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Speaker 1: So the goal of physics is to understand the universe.

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Speaker 1: And on one hand, you could say we've been making

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Speaker 1: great progress. Look how far we have come. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, you could say, look at all the mistakes

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Speaker 1: we've made. Every idea we've had about the universe has

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Speaker 1: been proven wrong, except for the current idea, which we're

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Speaker 1: also pretty sure is wrong. We just can't prove it yet.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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

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Speaker 1: UC Irvine, and I've always wanted to understand the big

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Speaker 1: picture of the universe. Frankly, I'm amazed that we can

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Speaker 1: understand any of it at all. And the history of

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Speaker 1: humanity is of misunderstandings, of making mistakes and fixing them

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Speaker 1: in a way that we hope bends gently towards the truth.

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Speaker 1: But as our ideas get more and more accurate, they

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Speaker 1: also get harder and harder to understand. From the ancient

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Speaker 1: myths about the way the universe worked to the crazy

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Speaker 1: predictions of general relativity, today's ideas are pretty hard to

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Speaker 1: wrap your brain around. And I find what I'm interacting

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Speaker 1: with folks in the general public and listeners of this podcast,

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Speaker 1: most of the questions and most of the misconceptions people

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Speaker 1: have when they write to me are about topics in cosmology.

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Speaker 1: How big is the universe? Where was the Big Bang?

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Speaker 1: How can we actually know the universe has a size

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Speaker 1: or an age, or all of these things. There are

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Speaker 1: quite a few ideas that are out there about how

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Speaker 1: the universe works that are not really quite right, but

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Speaker 1: yet are often repeated in popular science presentations. And so

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Speaker 1: today on the podcast, I want to talk about why

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Speaker 1: everyone misunderstands cosmology. And I'm not just talking about everyday

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Speaker 1: people out there, I mean scientists. We've basically been misunderstanding

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Speaker 1: the universe as long as there have been people. And

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Speaker 1: to help me break this down, I have a fun

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Speaker 1: guest and the author of a new book exploring the

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Speaker 1: history of cosmology from our first early mistakes and bad

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Speaker 1: ideas to our current probably wrong theories about how the

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Speaker 1: universe works. Okay, well, then it's my pleasure to introduce

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Speaker 1: to the podcast Zach Wiersmith. Zach is most well known

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Speaker 1: for being married to Kelly, the famous guest host of

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Zach, thanks very much for joining us today.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Just to be clear, I'm more famous,

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Speaker 2: You're just being funny.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Zach is also the author of SMBC, a

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Speaker 1: hilarious webcomic that has no set characters or themes, but

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Speaker 1: just folks pun at thinkers in physics that can math philosophy. Basically,

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Speaker 1: Zach's job is to troll nerds everywhere. Together with Kelly,

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Speaker 1: he's the author of Suonish, a book that tells us

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Speaker 1: why future technology will mostly be disappointing, and they have

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Speaker 1: a new book coming out this fall called A City

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Speaker 1: on Mars, which is all about how living in space

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Speaker 1: will be dangerous and uncomfortable. You guys are really optimist,

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Speaker 1: aren't you.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Well we are the gatekeepers of the truth.

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Speaker 1: And this is not Zach and Kelly's first experience on podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Zach also did a podcast which ended in twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 1: which was called The Wiener Smith Weekly. Is that right?

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Speaker 2: The Weekly Wiener Smith released once every ten years.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it's a coincidence that twenty fourteen is

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Speaker 1: the year you ended your podcast and also the year

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Speaker 1: podcasts took off.

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Speaker 2: The coincidence is that my first child was born that year.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's hertful, but Zach is not here today to

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Speaker 1: talk about either. Those books or his podcast. He's here

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Speaker 1: today to talk about something else entirely. Zach has a

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Speaker 1: new book coming out on cosmology. Zach tell us the

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Speaker 1: title of your new book.

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Speaker 2: The Universe a Bridged beyond the point of usefulness.

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Speaker 1: So why did you write this book, Zach? What inspired

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Speaker 1: you to abridge the entire universe?

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Speaker 2: Well, I actually have a whole series of books that

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Speaker 2: are not useful. It's a funny story, actually, So I

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Speaker 2: released a book of religion related comics, and kind of

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Speaker 2: as a joke, I abridged the whole Bible. The goal

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Speaker 2: was to do every book of the Bible in one sentence.

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Speaker 2: I got it down to like one to three sentences

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Speaker 2: per book of the Bible. The New Testament is much

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Speaker 2: more funny with short, clipped sentences because there are a

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Speaker 2: lot of letters. But that book, which was originally a gimmick,

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Speaker 2: like outsold the book. It was meant to be a

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Speaker 2: gimmick for by like ten to one, and so I thought,

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Speaker 2: I like money, and also this is fun. So I

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Speaker 2: did one that was abridging all of science, and then

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Speaker 2: one that was less popular but nearer and dear to

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Speaker 2: my heart, which was a bridging all of Shakespeare's sonnets,

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Speaker 2: and the newest one is abridging all of the universe,

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Speaker 2: and strictly speaking, it's more like abridging cosmology and its history.

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Speaker 1: But I'm going with the what's this sort of special

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Speaker 1: mental challenge that comes in abridging in like boiling something

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Speaker 1: down to its essentials? You learn anything by a bridging

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Speaker 1: the Bible and Shakespeare that you applied to the universe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, to be honest, for me, it's really fun. So,

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Speaker 2: as you mentioned, like one of my hats is as

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Speaker 2: a researcher, which means, you know, just when you research

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Speaker 2: for a book, you become a very boring person who

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Speaker 2: reads very boring books that nobody else is reading because

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Speaker 2: you're trying to get a job done. And I try

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Speaker 2: to take the same approach to the extent I can

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Speaker 2: to these mini books. I mean, you know, I can't

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Speaker 2: spend a years on a single one, but I do

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Speaker 2: try to read like the actual literature, and I talk

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Speaker 2: to people like you who actually know what they're talking about,

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Speaker 2: because there's obviously no chance I'm going to like learn

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Speaker 2: the deep math in a short period of time, and

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Speaker 2: then I try to get to where I understand it,

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Speaker 2: and then can tell jokes about it, because it's very

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Speaker 2: hard to tell jokes about something that you don't at

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Speaker 2: least more or less understand, which is interesting, by the way,

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Speaker 2: I have this theory that everyone, instead of doing a thesis,

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Speaker 2: people should just like do a fifteen minute joke set

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Speaker 2: on it to actually prove they know what they're talking about.

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Speaker 2: So there are much of play is where on stuff

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Speaker 2: in retrospect, it's fairly basic where I thought I knew

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Speaker 2: sort of what the deal was, and then as I'm

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Speaker 2: writing and I'm like, I don't feel like I understand

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Speaker 2: this at the level I need to to explain it

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Speaker 2: to somebody else. And so the result of that was,

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Speaker 2: you know, a lot of talking to you and other cosmologists,

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Speaker 2: and then also just you know, doing reading. I've you know,

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Speaker 2: cosmology text, I'm trying to understand something like one of

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Speaker 2: the really hard things to understand a lot of this

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Speaker 2: is like why a particular finding was really important because

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Speaker 2: often it like interfaces with like cultural stuff.

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Speaker 1: I think it's really fascinating to try to boil down

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Speaker 1: the whole history of cosmology because the approach you've taken

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Speaker 1: is not just like here's everything we understand today. But

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Speaker 1: here's how all of the ideas have developed. Here's like

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Speaker 1: what the original wrong ideas were, and then the later

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Speaker 1: wrong ideas, and now our latest probably wrong ideas. I

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Speaker 1: think that's a really fascinating approach, because, as you say,

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Speaker 1: at each moment we think maybe we've understood the universe,

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Speaker 1: and then later that's all thrown in the try.

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Speaker 2: I think it's also interesting, at least for the way

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Speaker 2: my brain works, to go through the history of what

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Speaker 2: was thought, because it often makes much more clear why

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Speaker 2: we think something now. So you may have had this

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Speaker 2: experience when you're like explaining something from cosmology to someone

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Speaker 2: and they're like, but that's crazy. That doesn't make any

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Speaker 2: sense to me, And you're like, well, won, you should

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Speaker 2: have heard what we believed before. But two like, however

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Speaker 2: weird it is. We have all these weird threads, and

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Speaker 2: this is the idea that pulls them together. My sense

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Speaker 2: is a lot of people when they first hear about

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Speaker 2: dark matter just like, oh, it's just illuminate luminiferous ether

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Speaker 2: all over again. And these physicists, you know, but then

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Speaker 2: when you get into it, you're like, oh, but there's

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Speaker 2: you know, of course, you know, anybody could be wrong

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Speaker 2: about anything, but there's actually there's pretty good evidence of

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Speaker 2: it being a very robust concept. For me, I feel

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Speaker 2: like I had this kind of vague idea about dark

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Speaker 2: matter and not that I have like a deep, like

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Speaker 2: mathematical sense of it now, but I have a much

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Speaker 2: better picture on like why we need this and what's

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Speaker 2: neat is that does kind of proceed out cause it

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Speaker 2: proceeds out like in this kind of fairly neat historical fashion,

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Speaker 2: where like each each discovery kind of leads to a

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Speaker 2: whole new set of problems, and so like for me,

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Speaker 2: at least chronologically, you're telling the story of the things

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Speaker 2: that we're thought in different time. Gives you a much

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Speaker 2: better sense of where we are now and how we

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Speaker 2: you know, how we got there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of like a meta story. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think of each kind of science as a story.

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Speaker 1: We're telling a story about the universe. Here's how it works.

