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Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, when was the last time your family moved.

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Speaker 2: We moved to our house maybe eleven years ago.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that's been a while. You know, the longer you

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Speaker 1: live somewhere, the harder it is to move.

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Speaker 2: What do you think that is, like inertia or potential energy?

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Speaker 2: Are we trapped in a potential energy?

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Speaker 1: Well sort of. I think you're trapped by your stuff.

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Speaker 1: You gradually accumulate stuff in every corner, makes it impossible

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Speaker 1: to ever.

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Speaker 2: Leave because of the gravity or the nostalgia.

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Speaker 1: The overwhelming task of packing it all up into boxes.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like you need Mariconda to do some consulting for you.

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Speaker 1: It's all right. I try to leave the house as

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Speaker 1: little as possible anyway.

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Speaker 2: Hi am jorgemmy cartoonist and the author of Oliver's Great

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Speaker 2: Big Universe.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

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Speaker 1: at UC Irvine, and I've moved a lot of times

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Speaker 1: in my life, and never was it fun.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's a certain aspect of getting rid of your

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Speaker 2: old stuff that's kind of cathartic. Din'd you feel lighter

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Speaker 2: after you move or did you just bring everything with you?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 1: I always start out so optimistic and thinking, Oh, this

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Speaker 1: time it's going to be great. And then about halfway

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Speaker 1: through I realized I'm only five percent of the way through.

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Speaker 1: And then at the end of just throwing random stuff away.

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Speaker 2: Of throwing out your stuff, of packing. Oh, but you

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Speaker 2: know you can hire people to do that, right, or

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Speaker 2: ask your friends and buy them a peer.

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Speaker 1: I usually use moving as an opportunity to cleanse myself

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Speaker 1: of all the stuff I should have thrown away earlier.

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Speaker 2: When was the last time you moved?

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Speaker 1: Between two thousand and seven and twenty twelve, the family

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Speaker 1: moved across the Atlantic, I think eleven times.

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Speaker 2: I think that's just call it going on vacation.

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Speaker 1: It now when you're living there for nine months and

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Speaker 1: setting up schools and bank accounts. Soul man, But.

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Speaker 2: You've been in the same place now for twelve years.

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Speaker 1: Yes, since the kids got older. We've stayed in California

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Speaker 1: and haven't moved back to the Collider as often.

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Speaker 2: Wow, so it's your house now, just the giant pile

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Speaker 2: of stuff.

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Speaker 1: I can't even close the door, it's so jam full

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Speaker 1: of crap.

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Speaker 2: Well, fortunately it makes for a good soundproofing, I guess

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Speaker 2: for podcasts recording.

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Speaker 1: That's why I've been doing it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, one positive thing, but anyways, welcome to our podcast

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Speaker 2: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: In which we help you soar through the ever increasing

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Speaker 1: piles of knowledge that humanity has accumulated along the way.

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Speaker 1: We learned this, we learned that, we learned the other thing,

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Speaker 1: and our goal is to organize it to marry condo

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Speaker 1: your mind and make it crisp and clean and understandable

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Speaker 1: because we think, we hope, we assume the universe is understandable,

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Speaker 1: that we can make sense of it with our little minds,

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Speaker 1: and that we can explain all of it to you.

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Speaker 2: That's right. We try to relocate your brain out there

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Speaker 2: to the giant, vast cosmos that exists out there for

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Speaker 2: us to try to understand, and we try to move

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Speaker 2: you with the amazing things that scientists have discovered about

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Speaker 2: why we're here and how things work.

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Speaker 1: And one thing we'd love our listeners to do is

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Speaker 1: to participate in this goal directly by asking their own

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Speaker 1: questions about the universe. Don't just sit back and let

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Speaker 1: the answers from scientists rain down upon your brain. Go

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Speaker 1: out there and ask your own questions. About the universe.

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Speaker 1: What doesn't make sense to you, how do you think

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Speaker 1: it works, Why isn't your idea the right one about

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Speaker 1: the universe? And so On this podcast we talk to

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Speaker 1: you about the universe, but we also want to hear

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Speaker 1: from you. Send us your questions to questions at Danielanjorge

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Speaker 1: dot com.

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Speaker 2: That's right, because it's not just scientists that have questions,

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Speaker 2: it's everybody. We all look at the night sky, the

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Speaker 2: day sky, all of the skuis and we wonder about

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Speaker 2: what's out there and how to make sense of it all.

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Speaker 1: It's a part of being human, trying to make sense

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Speaker 1: of the universe, wanting to understand it, and it's something

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Speaker 1: that everybody can do. You don't have to be a

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Speaker 1: professional scientist to look up at the night sky and

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Speaker 1: wonder what it all means. Or if you've been listening

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Speaker 1: to the podcast and there's some ideas that don't quite

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Speaker 1: fit into your mind together they don't click the way

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Speaker 1: that you want them to, then write to me questions

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Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Everybody gets an answer,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes I got a question that we answer right

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Speaker 1: here on the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes we'd like to answer your questions, And

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Speaker 2: so today on the program, we'll be tackling listener questions

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Speaker 2: number sixty seven over five dozen.

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Speaker 1: These are questions for listeners that tickled me, or I

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Speaker 1: thought we would have fun talking about, or I needed

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Speaker 1: a little extra time to do some research before answering.

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Speaker 2: So we have three awesome questions here today. They are

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Speaker 2: about habitable moons, about the Higgs field, and about Daniel's

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Speaker 2: favorite subject, particle colliders and moving it. Right? Are we

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Speaker 2: going to move the particle collider?

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Speaker 1: We're not going to move the particle collider, but we

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Speaker 1: might spend tens of billions of dollars on a new one.

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Speaker 2: Oh boy, isn't it easier just to move it.

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Speaker 1: You don't gain anything from moving it. You need a bigger,

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Speaker 1: fancier one or a different flavor of one, and those

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Speaker 1: are expensive.

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Speaker 2: Oh boy. Well we'll dig into that, but first we'll

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Speaker 2: tackle a question from Lydia, who is eleven years old.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel Jorge. My name is Lydia and I'm eleven

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Speaker 3: years old. I have a question for you. Do you

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Speaker 3: think it will ever be possible to move planets or

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Speaker 3: moons into more habitable zones? And if you could, which

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Speaker 3: planet or moon in our Solar system? Would you move?

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Speaker 2: All right? Pretty interesting question about lots of things here,

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Speaker 2: about habitable zones and solar systems and about I guess

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Speaker 2: planet orbits. That's a lot going on in the mind

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Speaker 2: of an eleven year old.

