1
00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:09,440
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, if you are the dictator of a country,

2
00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:11,799
Speaker 1: what would you do in terms of science? In terms

3
00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:14,320
Speaker 1: of science, I think I'd like to explore, like, what

4
00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:17,320
Speaker 1: is the biggest cookie that's possible to be you can

5
00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:22,160
Speaker 1: still be tasty. That's something physicists wonder about. I wonder

6
00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:24,280
Speaker 1: about that because you know, a cookie is a complicated thing.

7
00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:26,000
Speaker 1: It has to be crispy, has to be soft on

8
00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 1: the inside. You make it too big, then it's I'll

9
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:30,600
Speaker 1: just gonna be gooey. How do you get the heat dispersed?

10
00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:33,320
Speaker 1: It's a hard physics problem. So you think you need

11
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:36,520
Speaker 1: to all the resources of a country to figure out

12
00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:38,720
Speaker 1: the answer to this question. Hey, if you're gonna do something,

13
00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:41,040
Speaker 1: do it ten billion dollars big right. That's the way

14
00:00:41,080 --> 00:00:44,760
Speaker 1: I rolled the ten billion dollar cookie. That it would

15
00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:47,280
Speaker 1: be your science project, your dream science project. How would

16
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:49,440
Speaker 1: you would you? Would you aim higher? I would probably

17
00:00:49,479 --> 00:00:52,839
Speaker 1: do just make sure everyone understand science. You know, for

18
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,920
Speaker 1: all that money to educating people about science, you should

19
00:00:56,960 --> 00:00:59,920
Speaker 1: fund like an awesome podcast about it. Yeah, oh man,

20
00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:02,560
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe like get two people on it

21
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:05,200
Speaker 1: and two really good looking at people. We eat a

22
00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:07,759
Speaker 1: lot of cookies with stay trim anyway. Yeah, and then

23
00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:10,160
Speaker 1: just give them the ten billion dollars. I'm sure they'll

24
00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:15,400
Speaker 1: be responsible with it. Yeah, totally, not spending on cookies

25
00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:35,880
Speaker 1: or anything like that. That's right, that's right. Hi. I'm Jorge.

26
00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:39,160
Speaker 1: I'm a cartoonist and the creator of PhD Comics. And

27
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:41,720
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist by day in a

28
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,640
Speaker 1: podcaster by I don't know afternoon, and I'm a big

29
00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:49,120
Speaker 1: fan of cookies and science. And welcome to our podcast,

30
00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:52,280
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I

31
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:54,960
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in which we look around and wonder what

32
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: is weird, what is amazing, what is crazy about this universe,

33
00:01:58,560 --> 00:01:59,920
Speaker 1: and then we talk about it in a way that

34
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,800
Speaker 1: we hope you will understand. And we're also the authors

35
00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:05,040
Speaker 1: of the book We Have No Idea, a Guide to

36
00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:08,560
Speaker 1: the Unknown Universe. So if you would like to hear

37
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,240
Speaker 1: more from us or learn more about all these great

38
00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:13,400
Speaker 1: and amazing questions about the universe, go check it out.

39
00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:15,960
Speaker 1: That's right, and we also love to hear from you

40
00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:18,440
Speaker 1: about your questions about the universe. At the end of

41
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:21,040
Speaker 1: every episode we tell people please write in if you

42
00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:23,280
Speaker 1: have something you'd like to hear us talk about if

43
00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:25,720
Speaker 1: you have a question you can't quite figure the out

44
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,200
Speaker 1: the answer to, just using Google send it to us

45
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:30,160
Speaker 1: will break it down for you. And a lot of

46
00:02:30,160 --> 00:02:32,000
Speaker 1: people write us, right Daniel, And we get a couple

47
00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:34,760
Speaker 1: of a dozen a day. Right, Oh yeah, we got

48
00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:36,760
Speaker 1: a lot of nice emails, and some of them are

49
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,520
Speaker 1: just appreciation people saying, hey, thanks for the show. We're

50
00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,960
Speaker 1: enjoying it. It is wonderful to read. And then people

51
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,639
Speaker 1: send us their crackpot theories of the universe, like, hey,

52
00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:48,760
Speaker 1: I figured out dark matter, and you know quantum gravity,

53
00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:52,000
Speaker 1: and you know why airline food tastes so bad? All

54
00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:54,920
Speaker 1: with my one theory? Daniel, Actually that that one was

55
00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: for me. What do you mean it's a crack poc?

56
00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:00,720
Speaker 1: Didn't you read it? I read all the theories that

57
00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:04,839
Speaker 1: people send us, sometimes everything carefully. Sometimes I skimmed through them,

58
00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:06,960
Speaker 1: I'll admit, but I do love reading them, and I

59
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,840
Speaker 1: love getting people's emails, and mostly I love the emails

60
00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:13,120
Speaker 1: where people ask questions. When people say, here's something I

61
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:15,600
Speaker 1: don't understand, something i'd love to figure out. Could you

62
00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:18,079
Speaker 1: please explain something to me? Have you ever got a

63
00:03:18,160 --> 00:03:21,080
Speaker 1: question that you had never thought about before? Oh? For sure. Yeah,

64
00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,040
Speaker 1: lots of questions people ask I had never heard before.

65
00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:26,120
Speaker 1: I never even thought about, like how to answer that

66
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 1: question before. Those are my favorite ones, and so Daniel

67
00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:31,679
Speaker 1: will answer your emails. But every once in a while

68
00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:35,119
Speaker 1: we have an episode where we answer your questions on

69
00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:38,440
Speaker 1: the podcast, and today is one of those episodes. Can

70
00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:40,360
Speaker 1: I tell you about one of the questions that we

71
00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:43,520
Speaker 1: got that totally blew my mind? Oh? Please? Somebody wrote

72
00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:48,160
Speaker 1: in and said, what if the sun is actually a

73
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:54,680
Speaker 1: giant banana wrapped in hydrogen gas? Think about it? Think

74
00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:56,800
Speaker 1: about it? So I did that. I thought about it.

75
00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:00,840
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, that's a fascinating idea. I've never thought

76
00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:03,360
Speaker 1: of that idea before. I've never answered that question before.

77
00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:06,280
Speaker 1: I don't know how to answer that question. So I thought,

78
00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:08,880
Speaker 1: maybe you're the banana expert. What would be preventing the

79
00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:12,120
Speaker 1: sun from being a banana wrapped in hydrogen? What would

80
00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:17,080
Speaker 1: exploding hydrogen? Well, I guess it'd be like a roasted banana, right,

81
00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:19,920
Speaker 1: because it's pretty hot there. So if you like, you know,

82
00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:22,680
Speaker 1: banana's flambay and then maybe they'd be good. But I'm

83
00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:25,400
Speaker 1: not sure how you would assemble all those hydrogen atoms

84
00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:27,320
Speaker 1: and fuse them in the right way, they get potassium

85
00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:29,560
Speaker 1: and all that stuff to make it into a banana.

