speaker 1: So this is another thing that I feel like I 804 00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,120 Speaker 1: don't remember learning when I was in high school or college. 805 00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:55,680 Speaker 1: Is this another like new thing? Or like was I sick? 806 00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,400 Speaker 1: On the wrong day. I don't know how often you 807 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,479 Speaker 1: paid attention in college. This is something we've been working 808 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,880 Speaker 1: on for a few decades. Understanding, like the nuclear shell model, 809 00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,120 Speaker 1: probably not very often taught in high school, but the 810 00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,600 Speaker 1: cold concept that some of these things are more stable 811 00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:12,560 Speaker 1: than others should be familiar. Yeah, okay, that's familiar. Okay, 812 00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,160 Speaker 1: So sets of three are just not very stable, and 813 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:18,799 Speaker 1: that's why we don't have lithium around for a long time. Yeah, 814 00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:21,640 Speaker 1: lithium in general is just not very stable. Other elements 815 00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:23,920 Speaker 1: are much more stable. Like you get up to carbon. 816 00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,680 Speaker 1: Carbon is stable, and that has six right, And so 817 00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,400 Speaker 1: it's not as simple as like sets of three. Some 818 00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:31,680 Speaker 1: of these things the way they are arranged, are stable 819 00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:33,360 Speaker 1: and some of them are not. And it's not easy 820 00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:35,319 Speaker 1: to calculate either. It's not like you can just sit 821 00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,279 Speaker 1: down with a couple of equations and figure this stuff out, 822 00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:39,960 Speaker 1: because the strong force is very strong and very nasty 823 00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,840 Speaker 1: and very hard to do any calculations with. But because 824 00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:47,480 Speaker 1: lithium and the next element, beryllium are so unstable, basically 825 00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:49,799 Speaker 1: nothing else was made in the Big Bang. Big Bang 826 00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,360 Speaker 1: is like massive amounts of hydrogen, a little bit of helium, 827 00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,880 Speaker 1: tiny tiny bits of lithium and nothing else because lithium 828 00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,480 Speaker 1: is sort of like a barrier. You can't it past 829 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,600 Speaker 1: lithium in the early universe, and so you couldn't really 830 00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,399 Speaker 1: make anything else. That's why the Big Bang didn't make 831 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,560 Speaker 1: like uranium or plutonium, because one of the stepping stones 832 00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:13,640 Speaker 1: to get there was too unstable to last, and so 833 00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,640 Speaker 1: lithium is not a metal though, because it didn't stick around. 834 00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:20,040 Speaker 1: Astronomers would call lithium a metal for sure, because there 835 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:22,440 Speaker 1: are some amounts of it in the universe, but it's very, 836 00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,759 Speaker 1: very rare. The same is true for berrillium, which is 837 00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,799 Speaker 1: the next element. It exists in the universe, but it 838 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,399 Speaker 1: wasn't made in the Big Bang. It's too heavy, and 839 00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:35,000 Speaker 1: some of it is made inside stars. Right. If refused 840 00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,120 Speaker 1: to helium atoms together, sometimes you get burrillium, but a 841 00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,040 Speaker 1: lot of it is also very unstable, and so some 842 00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,880 Speaker 1: isotopes of it don't last very long. A lot of 843 00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,920 Speaker 1: it falls apart. Actually, most of the billium in the 844 00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,600 Speaker 1: universe was not made inside stars at all. Most of 845 00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,680 Speaker 1: the brillium in the universe was made by taking oxygen, 846 00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:58,640 Speaker 1: which is everywhere and exists between stars, and then hitting 847 00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,440 Speaker 1: it with a cosmic ray. So you have, for example, 848 00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:04,040 Speaker 1: stars are giving out their stellar wind, which is like 849 00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,239 Speaker 1: streams of particles, protons, electrons, all sorts of stuff. So 850 00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,040 Speaker 1: we call these things cosmic rays. Just high energy particles 851 00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,040 Speaker 1: flying through the universe. If one of them hits an 852 00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:15,920 Speaker 1: oxygen atom, it can knock off some of the protons 853 00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:19,359 Speaker 1: inside the oxygen atom. So this is like fission, right, 854 00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,080 Speaker 1: not fusion. You're taking lighter elements and using them to 855 00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:24,919 Speaker 1: build heavier stuff. This is taking heavier elements and break 856 00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,480 Speaker 1: them apart. It's like what happens in fission reactors with uranium. 