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Speaker 1: Hey all, Hey, do you know what today is? Wednesday?

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Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, April seventh. Today is like Christmas for particle physicists. Really,

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Speaker 1: but what if you don't celebrate Christmas, Well, then it's

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Speaker 1: like Christmas and Hanukkah and Valentine's Day and your birthday

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Speaker 1: all rolled into one. Nice. Does that mean all particle

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Speaker 1: physicists get a special box of chocolates today? Kind of?

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Speaker 1: Today's a day we find out the answer to a

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Speaker 1: question we've been waiting twenty years for. Does that mean

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Speaker 1: the chocolate's are twenty years old? To let's just holl

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Speaker 1: him that particles and chocolates age like fine wine. Hi

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Speaker 1: amor handmad cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics. I

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Speaker 1: am Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I like my

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Speaker 1: chocolates nice and fresh, fresh out the cocoa tree. I've

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Speaker 1: actually had cocoa beans themselves. They're pretty intense but tasty chocolate.

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Speaker 1: The Universe and so welcome to our podcast, Daniel and

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

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Speaker 1: in which we take a bite out of everything in

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Speaker 1: the universe. We sample the flavors of corks, we talk

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Speaker 1: about the size and the speed of black holes. We

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Speaker 1: talk about how the universe got to be this way

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Speaker 1: and the way it will look in a billion, or

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Speaker 1: a trillion or a gazillion years. We have ambitions to

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Speaker 1: take the entire universe and explain every little bit of

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Speaker 1: it to you because there is a lot to understand

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Speaker 1: and to learn about the universe, and the scientists are

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Speaker 1: currently added trying to explore what things are made out

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Speaker 1: of and what things can be made out of. That's right,

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Speaker 1: when we're not taking a break to do a podcast,

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Speaker 1: we are trying to unravel the nature of the universe

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Speaker 1: by figuring out what are the smallest bits of it,

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Speaker 1: how do those bits fit together, what are the patterns

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Speaker 1: of those bits, and are there more bits we haven't

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Speaker 1: found yet. Yeah, because there has been a lot of

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Speaker 1: progress in physics and particle physics and understanding what matter

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Speaker 1: and the forces are all made out of in this universe,

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Speaker 1: but it's sort of an ongoing effort. There are still

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Speaker 1: nooks and crannies and corners we haven't explored, and possibly

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Speaker 1: big areas of physics that still remain totally unknown. Job

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Speaker 1: security for a particle physicists. More nooks and crannies to explore.

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Speaker 1: But no, you're absolutely right. We have found out a

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Speaker 1: lot about the sub atomic nature of matter, but there

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Speaker 1: are still lots of questions we don't know the answer to,

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Speaker 1: and that tells us that there's probably a lot going

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Speaker 1: on that we don't have any clue about. We don't

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Speaker 1: know if we figured out like most of the puzzle

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Speaker 1: and we have a few details to wrap up, or

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Speaker 1: if we're just looking at the tip of the particle iceberg.

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Speaker 1: But then what is that iceberg made out of tanuel?

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Speaker 1: And what does it float on? It's all questions embedded

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Speaker 1: in questions. It floats on a sea of confusion. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and O cartoons are probably drowning in the scene there.

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Speaker 1: But it is a pretty exciting time to be in physics.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of interesting results lately and coming

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Speaker 1: out of the physics community, and so recently there was

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Speaker 1: another big announcement. Yeah, that's right. We've had this mystery

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Speaker 1: that's been sort of outstanding for twenty years, the result

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Speaker 1: of an experiment that was quite surprising that didn't agree

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Speaker 1: with our theoretical calculations. It suggested that maybe something new

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Speaker 1: was going on, maybe it was being influenced by some

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Speaker 1: other kind of particle or force and we hadn't yet discovered,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't really precise enough for us to know

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Speaker 1: for sure, for us to hang our hats on. So

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Speaker 1: people built a bigger, better, stronger, faster experiment to make

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Speaker 1: a more precise measurement, and those were the results that

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Speaker 1: were just recently revealed. Yeah, and so to be on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we'll be talking about did Firmulab just discover

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Speaker 1: a new particle whatever? Fermilab just discovered they definitely figured

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Speaker 1: out how to trigger a lot of science headlines. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was this pretty big in the pressed. This was everywhere.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's been a science event recently that

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Speaker 1: triggered as many emails from listeners saying, what is this?

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Speaker 1: Explained this to us, what's going on? I need to understand.

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Speaker 1: It was everywhere I saw. It was on the front

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Speaker 1: page in the New York Times, and people were tweeting

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Speaker 1: about it. So it's kind of interesting and maybe significant

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Speaker 1: result in physics. And for me, it was fascinating to

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Speaker 1: see the sort of variety of headlines that people took,

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Speaker 1: Like the New York Times was pretty stately and understated

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Speaker 1: about it, but other places like Vice that had a

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Speaker 1: headline that reads, government physics experiments suggests something unknown is

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Speaker 1: influencing reality. Wow, that sounds like a pretty good plot

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Speaker 1: for a movie. And I think it's technically true, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's an interesting choice of vocabulary, but it

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Speaker 1: is technically Every word in that headline is true. Government

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Speaker 1: physics experiment suggests something unknown is influencing reality. There you go.

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Speaker 1: You know, I can fact check it. It's definitely accurate.

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Speaker 1: It was done by government physicists, and there is something

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Speaker 1: out there influencing that experiment. I don't know about all

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Speaker 1: of reality, but it's definitely true. With so kudos to

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Speaker 1: that headline writer. They definitely took this sort of like

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Speaker 1: movie trailer approach to writing that headline and how they

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Speaker 1: added government physics experiment, Like, first of all, are there

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Speaker 1: non government physics experiment? Not many? Second of all, it

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Speaker 1: just makes it more sinister, doesn't it. No, I don't

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Speaker 1: know they're going for sinister or like authoritative. You know,

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Speaker 1: this is not your friend Joe's physics experiment. This is

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Speaker 1: like people in lab coats getting salaries. You know, you

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Speaker 1: should believe this does still really have any friends. Let's

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Speaker 1: be honest, I think they were going for sinister, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the government is trying to do something crazy. Oh man,

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Speaker 1: I just totally misread this one. I thought it was like,

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Speaker 1: trust us, we discovered something crazy, but instead you're suggesting

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Speaker 1: it's like government about to build doomsday device that will

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Speaker 1: ruin your weekend. I think that reveals your attitude towards government.

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Speaker 1: An you're like trusting of the government more government. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm a government physicist, so you know, I see you're

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Speaker 1: one of them. Do you wear like, you know, sunglasses

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Speaker 1: with your white lap coats and everything? Only when I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to influence reality, which is basically all the time.