86
00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:32,120
Speaker 1: So I think that was not a sincere question. Is

87
00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:36,560
Speaker 1: maybe actually a joke aimed at you. But technically is

88
00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:40,280
Speaker 1: it possible, like um, you know, just out of random

89
00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:44,160
Speaker 1: you know, fluctuations, somehow a banana forms for an instant

90
00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:46,560
Speaker 1: in time, So it could be true. Yes, And in fact,

91
00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,520
Speaker 1: if you believe in the multiverse, then there is some

92
00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,400
Speaker 1: universe in which the Sun spontaneously forms a giant space

93
00:04:53,480 --> 00:04:56,880
Speaker 1: banana in its core for you know, for an instant. Yes, yeah,

94
00:04:56,920 --> 00:04:59,080
Speaker 1: there you go, There you go, And that's the universe

95
00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:02,560
Speaker 1: I want to live in. We live This is an

96
00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:05,640
Speaker 1: aspirational podcast, folks. We talked about the universe we live

97
00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:09,120
Speaker 1: in, in in the universe we wish we lived in. That's right.

98
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:11,920
Speaker 1: And the answer is always in the multiverse, anything is possible.

99
00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:16,719
Speaker 1: So technically you can be optimistic about anything, even space bananas.

100
00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:18,920
Speaker 1: That's right. I feel good, people, because it's all possible.

101
00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:22,120
Speaker 1: It's all possible. And so today on the podcast will

102
00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:30,320
Speaker 1: be tackling listener questions. Some of them are questions that

103
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:32,240
Speaker 1: I get a lot, and I thought people might be

104
00:05:32,279 --> 00:05:34,760
Speaker 1: interested to hear the answer. Maybe other people have these questions.

105
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,120
Speaker 1: Some of them are questions I had never heard before

106
00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:39,200
Speaker 1: and had to do a bit of research, So mix

107
00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:40,880
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. Yeah, and so today we

108
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:43,760
Speaker 1: have some pretty exciting questions. We have a question about

109
00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:47,840
Speaker 1: a giant space gun. We have questions about photons, and

110
00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:52,520
Speaker 1: we have questions about why isn't everything exploding? Or is it?

111
00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:56,560
Speaker 1: Or is it? So we'll get into that today. So

112
00:05:56,760 --> 00:05:59,640
Speaker 1: buckle up, folks, it's going to be a crazy ride today.

113
00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:07,160
Speaker 1: So today's first question comes to us from Paul, and

114
00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:10,240
Speaker 1: Paul had a question about how is there a better

115
00:06:10,279 --> 00:06:13,640
Speaker 1: way to get to space? So here is Paul's question. Hi,

116
00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:16,640
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge. When I was a kid, I remember

117
00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:19,760
Speaker 1: reading in an old Guinness Book of World Record about

118
00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:23,200
Speaker 1: a gun in Barbados sticking fire sixteen inch shell weighing

119
00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 1: about three hundred and thirty pounds to an altitude of

120
00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:29,240
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifteen thousand feet. Now that's less than

121
00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:32,720
Speaker 1: half of the lowest orbital altitude, but that was fifty

122
00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,200
Speaker 1: seven years ago. So ken a gun put an object

123
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,840
Speaker 1: into orbit? And if so, why aren't we doing it?

124
00:06:38,839 --> 00:06:41,720
Speaker 1: It has to be cheaper than rockets. Thanks all right,

125
00:06:41,839 --> 00:06:45,120
Speaker 1: thank you Paul for that awesome question. This has the

126
00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:47,560
Speaker 1: distinction to be you're the only person to ever write

127
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:51,600
Speaker 1: in asking that question. Really, it's not a it's not

128
00:06:51,960 --> 00:06:53,920
Speaker 1: it's not a branding question in the in the public's mind.

129
00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,680
Speaker 1: Apparently not. Not everybody is thinking about what they could

130
00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:59,279
Speaker 1: launch in the space using a really big gun. But

131
00:06:59,320 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 1: I love the end this question when he says, if

132
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:03,320
Speaker 1: we can do it, why aren't we doing it all

133
00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:06,120
Speaker 1: the time? I mean, if this is within our grasp, man,

134
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:08,720
Speaker 1: I would be like shooting banana pies into space all

135
00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:12,640
Speaker 1: the time. I think, I think. I think it's interesting

136
00:07:12,640 --> 00:07:16,440
Speaker 1: because that the corollary to his question was what he

137
00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:20,240
Speaker 1: was sort of really asking was isn't this cheaper than rockets?

138
00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:22,840
Speaker 1: Because really, it seems anything should be cheaper than rockets.

139
00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:26,160
Speaker 1: That's true. Rockets are not cheap, right, and so a

140
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:28,000
Speaker 1: lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about

141
00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:31,400
Speaker 1: other ways to get stuff into space because rockets cost

142
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:34,720
Speaker 1: millions and millions of dollars, right, Yeah, So the question

143
00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:38,239
Speaker 1: really is like, can you build a giant space gun?

144
00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:41,440
Speaker 1: And and that's how you put things into orbit. You

145
00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:44,760
Speaker 1: just shoot them out as super fast and up. I

146
00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:47,840
Speaker 1: guess vertically up is how you would do it, or

147
00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:50,680
Speaker 1: maybe not, and then that would just go off into space.

148
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:53,000
Speaker 1: It wouldn't stop, would go into space and get into orbit.

149
00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:55,520
Speaker 1: That's the question, right, Yeah, that's the question. And let's

150
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:57,480
Speaker 1: unpack it a little bit because there's a couple of

151
00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,440
Speaker 1: problems with this idea. First is just stting it up

152
00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:02,920
Speaker 1: high enough, right, Like can you shoot something from the

153
00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:05,520
Speaker 1: ground and make it all the way into space? Right?

154
00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:08,360
Speaker 1: And if you just want to leave the Earth, it's

155
00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:10,640
Speaker 1: a whole separate question of could you shoot something from

156
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:12,560
Speaker 1: the ground and get it into orbit. But let's just

157
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:14,880
Speaker 1: say you want to escape the Earth, you're on a mission,

158
00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:16,320
Speaker 1: you want to flow down into space, and you just

159
00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:19,160
Speaker 1: want to leave Earth's gravity, right, meaning shoot something with

160
00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:22,080
Speaker 1: a gun and not have it fall back down exactly. Yeah.

161
00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:24,400
Speaker 1: So the question is then how fast does it have

162
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:27,840
Speaker 1: to go? Right? That's called the escape velocity of the Earth.

163
00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:30,240
Speaker 1: And the escape velocity of the Earth is really high,

164
00:08:30,280 --> 00:08:33,040
Speaker 1: like if you're gonna leave the surface and not get

165
00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:36,520
Speaker 1: any more pushes, right, Remember, a rocket gets continuous pushes.

166
00:08:36,559 --> 00:08:38,880
Speaker 1: It brings the push the pusher with it as it's

167
00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:40,559
Speaker 1: going up in the air, keeps getting more and more

168
00:08:40,559 --> 00:08:44,600
Speaker 1: pushes keeps accelerating. Yeah, so you're going to get all

169
00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:46,320
Speaker 1: that push in the very beginnings. You have to have

170
00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:49,640
Speaker 1: your maximum speed is immediately after you leave the gun

171
00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:52,160
Speaker 1: because you're gonna lose it pretty quickly. So then the

172
00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:54,360
Speaker 1: question is how fast you have to be going to

173
00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:57,640
Speaker 1: leave Earth's orbit? Okay, so like what's your the initial

174
00:08:57,679 --> 00:09:01,200
Speaker 1: velocity you need to have in order to keep going

175
00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:04,160
Speaker 1: on into space and not fall back down. That's right, exactly.

