WEBVTT - Gravitational Waves and Space Dust 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.360 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.920 podcast that looks at the future and says I've kissed 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.840 mermaids Rhode l Nino. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and I'm Lauren 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.159 Folke BAM. And Joe is out on vacation and he 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.360 will be back soon. I think he's probably having amazing 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.200 adventures right now, yes, and we do. Well. Yeah, as 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.400 of this recording, I think he might actually be back 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.239 in the future when you hear this right well, even then, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.400 he'll still have amazing adventures. He is the keeper of 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.199 the mystical acts, so which we have not had in 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.800 our podcast room for a long time, but we have 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:45.800 had it in our hearts. That's true, where where we 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:49.640 keep our access uh, which is dangerous. By the way, 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.560 I do not recommend speaking of danger. There's a danger 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:58.480 of doing a video about breaking news and science because 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.200 sometimes that breaking news turns out to be a different 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.120 story than what we first had thought. Which brings us 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:10.240 to today's episode. So way back in March of we're 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:15.440 recording this in late September, researchers at the background imaging 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.640 of cosmic extra galactic polarization to project, otherwise known as BICEP, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.200 which is a lot easier to say. Yep. They announced 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.400 that they had discovered patterns in the cosmic background radiation 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.480 that matched what they expected to find as a result 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:34.600 of gravitational waves, which was a big deal, and I 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.480 did afford thinking video episode about it that published on 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:42.679 March twenty two, fourteen. So why is the hypothetical discovery 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.280 of of some waves a big deal? Well, gravitational waves 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.320 or something that is predicted by a specific interpretation of 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.320 the Big Bang theory of how our universe started. It's 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:57.280 specifically the inflation model of the Big Bang theory. So 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.800 they're after effects of the event. They're not directly detectable 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.520 by we mirror mortals. We can't see gravitational waves, but 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.560 we can look for their presence by the way they 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.160 might affect something else, like the cosmic microwave microwave background radiation. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:18.880 So uh, the inflation model specifically describes that rapid expansion 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:20.640 of the universe in a fraction of a fraction of 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.200 affraction of a fraction of affraction, etcetera, etcetera. Of a second, 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.639 it's we're talking such the first moments that the universe existed. Yeah, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.480 the very beginning of time. Calling it a moment even 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.000 seems weird because we're talking about tend to the negative 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.600 thirty six of a second, to tend to the negative 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.160 thirty three of a second, narrow in down. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:48.200 I mean it's and I guess the terms of cosmic inflation, 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.960 it's an eternity. But for for those of us who 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.440 are living on our scale, this is a moment that 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:59.360 is unimaginably fast. But in that moment, the universe expanded 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.000 to an incredible amount, faster than the speed of light. However, 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.280 we're talking about if you are looking at the universe 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:07.840 from the outside, which don't even get me started there, 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.079 that's the whole other conversation. But imagine you could look 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:12.680 at the universe from the outside. You would see this 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.760 thing expand faster than the speed of light. Now, within 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.560 that universe, everything is obeying the various laws of our universe. Also, 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:21.960 it was so dense that light couldn't even travel in 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:26.000 it at this point. So, uh, this would have been 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.000 an incredible moment of expansion, and physicists believe that one 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:36.320 of the byproducts would be gravitational waves. So those gravitational 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.520 waves would, according to this model of inflation, have a 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:44.000 certain alignment in our our universe. They call it handedness, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.880 and it's kind of the curvature of the wave. So 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.080 the BICEP two team were making these observations. They have 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.160 a telescope at the South Pole and they were looking 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.360 for signs of these gravitational waves, and they found what 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.760 they thought were those signs. Um they saw twists in 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.680 the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and that 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.280 appeared to be an alignment with the way the gravitational 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.240 waves were predicted to be. And in fact, there's an 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.480 amazing video. I'm sure a lot of you guys out 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.440 there have seen it. It was really very dear. Yeah, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.279 I shared it when it when it first hit the web. 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:27.719 But Andre Lindy, who's known as the father of inflation, uh, 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:32.640 cosmic inflation, not monetary inflation, right right, he's he's kind 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:36.599 of one of the original purveyors of this concept. Yeah. 