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Speaker 1: Since I'm part of reality, this podcast is influencing reality,

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Speaker 1: is it though? We're just sound ways in the air, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: Unless you think our listeners aren't part of reality, you know,

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Speaker 1: hopefully they're real, but we don't have to be real.

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Speaker 1: You know. This podcast is generated by an algorithm, a

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Speaker 1: government physics algorithm. It's it's unreal. Anyways. It was a

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Speaker 1: pretty big result, a lot of impressive out there about it,

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Speaker 1: and I have to admit, Daniel, I didn't know about

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Speaker 1: this weeks before the actual announcement. Oh wow, is that

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Speaker 1: because you have a link into like the secret science

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Speaker 1: results kinda I was commissioned to to make a comic

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Speaker 1: about it by a journal, and so they sent me

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Speaker 1: the secret paper weeks ago, saying you can't share it

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Speaker 1: with anybody. Are you telling me you knew this answers

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest questions in particle physics for weeks

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Speaker 1: and didn't tell me a sworn of secrecy, Daniel. They

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Speaker 1: would have revoked my cartoon is license if I've had

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Speaker 1: told anyone. Plus also that they're like, they gave me

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Speaker 1: the paper and they're like, you can't tell anyone what

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Speaker 1: it says. And I'm like, I can't even read this paper.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to tell you tell anyone, but

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Speaker 1: my friend Daniel could read this paper. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I admire your integrity. Yeah, thank you. At least you

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Speaker 1: admire something about me. But it was a pretty exciting

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Speaker 1: thing in the physics community. And let's talk about whether

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Speaker 1: or not it lives up to the hype business, really

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Speaker 1: something that might influence our view of reality or is

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Speaker 1: it sort of another incremental result in the physics endeavor

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Speaker 1: of humans? Yeah, well, you know, it's an important moment

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Speaker 1: in particle physics because we have been desperate for a

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Speaker 1: discovery for quite a long time, you know, I would

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Speaker 1: say decades. We have known for a long time that

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Speaker 1: our theory isn't correct, that isn't complete, at least it

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Speaker 1: can't be the final answer, because there's so many unanswered

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Speaker 1: questions in it, so many parts of our theory which

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Speaker 1: just seems sort of like ad hawk or put in

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Speaker 1: by hand, or unexplained. So we've been cast thing about

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Speaker 1: for a new discovery to give us a clue as

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Speaker 1: to how to change our theory or what the new

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Speaker 1: vision of physics should be. And the main strategy for

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Speaker 1: doing that has been things like building big particle accelerators,

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Speaker 1: to trying to make new particles that we can add

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Speaker 1: to our table and give us a sense of the

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Speaker 1: larger patterns. But that's been coming up kind of dry.

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Speaker 1: We haven't found anything at the large age on collider

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Speaker 1: other than the Higgs boson, which we already believed existed.

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Speaker 1: So now we're sort of like looking under every rock.

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Speaker 1: Is there any experiment out there that can find something new?

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Speaker 1: Is there any measurement government physicists can do to find

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Speaker 1: some discrepancy between our theory and nature because we need

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Speaker 1: that kind of discrepancy in order to find something new.

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Speaker 1: So that's why this experiment is sort of like one

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Speaker 1: of the last best hopes for particle physics, that we

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Speaker 1: can figure out something new, find a clue that reveals

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Speaker 1: a new idea about the nature of reality. I guess

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Speaker 1: for some of our listeners who maybe we did not

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Speaker 1: see the headlines, let's just talk about the announcement. So

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Speaker 1: this was an announcement coming at a Fermi Lab, which

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Speaker 1: is a particle physics laboratory outside of Chicago, and they've

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Speaker 1: been around for forever, but and recently they announced that

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Speaker 1: some new results regarding the muan, which is a particle. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's right, So you're familiar with the electron. It's part

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Speaker 1: of you. It orbits all your atoms. The electron has

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Speaker 1: a heavy cousin. It's much heavier than the electron, but

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Speaker 1: it's otherwise totally identical. And the very existence of the

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Speaker 1: muan is sort of a mystery, like why do we

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Speaker 1: even have a muan. We don't know, but it's like

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Speaker 1: this copy of the electron, and it's a good place

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Speaker 1: to do precision measurements to try to like see if

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Speaker 1: there's anything weird going on, because the muan has this

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Speaker 1: little magnetic field, and that magnetic field is very sensitive

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Speaker 1: to the stuff going on all around the muan. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so they've been studying this particle for a long time

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Speaker 1: and they just did a new measurement of its magnetic

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Speaker 1: moment and the results are what's kind of interesting with

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Speaker 1: regards to what it means for our view of the universe.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and you might be wondering, like, why does

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Speaker 1: the muan have a magnetic field? How does that even work?

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Speaker 1: We'll remember, a muan is this tiny fundamental particle. We

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Speaker 1: don't really know if it's made of anything smaller. We

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Speaker 1: sort of imagine it to be a tiny little dot.

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Speaker 1: But even though it's a tiny little dot, we also

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Speaker 1: think it has this thing called quantum spin, which means

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Speaker 1: that in theory, it has some angular momentum because it

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Speaker 1: has electric charge and angle momentum. That means it has

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Speaker 1: a little magnetic field. And that magnetic field is a

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Speaker 1: really nice way to probe what the particle is doing

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Speaker 1: as it flies through space. Is it just flying through

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Speaker 1: space or does it also shoot off other particles briefly?

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Speaker 1: And if it does shoot off other particles. Then, even

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Speaker 1: though these are virtual particles that only exist for a

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Speaker 1: fraction of a second, they can change the way the

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Speaker 1: muan's magnetic field works. And it's sort of a great

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Speaker 1: way to figure out what kinds of particles can exist,

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Speaker 1: what's out there on nature's menu. Because it's quantum mechanical,

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Speaker 1: every kind of particle that can be shot off the

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Speaker 1: muan will be created and influence the muan's magnetic field.

