WEBVTT - Some Interesting Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Hawking 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.800 Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.800 to you stuff you should know from House Stuff Works 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:16.640 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.000 and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and with us today 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:25.040 is our friend and rotating guest producer Matt. That's right, 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.800 stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah. At Frederick, 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.920 he winsome and charming. At Frederick, yeah, he wins some. 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:36.240 He drunk texts me, Oh my god, you can't tell 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.080 people there. Sure again, Oh that's not very nice. He 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.839 sober texts me too. So uh, we're Matt. He's all right, 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.239 he's great, dude, and we're glad you're here. Matt. Can 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.640 you see us here? You Before we get started, I 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.360 feel like we should um give a shout out to 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.920 our buddies over at co ED. Yeah, you want to 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.360 tell everybody about COED real quick? Who doesn't know? Yes, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:01.720 the Cooperaate for Education. We went on a trip to 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.800 them with Guatemala a few years ago and they are 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.520 a nonprofit who tries to break the cycle of poverty 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.319 through education for school children in Guatemala and the model. Yeah, 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.360 it's very it's good stuff. And UM, we'd like to 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.200 give them shout outs because we genuinely believe in their organization. 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.800 And we said that any stuff you should know listener 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:28.720 who became a scholarship sponsor with co ED, UM, we 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.120 would read your name on the heirs. Thanks, that's right. 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.279 So we're going to do that now because we've already 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.920 done it once and stuff you should know listeners, just 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.559 keep continuing to give. So we have another batch of people. 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.160 And if you're interested in giving, you don't have to. 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:42.679 We don't have to read your name on the air. 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.760 I mean I think you need to give permission to 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.280 co ED to tell us, like, yes, read these people's names. Um, 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.320 you can do it anonymously. You can do whatever you want. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.080 But just go to uh C, O E d UC 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.520 dot org and you'll learn all about co ED and 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:57.440 there's all sorts of places for you to sign up 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.520 to help in a lot of different ways. Um. So 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.120 we've got some people some stuff you should know listeners 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.040 that became scholarship sponsors, UM, starting with Chris Marino, Way 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:12.480 to go, Chris, Linda McCarty and Mike Trick. I knew 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:18.040 you were gonna give me this way, Cameron. Yes, nice, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:24.640 Is that right? Viceness or that viciness? Yeah, the W 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.960 is pronounced like a V in Germanic languages from what 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.120 I understand. Yeah, well you know, yeah, who else, Chuck, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:39.560 I've got Raymond Breen. You skipped over justin Sechina. That's why, 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:43.120 that's why c H E n A justin Sechina, and 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.040 I think we have we got one more on their, 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.160 Caleb Weeks. Hey, we know Caleb. We know Caleb. He's 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.680 all over like Twitter and Facebook and emails us and 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.799 hey Caleb, Yeah, he's he's he's a big fan and 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.200 a big supporter of us as well. That's very nice. 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.720 And finally we have Joe Barkovich. That's right. Thanks a lot, guys, 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.440 we appreciate you giving the co ed and uh we 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.560 hope that more of you who are just hearing about this. 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:11.600 Now we'll go out and do it yourself. C O 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.280 E d U see dot org. That's right, all right, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:20.200 so Chuck, Yes, we're talking about a guy, very special, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.959 guy special. His name is Stephen Hawking with a pH 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:31.079 that's right, with a pH d like that. Uh, brilliant physicists, 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.800 brilliant mind. If you haven't seen the Errol Morris documentary. Oh, 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:36.480 I didn't know there was one on him. Yeah, he 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.200 did The Brief History of Time, which is neat a 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.680 documentary about Stephen Hawking, not really about the book. I 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.000 think there's a movie version of the book. I think 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:48.480 I have heard that too, but I haven't seen that. 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:52.160 I haven't either, But that was his best seller. Um 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.320 basically explaining making kind of doing what we do, explaining 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.960 things in a more accessible way that are complex. But 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:00.960 he doesn't way better than I. That's why he's like 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.480 a darling of the media and of everybody, basically, because 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:11.240 he's really really good typically at explaining really complex stuff 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.520 in in a way that the average joke can kind 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.440 of understand, which is that is, I mean, what we 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.000 strive to do. They're making a movie about him now, actually, 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:25.000 oh yeah, played by Jared Leto No good guess played 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:29.120 by Eddie Redmaine. Who U. He sounds like a World 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.280 War One ace pilot or something. It kind of looks 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.240 like one. Yeah, have you seen the lay Miss movie? No? 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.800 Have you seen My Week with Maryland? No? Okay, he 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.760 was in those anything else he was another stuff, But 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.480 those are the two most notable things. It's called The 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.640 Theory of Everything. It's the new one, and it's really 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.360 about the love story between he and his first wife. 