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.080 A student who had worked on the BICEP two project 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.880 went and visited his home, Lindy's home, and told the 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.680 professor about the findings, and it was a very emotional 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:53.479 joyous reaction because here was this, uh, this hypothesis that 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.560 this man had put forward, and he fully expected that 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.599 there would never be any confirmation of that within his 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.960 life time. Well, the support from the BICEP to finding 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.120 would mean that there would be a stronger foundation for 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.800 that particular Big Bang model of how our universe sprang 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.039 into being. Uh. It is not the only model that's 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.960 been proposed um there and there are variations on the 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.840 Big Bang theory, and there are variations that were there 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.240 are other models of the universe's existence that don't really 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.200 follow the Big Bang theory. And at the time, the 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.400 researchers at BICEP two said they felt very strongly their 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.440 results were reliable and not due to error. They had 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.039 analyzed the data for three years before announcing it, so 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.320 this wasn't like a brand new discovery. They looked up 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.040 in the sky and saw it. This was they saw something, 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.279 and then they subjected that to analysis repeatedly to make 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.080 sure that what they were looking at was what they 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.880 thought it was. And they said they had even eliminated 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.840 the possibility that cosmic dust cause a false reading, which 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:58.160 means now we've got science right. Okay. So by May 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.039 of two thousand fourteen, other researchers already began to question 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:07.000 if perhaps cosmic dust might have caused an issue, after all, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.200 that even though the team had said that they had 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.359 accounted for that, it may still have ended up affecting 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.600 the results. And in September two thou fourteen, so it's 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.440 the week that we're actually recording this, another team of scientists, 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.800 this time with the European Space Agency's Plunk satellite, said 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.440 that they had discovered far more space dust out there 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.799 than what was previously believed to exist in this specific 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:36.800 window of space that the BICEP researchers were looking into. Yeah, 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.920 they essentially said, look, it's dusty out there, and there 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.839 is no clear view at all. Even though this one 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.640 particular site where BICEP two was stated was thought to 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.720 have been relatively right, it turns out that there's no 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.840 such thing. Well, yeah, yeah, and you know right, they 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.359 had accounted for some space dust, just not enough. And 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.599 the thing about this dust is that light from it 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.360 can be polarized by magnetic fields and space, creating swirls 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.240 that look an awful lot like what we would expect 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.640 these gravitational ripples to look like, right, Now, the scientists 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.840 at Plank with the Planck satellite are very careful not 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.840 to say that the bicep to findings are false. What 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:17.920 they do say is that it's likely that space dust 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.520 could account for at least some of the data that 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:22.680 the team has come up with it that they say 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:26.239 are are their results, and uh they say, well, this 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.880 this new finding brings that into question. And so researchers 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.400 from both groups are going to work together and compare 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.280 their their respective huge amounts of data and try to 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.960 determine what extent, if any, space dust might have corrupted 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.960 those findings. So it could be that we still find 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.320 evidence for gravitational waves after all of the settles. Sure, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.880 it's really difficult to suss out, is the thing. It's 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.840 not like with a camera that you would use where 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.880 you just twist a ring on the lens and visually 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.560 confirm that what you're looking at is in focus right, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.840 or what exactly within your field of vision you're focusing on. UM, 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.120 you have to compare image brightness using several frequencies in 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.400 the electromagnetic spectrum, which is what most of these satellites 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:16.040 UM telescopes are using and UM and also take into consideration, right, 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:20.400 that polarization of the light, and so this data combined 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.400 can help you distinguish between things in near and far 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:28.800 fields of view and also identify dust the noise of 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.360 the dust from everything else going on. This really reminds me. 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.960 I mean, it's it's a crazy, uh comparison to make, 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.120 but if you've ever seen those videos from a security camera, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.640 like at a gas station where there's some creepy ghost 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.120 and it turns out it's a bug that's walking across 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.160 the lens, and it's because the camera's focal point isn't 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.160 close enough, right, You can't nothing that is that close 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.240 to the camera is going to be in focus. We're 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:59.560 talking about a very like macro version of creepy gravitational ways. 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.920 But it was dust. No, maybe, maybe we don't know. 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.040 It may turn out again that there are, uh, there 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.160 is some evidence of gravitational waves there, but that the 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:11.920 thought right now is that those waves are going to 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.160 be significantly weaker than what the BICEP two team originally thought, 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.080 which might make it necessary for people to kind of 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.080 re evaluate how they think about this particular model of 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.520 the universe. Right. Yeah, it may just mean that some 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.400 of the models of the inflation are a little off. 