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Speaker 1: I love that Lydia is thinking about the future. She's

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Speaker 1: trying to make the Solar System a better place for humanity,

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Speaker 1: and she's wondering about all the details of it. So

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Speaker 1: good job, Lydia, thanks for your forward thinking.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, future president, hopefully seems like we could use some

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Speaker 2: some forward thinking in our leadership. But the question is interesting.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like she's asking whether there are planets out

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Speaker 2: there that we can't live in, like or moons, whether

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Speaker 2: we can somehow not terraform it or change it, but

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Speaker 2: actually just move it to a cozier spot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. For example, some of the planets that are closer

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Speaker 1: to the Sun than Earth, Venus and Mercury, are very

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Speaker 1: very hot, and planets that are further from Earth, like Mars,

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Speaker 1: are very very cold. Neither of those seem very cozy

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Speaker 1: to live on. And so I think Lydia's ideas like,

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Speaker 1: could we bring Mars closer? Could we push Venus further out.

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Speaker 1: Or I love that she even mentions moons. You know,

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Speaker 1: Jupiter and Saturn have some huge moons. Snag one of

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Speaker 1: those and bring them closer and make it a place

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Speaker 1: that humanity could survive.

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Speaker 2: M you need a lot of friends and a lot

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Speaker 2: of beer to get your friends to move a whole moon.

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Speaker 1: Depends how much stuff it's accumulated in the years. Right,

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Speaker 1: if you've been keeping it clean and crisp, maybe it's

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Speaker 1: a little easier to pack everything up.

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Speaker 2: I think it just depends on how many friends you have.

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Speaker 1: Can you call a moving company and be like, hey,

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Speaker 1: do you have a box big enough to fit like Europa?

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Speaker 2: I'm sure you haul has something Forday, you haul the moon,

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Speaker 2: you haul a planet. I mean they just rent you

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Speaker 2: the va to the stuff. Then you have to do it.

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Speaker 1: Hey, if they have a device capable of moving the Moon,

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Speaker 1: I'll drive it. That sounds like fun. I can parallel

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Speaker 1: park that thing.

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Speaker 2: But you need a special license though, only if you

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Speaker 2: get pulled over by the Solar syste the police. But anyways,

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Speaker 2: it's a pretty interesting question, and so let's dig into it. Daniel.

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Speaker 2: Is it possible to move a planet to a different orbit.

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Speaker 1: So it definitely is possible, like the physics doesn't say no,

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Speaker 1: But in the case of some planets or moons, it's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily a good idea, Like even if you could

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Speaker 1: do it, it wouldn't really give you a place humans

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Speaker 1: could live. And in other cases, like Mars, it's possible

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Speaker 1: and it might solve some of the problems, but it

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Speaker 1: would cost an enormous amount of energy.

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Speaker 2: Hmm, Well, you mentioned Mars, so maybe let's start with that.

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Speaker 2: What's wrong with Mars now, isn't it sort of already

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Speaker 2: in the habitable zone.

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Speaker 1: So Mars is a lot smaller than Earth and a

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Speaker 1: little further out, so it gets a lot less sun

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Speaker 1: than Earth does, which makes it very very cold. It

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Speaker 1: also has a very dilute atmosphere, so it has trouble

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Speaker 1: hanging on to any of the heat that it does

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Speaker 1: get from the Sun. So bringing Mars close to Earth

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Speaker 1: would definitely help that. You also need to increase the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: so you couldn't totally avoid doing terraforming. You need to

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Speaker 1: make an oxygen rich atmosphere unless you want to live

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Speaker 1: in bubbles your whole life. But bringing it closer to

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Speaker 1: Earth would be handy. Would also make it easier to

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Speaker 1: colonize Mars, like the round trip time would be shorter,

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Speaker 1: connections between the two civilizations could be crisper, so there'd

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Speaker 1: be a lot of advantages to having Mars closer in.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I see. It's sort of like that saying, right,

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Speaker 2: like if Muhammad can't go to the mountain, then you

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Speaker 2: bring the mountain to you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's sort of like where you're going to

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Speaker 1: buy your vacation house. Is it just going to be

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Speaker 1: half an hour away or is it a nine hour

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Speaker 1: plane flight. It's a lot easier if it's just the

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Speaker 1: short drive.

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Speaker 2: But is he the biggest problem for Mars, it's I

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Speaker 2: know it's cold, but it's not like crazy cold.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Mars is definitely like less comfortable than Antarctica,

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Speaker 1: So it's not cold the way like the surface of

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Speaker 1: Pluto is. But it's definitely very cold, too cold for humans.

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Speaker 1: But that's all connected to the atmosphere, right. It has

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Speaker 1: a very dilute atmosphere, so it doesn't hold in that temperature.

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Speaker 1: That thin atmosphere also means that it doesn't protect you

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Speaker 1: from cosmic rays with the Earth's atmosphere does. It also

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a magnetic field to do a lot of shielding.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, there's big problems with Mars that you couldn't

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Speaker 1: solve even by moving it.

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Speaker 2: So then would it even help to move it, Like

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Speaker 2: if it got warmer, would it maybe just blow off

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Speaker 2: all the atmosphere or is this an actual working proposal.

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Speaker 1: No, that's definitely an issue. Now you bring it warmer,

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Speaker 1: you're going to melt some of the frozen CO two

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Speaker 1: for example that's at the poles, and that's going to

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Speaker 1: increase the atmosphere, but you might also blow it off. Right,

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Speaker 1: as you said, there's increasing radiation because Mars is smaller,

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Speaker 1: so it doesn't have the same gravity as Earth, so

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Speaker 1: it's harder for it to hang onto its atmosphere. That's

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Speaker 1: a bigger issue for the moons for example, like Europa

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Speaker 1: or Enceladus or Io, all these big moons of the

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Speaker 1: gas giants, a lot of them have frozen surfaces and

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Speaker 1: some of them even have like liquid oceans underneath them.

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Speaker 1: But if you brought them into the habitable zone, you

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Speaker 1: would melt those surfaces and boil off those oceans and

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Speaker 1: leave yourself with just a rocky core. So moving these

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Speaker 1: things to the habitable zone wouldn't necessarily.

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Speaker 2: Well, let's say that we try with Mars and we

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Speaker 2: wanted to make it as warm as Earth. How much

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Speaker 2: would you have to move it in.

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Speaker 1: Well, given the current atmosphere, you'd have to have Mars

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Speaker 1: be closer to the Sun than Earth because Mars can't

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Speaker 1: hang on to the heat. But if you just wanted

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Speaker 1: to move Mars like near the Earth's orbit so that

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Speaker 1: it was in the same zone it was easier to

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Speaker 1: go back and forth, which might make terraforming and building

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Speaker 1: an atmosphere easier as well. Then you'd need to do

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Speaker 1: what's called a Homan transfer, which is a way to

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Speaker 1: like change orbits. This is what space ships do. For example,

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Speaker 1: if they're orbiting high and they want to go low.

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Speaker 1: Orf they're orbiting low and they want to go high.

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Speaker 1: It's a classic way to change your orbit by firing

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Speaker 1: your rocket thrusters.

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Speaker 2: How does it work? Do you have to like accelerate

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Speaker 2: or just move away from the Sun or towards the Sun?

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Speaker 2: How does that work?

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Speaker 1: So there's a zillion different ways you could do it,

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Speaker 1: but the Homan transfer is the one that requires the

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Speaker 1: least energy, and it definitely requires some force, some acceleration.