176
00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:06,880
Speaker 1: And on the surface of the Earth, the escape velossity

177
00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:10,520
Speaker 1: you'd need is about eleven kilometers per second, So in

178
00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:12,760
Speaker 1: one second you'd have to be going you have to

179
00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:16,800
Speaker 1: cover eleven kilometers, yeah, exactly. And you know, for scale,

180
00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:20,559
Speaker 1: that's like thirty three times the speed of sound, so

181
00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:23,480
Speaker 1: you know, like jets can go like Mack one, Mack two,

182
00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:26,719
Speaker 1: Mock three. This is mock thirty three. Wow. How much

183
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:29,679
Speaker 1: is that in in miles per hour? In miles per hour,

184
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:33,280
Speaker 1: I think that's like twenty five thousand miles per hour. Wow,

185
00:09:33,920 --> 00:09:37,600
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty big h I think I don't

186
00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:39,480
Speaker 1: think that my prius has enough digits. I think in

187
00:09:39,559 --> 00:09:42,600
Speaker 1: its digital readA. Yeah, I don't think the digits is

188
00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:45,600
Speaker 1: the problem with your prius. But that's exactly the problem.

189
00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:47,679
Speaker 1: Like number one is how do you get something going

190
00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:50,600
Speaker 1: that fast? Right? Like shooting stuff from a rifle doesn't

191
00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:53,960
Speaker 1: get anywhere near that speed. Um Like rifles can. They

192
00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:56,000
Speaker 1: can shoot a bullet fast in the speed of sound,

193
00:09:56,400 --> 00:09:59,520
Speaker 1: but not thirty three times the speed of sound. So

194
00:09:59,559 --> 00:10:02,080
Speaker 1: you need a really big gun. You need a lot

195
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:05,120
Speaker 1: more explosive to get it up that speed. I say so,

196
00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:07,200
Speaker 1: even if you take a rifle and point it up

197
00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:09,600
Speaker 1: and you shoot, the bullet would eventually come back. Now,

198
00:10:09,720 --> 00:10:12,040
Speaker 1: do not do that, Yes, do not point a rifle

199
00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:14,280
Speaker 1: straight up, because that bullet will come right back down

200
00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:17,000
Speaker 1: at you or the guy standing next to you. This

201
00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:19,400
Speaker 1: happens every year in New Year's Eve. People fire guns

202
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:20,800
Speaker 1: into the air and you think, like, where do you

203
00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:23,720
Speaker 1: think those bullets are go? And they're not going into space,

204
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:26,880
Speaker 1: not into space, not into space. Then they're coming back

205
00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:29,800
Speaker 1: down and maybe hurting somebody. Um, So do not fire

206
00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:32,800
Speaker 1: bullets into the air. Um, they will not go to space.

207
00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:35,960
Speaker 1: And the other problem is say you did manage to

208
00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:38,520
Speaker 1: shoot a gun, or you know, you had some payload

209
00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:41,480
Speaker 1: and you shot it at this incredible speeds, had enough

210
00:10:41,559 --> 00:10:44,600
Speaker 1: energy well, it's not easy to go through the atmosphere

211
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:46,160
Speaker 1: at that speed. What happens when you go through the

212
00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:49,439
Speaker 1: atmosphere at high speeds is friction from the air air resistance,

213
00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:52,319
Speaker 1: So you heat up, just like you know how spaceships

214
00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:54,200
Speaker 1: when they land, they have to come through the atmosphere,

215
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,040
Speaker 1: and you know there's all that fire and burning and stuff.

216
00:10:57,200 --> 00:10:59,559
Speaker 1: That's because of the friction with the air. So this way,

217
00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:01,760
Speaker 1: you'd have so much speed, you'd have friction on the

218
00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:04,360
Speaker 1: way up. Oh so it's kind of like the re

219
00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:08,160
Speaker 1: entry problem, but in reverse exactly exactly, it's the re

220
00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:10,880
Speaker 1: entry problem on the way out. So if you build

221
00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:13,520
Speaker 1: like a three million dollar satellite and then want to

222
00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:15,880
Speaker 1: launch it into space when you don't want it's going

223
00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:18,520
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand miles per hour through the air because

224
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:22,000
Speaker 1: it'll melt. What have you put shielding on it, you know,

225
00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:25,319
Speaker 1: like they do with the Shuttle and the landers. Yeah,

226
00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:27,680
Speaker 1: but the Shuttle doesn't re enter the atmosphere twenty five

227
00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:30,120
Speaker 1: thousand miles per hour, and that's on purpose, right. It

228
00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:33,480
Speaker 1: slows down a lot, and it does it very gradually,

229
00:11:34,120 --> 00:11:35,800
Speaker 1: so you need a lot of shielding. And then this

230
00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:37,560
Speaker 1: thing we get heavy and then it gets more expensive

231
00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:39,880
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get this thing. Plus it's shielding up

232
00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:42,280
Speaker 1: to twenty five thousand miles per hour. It's not easy.

233
00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:45,840
Speaker 1: Start to imagine that cold air can burn you to

234
00:11:45,880 --> 00:11:49,920
Speaker 1: a crisp right, Yeah, we'll imagine it's sandpaper. Right. Imagine

235
00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:52,720
Speaker 1: if somebody's gonna you're gonna do you're you have one

236
00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:55,680
Speaker 1: of those bananas slipping slides in your backyard, except instead

237
00:11:55,679 --> 00:11:59,360
Speaker 1: of slippery plastic, somebody puts sandpaper. Right, that's what it

238
00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:03,600
Speaker 1: would be like. Yeah, that is a horrific scenario, Daniel,

239
00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:07,320
Speaker 1: and trying to raise it from my mind there, right, Well,

240
00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:09,600
Speaker 1: that is why we don't do this. I mean there's

241
00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:12,680
Speaker 1: other problems too, right, but that's those are reasons number

242
00:12:12,679 --> 00:12:14,800
Speaker 1: one and two. Reason number three, this is why we

243
00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:17,120
Speaker 1: don't go on slip and slides of miles per hour,

244
00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:22,040
Speaker 1: saying it's everything feels like sandpaper miles per hour. That's

245
00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:25,920
Speaker 1: the point. Okay, So it's really hard to do just

246
00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:29,800
Speaker 1: to just to accelerate any kind of mass or object

247
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:32,840
Speaker 1: up to twenty miles per hour, and also it would

248
00:12:32,880 --> 00:12:35,200
Speaker 1: burn up with air. So what are some of the

249
00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:37,800
Speaker 1: other problems. The other problem is getting into orbit. I mean,

250
00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:39,800
Speaker 1: what we talked about just now is getting it out

251
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:43,719
Speaker 1: of Earth's atmosphere and out of Earth's gravitational pull. That's

252
00:12:43,760 --> 00:12:46,280
Speaker 1: actually harder than getting something in orbit because you have

253
00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:48,680
Speaker 1: to go higher. Right, So you might think, well, what

254
00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:50,679
Speaker 1: if we just wanted to go into like low Earth orbit,

255
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:53,360
Speaker 1: we didn't want to actually leave Earth, And you think, well,

256
00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:56,439
Speaker 1: that might be easier. It's true, but you can't actually

257
00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:00,959
Speaker 1: shoot something from the ground into orbit. You cannot. You