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.760 In fact, when this finding was first announced by the 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.280 BICEP two team, they actually said, these waves are much 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.800 stronger than what we had anticipated. So it could be 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:40.760 that this all just sort of evens out in the 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.040 long run. I mean, that is a possibility. So the 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.680 worst case scenario for the BICEP two team is that 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.480 the plot data ends up invalidating the earlier findings entirely, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.959 where the space dust ends up being the full extent 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.280 of what they discovered, and they did not, in fact 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.360 notice the polarization of cosmic microwave background radiation. Now, that 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.520 does not necessarily mean that gravitational wave hypothesis itself is invalid. 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.599 It just means that the evidence we thought we had 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.240 isn't what we believed it to be, and that maybe 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.720 that we need to find new evidence. We need to 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.200 find a new way of engineering test in order to 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.600 look for that exactly. It just made me that, you know, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.600 the evidence is still there, we just have to find 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.640 the way to find it. Um. So we can't be 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.760 certain that even if the Planck satellite data does invalidate 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.400 those results, that the hypothesis itself is wrong. It just 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.960 means that we don't have the evidence to support it anymore. Right, 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.720 So this is this isn't quite this sad story that 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.440 it might seem like on the surface, Right, This is 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.560 actually a great story. And the reason why it's a 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.480 great story is because it really illustrates how science is 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.080 supposed to work. And this is what is we really 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.040 wanted to talk about. And we kind of use this 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:57.880 as a as a launching pad to do two things. 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.000 One to address something that was said in an earlier 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.960 video and to to talk about the scientific process. And 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:05.960 it sounds like it is kind of a bummer to 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.600 have your discovery invalidated, But that's how we get at 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.360 the information that gives us a better idea of how 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.040 reality works. Yeah, that is how we science. In fact. Yeah, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.079 if we didn't do that, if we just decided that 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.160 every single time someone discovered something and there was no 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.880 critical analysis of it at all, that that was reality, 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.600 we would have a very skewed vision of reality. We'd 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.160 be back to humors. Yeah. Yeah, And and this isn't 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:35.600 wishy washy either. I Mean, sometimes in some portions of 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.920 the media, you you hear people misinterpreting this kind of 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:45.559 discovery process or or process of questioning as scientists don't 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.600 know what they're talking about. And well that's the point. 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.520 Now scientists don't know what they're talking about. We're questioning 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.400 it up, questioning it all the time, right, and if 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:54.520 it turns out that it holds up to the questions, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.120 then you feel more confident about the answers. And so, yeah, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.680 it's not a black or white scenario. I seen so 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:05.440 many stories that have tried to um to summarize this 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:10.120 particular story about the Planck satellite data as Planck satellite 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.960 data invalidates Big Bang theory, and I think, well, you 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:19.600 now you are mostly overexaggerated. So yeah, there there's some 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.960 critical thinking is needed, not only when you're doing science, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.439 but when you're reading science news. It's very important. So 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.480 some things were pretty darn sure about. So with those 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.240 things were really sure about, it would take extraordinary evidence 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.800 to the contrary to make us change those those ideas, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.480 those thoughts. Right, So like the theory of gravity, it 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:49.800 would take extraordinary evidence for us to significantly change the 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.880 theory of gravity. That theory of evolution is another great example. 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:58.160 It would take extraordinary evidence to really make us say 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.400 that theory. Oh wait, we were wrong. Yeah, and keep 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.640 in mind again, I know all of you guys out 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.320 there know this, But in science, a theory is not 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.560 I have an idea. A theory is where we have 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:15.000 a body of information about something that we are extremely 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.680 confident reflects reality. And when we say extremely confident, we 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.440 do allow for the possibility that there could be something 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.640 that's wrong. It needs to be tweaked. There might be 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.040 tiny elements of it that need to be fixed. But 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.080 it's very unlikely that the full collection of ideas is 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:35.760 wholly incorrect. If it is, that requires phenomenal evidence to 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:40.480 support the objection. And this is how science works. Okay, 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.319 So so this sounds an awful lot like we're talking 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.480 about some kind of method of doing science. Wow, if 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:52.440 only we had a term for the method with which 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.079 science is put to use. You mean you mean a 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:00.560 scientific method, that would be brilliant. Yes, it is the 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.880 scientific method we're talking about, which is not a brand 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.720 new idea. Oh certainly not what we know today, as 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.640 the scientific