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Speaker 3: Hey, Daniel, I would question for you about how physics works?

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Speaker 1: All right? Shoot?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what happens when it doesn't work? Like what happens

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Speaker 3: when you're wrong? Hmm? That really depends depends on what

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Speaker 3: how wrong you are.

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Speaker 1: No, it depends on whether you're an experimentalist or a theorist.

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Speaker 3: Oh it makes a difference.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah. For an experimentalist, if you are wrong one time,

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Speaker 1: it's like career death. It's like getting caught for murder.

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Speaker 1: You know, once is enough to send you away forever.

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Speaker 3: You murdered science. If your results.

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Speaker 1: Are wrong, you murdered your credibility.

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Speaker 3: But not for theorists, like if a theorist is wrong,

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Speaker 3: there's no consequence.

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Speaker 1: No, Almost every single paper written by a theorist is wrong,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, if they are right even one time,

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Speaker 1: they win the Nobel Prize.

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Speaker 3: Does sound like better? Odds? Daniel, why did you even

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Speaker 3: become an experimentalist?

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Speaker 1: I ask myself that question every day.

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Speaker 3: I am Jorge, a cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics.

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle of physicists. And though

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Speaker 1: I've never been wrong in a scientific paper, I have

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Speaker 1: zero Nobel prizes. No wait, that's not actually true. I

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Speaker 1: do have a tiny slice of a Nobel Prize.

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Speaker 3: Well, you could be wrong about having a Nobel Prize,

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Speaker 3: like you could.

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Speaker 1: I could write a paper about having a Nobel.

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Speaker 3: Prize and then be wrong, but then get a Nobel

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Speaker 3: price for it. In literature maybe, But anyways, Welcome to

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Speaker 3: our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe Even the

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Speaker 3: Wrong Parts, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: In which we take a trip around the universe, giving

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Speaker 1: you a tour of everything that's amazing, everything that's exciting,

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Speaker 1: everything that's real, and everything that's theoretical. Not just what's

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Speaker 1: out there in the universe, but what's inside the minds

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Speaker 1: of scientists, what they are hoping to discover out there

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Speaker 1: in our universe.

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Speaker 3: That's right. We take you on a trip across the cosmos,

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Speaker 3: not just to see what's there, but what might be there,

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Speaker 3: what physicists think might be the next big idea that

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Speaker 3: could revolutionize how we understand the universe.

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Speaker 1: And we have a special group of people whose job

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Speaker 1: it is just to come up with crazy ideas that

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Speaker 1: might describe our universe.

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Speaker 3: You have a group of people just to be wrong.

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Speaker 3: Is that kind of how it works?

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Speaker 1: They only have to be right occasionally, But yeah, basically

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Speaker 1: just throw ideas out there.

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Speaker 3: It's like the brain the Brain Trust.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a brainstorming, you know, like maybe the

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Speaker 1: universe works this way. Go check. Uh no, I guess not.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the universe works that way. Go check. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: I guess not. Keep coming up with the ideas, folks.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because the universe is pretty crazy out there. You know,

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Speaker 3: there are a lot of things that we didn't expect,

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Speaker 3: and so as crazy and as an idea might seem

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Speaker 3: right now, it could be right.

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Speaker 1: Yep. Absurdity is no obstacle to reality. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: can't take a theory of physics and say that's too crazy.

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Speaker 1: Because some of these crazy ideas turned out to be real,

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Speaker 1: you know, quantum mechanics and relativity. There have been moments

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Speaker 1: in history when we had to accept things that were

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Speaker 1: very difficult to swallow, and that means we need to

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Speaker 1: keep our minds wide open to future crazy ideas.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you could be absurbed and be right at the

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Speaker 3: same time.

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Speaker 1: That's the situation of the universe. That's your review of

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Speaker 1: the Universe on its Amazon web page, Absurd but right,

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Speaker 1: absurb but true five stars. Yeah, that's kind of like

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Speaker 1: this podcast. It's been a cartoonist and a physicist and

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Speaker 1: talk from physics for an error. And I wonder what

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Speaker 1: that's like sometimes for a theorist, because I'm not a theorist.

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Speaker 1: You know, you spend your life coming up with ideas

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Speaker 1: maybe there's this particle, maybe the universe works that way,

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Speaker 1: and predicting them and suggesting ways to check, but almost

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Speaker 1: never correct right. Most theorists who write papers, most of

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Speaker 1: their theories don't even get checked because we can't check

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Speaker 1: all of them, and when they do, mostly they just

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Speaker 1: get ruled out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I guess there are a lot of theorists out there,

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Speaker 3: and they can't all be right, right, and they can't

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Speaker 3: all be checked. So how does how do these ideas

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Speaker 3: come through to get checked.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, if you're a theorist, you have some crazy new idea,

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Speaker 1: you say, I think the universe works this way, and

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Speaker 1: then you have to make a prediction. You have to say, well,

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Speaker 1: if somebody did such and such experiment, they could verify

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Speaker 1: my theory. Like Einstein had his theory relativity, and he

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Speaker 1: predicted something what happen when light bent around the sun

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Speaker 1: or when light bent around the moon during an eclipse.

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Speaker 1: So we make a very specific prediction. Then the key

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Speaker 1: is you have to find an experimentalist someone to do

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Speaker 1: that experiment and check your prediction. If you can't convince

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Speaker 1: anybody that your prediction's worth checking, it just doesn't get checked.

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Speaker 3: Is there like an app for physicists to match experimentalists

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Speaker 3: with theories, you know, like a dating app physics or checker?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure. You know, it's sort of arbitrary.

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Speaker 1: You know, experimentalists will read a paper and say, ooh,

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Speaker 1: that's really cool, I want to check that. Or me

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Speaker 1: as an experimentalist, I'll go to conferences and talk to

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Speaker 1: theorists and hear about the new ideas and try to

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Speaker 1: think about what it's most interesting to test because you

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Speaker 1: can't test everything. You have to make your choices.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess you swipe left or right depending on

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Speaker 3: whether you think it could be right or what are

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Speaker 3: you based on, Like are you tempted by like, Ooh,

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Speaker 3: that would be a big fish to catch, or are

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Speaker 3: you tempted by like is this an easy fish that

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Speaker 3: I could verify?