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Speaker 1: It does this, it swishes that way, it expands the

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Speaker 1: other way, and now we're telling like the meta story

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Speaker 1: of how that story has evolved. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: really cool, and especially for this topic, you know, the

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Speaker 1: whole universe, the cosmology. This really is fascinating to go

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Speaker 1: deep into history because it's an ancient question, right, Like

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Speaker 1: literally the question that people asked thirty five thousand years

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Speaker 1: ago or maybe even one hundred thousand years ago as

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Speaker 1: they're looking me up into the night sky are the

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Speaker 1: same questions we're asking, like what's out there? And how

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Speaker 1: does that all work? And what does that mean for

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Speaker 1: how we're going to live our lives? And whether or

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Speaker 1: not I should bank that person on the head with

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Speaker 1: a rock to get their stuff right. Basic questions with

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out the answer to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know what's cool about that too,

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Speaker 2: is you know I had this. This is something that

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Speaker 2: I felt very strongly when we were researching the history

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Speaker 2: of space travel, which is like, it's amazing the cadence

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Speaker 2: once you get to the twentieth century, like that, that

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Speaker 2: to me was one of the most astonishing things because

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Speaker 2: you know, it's like you go from this world where

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Speaker 2: it's not clear that even like like nebulae or galaxies,

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Speaker 2: and then suddenly the universe is gigantic. So it's amazing

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Speaker 2: that a person like if you talk to a farmer

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Speaker 2: in like eighteen hundred, you know they certainly know more

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Speaker 2: than like a farmer from like three thousand BC. But

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Speaker 2: there's sort of universe. Isn't that much different, you know,

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Speaker 2: in terms of its scope? And then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: like very quickly, it's not only gigantic but kind of alien,

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Speaker 2: kind of like bizarre. That for me was astonishing, like

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Speaker 2: like just during like a thirty year period, how much

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Speaker 2: how much like it must have been a very strange

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Speaker 2: time to be an astronomer.

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Speaker 1: It's a strange time to be a human because each

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Speaker 1: of these discoveries changes essentially the universe that we think

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Speaker 1: we live in, which changes the context of our whole lives.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're important and we're in the center of

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Speaker 1: the universe. Nope, we're a tiny speck of dust in

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Speaker 1: a vast universe. Right, So go ahead, bonk that guy

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Speaker 1: with a rock. Nothing really matters, you know, but let's

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Speaker 1: take it one step at a time, let's go all

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Speaker 1: the way back. I love that in your book you

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Speaker 1: really started from the very basics of cosmology, which really

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Speaker 1: has its roots in like mythology. You know, before we

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Speaker 1: had like sensible ways to develop knowledge, people just told

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Speaker 1: stories about what they saw in the sky. Tell us

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Speaker 1: a little bit about that how far back did you

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Speaker 1: do your research? Did you learn to read like ancient

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Speaker 1: clay tablets?

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Speaker 2: I wish, I wish I had the kind of time

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Speaker 2: to do that. No, I got like books of creation

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Speaker 2: myths and selected a few that like seemed to lend

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Speaker 2: themselves to making jokes. The joke for me was like,

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Speaker 2: you know what, what we always do, of course, and

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Speaker 2: so the deal in science is you have a theory

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Speaker 2: and then you assess how it interfaces with the fact.

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Speaker 2: So the fun part was to kind of be like,

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Speaker 2: how would you rule out this theory from ancient Babylon

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Speaker 2: using modern cosmology, which is kind of fun. Like there's

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Speaker 2: a joke about how like in the innumatt Elish, there's

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Speaker 2: this idea the goddess Tiamat was split in half and

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Speaker 2: half of us stretched into the heavens, and that that

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Speaker 2: is the heavens.

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Speaker 1: You know, backup, tell us what this document is. You

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Speaker 1: referenced it, but it's not something I'm familiar with.

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Speaker 2: Holy documents from the ancient Near East, you know, where

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Speaker 2: were the cradle of civilization?

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Speaker 3: Can I say, by the way, what's what's kind of

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Speaker 3: it's kind of fascinating to me anyway, Like like why

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Speaker 3: do humans bother with stories like this?

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean? So there's stories like that

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Speaker 2: you read in like religious or like you know, oral

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Speaker 2: history traditions that do seem to really clearly have like

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Speaker 2: a political or social organizational purpose. And maybe in some

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Speaker 2: of these cases with these foundation myths, what's going on

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Speaker 2: as they're saying like we're a special group or something.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of them just seem weird, you know,

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Speaker 2: like do you know what I mean? Just like there's

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Speaker 2: the other one I mentioned, well, the three I mentioned

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Speaker 2: is this one from ancient Babylon or ancient Near East,

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Speaker 2: and one from ancient China, although China is very old,

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Speaker 2: so it's kind of like the middle of China. And

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Speaker 2: then like like of course one about the Bible and

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Speaker 2: what's fastly like the one in China is just about

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Speaker 2: like this is this story about a giant who just

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Speaker 2: sort of carves up the universe. Still there's like still

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Speaker 2: there's a sky and the ground, and then he dies.

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Speaker 2: And then a theme that I think is in a

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Speaker 2: number of other creation myths, parts of like this initial

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Speaker 2: being become the pieces of the universe, and so there's

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Speaker 2: there's at least not a kind of obvious, and therefore

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Speaker 2: here's how you should live your life, or and therefore

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Speaker 2: the guy with the tall hat is in charge, you know.

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Speaker 2: And so it's just kind of fascy that we like.

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Speaker 2: But every culture does this, every culture. I mean, maybe

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Speaker 2: there's some exception somewhere, but it seems to be a

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Speaker 2: normal thing to just speculate on how things started. And

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Speaker 2: I don't have like a sort of good theory about

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Speaker 2: why we do this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it tells us something about why these

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Speaker 1: questions are important. But I think cosmology as mythology sort

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Speaker 1: of tells us about the way we do science. Also,

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Speaker 1: I think in the end, it's all stories. Like the

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Speaker 1: scientific answers we have now are still stories. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're supported with evidence and they're backed by mathematics, and

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Speaker 1: they're told in a different language, but still their stories.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know, I think maybe it tells us

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Speaker 1: just about the way we think as like rational creatures

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Speaker 1: looking for cause and effect, you know, as a human

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Speaker 1: being living in the world, you're trying to understand, like

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Speaker 1: I was hungry today, Why I wasn't hungry? Oh I

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Speaker 1: didn't eat Okay, there's a story, you know, It's just

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Speaker 1: sort of like maybe part of the way our brains

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Speaker 1: work and the reason that we use cause and effect

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Speaker 1: is a way to explain the whole universe, you know,

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Speaker 1: just that we are storytellers. But it's fascinating also to

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Speaker 1: me what those various stories tell us about the people

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Speaker 1: and the sort of the tools they have to tell

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Speaker 1: those stories. Like we know that the ancient Greeks told

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Speaker 1: a story about the structure of the cosmos, and their

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Speaker 1: story was like very geometric, right, They had euclid, They

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Speaker 1: had geometry like build deeply into their brains, and so

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Speaker 1: they thought about, you know, the Earth is the center

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Speaker 1: of the cosmos and things are moving around them and

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Speaker 1: everything is embedded in spheres. But if I read like

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Speaker 1: ancient Chinese texts about this, you know, the Chinese didn't

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Speaker 1: have the same sort of advanced sense of geometry, but

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Speaker 1: they were still studying the stars. They like looked at

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Speaker 1: the stars and they used you know, algebra and like

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Speaker 1: arithmetic to study these patterns. They just didn't think about

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Speaker 1: it in the same sort of geometric way, which is

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Speaker 1: sort of blows my mind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I have thought about that way. But

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Speaker 2: of course, you know, a lot of ancient Greek traditions

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Speaker 2: have that like you better know your geometry because it's

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Speaker 2: a it's it's important to philosophy. Yeah. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 2: Plato's academy who had a sign that said something along

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Speaker 2: the lines of like, you know, don't enter here unless

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Speaker 2: you know. I think it was geometry. I might have

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Speaker 2: that wrong. Yeah, that's what I hadn't thought of it

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Speaker 2: that way. Yeah, Like they come up with this, like

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Speaker 2: you know, neat spherical universe, and then you know, like

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Speaker 2: like thousands of years later, people are still talking about

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Speaker 2: platonic solids and the sort of thing as aspects of

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Speaker 2: the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was reading an analysis of ancient Chinese

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Speaker 1: cosmology actually, and they were talking about how it's sort

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Speaker 1: of weird that the Chinese never really applied geometry to

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Speaker 1: their system. Like the Chinese picture of the cosmos is

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Speaker 1: like a flat disc of an Earth surrounded by like

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Speaker 1: a half bowl of a sky, and this sort of

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Speaker 1: makes sense to them in terms of their equations. They

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Speaker 1: can like predict eclipses and stuff, but doesn't sort of

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Speaker 1: like come together in your mind, like if the sun

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Speaker 1: goes below the earth disc, then like everything in the

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Speaker 1: sky should be shaded. Then why is like the moon

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Speaker 1: ever bright? You know, it's just sort of like just

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Speaker 1: does it make sense from a very basic geometrical standpoint,

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Speaker 1: And there are some evidence in writing or people like

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Speaker 1: trying to put this together and be like, hm, just

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Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. I don't know, and they just sort

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Speaker 1: of move on.

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Speaker 2: I wonder what some of this stuff what's going on?

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Speaker 2: Is like, it's very easy as a modern person to

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Speaker 2: be like, well, obviously the utility of this stuff is

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Speaker 2: just knowing how the universe works. But to a person

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Speaker 2: of a particular point in the past, it's the utility

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Speaker 2: is so I can do astrology or I can yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know, some of the things, it's not really relevant

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Speaker 2: if it's quite accurate in that particular sense.

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Speaker 1: And of course, the Greeks famously got a bunch of

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Speaker 1: stuff wrong, right. Part of the story we're telling today

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Speaker 1: is how everybody got everything wrong for so long. And

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Speaker 1: so you tell this story in your book about why

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Speaker 1: the Greek settled on a cosmos with the Earth is

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Speaker 1: at the center rather than the Sun at the center,

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Speaker 1: and it's all about parallax. Do you want to tell

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Speaker 1: that story?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well it's just it's funny. You know I

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Speaker 2: should say this is all like I don't want to

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Speaker 2: be able to get the impression that it's too in

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Speaker 2: depth in this book. It's a joke book. But so,

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Speaker 2: like you know, if you're just sitting here on the

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Speaker 2: surface of the earthing, you don't have a really good telescope.