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Speaker 1: Imagine you're in a circular orbits, you have a particular

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Speaker 1: velocity and a particular radius, and that's all aligned and nice.

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Speaker 1: And now you want to be in a different circular orbit,

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Speaker 1: maybe larger, maybe smaller. What you need to do is

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Speaker 1: change to an elliptical orbit. So you fire your thrusters,

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Speaker 1: so you move out of your circular orbit into an

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Speaker 1: elliptical orbit. Elliptical orbit, because an ellipse doesn't have a

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Speaker 1: fixed radius, right, A circle is a fixed radius. You're

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Speaker 1: always the same distance from the Sun or whatever. An

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Speaker 1: ellipse you get closer sometimes and further other times. So

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Speaker 1: you go on this elliptical orbit temporarily, and then when

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Speaker 1: you get to the radius you want, you fire your

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Speaker 1: rockets again to put yourself back into a circular orbit

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Speaker 1: at that new radius. So it's two firings of your rocket,

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Speaker 1: two accelerations, two delta v's as they call them in

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Speaker 1: the space business.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I see, So you wouldn't have to fire your

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Speaker 2: rockets or push the planet the hallway. You just give

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Speaker 2: it like a one initial push, and then later when

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Speaker 2: you're further where you want to be, you give it

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Speaker 2: another push.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: And in the case where you want to get closer

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Speaker 2: to the Sun. You're talking about out slowing down the planet, right.

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Speaker 1: You want to slow it down. You also have to

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Speaker 1: change its direction, right, because an elliptical orbit operates differently

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Speaker 1: from a circular orbit, So you want to change your

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Speaker 1: whole vector, not just the magnitude.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, so we'd have to slow down Mars.

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Speaker 2: And then once it gets closer to Earth, or maybe

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Speaker 2: even beyond Earth or it's orbit, then you want to

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Speaker 2: slow it down some more.

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Speaker 1: Well, things in the inner Solar System orbit at a

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Speaker 1: higher velocity than things in the outer Solar System, and

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Speaker 1: that's just basic circular motion. So for example, Earth is

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Speaker 1: moving at thirty kilometers per second relative to the Sun

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Speaker 1: and Mars is moving at twenty four kilometers per second

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Speaker 1: relative to the Sun. And that doesn't depend on mass,

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Speaker 1: It just depends on radius. At every radius is a

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Speaker 1: certain velocity you need in order to move in a

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Speaker 1: circular orbit. In the end, you'd have to speed Mars

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Speaker 1: up in order to get it to move at the Earth's.

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Speaker 2: Orbit, all right, So then once you're in the closer

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Speaker 2: orbit to the Sun, then you'll eat in a stable orbit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And so it did the calculation for like,

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Speaker 1: how much of a kick would you need to give

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Speaker 1: Mars in order to accomplish this? And so initially, to

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Speaker 1: move Mars into an elliptical orbit, you have to change

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Speaker 1: its velocity by like two and a half kilometers per second,

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Speaker 1: which is not a small amount. I mean, Mars is

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Speaker 1: currently going like twenty four kilometers per second, so it's

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Speaker 1: like more than ten percent of the speed of Mars.

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Speaker 1: And then you're in the elliptical orbit. And then to

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Speaker 1: kick it back into a circular orbit, you have to

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Speaker 1: give it a delta v of almost three kilometers per second.

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Speaker 1: And so those are the two kicks that you have

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Speaker 1: to give Mars in order to change its orbit to

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Speaker 1: have the same radius as the Earth's orbit.

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Speaker 2: Oh interesting, So it sort of sounds like it's going

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Speaker 2: to be hard, right because you have to slow it

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Speaker 2: down by ten percent of a whole giant planet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And it's fascinating because these numbers don't depend

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Speaker 1: on mass, Like it's the same for a proton as

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Speaker 1: it is for a planet when you're talking in terms

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Speaker 1: of delta v. But then when you think about it

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Speaker 1: in terms of energy, right, the energy is like one

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Speaker 1: half mv squared. Then the mass really does affect it.

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Speaker 1: It takes a lot more energy to change the orbit

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Speaker 1: of a planet relative to a proton, and these planets

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Speaker 1: just have so much mass. Even Mars, which is kind

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Speaker 1: of small, has like an unfathomable amount of stuff, and

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Speaker 1: so to move Mars from one orbit to the other

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Speaker 1: would take like ten to the thirty one jewels.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a lot of jewels. What would that mean, Like,

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Speaker 2: could you use rockets to you know, slow yourself down?

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Speaker 2: How would you even slow down a planet?

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Speaker 1: This is a huge amount of energy, like orders of magnitude,

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Speaker 1: much more than humanity produces and uses every year, So

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Speaker 1: you'd need something crazy. You basically have to build like

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Speaker 1: a rocket and attach it to the planet and drive

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Speaker 1: the planet like a spaceship. So the simplest way to

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Speaker 1: do this is to like dig stuff out of the

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Speaker 1: planet and launch it into space. If you could pick

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Speaker 1: up a rock and throw it into space so it

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Speaker 1: doesn't like come back to the planet reaches escape velocity,

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Speaker 1: then effectively that's giving the whole planet a little push,

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Speaker 1: right because by conservation momentum, the rock goes one way,

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Speaker 1: the planet goes the other way. Now that's a really

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Speaker 1: tiny little push because it's just a little rock. But

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Speaker 1: if you keep doing it, and you do a lot

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Speaker 1: of it, and you push those rocks really really fast,

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Speaker 1: then effectively you are pushing the planet. So if you

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Speaker 1: build something which like dig stuff out of Mars and

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Speaker 1: throws it into space, that's essentially a rocket attached to Mars.

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Speaker 1: And that's how you could do it.

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Speaker 2: Couldn't you just use rockets.

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Speaker 1: Like build rockets and just point them to the ground.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, basically build them upside that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, you can do that. But then where you're

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Speaker 1: going to get all the fuel? Right, The thing is

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Speaker 1: you need an enormous amount of energy, and so you

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Speaker 1: might as well take the propulsion from the planet itself.

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Speaker 1: This an incredible amount. Like, in order to do this

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Speaker 1: on Mars and achieve this kind of transfer, you just

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Speaker 1: dig out a trillion kilograms of material and eject it

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Speaker 1: into space at ninety nine percent of the speed of

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Speaker 1: life light every single day for almost five thousand years.

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Speaker 2: WHOA, that sounds crazy. So this is using your like

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Speaker 2: scooping up dirt and throw it in into space scheme.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we haven't even talked about, like how do

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Speaker 1: you accomplish getting dirt to ninety nine percent the speed

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Speaker 1: of light.

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Speaker 2: Well, could you you just use like atomic bombs or

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Speaker 2: something you know, I'm thinking of like a rocket that

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Speaker 2: uses nuclear fission.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you might want to use fission or fusion as

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Speaker 1: a way to accelerate this stuff. But you can need

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Speaker 1: some propellant, right, you need to change the momentum of

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Speaker 1: the planet, which means you need to eject something from it.