857 00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:32,400 Speaker 1: You break uranium down into lighter elements. In the interstellar medium, 858 00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,240 Speaker 1: we think they're vast clouds of oxygen. Sometimes a proton 859 00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,160 Speaker 1: hits one and makes beryllium, so burrillium is actually made 860 00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:42,000 Speaker 1: by cosmic rays between stars. When oxygen gets hit by 861 00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,880 Speaker 1: a cosmic ray, does it always make billium or does 862 00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:47,279 Speaker 1: it sometimes make other things depending on like how it 863 00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:49,759 Speaker 1: got hit. It doesn't always make brilliums. Sometimes it just 864 00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,560 Speaker 1: bounce off each other. But sometimes a high enough energy 865 00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,719 Speaker 1: proton just the right way will crack open the oxygen 866 00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,359 Speaker 1: and break it up into pieces. And that's mostly how 867 00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:00,879 Speaker 1: berrillium was made in the universe. But it'll like never 868 00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,799 Speaker 1: break oxygen into like three heliums for example. You can 869 00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:06,880 Speaker 1: do that. Also, Yeah, you can get lots of different 870 00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,680 Speaker 1: stuff when you smash these particles together. So you mentioned 871 00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:11,719 Speaker 1: that carbon is the next thing that we have the 872 00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:15,360 Speaker 1: most of Where is the carbon coming from? So carbon 873 00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:18,279 Speaker 1: was not made in the very early universe because it's 874 00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,600 Speaker 1: kind of tricky. To make carbon requires this like three 875 00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:24,839 Speaker 1: step dance. Carbon requires six protons, right, And you can't 876 00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,759 Speaker 1: just fuse lithium together because lithium is unstable. You can't 877 00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,160 Speaker 1: just like take two lithium atoms and stick them together 878 00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:32,520 Speaker 1: because it just isn't enough lithium around. So what you 879 00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:35,400 Speaker 1: need to do instead of fusing two lithiums together is 880 00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,839 Speaker 1: you need to fuse three heliums together. So you need 881 00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:43,759 Speaker 1: six protons, two from each of three different helium atoms. Now, 882 00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,360 Speaker 1: in the very early universe we made helium and that 883 00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,360 Speaker 1: helium bounce off each other. But it's very hard to 884 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:52,399 Speaker 1: get like three heliums together. It's much more complicated than 885 00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:56,080 Speaker 1: getting two heliums together. And so this is a complicated process. 886 00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,200 Speaker 1: We have two heliums come together to make beryllium, which 887 00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:02,640 Speaker 1: is also really unstable. But before the brillium falls apart, 888 00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,000 Speaker 1: you need that third helium to come in to swoop 889 00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:07,560 Speaker 1: in and turn it into carbon. So like if you 890 00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,640 Speaker 1: get that third one in place just in time, this 891 00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:13,600 Speaker 1: is called the three alpha process, then you can make 892 00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:17,560 Speaker 1: it over the unstable skipping stone of burrillium and get 893 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,840 Speaker 1: the carbon. And where is this happening. Is this in 894 00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,200 Speaker 1: the sun or is this happening out where you get 895 00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,800 Speaker 1: the oxygen becoming brillium. So this happens inside of stars, 896 00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,040 Speaker 1: but it's not easy for it to happen right. In 897 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:29,719 Speaker 1: order for this to happen, the star has to be 898 00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,760 Speaker 1: like really big and really hot so we can burn helium. 