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Speaker 1: So don't thing of the particles out there waiting for

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Speaker 1: the muan. They are like possible particles that the muan

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Speaker 1: briefly creates as it flies. If you like fields instead

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Speaker 1: of particles, then another equivalent way to think about it

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Speaker 1: is that the muan is flying through a bunch of

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Speaker 1: quantum fields and its energy can slide briefly into those

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Speaker 1: fields and then come back. Since that influences the muan's

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Speaker 1: magnetic direction, you can tell when it happens, which gives

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Speaker 1: you a clue if there are fields and particles you

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Speaker 1: don't know about. And so what they do is they

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Speaker 1: take this muan and they spin it in a certain direction,

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Speaker 1: so they know the way it's going, sort of like

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Speaker 1: a gyroscope and then they stend it around in a

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Speaker 1: circle a bunch of times until it decays into an

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Speaker 1: electron because muans don't actually last very long. They're unstable particles,

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Speaker 1: and based on the direction the electron came out, they

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Speaker 1: can tell how the muan was spinning. So now they

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Speaker 1: know how the muan spin change from when they created

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Speaker 1: it to when it decayed, and that tells them basically

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Speaker 1: how all the other little particles out there were pushing

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Speaker 1: on the magnetic field of the muan, which tells you

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Speaker 1: something about what particles are out there. And they're measuring

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Speaker 1: this magnetic field of the muan, and I guess maybe

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Speaker 1: a more basic question is like why do particles have

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Speaker 1: magnetic fields? Isn't that weird? Like our particles little magnets. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of weird because you think of little particles

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Speaker 1: as these little dots, and you know they have like

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Speaker 1: spin and charge and mass and stuff. But anything that

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Speaker 1: has spin, quantum spin and has electric charge also has

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Speaker 1: a little magnetic field because remember that's where magnetic fields

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Speaker 1: come from, Like the magnetic field of your piece of

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Speaker 1: iron comes from electrons spinning inside of it, and so

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Speaker 1: muans also spin, so they also have a small, little

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Speaker 1: magnetic field. So then I guess the next question is

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Speaker 1: why is this magnetic field of this little particle important

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Speaker 1: and what could it tell us about other particles that

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Speaker 1: could be out there. It's really important because the magnetic

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Speaker 1: field tells us about the other particles that are out there,

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Speaker 1: because the magnetic field allows the muan to sort of

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Speaker 1: interact with those particles. As the muan is flying along,

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Speaker 1: then the magnetic field gets sort of touched by all

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Speaker 1: the other particles that are out there, you know. For example,

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Speaker 1: like this magnetic field is carried by photons, so the

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Speaker 1: way that magnetic field information is transmitted is through photons.

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Speaker 1: So muan can be flying along, it can like pop

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Speaker 1: off a little photon and then reabsorb it. And it

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Speaker 1: can pop off a photon and that photon can interact

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Speaker 1: with other particles that can come out of the vacuum,

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Speaker 1: you know, like pairs of electrons and positrons or any

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Speaker 1: other particle out there, and then get reabsorbed. So sort

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Speaker 1: of what happens to that photon when it gets shot

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Speaker 1: off the muan and then re absorbed can influence the

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Speaker 1: magnetic field of the muan and also can tell you

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Speaker 1: about the other particles that are out there that can

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Speaker 1: talk to this magnetic field. And remember that by particles

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Speaker 1: out there, we don't mean particles that are already existing

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Speaker 1: and are hanging out waiting for the muan, but possible

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Speaker 1: particles on nature's menu that can be created from the

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Speaker 1: Muan's energy. That's what we're looking to explore. Well, I

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Speaker 1: see you used sort of like the magnetic field of

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Speaker 1: the muon is kind of an antenna almost, like do

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Speaker 1: you use it to see how it gets influenced by

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Speaker 1: other particles that are out there in the universe exactly,

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Speaker 1: just like an antenna, because all those other particles also

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Speaker 1: can sort of like talk magnetic language to the muon.

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Speaker 1: And if you watch really carefully how the muan is

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Speaker 1: spinning in the direction of its magnetic field, you can

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Speaker 1: tell the signals that it's picking up from those other particles.

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Speaker 1: And it's sort of like a gyroscope. You know, you

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Speaker 1: start a gyroscope spinning, it should keep spinning the same

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Speaker 1: way unless something applies forth to it. You know, give

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Speaker 1: it a little push or a little twist or something.

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Speaker 1: If you've got a muan spinning and you know the

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Speaker 1: direction of its magnetic field, you can watch as that

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Speaker 1: magnetic field changes and you can measure the influence of

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Speaker 1: all the particles around it. Cool. So then that's what

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Speaker 1: this experiment did, is that it's basically like a large

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Speaker 1: tunnel or ring or like a tomb, and you have

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Speaker 1: these muons flying around and you're sort of measuring how

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Speaker 1: they get knocked around by the universe, basically how their

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Speaker 1: little magnetic field gets tweaked by you know, what could

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Speaker 1: possibly be out there in the universe. Yeah, it's a orcles.

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Speaker 1: The muans go around in this ring and as they

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Speaker 1: go around, they get tweaked by all these other particles,

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Speaker 1: and it's a really cool way to try to find

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Speaker 1: something new without knowing what's out there. Anything that interacts

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Speaker 1: with the muan's magnetic field will give a little effect.

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Speaker 1: So you add up all the different kinds of particles

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Speaker 1: that can give an effect, and you get like an

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Speaker 1: overall number, and you can compare that to what we

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Speaker 1: calculate from our theory, where we add up the effects

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Speaker 1: of all the particles we know about, and we can

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Speaker 1: compare what nature is doing with all the real particles

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Speaker 1: to what our calculations are doing. You know, with all

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Speaker 1: the particles we know about, and that can give us

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Speaker 1: a clue if there's any particles missing from our list. Cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you use this sort of like a metal detector, kind

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Speaker 1: of like you're sensing what's out there. And if you

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Speaker 1: think you know what's out there, then you should be

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Speaker 1: able to predict what this little antenna will tell you.

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Speaker 1: But if there are new things out there, the disintenna

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Speaker 1: will not do what you expected to do. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: the differences are very very small. People have been calculating

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Speaker 1: this stuff for decades and been measuring for decades, and

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Speaker 1: most things agree. But if you measure it really, really precisely,

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Speaker 1: then you can see the influence of like very rare,

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Speaker 1: potentially new heavy particles. So we're talking about one of

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Speaker 1: the most precisely known and most precisely measured quantities in

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Speaker 1: all of physics. And the more precise we can make it,

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Speaker 1: the better a test we can do to see if

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Speaker 1: there are any particles out there that we might be missing.

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Speaker 1: I guess you're looking super closely to see this little

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Speaker 1: antenna you know, deviates from your theory, because if it

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Speaker 1: deviates from your theory, that means your theory is not

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Speaker 1: complete or there's new things out there. Yeah, and the

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Speaker 1: experimental challenge is getting all the other sources of uncertainty

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Speaker 1: out of the way, any other transient magnetic fields, or

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Speaker 1: knowing exactly how you started this muan, or making sure

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Speaker 1: nothing else is influencing it. It's a lot of work

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Speaker 1: to set this experiment up and make it super duper precise.