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Speaker 1: The other thing you could do is like solar power, right,

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Speaker 1: try to use that somehow. But either way, it's just

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Speaker 1: an overwhelming amount of energy, something that humanity you can

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Speaker 1: even conceive of producing. Not to mention like wrestling into

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Speaker 1: this crazy scheme.

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Speaker 2: Because you need ten to the thirty one jewels, But like,

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Speaker 2: how much does this an an atomic bomb give off?

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Speaker 2: I'm just trying to get a sense of, like is

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Speaker 2: it thirty thousandfar bombs or thirty basillion?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, atomic are pretty impressive, but they give off order

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Speaker 1: of magnitude like ten to the twelve, ten to the

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Speaker 1: thirteen jewels, and we need ten to the thirty one.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking like, you know, ten to the nineteen

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Speaker 1: nuclear bombs.

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Speaker 2: Well, so that's one followed by nineteen zero number of

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Speaker 2: nuclear bombs.

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Speaker 1: Exactly so pretty impractical. Another way to do this maybe

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Speaker 1: is to try to take advantage of other things in

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Speaker 1: the Solar System that have energy in them, you know,

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Speaker 1: things like asteroids and comets. These things have a vast

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Speaker 1: amount of gravitational energy as they come towards the inner

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Speaker 1: Solar System, they're moving with very high velocity, and we

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Speaker 1: often are using the gravity of other things in the

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Speaker 1: Solar System to navigate, like when we send spacecraft out

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Speaker 1: there where you slingshot them around Jupiter or this kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. So if you could somehow direct comets from

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Speaker 1: the Ord Cloud or the Kuiper Belt to rain down

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Speaker 1: and pass near Mars, each one of them would give

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Speaker 1: Mars a little bit of a tug. If you did

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Speaker 1: a gravitational slingshot using comets, it would change the trajectory

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Speaker 1: of the comet and the planet. So if you did

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Speaker 1: that enough times, you could change the trajectory of the

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Speaker 1: planet enough to accomplish the same maneuver. But it would

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Speaker 1: still take a lot of comets.

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Speaker 2: WHA, Yeah, it sounds like you're just making it more

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Speaker 2: complicated because you still have to spend all that energy

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Speaker 2: to move the comets to get out there. To the

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Speaker 2: commets and then move them.

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Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it would take that much energy

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Speaker 1: to move the comets because you're using the energy of

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Speaker 1: the Sun. You just take the comment, give it a

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Speaker 1: little nudge so it falls out of orbit. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're moving pretty slow that far out, and so it

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Speaker 1: doesn't take a big nudge to get them to fall

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Speaker 1: towards the Inner Solar System, and then they gather a

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Speaker 1: lot of energy as they're coming in. Then you take

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Speaker 1: advantage of it when they're zipping by. But you know

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Speaker 1: that's dangerous for other reasons, like you make a miscalculation

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Speaker 1: and boom, a comet hits the Earth and it's all over.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, then we'll really need to move to another planet exactly.

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Speaker 1: So, Lydia a great question. I don't think it's really

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Speaker 1: practical anytime in the near future, but I hope somebody

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Speaker 1: figures it out.

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Speaker 4: Hmm.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like maybe it's easier just to terra form Mars,

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Speaker 2: so that becomes warmer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a whole episode about how you might

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Speaker 1: do that. It's very challenging and quite impractical. Maybe less

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Speaker 1: impractical than moving the planet, it's still very very difficult.

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Speaker 2: I see. All right, Well, maybe the solution is just

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Speaker 2: to hire Marie Conda to come clean up our planet

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Speaker 2: and then nobody will want to move.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Lydia, and I hope you clean up your room.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and Lydia's parents, you're welcome. All right, Well, thank

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Speaker 2: you Lydia for that awesome question. Now let's get to

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Speaker 2: our other questions of the day. We have a question

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Speaker 2: about the Higgs field and about particle colliders, so let's

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Speaker 2: get to those. But first let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 2: All right, we're answering listener questions here today, and our

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Speaker 2: next question comes from Mark was a question about the

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Speaker 2: Higgs field.

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Speaker 5: Hey, daniel Le Jorge, I'm back with a serious question.

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Speaker 5: Just as I sort of feel confident that I'm building

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Speaker 5: a mental map, at least at the most primitive level,

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Speaker 5: of how this quantum stuff works. This Higgs Boston is

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Speaker 5: I don't understand how does a field lend mass to

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Speaker 5: other fields?

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Speaker 1: What is it? In part?

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Speaker 5: If mass is like what potential energy you're gathered?

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Speaker 1: What?

438
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the question. Where is the mass coming from?

439
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:47,960
Speaker 5: Then it just seems like we're at another level of

440
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:49,800
Speaker 5: incomprehensibility here.

441
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:52,480
Speaker 1: What how is it transferring mass?

442
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:57,919
Speaker 2: All right? A pretty massive question here about basically, how

443
00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:00,560
Speaker 2: does the Higgs field work, How does it give mass

444
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 2: other particles?

445
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:04,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, a really good question, a really deep question, and

446
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:06,800
Speaker 1: one that we've been sort of probing in several different

447
00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 1: episodes on the podcast, trying to give people an intuition

448
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: for how this works.

449
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,639
Speaker 2: Well, I guess maybe let's go get back to basics.

450
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 2: So the Higgs field is something that was proven to

451
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:21,399
Speaker 2: exist about ten years ago, and in the media you

452
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,879
Speaker 2: always hear that it's the field and the particle that

453
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:26,399
Speaker 2: gives other particles their maths.

454
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And maybe we should start with the concept

455
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: of a field because this is a little bit mysterious

456
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,520
Speaker 1: for people. I mean, particles are something we can sort

457
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 1: of imagine. We think of them as tiny specs of

458
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:43,439
Speaker 1: stuff explaining the microscopic world. You see their traces in

459
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: cloud chambers or particle detectors. But fields are a little

460
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 1: bit more in direct We don't ever see fields directly,

461
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:53,199
Speaker 1: and we say that particles move through fields and particles

462
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: are excitations of fields. And field is just like a

463
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 1: number that you put everywhere in space, like the Higgs field,

464
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,720
Speaker 1: for example. It's just a number. It has a value here,

465
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:04,760
Speaker 1: has a value there, it has a value somewhere else.

466
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: But those values aren't just random and arbitrary. There's mathematics

467
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: that describe how those values relate to each other and

468
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 1: how those values change in time. The same way. It's

469
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: like if you have a sheet, one that you might

470
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: put on your bed and you wave it in the air. Right,

471
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,880
Speaker 1: waves move through that sheet, and the same way waves

472
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 1: can move through the Higgs field or any other kind

473
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: of field.

474
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 2: Right. Right. But I guess maybe a question is like

475
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 2: our fields physical things or just sort of like mathematical

476
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:39,199
Speaker 2: conveniences that physicists use in their equations, meaning like if

477
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,439
Speaker 2: you have a field but no particles in it, is

478
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 2: that field there?