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Speaker 1: Well, that's a great question. I'm a bit unusual in

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Speaker 1: particle physics. Most people choose theories that they think sound

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Speaker 1: sort of aesthetically beautiful, like supersymmetry and gravity and all

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Speaker 1: these things. They have like a deep theoretical reason to

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Speaker 1: motivate that theory, like why we think it exists. For me,

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Speaker 1: I'm more interested in stuff that's going to be a surprise,

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Speaker 1: Like I'd like to look for something that isn't predicted,

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Speaker 1: So I try to do experiments that nobody's predicted, because

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Speaker 1: then if you see something new and new particle, then

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Speaker 1: you get to be the first person to describe it

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Speaker 1: and it sort of comes out as a pleasant surprise

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Speaker 1: for the community.

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Speaker 3: So it is like a dating app. You swipe left

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Speaker 3: or right if it's like, oh it a full I

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Speaker 3: like it, or huh, this floats my boat. I'm gonna swipe.

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Speaker 1: It all right, You're right, I give up. Physics is

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Speaker 1: just like a dating app. It's basically the same thing.

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Speaker 3: Well a lot of it. Amazing and incredible discoveries have

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Speaker 3: been made this way. For example, the Higgs boson was

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Speaker 3: really just a theory out of the blue, and it

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Speaker 3: was a theory for a long time until people decided

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Speaker 3: to try to test it.

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Speaker 1: That's right, And people spend decades trying to test this theory,

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Speaker 1: and finally we built a collider powerful enough that we

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Speaker 1: could create the Higgs boson and prove that it existed.

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Speaker 1: And so this theorist to fifty years earlier had predicted

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Speaker 1: the existence of this particle was proved right and got

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Speaker 1: his Nobel prize.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a like a twenty billion dollars swipe there,

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Speaker 3: You know, that was a big swipe.

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Speaker 1: That was a big swipe.

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Speaker 3: That was good, twenty billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But you know, he wasn't the only one to

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Speaker 1: predict it. And there was a lot of controversy when

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Speaker 1: we discovered the Higgs boson. Who was going to get

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Speaker 1: the prize for it? Should it just be Higgs, Should

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Speaker 1: it also be this guy Anglert who was around that

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Speaker 1: wrote a lot of very similar papers but didn't get

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Speaker 1: his name on the particle. And then there was a

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Speaker 1: whole other group of people that wrote very similar papers,

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Speaker 1: but we didn't get any part of the prize.

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Speaker 3: That's right. And so today we'll be talking about a

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Speaker 3: prediction from a theorist that maybe should have gotten the

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Speaker 3: Higgs Nobel Prize, but didn't. And he made a second

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Speaker 3: prediction about the universe that we're going to be talking

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Speaker 3: about today.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And this comes from a question from a listener.

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Speaker 1: Somebody wrote it and said, hey, could you explain this

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Speaker 1: to us? I just don't get it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a question that Peter from Poland

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Speaker 3: sent this via email it and so today on the

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Speaker 3: program we'll be asking the question what is a cosmic string?

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Speaker 3: I don't want to string people along, let's just get

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Speaker 3: down to it, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was thinking, you know, silly string versus

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Speaker 1: string theory. You know, there's a lot of different combinations there, but.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of strings in physics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. Thank you Peter from Poland

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Speaker 1: for writing in, and anybody out there, if there's something

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Speaker 1: in physics you've heard about but haven't really understood any

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Speaker 1: of the explanations. Send it to us. We're going to

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Speaker 1: try to break it down.

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Speaker 3: And this is a tantalizing subject because we're not just

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Speaker 3: talking about strings. We're talking about cosmic strings. So they

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Speaker 3: sound like a very big deal, and they are kind

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Speaker 3: of a big deal. They're not small strings like maybe

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Speaker 3: some people might be imagining it.

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Speaker 1: That's right. This is not you know, star studied strings

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Speaker 1: in your drawer or anything like that. These are things

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Speaker 1: that could span the entire observable universe.

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Speaker 3: And so we were wondering how many people had heard

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Speaker 3: of these two words put together cosmic and strings out there,

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Speaker 3: and how many people maybe even had an idea about

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Speaker 3: what it could be. So, as usual, Daniel went out

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Speaker 3: there and as people on the street, if they've heard

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Speaker 3: what a cosmic string is.

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Speaker 1: So before you hear these answers, think to yourself for

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Speaker 1: a moment, do you know what a cosmic string is?

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Speaker 1: What would you say if I asked you on the street.

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Speaker 3: Here's what people had to say. No, it sounds like

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Speaker 3: a Marvel movie.

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Speaker 1: Is that similar to string theory? With the loops that

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Speaker 1: lay upon that's like a fifth dimension? Potentially you know

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Speaker 1: all this stuff.

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Speaker 4: I don't know any of this. I don't know any.

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Speaker 1: It's something I don't have no idea. Cosmic strings, something that, uh, quantum,

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Speaker 1: I think that's what space string does.

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Speaker 5: I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: If you laugh, does it sound funny?

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Speaker 3: It just sounds like like science fiction.

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Speaker 6: I heard of cosmic bowling. You're not cosmic string?

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Speaker 1: Cosmic bowling?

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Speaker 7: What's that when they shut down the lights for Friday

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Speaker 7: night bowling?

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Speaker 4: Strings that you know you unite like different potential space

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Speaker 4: and time like you know, yeah, like space and time

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Speaker 4: like a pass.

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Speaker 1: I guess in a way, planets stringing together, string together.

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Speaker 8: I have no idea something to do with I don't

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Speaker 8: know energy, energy, and I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: So obviously cosmic, yes, but strings those two words together.

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Speaker 3: No, all right, not a lot of familiarity, although I

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Speaker 3: do like the answer the person who said it sounds

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Speaker 3: like a Marvel movie to me, which it totally does.

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Speaker 3: You know, infinity, stones, cosmic strings, quantum realm. You guys

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Speaker 3: are all watching the same movies.

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Speaker 1: You could put cosmic in front of anything. It would

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Speaker 1: sound like a Marvel movie.

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Speaker 3: Cosmic quantum, cosmic bowling.

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Speaker 1: I like that answer. I was like, yeah, that does

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Speaker 1: sound like a good idea. I'd like to go to cosmic.

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Speaker 3: Bowling, cosmic breakfast, cosmic all right. So, not a lot

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Speaker 3: of people seem to know what it was, although it

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Speaker 3: definitely sounded sciency and science fiction. A lot of people said, oh,

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Speaker 3: it sounds like science fiction, or it sounds like something

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Speaker 3: that might be related to string theory or physics or energy.

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Speaker 3: It definitely has a sciency feel to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it might just in the way my hair

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Speaker 1: looked that day, maybe I looked more like a crazy physicist,

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Speaker 1: or maybe it just does sound like a sort of

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Speaker 1: a physics thing. So people were definitely guessing that.