258
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,719
Speaker 1: cannot because remember you're shooting it, you give it one push, right,

259
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:08,439
Speaker 1: You can't land in a stable orbit has a fixed trajectory,

260
00:13:08,640 --> 00:13:12,400
Speaker 1: and that trajectory includes intercepting the ground, so eventually it

261
00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:14,839
Speaker 1: will re intercept the ground. The way to get into

262
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:16,960
Speaker 1: orbit is you fly up into there and then you

263
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:19,040
Speaker 1: adjust your speed so you have the right speed and

264
00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:21,680
Speaker 1: direction to be in orbit. But there's no way to

265
00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:24,400
Speaker 1: get there from the ground without additional pushes once you're

266
00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:27,400
Speaker 1: up in the atmosphere. But you're saying, is it you

267
00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:29,840
Speaker 1: need minor adjustments once you get up there, or you

268
00:13:29,880 --> 00:13:31,800
Speaker 1: need like a lot of adjustment. No, it could be

269
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:34,880
Speaker 1: fairly minor adjustments. So, like one scenario is you have

270
00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:37,400
Speaker 1: stuff on the ground and you shoot it up to

271
00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:41,199
Speaker 1: fairly low Earth orbit or just below using your massive

272
00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 1: space gun that you built because you're a dictator. And

273
00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:46,600
Speaker 1: then you have something catch it something in low Earth orbit,

274
00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:48,880
Speaker 1: like catch it and then readjust it and shoot it

275
00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,600
Speaker 1: out into orbit, so that that kind of system might work.

276
00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:54,200
Speaker 1: But you can't just shoot something into orbit from the

277
00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:57,680
Speaker 1: ground because no, no trajectory that starts from the ground

278
00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:00,200
Speaker 1: will lead to a stable orbit. Like I know, if

279
00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:02,920
Speaker 1: you're a Superman, you could not put a football in orbit,

280
00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:05,679
Speaker 1: no matter how hard you try. That's right, that's right.

281
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,240
Speaker 1: And and football and even Superman, if he threw a

282
00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:11,320
Speaker 1: football thousand miles per hour, it would melt right, like

283
00:14:11,559 --> 00:14:14,760
Speaker 1: unless it's a super football from his original planet or something. Yeah,

284
00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:21,640
Speaker 1: kryptonite football, that's right. But then he couldn't hold it, Yeah, exactly.

285
00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:28,920
Speaker 1: But that's just a detail. The thing is and and

286
00:14:28,920 --> 00:14:31,440
Speaker 1: and Paul mentioned this in his question, is that people

287
00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:33,920
Speaker 1: have tried this right, People have worked on this problem.

288
00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:37,200
Speaker 1: People have shot stuff pretty far up, so you know,

289
00:14:37,400 --> 00:14:39,800
Speaker 1: people are not daunted by the fact that this seems

290
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:45,680
Speaker 1: impossible slash in practice. Well wait, didn't they do the math? Yeah,

291
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:48,040
Speaker 1: you know, but these are dictators were talking about and

292
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:51,160
Speaker 1: so sometimes you know they are not bothered by math.

293
00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:53,800
Speaker 1: You know they rules don't apply to them. These are

294
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:57,160
Speaker 1: autocrats we're talking about. Math is just fake news, all right.

295
00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:00,000
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a pretty amazing thing to learn

296
00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:03,960
Speaker 1: that people have tried this, and they both people who

297
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:07,160
Speaker 1: have tried it are are sort of pretty notorious. Yeah,

298
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:09,280
Speaker 1: this is not a community of folks you want to

299
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:11,560
Speaker 1: go to conferences with. Because the first person to really

300
00:15:11,560 --> 00:15:14,920
Speaker 1: do this significantly was Hitler. And Hitler had this cannon

301
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:18,840
Speaker 1: called the V three cannon, and he could launch projectiles

302
00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:22,200
Speaker 1: and nine away. Again, the Germans were also working in

303
00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:24,800
Speaker 1: rocket technology, but this is just launching it from the

304
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:27,080
Speaker 1: ground with no more pushes. Well, I was wondering when

305
00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:30,600
Speaker 1: our discussions would eventually devolve into talking about Hitler. So

306
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,520
Speaker 1: everything on the internet gets compared to Hitler eventually, right there,

307
00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:38,960
Speaker 1: eventually here we are. Um, so he tried, he tried

308
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,880
Speaker 1: to build giant cannon that would launch things into space. Yeah,

309
00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:45,880
Speaker 1: and I don't think his goal is to get into space.

310
00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:47,880
Speaker 1: I think his goals be able to like launch shells

311
00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:51,640
Speaker 1: to France from Germany, right, they want to like really

312
00:15:51,640 --> 00:15:54,880
Speaker 1: long distance bombardment. I think that was their goal. I

313
00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:57,800
Speaker 1: don't think they cared that much about shooting stuff into space.

314
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:00,840
Speaker 1: Oh I see, just like, what's the biggest, uh missile

315
00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:05,240
Speaker 1: you can build? Yeah exactly. But it inspired another guy,

316
00:16:05,280 --> 00:16:09,520
Speaker 1: a guy named Gerald Bull, and he convinced some combination

317
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:12,000
Speaker 1: of American and Canadian governments to give him a bunch

318
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:15,120
Speaker 1: of money for something called Project Harp, which is basically,

319
00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:17,160
Speaker 1: build a huge gun and see if you can launch

320
00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,280
Speaker 1: stuff into space. And he didn't do a terrible job,

321
00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:23,960
Speaker 1: really he um. He came up with a pretty good name,

322
00:16:24,080 --> 00:16:27,040
Speaker 1: Project Card, Project card project, that's build a giant gun

323
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:31,440
Speaker 1: and she takes into space. Project crazy dictators fund this,

324
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:34,200
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. So how far did he get? Well, his

325
00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,440
Speaker 1: record still stands today. He shot a four hundred pound

326
00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:40,920
Speaker 1: object a hundred and ten miles above the Earth's surface,

327
00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:43,600
Speaker 1: so that counts like he got something into space. Now

328
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:46,640
Speaker 1: it came back down. It didn't escape the Earth, right,

329
00:16:46,760 --> 00:16:48,240
Speaker 1: he shot it up and it came back down. But

330
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:50,480
Speaker 1: that's the record today for in terms of launching something

331
00:16:50,560 --> 00:16:53,000
Speaker 1: from the ground and not giving it any more pushes

332
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:55,680
Speaker 1: is a hundred and ten miles. How did he do it? What?

333
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:58,120
Speaker 1: What did this gun look like? It just looks like

334
00:16:58,160 --> 00:16:59,760
Speaker 1: a really big gun. I mean, it's just like a

335
00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:02,080
Speaker 1: really big tube. I mean, there's not a whole lot

336
00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:04,600
Speaker 1: of cleverness here, right, It's just a big twoe but

337
00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:06,840
Speaker 1: a big explosive in it, you know. And the question

338
00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:08,760
Speaker 1: is can you get enough money to build a bigger,

339
00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:10,960
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger gun. And you know, some of these

340
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:14,919
Speaker 1: things don't scale that easily, and the strength of the cylinder, etcetera.

341
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,080
Speaker 1: You have to take into account. But basically it's just

342
00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:19,199
Speaker 1: spend more money, make it bigger. It's kind of like

343
00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:22,399
Speaker 1: particle physics, right, Spend more money, make a bigger accelerator.