method came out of the Renaissance and the 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:14.439 thinkers influenced by it in the surrounding centuries. There. During 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.719 the Renaissance, the Catholic Church started backing off of its 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.920 domination of public thought. You know that their persecution of 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.840 resistors to their dogma led in part to the Dark 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.480 Ages and it's six hundred year erosion of kind of 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:34.640 civilization as we know it circa five hundred to Europeans 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.200 during the Renaissance became a reacquainted with ancient Greek and 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.400 Roman works, and be their entire capacity for dealing with 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.800 data and mathematics were vastly expanded by Islamic influences. So 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.520 all of that was super rad um, and a few 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.360 people were really quite key in bringing the scientific method 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:58.200 into being. First in the early to mid thirteenth century 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.640 we have Albertus Magnus, who made the distinction between revealed 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.560 truth i e. Like from a divine power and experimental findings. 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.960 Then in the mid to late thirteenth century, Roger Bacon 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.680 called for an end to blind acceptance of popular ideas. 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.960 He particularly targeted Aristotle's work, which was really just to 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.720 point out that even great thinkers can be and frequently 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.160 are wrong about things, and that evidence must always be 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.360 considered right. This is this is the rise of critical thinking. 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.480 So that we stress all the time on this show. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.480 Then in sixty one influenced by the scientific work of 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.200 folks like Copernicus and Galileo. Francis Bacon published a proposed 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:46.360 approach to scientific inquiry called the Novum Organum science trum 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.440 because Latin was super posh at the time. It was 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.840 it was the the the language of currency at that point. 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.160 But but yes, this this paper that this was published 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.920 and put forth inductive reasoning as the best way to 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.600 science and and really the he didn't phrase it quite 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.200 like that. Well, I mean, I don't know, I don't 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.560 really speak Latin very well, so maybe that was how 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.760 he phrased it. Um. But but really as the only 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.960 way for humankind to master the world around us. I 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.200 like that. We have to thank the Bacon boys for 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.760 a lot of the scientific method, uh huh um. And 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.320 and this paved the way for folks like Isaac Newton 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.240 and Robert Hook and Louis Pastor to make and test 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:34.280 observations about our world that still vastly influence our civilization today. Um. 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.920 And and for them, I mean, and you know, continually, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.800 for us, disproving ideas was every bit as important as 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.120 proving ones. That's a great point if if you're if 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.920 your scientific presentation is not falsifiable, as in, there is 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.920 no way for someone to check against you, right, Yeah, 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:55.880 there's no way to present a counter to it because 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.720 it relies on something that isn't itself unfalsifiable. That's not 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.760 scien is. You have to have it be falsifiable for 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.520 it to be science. And uh, that doesn't mean that 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.919 it's itself is false. It just means that you have 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.440 to be able to have a scenario in which evidence 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.560 contrary to what you found would prove it to be wrong. 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.600 That doesn't necessarily mean that evidence actually exists. It just 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.439 has to have the possibility of existing. And if you 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.600 are a really good scientist, I mean, no one likes 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.320 to be proven wrong. Let's get that all the way 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.240 right now. I hate it when it happens. It happens frequently, 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.800 and I hate it every single time. However, if you're 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.880 a good scientist, you accept that as a possibility. And 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.320 when someone provides an objection to something that you have 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:47.240 put forth, then it is the responsibility of scientists to 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.359 make sure to look and see does the objection have 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.399 merit to it, And if it does, then you have 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.840 to go back and look at what went wrong. Maybe 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.480 it was the methodology that the first scientist use in 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.080 his or her experiments. Maybe it was a mistake in 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.160 analyzing the data that came out of the experimentation process. 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.879 And through this, we can get closer and closer to uh, 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:14.640 what we believe is to be reality. Keeping in mind 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.920 that we're filtering, filtering everything through the human experience. So, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.120 oh sure, you know we're we're measuring what we can 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.719 measure based on our limited senses. Yeah. There, we know 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.400 there's stuff out there that we like, gravitational waves, we 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.639 know their stuff out there. At least we highly suspect 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.640 there is stuff out there that we cannot directly observe, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:38.080 and so this becomes really super tricky. But but it's important, 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.440 right to UH, to be able to accept the fact 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.240 that you can be wrong, and to be proven wrong 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.119 is not is not a strike against you. It's a 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.879 strike four science right right, It's the entire thing is 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:55.520 a revolving process of asking questions and finding ways of 0:18:55.720 --> 0:19:00.040 testing hypothetical answers to those questions. And so if you 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.600 are encountering someone who resists that, who says that they 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.600 don't want people questioning their work, that's a warning flag. 