899 00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:34,040 Speaker 1: And it's not just that it has to be hot, 900 00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,800 Speaker 1: has to be dense, so you have like enough helium 901 00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:39,440 Speaker 1: around so that one of these helium atoms hits the 902 00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,640 Speaker 1: brillium before it breaks apart. But this is really fascinating 903 00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,759 Speaker 1: process because a lot of stars are not hot enough 904 00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,719 Speaker 1: to burn helium for most of their lives, like our star. 905 00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,439 Speaker 1: For example, Helium when you produce it in our star 906 00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:54,040 Speaker 1: just falls to the center of the star and accumulates 907 00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:55,799 Speaker 1: at the core. They're kind of inert for a long 908 00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,080 Speaker 1: long time. Our star is not hot enough to burn 909 00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:01,200 Speaker 1: the helium, but it will be for a very brief 910 00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,120 Speaker 1: moment near the end of its life, when enough of 911 00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,960 Speaker 1: that helium accumulates, so it's enough gravitational pressure, all of 912 00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:10,440 Speaker 1: a sudden, it's going to cross this threshold and it's 913 00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,920 Speaker 1: going to burn all of that helium really quickly into carbon. 914 00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,840 Speaker 1: It's called a helium flash, and for a few seconds, 915 00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:22,080 Speaker 1: the Sun will produce a hundred billion times as much 916 00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:26,120 Speaker 1: energy as it normally does. So that means that the 917 00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:29,120 Speaker 1: carbon on Earth didn't come from our Sun because our 918 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,319 Speaker 1: son couldn't make it yet, So the carbon on Earth 919 00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:35,960 Speaker 1: came from other suns, yes, exactly, because we're like three 920 00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,000 Speaker 1: generations of suns in the universe. So most of the 921 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,680 Speaker 1: carbon that we have here on Earth was formed during 922 00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:45,680 Speaker 1: one of these helium burning events inside another star, which 923 00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:49,279 Speaker 1: burned for billions of years and then died and exploded 924 00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:51,960 Speaker 1: and spread out its seeds into the universe. The universe 925 00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:54,560 Speaker 1: started out as almost all hydrogen in a little bit 926 00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:56,880 Speaker 1: of helium, so those first few stars in their solar 927 00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:59,880 Speaker 1: systems were almost all just hydrogen, but the next generation 928 00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,040 Speaker 1: were more metallic, as astronomers say, and the next generation 929 00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,799 Speaker 1: are even more metallic. So our Solar System is part 930 00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:07,840 Speaker 1: of the third generation, we think, And so we have 931 00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:11,640 Speaker 1: lots of leftover bits that were produced inside other stars. 932 00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:13,319 Speaker 1: So this is what you were talking about earlier. We 933 00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:16,440 Speaker 1: are all star stuff. The carbon that's inside our body 934 00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:20,160 Speaker 1: was made by fusing helium inside other stars. But so 935 00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:24,160 Speaker 1: then like the Moon doesn't have like any carbon, right, 936 00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,480 Speaker 1: so it's kind of the carbon sort of the star 937 00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:28,759 Speaker 1: explodes and the carbon goes out there, and then it's 938 00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:32,920 Speaker 1: sort of like actually distributed throughout the universe. Is that 939 00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,719 Speaker 1: fair to say, Yeah, exactly, because the Earth doesn't have 940 00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,640 Speaker 1: the same distribution of stuff as the whole universe does. Right, 941 00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,200 Speaker 1: Like when the Solar System formed, most of the hydrogen 942 00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,840 Speaker 1: that went into forming the Solar System went to Jupiter 943 00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:47,080 Speaker 1: and the Sun. We got very very little hydrogen. We 944 00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:49,239 Speaker 1: got a lot of the heavier stuff because we had 945 00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,799 Speaker 1: like a heavy, rocky seed that gathered together some of 946 00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,480 Speaker 1: the heavier stuff. So the Earth is not a representative 947 00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,320 Speaker 1: sample of the universe at all, but the Solar System 948 00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:00,000 Speaker 1: as a whole is more representative. Like I say, usually 949 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,040 Speaker 1: of talking to you gives me like existential dread. But 950 00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:04,640 Speaker 1: I'm feeling pretty uplifted right now that all of these 951 00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,799 Speaker 1: different things that we've talked about have all so far 952 00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:09,560 Speaker 1: gone in the direction of creating the Earth. It seems 953 00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:12,560 Speaker 1: like a pretty low probability thing, all right. So moving 954 00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:14,560 Speaker 1: past carbon, tell me about some of the heavier stuff. 