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Speaker 1: It's like lots of other experiments like the gravitational wave experiment,

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Speaker 1: where they spent decades figuring out how to get those

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Speaker 1: mirrors to balance and be really really quiet. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of just sort of like careful work in setting

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Speaker 1: up the experiment like this, and there's also a lot

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Speaker 1: of careful work in doing the calculation and making sure

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Speaker 1: you're correctly accounting for all the particles that we do know.

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Speaker 1: So it's like a huge project. It's not just like hey,

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Speaker 1: I have this idea, let's go check this out tomorrow afternoon.

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Speaker 1: You know, this takes decades to design and to organized

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Speaker 1: and like really iron out all the wrinkles. Right. You

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Speaker 1: get a wait for the chocolate to you know age,

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Speaker 1: and you get to wait for everyone to sign the

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Speaker 1: Valentine's Day card, and it just takes a long time,

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Speaker 1: all right, Well, let's get into the theory of this

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Speaker 1: experiment and also the experiment and how those two are

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Speaker 1: not quite the same and what that means for our

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Speaker 1: understanding of the universe. But first let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about Fermi labs recent announcement of a new

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Speaker 1: interesting result regarding the men which is one of the

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Speaker 1: fundamental particles, and they measured something about it and they

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Speaker 1: predicted something about it, and it's not quite the same, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: So maybe step us through what some of the theory

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Speaker 1: calculations are and what they're actually calculating. So what they're

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Speaker 1: trying to do is understand what happens when a muan

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Speaker 1: is flying through space. And this is a quantum mechanical particle,

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Speaker 1: and so you have to consider not just like the

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Speaker 1: boring option that a muan just like flies through space

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Speaker 1: and does nothing, but all the other possibilities. For example,

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Speaker 1: a muan might also fly through space but emit a

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Speaker 1: photon and then reabsorbed that photon. That's one possibility, it's

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Speaker 1: not very unlikely. In fact, we think the particles are

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Speaker 1: doing that all the time. And like we talked about

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Speaker 1: in the episode about renormalization and like what's the electrons

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Speaker 1: actual charge. What we measure is sort of like the

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Speaker 1: combination of all the possibilities that the muan can do

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Speaker 1: all at once. We don't just ever measure like a

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Speaker 1: single particle doing one thing. So this kind of stuff

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Speaker 1: is happening all the time. There's lots of different things

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Speaker 1: that muan can be doing when it goes from A

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Speaker 1: to B, and we try to consider like all those possibilities.

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Speaker 1: So possibility one is just going a straight line. Possibility

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Speaker 1: to is emit just a single particle and then reabsorb it.

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Speaker 1: Possibility three is emit two particles and reabsorbed them. Possibility

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Speaker 1: four is admit a photon and then that photon turns

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Speaker 1: into two other particles which then collapse back into a photon,

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Speaker 1: and then we can get reabsorbed by the muan. And

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Speaker 1: you can imagine how it's easy to imagine lots and

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Speaker 1: lots of different scenarios for what can happen for a

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Speaker 1: muon when it goes from A to B, and all

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Speaker 1: those scenarios affect the muan's magnetic moment just the same

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Speaker 1: way all these kind of quantum interactions with the vacuum

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00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:36,520
Speaker 1: affect the electrons charge or its mass This is all

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Speaker 1: part of like what makes the muan. So when you're

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Speaker 1: calculating the overall magnetic moment of the muan, you need

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Speaker 1: to account for all the things that it could be doing,

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Speaker 1: including these little brief interactions it has where it interacts

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Speaker 1: with magnetic fields and creates other particles. Right, So it's

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Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of this idea that a particle

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Speaker 1: isn't just like a particle like alone in the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's constantly doing stuff, doing quant the mechanical stuff.

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00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:04,359
Speaker 1: It's constantly you know, maybe popping off other particles and

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00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:07,040
Speaker 1: then reabsorming them, and it's not just like sitting there

390
00:20:07,040 --> 00:20:09,640
Speaker 1: and doing nothing. Yeah, there's this difference between like the

391
00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:12,199
Speaker 1: bare particle, which is sort of the simplest concept you

392
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,360
Speaker 1: can have in theory, than the actual particle in reality,

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00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:17,560
Speaker 1: which is part of the universe and interacting with all

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Speaker 1: these quantum fields around it. And that's sort of like

395
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:22,639
Speaker 1: the thing we measured, the thing we observed. So the

396
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:25,560
Speaker 1: bare particle really only sort of exists in our minds

397
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Speaker 1: like a single isolated particle doing nothing. In reality, the

398
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:32,240
Speaker 1: particles are constantly buzzing with all sorts of other virtual particles.

399
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Speaker 1: And that's really what the muan is. Don't think of

400
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 1: it like a muan surrounded by a cloud of other particles.

401
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 1: The muan is that whole cloud. It's got like a

402
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:43,640
Speaker 1: bare particle at its core, but the whole thing together

403
00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:46,560
Speaker 1: is the muan. And so it's sort of part of

404
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:48,679
Speaker 1: what the muan is is to have this cloud of

405
00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:51,359
Speaker 1: other particles all part of it. Yeah, and it's kind

406
00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 1: of like a quantum mechanical cloud of other particles. It's

407
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,520
Speaker 1: constantly making right, Like, it's not just the bare particle,

408
00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:01,760
Speaker 1: it's also at the same time simultaneously existing as all

409
00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:04,400
Speaker 1: these other sort of with all of these other particles

410
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,120
Speaker 1: that are created and virtually exists for tiny moments of time. Yeah,

411
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 1: And I think the quibble on the quantum mechanics of it,

412
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,359
Speaker 1: it's not really true that they all simultaneously exist, but

413
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:15,960
Speaker 1: that the possibilities of them all exist. And so there's

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00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,720
Speaker 1: a superposition of all those wave functions for the particle

415
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 1: to be doing this or for the particle to be

416
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 1: doing that, and if you're not measuring it, then all

417
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:26,360
Speaker 1: those options can exist at the same time. Doesn't really

418
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 1: have a philosophical meaning to say, like they all actually

419
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,920
Speaker 1: do exist. But you know, that's a whole other digression.

420
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,159
Speaker 1: We can talk about quantum wave functions another time. So

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00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the cat, Like the cat is

422
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 1: both live and dead, and that's so that's usually put,

423
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Speaker 1: and so that me on is both alone and also

424
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,280
Speaker 1: has all these other friends around it. Yeah, well you

425
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 1: might not be surprised to hear that I have an

426
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,960
Speaker 1: objection to how it's usually put. I would say the

427
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,360
Speaker 1: cat as a possibility of being alive and a possibility

428
00:21:51,359 --> 00:21:53,119
Speaker 1: being dead. I don't know what it means for it

429
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 1: to be alive and dead at the same time. That's

430
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,920
Speaker 1: the whole idea of classical physics that somehow these wave

431
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 1: functions do collapse before we measure them. But in this case,

432
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 1: there's an infinite number of things that meant can do.

