1
00:00:08,440 --> 00:00:10,720
Speaker 1: Hey or heey? Do you think we should try to

2
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:15,120
Speaker 1: make physics cool? Isn't that an oxymoron? What do you mean,

3
00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:19,000
Speaker 1: like connected to like the latest fat in the culture. Yeah,

4
00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:21,400
Speaker 1: I was wondering if it might not be too late

5
00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:26,479
Speaker 1: to ride the wave of the popularity of zombies. Well,

6
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:29,960
Speaker 1: zombies in popular culture just keep coming back like real zombies,

7
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,200
Speaker 1: So why not You don't think that they've like jumped

8
00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:35,279
Speaker 1: the shark already. I mean, the Walking Dead came out

9
00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:38,760
Speaker 1: like ten years ago. Well that that show definitely jumped

10
00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:41,920
Speaker 1: the zombie shark. But no, it's it's had a little

11
00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,159
Speaker 1: bit of a renaissance lately. Well, then maybe it's a

12
00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:46,760
Speaker 1: perfect time for physics to get into the zombie game.

13
00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:49,559
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's such a good idea. Man. Well,

14
00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:53,239
Speaker 1: you know, we're experts at like giving new, confusing meetings

15
00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:55,760
Speaker 1: to words that people already understand. You know, we did

16
00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:58,240
Speaker 1: it for Color, for Spin, for Flavor. Now it's time

17
00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:01,320
Speaker 1: to do it for zombies. Are you writing a movie

18
00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:05,200
Speaker 1: called Quantum Zombies or Attack of the Zombie Courks? I

19
00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:25,040
Speaker 1: am now dumb run Hi, I'm poor Handmay cartoonists and

20
00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:27,840
Speaker 1: the creator of PhD comics. Hi I'm Daniel. I'm a

21
00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:31,160
Speaker 1: particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I

22
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:33,679
Speaker 1: have never finished a zombie movie. What do you mean

23
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:37,200
Speaker 1: you've never finished making one or finished watching one? How

24
00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:39,960
Speaker 1: many zombie movies have you try to make? I have

25
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,480
Speaker 1: made zero zombie movies. I have finished watching zero zombie movies.

26
00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 1: None of the above? Really? Why not? They just haven't

27
00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:49,360
Speaker 1: been any good? Or you don't like the zombie genre.

28
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 1: I haven't seen one yet that really clicks for me.

29
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:54,880
Speaker 1: You know, usually it's just ridiculous. The science isn't well explained,

30
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:58,360
Speaker 1: the zombies are slow and shuffling, or the action is

31
00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:01,160
Speaker 1: all the same, like, boom, blow up a zombie's head, Boom,

32
00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:03,520
Speaker 1: low zombie's head. It's just the same thing over and

33
00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:05,640
Speaker 1: over again. Oh man, you just haven't been watching the

34
00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:08,120
Speaker 1: right zombie movies. Tell me what are the right zombie

35
00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:11,240
Speaker 1: Give me Orges top zombie movies. Well I have. I

36
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:13,880
Speaker 1: have a bit of an undead relationship with zombie the

37
00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:16,440
Speaker 1: zombie Joe. What do you mean you're love for it

38
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: died and then came back? Yes, kind of. I can't

39
00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:22,720
Speaker 1: stand them. I hate them, and yet I can't stop

40
00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,639
Speaker 1: watching them. I am fascinated by the whole genre. You're

41
00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:31,360
Speaker 1: slowly shuffling towards even as you say no, no, Well,

42
00:02:31,400 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 1: I can tell your zombie new because the sort of

43
00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:38,239
Speaker 1: the latest flavor of zombies. They're fastened, they're lethal, ferocious. Yeah,

44
00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:40,280
Speaker 1: can they hold a conversation? Some of them now they

45
00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:43,920
Speaker 1: can yet? Watch Zombies got lines now it must be

46
00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:46,639
Speaker 1: the Zombie Union has really done some negotia. Yeah, there's

47
00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:49,320
Speaker 1: something I'll call half beat. If you're watching the latest

48
00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:51,840
Speaker 1: Netflix zombie show, what did you say? A half beat?