955 00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:17,520 Speaker 1: And so from there we need heavier, hotter stars that 956 00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:20,799 Speaker 1: are capable of burning helium and then capable of like 957 00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:24,239 Speaker 1: burning carbon. So if you have the right conditions, if 958 00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:27,160 Speaker 1: you have enough pressure and enough temperature and anough density, 959 00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,320 Speaker 1: you can fuse carbon together. This is called carbon burning. 960 00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:33,480 Speaker 1: And then it's just stepping your way up the periodic table. 961 00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:36,239 Speaker 1: You can get all the way up to iron. You 962 00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,640 Speaker 1: can fuse things up to iron, and the process releases energy. 963 00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,920 Speaker 1: And we talk about fusion. Were like smush two nuclear together. 964 00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,360 Speaker 1: We got a heavier nucleus plus energy. That's why stars 965 00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:49,240 Speaker 1: glow and continue to burn because the energy that's produced 966 00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:52,560 Speaker 1: from the fusion keeps the fusion going. But after iron, 967 00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,480 Speaker 1: when you try to fuse iron together with other stuff, 968 00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:59,239 Speaker 1: it eats energy. Like the weird nuclear structure that's keeping 969 00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:02,120 Speaker 1: these things together there, It starts to need energy to 970 00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:04,879 Speaker 1: form these other heavier elements. So you want to make 971 00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,600 Speaker 1: like lead and uranium inside your star. You can do it, 972 00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,640 Speaker 1: but it cools the star down, so it contributes to 973 00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,879 Speaker 1: killing the star rather than keeping it burning. And so 974 00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:16,239 Speaker 1: inside the star you can make like things up to 975 00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:20,279 Speaker 1: about iron with fusion, But afterwards the process slows down 976 00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:23,440 Speaker 1: really rapidly because it's a cooling process instead of a 977 00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:26,480 Speaker 1: heating process. But you need to get super hot to 978 00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:28,520 Speaker 1: make iron, right, so you get super hot, you start 979 00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:30,839 Speaker 1: making iron, and then that cools you down exactly, and 980 00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:34,400 Speaker 1: only the biggest, most massive stars can even make iron. 981 00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,400 Speaker 1: Like our sun will never make iron. It'll fuse helium 982 00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:39,239 Speaker 1: at its core and it will make some carbon and 983 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,760 Speaker 1: its last few gasps, but it will never make anything 984 00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:44,080 Speaker 1: heavier than that. To get iron, you need like much 985 00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:47,480 Speaker 1: more massive stars. And then to get heavier than iron, 986 00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:49,279 Speaker 1: you might wonder like, well, where does that come from? 987 00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:51,600 Speaker 1: How is that possible? If you can't use fusion with 988 00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:54,520 Speaker 1: a few other processes to make that stuff. Like one 989 00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:57,480 Speaker 1: thing you can do is called neutron capture. So you 990 00:50:57,560 --> 00:50:59,960 Speaker 1: have some heavy thing floating around a star, You're all 991 00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,640 Speaker 1: a bunch of neutrons floating around. Sometimes instead of like 992 00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:05,440 Speaker 1: actual fusion, where you add protons to an element, you 993 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,439 Speaker 1: can add a neutron. Let's take for example, gold which 994 00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:12,120 Speaker 1: has waited one If it absorbs a neutron, it's still gold, 995 00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:17,040 Speaker 1: but now it's and gold is unstable and tends to 996 00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,719 Speaker 1: baita decay, so that neutron turns into a proton, and 997 00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,440 Speaker 1: now it's mercury. And so the gold is taken like 998 00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,319 Speaker 1: a two step dance of absorbing a neutron flipping it 999 00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:29,359 Speaker 1: into a proton, and now it's taken one step up 1000 00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,080 Speaker 1: the periodic table. Wow, you go from something you really 1001 00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,920 Speaker 1: want to something you really don't. Hey, no judgment here. 1002 00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:38,560 Speaker 1: You know some people like mercury not in their pastries. 