433
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 1: And the more particles you add, the more options, the

434
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:08,640
Speaker 1: more times like a particle emits another photon or turns

435
00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 1: into something else, the less likely those things are. So

436
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 1: the most likely thing to happen is that the muon

437
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:15,639
Speaker 1: just sort of like goes from A to B. And

438
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:17,760
Speaker 1: then you can like add a correction to that by

439
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:20,560
Speaker 1: adding one particle, and you can add another correction to

440
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,360
Speaker 1: that by adding two particles. If you want to get

441
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 1: like a rough idea, you just need to do a

442
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:25,800
Speaker 1: few of these calculations. If you want to get it

443
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:28,440
Speaker 1: like really really accurately, then you need to sum over

444
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 1: like thousands and thousands of these different possibilities. It's kind

445
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: of like, these are all different possibilities of what it

446
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:37,400
Speaker 1: can do, but somehow they all affect its magnetic field.

447
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,199
Speaker 1: And so like if you know, like it could do

448
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:42,760
Speaker 1: a B, C and D, you can add up a B,

449
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 1: C and D and to get sort of like what

450
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 1: the theory predicts what the magnetic field of me on

451
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: is going to be? Right, that's right, And we use

452
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:52,199
Speaker 1: something called perturbation theory, which tells us that, like we

453
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: do the biggest contributions first, and then the more ones

454
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: that we add sort of we're just refining the smaller

455
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 1: and smaller decimal places. So it's not like when we

456
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 1: get to diagram number forty seven thousand, we're going to

457
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 1: find something that totally changes the answer in the first

458
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,159
Speaker 1: decimal place. As we add diagrams that are more and

459
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 1: more complex, we're getting smaller and smaller corrections, and so

460
00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 1: we're sort of like asthem tonically approaching what we think

461
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: is the true value. But these calculations get harder and

462
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,959
Speaker 1: harder because the later diagrams have more particles, and they

463
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,639
Speaker 1: have loops and they have crazy stuff, and most importantly,

464
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,880
Speaker 1: some of these create particles that have the strong nuclear

465
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: force in them, and those calculations are particularly tricky to do.

466
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,399
Speaker 1: And that's really at the heart of why this is

467
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: so hard, right, And I guess the problem is that

468
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:36,159
Speaker 1: the neon it's not just doing a B, C and D.

469
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,439
Speaker 1: It's doing like abc d dot dot dot to like

470
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 1: you know, infinite number of possibilities, right Like it it's

471
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:44,920
Speaker 1: almost like a fractal I think it's like it can

472
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: be turned into a photon and then but then the

473
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 1: photon can turn into two food things, and then those

474
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 1: two things could turn into other things, and you know,

475
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: the effects get smaller, but like the possibilities are endless,

476
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,040
Speaker 1: right Yeah. And there's a really interesting question. They're like,

477
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,199
Speaker 1: does it really have an infinite number of possibilities or

478
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 1: is it just the way that we are organizing in

479
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: our minds requires an infinite number of ideas because in reality,

480
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: there's just a number. Like nature doesn't do an infinite

481
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 1: number of calculations. Every time a muan goes from A

482
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 1: to B, it just does its thing. So it could

483
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: be like that our mathematics isn't expressed in a way

484
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: that makes this kind of idea simple and compac Or

485
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: it could be that there really are an infinite number

486
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: of things possibly going on there, we just don't know.

487
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: It's a really fun philosophical question. Philosophy. Yeah, we need

488
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 1: a longer podcast for that, all right. So you can

489
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: sort of predict what the meos magnetic field is supposed

490
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 1: to be from all these other like virtual particles, and

491
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: then you can also go out and measure the magnetic

492
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: field using an experiment exactly. And that's what they did,

493
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 1: like twenty years ago at Brookhaven. They did this experiment

494
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: where they line up a bunch of muans, they get

495
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: them all spinning in the right direction, and then they

496
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: shoot them into their machine which zips them around in

497
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: a circle using a big magnetic field. So they build

498
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: this really big, very precise, very expensive magnet and they

499
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 1: did this measurement this is twenty years ago at Brookhaven,

500
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: and they found that the answer didn't really agree with

501
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 1: their theoretical calculations and that's sort of what's set up

502
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 1: what we're doing today. Because people were wondering about, like

503
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,399
Speaker 1: why doesn't this agree? So they decided they needed to

504
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: do another experiment. They need to get more data, they

505
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: need to like, you know, refine this answer. So they

506
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 1: actually took that same magnet from Bookhaven and they shipped

507
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 1: it over to Fermi Lab where they set up a

508
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: whole new experiment using the same magnet, and they have

509
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,880
Speaker 1: like much much more data and they've been analyzing that

510
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:30,680
Speaker 1: and that's what the announcement was all about. Do you

511
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: think they used the regular like U S Mail or

512
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 1: did they fetexit or how does it want ship a

513
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:38,919
Speaker 1: giant physics magnet? You just put a lot of stamps

514
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:40,679
Speaker 1: on it and you hope that they pick it up.

515
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: You no, this have great pictures. They had to take

516
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 1: it on a boat for a while. They have it

517
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: on this like double wide trailer crawling across the Fermi Lab.

518
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: It was pretty cool. It's not an easy thing. The

519
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 1: ship is definitely some additional charges. And I think the

520
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: idea is that twenty years ago, like they found that

521
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: the theory and the experiment are not the same. But

522
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: it's sort of like borderline right, like it was three

523
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,959
Speaker 1: point five sigma difference, meaning it's like it's different, but

524
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: it could be still kind of a statistical fluke. Right. Well,

525
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: it's funny because we do all these things really quantitatively.

526
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: We're very careful about the number when we're calculating it,

527
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: and that we're very careful about theoretical value that we

528
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 1: do really quantitative statistics to understand, like what's the probability

529
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: that these two numbers are actually different versus that we

530
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,919
Speaker 1: just have like a random fluctuation in our experiment that

531
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: makes them look different, because we don't want to get

532
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: fooled by just like having a random fluctuation. So we

533
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: do all these really careful calculations and then in the

534
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 1: end it's still subjective because three point five sigma tells you,

535
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 1: like the probability for this to not have been just

536
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: a fluctuation, and it says it's pretty small, but it's

537
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 1: not convincing, Like particle physicists don't find that level of

538
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: discovery enough to believe the result. So three point five

539
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: sigma is kind of impressive but sort of not enough.