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Speaker 2: The stars don't parallax, which makes perfect sense if the

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Speaker 2: Earth is just in the middle end immobile, and doesn't

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Speaker 2: make sense if the Earth is moving around the Sun.

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Speaker 2: But of course, you know, the truth is they do parallax.

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Speaker 2: It's just that they're so far away. We don't find

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Speaker 2: this out till I forget. Who's the first person observes that?

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Speaker 2: Would that be like eighteenth century? It's it's in the

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Speaker 2: book somewhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like almost the eighteenth century before we can

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Speaker 1: actually see the stars.

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Speaker 2: Wiggling right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like it's actually

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Speaker 2: quite reasonable, so to speak. It's like, why don't they

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Speaker 2: do this? So I do talk about how there is

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Speaker 2: a guy named Aristarchus of Samas who actually got pretty

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Speaker 2: close to the mark, though I think you always want

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Speaker 2: to be careful with this. I mean, I kind of

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Speaker 2: tell this as a joke because, like you know, it's

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Speaker 2: a little dangerous to be like, well, Democratus was right,

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Speaker 2: and it's like about Adams, you know, but you get

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Speaker 2: to be a little careful because it was like, well

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Speaker 2: it was he right for the right reasons, you know,

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Speaker 2: and or more to the point, it's like if everybody's

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Speaker 2: got a theory, you can always look back and be like, ah,

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Speaker 2: this one person got right, you know. But indeed there

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Speaker 2: was a guy named Aristarkus iss same Us who said,

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Speaker 2: you know, the sun's in the middle of the Earth,

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Speaker 2: goes around it, and even suggested the Earth was tilted

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Speaker 2: on its axis, which is pretty darn cool. But of

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Speaker 2: course that theory can't explain a bunch of stuff that

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Speaker 2: the Aristotle theory does explain, like like the star's parallax.

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Speaker 2: And then there are these, you know, other ideas about

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Speaker 2: like if Earth is zooming around, why don't I, like

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Speaker 2: you feel the normal effects I would feel if I

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Speaker 2: was like zooming around to us now as a mine field.

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Speaker 2: That's not very intuitive, but it would make perfect sense

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Speaker 2: right back then. I suppose that that, like why why

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Speaker 2: don't I feel the wind blowing on my face? Why

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Speaker 2: why woun't I drop something? Does it just goes straight

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Speaker 2: down if I'm like going around this racetrack. You know,

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Speaker 2: so there are actually good, good arguments for Aristotle's position

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Speaker 2: over against Aristarchus's. So, I mean, I do kind of

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Speaker 2: tell this as a joke, like why didn't we listen

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Speaker 2: to Aristarkis? But you know, of course it's a dangerous

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Speaker 2: thing to reason backwards from history and try to find

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Speaker 2: the one crazy guy who happened to be right.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. You've got enough crazy Greeks with enough typewriters, and

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Speaker 1: one of them is going to bang out a theory

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Speaker 1: of the universe that looks pretty good in hindsight.

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Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: But I love this argument of the Greeks. They're like, well,

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Speaker 1: if the Earth is moving, then we should be able

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Speaker 1: to tell, And you're right. They're more sophisticated than just

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Speaker 1: like I should feel the breeze or we should all

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Speaker 1: fall off the earth. They came up with a really

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Speaker 1: clever strategy to tell if the Earth was moving, like

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Speaker 1: let's look at the stars and see if they're wiggling.

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Speaker 1: And they were totally right. Their mistake though, was that

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Speaker 1: they thought the stars were close by. They thought the

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Speaker 1: stars were like not really that far away. And so

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Speaker 1: they should be wiggling a lot, and that was the

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Speaker 1: one mistake they made. If they had known the stars

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Speaker 1: were so distant, they might have figured this all out earlier.

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Speaker 2: Right, And it makes sense because it's like stars are

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Speaker 2: really far away like distances, you know, like not that

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Speaker 2: we encountered distance like this in normal life. But it's

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Speaker 2: like a little less crazy for Ustna because we're just

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Speaker 2: used to it, right, but like insane, like impossible. I

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Speaker 2: thinking about how you would have to express these numbers

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Speaker 2: before you had Arabic numerals, So it's not surprising there

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Speaker 2: for them that was unintuitive.

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Speaker 1: All right, So I can't wait to dig into more

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Speaker 1: ways that we got cosmology wrong. But first let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. Okay, we're back, and we're talking to

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Speaker 1: Zach Wienersmith, who's written a joke book about cosmology, making

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Speaker 1: fun of everybody else's clever ideas about the universe. Zach,

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Speaker 1: do you feel like that's your role in modern nerd

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Speaker 1: dumb is just to make fun of ideas?

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Speaker 2: Uh? To the extent. That's a fun job. Yeah, I

427
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Speaker 2: like that job.

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Speaker 1: That's you guys over there work really hard. I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna sit here and make potshots at you.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, absolutely, you know, look, this is all about me.

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Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just I'm just enjoying myself, especially making

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Speaker 2: fun of chemists. Chemists. It's just really, it's just really satisfying.

433
00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:50,440
Speaker 1: Oh you gotta be careful. I made some comments about

434
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:52,600
Speaker 1: chemistry on this podcast, and I got some emails.

435
00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:58,679
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, Oh boy, then they're dangerous too.

436
00:19:58,720 --> 00:19:59,800
Speaker 2: They know how to blow stuff up.

437
00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:04,439
Speaker 1: My son was taking high school chemistry last year and

438
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:05,840
Speaker 1: he asked me for help and I couldn't help it.

439
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 1: And then I got frustrated. And I remember being frustrated

440
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:11,040
Speaker 1: by high school chemistry and expressed my frustration on the

441
00:20:11,080 --> 00:20:14,440
Speaker 1: podcast towards the whole field of chemistry, which of course

442
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 1: for which I have nothing but very deep respect. I

443
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 1: was reminded of the reasons for that.

444
00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:20,880
Speaker 2: Okay, well you know what. Here's the thing about chemistry.

445
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:23,399
Speaker 2: I'll absorb the emails on this, which is that like

446
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,000
Speaker 2: in biology, you're just like, okay, nothing makes any sense.

447
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,200
Speaker 2: It's all specific every time you look at one thing.

448
00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:30,239
Speaker 2: And in physics you're like, oh it all, it all.

449
00:20:30,280 --> 00:20:32,360
Speaker 2: There's like two equations you just have to reply them.

450
00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:35,400
Speaker 2: But in chemistry, it's like it is this unholy hybrid

451
00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:38,680
Speaker 2: where there are almost rules. Did I ever tell you

452
00:20:39,119 --> 00:20:42,200
Speaker 2: I was? This is ages ago I was in I

453
00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:43,960
Speaker 2: were talking to a chemistry professor and she had this

454
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,800
Speaker 2: story about they couldn't get enough tas, so they brought

455
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:50,960
Speaker 2: in a physics TA figuring like, well, teach chemistry. And

456
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:53,520
Speaker 2: I guess, like me, but you or I would have

457
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 2: done which is he was? The story I was told

458
00:20:56,119 --> 00:20:58,040
Speaker 2: was that he began with the shorting gear equation.

459
00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,720
Speaker 1: In principle, you can derive all of chemistry from that.

460
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Just it's an exercise for the student.

461
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:14,400
Speaker 1: No, I get it. But you know, also modern science

462
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:16,959
Speaker 1: has many, many different layers. We don't just do particle

463
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,399
Speaker 1: physics for everything. Right, you can't get the price of

464
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 1: sneakers using string theory, you know, there are other useful

465
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:27,280
Speaker 1: kinds of science right there for sure? All right, So,

466
00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:30,359
Speaker 1: but today we are talking about how cosmologists have always

467
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:33,240
Speaker 1: gotten it all wrong. And we talked about how the

468
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: Greeks got it wrong, and the sort of ancient picture

469
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: of the Earth at the center of the universe was wrong.

470
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:41,080
Speaker 1: But let's talk about how we figured that out and

471
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:43,600
Speaker 1: sort of like the steps along the way, because I

472
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:45,760
Speaker 1: think often that just sort of gets YadA YadA over

473
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:49,199
Speaker 1: you know, Galileo telescopes. Therefore, we figured that out. But

474
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,080
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of interesting steps and like different paths

475
00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: people were taking at the time to get there.

476
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, for me, this was maybe the most interesting part

477
00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:01,320
Speaker 2: of the book. At least it didn't involved modern cosmology,

478
00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 2: which was like, so you know, the story that I

479
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 2: think I was told was one you go to Claudias

480
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:09,679
Speaker 2: Ptolemy and like everybody who does now outmude a science,

481
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:11,680
Speaker 2: he's like treated as being kind of silly because he

482
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 2: has his epicycle model, which you just be clear, just

483
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's it's it's Aristotle's you know, spheres

484
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 2: within spheres model, but with these little modifications to make

485
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:25,160
Speaker 2: the planets behave, and it's is quite a good model,

486
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,399
Speaker 2: and it rains for you know, over a thousand years.

487
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:29,879
Speaker 1: Right, and let's be clear, it really works, right, It

488
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 1: like actually matches what we see people laugh at, like oh,

489
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:36,440
Speaker 1: cycle circles within circles, ha ha, but like this thing

490
00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:38,359
Speaker 1: really worked, It really works.

491
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:40,159
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always want to say that The funny thing is,

492
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 2: I mean there's stuff like this right now where we like,

493
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 2: so you know, famously relativity matters for like timekeeping on satellites.

494
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 2: But I could be wrong, but I assume the satellites

495
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,400
Speaker 2: don't put in like relativity equations. They just tick back

496
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:54,159
Speaker 2: one second or something, you know, like and it's a

497
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 2: perfectly good way to model the system. And it's likewise

498
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 2: with epicycles. The main problem with epicycles is I understan

499
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,400
Speaker 2: and it is just that like, well, one, of course

500
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 2: they don't actually exist, that's a non trip, but like.

501
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 1: That's a detail.

502
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 2: But beyond that, it's also just like it's not very

503
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:13,040
Speaker 2: satisfying as a kind of scientific theory to say, like

504
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 2: each planet has its own thing and that's just the deal.