344
00:17:22,560 --> 00:17:24,120
Speaker 1: I guess. The idea is that you sort of make

345
00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:27,200
Speaker 1: a like a rocket, but instead of having the propellant

346
00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:30,239
Speaker 1: in the fuel on the rocket on the missile, you

347
00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:32,159
Speaker 1: just keep it on the ground exactly, you know what

348
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:34,720
Speaker 1: I mean. Like, that's what a giant gun solves, is

349
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:36,960
Speaker 1: the idea that you don't need to bring the fuel

350
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 1: with you. You just exploit it all here on Earth

351
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:42,439
Speaker 1: and then that sends you into space. That's right. The

352
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,160
Speaker 1: problem with the rocket is you're not just lifting your payload,

353
00:17:45,200 --> 00:17:47,160
Speaker 1: you're lifting the fuel. You need to lift the fuel.

354
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:49,119
Speaker 1: You need to lift the fuel, etcetera, etcetera, so it

355
00:17:49,119 --> 00:17:52,919
Speaker 1: gets by the time you're actually launching your fuel. So

356
00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:55,520
Speaker 1: this solves that problem by basically blowing up all the

357
00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:57,600
Speaker 1: fuel at once on the ground and seeing how far

358
00:17:57,680 --> 00:18:00,800
Speaker 1: it goes. Right. Um, but it does really solve the problem.

359
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:04,240
Speaker 1: I think a more clever idea is like laser supported rockets,

360
00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:07,879
Speaker 1: like shoot the energy at it using beams basically so

361
00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:10,359
Speaker 1: you don't have to transport the fuel. You can send

362
00:18:10,359 --> 00:18:12,840
Speaker 1: it up from the ground as it goes wow, and

363
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:15,320
Speaker 1: shoot it with lasers which would absorb the late and

364
00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:18,760
Speaker 1: they would absorb the laser and redirected to their propulsion.

365
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:21,359
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I mean if I was a dictator and

366
00:18:21,400 --> 00:18:24,120
Speaker 1: I was funding crazy science projects getting stuff in the space,

367
00:18:24,119 --> 00:18:29,280
Speaker 1: I would definitely put some money in laser propulsion. You're like,

368
00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:31,440
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be one of those crazy dictators

369
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,199
Speaker 1: and build giant gun. I'm just gonna be a dictator

370
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:37,480
Speaker 1: that makes giant lasers. Yeah exactly. Um, But the story

371
00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:39,919
Speaker 1: doesn't end there. This guy Gerald Bull, he ran out

372
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:42,359
Speaker 1: of money from the U. S. And Canada and didn't

373
00:18:42,359 --> 00:18:44,919
Speaker 1: finish his gun, but then he sold the idea. He

374
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 1: sold the idea to Saddam Hussein right to what Yes,

375
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:52,399
Speaker 1: inspired by Hitler and then employed by Saddam Hussein, and

376
00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:54,960
Speaker 1: he said, look, I'm gonna build you the biggest gun ever.

377
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:57,280
Speaker 1: And I guess that sales pitch worked. You know, he

378
00:18:57,359 --> 00:19:01,919
Speaker 1: must have a killer powerpoints slide deck, and he was

379
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:05,800
Speaker 1: building the mother of all guns. Had three words, biggest

380
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:13,480
Speaker 1: gun ever. And it's just like I wanted. Um. Yeah,

381
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:15,359
Speaker 1: And so he was in the middle middle of building

382
00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:18,040
Speaker 1: the biggest gun ever. Like I think Saddam called it

383
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:20,800
Speaker 1: the mother of all guns. And you know, Saddam probably

384
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:23,240
Speaker 1: had the same idea that the Hitler had, like I

385
00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:25,920
Speaker 1: launched shells to Israel or launch shells to anywhere in

386
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:29,400
Speaker 1: the Middle East or something nefarious. Um. But the Bull

387
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:33,560
Speaker 1: was actually assassinated by we don't know who, um while

388
00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:35,359
Speaker 1: he was working on the project. So it didn't end

389
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 1: very well for the scientist. Wow. Yeah. And that's a

390
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 1: movie or a comic book right there, Yeah, exactly. Ben

391
00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: Affleck is probably writting the screenplay as we speak. Yeah,

392
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:50,640
Speaker 1: he's the CIA agent task with assassinating the Big Gun.

393
00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:53,080
Speaker 1: So Gerald Bull got a bunch of money from Iroq,

394
00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:55,520
Speaker 1: but he never matched his original high score that he

395
00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:58,359
Speaker 1: did on his own using Project Harp. So that stands today,

396
00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:01,880
Speaker 1: um so and miles is the record. I don't think

397
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:03,840
Speaker 1: it's a practical way to launch things because remember the

398
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:05,240
Speaker 1: kind of things we want to launch in a space

399
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 1: are usually delicate, right, tele communications, satellites or people, um,

400
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:11,879
Speaker 1: and you've got to be pretty careful. So the rocket

401
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 1: approach is much more gentle because you never achieve as

402
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,320
Speaker 1: high as speed. Interesting, so putting it, putting your delicate

403
00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,440
Speaker 1: object on top of like tons and tons of explosives

404
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:25,639
Speaker 1: not recommended. That's the safest way to do it in

405
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 1: a rocket, Yes, that's that is the safest way to

406
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:31,600
Speaker 1: do it. Gradually blow up all those explosives, right, don't

407
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,520
Speaker 1: blow it up all at once on the ground. All right.

408
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:35,640
Speaker 1: So that's the answer for Paul. Can you shoot stuff

409
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:40,639
Speaker 1: into space using a gun? That's the question. The answer is, um,

410
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,760
Speaker 1: technically yes, but it's but it's really hard, not a

411
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:47,359
Speaker 1: good idea. And also you can't put it into orbit.

412
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:50,600
Speaker 1: You need something else, that's right, Yeah, you need another stage,

413
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:52,639
Speaker 1: I mean to catch it and redirect it or something

414
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:55,320
Speaker 1: once you get up into orbit. Yeah. And also for Paul,

415
00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:57,159
Speaker 1: stop trying to make this gun because they're going to

416
00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 1: assassinate you. Little little pro tip there from your podcast. Also,

417
00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:09,320
Speaker 1: funding from dictators doesn't always end out well. All right,

418
00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:11,400
Speaker 1: thank you, Paul. And so we have two more questions

419
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,280
Speaker 1: about particle collisions and about dark energy. But first let's

420
00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:31,399
Speaker 1: take a quick break, all right, Daniel, So today we

421
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:36,800
Speaker 1: are answering reader or more more like listener questions, questions

422
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 1: that are listeners out there sentence and so we answered

423
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:42,400
Speaker 1: one about building a giant space gun. And so our

424
00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:46,680
Speaker 1: second question comes from Jacob, and Jacob has a question

425
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:52,159
Speaker 1: about your job, right, Daniel's Hey, Daniel and Jorge. I

426
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,960
Speaker 1: was just wondering how you guys isolate and manipulate the

427
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:58,040
Speaker 1: particle or particles that you use for the large Hay

428
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: John collider. Thanks. That's a great question, right, He's asking

429
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:05,199
Speaker 1: us like, how do you get one particle into the

430
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:08,399
Speaker 1: collider and slam it into into the other particles and