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.480 And I saw pictures of him, and he looks just 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.200 like him. They did a really good job. Yeah, I 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.760 think they gave him some different teeth than you know, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:59.800 put on the glasses and messed up his hair and 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.440 but then the wheelchair and yeah, yeah you're now Stephen Hawking. 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.640 But I think they're shooting that like literally right now. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.200 So I'm looking forward to that one. And he released 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:12.640 stayed on that. I have no idea. Okay, it seems 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.159 like a long time for that. Yeah, they're really putting 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.280 their heart and soul into it, I guess. So. So 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.640 there's plenty of stuff that, I mean, everybody's heard of 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:25.760 Stephen Hawking, but there's um some pretty interesting little tidbits 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:29.279 about the man, the myth, his life, um that I 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.120 didn't know about until we read this article that I 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.800 think is worth sharing frankly, because if we don't share it, 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.840 what are we doing here? That's right. So one of 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.240 the things, um, just to start off, is that he 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.240 never won the Nobel Prize. As smart as the stude is, Yeah, 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.760 has not yet won the Nobel Prize. He's still got time. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:53.960 Oh yeah, for sure, I think I said has never Yeah, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.640 I hope I did. It sounded like there was some finality. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.960 It's just never gonna happen. Try all you on, but 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:05.280 this pillar of the physics and mathematics community has never 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:10.920 won a Nobel Prize. Yeah, it is surprising. We're gonna 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.400 rely on punts for this one, okay. Uh. He was 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.520 born on January eight, nine two, which was also the 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.880 three anniversary of Galileo's death, right, which is just mere coincidence, 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.760 but it's a nice did bit, he says, who uh 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.919 And he is obviously was diagnosed with ALS at the 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.440 age of twenty one, Luke Garrig's disease and given just 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.920 a few years to live. And um, that was a 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.120 long time ago. It was. Um. He was born in 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:45.640 nineteen forty two, so he's what, um, seventy one now. Um. No, 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.160 he'll be seventy four very soon, in about a month 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.839 or so. Anyway, he um. When he was just before 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.599 his twenty one birthday, he started noticing. He was in 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.320 grad school at Oxford, and he started noticing that he 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.360 was getting clumsier running into stuff, having like tripping that 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.440 kind of thing, and it was apparently pronounced enough that 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.120 his family said, you're going to the doctor while you're 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.960 home visiting for Christmas break and so he um went 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.400 into the hospital for a battery of tests for two weeks. 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:20.120 That's an awful experience as in and of itself, I'm sure. 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.080 But then to top it off, they said, oh, well 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.440 we found out what's wrong with you. You have a LS, 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:30.480 which stands for immo trophic lateral sclerosis YEA or Luke 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.640 Garrig's disease, because Luke Garret most famously had it. That's right, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:38.080 And it's just a neurological condition where you're voluntary muscle 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:44.320 control is lost, right, Yeah, and uh, typically you will 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.440 die a few years after contracting it from a couple 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.840 of things. Well, after symptoms show up, but what motor 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.600 neurons running your breathing muscles start to fail for uh, 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.000 deterioration of your swallowing muscles. That's a big one. So 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.040 basically you drown like it ends up being respiratory. Yeah, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.040 usually go, but it's there's a lot of forms of it, 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.360 and he doesn't have either one of those conditions, so 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.800 he's good to go. Basically and has or has been 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.800 for a long time, especially with this talking box. Yeah, 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.960 he controls that with his cheek. Now, I have no 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.640 idea how that works though. So Um, he's got the 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.360 A L. S. Luke Garrig's disease, that's right, Um, but 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.200 he hasn't really let it slow him down. Prior to that, 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:31.640 he wasn't exactly like a real athletic type anyway. But 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:33.920 he was on the rowing team at Oxford, which was 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:38.360 a huge deal. Rowing team at Oxford equals um football 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.920 team at Georgia, sure, maybe even more. What's more than 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:48.520 that football team in Ohio state? Even Oh that's more lately? 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.200 Did you see the Vanderbilt came Yeah, I don't want 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.560 to talk about that. I don't neither. So um, he 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.160 was the coxswain on the rowing team. He's the guy 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.320 who goes stroke stroke stroke, And I did know this 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.040 until I read this article. The coxwain doesn't just set 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.800 the rhythm for a rowing they also steer. You didn't 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:08.480 know that, No, I had no idea. Yeah, I thought 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.040 it was strictly um being basically like a human metronome, 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.720 you know. But he, Um, this little pip squeaky guy 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.320 was on the rowing team as the coxwain and like 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.920 really became popular, so much so that while he was 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.199 at Oxford, he kind of threw himself into the rowing 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.000 team or crew as we call it in America. Yeah, 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.120 to the detriment of his studies, even for a while. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:38.600 Um and speaking of studies, he getting an Oxford wasn't 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.120 a foregone conclusion for this guy because he wasn't a 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:45.600 great student in grade school. And um, I wasn't so 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.360 surprised by that that he was average too poor in 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.959 grade school, because I think a lot of these super geniuses, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.360 it's like it's so not even beneath them, but they're 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.080 still beyond that. They might have a hard time and 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.360 just in regular class room settings, you know. Oh yeah, 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.559 so it was challenged, like you're probably not going to 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.960 do very well in school. So those of you who 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.880 are board in school and don't have good grades, don't 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.520 go up. Hope you may be a genius. Yeah, But 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.720 even at the time, uh, there was something about him, 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.640 like he was obviously a smart kid even though he 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.960 wasn't getting good grades. Because his school his classmates named him, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.440 nicknamed him Einstein, which is about as pression as you 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.520 can get and it wasn't because of his fluffy white 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.600 mustache in the fourth grade. But his parents both went 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.880 to Oxford and they wanted him to go there. And um, 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.720 he was a great test taker and he aced his exams, 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:44.120 almost got a perfect score on the physics exam unsurprisingly, 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.720 but rather than going into physics, his father, Frank I 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.400 believe his name is, said, no, I want you to 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.280 be a doctor. You're going to serve the world by 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.240 being a doctor. And so uh, a little Stephen goes 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.480 and tries to take some biology classes and says, this 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:05.240 is sciences is imprecise, it's descriptive, it's subjective, Like I 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.080 can't be no, I don't want to do this. Yeah. 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:12.120 He was not into biology. Um, and I wasn't either, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:14.840 but he was way into physics, whereas I was not. 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.240 Um And when he went to Oxford, they were like, well, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.880 we got a couple of programs. We have the traditional 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.320 particle physics where you study sub atomic particles and that's 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.800 old school, where we have this newish kind of thing 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.160 called cosmology, which isn't even a isn't even a real 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.800 field yet, like we're trying it out here. Yeah, and 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.080 he was like, I am all over that because I 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:41.400 want to learn about bigger things, not smaller things. Yeah, 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:45.760 because they're basically the two different approaches to the same thing. 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.720 Like particles studies the very small parts that make up 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.000 the universe, and cosmology is the sum of those parts 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:53.760 and how they interact. Yeah, of course he would get 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.480 into both eventually. Yeah, well, I think you kind of 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:00.240 have to have an understanding both else you're just Although 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.800 bet if your particle physicist, you can just kind of 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.280 be in your lab running tests and setting out data, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.120 and the cosmologists use that as well. Yeah, but because back, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.400 I'm sure it's I bet cosmology. I bet they study 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.719 particle physics more than particle physics. People study cosmology. We'll 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.880 prove us wrong. People prove us wrong. That was the 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.160 nerdiest like exchange we've ever had. I think it's up 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.720 there for sure. So out of the study of cosmology, UM, 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.439 his probably his biggest contribution to date to science to 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.079 cosmology popular culture would be A Brief History of Time, 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.600 But his biggest contribution to his field is UM something 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.240 that the author of this article calls the boundless universe theory, 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.199 which I couldn't really find anywhere else every everywhere else 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.760 on the internet. If the type in boundless universe theory, 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.480 it just brings up this article and like people copying 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.040 and pasting this article in the body. Yeah, did this 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:01.839 guy invent this title? And I don't. Yeah, I guess so, 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.680 because there is something out there that describes this, but 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.520 nobody else calls it boundless universe theory. Really yeah, but 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.560 this is the big contribution. And here it's about the 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.040 time that your brain will start to melt. Uh. Yes, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.280 he worked with the guy named Jim Hartle and came 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:28.679 up with a theory in that the universe is limitless. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.120 Yet why is that funny? I could actually hear the 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:38.000 hyphen in the Yeah. Uh, it is a contained thing 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.040 yet it has no boundaries. Right, So, like I said, 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.320 your mind melts. But wait, this is why Stephen Hawking 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.880 is awesome. How can that be? Josh, Well, he says, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:52.719 visualize the Earth, the service of the Earth. It's it's contained, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.719 but it's also boundless. Like if you travel across the 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.120 edge of the Earth, you never reached the edge. True, 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:01.920 So he said, it's just visualize the surface of the Earth. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.199 But the surface of the Earth is you know, two dimensional, 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.079 This is four dimensional. See, that's where my mind is 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.800 already blown. Yeah. I didn't even try to follow that. 