505
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 2: That maybe it makes more sense in a world where

506
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 2: you're imagining like this is all like set up by

507
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:20,920
Speaker 2: a deity who did it a certain way or something,

508
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 2: you know, and they just made the planets this way.

509
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 2: But anyway, so and the next issue except this blew

510
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,879
Speaker 2: my mind. I'm sure cosmologists all know this, but so

511
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 2: you know, the story that gets told is Copernicus writes

512
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 2: his famous book Dies in fifteen forty three. It gets published,

513
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 2: and it proves that the sun is in the middle

514
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 2: and you're all done. But the amazing thing is Copernicus

515
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 2: actually preserved epicycles for a different reason, which was that

516
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:48,480
Speaker 2: he thought he was still kind of in this zone

517
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 2: of perfection, like the space still has to be perfect,

518
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 2: and so these objects in space move in perfect circles.

519
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 2: They go around the sum, but in perfect circles, and

520
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 2: that creates problems because you don't get these funny little

521
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,439
Speaker 2: behaviors of the planets. They're not moving in ellipses, and

522
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 2: so that just totally blew my mind because you know,

523
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 2: I think we'll make a version of this over and over,

524
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 2: which is that like I was talking to call you

525
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,360
Speaker 2: about this the other day. It's like you hear these

526
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 2: stories when you're a student that there was a decisive

527
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 2: experiment or thought that just changed things instantly, and it

528
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 2: turns out there's a lot more vibes to it, and

529
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 2: old theories die hard because like the old theory wouldn't

530
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 2: have been there in the first place if it wasn't

531
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 2: pretty good. So that was fascinating to me. And then

532
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 2: the next thing along those lines, which which blew my

533
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 2: mind again was was you get to Ticobrahe and I

534
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 2: had thought he had just another Sun centered model, but

535
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 2: he didn't he actually had the Earth at the center.

536
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 2: What he did instead, And this is the kind of

537
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 2: thing where I think I would ask your audience to

538
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 2: sort of close their eyes and visualize this, because it

539
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 2: takes a second if you don't like have a picture

540
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,439
Speaker 2: in front of you, which is what he thought. What

541
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 2: ticobrahe thought, is there's Earth in the middle, and then

542
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:53,840
Speaker 2: if you can imagine it far out, you got the

543
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 2: Sun going around the Earth, and then around the Sun

544
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 2: are the other space objects, the other planets, which is

545
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 2: kind of amazing.

546
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: It's genius. Is genius when like, let's keep the Earth

547
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,639
Speaker 1: at the center while solving the problems of the data.

548
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 2: That's what I love it. And you can almost if

549
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 2: you want to be sort of generous, you could kind

550
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 2: of think about it as sort of trying to bring

551
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 2: together these two ideas, one of which is like, what

552
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 2: is the data telling us? And one of which is

553
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,159
Speaker 2: like this idea we want to hold on to of

554
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 2: a kind of like Earth centered cosmos. And I think

555
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 2: you can argue there are tensions. You know, you don't

556
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 2: want to stretch the analogy too ver. You can talk

557
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 2: about there's certain tensions in modern cosmology, Like you know,

558
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 2: my understanding is the reason and I won't get too

559
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 2: far ahead of this, but like there's a question about

560
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 2: like why is there more matter than antimatter? And part

561
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 2: of why that's even a question is just like, well,

562
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 2: I do think you could argue that part of why

563
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 2: it's a question is that physicists kind of like balance,

564
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 2: or at least they'd like there to be an explanation

565
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 2: for why there isn't a balance between things. And what's

566
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 2: interesting is it's not quite the same as saying there

567
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 2: should be perfect spheres or you know that there should

568
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 2: be in the center. But there are kind of vibes

569
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 2: about these things about like what what is attractive to us.

570
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 2: But what's also funny though, is that bra Hey like

571
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 2: by trying to kind of you know, do both sides,

572
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 2: ends up creating this kind of unholy hybrid that's just

573
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:07,159
Speaker 2: just just not on.

574
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:10,719
Speaker 1: I think it was more of a holy hybrid, right,

575
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: he wanted to at the center, right.

576
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was amazing to me. And then and

577
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 2: that ties into like the thing I think it really

578
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 2: was interesting to me That gets into how we tell

579
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 2: these stories, which is so there's a story that iray

580
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 2: are being told to me. And then I looked it

581
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 2: up and I found it in other places, so it's

582
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 2: not just me misremembering, which is that it goes something

583
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 2: like this is Galileo points his telescope at the sky,

584
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 2: which of course he actually did, uh, and he sees

585
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 2: that Venus has phases and that tells him that Venus

586
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 2: must go around the sun. And I had actually written

587
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 2: this into the book. Maybe it was one of the

588
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 2: drafts reat I remember I was rereading it and I was like,

589
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:46,959
Speaker 2: it struck me. I was like, wait a minute, Like

590
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 2: I can think of other ways Vias could have phases,

591
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 2: at least in the narrow sense of like part of

592
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 2: its light and part of it's dark, and this happens

593
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:55,719
Speaker 2: in a cyclical pattern, and in fact, like that's not

594
00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 2: even precluded by the Ptolemy model. It's just you know,

595
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: because because you know, even if like the sun is

596
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 2: just like the third object out, it's going to be

597
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: in a different relation to us visa v Venus on

598
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 2: a repeating basis, so there should be something like phases.

599
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 2: And so my understanding, I got way too into this

600
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 2: before I had to like give up and then get

601
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 2: back to Uh, just like writing the one sentence I needed.

602
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 2: But it's like, it's not the venus has phases, although

603
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,199
Speaker 2: that's part of it has phases, and also the phases

604
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,439
Speaker 2: coincide with it, like getting bigger and smaller in our

605
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 2: field of view in a certain way that is very

606
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 2: hard to salvage in a ptolemy model maybe possible, I

607
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 2: don't know, but which makes perfect sense if you put

608
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 2: the sun in the middle.

609
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love how this reveals how much work

610
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,880
Speaker 1: is involved in making jokes about science. You know, as

611
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: a fellow like jokey science book author, You're right, you

612
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: had to really know your stuff to make a joke,

613
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: and you could end up reading like a whole book

614
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: to support one sentence.

615
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 2: I no, No, it's totally like that. Yeah. I think

616
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 2: what it is is, in order to tell a joke,

617
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 2: you have to be like a little bit of a snot,

618
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 2: you know, and you can't do that convincing landless. I mean,

619
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 2: I don't want to treat like I'm like a deep

620
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 2: expert in cosmology, but but my view, I was talking

621
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 2: to Ron Aberminsky as a sociologists about this, who also

622
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 2: writes pop science, and he says, you know, it's almost

623
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 2: verbatim the way I like to say, which was that

624
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 2: you like to at least be like two steps ahead

625
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 2: of what you're saying. You always know a little bit

626
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 2: more than what you're saying. Then you feel comfortable saying it.

627
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 2: When you're not there, you start to feel a little

628
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,160
Speaker 2: like you're not at leisure to make this joke because

629
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 2: your joke might reveal you as an idiot, and so

630
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 2: that you know, that's why you end up like reading

631
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 2: with this. I mean, you know it's a popside thing.

632
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 2: I'm sure I blew it on something, but like I

633
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 2: you know, I did a like you look at these

634
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 2: diagrams and you're like, I must be misvisualizing this, Like

635
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 2: why can't Venus have phases? And by the way, in

636
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 2: the Brahe model, you can really get those phases right

637
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 2: because it really is going around the sun, you know.

638
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just to clarify for our listeners in case

639
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: they don't have this picture in their mind, you know,

640
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: what we're talking about is like how much of Venus

641
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: you can see, how much is illuminated by the sun.

642
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: And it's very easy to imagine in a sun centered

643
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: solar system that as Venus moves around the Sun either

644
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: all of it is lit up. Like, if Venus is

645
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: on the other side of the Sun than the Earth,

646
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: then all of Venus that we can see is lit up.

647
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 1: And if Venus is on the same side as the

648
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: Sun as Us, then the side of Venus is lit up,

649
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: it is pointing away from us, and we're only seeing

650
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: Venus is like dark backside. So in this sun centered system, right,

651
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: you see like huge phases of Venus the same way

652
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: you do of the Moon. But in the Ptolemaic system, right,

653
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: if Venus is going around the Earth and the Sun

654
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: is also going around the Earth, then you're absolutely right,

655
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: there are still phases there. They're not the same kind

656
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: of phases and they have different patterns than the phases

657
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 1: in like our system, but you do still see phases.

658
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:41,959
Speaker 1: So the simple story that people often tell that like

659
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: phases of Venus proves that the Sun is at the center,

660
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: You're right, it's not accurate. You can have phases and

661
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: actually have the Earth at the center of the system.

662
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 2: It's fascinating, it's totally fascinating. And related to that, what's

663
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 2: right that was amazing to me is the story about

664
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: part of another thing. Is he just looks at the moon,

665
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 2: and of course, you know, anyone who's looked at the

666
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 2: moon with a telescope, even a crimey one, even in binoculars,

667
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 2: you can see that there's lumps on it. You know,

668
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 2: there's there's peaks and valleys and stuff. And what's interesting

669
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 2: is to a modern person it's kind of like, well,

670
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 2: I don't it's hard to imagine why that matters at

671
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 2: all to any of the pictures of about like where

672
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 2: things are. But Mind's saying is that was very important

673
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 2: because it's like, if you're existing in this paradigm where

674
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 2: these are sort of the divine sphears and then you see,

675
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 2: oh my god, it's got lumps on it, just like

676
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 2: the home planet, you know that that was actually a

677
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 2: big shift. But what's interesting about that is that, you know,

678
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 2: and I'm sure I'm being unfair to this complex history,

679
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 2: but it seems like like there's some deep level on

680
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: which what's going on is like kind of vibes based, right,

681
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 2: and especially me when I say it's like there's this

682
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 2: never definitive experiment. It's actually like three or four things

683
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 2: where you're like, you know, we could salvage the old model,

684
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 2: but the amount of stuff you'd have to say just

685
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 2: happen to go right is getting bigger and bigger, and

686
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 2: whereas if we switch to this you know Kepler model

687
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 2: with these nice little laws and the sound of the middle,

688
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 2: like the math is very simple and we don't have

689
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 2: to do anything that feels ad hoc or at least

690
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 2: I guess not too much, but that it explains to

691
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 2: you also why this stuff is such a process, and

692
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 2: how like you know, the simple story won't do because

693
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:14,239
Speaker 2: actually the work is quite meticulous. I feel like it's

694
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 2: very easy as a modern person just sort of be like,

695
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 2: you know, well just like run the video back of

696
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 2: like how you know how Venus looks in the sky,

697
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 2: but you can't do that. You cannot even take a photograph,

698
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: of course. It's just astonishing the people were even able

699
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 2: to work this out to me, like just kind of

700
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 2: like you you imagine Kepler just kind of like looking

701
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 2: at tables and somehow these ideas are and instead it's

702
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 2: it's incredible.