431
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:10,439
Speaker 1: how do you control them and manipulate them. It's a

432
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 1: great question, yeah, because, um, you know we know that

433
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:17,919
Speaker 1: in a particle collider you're smashing particles together, and so

434
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess the question is how do you

435
00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:22,920
Speaker 1: how could you possibly get two of these particles to

436
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 1: hit each other right on the head. That seems like

437
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,560
Speaker 1: an impossible problem. It is an impossible problem. And that's

438
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:34,120
Speaker 1: why we don't do that because that's basically impossible, right, Yeah,

439
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't. You don't aim one particle to

440
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,600
Speaker 1: hit another particle. No, that would be really hard. It's like,

441
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:43,720
Speaker 1: imagine you're like throwing a water balloon from l A

442
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,160
Speaker 1: and somebody else that throwing a water balloon from New York,

443
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: and you have to have them like meet somewhere over Kansas. Right,

444
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: that's basically impossible. But wait, wait, what if you used

445
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 1: a space gun? Totally will work. Absolutely, a water balloon

446
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: will survive miles per hour, no problem, a space a

447
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 1: potato gun, or a water builon gun. Yeah, now, the

448
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 1: it's a good question. That's impossible. And so it's also

449
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: very hard to just isolate individual particles. I mean, there's

450
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: a whole field of physics that works on that, atomic

451
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: molecular optics and stuff like that where they trap individual particles.

452
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:21,120
Speaker 1: But that's really hard to do. Um And so what

453
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:24,639
Speaker 1: we do instead is we don't send individual particles flying

454
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 1: against individual particles. We send a little gas of particles

455
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:31,000
Speaker 1: like a bunch of particles against a bunch of particles coming.

456
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: The other direction is that the official physics name bunch

457
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:36,960
Speaker 1: of a bunch. We actually use the word bunch, and

458
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: the reasons you use, yeah, exactly, bunches. You can look

459
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: it up at the lhc UM and um. The reasons

460
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: for that are is that even if the particles do

461
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: hit each other, the chances of a collision are not great,

462
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 1: like mostly they just you know, gently brush off each other.

463
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: So we want, actually, is a bunch of collisions happening

464
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: at the same time, so that you have a higher

465
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,159
Speaker 1: chance of seeing something interesting. Plus it's just hard to

466
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: get it, so even if you so, even if you

467
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: could align one particle and aim it directly at another particles,

468
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 1: they might not collide at all. Yeah exactly. I mean

469
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: what do we really mean by a collision? A collision

470
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 1: is an interaction. We think of collision is the edges

471
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: of two things hitting each other, right, because we're used

472
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,679
Speaker 1: to macroscopic objects. But in that case, you know the

473
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 1: zoom in macroscopically and think about what's happening when the

474
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 1: two edges touch. What happens really is that the particles

475
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 1: in one push away from the particles and the other.

476
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: That's an interaction, that's like a force. So now strip

477
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 1: that all away, and you have just two particles pushing

478
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: against each other. Right if they're going really really fast,

479
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 1: unless they hit immediately right on each other, then they'll

480
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 1: just whizz right by each other. Um And even still,

481
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: even if they go they go right on top of

482
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 1: each other. It's quantum mechanical, and so sometimes just nothing happens.

483
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:55,640
Speaker 1: Most of the time, very little happens most of times.

484
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: The thing that happens is boring is that the two

485
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: particles just like slightly deflect. So what we want to

486
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: see is the rare stuff at times when two particles

487
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,679
Speaker 1: smashed together make something weird and crazy nobody's ever seen before.

488
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: So to make that happen, we have to send a

489
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: bunch of particles in at once. But what's the difference

490
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: between them interacting and not interacting? Do you know what

491
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, how do they decide? Or is it

492
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: just that they're more head on than others and or

493
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: that they have no other option but too smushed together

494
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 1: or what? There's a real quantum mechanical mystery there, because

495
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: you know, quantum mechanics tells us that you can repeat

496
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,639
Speaker 1: the same experiment. You can like shoot two particles exactly

497
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: the same angle at each other the same way and

498
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 1: get two different outcomes. So you're asking, like what determines

499
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: whether they interact or they don't, or that the interaction

500
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 1: is a boring one or an interesting one. It's random,

501
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: Like there's somewhere in the universe a die gets rolled

502
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: every time these two particles collide. That determines like are

503
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: they going to bounce off each other gently? Are they

504
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: going to create a Higgs boson? Are they going to

505
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: create something else these folks have never seen and blow

506
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 1: their minds, or are they just gonna miss? And so

507
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,040
Speaker 1: the strategy you guys use is to just go of

508
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 1: the numbers. You just throw a whole bunch of the particles.

509
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 1: You don't try to hit individual particles together. You just

510
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: throw a whole bunch of them together, and you hope

511
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: that you get some of them hitting each other exactly.

512
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: It's like you're looking for your first job, and so

513
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: you send out like thousands of resumets, right, you know,

514
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: just email one resume and then wait a week, Right,

515
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: you send out a lot of resumes and in our case,

516
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:24,680
Speaker 1: like my faculty search when for a professorship, exactly right,

517
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 1: you go for the numbers um. And so in this case,

518
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: we have ten to the eleven protons and every bunch

519
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,879
Speaker 1: that's a hundred billion protons in a little bunch, and

520
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: they're all in a really small space, right, yeah, exactly,

521
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,199
Speaker 1: and we focus them using magnets. So the other part

522
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: of his question was like, how do you control them,

523
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: how you maintain them? Basically, use magnets because you can't,

524
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: like you can't have a little zip block bag which

525
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,239
Speaker 1: just tend to the eleven protons in it, you know,

526
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: you carried around. So we have a magnetic bottle. Essentially,

527
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: we use magnets to keep these things moving in a circle. Right.

528
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: Magnets bend path of a charged particle. So we focus

529
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: that using magnets, and we get it down to um

530
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: two and a half micrometers. Right, So we we want

531
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 1: to we want as many protons as possible and as

532
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: small as an area as possible, because it's the greatest density,

533
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: the greatest possibility that something exciting is going to happen. So,

534
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: and you might think, well, that's a lot of particles, right,

535
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: it is, but it's also a small number right, like

536
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: you know UM a mole, which is you know the

537
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: atomic unit as UM you know is Avogadre's numbers like

538
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: tend to the twenty three particles, right, And a really

539
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: really good vacuum has tended to twelve particles in it

540
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: um per cubic meter. So tend to eleven particles is

541
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: a lot if you just count them. But it's also

542
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 1: it's very diffuse, right, it's not. It's not like this

543
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,359
Speaker 1: is a very dense thing. This this this bunch of

544
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 1: protons and you you don't just send one bunch at

545
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: a time, You send a whole bunch of bunches at

546
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: each other. That's right. It's organized like a Swiss clock,

547
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: which makes sense because it's a huge circle in in

548
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 1: in Switzerland. Geneva up, and we have more than two

549
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 1: thousand bunches in the accelerator at all times, and you know,

550
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 1: the thing is like tens of kilometers around, and so

551
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 1: they're all synchronized, and so every twenty five nanoseconds, one

552
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: bunch hits another bunch, and then nanoseconds later, another bunch

553
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: is coming down the line and they collide. And so

554
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 1: it's just like all day, all night, every five nanoseconds,

555
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: we collide one bunch of protons against another bunch of protons.