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.240 But what what they're saying is um and the larger 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.200 implication of this is that what Um, Hardle and Hawking 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:24.160 did was they took Richard Feynman's quantum theory of the 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.640 universe and married it to Einstein's theory of relativity to 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.960 come up with this idea that the universe didn't emerge 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:37.000 from a black hole. Um. Instead, it it came out 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.600 of the Big Bang, and as a result, spacetime, which 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.560 is exactly what it sounds like, travels if you're looking 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.480 at it like a a the Earth, the Big Bank 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.400 takes place of the north pole. So as you're traveling 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:57.400 southward towards the equator, these lines of latitude get bigger, right, 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.520 and Um, those represents space time. So it's kind of 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.800 like time doesn't exist. And I don't think that's true, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.560 So don't email me. I'm just saying my own interpretation 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.040 of this. At the Big Bang Big Bang happens, time 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:15.160 and space start to exist. They go outward expanding, and 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.840 then once you hit the equator, that's the apex, that's 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:19.560 the peak, and then they start to come back in. 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:25.080 And the the upshot of this is that eventually, by 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.160 Hawkings reckoning, in about twenty billion years, spacetime will collapse 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.680 in on itself again, meaning our entire universe will collapse 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:40.000 upon itself. Yeah, it's finite, but it's boundless, mind blown, right, 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:42.320 And like Chuck, what we just did, like isn't even 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.880 It's probably the most rickety terrible interpretation of the of 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:52.520 that ever, but I think that that's generally the it's 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.280 it's an interpretation. Hey, I got one for you, okay, 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.160 if we're listening Hawking things, And I just found this 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.920 out today, did you know that he had a really 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:07.800 bad situation with his second wife. No, he married his 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.000 first wife, Jane, and credits her with giving him reasons 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.360 to live, like right after he was diagnosed, Like he 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:19.640 met her the week he was diagnosed, and that's what 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:21.920 they're making this love story about. And they were married 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.520 for quite a long time until the mid nineties and 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.120 they divorced and he married one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:37.360 and reportedly she was an awful, awful person. Reportedly reportedly 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.840 like basically everybody who knew her, like he was sort 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:43.920 of strange from his family for a long time because 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:49.080 of her controlling, manipulative bullying and rumors and investigations into 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.400 the fact that she may have physically abused him. Yeah, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.520 his wife and nurse uh fractured his wrists by slamming 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.240 it onto a wheelchair. And this is all allegedly because 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.320 he denied it. But people close to him said he 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.640 would never admit that, because that would admit that he 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:11.840 really screwed up by making this decision. Ah let him 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.399 pee himself by like not giving him his you know, 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.399 the means to do so. She uh submerged him in 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.959 a bathtub, like letting his tricky outomy tube fill up 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.919 with water. Oh my god, and left him out in 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:28.600 the sun and like the hottest days of the year. 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.399 He had heat stroke and severe sunburned. And he denied that. 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.040 They investigated, and basically the cops wal there was nothing 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.680 we can do. He's saying the stuff didn't happen. Yet 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:39.879 he would show up like bruises and cuts and things 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.040 and say, yeah, like I've ran into a door again today. 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:45.760 They're like, you're in a wheelchair. You can't really do that. 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.880 I guess you can. Um And they divorced in two 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:55.719 thousand six, when did they get married? So there's a 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.320 Vanity Fair article about it was like really disturbing. Any 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.560 of that true, that's awful, let alone all of it 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:06.760 combined together. Jeez. So there's that that was that was uplifting, Chuck, 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:13.359 I've got one for you. Um he. A couple of 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:18.400 years back, HuffPo reported that, um he was a frequent 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:24.119 visitor to a California sex club, Freedom Makers, and like 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.160 some somebody who went there said that like he, they'd 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.800 seen him there more than a handful of times. Interesting 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.080 like basically getting laft and it's pretty unmistakable guy. Yeah, 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.439 doubt he would confuse him. But Oxford, I believe it 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.520 was Oxford came out and said that is b s. 