703
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: It tells you why geometry was so powerful, right, Like

704
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: it helps you import into your mind this sort of

705
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 1: three D picture of what's happening, rather than just like

706
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: looking at lists of numbers, which is really hard to visualize,

707
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: and to me, the answer to the question of like

708
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: what's out there, the answer to that is a geometrical answer.

709
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: It's this is here and that's there, and this is

710
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: the relationship between them. But I think partially that's just

711
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: because we're all, you know, thinking the Greek way, and

712
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: if you know, the Chinese cosmology had taken over the planet,

713
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 1: we might all think about things more arithmetically and more algebraically.

714
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine. I think like the way the

715
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,959
Speaker 1: Greeks thought has influenced the way everybody thinks so deeply

716
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: that it's hard to really step out of that and

717
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: think about things in a different way.

718
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. It's just two to me, like because

719
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 2: Colon X, we have to get to Newton, which is

720
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 2: like there's this repeated figure. I think it's science that

721
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 2: it's the Newton figure. Who's the person who comes along

722
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 2: and you're trying to told this story that as if

723
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: they sort of like called the lightning down with the

724
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 2: theory fully formed, but actually like perhaps be more accurate

725
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 2: to say, like there's a lot of information already. And

726
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 2: they were the ones who said, here's the grand synthesis

727
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 2: and so that's passing to me because like, I, you know,

728
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 2: just just just reading about Newton, who who I think,

729
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 2: you know, there's at least the stories that get told

730
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 2: about him, I would say more accurate. At least that's

731
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 2: my impression. But coming along and like, part of why

732
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 2: Newton's theory is so powerful is you have a kind

733
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:51,719
Speaker 2: of like simple theory about like you know, how like

734
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 2: a baseball. Well, he wouldn't have a baseball, but like

735
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 2: how a rock behaves in your hand, and you can

736
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 2: use like the same math and it just pops out

737
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 2: all this stuff, including Kepler stuff, which is just you know,

738
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 2: so amazing. And by the way, my favorite detail about

739
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 2: that too is this story that like that like I

740
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 2: was telling this my daughter and you just got a

741
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 2: fit of the giggles of like Newton having basically worked

742
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 2: out how the universe works and being like I'm just

743
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 2: gonna sit on that, like it. It's so different from

744
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 2: modern science. I don't know, maybe there's someone like that

745
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 2: monitor So there's probably someone out there is like the

746
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 2: modern Newton who just like unified everything a couple of

747
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 2: years ago, and it's just waiting for Edmund Halley, the

748
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: equivalent to be like, you know that just that really

749
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 2: feels publishable to me.

750
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine, especially at Cambridge, you know, which

751
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: I think has basically been a shark tank for centuries. Right,

752
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: I don't understand that, right, you didn't get on that.

753
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: It is fascinating, But I liked your point earlier about

754
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: how old theories die hard, and that a lot of

755
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: what we do in science is vibes based. And we'll

756
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: get into it later, but there's a lot of just

757
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: sort of like preference for different kinds of theories about

758
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 1: the universe. You know, we have this thing we call

759
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: like the cosmological principle the universe should be the same everywhere,

760
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: and like why do we think that, Well, because it

761
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: would be pretty cool if it was true, and we

762
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 1: haven't proven it wrong, so let's hang on to it

763
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 1: as long as we can, right, Yeah.

764
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 2: I was talking a little Sean Carol about this, about

765
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 2: this idea that like, you know, there's this debate we'll

766
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: get to it in a minute, about like which shape

767
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 2: is the universe, But he was pointing out like, well,

768
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 2: you know, you could just ditch the cosmological principle and

769
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 2: then all sorts of things open up, and it's like,

770
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 2: but we don't want to do that, and we'll get

771
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 2: to that. I guess we should stay on track.

772
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: All right, so let's take another break before we come

773
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: back and consider ditching some fundamental ideas in modern cosmology.

774
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, and we're talking to Zach Wiersmith

775
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: about why ancient scientists have gotten it wrong and why

776
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: modern scientists are probably also going to be made fun

777
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: of in future joke books about the universe.

778
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're up to Newton. And then, of course,

779
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 2: you know, Newton like reigns supreme at least over cosmology

780
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 2: for a long time. So my understanding is Newton we

781
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 2: could say he solved the universe, and of course he

782
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:12,959
Speaker 2: you know, he has the equations for gravity at least

783
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 2: in the in the relevant regimes. But my understanding is

784
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 2: he believed the rest of the universe was like infinite

785
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 2: with like randomly distributed stars, so as we would say

786
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 2: it today. And so this creates problems, right, So the

787
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,959
Speaker 2: famous one is Olver's paradox, which is this, if there's

788
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 2: all these stars in the universe has been around forever,

789
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 2: how come I can't find my keys when I go

790
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 2: outside at night? Because it's dark. Shouldn't there be light everywhere?

791
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 2: And there's all this other stuff like, you know, people

792
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 2: this time can see nebulae, but they don't really know

793
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 2: what they are, you know, and they you know, can see,

794
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 2: you know what we come eventually to know our galaxy

795
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 2: is just like ours, but they don't know what they are.

796
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 2: And this to me is like this incredible period of history.

797
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 2: When we're talking about the nineteenth century, we're not talking

798
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 2: about that long ago, right, Like we're talking about like

799
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 2: two grandma's ago, right, like really not that long ago.

800
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: What a unit of time, that's.

801
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, speak people from that time lived in a

802
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 2: much smaller universe in their perception, And I guess you

803
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 2: would you would say the big figure in working this

804
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 2: out is Henrietta Swan Levitt, who figures out a way

805
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 2: to like objectively measure the distance of certain objects in

806
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 2: space and help settle this idea that in fact, yeah,

807
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 2: those stars are really really really really far away, and

808
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 2: then that leads to you know, all sorts of cool,

809
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 2: cool analysis. There's actually I think I don't even know

810
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 2: I had this in the draft, I say you, but

811
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 2: I edited this version. So there's a story I was

812
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 2: telling that I think is slightly wrong, which is that

813
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 2: Hubble looks up and sees red shifting and then concludes

814
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 2: the universes expanding. But it's actually a little more complicated.

815
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:37,439
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, again like this is a joke book.

816
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 2: I don't get too into it. But there's this guy

817
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 2: named has the best name ever. It sounds like an

818
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 2: alias Vesto Melvin Slipher if I'm pronouncing it right. My

819
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 2: understanding is he is an American astronomer. He is the

820
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: first to say to note the red shift, although I

821
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 2: believe he was first using it to say that, like

822
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 2: the galaxies are spinning, but he notes this red shift,

823
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 2: and he starts like looking at galaxies and there's this

824
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: weird thing which is not all but most of the

825
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 2: galaxies are red shifting. But just the important thing is

826
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 2: that the galaxies are mostly moving away, which is, you know,

827
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:12,879
Speaker 2: you would you would think naively that it should be random, right,

828
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 2: There's just a bunch of stuff floating around in space,

829
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 2: and it's just kind of random. And the story I

830
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 2: think I was told, in the story I was I

831
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 2: was planning to tell, was just like, well, Hubble comes along,

832
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 2: says red shifting, and therefore the universe expanding, right, because

833
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 2: that explains what everything's moving away from us. But what

834
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 2: actually happens is Hubble says, so red shifting is already

835
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 2: very well known by the time Hubble is making this

836
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 2: big contribution, which is this equation that says the distance

837
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 2: of the galaxy is proportional to its velocity. That is,

838
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 2: the farther away the galaxy is the faster it's running

839
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,719
Speaker 2: away from us, which is super duper weird, right. I

840
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 2: mean this I think about this too, is like, so

841
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 2: it's not just that during this period the universe got

842
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 2: a lot bigger, it's they also got a lot weirder, right,

843
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 2: I mean I feel like, like all these cosmologies we've

844
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 2: talked about so far, like you could explain to one

845
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 2: pretty easily. You can draw a picture and be like

846
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 2: it's like this, you know, and people basically get it.

847
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 2: But then you say everything in space is moving away

848
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 2: from us at the same time, almost everything. That's bizarre,

849
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 2: and especially if, of course you don't want to conclude

850
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 2: and now we know better why, but you don't want

851
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 2: to conclude that it's because we're special, because that's proven

852
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 2: to be historically dangerous. But that's very unintuitive, right, and

853
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 2: then it's more inintuitive, like why should farther away stuff

854
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,840
Speaker 2: be expanding away? And it turns out there's there's a

855
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 2: very clear explanation. But that like is getting into this

856
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 2: part of history where cosmology just is not something that's

857
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 2: intuitive to people anymore, which is that space itself is

858
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 2: a stuff that's expanding, and so there's just more of

859
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 2: the stuff between us in a distant galaxy than a

860
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 2: close one. You know. The classic metaphor, which tell me

861
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 2: if you don't like the classic metaphor is the raisin

862
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 2: bred one. You know this one?

863
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: I love that metaphor. Yeah, that one works really well.

864
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a nice one. I mean, you know,

865
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 2: the way where it breaks down to me is like

866
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 2: when you're trying to get the big bang out of it,

867
00:38:57,960 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 2: you're like, I guess that the raisins are getting close

868
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,399
Speaker 2: to each other until you have some sort of ultra

869
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 2: deaths raisiny something, you know, and like the bread has

870
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 2: gone away or I don't.