556
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: It's like a ferris wheel, but instead of each pod,

557
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: you have twenty eight hundred bunches just going around and around. Yeah,

558
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: first world makes it sound like it's all fun, enjoy,

559
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: but these guys are slamming into each other. It's uh,

560
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: it's like an assembly line. You know, they're just coming

561
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: down the line and getting smushed into each other. Um.

562
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: And also you can reuse the bunches, Like the bunches

563
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: passed through each other, some tiny fraction that maybe interact,

564
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: but most of them are untouched, so you can send

565
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: them through again, so they go through each other and

566
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: then they just come back around again. Yeah, exactly, you

567
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: don't discard them. Yes, when we come out, it's called

568
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,239
Speaker 1: to fill. We fill the accelerator. We put all these

569
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: bunches and we get them going. We slam into each

570
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: other and then you know, eventually you lose some of

571
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:10,479
Speaker 1: them because you can't have perfect containment um and so

572
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: the the effective number of collisions you're getting starts to drop.

573
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: So then you empty it and you refill it start again.

574
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: All right, Well, so that answers Jacob's question the he

575
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: has how do we control how do you control the

576
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: particles in the collider, and how do you get like

577
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: single particles who hit each other? And the answer is

578
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: using a bunch of bunches. Yeah, exactly. So we don't

579
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: throw one water balloon at another water balloon. We throw

580
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: like a hundred billion water balloons at a hundred billion

581
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: water balloons, and then we have it's so so much fun.

582
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: We just get to watch what happens. We like, you know,

583
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: create explosions and watch them all day long. Best job

584
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: in the world. Okay, here's here. Here's a question. Then

585
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: for me, um, what if you aimed this collider into space,

586
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: would you get the proteins up into space into proteins

587
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: are definitely moving fast and to escape Earth velocity, but

588
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: the atmosphere would stop them because they would slam into

589
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: other particles and they would, you know, very quickly, so

590
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: one proton would hit another proton, and then those two

591
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: protons would share the original protons energy to have two

592
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: particles at half the energy, and then you have four

593
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: particles at accord of the energy, and eventually you have

594
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: a trillion particles at a trillion the energy. But some

595
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: of them might make it out into space, right, Yeah,

596
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: some of them might bleed out over the edge of

597
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. But you wouldn't have like you know, you're

598
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: imagining like Superman rocketing from the surface of the Earth triumphantly,

599
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: arm raised, Right, that's not what would happen. You just

600
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: gently heat the atmosphere, basically. Yeah, but some of them

601
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: might leak out into space, Yeah, exactly. Some of them

602
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: might leak into space, but not into Earth orbit. Got it,

603
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: Got it? All right, Jacob. Hope that answered your question,

604
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: and so we'll we have one more question about the

605
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 1: exploding universe, but before we get to it, let's take

606
00:30:53,520 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: a quick break, all right, Today we're answering listener questions

607
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: questions from you, the listeners of this podcast, and so

608
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: our third question of the day for this episode comes

609
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: to us from someone in Dallas. Hi, Daniel and Jrge.

610
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 1: This is Tom from Dallas. I love the show and

611
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: always leads me to more questions. And one thing that

612
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: I've been really grappling with is the expansion of the universe. Right, So,

613
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: if the entire universe is expanding faster than the speed

614
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: of light because of dark energy, and it's not expanding

615
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: from a central point, but rather from all points in

616
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: spacetime simultaneously. That wouldn't everything just kind of be exploding

617
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: around us? How do I even exist? If I'm imploding

618
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: at faster than the speed of light? I don't feel

619
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: like I'm imploding Anyways, Guys, I really appreciate you taking

620
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: my question, and I really enjoy the show. Thanks for

621
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: everything you do. Yeah, I love that question. Um, I

622
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: love he had his mind blown. You know that he's

623
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: thinking about this cosmic sized questions he wants to understand.

624
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: And that's my favorite thing is when you can get

625
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: you can give people a piece of information that they

626
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: didn't know about the universe, and then they try to

627
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: fit it into their brain. They're like, Okay, if that's

628
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: crazy thing you just said is true, then why doesn't

629
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: this happen? Why doesn't that happen? And that's physics, right,

630
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: that's like how do I reconcile this thing with all

631
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: the things I know? And so I love seeing people

632
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: do that. They're basically being physicists. Yeah, I feel like

633
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: we're doing our job. If it makes people think and

634
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: have their own questions, that's right. Not if we're making

635
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: people worried that they're exploding. But you know, it's a

636
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: good it's a good question to ask. They are their

637
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: minds are exploding, their mental consciousness, their connection to the universe. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

638
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: And it's a great question. And I think the question

639
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:56,479
Speaker 1: comes from hearing that dark energy is expanding the universe, right,

640
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: stretching it out. Yeah, because we had an episode where

641
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: the tide of the podcast episode was is the universe exploding?

642
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: And we said at the end that yes, the verse

643
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: that's right, the universe is exploding. And um, I think

644
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: a lot of people are tempted to think about that

645
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: like an explosion which has a center. Right, you blow

646
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: up a bomb, things fly out from the center, and

647
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: so you imagine, oh, the expansion is happening from the center,

648
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: things are getting pushed out. But we we made the

649
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,959
Speaker 1: point in that episode, which is true, that that's not

650
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: the way it's happening. That dark energy expands all of space.

651
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: So every point in space is being affected by dark energy.

652
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: New space is being created all the time, everywhere. Right,

653
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: It's like the dark energy is not just acting in

654
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: the center of the universe or at the end. It's

655
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: like all the way through there's just a little bit

656
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: of dark energy that's pushing everything apart. That's right. And

657
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: it also it sounds really violent because we say that

658
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: dark energy is you know, almost three fourth of the

659
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: energy of the universe is dark energy, So it sounds

660
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: like maw and this must be a really powerful force.

661
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: It's pushing galaxy is apart, and galaxies have hundreds of

662
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: billions of stars, So what could possibly have the energy

663
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,240
Speaker 1: to push those apart? And if that's applying to me too,

664
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: if you could push galaxies apart, why isn't just just

665
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: shred me like tissue paper? Right? I think that's the

666
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 1: essence of the question. Yeah, And in particular, he said

667
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: that if we are if the universe is expanding faster

668
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 1: than the speed of light, how is it that we

669
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:25,280
Speaker 1: don't feel it right now? Like? Why why isn't my

670
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: um hand moving away from my other hand at the

671
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 1: speed of light? If the whole universe is expanding faster

672
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: than the speed of light. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Um Well,

673
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: the answer, the thing to understand and to grapple with

674
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: this question is that dark energy is the most powerful

675
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: thing in the universe in that it has the biggest

676
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: slice of the energy budget. But remember the dark energy

677
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:49,720
Speaker 1: is everywhere, right, Most of the stuff in the universe

678
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: is not everywhere, like the matter in the universe is

679
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: clumped up into stars and galaxies and it's in most

680
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 1: of space doesn't have matter in it. Right. Dark energy

681
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 1: doesn't work like that dark energy. She's uniform. It's spread

682
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: equally everywhere, So it doesn't have to be very powerful

683
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: to add up to a really, really really big number

684
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 1: because most of the places where there's nothing, there's dark energy.