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Speaker 3: I'm trying to imagine how you can look more like

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Speaker 3: a physicist, Daniel. It's kind of hard. It's kind of

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Speaker 3: hard to imagine.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess I could put on a

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Speaker 1: lab coat. I mean, I don't usually wear a lab

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Speaker 1: coat when I'm walking around.

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Speaker 3: She put on a Marvel costume and boom.

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Speaker 1: I need an MCU lab coat so I can do

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Speaker 1: both things at once.

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Speaker 3: Oh, that would be that's a good idea. Actually print

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Speaker 3: something fun on a lab coat.

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Speaker 1: M that sounds like merch. Get on that people.

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Speaker 3: Next product for the Daniel and Jorge explain the universe tour.

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Speaker 3: But all right, so let's get into a Daniel, what

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Speaker 3: what are they? What is a cosmic string? And I

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Speaker 3: am totally with the people on the street. I'd never

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Speaker 3: heard of this concept before this morning.

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Speaker 1: Well there's a good reason, because cosmic strings are a

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Speaker 1: pretty crazy idea. They're pretty far out there, but they're

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Speaker 1: really fun and conceptually sort of mind blowing, which is

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Speaker 1: why I think the theory stuck around for a while.

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Speaker 3: People keept swiping it because it sounded fun.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody wants this theory to be true. And so

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Speaker 1: what is a cosmic string? A cosmic string is a

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Speaker 1: line in space where the space itself is a little

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Speaker 1: bit different from the way space is for us, for

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Speaker 1: me and you, and most of the space in the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's like a little bit of leftover from the Big

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Speaker 1: Bang where it never quite cooled and relaxed the way

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Speaker 1: the space for us has.

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Speaker 3: It's like a pocket, like a pocket or a bubble,

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Speaker 3: or like a stretched out bubble. Is that kind of

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Speaker 3: what mean?

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Speaker 1: No, it's a really long, thin line, like it's maybe

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Speaker 1: a fectometer wide, So like super duper tiny, like the

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Speaker 1: width of a proton, but then it can be super long,

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Speaker 1: like it could be as long as the observable universe,

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Speaker 1: like ninety billion light years.

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Speaker 3: It's kind of like a crack in space itself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you have to think about what space is,

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Speaker 1: and remember that space used to be really different. Right

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Speaker 1: back when the universe was created. Everything was hot and dense,

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Speaker 1: and the there's a lot of energy everywhere. And remember

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Speaker 1: that space is not emptiness. Space has all this stuff in.

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Speaker 1: It has these quantum fields. And when you put energy

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Speaker 1: into space, what you're doing is you're making those fields wiggle.

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Speaker 1: And so back in the very early universe, those fields

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Speaker 1: were going crazy because there was so much energy everywhere.

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Speaker 1: So everything was wiggling really fast, and everything had a

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Speaker 1: lot of energy.

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Speaker 3: In our book, we talk about how space is kind

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Speaker 3: of like a goo. It's like it's not emptiness. It's

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Speaker 3: more like it's like something that you're swimming in almost,

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Speaker 3: and it can wiggle and bend and push you in

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Speaker 3: different directions. Right.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Gravity does really weird things to space. It

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Speaker 1: can stretch it, it can bend it, it can ripple it.

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Speaker 1: But for now, let's just think about like one unit

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Speaker 1: of space, Like what's in that box of space? And

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Speaker 1: in that box of space are quantum fields. Now, the

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Speaker 1: universe started out really hot and dense and really energetic,

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Speaker 1: and those fields had a lot of energy in them.

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Speaker 1: But the space that we're familiar with that operates in

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Speaker 1: the way that we expect, like has electrons in it

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Speaker 1: and and atoms and stuff that only came about after

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Speaker 1: the universe relaxed a little bit. We talked about on

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Speaker 1: the Higgs Boson episode that there's one of these quantum fields,

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Speaker 1: the Higgs one, that when it relaxed, when the universe

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Speaker 1: cooled down, that this field didn't go all the way

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Speaker 1: down to zero, so it got stuck on a shelf.

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Speaker 3: Right, Like the field that the universe is made out

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Speaker 3: of are not necessarily static, like they can be kind

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Speaker 3: of buzzing with energy.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Every time you have a particle, that's a

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Speaker 1: ripple in the field, which means you've injected energy into it. Now,

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Speaker 1: most of the fields can go down to zero, like

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Speaker 1: you got no electrons in your box of space, that

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Speaker 1: field is that zero. But the Higgs boson never gets

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Speaker 1: down to zero. Got stuck on this shelf.

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Speaker 3: And so how does that explain these pockets or these

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Speaker 3: cracks in space.

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Speaker 1: So what happens when the universe is expanding is is

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Speaker 1: it's cooling. Right. All this energy is getting spread out

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Speaker 1: into more and more space.

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Speaker 3: It's like you're stretching out the fields, right, Like you're

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Speaker 3: stretching them out basically, and so they calm down.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you have the same amount of energy in more space,

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Speaker 1: and so it gets diluted. So everything's like cooling and

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Speaker 1: relaxing and sort of like you know, you you toss

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Speaker 1: your blanket over your bed and it sort of settles

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Speaker 1: down and settles over your bed, right.

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Speaker 3: Like a cosmic nap. This is what I.

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Speaker 1: Like, a cosmic blanket. Yeah, and it settles down. But

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Speaker 1: the Higgs field got stuck, right. But here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: The Higgs field has lots of different ways to get

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Speaker 1: stuck on that shelf. It's that shelf is not just

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Speaker 1: like one little balcony. It's like a long round balcony.

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Speaker 1: And the universe can get stuck in different spots on

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Speaker 1: that shelf. And so as the universe is cooling, if

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Speaker 1: this chunk of space over here got stuck on a

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Speaker 1: different spot than that chunk of space then there's this

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Speaker 1: sort of boundary between them, this place between them that

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Speaker 1: doesn't quite work because it's sort of trapped between space

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Speaker 1: that got that cooled in two different ways.

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Speaker 3: It's kind of like how you know water or air

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Speaker 3: has different states, like solid liquid and gas. You know,

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Speaker 3: as you cool something down, you can form these little

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Speaker 3: pockets of liquid or gas or what's either one solid.

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Speaker 3: Like when you stick water into the freezer and it

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Speaker 3: cools down and forms ice. It doesn't form like this

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Speaker 3: perfect solid of ice. It forms like it has bowls

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Speaker 3: and cracks and wiggles, and it is that kind of

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Speaker 3: what you're saying, is happened happened or is happening to

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Speaker 3: space right now?