871
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: Know, it changes phase into a raisin plasma.

872
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 2: It's right, this is a paper. This is a paper.

873
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 2: But we'll get to that in a second. But yeah,

874
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 2: like what I love about the razin bread example, is

875
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 2: just like, so the idea is that you know, I

876
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 2: guess raisins would be sunding like the galaxies, and the

877
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 2: bread dough is space. And when you bake the raisin bread,

878
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 2: it's not just that the raisins pull apart from each other.

879
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 2: It's that the ones that are initially apart from each

880
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 2: other get farther faster because the dough is expanding and

881
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 2: there's just more dough in there to expand. And that's

882
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 2: where it gets really neat and even more attitude because

883
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 2: you're like, this is Einstein's general relativity, that space time.

884
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:42,720
Speaker 2: You know, space is not the stage where stuff happens.

885
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 2: Space is the stuff. Space time is the stuff. It's

886
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 2: the raisin bread. And to me that it's just such

887
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 2: a fascinating little amment. All this happens in like a

888
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 2: twenty year period. It's just absolutely incredible. It's like unfathomable

889
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 2: to me, like in this era where like all sorts

890
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 2: of cool results come out all the time now, but

891
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 2: it's not like that, it's not like the holy universe.

892
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 3: Your conception is blown away and again makes this kind

893
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 3: of phase shift, so to speak, from like you know,

894
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 3: vast but intuitive to hard to understand, at least for

895
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 3: most of us.

896
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: You've been around general activity so long, maybe it makes

897
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 2: perfect sense to you all the time, but for the

898
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 2: rest of us, it's like, we got to think about it.

899
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: No, it definitely doesn't. And I think you're right that

900
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: we transitioned from a universe that like kind of we

901
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: could tell a story about to universe where people are like, hmm,

902
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: that sounds really math he it doesn't mean it makes

903
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: sense to me without a lot of math. I think

904
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: that's really fascinating. And it's also a really interesting story

905
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: there about like how even Einstein came to reconcile the

906
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,399
Speaker 1: universe the structure he had built this general relativity with

907
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: what he was seeing. Because he was missing part of

908
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: the piece, right, he wasn't really able to tell the

909
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: story in the right way, you know, to sort of

910
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: connect the dots. When Einstein was developing his theory of

911
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 1: general relativity, people thought the universe was static, right, People

912
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: thought the universe was a certain way and it was

913
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: the most natural idea was it had always been that way, right,

914
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: that there was no beginning to time at all, because

915
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:03,840
Speaker 1: that would be weird. You'd have to explain it. That

916
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 1: was like the vibe at the time. So then Einstein's like, well,

917
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: in my theory of general relativity, if we have a

918
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: static universe with a bunch of like galaxies out there,

919
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: they should get pulled towards each other. There's like gravity

920
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,280
Speaker 1: pulling stuff towards each other. Why isn't the universe collapsing?

921
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: So he added this fudge factor right to like balance

922
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 1: up against that, which, if you look at it is

923
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 1: like kind of a terrible theory, Like it's really pretty

924
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 1: ugly because it requires this like cosmological constant to push

925
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 1: out on the universe in exactly the same amount that

926
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: everything's pulling in. It's like super finely balanced, which these

927
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: days people would have rejected that paper. They're like, that

928
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: is a terrible idea. You have this huge coincidence in

929
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: your universe. So then Hubble's like, well, actually the universe

930
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: is expanding, right, And so then we're like, hm, well

931
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,439
Speaker 1: that's interesting, you know, why would he be expanding that much?

932
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: And so Einstein's look, well, maybe it's expanding, but it's decelerating.

933
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: Maybe everything is still collapsing, but it's still expanding. It's

934
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: like expanding now, but expanding slower and slow or due

935
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: to that gravity, right, So Einstein still didn't really have

936
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: a grip on what was happening, and it took a

937
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 1: while before you know, we discovered the universes expanding and accelerating.

938
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: They had to like reinject this Einstein cosmological constant to

939
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: explain what we were seeing. So you're right, And I

940
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: think that the current explanations of this stuff have led

941
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: a lot of people to really pretty deep misunderstandings of

942
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: how this stuff all works. You know. I want to

943
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: talk about sort of like the misconceptions of modern pop cosmology,

944
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: because I think you ran into some of these when

945
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: in writing your book, and I think like one of

946
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 1: the big ones is this idea of the raisin bread

947
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: like and the origin of the universe. I think a

948
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 1: lot of people have in their minds this concept that

949
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 1: the Big Bang was like a tiny dot, the universe

950
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: was an atom, and then it exploded through space and

951
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 1: filled everything out. I hear that all over the place,

952
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: people ask me, like, where was that dot? Where was

953
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: the center of the universe? Can we see it?

954
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:54,879
Speaker 2: Right?

955
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: It's like a really common misconception. You must have run

956
00:42:57,960 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: across this also in your.

957
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 2: Research yeah, I mean, like I'm sure I was guilty

958
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 2: of that. I had to update my understanding, and I

959
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 2: was trying to I was actually talking to Eugene Limb

960
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 2: about this, which is like, as you say, there's this

961
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 2: idea that the universe starts infinitely small as like whatever

962
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,440
Speaker 2: that even means, right, and that's something else we should

963
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 2: gonna do. Is this idea of infinitely this or that

964
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 2: as being a real thing? But like, yeah, I was

965
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 2: trying to figure where does this idea come from? So

966
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 2: going through this from a chronological perspective, which I like,

967
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: this kind of what we said so far with Hubble

968
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,400
Speaker 2: and Einstein te's up why you think there might be

969
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 2: something called a big what we now call a big bang, right,

970
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 2: Because if you have this universe that's expanding and it's

971
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 2: a like glob of space time, as I say in

972
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 2: my vastly oversimplified way, well, if you rewind the tape,

973
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 2: then you get to an earlier state where it's like

974
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 2: everything is very tight, right, or comparatively tight. It's kind

975
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 2: of intuitive to maybe say, well, like in the extreme,

976
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 2: it gets to a single point. But my understanding is Lemaitre,

977
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 2: who's the guy who's who's fame for proposing this didn't

978
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 2: believe that himself. He used the term primeval atom. But

979
00:43:57,560 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 2: my understanding is he meant at him is something like

980
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 2: fund metal, not as the size of an atom, And

981
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 2: so I don't know that's where it comes from. There's

982
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,399
Speaker 2: probably some historiography out there of like how this idea

983
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 2: seemed into the public consciousness, But yeah, I found almost

984
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 2: everybody thinks big Bang means there was this tiny atom,

985
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 2: and the word singularity gets used, I think, to mean

986
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 2: infinitely tiny or something.

987
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: Also because we use singularity to mean infinitely tiny when

988
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:24,839
Speaker 1: we talk about like a black hole, right, we say

989
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: there's a singularity the center infinite density, a lot of

990
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 1: stuff trapped up in one point in space. And we

991
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,839
Speaker 1: can talk about a singularity for the Big Bang. It's

992
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 1: just that it's a singularity sort of in time rather

993
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: than in space, rather than having all the seven universe

994
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: in one location. We have a moment in the universe

995
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,879
Speaker 1: where everything was super duper crazy dense, right, And that's

996
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: the singularity we're talking about, which is similar mathematically but

997
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: conceptually sort of very very different because you're talking about

998
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: the whole universe. And I remember the first moment I

999
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: understood this, it was like a big bang going off

1000
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 1: in my brain because what it means is the big

1001
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: bang was not somewhere, was everywhere everywhere. Yeah, much bigger

1002
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: bang than anybody ever thought of.

1003
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 2: Is it's not so much weirder, right, Uh, Like I

1004
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, maybe it's again we're getting back

1005
00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 2: to the vibes. But to me, it's somehow like more

1006
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 2: intuitive that you started this tiny point where something happened

1007
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 2: and then it all expands out. But the idea that like, no,

1008
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 2: it happened everywhere at the same time. I don't know

1009
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 2: what to do with that, Like, my brain just doesn't

1010
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 2: work on that.

1011
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: On other hand, it sort of makes more sense than

1012
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: having one place be special, Right. Wouldn't it be weird

1013
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: if the big bang was here and not there, because

1014
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: then you could ask, like, well, why was it here?

1015
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 1: What's different about this point in space? And there you go.

1016
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: You break the cosmological principle that says everything is the same.

1017
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,279
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, but maybe this will get us to the

1018
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 2: sort of the whole steady state stuff is there is

1019
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 2: this weird thing where it just seems to be that

1020
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 2: for some people, the idea of an eternal universe is

1021
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 2: just more sensible than the idea of a starting point universe.

1022
00:45:50,960 --> 00:45:53,479
Speaker 2: And I don't personally have a good feel for why one,

1023
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 2: like do you have it like do you have a

1024
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 2: gut reaction like like exeparate from what you know is

1025
00:45:57,520 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 2: true or think to be true? Like what like do

1026
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 2: you have a gut reaction about what is more satisfying

1027
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 2: to me?

1028
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: The universe with no beginning is more satisfying because it

1029
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:07,320
Speaker 1: doesn't have a special moment in time, just like I

1030
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 1: don't like a special point in space. A special moment

1031
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: in time needs an explanation, whereas an eternal universe much

1032
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: it just kind of always was.

1033
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 2: You see the probat is I this is just like

1034
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 2: being a weird human. But you're just like my instant

1035
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 2: thought is like, well what started at this eternal universe?

1036
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 2: And you're like, oh no, wait, I can't ask that

1037
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 2: you know.

1038
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 1: Exactly. It's like defining their grounds of debates, so your

1039
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: question is no longer valid.