540
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: So I guess you could call it borderline. Yeah, it's

541
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: kind of like flipping a coin and trying to see

542
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 1: if it's like a loaded coin. And you get seven

543
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 1: or seventy five heads in a row or out of

544
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 1: a hundred, and you're like, does that mean that it's

545
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 1: a loaded coin or does that mean that I just

546
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:09,119
Speaker 1: got lucky and got seventy five heads out of a hundred.

547
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: And that's where the subjective element comes in. At what

548
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: point do you declare this coin is fair? At what

549
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: point do you declare the coin is not fair? And

550
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: so in our field, we have this standard of five stigma,

551
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: which is like one in three and a half million

552
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: chants of it being a random fluctuation, And so three

553
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: and a half stigma sounds like it's close to five stigma,

554
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 1: but it's a whole gaussy entail kind of a thing,

555
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 1: and so it's actually not that close. All right, So

556
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: they put these muance inside of a magnetic ring and

557
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: they're growing around and they're spinning, and you're sort of

558
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: measuring also what happens to those muans, right, and kind

559
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: of what happens to them tells you the value of

560
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: the muance magnetic field. Yeah, so they get these muans

561
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: spinning a certain way, they shoot them around in this

562
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: ring this big magnet and the magnetic forces the spin

563
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: just change a little bit, because the spin will change

564
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: in the presence of a magnetic field, and they zoom

565
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: around a few hundred times, and only a few hundred times.

566
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 1: Be the muan doesn't live forever. Eventually mulan will decay

567
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: into an electron and a couple of neutrinos. But that's

568
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: good because that lets you measure the direction of the

569
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 1: magnetic field at the end, because the direction of the

570
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: electron tells you the direction of the muan spin and

571
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: its magnetic field. So when the muan sort of dies,

572
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,439
Speaker 1: you can measure how much was it's been affected by

573
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: this magnetic field, and that tells you what the muans

574
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 1: magnetic field was by itself. They've spent twenty years sort

575
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: of refining this experiment just to get more and more precise,

576
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: and finally we got a numbers. So now we have

577
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 1: two numbers. We have the number that the theorists predict

578
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: based on all of the things that the muan can

579
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 1: do of what this magnetic field should be, and we

580
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: have a number that experimentally spent twenty years measuring. And

581
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: they're not the same. And you know, they did this

582
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: in a really cool way. They did it in a

583
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: blind search way because this is a very important number

584
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: and a lot of sort of careers rely on this.

585
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: Folks want the number to be interesting. They're hoping it's

586
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: going to deviate from the theory, but they definitely want

587
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: to get it right, and so they do this in

588
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: a blind way by sort of scrambling the data a

589
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 1: little bit. They add like a random offset to all

590
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: of the numbers that's sort of hidden. It's like a

591
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: hidden key to the data. So they don't buyas the

592
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: way they do the analysis to try to like push

593
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: it in the direction that they may be subconsciously want.

594
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: And so they held the key like in a secret

595
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: office until just six weeks ago. So even the people

596
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: working on this experiment for the last decade or so,

597
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: I didn't know the answer until six weeks ago when

598
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: they cracked open this key and they typed it in

599
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: and then they finally saw the answer. Wow, it sounds

600
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: like a spy novel, you know, like that there's a

601
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: hidden key and nobody knew the secret until the very end. Well,

602
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: I think it's actually really exciting because it makes it climactic.

603
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: There's a moment when you're asking Nature a question and

604
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: you're getting the answer right. Otherwise it sort of creeps

605
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: up on you and like when you actually learn or

606
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: here's a correction, oili's change this and the answer is

607
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: sort of like evolving as you're improving your techniques. It's

608
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: nice to have a definitive moment, a crisp time, when

609
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: you say, Nature, what is the answer to this question?

610
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: And then you get an answer back from the universe.

611
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: All right, Well, they announced this result which everyone got

612
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: very excited about recently, and so let's talk about what

613
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: the result was and what it could mean about the universe.

614
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break. All right, so

615
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: did a government physics experiment? So just something unknown is

616
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: influencing reality, Daniel, The shady government physicists distrowed our understanding

617
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: of the universe and reality. I'm trying to influence reality

618
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: by eating boxes of chocolates. It seems to affect the

619
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: reality of the size of my Trying to increase your

620
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: magnetic field or decrease your magnetism just influenced my effect

621
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: on the universe, my personal gravity. It might be shrinking

622
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: your magnetism. Will have to ask your family. Yeah, so

623
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: they found that the theoretical and the experimental results do

624
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: are either different as it was sort of suggested twenty

625
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: years ago, but now we know kind of more for certain. Yeah,

626
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: these numbers have improved. Both theoretical numbers have been improved

627
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: and the experimental numbers have been improved. So the uncertainties

628
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: on these two numbers have shrunk, but the gap between

629
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: them has not. So there's still like this opening between

630
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: these two numbers. And you know, i'd read you this number,

631
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: but it's sort of crazy. It's just like a very

632
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: specific number, and the differences are in the last couple

633
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: of digits of the like this twelve digit number, but

634
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: you know, the scale of it is, like the theoretical

635
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: value is to ten thousands of one percent smaller than

636
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: the experimental value. That's like how precisely we've calculated and

637
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: measured these quantities. Wait wait, wait, so then you're saying

638
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,959
Speaker 1: that the difference between the theoretical and the experimental is

639
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: to ten thousands of one percent. That's the difference. Yeah,

640
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: it's a really tiny difference. So you need really precise

641
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: experiment and really careful calculations to even be sensitive to this.

642
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: That's why it's so impressive that they can even ask

643
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: this question. It's almost like you flip the coin and

644
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: you've got heads, you know, fifty point oh oh one

645
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: times more than you've got tails, And normally that would

646
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: be like you know, in the noise, but maybe you

647
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: flip the coin like a gazillion times to know that

648
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, there's something a little bit biased about

649
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: this coin, that's right, And if you're gonna do that measurement,

650
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: you have to ask, well, do I expect I mean,

651
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: the shape of the heads is not exactly the shape

652
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: of the tails, and maybe that influences it with the

653
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: air currents. And you've got to be like really precise

654
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: about all of those calculations if you want to claim

655
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: that it's unfair or that it's fair. And so you know,

656
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: that's what they've done. They've done like a tour the

657
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: force of these theoretical calculations and the experimental calculations, and

658
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: so both of these results have changed, Like the experimental

659
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: result we now have a new number from Fermi Lab

660
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: as of yesterday, but also the theoretical results have changed.