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Speaker 1: Exactly like that, if you cool water down, then you

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Speaker 1: get a crystal. But it doesn't, as you say, turn

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Speaker 1: into a crystal all at once. There's these sights that

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Speaker 1: begin because they are the coldest little dots, and the

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Speaker 1: crystals start to form there, and then they form out

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Speaker 1: from those little spots where they have nucleated. And then

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Speaker 1: what happens when two crystals meet. You have this boundary,

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Speaker 1: right and we don't have a perfect crystal. You have

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Speaker 1: a defect in the crystal that's why, like some diamonds

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Speaker 1: are perfect and some diamonds are not, because there's a

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Speaker 1: defect there in the crystal where one half of it

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Speaker 1: is cooled in a different time than the other, so

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Speaker 1: they're not all lined up perfectly. The same thing happened

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Speaker 1: to space.

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Speaker 3: Maybe, like there are imperfections in space.

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Speaker 1: There are imperfections these there are defects or cracks in

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Speaker 1: space where on one side the Higgs field, it's at

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Speaker 1: the same level, right, it's just pointed in a different direction,

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Speaker 1: because the Higgs field has sort of two we call

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Speaker 1: them degrees of freedom, the level that it relaxed that

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Speaker 1: and also where on that shelf it got stuck. So

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Speaker 1: if this chunk of space is stuck on a different

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Speaker 1: spot in the shelf than that chunk of space, it's

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Speaker 1: sort of like your ice cooling at different ways. In

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Speaker 1: different ways, the crystals are oriented in different directions, and

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Speaker 1: so at the boundary you get this thing that doesn't

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Speaker 1: quite make sense.

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Speaker 3: So I always thought the universe was pretty pretty good,

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Speaker 3: But I guess it's not a triple a diamond quality

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Speaker 3: space mane.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I love our universe. I would not trade

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Speaker 1: it in for anything. I think it's perfect just the

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Speaker 1: way it is, but it might have these cracks in it, right,

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Speaker 1: and we don't know, we have never seen one of

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Speaker 1: these things, but it might have these cracks in it.

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Speaker 1: That's the idea. That's the concept of a cosmic.

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Speaker 3: Stre cosmic flaws.

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Speaker 1: In space itself. And so along that line, it's like

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Speaker 1: the universe never got to cool because it doesn't know

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Speaker 1: like should I cool in this way or should I

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00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:11,000
Speaker 1: cool in the other way. It's sort of like trapped

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Speaker 1: between them, and so it still has that energy density

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Speaker 1: from the initial universe when everything was really hot and dense.

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Speaker 1: And so these cosmic strings, even though they're really really thin,

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Speaker 1: they're like a femtometer wide. They're incredibly massive.

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Speaker 3: And they could be holding energy, like the cracks or

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Speaker 3: the flaws in the universe could be storing some sort

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Speaker 3: of energy or tension into them.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely incredible amounts of energy. Like two centimeters of a

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Speaker 1: cosmic string weighs as much as Mount Everest. A kilometer

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Speaker 1: of cosmic string weighs more than the Earth, And so

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Speaker 1: we're talking about these things. They could be like ninety

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Speaker 1: billion light years long. It's an enormous amount of energy.

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Speaker 3: Wow, you just totally cracked my mind here, Daniel cosmically

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Speaker 3: cosmically dude. All right, so let's get into it and

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Speaker 3: why physicists think these crazy cracks might exist, and whether

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Speaker 3: or not they're real. But first, let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so you're saying that as the universe was cooling

482
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 3: or assets cooling right now, you might have these areas,

483
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 3: these lines, these huge lines in space that are sort

484
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 3: of like cracks, like where space is kind of freezing

485
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:09,719
Speaker 3: into different crystals like structures or different modes. And so

486
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 3: you have these kind of edges to the or wrinkles

487
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 3: in space itself due to the Higgs field.

488
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 1: Precisely and we are in the crystal part, right, We're

489
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 1: in the part of space that cooled, and these chunks

490
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: of space that all cooled sort of together. That's like

491
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,400
Speaker 1: could be as wi as ninety five billion light years,

492
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: like the observable universe. So it's not like you have

493
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 1: a little pocket of space to size your hand, and

494
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: the next pocket is different, the next pocket is different.

495
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: If there are these pockets and they're vast, they're incredibly enormous,

496
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: but then at their edges there can be these cracks.

497
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 3: And you're saying, these edges, these boundaries look like strings,

498
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 3: and so why don't they look like walls or like

499
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 3: you know, planes out in space. Why is it shaped

500
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 3: like a long like it's super thin but really long string.

501
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. That's because the Higgs boson,

502
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 1: the field for the Higgs has a lot of different

503
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: ways you can run, Like there's one level at which

504
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: you can relax, one energy level, but on that energy

505
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:06,919
Speaker 1: level it can sort of point in a lot of

506
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: different directions. And so the way to get a boundary

507
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: is like if you had two different energy levels, and

508
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: the boundary, like a would be like a plane between them.

509
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 1: But because there's only one energy level. Everywhere in space

510
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: has that energy level, but they just point in different directions,

511
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 1: and so what you get is this defect that's like

512
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 1: a string. And then as you go around the string,

513
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: the Higgs field is pointing in different directions, and so

514
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: it points in a different direction every point around the string.

515
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: And then the only place where you can't get sort

516
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 1: of like smoothness is along this one infinitesimally thin line

517
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 1: where space doesn't know where to point because every point

518
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: everything around it is pointing in a different direction. So

519
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: it's like, ah, I can't relax. I don't know which

520
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: way should I go.

521
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 3: It's kind of like me in this podcast, we're going

522
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 3: in every direction. What happens if I touch one of

523
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 3: these strings? Like what if I'm one of these things

524
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 3: and I run into like you know, like a spiderweb

525
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 3: or you know, I'm walking down the street and just

526
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 3: run into one.

527
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: Well, I would recommend wearing oven mits first of all,

528
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of energy there.

529
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 3: Oh that's right. They trap energy. It's like a I

530
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 3: guess it's more like a wrinkle in space, right, It's

531
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 3: not so much like a crack, but it's more like,

532
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 3: you know, like you're tucking in or you're bending a

533
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 3: lot of space along a line of it.

534
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, a wrinkle is a good way to do it.

535
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: I think a cosmic wrinkle would have been a good

536
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: way to sell this thing.

537
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 3: That could be the sequel to the Ursula Laguin novels

538
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 3: A wrinkle in Space time.

539
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: Turns out there was physics behind that novel. Now, you

540
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 1: would notice one almost immediately if you saw one, because

541
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: there's so much mass that they bend the space around

542
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: them the way everything does. Everything with mass bend space,

543
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 1: and it would cause a huge gravitational lens, so it

544
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: would really distort the way light moved around it.