479
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: Nobody knows the answer to that question, man, I mean,

480
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 1: I think the mainstream view is that fields are the

481
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: fundamental building blocks of the universe as we know so far.

482
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: We don't know what they're made out of, and we

483
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: think of particles as emerging from fields. There are these

484
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: special ripples in the fields. They move in this special way.

485
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: There's something that comes out of the fields, But nobody

486
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: really knows that the fields are there, or if they're

487
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: just something we think about. To answer your second question,

488
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: in our current conception. If you believe fields are there,

489
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: then they're still there with no particles in them. Right,

490
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: They exist everywhere in space and they can never go

491
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 1: down all the way to zero because they're quantum, so

492
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: they're always fuzzing and frothing a tiny little bit. But

493
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,479
Speaker 1: whether fields are really there, like when we're not looking

494
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 1: at them, is not a science question. It's a philosophy question.

495
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 1: It's when you can't test because it requires answering the

496
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: question what happens when you don't look, And to do

497
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: science you have to look. Hmm.

498
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 2: But I guess you know we talked about and I

499
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 2: know you said that fields have like an energy to them.

500
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 2: So if they have an energy to them, doesn't that

501
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 2: mean that they sort of exist when you're not looking.

502
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: Well, we describe them as existing and having energy, That

503
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they are there, that they are real.

504
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 1: You know, there's no way to interact with a field

505
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: directly and to like measure it. You know, you can

506
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: see this effect on other stuff, but you can't actually

507
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: measure them directly, even if you do ascribe energy to it.

508
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 1: But the energy in the field is a crucial concept

509
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,360
Speaker 1: for getting an intuition for like how this all works

510
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: because what's happening in the field when it's oscillating is

511
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: sometimes it's oscillating in a way that moves like way

512
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: you wiggle your sheet and a ripple moves through it.

513
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: But sometimes it can also oscillate in place, and what's

514
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: happening there is that the field is wiggling sort of

515
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:29,959
Speaker 1: the same way that like a ball trapped in a well,

516
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: if there isn't any friction, can go up and down forever.

517
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: It's switching between like kinetic energy it's moving fast to

518
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: the bottom of the well, and potential energy. It's not moving,

519
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: but it still has energy of location. When it's at

520
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: the top of the well. Put a ball in a

521
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: little well, it can oscillate around that forever. Fields can

522
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 1: do that too. They can sort of oscillate in place

523
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: like a little standing wave, and that's where their mass

524
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 1: comes from.

525
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 2: Like the whole field, or just like in a little spot.

526
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: At any point these fields can do that. So, for example,

527
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: the electron field can be mostly empty and then in

528
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,479
Speaker 1: one spot it can be doing this special oscillation. And

529
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,199
Speaker 1: that's what an electron is. It's this special oscillation of

530
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: the electron field. It's got some energy, and it's oscillating

531
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:15,719
Speaker 1: in this stable way. And some fields can do this,

532
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: like the electron field can do this. They can just

533
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 1: oscillate in place, and that's what we call an electron,

534
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: and that's an electron at rest. And fields that can

535
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: do this are fields that have mass. Like the photon field,

536
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: it can only oscillate in the way the ripples move.

537
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: It can never oscillate in place. Right, The electromagnetic field

538
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 1: can't make you a photon that's just sitting there because

539
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,919
Speaker 1: photons don't have mass, and so in order to do

540
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,479
Speaker 1: this thing, to oscillate in place, they have to have mass.

541
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's sort of another philosophical question, right, Like

542
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 2: can an electron stay still? Like isn't it a quantum particle?

543
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. An electron can never be

544
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: located to exactly one location. What you have is like

545
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: a little packet. And we talked about like how long

546
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: is a particle, how wide is a particle on a

547
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: recent podcast. It depends on how much uncertainty there is.

548
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: And so you always have like a little neighborhood of

549
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: the field that's sort of oscillating coherently, and that depends

550
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: on the uncertainty in those measurements, so it's never like

551
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: a dot, it's none. Think of it like a single

552
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: point in the field as doing the oscillation. Think of

553
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: it like a little localized packet. And the important thing

554
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 1: to understand is that none of these fields operate independently. Right,

555
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: You have a field that has some energy it's oscillating,

556
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,719
Speaker 1: but there are also other fields, and the fields can

557
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: transfer energy back and forth. That's how, for example, the

558
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: photon field and the electron field, energy can slide between them,

559
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: Photons can turn into electrons and positrons, or photons can

560
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,359
Speaker 1: push on electrons, for example. In the same way, the

561
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: Higgs field interacts with all of these fields and changes

562
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,959
Speaker 1: how they wiggle, and then changing how they wiggle it

563
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: gives them mass. It gives some of these fields the

564
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: capacity to do this wiggle in place thing, which is

565
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 1: what gives those particles mass.

566
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 2: I think you're getting to Mark's question now, which is

567
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 2: that like, how exactly does that happen? It seems like

568
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 2: you sort of said it this both ways, like you

569
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 2: need mass for it to stay in place, or it

570
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 2: can only stay in place if you give it mass.

571
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So go back to thinking about the ball

572
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 1: in the well. The ball in the well moves in

573
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: a certain way because it has mass. Right now, if

574
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: the ball didn't have mass, it would operate very differently,

575
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 1: like it wouldn't feel the same gravitational potential energy, it

576
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: wouldn't oscillate in the well that way. So imagine you

577
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: took a ball without mass and you added some special

578
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: magic force that changed the way the ball moved. So

579
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: now it moves exactly the same way it would if

580
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: it did have mass. Okay, so every time the ball

581
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: is moving, you give it a little special push to

582
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: change its direction so that it moves exactly the same

583
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,719
Speaker 1: way it did as if it had mass. That's what

584
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: the Higgs field is doing. It's taking particles that naturally

585
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: don't have mass. The electron wouldn't have any mass without

586
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: Higgs field and changing the way it moves in exactly

587
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: the same way that you would expect if the electron

588
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: field had its own mass by itself. That's why we

589
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: say it gives the electron mass because it changes the

590
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: way the electron field wiggles and precisely the way it

591
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: would if the electron had its own mass. So the

592
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: mass comes from the Higgs field, and the interaction between

593
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 1: the Higgs field and the electron field is not inherent

594
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: in the electron field itself.

595
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 2: Meaning I guess I got a little confused with your

596
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 2: ball analogy because now I'm thinking, like the ball has

597
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 2: mass or what. But it seemed interesting to think about that.

598
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 2: An electron is just a standing wiggle in the electron field,

599
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 2: and you're saying that because of the way that the

600
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 2: electron field and the Higgs field interact, then that wiggle

601
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 2: can stay in place. Is that kind of what you're saying.

602
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So for the electron field to wiggle in place,

603
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: it needs to be able to trade kinetic energy for

604
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: potential energy and back to kinetic energy and then back

605
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: to back to potential energy. That's what the wiggle is, right,

606
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: And in order to do that, it needs to be

607
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: able to have potential energy, and that's what the Higgs

608
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: field gives it. Interactions between the electron field and the

609
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: Higgs field create a potential well for the electron which

610
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: lets it oscillate.