49
00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:55,520
Speaker 1: Have beat like a zombie, but a half zombie. That

50
00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:58,840
Speaker 1: sounds like something in a quantum superposition of human and zombie.

51
00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:01,240
Speaker 1: It does sound like something a physicism would come up

52
00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:05,320
Speaker 1: with for a zombie show. But anyways, Welcome to our podcast.

53
00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:09,119
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explain the Zombie Universe, a production of

54
00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:11,760
Speaker 1: Our Heart Radio in which we hope to infect your

55
00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:15,560
Speaker 1: brain with the crazy virus that is reality. All of

56
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 1: the amazing things that are out there in the universe

57
00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:20,120
Speaker 1: that we understand, and all the incredible things that are

58
00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:22,880
Speaker 1: out there in the universe that we do not yet understand,

59
00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:25,200
Speaker 1: things that are blowing up and things that are blowing

60
00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:27,560
Speaker 1: our minds we think about all of it, we talk

61
00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:29,360
Speaker 1: about all of it, we joke about all of it,

62
00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,520
Speaker 1: and we explain all of it to you. That's right.

63
00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:33,600
Speaker 1: We want to bring back from the dead that fascination

64
00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 1: you had as a kid about the universe and everything

65
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,560
Speaker 1: in it, about how everything seemed amazing and wonderful and mysterious.

66
00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:41,520
Speaker 1: We like to talk about all of those things that

67
00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:43,600
Speaker 1: you can still see out there when you look out

68
00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:46,680
Speaker 1: into the night. Kind And so, if I've never lost

69
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,040
Speaker 1: my love for the universe, does that mean that I'm

70
00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:51,720
Speaker 1: still dead or I've always been a zombie? How does

71
00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:54,040
Speaker 1: that work? It means you haven't turned into a zombie

72
00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:57,280
Speaker 1: physic zombie. That's just in my future. Huh. If you

73
00:03:57,320 --> 00:03:59,520
Speaker 1: get bitten by a physicist, although if you get bitten

74
00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:01,920
Speaker 1: by a radio active physicists, maybe that's a whole different

75
00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:06,760
Speaker 1: genre altogether. Then you get that physicist proportional intelligence or something. Well,

76
00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:11,480
Speaker 1: it's hard to go down from where you Well, I'll

77
00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:13,920
Speaker 1: try not to get bitten by a radioactive cartoonist. But

78
00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:16,080
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not the first person to think about

79
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:20,960
Speaker 1: the idea of combining quantum mechanics and zombies. That's right. Yeah,

80
00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:23,680
Speaker 1: it's a big part of the Marvel universe now, at

81
00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:26,640
Speaker 1: least in the Marvel multi universe. Yeah, that's right. It's

82
00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:30,240
Speaker 1: something called the quantum virus, virus that originated in the

83
00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:34,280
Speaker 1: quantum realm and can turn his host into a quantum zombie.

84
00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:37,280
Speaker 1: Whatever that is. Wow, I'm surprised you watched that episode

85
00:04:37,320 --> 00:04:40,360
Speaker 1: of What If? I did say. I watched that episode

86
00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:44,520
Speaker 1: internet googling. Oh I see, oh I see. You did

87
00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:50,080
Speaker 1: no research for this episode today, minimal, minimal research, surface

88
00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:53,320
Speaker 1: level zombie research. As much zombie research as I could stomach.

89
00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:55,440
Speaker 1: That was a great episode. I think the original Adman

90
00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:58,080
Speaker 1: went into the quantum realm and somehow got infected by

91
00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:01,159
Speaker 1: a quantum virus and then turn into a zombie. And

92
00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:03,479
Speaker 1: then when he came back, everyone turned into a zombie.

93
00:05:03,760 --> 00:05:06,640
Speaker 1: All the superheroes turned into zombies. So where's the quantum mechanics?

94
00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:09,080
Speaker 1: It just the virus came from the quantum realm. That's it.