545
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:55,959
Speaker 3: Wow, like a black hole, be like a black string.

546
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be a lot like a black hole,

547
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: except it would be really really thin and very very long.

548
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 3: Okay, there would be probably crazy stuff happening around it,

549
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 3: right like a you know, it wouldn't just sort of

550
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,239
Speaker 3: sit there in space. There would be you know, some

551
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 3: kind of you know, cosmic storm kind of swirling around it.

552
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 3: Would there be.

553
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: In the MCU version of this movie, then, Yeah, the

554
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,119
Speaker 1: visual effects would be dramatic all around it. Is that

555
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: what you're thinking?

556
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, what does the goblet that holds the cosmic

557
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 3: strings look like.

558
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: No, it's actually fascinating because unlike a black hole, which

559
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: has enormous gravitational pull and so has a huge amount

560
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: of stuff around it, like a maelstrom that's like giving

561
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: off light because of all the gravitational energy and the

562
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: tidal forces, cosmic strings don't actually provide a strong gravitational pull,

563
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: like they distort space, but they don't necessarily create gravity themselves.

564
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 1: It's a really weird consequence. It depends on the shape

565
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 1: of the string, if they're a loop or if they're straight.

566
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: It's actually quite complicated.

567
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 3: Didn't you say that it has more mass than the Earth, yes,

568
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 3: or like you know, it's distinctly massive, but it has

569
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 3: mass but no gravity.

570
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 1: It has mass, it distors space, so it can become

571
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: a gravitational lens, but it doesn't necessarily attract you because

572
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: of the configuration of it. It depends precisely on the

573
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: shape of it. Remember, general relativity tells us that gravity

574
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: is much more complicated than just things that have mass

575
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 1: pull on each other. It depends a lot on the

576
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: shape of that stuff. That's why if you have the

577
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: right configuration of stuff, you can even get repulsion like

578
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: dark energy. And so these cosmic strings are a really

579
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: weird little object. And it depends exactly on the configuration

580
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: of it whether you get pulled into it or repelled,

581
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: or whether it basically ignores you.

582
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 3: So when you say it's massive, it's really more like

583
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 3: E equals empty square, Like it just has a lot

584
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 3: of energy to it.

585
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has a huge amount of energy, so a

586
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: lot of energy density and a really small spot.

587
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 3: All right, Well, it sounds kind of dangerous and that

588
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 3: maybe you don't want to run into one of these

589
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 3: strings out there.

590
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: In space unless you want to win a Nobel prize.

591
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: Unless you want to die trying, I guess. But why

592
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 3: do physics think they might exist? Is this something that

593
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 3: you're pretty sure of or it's a crazy idea? Would

594
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 3: what would make someone think of these strings as possibly

595
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 3: being out there?

596
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: Well, it comes from this guy named Tom Kibble, and

597
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: Kibble was one of the folks who was around when

598
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 1: the whole idea of the Higgs boson was being invented.

599
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: This question of like how do particles get masked? And

600
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: do we need to invent a new quantum field that

601
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: fills space that gives particles mass and you know, anytime

602
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: theorists come up with some new idea, then they like

603
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: to play with it. They say, ooh, okay, now we

604
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: have a new toy, this Higgs field. What else does

605
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: it mean? You know, how can we what consequences would

606
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: it have? And so he was thinking about the early

607
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: universe and how the Higgs field would be cooling as

608
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: the universe expanded, and then he hit on this idea.

609
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: He thought, wait a second, what if it doesn't cool evenly?

610
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: Would you get these cracks? And I guess that was

611
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: just really fun to think about. He also he didn't

612
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: get included in the Nomail Prize because he sort of

613
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: came in a ton I need a bit too late

614
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: on those papers. So maybe he was going for a

615
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: backup Nobel Prize strategy.

616
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 3: I wonder if his name help, you know, maybe the

617
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 3: committee was like, we can't give a Nobel Prize to

618
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 3: someone named Kibble.

619
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: You know, there's a whole group of people, there's like

620
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: three folks out there who are writing papers right at

621
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: the same time as Higgs and Englert, and they just

622
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: got totally snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee. Wow.

623
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 3: Just about when they submitted the paper, or when when

624
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 3: they came up with the idea.

625
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: There's a lot of controversy because it's you know, some

626
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: journals that the date on the paper reflects when you

627
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 1: submitted it, and in other journals it reflects when it

628
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:40,239
Speaker 1: was finally accepted after review. And so there's a lot

629
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: of controversy about who came up with the idea first.

630
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: And you can only give the prize to three people.

631
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: And the three people who everybody mostly agrees came up

632
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: with the idea first Higgs, Englert, and Brout. They were

633
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: they won the prize except for Brown, who had died already,

634
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: so it was just splitting the Higgs and England. And

635
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: then in the second tier there were like three people

636
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:03,479
Speaker 1: and so they were like, well, either give it to

637
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: two or we give it to five. We can't give

638
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: it to five, so I guess we'll just snub that

639
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: whole second tier.

640
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 3: Wow, is there a runner up Noble Prize.

641
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: Literary. Yeah, it's sort of like fake gold. You know,

642
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: it's just like hollow and plastic. It's not nearly as cool.

643
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's the theory. The theory is that as

644
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 3: the universe is cooling, you got these kind of flaws

645
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 3: and how the Higgs field was cooling down, and so

646
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 3: you form these crazy strings. But they're not related to

647
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 3: string theory, right. That might be confusing because they're both strings,

648
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 3: but they're totally different scales.

649
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: That's right, they're not related to string theory at all.

650
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: String theory deals with like the fundamental nature of the

651
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: universe on the smallest scale, like ten to the minus

652
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: thirty five meters, is everything actually made out of these

653
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: tiny vibrating strings. The thing they have in common is

654
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 1: the sort of analogy we use in our minds where

655
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: we put them that, like, you know, this thing is

656
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: really long and thin, so let's call it a string.

657
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: So fundament mental strings that are really tiny we think

658
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: might be these one dimensional objects. So they're really long

659
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: and thin, not that long actually, but they're much longer

660
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: than they are thin. And cosmic strings are you know,

661
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: light years long and a femtometer thin. So the only

662
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: thing they really have in common is that name. But

663
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: there were other reasons to think that cosmic strings might

664
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: have existed.

665
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 3: All right, So then, so what was the motivation for

666
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 3: these Like I know they were playing around with the

667
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 3: theory of the Higgs field, but what makes this a

668
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 3: particularly fun theory, like you said, or interesting theory to

669
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 3: look for.