1040
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 2: This is why I really like going chronologically because you

1041
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 2: now understand, like we even had like start talking about

1042
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 2: the Big Bang because it follows very natural, like once

1043
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 2: you have Einstein and Hubble, it makes sense to have

1044
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 2: this this next idea, and then once you have this

1045
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 2: next idea, you can start asking questions about like what

1046
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 2: the universe was like. And so there's this big debate,

1047
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 2: of course in the mid twentieth century, which is, well,

1048
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 2: do we have a big bang cosmology or is it

1049
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 2: this this eternal model called the steady state model, which

1050
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 2: and then then the sort of avatar of this movement,

1051
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 2: the famous person, and it is Fred Hoyle. You know,

1052
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 2: so he has this idea you have this eternal universe,

1053
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 2: and he has this thing called the creation field, which

1054
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 2: is constantly adding matter to keep things in balance, they

1055
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,239
Speaker 2: you know, to maintain density throughout the universe. Right, then

1056
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 2: you get this question like, well, you know, but both

1057
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 2: these theories could explain this expanding universe we have. It's

1058
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 2: just working in a different way. And this is where

1059
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 2: it gets in issuing, because you're back to having these

1060
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 2: two models that really say something very different. You know.

1061
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 2: It's like it's funny because you can you can sort

1062
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 2: of like finish newt and be like, okay, we basically

1063
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 2: got it with Einstein. But there's actually this giant question

1064
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 2: which is eternal versus not eternal, which is like massive,

1065
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 2: So for me, like I will admit, like I'm a nerd.

1066
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 2: I knew about like a lot of this stuff, but

1067
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 2: I hadn't sort of worked out how all the pieces

1068
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 2: fit together. And you're back to one of these like

1069
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 2: at least to some degree, you know, vibes plus data

1070
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 2: situations where you have its alpha and gammau and beta

1071
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:51,320
Speaker 2: gets slipped in for a joke. You know this idea

1072
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 2: that like, well, if we assume the Big Bang model

1073
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 2: is true, that is a you know, not that there

1074
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:57,800
Speaker 2: was a tiny point, that there was just a very hot,

1075
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:02,359
Speaker 2: dense beginning. Then we know stuff about how particles worganismsuf

1076
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 2: about how matter it works, and we can say, well,

1077
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 2: what you would you expect the universe to be like

1078
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: later if it started like this? And it turns out

1079
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 2: you can you can make predictions about kind of like

1080
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 2: like roughly what elemental makeup should you see? And they

1081
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 2: come up with these ratios and it turns out they're

1082
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 2: they're pretty good ratios. And what was interesting for me

1083
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 2: is something like that you're like, okay, but that doesn't

1084
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 2: disprove steady state, right, but it at least says like

1085
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 2: steady state requires more special pleading now, right, Because it

1086
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 2: requires you to say the creation field that the oil

1087
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 2: is positing happens to create with the same signature you

1088
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 2: would expect from the bang model, which is because again

1089
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 2: we're back to the like, well, you're you're you're comparing

1090
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 2: two models. You know, the other model can basically do

1091
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 2: whatever you want it to do. It just you know,

1092
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 2: requires ever more special pleading. And that's what for me.

1093
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 2: So I'd known about the cosmic microwative background, I think

1094
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 2: I hadn't understood more deeply why it mattered, and so

1095
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 2: I had to talk to a lot of people, including you.

1096
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,760
Speaker 2: And then the way I understand it now and correct

1097
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,760
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, is, or at least the way

1098
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 2: the story I tell is that you know, you have

1099
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 2: this background level of radiation, and it just the background

1100
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 2: level of radiation has certain qualities that are exactly what

1101
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 2: you predict under a big bang model. And so essentially

1102
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: what you're saying is, of course, you know the steady

1103
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 2: state model, where stuff is constantly being created, it could

1104
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: be creating radiation too, and there's no reason that you

1105
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 2: know couldn't create it just the right temperature and everything

1106
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 2: and and just the right spectrum. But now you're to

1107
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 2: be the steady state guy, you have to say, like, well,

1108
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 2: I can handle all of the Big Bang results by

1109
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 2: just saying that's how my system does it. You know,

1110
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 2: I didn't predict any of it, but it's just how

1111
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,399
Speaker 2: my system does it too, which is a really hard

1112
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:41,680
Speaker 2: line to toe in science, you know.

1113
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,359
Speaker 1: It is, especially because the Big Bang model predicts the

1114
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: cosmic background radiation, which is really powerful.

1115
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:51,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, so both sides can make predictions. It just turns

1116
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 2: out that the prediction is like, you know, require you

1117
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 2: you know, like like confirm one model and the other model.

1118
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 2: You know, like ptolemy could could be made to accommodation

1119
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 2: all sorts of things, but would require you to make

1120
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 2: a Rube gold brig machine, you know, of like special

1121
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 2: stuff that happens for no reason, which to me is

1122
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 2: just sort of fascinating because you know, a story will

1123
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:13,240
Speaker 2: be told that's just something like discussing microwave background. Therefore

1124
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,360
Speaker 2: the Big Bang is true. And I feel like I

1125
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 2: had heard this and repeated it and didn't have this

1126
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:19,720
Speaker 2: deeper sense of like, well, it's about like what model

1127
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 2: can better predict this? This thing we find when we

1128
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:22,720
Speaker 2: look around.

1129
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: It's also really interesting what we mean by the Big

1130
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 1: Bang is true. And it turns out that what you

1131
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: mean by the Big Bang depends on if you're like

1132
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: an educated person out there reading pop sigh about the

1133
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: origins of the universe, or if you're like a researcher

1134
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 1: and modeling this stuff, because there is a big difference.

1135
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: A lot of people, when I say the Big Bang,

1136
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,240
Speaker 1: they're thinking about that singularity. They're thinking about the moment

1137
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 1: of creation of the universe, this first initial brilliant flash

1138
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: of light. Right. But when modern physics talks about the

1139
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 1: Big Bang, that's not what they're talking about at all.

1140
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: They like, fast forward past that part. They say, well,

1141
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:57,000
Speaker 1: that part's a huge question mark. We don't know how

1142
00:50:57,040 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: anything got started. We don't know if there was a singularity,

1143
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: if there's quantum gravity, you don't know if there's an

1144
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: infloton field. It just basically shrug and they say, but

1145
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: somehow we got to a very hot and dense universe.

1146
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: Not infinitely dense, right, just some very very hot and dense,

1147
00:51:12,239 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 1: like the hottest and densest universe that we could describe

1148
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,359
Speaker 1: with our theories. From that point forward, we know how

1149
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:20,359
Speaker 1: things work, and we can model things forward. We can

1150
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 1: predict the cosmic microwave, background radiation, the structure of the universe,

1151
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 1: and everything is like high precision science before that moment,

1152
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 1: huge question mark. Now general relativity, you know, predicts a

1153
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 1: singularity there, but nobody really believes that, right, No actual

1154
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: physicist out there thinks that really happened in our universe.

1155
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 1: They just think, well, we haven't figured that out yet.

1156
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: So this is huge distinction between like what people imagine

1157
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 1: the Big Bang is and what it is in like

1158
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:46,240
Speaker 1: actual science.

1159
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So one of the really things related to that,

1160
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear your reaction to this is like

1161
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:53,319
Speaker 2: what seemed to me to be going on is a

1162
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 2: scientist will say, we get an infinite quantity in this place.

1163
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 2: But what they're they mean is that like the equations

1164
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 2: we have with a theory we have here produces an infinity.

1165
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean they believe there's an actual infinite

1166
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:08,359
Speaker 2: something or other. But I feel like it often gets

1167
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 2: reported in the press as, oh, there was an infinity thing,

1168
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:13,800
Speaker 2: whatever that means, And so to speak, what the scientist

1169
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:16,799
Speaker 2: is saying is we have a problem, and what the

1170
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 2: public is hearing is there were infinity.

1171
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: To me, it's like a segfault. Right, you run your

1172
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: computer and the program crashes. You're not like, well, that's

1173
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,800
Speaker 1: what it predicted. It predicted the universe is going to crash.

1174
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 1: It's like, no, your program didn't work. That's what it means. Yeah,

1175
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: you've got a bug somewhere. Man.

1176
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really weird. I think part of what's going on.

1177
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 2: I'm totally speculated here, but I think part of what's

1178
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 2: going on is just because it's cosmology, and so you're

1179
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 2: dealing with these things already giant and unintuitive, and so

1180
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 2: I think if you're like a casual reporter who hasn't

1181
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 2: gotten too much into it, you just you just hear

1182
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:51,400
Speaker 2: like it's infinitely dense, and you don't want to say, like,

1183
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 2: according to an equation, which is probably missing something, it's

1184
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:57,359
Speaker 2: certainly missing something. There's an infinity here, you know, which

1185
00:52:57,360 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 2: to me that was fascinating too, because there's just again,

1186
00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:01,879
Speaker 2: there's this sort of between I mean, I think this

1187
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 2: is a common thing. When you explore a field, the

1188
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 2: thing that's being debated, it's almost always miles away from

1189
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 2: what the public thinks the debate is.

1190
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:09,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are also these really fun moments in

1191
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 1: science where physicists are like, well, the equations say this,

1192
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,799
Speaker 1: but that's ridiculous. It definitely doesn't happen. And then it

1193
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:16,879
Speaker 1: turns out it kind of does.

1194
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 2: That's a good one.

1195
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,839
Speaker 1: Pot like black holes. People are like black holes. Nah,

1196
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:23,360
Speaker 1: there's no way the universe lets that happen. Okay, it

1197
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:25,799
Speaker 1: turns out and black holes are kind of a big deal.

1198
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's an interesting point.

1199
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, so basically, never listen to us. We don't know

1200
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, even when we're saying whether we

1201
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about.

1202
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:36,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're right, right. So then that leads to

1203
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 2: the part that for me was the hardest thing to write.

1204
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 2: And so I'm going I'm going to lean on you

1205
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 2: as I go through this to correct me if I

1206
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 2: say anything wrong, because this is for me, the most

1207
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 2: unintuitive thing, which is one of the big questions, is

1208
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 2: the shape of the universe. And actually, for me, part

1209
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:55,560
Speaker 2: of what was tough is understanding why we even care

1210
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 2: about the shape of the universe.

1211
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: Well, well, okay, so kind a visual person an economy

1212
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 1: not worry about sheets.