611
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 2: In place, like it gives it a place for the

612
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 2: energy to go to.

613
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it can go from kinetic to potential and

614
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: then back, whereas a photon field is like just kinetic energy.

615
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: It's always flying through space that doesn't slosh back into

616
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: potential energy and then kinetic energy and potential energy and

617
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: kinetic energy.

618
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 2: Well, let me recap. Maybe what you're saying is that

619
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 2: in order for the electron field to wiggle in place

620
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 2: and therefore have an electron instead of need something to

621
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 2: suck some energy out of it kind of in place.

622
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: Otherwise we'll just go somewhere, we'll take off.

623
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: You could still have an electron, it would be massless. Right,

624
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: in order to have an electron at rest, it has

625
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: to have mass, and so you need something to change

626
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: how the electron is oscillating. It's not exactly taking the

627
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: energy out of the electron field. It's just creating potential

628
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: energy for the electron. You know. Imagine, for example, a

629
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: kid on a swing right, in order for the kid

630
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: to swing back and forth, to be the swing there

631
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 1: pushing them back as they move. Without the swing, the

632
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 1: kid just flies off. So the Higgs field is sort

633
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: of like the swing that keeps the kid oscillating back

634
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: and forth rather than just flying off.

635
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 2: It pushes the electron wiggle to stay in place.

636
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And in another universe where you didn't have

637
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: a Higgs field, and you had an electron field that

638
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: actually had mass on its own, it would wiggle in

639
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 1: exactly the same way.

640
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 2: Are there things that have mass on their own?

641
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: There are none in our universe. We don't think particles

642
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: like that can exist because they would break some of

643
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: the other laws of particle physics, some of the symmetries

644
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:37,959
Speaker 1: that we think are held. That's why you need something

645
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: like the Higgs field to give these particles mass.

646
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 2: Ah interesting, And I guess, just to be clear, you

647
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 2: need the Higgs field to give things resting mass, right.

648
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, resting mass is the only kind of mass we

649
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: think about. There's this concept called relativistic mass, which is

650
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: really just a confusing way to think about energy. You

651
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: shouldn't think about things gaining mass as they go faster.

652
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: Mass to be an invarying quantity, the same as you

653
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: would measure at rest.

654
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: But I guess this idea that you know a lot

655
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 2: of our mass that we have in our bodies comes

656
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: from the energy doesn't necessarily come from particles. It comes

657
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 2: from the trapped energy between the particles. That's a different

658
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 2: kind of mass, right, Or does that mass also comes

659
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 2: from the Higgs field.

660
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: Oh no, great point. You're right, this is not the

661
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: only way to get mass, right, Mass in general comes

662
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: from internal stored energy. What we've been describing is like

663
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 1: how the electron gets internal stored energy, is that oscillates

664
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: in place. That comes from the Higgs field. Quarks do

665
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: the same thing. Quarks get energy from the Higgs field.

666
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,239
Speaker 1: But you put three quarks together into a proton that

667
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: has much more mass than the mass of the individual quarks,

668
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: and that's because those quarks now have a little bounce state.

669
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,959
Speaker 1: The proton is like a little box keeping them oscillating

670
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: in place, and that energy comes from the strong force

671
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: creating that box, not from the Higgs field. And that's

672
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: most of the mass of the proton comes from the

673
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: energy of the bonds between the quarks, this little bowl

674
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: that the quark live in that we call the proton.

675
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: So most of the mass in your bodies comes actually

676
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: from these bounds created by the strong force that give

677
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: the proton internal stored energy. And that's really where mass

678
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: comes from, any kind of internal stored energy, not energy

679
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: of motion, energy at rest, internal stored energy.

680
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 2: So then the Higgs field is responsible for some of

681
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 2: our mass. But not all of it.

682
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, really a tiny, tiny fraction, because quarks have almost

683
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: no mass. Almost all of your mass comes from the

684
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: mass of protons and neutrons, which is overwhelmingly from the

685
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: strong force.

686
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 2: So when they say, like the Higgs field and the

687
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 2: Higgs boson gives particles their mass, it's maybe not as

688
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 2: grand deal as of a statement as it may sound

689
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 2: to a lot of people.

690
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I mean, without the Higgs field, all the

691
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: fundamental particles would have no mass, and then nothing would

692
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: be possible, like electrons would fly out of orbits at

693
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: the speed of light, all this kind of stuff. But

694
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: you're right, most of the mass in the universe doesn't

695
00:33:58,120 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: come directly from the Higgs field.

696
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 2: Where does it come from, Daniel?

697
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: Most of the mass in protons comes from the strong force, right.

698
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: It gives internal stored energy to the proton, and that's

699
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: what gives us mass. A deeper question is like, well,

700
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 1: all right, you're talking about mass, but why is inertial

701
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: mass a thing? Anyway? Why is internal stored energy change

702
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: how much force it takes to get some acceleration? And

703
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: that's a really deep.

704
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 2: Question, that's what I mean. Yeah, that's still a big unknown.

705
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: Right, still a big unknown. You know, why do we

706
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: even have a inertia?

707
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 5: Man?

708
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like why are heavier? Or at the same time,

709
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 2: why are more energetic things harder to move?

710
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: Like?

711
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 2: We don't know that, right, nobody knows that.

712
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, we describe that using general relativity, but we don't

713
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: have an answer for like why in the same way that,

714
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 1: like general relativity describes that space does get curbed in

715
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: the presence of mass, but doesn't really tell us like

716
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: why does that happen? What is the mechanism for it

717
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: underlying it? To understand that, we'd need to have some

718
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: deeper level theory that explains like what space is, but

719
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: we have no idea yet, right.

720
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 2: Right, Or maybe we could just move to a universe

721
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:05,879
Speaker 2: in which people have figured it out.

722
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 6: Let's just take a big rocket, put U haul, we

723
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 6: get a U haul, we'll put pack all the physicists

724
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 6: into it and then and then just ship into a

725
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 6: more knowledgeable universe.

726
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, or just more knowledgeable solar system even, you know,

727
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: to go to another universe, let's just go visit the

728
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: Aliens and go to their physics school and learn how

729
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: this all works.

730
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 2: Unless they're also on the move, in which case you

731
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 2: might get there and then nobody's there.

732
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: We missed the party, man.

733
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, you missed the main course, which might have might

734
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: be you if there are aliens involved. All right, well,

735
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 2: I think that answers a question for Mark, which is

736
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 2: just sort of like, how does the Higgs field work?

737
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 2: And it sounds like it's mainly about the interaction between

738
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 2: the Higgs field and the electron field allowing it to

739
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 2: wiggle in place, which is what looks like mass.

740
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 1: That's right, And if you want a deep intuition into

741
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 1: what fields are and how.

742
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 2: This all works, then it's not possible.