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:09.679 Oh yeah, yeah, So if you were to come up 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.640 and uh, and you see a critical analysis of someone's 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.479 work and that person, the person who's being analyzed, is 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.479 being reactive in a negative way. They're saying, you know this, 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.679 You're being ridiculous or whatever. Assuming that the critical analysis 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.960 is in fact merited, it not always is correct. But 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.000 if it is merited and the person is putting up 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.760 a big fuss about being analyzed, then that is not 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.159 a good sign of science. Uh. You know, you a 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:43.760 good scientist will welcome analysis and criticism. Um. And if 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.560 things all went well, then what you end up with 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.959 is other scientists replicating that. First, scientists work to make 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.200 sure that the results are also replicable, and if they are, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:56.840 that's great. It means that it adds to our vision 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.280 of what reality is. So this is where we get 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.639 into things like, let's say I make an extraordinary claim, 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:05.720 and let's say I even get a patent for my 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.800 extraordinary claim because this has happened where I claim that 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:15.399 I have created a perpetual motion machine, which, according to 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.560 our understanding of the universe, is impossible. Yes, very much that, 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:21.600 but I've got the patent for it. I've even put 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.280 off put on some demonstrations where I've got a thing 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.200 that seems to be working, but don't let anyone get 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.240 too close to it, because you know, I don't want 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:32.320 to end up breaking my one working prototype. Yeah, that's 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.600 an extraordinary claim. And if I resist any attempts to 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:40.680 analyze that, then that's a warning flag. Um. And uh, 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.399 just as we have to take a critical eye toward 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.520 the science, we also have to take a critical eye 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.840 toward those who object to the science and make sure 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.960 that those objections are in fact merited. Evidence needs to 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.679 be supported on all ground and that's where we get 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:00.320 into that scientific method. That's what it's about. Yeah, so, uh, 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.440 you know, it's the whole prove it part of science. 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.800 So the cool thing to me is that these two teams, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.640 the PLOCK satellite team in the BICEP two team are 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:12.760 going to work together. They're going to look at this 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.280 data together and they're going to determine what to you know, 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:18.480 what is as close to the truth as we can 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.879 get according to all this data, And after that we 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.200 will have a better idea of whether or not there 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:28.280 were any gravitational waves detected in that amazing discovery that 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.040 was announced back in March or if that was just 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:36.239 a misguided misinterpretation of the data. Either way, it's not 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.119 something to be discouraged about. It's something to be happy 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:43.080 about because it means the process is working. It's the 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:48.200 coolest possible failure. Yeah. In fact, scientists say all the time, well, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.560 at least the theoretical ones do. I don't know so 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.399 much about the experimental scientists. But uh, scientists say all 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.240 the time that they that failures in a way are 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.480 more exciting successes because of success. While that does is 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.679 it tells it confirms something that you've suspected and and 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.040 it basically means that you need to find other ways 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:09.600 of attacking it. Yeah, or yeah, you gotta you know, well, 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.280 we prove that you guys want to go to lunch. 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:15.159 But a failure means there's something else going on. You 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:17.240 gotta figure out what that thing is, and that's the 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.480 exciting discovery part of science, right. So um, some some 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.240 scientists appear to be masochistic in that way. They want 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.920 they want to see more failures because it means that 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.040 there's more stuff going on. The Higgs boson is a 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.280 great example of that too. Yeah, oh yeah. There are 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.199 a lot of scientists who were saying, I kind of 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.560 hope we don't discover the Higgs boson, because if we do, 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:37.840 that's almost like a dead end. Like we we found 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:40.400 the thing we thought was there, and yes it was there, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.960 and now we're done. Whereas if we look for it 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:46.320 and it's not there, something else is going on, and 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.800 that's really exciting. For those of us who report on science. 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.640 We kind of like to have the end. The the 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:55.840 ends kind of do make stories better a lot of 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:58.760 the time. It does make the narrative easier to tell. Yeah, yeah, 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.120 although you know, at the same time, there's a lot 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:03.480 to be said for it to be continued. Yes, And 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:06.920 in fact, that's what this show largely is. I mean, 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.040 it's all about looking at the future, which spoiler alert, 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:13.040 guys were not there yet, uh and never will be 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.800 because tomorrow is another day. But it does mean that 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:18.600