670
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: Well, you're right, it's a fun idea and it's fun

671
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: to play with. But there's a lot of things that

672
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,479
Speaker 1: get theorists excited and fun to play with.

673
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 3: You mean, they're fun strings, that's what they do.

674
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: They just go in their office and play with strings. No,

675
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: the thing that made this idea sort of stick in

676
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: people's minds was that they thought it might solve a

677
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: problem that we had, which is that we didn't understand

678
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: like why we had galaxies. We didn't understand why the

679
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: universe had structure at all. We talked about this on

680
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: the podcast before, Like the universe started out totally smooth.

681
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: How do you get any clumping? How do you get

682
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: things started so that gravity can take over and give

683
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: you stars and planets and rabbits and hamsters?

684
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 3: Right, Like, where did that initial texture of the universe

685
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 3: come from, or the initial clumping of stuff?

686
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: Exactly?

687
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 3: We could have been in the universe where everything was

688
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 3: just spread out and bland and boring and gray, right.

689
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: That's right. And somebody was thinking about cosmic strings early on,

690
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: and they calculated, like, well, how many cosmic strings would

691
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: there have been. And then they calculated, like, well, how

692
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: many galaxies are there? And those two numbers were pretty similar.

693
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: So then they thought, wait a second, maybe cosmic strings

694
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: cause galaxies. Maybe the reason we have structure is because

695
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: of cosmic strings. Maybe these cracks in space, these imperfections,

696
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: are the reason that stuff started to clump together and

697
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: form structure and planets and hamsters and ice cream and bananas.

698
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: So maybe cosmic strings explain the universe.

699
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 3: It would have tied everything up pretty neatly with a

700
00:33:58,680 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 3: strength exactly.

701
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: It would have been quite the cosmic solution. That's why

702
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: people got excited about it, because you have this new

703
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: toy which is connected to this fun new theoretical idea

704
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 1: of a Higgs boson, and maybe it solves the problem

705
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: you have.

706
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 3: All right, well, it sounds really tantalizing, and I'm definitely

707
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 3: seeing the fun of it, and I definitely feel like

708
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 3: I'm being strung along here to some interesting conclusion. So

709
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 3: let's get into whether or not they are real and

710
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 3: how we might actually see these cosmic strings out in space.

711
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 3: But first, let's take another quick break.

712
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth

713
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of greeky yogurt. You're probably

714
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact of each and every bite,

715
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: but the people in the dairy industry are. US Dairy

716
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

717
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

718
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

719
00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas e missions.

720
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: Take water, for example, most dairy farms reuse water up

721
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: to four times the same water cools the milk, cleans equipment,

722
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: washes the barn, and irrigates the crops. How is US

723
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: Dairy tackling greenhouse gases. Many farms use anaerobic digestors that

724
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: turn the methane from maneuver into renewable energy that can

725
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: power farms, towns, and electric cars. So the next time

726
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,399
Speaker 1: you grab a slice of pizza or lick an ice

727
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: cream cone, know that dairy farmers and processors around the

728
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: country are using the latest practices and innovations to provide

729
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: the nutrient dense dairy products we love with less of

730
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 1: an impact. Visit usdairy dot com slash sustainability to learn more.

731
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 6: There are chiltern friends and families walking riding on paths

732
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 6: and roads every day. Remember they're real people with loved

733
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,319
Speaker 6: ones who need them to get home safely. Protect our

734
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 6: cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too. Go safely California

735
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 6: from the California Office of Traffic Safety and Caltrans.

736
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 9: When it comes to business, the people who succeed tend

737
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 9: to be the people who seek out partners with skills

738
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 9: or knowledge that they don't have. And that's what Lenovo's

739
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 9: free online membership program Lenovo Pro can do for all businesses.

740
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 9: If you're not a tech expert, that's where Lenovo can help.

741
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 9: So you can add Lenovo's team to yours and then

742
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 9: lean on them for all your tech questions for free.

743
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 9: Visit Lenovo dot com slash Lenovo Pro to sign up

744
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 9: for free. That's Lenovo dot com, slash Lenovo pro.

745
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 3: Leo OKAYDNA. So are cosmic strings real? And how will

746
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 3: we know?

747
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 7: We?

748
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 3: Are we going to see them out in space? Are

749
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 3: we going to be looking out into space one day

750
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:37,760
Speaker 3: and see, like, wait a minute, what is that little crack?

751
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 3: We check our glasses and our telescopes, but it's not

752
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 3: a crack in the lens, it's an actual crack in

753
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:46,240
Speaker 3: space in the universe itself.

754
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,359
Speaker 1: That would be pretty awesome. I mean, what a thing

755
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: to discover, What a moment that would be to see

756
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: a crack in space itself. Unfortunately, no human has had

757
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: that experience yet. As far as we know, there are

758
00:36:58,200 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: no cosmic strings out there.

759
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 3: Like how you said, no humans.

760
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: I don't want to rag on alien science, you know.

761
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,720
Speaker 1: I'm hoping those guys have made some advances well past

762
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 1: what we have done, so that when they come visit,

763
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: they share with us all those secrets.

764
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 3: No human that we know of.

765
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: No human that we know of, and no human would

766
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: make this discovery, and I think keep it to themselves

767
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: because it would be of really cosmic significance. And remember

768
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: we also we can't say they don't exist. We can

769
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: just say we haven't seen them, so we don't know

770
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 1: that they exist.

771
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 3: Okay, so we haven't seen one yet, but it's a

772
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 3: theoretical prediction that it sounds fun and that might explain

773
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 3: some of the structure in the universe. So are people

774
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 3: looking for these cosmic cracks or are we just hoping

775
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 3: that one day we maybe see them? Like these are

776
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 3: an active search for these cracks.

777
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: I'm just waiting for alien unicorns to come pulling one

778
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: and drop it on the Earth.

779
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 3: That's what they use. That's what they used to steer

780
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 3: the cosmic unicorns. They use cosmic strings.

781
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: No, that'll be the opening scene in the Marvel movie

782
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: about cosmic strings. But people were thinking that maybe this

783
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: affected the shape of the universe, and they had all

784
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 1: these predictions, like if these cracks in space were the

785
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: things that caused sort of the large scale structure, the

786
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: reason we have galaxies, then they had predictions for how

787
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: the universe should have sort of been rippling in its

788
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 1: first moments. And remember that we have seen the early universe.

789
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: We can look back in time and see what the

790
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 1: universe looked like when it was very young. Called this

791
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 1: the cosmic microwave background radiations leftover glow from the Big Bang.