661
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: For example, they found like a mistake at one point

662
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: where they made up the wrong sign, like they changed

663
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: a plus to a minus accidentally, and that changed the result.

664
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 1: And so they're constantly like improving and doing these things

665
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: better because neither of these things are easy. It's a

666
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 1: pretty tough thing. Like even the theory that it takes

667
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: like supercomputers to compute these numbers. Yeah, well, there's actually

668
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: a big controversy about how to do that theoretical calculation.

669
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: And some folks are using supercomputers to try to calculate

670
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: this thing from scratch out of all of these diagrams

671
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: and include what happens when the hedraumic particles that feel

672
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: the strong force are created out of the vacuum and

673
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. And there's another group that

674
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: are trying to just like not do those calculations explicitly,

675
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: but take them from other measurements, like other experimental results,

676
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:38,239
Speaker 1: and extrapolate from there to figure out like what are

677
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: the bits and pieces and then use theory to sort

678
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: of glue them together into a measurement. So the sort

679
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: of two different approaches to doing this calculation, and there's

680
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 1: some controversy there because the sort of traditional approach where

681
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: we extrapolate from other experimental measurements and use theoretical glue.

682
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: That's the one that has the discrepancy with the observed value.

683
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: But there's a new result that uses like pure computation

684
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 1: san and these crazy supercomputers in Europe, and it actually

685
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: agrees with the experimental result pretty closely. All right, But

686
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: we're talking about this result from Fermulab and they sort

687
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: of confirmed that it's the theory and the experiment are different.

688
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: And so, you know, assuming that they're right, or that

689
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: it gets further confirmed and all the theory checks out,

690
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: what could it mean about our model of the universe. Well,

691
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: you're right that the Fermulab experimental result is the new

692
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: shiny thing, and nobody is suggesting that it's wrong. But

693
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: it's only interesting and it's only suggestive of new physics

694
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 1: if it's different from the prediction. And we have two predictions,

695
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: one that agrees with the Fermulab result and one that doesn't.

696
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: And that's what the four point two sigma is. So

697
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: the picture is a big cloudy on the theoretical side.

698
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: As usual, there's a spectrum of possibilities, you know, from

699
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: like the most boring to the more interesting to the

700
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: totally crazy and potentially bonkers. Idea. As you said, the

701
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: most boring possibility is that it's just a mistake somewhere.

702
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 1: You know, maybe one of these theoretical groups has made

703
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: an error or they've forgotten to include something as the

704
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: minus signed wrong. You know, this is really really hard.

705
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: So I personally I like this calculation done by the

706
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 1: European supercomputers because it was done by the collaboration called

707
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: BMW because they're in Budapest, Marseille and whipper Toll, and

708
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,720
Speaker 1: it's sort of like independent. They like start from scratch

709
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 1: and they're just doing the calculation, so we'll just have

710
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:19,240
Speaker 1: to see what progress has made there in the future.

711
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: But they're comparing to the same experimental results. So it

712
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: really is sort of like a blow to this discrepancy

713
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 1: to have a new theoretical calculation that doesn't show the discrepancy. Interesting, so,

714
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: like they used some supercomputers and they found that there

715
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: is no discrepancy with the experimental result. Yeah, the prediction

716
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: they made, which came out well before the experimental result,

717
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: is bang on to the new experimental result. So we

718
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: don't know which of these two theoretical calculations is correct.

719
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: But sort of muddies the water it's harder to claim

720
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: that this discrepancy is the side of new physics new

721
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: particles influencing reality when we don't exactly know if it's correct,

722
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,720
Speaker 1: all right, So that's the vanilla possibility. What's the chocolate

723
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: chip possibility chocolate chips is that they're are some new

724
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:03,959
Speaker 1: particles out there influencing reality. You know, we strongly believe

725
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 1: that there must be more particles out there. The story

726
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 1: can't be complete. We look at the particles that we've

727
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: discovered so of our in nature, and they just don't

728
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: answer all of our questions, and we suspect that there

729
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,280
Speaker 1: are lots more really heavy particles out there. The problem

730
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,439
Speaker 1: with really heavy particles is that it takes a lot

731
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 1: of energy to make them. You've got to smash particles

732
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 1: together at the Large Hadron Collider with enough energy to

733
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: actually create these things so you can study them and

734
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 1: explore them. But if we don't have enough energy in

735
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: our machines, that doesn't mean those particles don't exist. It

736
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: just means we can't make them at the Large Hadron Collider,

737
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: and the only way to study them is to see

738
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: these little hints. So it's possible that this is a

739
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: hint of those new particles that are out there that

740
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: are influencing the Muance magnetic field because they appear in

741
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: some of these diagrams, some of these calculations that change

742
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 1: the Muans magnetic field. But that doesn't mean we know

743
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: what they are, right, It's sort of like unspecific. It's

744
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: like saying we know there's something out there, we just

745
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. It's a more indirect way

746
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: of looking for a new part of right, because you're

747
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: sort of like seeing how they influence other particles, which

748
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,919
Speaker 1: is not a direct measurement. All right, So then that's

749
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: the chuckle chip possibility. Maybe there are new particles or

750
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 1: heavier versions of our particles out there, and maybe the

751
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,439
Speaker 1: Mean is going through space and it sometimes creates these

752
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 1: heavy particles which kind of tweak its magnetic field. Right,

753
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: that's the idea, And then there's some even crazier ideas.

754
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: People have specific theories for what might be influencing the

755
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: Muan's magnetic field, and these other theories we can test

756
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: because they're very specific. For example, my friend Dan Hooper

757
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: at Fermulab, he has this idea for a new particle.

758
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: It's called a z prime prime because it's sort of

759
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 1: like the existing Z particle, but it's different. So it's

760
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 1: a little bit of a twist on the Z particles,

761
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: like the Z particles. Evil twin like Z would flare

762
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: like the Z particles with little tail or something. It's

763
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: a spicy version of the Z particle, and it's sort

764
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: of like the Z but he would influence the muan's

765
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: magnetic moment in just this way, because when the muan

766
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: is flying along, it doesn't just create photon sometimes it

767
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 1: creates z s and ws and all sorts of other particles.

768
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:05,759
Speaker 1: So it would also create the Z prime. It would

769
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: explain this discrepancy. But the cool thing about it is

770
00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:10,959
Speaker 1: that if this Z prime is real, it also would

771
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,800
Speaker 1: have been created in the early universe. It would have

772
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: changed how the universe expanded, specifically because this Z prime,

773
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 1: if you create it would probably decay mostly into these

774
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: neutrino particles, which would boost the energy density of the

775
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: radiation portion of the universe. And right now, there's a

776
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: lot of questions about how the universe expanded in the

777
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: early days. You can check out our podcast about the

778
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: Hubble tension. This question of like how fast was the

779
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: universe expanding we have all these measurements that again don't agree.