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.960 He did go to this place once basically like as 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:46.119 a joke, as the guest of a friend or something 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.399 like that. But he's certainly not a member. He's certainly 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.160 not a frequent visitor. And like this person who's saying 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.199 this is a liar. Thin got dropped after that, but he, 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:59.480 um he, he does have a great wit. That's another 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.080 thing he's known for being a charmer. Yeah, and um 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.040 the he was asked I think the Guardian asked him, like, 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.760 if there's anything that he didn't understand or that baffled 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.040 them in the universe. And his answer was women said, 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.320 they're a total mystery to me. So there is at 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:21.560 least one thing, but black holes not the case. Yeah, 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:23.480 he lost a bet on black holes and was man 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.320 enough to admit it. In two thousand four. Uh, he 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:34.240 made a bet with um, a fellow scientist named John Preskill. Yeah, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.120 and they did well. I let's talk about black holes 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:39.680 for a second here. I guess. Stars are these big, 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.359 huge things that burned tons of energy, the sons of 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.000 star Son is a star. You should go back and 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.040 revisit our Sun podcast. That's a great one. Uh. And 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.320 they have a ton of mass and a ton of gravity, 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.680 which is great as long as they're burning and doing 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.320 fine because there are nuclear explosions pushing outward. Yeah, just 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.719 gravities ing it inwards. So they find this happy balance 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.000 massive amounts of mass and gravity. When they die, though, 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:11.080 something bad happens and the gravity says, I am funny, 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.680 something bad happened. That's hilarious. Well, if you're a star, 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.480 I guess, um, unless like that's the apex of being 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:20.560 a star. Maybe, man I get to be a black 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.399 hole to burn out. Well, that was a spoiler. They 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.880 become black holes because gravity wins out and becomes stronger 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:29.840 and it collapses on itself. And that that is what 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.480 a black hole is, right. It's just all the matter 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.320 in the star combined in this little dense ball that's 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.280 so dense and has such an amount of mass clustered 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.880 into one little part that it actually bends the fabric 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.680 of space and time. And so that's your black hole. 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.639 It's really a black well in the fabric of space 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.440 and time. Uh. And so that's a black hole. And supposedly, no, not, 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.680 not even light can escape once it passes an event horizon. 0:20:57.359 --> 0:20:59.920 And um, who did he have the bet with pres Skill? 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:02.919 So press Skill and Hawking disagreed about whether or not 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:09.080 anything called information, which would be light, particles, anything, anything 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.920 at all escaping black holes. Hawking said no, Preskill said yes. 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.480 And then later on Hawking figured out that Prescoe was right, um, 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.399 that if you did go into a black hole, you 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:23.200 would get all jumbled up and distorted, but you information 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:28.520 about you, particles, whatever could escape. Um. And therefore there's 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.199 no such thing as a true event horizon. There's a 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.880 pseudo event horizon, because if you have a genuine event horizon, 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.359 nothing could ever come back out. I wonder what the 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:41.120 bet was. They don't, they don't say. I found out 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.520 it was a m because it was information escaping a 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:52.240 black hole. They they they bet um and an encyclopedia 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.040 of the winner's choice, and encyclopedia being a place from 0:21:55.080 --> 0:22:00.240 which information is easily retrieved. And I think press Gil 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.120 wanted a baseball encyclopedia because you know, smart guys, they're 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.480 into sports. They're into baseball. Yeah, that's true. It's the 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.439 thinking man's game. Um. I thought it might have been 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.959 a trip back to the gentleman's club freedommakers. Yeah, you're 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.520 buying all right. Here's one that I didn't realize. Uh. 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.080 He's written to children's books with his daughter Lucy, and 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.320 they have a trilogy and uh, the first one in 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.080 two thousand and seven was called Georgia's Secret Key to 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.639 the Universe and it's about a little boy named George 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.439 who has these leadite parents that he can't stand, so 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.280 he kills them. He doesn't kill them, um, but technology 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:43.080 to kill him. Nobody has a neighbor who he really 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.760 cottons too because he's a physicist and has a computer. 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.080 It just happens to have the most powerful computer in 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.080 the world at his house, that's right. And that computer 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.800 offers offers portals that they can see into outer space. 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.480 So George is super stoked about this, right, So there's 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.199 Georgia's Secret Key of the Universe. They followed that with 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.439 George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, and then in two eleven they 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:05.800 had George in The Big Bang. Yeah, and that was 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:10.120 their children's book trilogy. And I think when they interviewed 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.919 Lucy In and him, people are like, we shouldn't be 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.159 surprised because this is sort of just another extension of 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:18.000 what he's trying to do his whole life, which is 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.679 explained things. And that's what the book does for children. 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:24.320 It's it's not just a fantastical story. It kind of 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:27.080 introduces them to things like physics and black holes and 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.920 or black wells. Right, you're gonna coin that, I think 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.520 if somebody else already has um. All right, well, chuck, 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:37.800 before we keep going. We got some more stuff up 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.760 our sleep, possibly the most surprising things you can think of, 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:51.520 That about Hawking coming up after this message break. All right, 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.560 so you're about to blow my doors with some surprises. Okay, 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:57.800