1003 00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,280 Speaker 1: You know, I don't see fancy mercury flakes on pastries 1004 00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,839 Speaker 1: as much as I see fancy gold foil. That's true. Yeah, 1005 00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,120 Speaker 1: I don't want any mercury flakes in my liquor either, 1006 00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,480 Speaker 1: or my my shampoo. Let's keep it out of our 1007 00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,400 Speaker 1: stuff exactly. And the heavier stuff is also made me 1008 00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:55,239 Speaker 1: think at the last moments of a star. Sometimes when 1009 00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:59,040 Speaker 1: a star is collapsing, it can produce the conditions necessary 1010 00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,360 Speaker 1: to make the heavier elements that it couldn't otherwise normally fuse, 1011 00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,040 Speaker 1: like if you don't have the conditions necessary to make 1012 00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:07,480 Speaker 1: heavier stuff. Well, at the last few moments of a 1013 00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,840 Speaker 1: star's life, when it undergoes gravitational collapse, it creates intense temperature, 1014 00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:15,360 Speaker 1: intense pressure, intense density, and in these last moments it 1015 00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:19,520 Speaker 1: can do what's called supernova nucleosynthesis, where it makes some 1016 00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,160 Speaker 1: of these heavier elements gold and europium and other kinds 1017 00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:26,120 Speaker 1: of things can be formed in those moments by supernova. 1018 00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:28,360 Speaker 1: Is that something that we've been able to observe, like 1019 00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:31,120 Speaker 1: a supernova happening in these things sort of being like 1020 00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:36,440 Speaker 1: ejected based on their like spectral characteristics or something even weirder, 1021 00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:41,000 Speaker 1: We find little crystals of it buried in the ocean. Yeah, 1022 00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,280 Speaker 1: the specific conditions for making these things are quite unique, 1023 00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,239 Speaker 1: and they make these little crystal nodules which we have 1024 00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:50,480 Speaker 1: found like sprayed out through the universe and dug out 1025 00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:52,480 Speaker 1: like from the bottom of the ocean. We have a 1026 00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:55,280 Speaker 1: whole episode about supernova and how people figure this out. 1027 00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:58,320 Speaker 1: And one thing they discovered when they understood this is 1028 00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,399 Speaker 1: that it didn't seem to be explaining rething like supernova 1029 00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:03,760 Speaker 1: can make some of these heavier elements, but it can't 1030 00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,000 Speaker 1: explain all of it, Like there needed to be another process. 1031 00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:09,480 Speaker 1: There weren't enough supernovas to make all the gold we 1032 00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:12,680 Speaker 1: see in the universe, for example, So there's a completely 1033 00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:15,879 Speaker 1: different way of making these heavier elements sometimes, and that's 1034 00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:20,600 Speaker 1: by combining neutron stars. So neutron stars like the leftover 1035 00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:23,480 Speaker 1: remnant of a really really heavy star. Maybe it had 1036 00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:25,680 Speaker 1: like a supernova and it collapsed, and it leaves this 1037 00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,520 Speaker 1: really hot, crazy core with strange nuclear matter, and it's 1038 00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:32,600 Speaker 1: not dense enough to form a black hole. Is just 1039 00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,120 Speaker 1: sort of sits there, hot and glowing in the X rays. 1040 00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:37,480 Speaker 1: But sometimes there are two of them, and the two 1041 00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,480 Speaker 1: are close enough to each other they'll spiral in and 1042 00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:44,120 Speaker 1: eventually combine and produce like gravitational waves. But in that 1043 00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,520 Speaker 1: moment they also produce really heavy elements. So neutron star 1044 00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:52,160 Speaker 1: collisions can make like gold and europeum, you know, we 1045 00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:54,960 Speaker 1: think that for example, in one of these collisions, you 1046 00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:59,160 Speaker 1: can make like five earth masses of gold. That's where 1047 00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:01,719 Speaker 1: we should be doing bas mining. How do we get 1048 00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:05,000 Speaker 1: out there? I think the conditions are a little treacherous, 1049 00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:09,080 Speaker 1: but exactly, it's incredible to think that these fairly rare 1050 00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:13,600 Speaker 1: and dramatic and cataclysmic events are responsible for making so 1051 00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:17,200 Speaker 1: many of the interesting atoms that make our universe fun 1052 00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,480 Speaker 1: and unique and make like technology possible. So many of 1053 00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,360 Speaker 1: those elements are important for