780
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: So this z prime theory would explain not only the

781
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: Muan's magnetic moment, but also this weird question about the

782
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 1: expansion of the universe in its early days. So it's

783
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: sort of like really nice because it would solve both

784
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: of these problems at the same time. That's a new

785
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: proposed particle. But would it also explained the difference between

786
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: the theoretical and experimental measurements of the muan. Absolutely would, Yeah,

787
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: it would solve both of those problems simultaneously. That doesn't

788
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:04,879
Speaker 1: mean that it's real, you know, but it's nice if

789
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: there's another handle you can have on it. Because remember

790
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: the Muans matagnetic field is very indirect. It sounds like

791
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 1: a clear way to know what's responsible. So what you

792
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: want to do is have like another way to test

793
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: these things. Say, if it really is a Z prime,

794
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: can I see it somewhere else to get confidence that

795
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,280
Speaker 1: it's a Z prime and not like a G prime

796
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: or a D prime or some other weird particle. So

797
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 1: he has a more specific prediction for another way we

798
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: can test this particle. But that doesn't mean that it's right.

799
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: Could it also be? Because I've heard it in the

800
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: news and from some of the scientists that you know.

801
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 1: This could maybe also point to maybe explain things like

802
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: dark matter or why the Higgs boson has them as

803
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: it has, like it could maybe even open it up

804
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: further to like crazy new kinds of other particles. Yeah,

805
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: it's harder to know whether it can tell us something

806
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: about dark matter because we don't know whether dark matter

807
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: interacts at all with the muan. It's true that this

808
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: method can tell us about any particle that will interact

809
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: with the muan, but it might be that dark matter

810
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 1: only feels gravity. Now, the dominant theory of dark matter

811
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: has a sort of interaction between dark matter and muans

812
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: and other particles at a very very low level. So

813
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: for some theories of dark matter, yes, this could explain it,

814
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 1: but again, we don't really know what would be doing this.

815
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: It just tells us there's some new particle out there

816
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: that does interact with the muan. It doesn't tell us

817
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 1: what that is. So dark matter is a favorite idea

818
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: because it's another big unexplained mystery. Well, I think maybe

819
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: the overall big headline is that maybe what we think

820
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,240
Speaker 1: can happen in the universe is not what is actually

821
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: happening in the universe, like maybe there are things that

822
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 1: we have an accounted for, or that maybe it makes

823
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: our theory incomplete that we are seeing in this muon

824
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: magnetic field that is not in our theory. That's I

825
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: think that's sort of the general exciting part, right, Yeah,

826
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: it's always exciting to find a place where our theory

827
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 1: does not predict our experiments because it means it's a

828
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 1: place to learn, it's a place to improve our theory,

829
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: it's a place to add some thing new to our

830
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: understanding of the universe. For a long time, all the

831
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: experiments we do, like all the ones that the large

832
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: Hadron collider, are very very well predicted by our theory,

833
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,280
Speaker 1: which means that it's working, which is exciting, but also

834
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: means that there doesn't provide any clues for how to

835
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: improve it, or expand it, or go to the next

836
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: level of the theory. So any discrepancy like this is

837
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: a wonderful clue that points us to maybe figuring out

838
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: a deeper idea by the nature of the universe. But

839
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: now let me maybe toss a bit of cold water

840
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,879
Speaker 1: on that. Remember that this is only exciting if the

841
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 1: theory is right, and that's a bit of a fuzzy

842
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: picture still. I actually think the other discrepancy in the

843
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,400
Speaker 1: B particles with Penguin diagrams at the Large Hadron Collider

844
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,280
Speaker 1: is much more promising and exciting because the theoretical issues

845
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: are better controlled and there are several other experimental results

846
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: that suggest the same thing. So if I had to

847
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: put my money on something, I guess that this discrepancy

848
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: in the formula nuance will turn out to be a

849
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: problem in how the theory calculations were done, not actually

850
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: a new particle. And I'm more excited that the LHC

851
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 1: Penguin diagrams could be showing us new particles. So it

852
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 1: was good to double check, you know, Like if you

853
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: think this twenty year old chocolate it's gonna taste good,

854
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 1: maybe you should try it for us, right, Yeah, and

855
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: you should keep trying it. And that's what they're gonna

856
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 1: be doing. This is just the first batch of results

857
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: from this formulab experiment. They actually have a lot more

858
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: data that they've already taken. It's like on a computer somewhere.

859
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 1: They just haven't finished analyzing it, and they have ideas

860
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 1: for how to improve the quality of their measurement to

861
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 1: make it more precise, to shrink these errors even on

862
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: the data they already have analyzed. So we should expect

863
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: to see sometime in three more announcements about even more

864
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 1: precise measurements of these quantities, and also progress on the

865
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: theoretical side, as these two different groups try to figure

866
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: out like why they're getting different answers and who is

867
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 1: correct and maybe they can learn from each other. So

868
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: this is a story we should keep following. Yeah, because

869
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: this big announcement, as big as it was, it's really

870
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: just like the first bun out of the oven, right,

871
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 1: Like this is like their first batch of data. Uh,

872
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: and they're expecting to get like, you know, twenties sixteen

873
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: times more you know, me on spins detections, and that

874
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: their estimates are just going to get better. Yes, absolutely,

875
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: As they get more data, these statistical uncertainty will fall.

876
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: And in this case, the statistical uncertainty just from like

877
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: not having an infinite number of measurements is still the

878
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: dominant source of uncertainty. As they get more data, they're

879
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 1: gonna have to worry about other sources of uncertainty, systematic

880
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: uncertainties and things about like how they're calibrating their experiment.

881
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: But again, these are clever experimentalists and they have ways

882
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: of reducing those things. So as time goes on, all

883
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: the uncertainties will shrink and our knowledge of this quantity

884
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: will improve, and maybe it will reveal something new in

885
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: the universe influencing reality awesome, like maybe a new flavor

886
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 1: of ice cream or that chocolate. Al Right, well, I

887
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 1: guess as always, the answer is stay tuned. If you're

888
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: still a little bit confused about this whole topic, you

889
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: can read the comic that I drew for Physics the

890
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: APS Journal at PhD comics dot com, slash me on

891
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:04,320
Speaker 1: m U O N and checked it out. But we

892
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, see you

893
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and

894
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: Jorge explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.

895
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: Or more podcast from my Heart Radio visit the I

896
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

897
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. H