792
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,919
Speaker 3: But didn't these strings form way after the Big Bang

793
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 3: when everything was cooling down? Or was it that it

794
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:37,879
Speaker 3: did they start wrinkling right after the Big Bang?

795
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: Right after the Big Bang? Yeah, it's when as space

796
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 1: was expanding, that's when sort of things were cooling and

797
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: the ice crystals of space were forming, and so the

798
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: cosmic microwave background happened like hundreds of thousands of years later,

799
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: and now we've seen that. So these cosmic strings, the

800
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: idea was invented before we had precise measurement of this

801
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: cosmic microwave background light, and it made very specific predictions

802
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: for what that light should look like. And then we

803
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: saw that light from the early universe and it didn't

804
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 1: look right. It doesn't look the way you would expect

805
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: it to. If cosmic strings were real.

806
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 3: Really, you would see this in the cosmic microwave background,

807
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 3: like we aren't these I mean, aren't these cracks you're

808
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 3: saying they're one fetometer thin? How would you even see

809
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 3: them in the cosmic background.

810
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: If they're there and they did affect the sort of

811
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: structure of the universe, you would start to see that

812
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: structure beginning to form in the very early universe. I

813
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: mean they've had three hundred thousand years or so to

814
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: start of get things starting to wiggle, and we do

815
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 1: see structure in the early universe. I mean, the early

816
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: universe is very smooth because it was early on and

817
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: things were just getting started. But we look at that

818
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: light and we see like hotspots and cold spots. We

819
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: can analyze those rates of hot spots and cold spots,

820
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: and say, what theory would give us sort of that

821
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: level of fluctuation, that level of structure at that time,

822
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: and cosmic strings just predict sort of a different distribution

823
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 1: of hot spots and cold spots than we see.

824
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 3: Really, even if the if there aren't as many strings

825
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 3: as you thought there might be, do you know what

826
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,879
Speaker 3: I mean? Like, maybe there's just just far and few

827
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 3: in between for you to see them.

828
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: No, the pattern is just wrong. It's not like about

829
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: the number, it's about the distribution, how far apart they are,

830
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,760
Speaker 1: and sort of how they affect the shape of space. Instead,

831
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: it's totally consistent with just quantum fluctuations in the early

832
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: universe then getting blown up by inflation. So there were

833
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: sort of two competing theories like this random fluctuation plus

834
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,919
Speaker 1: inflation or cosmic strings. And now the data really look

835
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: a lot like random fluctuations plus inflation and not like

836
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: cosmic strings.

837
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 3: I guess that's good, right, because if it turned out

838
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 3: that the universe as a baby had a lot of

839
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 3: wrinkles in it, that would be kind of strange and disturbing.

840
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 3: Who wants to see a wrinkly, old looking baby?

841
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:50,359
Speaker 7: Man?

842
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:53,240
Speaker 1: If the universe is listening to this podcast, you're in trouble.

843
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 3: I'm already in trouble, Dane.

844
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,240
Speaker 1: But you know, if cosmic strings do exist, they don't

845
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: have to have formed the structure. This is like, if

846
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: they caused the structure, here's what that structure should look like.

847
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 1: But they could still exist. It could be that they're

848
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 1: still out there. They're just not responsible for the structure

849
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 1: of the universe as we know it.

850
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 3: Oh, I see. We know that they maybe didn't have

851
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 3: a hand in structuring the universe, but they could still

852
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 3: be out there. They're just sort of like under the

853
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 3: radar more than you thought they would be.

854
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 1: That's right. And so we have other ways to look

855
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: for cosmic strings that people are actively doing right now.

856
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 3: What are some of the ways that we can search

857
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:32,280
Speaker 3: for these cosmic strings.

858
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: Well, cosmic strings have a lot of energy density, and

859
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: so they do this gravitational lensing thing. They bend space,

860
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: and so if you have a really bright source of

861
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: light behind a cosmic string and you're standing in front

862
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:45,760
Speaker 1: of it, then you'd see like sort of a doubling

863
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 1: of an image because the light would get bent around

864
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,399
Speaker 1: the string, Like if I had a flashlight and there's

865
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: a cosmic string between us, and I turned on my flashlight,

866
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: you'd see two.

867
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 3: Bulbs, right, But wouldn't Aren't these strings really thin? You know,

868
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think about how much distorting a little

869
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 3: string and meg And it'd be kind of tiny, right

870
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 3: would It'd be really hard to see, like a small

871
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 3: imperfection in such a huge canvas.

872
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: It'd be really thin, but it'd be really really massive.

873
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 9: Right.

874
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: Say we took Mount Everest and squeezed it down to

875
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: a tiny string, right, then it could have a significant impact.

876
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 3: All right, and we would maybe see not as a lens,

877
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 3: but like a kind of like a lens in the

878
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 3: form of a string, kind of like we would see

879
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 3: doubles all along the string itself precisely.

880
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 1: And so what we've done is we looked out in

881
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: a space and we look for this kind of effect,

882
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: and we see gravitational lensing all the time in space.

883
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: Usually it's black holes or blobs of dark matter, this

884
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:44,439
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But as you say, a cosmic string

885
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: would look a little different. And people have seen like

886
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: pairs of galaxies in the sky near each other that

887
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 1: looked really really similar and they thought, ooh, wait, maybe

888
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: that's a cosmic string. But then they look closer and

889
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: they discover it. Nope, it's just two similar galaxies. It's

890
00:42:58,040 --> 00:42:58,720
Speaker 1: not a reflection.

891
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 3: It was just Bob's hair that fill in the lens

892
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:03,720
Speaker 3: of our telescope.

893
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so these days there's another way to look

894
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 1: for cosmic strings that people think is the most promising.

895
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 3: What's that?

896
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: And that also has to do with their gravitational effects,

897
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,879
Speaker 1: because these cosmic strings, we don't think they're just floating there.

898
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: We think that there have so much energy. They're like

899
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: whipping and ripping and crackling.

900
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 3: No way.

901
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 1: What Yeah, like you know lightning bolts coming from fingertips

902
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:27,360
Speaker 1: in a Marvel movie.

903
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, Oh, they're active, these strings. These boundaries can move, yeah,

904
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 3: because I guess the field is shifting around it, and

905
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 3: so that boundaries is like fluid.

906
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: Yep. And also the strings can get twisted and if

907
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: they cross over each other, they can break, and then

908
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:51,320
Speaker 1: you get ends, and those ends can like whip around

909
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 1: like crazy. It's it's pretty nuts.

910
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:55,720
Speaker 3: Can they form loops and knots?

911
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:57,879
Speaker 1: They can form loops absolutely, yep.