like batteries here on Earth, 1054 00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,880 Speaker 1: and we take advantage of their weird properties for all 1055 00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:28,160 Speaker 1: sorts of like chemical processes, and none of that would 1056 00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:32,000 Speaker 1: be possible if we didn't have dramatic and cataclysmic destructive 1057 00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,960 Speaker 1: events out there in the universe weirdly producing these things, right. Yeah, 1058 00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,040 Speaker 1: you know, I know I say this every week, but 1059 00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:40,840 Speaker 1: every every week I am amazed at the things that 1060 00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:43,520 Speaker 1: physicists have learned about the universe and figured out that 1061 00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:45,719 Speaker 1: just like it blows my mind that we managed to 1062 00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,279 Speaker 1: figure all these details out. Yeah, I think one more 1063 00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:50,800 Speaker 1: thing that people should understand about these elements is that 1064 00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,040 Speaker 1: if you look at like the frequency of the elements 1065 00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:55,480 Speaker 1: in the universe, you can tell yourself a story like 1066 00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:59,160 Speaker 1: starts out with hydrogen and helium that it falls pretty quickly, 1067 00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:01,520 Speaker 1: and there's a couple of apps. They're like lithium and 1068 00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,040 Speaker 1: beryllium and boron are just unstable, so there aren't very 1069 00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:06,240 Speaker 1: many of them, and the heavier elements are less likely. 1070 00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:09,799 Speaker 1: But there's also a really weird zig zag pattern, like 1071 00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:13,759 Speaker 1: the even elements are more common than the odd you know, 1072 00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:16,720 Speaker 1: so like ten is more common than eleven, and forties 1073 00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:19,680 Speaker 1: more common than forty one, and seventy eight is more 1074 00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:23,160 Speaker 1: common than seventy nine, and that's weird. And that's another 1075 00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:26,040 Speaker 1: consequence of this nuclear shell model we were talking about earlier. 1076 00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:29,120 Speaker 1: Having like a certain number of protons and neutrons to 1077 00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:32,520 Speaker 1: fit together into the right pattern makes you more stable. 1078 00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:35,360 Speaker 1: And so this is called the auto Parkins rule that 1079 00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:39,400 Speaker 1: argues that elements with autotomic numbers have one unpaired proton 1080 00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,200 Speaker 1: and so are more likely to capture another one, increasing 1081 00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:45,960 Speaker 1: their atomic number. And so really, in the end, everything 1082 00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:48,239 Speaker 1: that we see in the universe, all these elements come 1083 00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:50,680 Speaker 1: from the basic rules of the protons and neutrons, like 1084 00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:53,080 Speaker 1: how you allowed to click them together, what they like 1085 00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:56,080 Speaker 1: to do, what conditions you need to make them do 1086 00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:59,120 Speaker 1: various things. It really does tell you just by looking 1087 00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:01,839 Speaker 1: at the distribution number of elements in the universe sort 1088 00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:04,960 Speaker 1: of what's allowed out there and our history, like how 1089 00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,360 Speaker 1: we've been cooking the universe so far, everything from computer 1090 00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:13,400 Speaker 1: chips to chat alright, so spread that on your forkacha 1091 00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:15,840 Speaker 1: and have it for lunch, all right. So thanks everybody 1092 00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,520 Speaker 1: for coming along with us on this cosmic culinary journey 1093 00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,279 Speaker 1: of creation as we talk about what's out there in 1094 00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:25,160 Speaker 1: the universe, how it's made, and where it all came from. 1095 00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:28,120 Speaker 1: And I hope that gave you an appetite. I'm hungry. 1096 00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,840 Speaker 1: Let's go eat. Try to avoid the mercury lace dishes. 1097 00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:34,400 Speaker 1: I'll pass that note on too, Zach, And thanks everybody 1098 00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:45,479 Speaker 1: for joining us. Tune in next time. Thanks by, thanks 1099 00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:48,160 Speaker 1: for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The 1100 00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:51,359 Speaker 1: universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For more 1101 00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,800 Speaker 1: podcast form my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, 1102 00:56:55,040 --> 00:57:02,799 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.