685
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: Do we know that for sure that dark energy is

686
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: evenly spread out, it's not at all clumped together or

687
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,359
Speaker 1: in in you know, imperceptible clumps. That's right. We know

688
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 1: very little about dark energy, but that's the model that

689
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: fits the data. That dark energy is expanding the universe everywhere.

690
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: And we again, we don't know what dark energy is, right.

691
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: It's really just a description to the fact that the

692
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: universe is expanding. But it's consistent with something which is

693
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: a property of space, meaning that it's uniform. It's everywhere,

694
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: you know, whether you're in the middle of a star

695
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 1: or you know, in the middle of one of our listeners,

696
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: or in the middle of one of these huge voids

697
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: in the in the super supercluster sheets and bubbles. Right,

698
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 1: it's everywhere, Right, it's like a it's like an even

699
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,320
Speaker 1: glow that the universe has exactly, And because it's everywhere,

700
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: it's not really very strong anywhere. Okay, So, yes, it's

701
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: creating new space between our galaxy and other galaxies, but

702
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: there's a lot of space there, so it adds up. Right,

703
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: it can have a big effect, but between like your

704
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 1: hand and the your other hand, there's not a lot

705
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: of space. So it is creating new space there, but

706
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: it's very weak compared to the other forces at play,

707
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: namely the chemical bonds holding your body together. Right. The

708
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: reason that you don't fall apart is that the stuff

709
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: in your body is holding onto the other stuff in

710
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 1: your body, and those bonds are more powerful than dark energy. Right.

711
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: But you know, I think Tom was maybe wondering how

712
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 1: it can be that the universe is expanding faster than

713
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: the speed of light, but yet you don't feel it here. Yeah,

714
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: Well you don't feel it here because it's a very

715
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: small effect here, right, Like it's it's creating a very

716
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,399
Speaker 1: small amount of space per space, and that adds up

717
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: to making things, to creating space faster than light can travel. Right, Like,

718
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: imagine all the space between here and another galaxy. So

719
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,160
Speaker 1: every piece of that space increases by one per cent,

720
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,439
Speaker 1: and then another one percent, and another one percent, and

721
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: it's increasing at a rate that that it's faster than

722
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: light can go through it. Remember, nothing can go faster

723
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:12,439
Speaker 1: than light through space, but there's no limit to how

724
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: fast you can create space. So all those little bits

725
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,240
Speaker 1: of space between us and that other galaxy are working

726
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,439
Speaker 1: hard enough to create more space than light can fly through.

727
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: I was thinking maybe a good analogy was that, you know,

728
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: if you grab a rubber band or a strip of

729
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: rubber band and you stretch it. You know, the ends

730
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: of the rubber band can be moving really fast relative

731
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: to each other, but if you're somewhere in the rubber band,

732
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:41,799
Speaker 1: you wouldn't feel the stretch that violently. Yeah, I think

733
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 1: that works, except you know, we don't know if the

734
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: universe has an edge, right, But if you just pick

735
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: two points, right, like two galaxies, you can think of

736
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 1: them as the edges of the rubber band, and uh,

737
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: and all the space between them is like the rubber

738
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: bandy part of the rubber band, Then yeah, I think

739
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: that works, right, because the distance between the two alexis

740
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: is the sum of all the increasing distances um and

741
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,919
Speaker 1: the little bits of space in between. Right, yeah, yeah,

742
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: So dark energy is there, is out there, it's everywhere

743
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: in the universe. It's also inside you. And the reason

744
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: that like isn't ripping you away from the Earth is that,

745
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,879
Speaker 1: like the force of gravity is strong enough to keep

746
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: you on Earth. The force of gravity, even though it's

747
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 1: so weak, is stronger than dark energy is right here, right,

748
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: Dark energy, remember, is very weak on a local scale,

749
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:28,759
Speaker 1: but only only great when it adds up over huge

750
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: pieces of space. So you're like you're in one point

751
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 1: of the rubber band and the ground the ribband is

752
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: stretching a little bit, but you're keeping yourself together stronger

753
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: than the rubber band is stretching you at that little

754
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: point in the band exactly right, Like if you're you know,

755
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: you're it's a windy day and somebody's getting blown, but

756
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: they can grab onto something, right, You can grab onto

757
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 1: a pole or to your friend or something. You can

758
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: overcome the power of the wind just by holding on. Right,

759
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. Dark energy is just like wind,

760
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: expanding everything in space, but it's it's a bit of

761
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 1: a gentle ease, and so it doesn't take that much

762
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: of a force to overcome it. And that's why, for example,

763
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 1: our galaxy is not getting torn apart, right, the space

764
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: between galaxies is increasing. Why isn't our galaxy getting shredded?

765
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: The reason is gravity. There's enough gravity in our galaxy

766
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: to hold itself together to battle dark energy. We don't

767
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: know how long that's gonna that's gonna be the case

768
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: because dark energy turned on like five billion years ago

769
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 1: and started expanding the universe. We don't know why. We

770
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: don't know how long it's going to keep going. We

771
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to increase the intensity of

772
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: the expansion or stop and turn around. We don't really know.

773
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: So we'll forever be weaker than you know, local gravity

774
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: and local chemical bonds, and we don't know. It could

775
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: be in the future it's much more powerful and it

776
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: shreds everything, right, or it could turn off and get

777
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: board and go do something else. Looking forward to that

778
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: all right, So Tom asked, why isn't dark energy exploding everything,

779
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: even the things around is? And the answer is that

780
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: it is. It is exploding everything. That's right, You've and you,

781
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: Tom Boom, we just literally blew your mind. But we

782
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: use the word exploding and the word faster than the

783
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: speed of light kind of when a universe skill, right, like,

784
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: on a universe scale, it's sort of exploding. And the

785
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: ends of the university, if there are ends, or two

786
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: extreme ends of the universe, are maybe moving faster than

787
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 1: the speed of light relative to each other. But on

788
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: like a local, little tiny, hey my house scale, it's

789
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 1: not such an incredible effect. Right, Well, those ends are

790
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: not moving faster than speed of light relative to each other,

791
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:36,000
Speaker 1: but space is being created between them faster than light

792
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,240
Speaker 1: can move through it, which is a slightly technical difference

793
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 1: in the way you say it, but yeah, exactly, yeah, okay, alright, cool.

794
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: So those are three awesome questions, mostly from the Southern

795
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: United States. That's right, randomly selected, but this time they

796
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: mostly ended up from the southern US. But we get

797
00:40:57,160 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: questions from all over the world. So if you're a

798
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 1: listener from a far flung place, please send us your questions,

799
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: or if you just have a burning question about something

800
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 1: in the universe and you'd like us to explain it,

801
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 1: please write it in. I love getting your emails. Yeah,

802
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: so please send them into questions at Daniel and Jorge

803
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,239
Speaker 1: dot com. Well, thanks for listening. We hope you guys

804
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: enjoyed that. Tune in next time, and if you're a

805
00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: dictator of a country with a billion dollar signs budget,

806
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: consider investing it in a podcast or a giant space

807
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: gun using rubber bands to fly protons into outer space.

808
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 1: There you go, give this man some money that I

809
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 1: will agree with. See you next time. If you still

810
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: have a question after listening to all these explanations, please

811
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.

812
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,359
Speaker 1: You can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at

813
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or email us at

814
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:00,760
Speaker 1: Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening,

815
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is

816
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from

817
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio, a Apple Podcasts,

818
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.