743
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:09,040
Speaker 1: So then I really recommend Matt Stressler's book Waves In

744
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: an Impossible See, which starts from almost nothing, uses almost

745
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: no math, and gives you a really deep intuition for fields.

746
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 2: All right, well, thank you Mark for that question. Now

747
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 2: let's get to our last question of the day, and

748
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 2: it's about Daniel's future career. It seems about the particle

749
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 2: collider at CERN, so let's dig into that. But first

750
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: let's take another quick break where we're talking about listener

751
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 2: questions here today, and our last question comes from Bill

752
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 2: comes from Union City, California.

753
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 4: Hi, Daniel and Jorge. This is a. Bill Quirk, a

754
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 4: retired astrophysicists living in Union City, California. I'm curious what's

755
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 4: going to happen now at CERN and the other large

756
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 4: particle colliders now that you haven't found the supersymmetric particles.

757
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,800
Speaker 4: What are people going to be looking at? What possible

758
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 4: discoveries can this lead to? Daniel, I don't understand how

759
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 4: you can understand so many different things you and explain

760
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 4: them so well. Thanks for everything, enjoy the show very much.

761
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: Bye.

762
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 2: All right, great question from Bill. So CERN is the

763
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 2: big facility outside of Geneva where the large hadron collider is,

764
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 2: and I think Bill is asking what's going to happen

765
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 2: to it? You know, there was a lot of fanfare

766
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 2: about ten fifteen years ago about the Higgs boson, but

767
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 2: not a lot of news since then. What are the

768
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 2: plans for it?

769
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, the plans are to keep running it because though

770
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: we haven't found anything after the Higgs boson, there are

771
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: still lots of possibilities for discoveries. Bill mentions super symmetric particles.

772
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: These are particles that a lot of physicists hoped to

773
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: discover shortly after finding the Higgs, but we haven't seen

774
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:13,720
Speaker 1: any of them, which has been a bit of a disappointment.

775
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 2: Like have you ruled them out totally like we've given

776
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 2: up or is there still a possibility or do most

777
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 2: physicists things they don't exist?

778
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit of all of that. Sort of

779
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: we can't ever rule out something exists because it could

780
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: exist but just be really really rare, like if it

781
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: only happens once every twenty years in our collider and

782
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: we only run the collider for one year, we can't

783
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: rule it out. It could also be really really heavy,

784
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: like maybe our collider doesn't have enough energy to make it.

785
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,320
Speaker 1: So all we can do is we can rule out

786
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: low mass stuff that we could make that isn't rare,

787
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of a statistical statement. The longer

788
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: we run the collider, the more we can rule out

789
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 1: rare stuff, and the higher the energy the collider, the

790
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: more we can rule out heavy stuff. So we're always

791
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: just ruling out like a fraction of that space that

792
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 1: I said. A lot of physicists claimed that nature really

793
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: wanted very common, very low mass supersymmetric particles, and those

794
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 1: people were wrong. A lot of the fields has moved

795
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: on from supersymmetry they're sort of given up on it,

796
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: But there's also a lot of diehards that really believe

797
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 1: in it.

798
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 2: And they believe that maybe they're there, but they're just

799
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 2: heavier or rarer than we thought before.

800
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe we're just looking for them wrong, and

801
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: so they don't appear the way that we expected, and

802
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: we need to look for them in new interesting ways.

803
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: Maybe they're hidden in certain ways and we can reveal

804
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: them if we're clever enough. So there's definitely a lot

805
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 1: of people looking for supersymmetry. And realize also that the

806
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: LEDC has been running for fifteen years or so. It's

807
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: going to run for another fifteen but the rate at

808
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: which the collisions happens increases very quickly. But most of

809
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: the collisions we're ever going to see are in the future.

810
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: That's because we get better and better operating the machine,

811
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: so we can have more collisions per second as time

812
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,320
Speaker 1: goes on. So we've seen like one percent of the

813
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: data where ever ever going to see from the machine.

814
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: Most of the data is still in the future, and

815
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 1: so it could be that that future data reveals something

816
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: like supersymmetry or something else interesting.

817
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:09,439
Speaker 3: MMM.

818
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: So to answer Bill's question, that's sort of part of

819
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 2: the plan. The plan is for the Large Hydron Collider

820
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 2: to just keep u smashing particles for another fifteen years.

821
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, for about another fifteen years. And we're not

822
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 1: just looking for supersymmetry. We're also looking for all sorts

823
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: of other stuff. We're looking for things we didn't necessarily anticipate,

824
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: because you know, you land on Mars, you don't just

825
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: look for cats and dogs and people. You look for

826
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,720
Speaker 1: any kind of life. So we're trying to broadly imagine,

827
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: like what new particles might be out there that we

828
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: didn't imagine or that are really weird and crazy. And

829
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: one of my favorite example is actually Bill's last name.

830
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: There's a theory of a particle called a quirk, not

831
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: a quirk, but a quirk with an eye just like Bill. WHOA.

832
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 2: That's an interesting coincidence.

833
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: It is really a fun coincidence.

834
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 2: I mean it sounds like, if you just want to

835
00:40:57,640 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: find a quirk, just good call Bill.

836
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: Exactly. It's a really quirky theory and it predicts particles

837
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,760
Speaker 1: that look very different from anything we've ever seen before.

838
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: They were sort of move in a really weird way

839
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: in our detector, and so far the way we've analyzed

840
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: the data, we wouldn't be able to see these quirks,

841
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: and so my group and a bunch of other people

842
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: are starting to go back and analyze data to see

843
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: if we can find evidence for these quirks. So that's

844
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: just one example, but there could be stuff in the

845
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: data we've taken already that we haven't found yet because

846
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: we haven't figured out how to look for it yet.

847
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff is trickier to look for than

848
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: your standard electrons and muons and this kind of stuff.

849
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: So as we develop new techniques, we might be able

850
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 1: to discover things in existing data, not just wait for

851
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: more data.

852
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 2: I see. Well, since you mentioned that, maybe give people

853
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 2: a quick three minute explanation of what is a quirk,

854
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 2: because I don't think we've talked about it before, have we?

855
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 1: No, we have not. Yeah, a quirk is like a quark,

856
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: but it has a different kind of force. It's like

857
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: a new version of the strong force, and quirks are

858
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: much heavier than quarks. And you produce two quarks at

859
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 1: the particle collider. What happens is that the strong force

860
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 1: doesn't like them being far apart, so it creates a

861
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: bunch of new quarks out of that energy. For quirks,

862
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: that's not possible because quirks are too massive, So the

863
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: universe can't turn that energy into new quirks because there

864
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: isn't enough energy to make quarks because their mass is higher.

865
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: And so what that means is that you have these

866
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: two particles that now fly apart from each other and

867
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 1: they still have that great energy between them, which means

868
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: they wiggle in really weird ways. Rather than just flying

869
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: through a magnetic field like a charge particle, they oscillate

870
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,319
Speaker 1: inside the detector, which is really a challenge for our

871
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,760
Speaker 1: current data analysis pipeline to discover.