1213
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 2: Come on, what I do perspective drawings. I don't wonder

1214
00:54:06,719 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 2: about whether the unice is positively curved or not. You know,

1215
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess if the scale was big enough,

1216
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 2: i'd have to mess with my lines. But no, But

1217
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:16,840
Speaker 2: it's like, I mean, obviously it's an aesthetically interesting question, right,

1218
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 2: And there are lots of questions in cosmology where like,

1219
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:20,800
Speaker 2: obviously it's not going to make your car run faster

1220
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 2: or put more food on the table. But it's just

1221
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:25,839
Speaker 2: like aesthetically attractive as a question, right. But so to speak,

1222
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 2: that leaves open, like, you know, a huge number of

1223
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 2: questions you could be asking, So why are some sort

1224
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 2: of like more aesthetically interesting so well for your for

1225
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 2: your audience. So this question is like the universe can

1226
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 2: be curved in different ways that depend on how much

1227
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 2: stuff is in the universe. And it took me a while, frankly,

1228
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:41,319
Speaker 2: to even get there with that. And I think I

1229
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 2: actually think in retrospect, part of what was tough for

1230
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:45,600
Speaker 2: me about understanding this question, and you you helped talk

1231
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 2: me through this as a couple other people, is this

1232
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 2: Like often when people talk about this casually, what they

1233
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 2: depict is something like the universe could be a big

1234
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 2: flat sheet, it could be a the surface of the sphere. Yeah,

1235
00:54:57,800 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 2: it could be a big flat sheet, could be the

1236
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 2: surface of a sphere, or be a saddle. I'm positive

1237
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 2: I've heard people say this and just sort of go

1238
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:05,799
Speaker 2: on as if like and just as an audience member

1239
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:08,880
Speaker 2: who is not a physicist, I mean, like I'm substantially

1240
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:11,319
Speaker 2: nerdier than the average pop science consumer, but like this

1241
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 2: is deep math stuff and so like to me, I'm

1242
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 2: just like, this just does nothing for me. I have

1243
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:18,320
Speaker 2: no idea what it would mean. And then worse of course,

1244
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:21,360
Speaker 2: as you help me understand, it's like, you know, we

1245
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 2: can say fear, but actually we're really just saying positively curved.

1246
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 2: And so it turns out there's like an infinity of shapes,

1247
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 2: many of which are quite weird, that could be positively curved.

1248
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 2: And that's actually true for all these models, like the

1249
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 2: sheep can can loop back in on itself and do

1250
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 2: all sorts of crazy stuff. Well I shouldn't say loop, see,

1251
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 2: I gotta be careful with the words I use. But anyway,

1252
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,879
Speaker 2: like so, so these shapes that get presented to you

1253
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 2: in a pop setting or I would say misleading, I

1254
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 2: think they confused me because I started understand well, like,

1255
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:49,319
Speaker 2: why can't one to do the other and like, what

1256
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 2: would it sort of feel like to be in one

1257
00:55:50,719 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 2: of these universes? And I think that's just that's that's

1258
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 2: just unintuitive, Like that's just that's too much for a human.

1259
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 2: We're just little things. But as like why why why?

1260
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 2: Why is this question interesting other than again the pure esthetics.

1261
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 2: And that's where the history gets really interesting because it

1262
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 2: turns out, you know, the spoiler that observations seem to

1263
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:13,080
Speaker 2: suggest we're in a flat universe. Flat flat again, like

1264
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:15,440
Speaker 2: being not the preferred term. I forget. We would say, like,

1265
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 2: I know, you say positively curve of negatively curved. What

1266
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:19,320
Speaker 2: you say, I guess, I guess it's okay to say.

1267
00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 1: Flat, Yeah, zero curvature and flat zero coverature.

1268
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 2: There we go, yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So we're in

1269
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:27,440
Speaker 2: this flat universe. And why that is interesting is that

1270
00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 2: it's surprising because it's sort of like you're balanced on

1271
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 2: a needle point. Why aren't we often this one direction

1272
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 2: of somewhere in positive curvature or somewhere in negative curvature.

1273
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 2: We're in a flat sense. In other words, at least

1274
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 2: as I understanding. It's an interesting question because the answer

1275
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 2: is a weird one, and that's just that that's where

1276
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 2: to me it gets fascinating. I mean, I'm sure like

1277
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:47,840
Speaker 2: like to especially to a cosmologists, the shape of the

1278
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 2: universe is just a per se interesting question. But for me,

1279
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:52,600
Speaker 2: it was interesting to know this kind of like chronological

1280
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:56,799
Speaker 2: story about like it shouldn't be flat right like like

1281
00:56:56,800 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 2: like it's kind of like the red shift, like it

1282
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:01,400
Speaker 2: shouldn't be mostly red shifts, Like something is wrong with

1283
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 2: how I'm understanding the universe that I think it shouldn't

1284
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 2: be flat. And then it becomes really cool, and that's

1285
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 2: what really leads ever deeper in the confusing universe, which

1286
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:13,759
Speaker 2: it gets to inflation, which was perhaps the second most

1287
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 2: confusing thing. It took me a really long time to

1288
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 2: even kind of feel like I understand inflation, which maybe

1289
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 2: if I if I have, I like done a good

1290
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 2: enough job of basically saying what the point is.

1291
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so you've explained like why it's weird

1292
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: that we have a flat universe. But to me, it's

1293
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: not weird to wonder about the shape of the universe.

1294
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:31,680
Speaker 1: It's like wondering where it all came from. What is

1295
00:57:31,720 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 1: the age in the universe. It's one of those basic

1296
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 1: questions like if I was granted a visit to the

1297
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:39,160
Speaker 1: oracle and I can ask five questions about the universe,

1298
00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:41,040
Speaker 1: like that would be on there, you know, I just

1299
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 1: really I want to know our context, Like what is

1300
00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 1: this place? It's in the same category as like does

1301
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 1: the Earth go around the sun? You know this basic

1302
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:52,760
Speaker 1: facts about the nature of our existence to me are important.

1303
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, what it would be your number one?

1304
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 1: What would be my number one?

1305
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 2: You get five questions, you're like, your top.

1306
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 1: I think my first question would be does the universe

1307
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: have a beginning? You know? And if so, what was it?

1308
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: Because if there is a creation, then that creation tells

1309
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 1: you a lot about like the context of our lives.

1310
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: And if there wasn't, I'm like, wow, Yeah, I mean

1311
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 1: I say that that's more of my preferred answer, But

1312
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:20,440
Speaker 1: I'll admit it's also kind of hard to digest an

1313
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 1: eternal universe. That is pretty hard to fit into your

1314
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: tiny little non eternal brain.

1315
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:28,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Seven extent I wondered this, n like, why

1316
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 2: why the shape question is interesting to you is because

1317
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 2: it would sort the shape question would unleash a lot

1318
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:34,760
Speaker 2: of other answers. Is that is that sort of how

1319
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 2: you think about that question? Like would be cool to

1320
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 2: know the answer because of the sort of cascade of stuff,

1321
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:40,880
Speaker 2: or is it just like it would be cool to

1322
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,200
Speaker 2: know this thing because it's fundamental?

1323
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: To me, it burns that there are facts about the

1324
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,120
Speaker 1: universe that exists that are out there that we do

1325
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 1: not know. So yeah, that really that really chaps my

1326
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: hide that we just do not know. You know, there's

1327
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 1: so much about the universe, these facts that just exist

1328
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 1: out there that we don't know. You know, maybe aliens

1329
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:00,280
Speaker 1: have figured it all out and they know and they

1330
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:02,360
Speaker 1: would tell us and we just haven't even met them yet.

1331
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 1: To me, that's endlessly frustrating.

1332
00:59:04,840 --> 00:59:07,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been visualizing all the cosmologists like just walking

1333
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 2: around angrily all the time.

1334
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:12,959
Speaker 1: So what do people go with? They want to buy

1335
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: the universe a Bridge Beyond Usefulness and also your new

1336
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 1: book with Kelly.

1337
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 2: The Universe of Bridge Beyond the Usefulness is available on Kickstarter.

1338
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:25,000
Speaker 2: You'll just Google a search Kickstarter for it, so you

1339
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 2: can buy it through the Kickstarter with a City on Mars,

1340
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 2: but a City on Mars is also available for pre order.

1341
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 2: I find bookstores everywhere if you do not wish to

1342
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 2: order from one of the giant conglomerates. If you go

1343
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 2: to a cityommrs dot com, then you can get other

1344
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 2: options like Powells and indie books and cool stuff like that.

1345
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:46,680
Speaker 2: Or you can just go to your beloved local bookstore.

1346
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 2: That's the best option of all awesome.

1347
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:51,760
Speaker 1: Well, I recommend everybody out there get zach book on

1348
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 1: the Universe, A Bridge, and also Zach and Kelly's book

1349
00:59:54,720 --> 00:59:56,840
Speaker 1: A City on Mars. I've read both of them and

1350
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:59,080
Speaker 1: they're both a lot of fun and I learned a

1351
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: lot before I let you have one more question for you,

1352
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 1: Why do cartoonists want to write books about cosmology?

1353
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:08,120
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I know. I'll give you a

1354
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 2: theory that has no basis or I couldn't possibly substantiate it.

1355
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 2: But like web cartoonists, early web cartoonists are like high

1356
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 2: percentage dork quads, right, and so now now that all

1357
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 2: of us are getting to the phase of our lives

1358
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:24,640
Speaker 2: where we have to do more things, we are all

1359
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 2: like turning to our dork passions. That is my theory.

1360
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 2: This is a surprisingly high number of physics dropouts in

1361
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 2: the early cartooning community, so it was it was entirely

1362
01:00:36,120 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 2: predictable from the late nineties that this would happen.

1363
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:40,000
Speaker 1: Well, then, I'm really glad that the want to be

1364
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 1: physicists inside all those cartoonists is getting to finally explore

1365
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 1: that passion. Yes, all right, well, thanks very much Zach

1366
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 1: for joining us today, and everybody go out there and

1367
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:51,600
Speaker 1: check out zach book and Zach and Kelly's new book,

1368
01:00:51,640 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 1: A City on Mars. Thanks for listening, and remember that

1369
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.

1370
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1371
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:14,040
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.