912
00:43:58,200 --> 00:43:59,439
Speaker 3: Can you make a cosmic knot?

913
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 1: I cannot make a cosmic knot, but the universe might

914
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 1: be capable. If you get one of these crazy strings

915
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: in a strange shape, then its movement can get generate

916
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: a lot of gravitational waves. And we now have gravitational

917
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 1: wave detectors like Ligo that saw when two black holes

918
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 1: eight each other, or when two neutron stars collided, they

919
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: create these ripples in space itself, and we can see that. Now.

920
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 3: Wow, it's like a picturing like a snake trashing in

921
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 3: a puddle of water, Like it's moving and it's generating

922
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 3: ripples that we might be able to see precisely.

923
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 1: But we don't know how fast they move, and so

924
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: they could be like zipping around really fast, generating enormous

925
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 1: signals of gravitational waves that we could detect, or it

926
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 1: could be like a cosmic time scale thing where they're

927
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: like decades long signals. These ripples you have to like

928
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: take data for one hundred years before you see the

929
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: up and the down, So we don't quite know what

930
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:55,359
Speaker 1: to look for.

931
00:44:55,760 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 3: They could be not whipping around, but maybe just whiping around.

932
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: Precisely precisely, and so people are using gravitational wave detectors.

933
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 1: Here on Earth. You have these long hauls filled with

934
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: vacuum and lasers to measure space really precisely to see

935
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: if these little ripples. And then people are also trying

936
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 1: to use the entire galaxy as a gravitational wave detector.

937
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, why not?

938
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I got other things to use the

939
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: galaxy war but if it's.

940
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 3: There, if it's there, might as well use it to

941
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 3: find cosmic blacks whole strings. Why not?

942
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 8: Yeah?

943
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 1: And I love this idea because it just sort of

944
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 1: takes what's already out there and tries to use it

945
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: to do science. Like you could never build a galaxy

946
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: size physics experiment, but hey, just take the galaxy and

947
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 1: turn it into an experiment. I love this idea.

948
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,439
Speaker 3: Oh and so what's the idea here that the string might,

949
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,799
Speaker 3: as it's moving around, kind of affect the things around it.

950
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: The idea is just to build a bigger detector, Like

951
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,239
Speaker 1: the larger your gravitational wave detector is the smaller a

952
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,280
Speaker 1: wiggle you can see easier to see in a larger

953
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 1: detector because it's it's just more. You have more sensitivity too,

954
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: because it's over more space. And so the idea is

955
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 1: to build one the size of the galaxy. You know,

956
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,359
Speaker 1: you can't build your own detector. But there are things

957
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: out there that you can use as a detector. And

958
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 1: the thing that we can use are these stars called pulsars.

959
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: These are stars that are emitting light in a regular pattern,

960
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: like when they were first discovered. You see these these

961
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 1: regular beeps from space. And so if the space between

962
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: us and some of these pulsars gets wrinkled in a

963
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 1: little bit, or ripples happen, then it changes the pulsing

964
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: of these pulsars. And so the idea is to use

965
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 1: all of these to sort of measure the smoothness of space.

966
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 3: Oh, I see, but that's only if these strings are

967
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 3: moving fast enough for us to sort of notice them

968
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 3: or notice the difference.

969
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, if they take one hundred years to send a signal,

970
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:54,839
Speaker 1: then our grad students are going to be really old

971
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: before they get their PhDs.

972
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 3: You don't sound that surprise, Daniel, like it's a big deal.

973
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 3: You're like, I might take a five years or one

974
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 3: hundred years.

975
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 1: I can't say, Hey, it's research. I can't predict, right.

976
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: That's what I always tell my students. You never know.

977
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 1: You're the first person to ever do this.

978
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:13,720
Speaker 3: So you told them that you could be wrong.

979
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: I tell them We've never published a paper knowingly wrong yet,

980
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: so don't be the first.

981
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 3: So many caveats in that statement, Daniels, So many caveats.

982
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: I had that vetted by my legal department.

983
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 3: Oh all right, So I guess that answers a question.

984
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:34,399
Speaker 3: What is a cosmic string? It's like an imperfection in

985
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 3: this in the fabric of the universe itself. It's like

986
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 3: a wrinkle caused by the stretching of it and the

987
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 3: weird cooling of the Higgs field. I can't believe I

988
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 3: just said that in one sentence.

989
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, these quantum fields are not just

990
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: an idea, They're real. They're out there. And as the

991
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: universe cooled from the like hot, nasty quantum fields to cold,

992
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: crystallized quantum fields that we have today, then how that

993
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: cooling happened could have affected the where the universe is formed.

994
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 3: And it's cool to think that what we might do

995
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 3: with this knowledge, right, Like, if we know that space

996
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 3: can wrinkle and crack like this, who knows what we

997
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 3: could do with space? Possibly? Can we fold space? Can

998
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 3: we make space origami?

999
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: The one thing we can never do is get the

1000
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:20,800
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize for Tom Kimble.

1001
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 3: Oh, did he pass away?

1002
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: He passed away, so he missed the Nobel Prize for

1003
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 1: the Higgs boson, And if he was right about cosmic strings,

1004
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: he missed that one. Also right.

1005
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 3: But you can still get in on the party by

1006
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 3: maybe being the person who discovers it.

1007
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 1: Right, that's right, and maybe Tom Kimble will get another

1008
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 1: kind mention in the Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which is

1009
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: almost like a runner up prize.

1010
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 3: Right. Well, I guess the idea is that maybe someone

1011
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 3: listening to this out there might be the person who

1012
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 3: discovers it. Might be you, might be me, might be

1013
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 3: someone listening to this who discovers these wrinkles in reality.

1014
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: That's right, or something even crazy. The next time you

1015
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: hear a theorist talk about some totally bonker's notion by

1016
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: the way the universe or space might work, then remember

1017
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,840
Speaker 1: there are crazier ideas out there that are actually real.

1018
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 3: That's right. They could still be crazy, but they might

1019
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 3: also be right. You never know. That's the wrinkle on

1020
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 3: your reason.

1021
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:21,959
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Peter for that question. I love

1022
00:49:22,120 --> 00:49:25,480
Speaker 1: email questions from listeners, so please, if there's something you'd

1023
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:27,680
Speaker 1: like to hear us discuss, send it to us. To

1024
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:30,240
Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

1025
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 3: You hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for listening. See you

1026
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 3: next time.

1027
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 1: Before you still have a question after listening to all

1028
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:46,520
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to

1029
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

1030
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:52,759
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or

1031
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Danielanjorge dot com. Thanks for

1032
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe

1033
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:04,600
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1034
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:08,880
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