872
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 2: So then that's sort of the answer for bills that

873
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 2: you're a large hundred collider is going to keep running

874
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 2: and you're looking for I guess rarer or harder to

875
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:47,799
Speaker 2: find particles.

876
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people are also developing techniques to look for

877
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: things that are completely unexpected, like running machine learning based

878
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 1: anomaly detection algorithms to see if there's anything just like

879
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: really weird in the data. So we're going to keep

880
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: mine in this data hoping to make discoveries.

881
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 2: And you're also trying to make antimatter right and stuff

882
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:05,879
Speaker 2: like that.

883
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:08,760
Speaker 1: Well, in a particle collider, you can make basically anything

884
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,320
Speaker 1: that the universe is capable of. You smash those protons

885
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,759
Speaker 1: together and eventually you make everything on nature's menu. And

886
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,879
Speaker 1: we often make antimatter. We're hoping we might even make

887
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: like dark matter and be able to detect it in

888
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: our collider, all sorts of stuff. There are other experiments

889
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: that'scern not the collider, that do things like make anti

890
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: hydrogen and study its behavior.

891
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 2: Oh, I see now, are there plans to make more colliders,

892
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 2: bigger colliders, or to expand the current collider?

893
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: Yes, all of those. We just finished put it together

894
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 1: like a ten year plan for particle physics, and there's

895
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: some interesting proposals. Some people think that when the large

896
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: Hadren collider is done running, we should build a bigger

897
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: circular collider, and so this would involve like a larger

898
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 1: tunnel under Geneva. And because it's bigger, you could have

899
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: more energy in it. You're limited by like the strength

900
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 1: of the magnets that you need to curve the particles

901
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: around in that if you can't make your magnets stronger,

902
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: you can just make the circle bigger and then you

903
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: can get your particles moving faster with the same magnets,

904
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: So that's one possibility.

905
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 2: So you can make particles go at point nine nine

906
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,399
Speaker 2: nine nine nine nine nine nine the speed of light

907
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:15,359
Speaker 2: instead of point nine nine nine nine nine nine.

908
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, currently the collider explores up to about thirteen

909
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: and a half terra electron volts trillion electron volts, and

910
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: this new one would go up to fifty or one

911
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: hundred terra electron volts. And that doesn't sound like that

912
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: big a jump, but that's like multiplying by four or

913
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 1: eight the sort of entire energy range we've ever explored.

914
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 1: You know, it's like landing on eight new Earth like

915
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: planets simultaneously. It's an enormous range that we could use

916
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:42,760
Speaker 1: to discover something.

917
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:44,959
Speaker 2: So how many dines does that give us in terms

918
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 2: of the how fast we can explain particles at a

919
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 2: percentage at the speed of light?

920
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't even know.

921
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 2: A lot of nines, half a nine, three nines.

922
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: We don't even think about it in terms of velocity

923
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: because it's a crazy asymptopic quantity. We just think in

924
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: terms of energy. That's right.

925
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 2: You don't want to think that each nine cause about

926
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 2: ten billion bills.

927
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: I don't like to think about that. No, but these

928
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: colliders would be very expensive because you've got to drill

929
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: the tunnel, you've got to build the magnets. The whole

930
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 1: thing is expensive. It's tens of billions. And a competitor

931
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: on the international scene is China. China is proposing to

932
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: maybe build one of these colliders over there. They think

933
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 1: they have the money, and they are ramping up very

934
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 1: quickly in terms of particle physics in their universities, and

935
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:27,160
Speaker 1: I think they would like to be the leader in

936
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 1: particle physics in the world. So there's two big competing

937
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 1: proposals there, one from CERN, one from China, and then

938
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: there's a dark horse, which is saying, hey, maybe we

939
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,240
Speaker 1: shouldn't be colliding protons or electrons, let's try colliding something else.

940
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 2: What what else can you collide?

941
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: Well, there's a really fun proposal for a muon collider.

942
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 1: Muons are just like heavy versions of electrons.

943
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 2: They're not hadrons.

944
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: They're not hadrons to know, they're fundamental particles, and they're

945
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: really hard to use because they don't last very long.

946
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 1: Like electrons are stable they last forever, but muons last

947
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: a few microseconds and so it's hard to get them

948
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: in a collider and keep them going and all this

949
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. You might wonder like, well, why bother. Well,

950
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: the answer is to have more mass than electrons do,

951
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: and so colliding muons gives you more Higgs bosons than

952
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: colliding electrons because higgs boson interacts with particles that have mass, right,

953
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: it interacts more with particles that have more mass. So

954
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: when you smash two muons together, you have a much

955
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 1: higher chance of making a Higgs boson than when you

956
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: smash two electrons together. So the muon collider is what

957
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: they call a Higgs factory. It would produce oodles and

958
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: oodles of Higgs bosons and allow us to study it

959
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:34,720
Speaker 1: in great detail.

960
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:36,720
Speaker 2: To answer I guess what question?

961
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, good point. I mean, the Higgs boson

962
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: was discovered and it acts the way we expect, but

963
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:44,240
Speaker 1: it might be that it's not quite the Higgs boson

964
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: we expected. It could have some weird new properties. And

965
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: one way to make discoveries is to like measure all

966
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: the properties of the Higgs boson, its mass, its spin,

967
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: it's precise interactions with all the other particles, really really accurately,

968
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: and see if it lines up with our predictions, and

969
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: if it doesn't, that's a hint that there's something new

970
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 1: going on, some new particles or feels out there that

971
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: are messing up our calculations.

972
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:09,320
Speaker 2: All right, now, Daniel, since technically you are employed by CERN,

973
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 2: do we need to give a sponsored content warning here?

974
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: I am actually not technically employed by CERN. I'm employed

975
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:19,760
Speaker 1: with the University of California, though I do my research

976
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: at CERN, and I'm certainly very heavily biased here that

977
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: I think this stuff is a lot of fun. It's

978
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: tens of billions of dollars, so whether or not governments

979
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: want to spend that money is a very political question. Personally,

980
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:34,720
Speaker 1: I think we should spend lots more money on science,

981
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: not just particle physics, but astrophysics and condensed matter physics

982
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: and maybe even chemistry. So I'm all in favor.

983
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:42,839
Speaker 2: Of it, right right, but not philosophy.

984
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:46,279
Speaker 1: Definitely more money for philosophy. I don't know if you

985
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: call that science or not. That's a philosophy question.

986
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 2: All right, Well, great questions here today. Thanks for our

987
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 2: question askers for sending in their questions.

988
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: Thanks to everybody who thinks about the universe, wonders about

989
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: it and tunes into the podcast, hoping to gain some ununderstanding.

990
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 1: We really love hearing your thoughts and answering your questions.

991
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,879
Speaker 2: Do you hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us.

992
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 2: See you next time.

993
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: For more science and curiosity, come find us on social

994
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:21,280
Speaker 1: media where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, Disport, Insta,

995
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: and now TikTok. Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel

996
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.

997
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:34,080
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998
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.