95
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:13,040
Speaker 1: Do you need more? What more? Do you say the

96
00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:15,719
Speaker 1: word quantum and it shuts down the conversation? You know?

97
00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:18,200
Speaker 1: That's exactly how my son described it after we watched

98
00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,240
Speaker 1: a Marvel movie together. He said, do people just say

99
00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:24,320
Speaker 1: quantum when they mean you won't understand the science. Wow,

100
00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:26,960
Speaker 1: and what did you say. I said, that's exactly what

101
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:31,080
Speaker 1: they usually. It means they don't understand the science, so

102
00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,919
Speaker 1: they can't explain it to you. Well, it's kind of

103
00:05:33,960 --> 00:05:37,160
Speaker 1: interesting because now the Marvel universe is all about the multiverse, right,

104
00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:39,679
Speaker 1: which could be a quantum idea. Yeah. Well, there's millions

105
00:05:39,720 --> 00:05:42,560
Speaker 1: more universes, so millions more ways to make money. And

106
00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:44,560
Speaker 1: they mix it up with zombies, so you can see

107
00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:47,560
Speaker 1: a zombie Captain America taking on a zombie Iron Man.

108
00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:49,520
Speaker 1: Do zombies go to the movies? I wonder are these

109
00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:54,839
Speaker 1: just for human audiences only if it's a brainy movie. Well,

110
00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:56,839
Speaker 1: we are going to try to apply our brains to

111
00:05:57,080 --> 00:06:00,320
Speaker 1: this universe and to understand whether things out there can

112
00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:04,080
Speaker 1: die and maybe even come back to life, because there

113
00:06:04,120 --> 00:06:07,239
Speaker 1: are so many strange things out there in the universe.

114
00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:09,320
Speaker 1: Every time we look deeper in the universe, we find

115
00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:13,159
Speaker 1: something weird, something bizarre, something strange, something we never expected

116
00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,080
Speaker 1: to see. Yeah, it is a pretty bizarre universe, and

117
00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:19,200
Speaker 1: sometimes things sort of come back to life, almost sort

118
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:21,840
Speaker 1: of like zombies. Everything in the universe has a second act.

119
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,960
Speaker 1: And speaking of rebirth and birth, I want to take

120
00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:28,360
Speaker 1: a moment to wish a very special thirty fifth birthday

121
00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:32,560
Speaker 1: to one of our listeners, Agnish Sabulci, have a very

122
00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:36,000
Speaker 1: happy birthday, Agnish, and a very nice week visiting your family.

123
00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,880
Speaker 1: In fact, you are made out of stuff from a

124
00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:42,600
Speaker 1: star that once exploded and sprayed those heavy elements out

125
00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:45,280
Speaker 1: into the cosmos. So everything that you were made of

126
00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:48,279
Speaker 1: was once part of a burning star. So in that sense,

127
00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:52,040
Speaker 1: we are all cosmic zombies. Are you saying, Daniel, that

128
00:06:52,279 --> 00:06:55,039
Speaker 1: our son like us? Right now? We're the sequel, We're

129
00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:58,080
Speaker 1: not the original production. Yeah, we might not even be

130
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:00,320
Speaker 1: the sequel. We could be the third generation or the

131
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:03,680
Speaker 1: fourth generation. We did an episode about how many generations

132
00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:05,919
Speaker 1: of stars there might be, and how many generations of

133
00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,880
Speaker 1: stars there might have already been. We could be a mixture.

134
00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:10,640
Speaker 1: Some of our elements could have been in two or

135
00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:13,880
Speaker 1: three Stars already, and others could still be fresh from

136
00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:17,160
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. So we are like a zombie casserole

137
00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:22,520
Speaker 1: where the reboot, where the slightly warmed up remake exactly

138
00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:29,160
Speaker 1: the unimaginative castion of intellectual property strip mining. I guess

139
00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:32,280
Speaker 1: all of Hollywood is full of zombies. Kind of true

140
00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:36,120
Speaker 1: shuffling about trying to eat your brain. Every canceled TV

141
00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:40,040
Speaker 1: show eventually comes back to life with a younger cast,

142
00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:43,640
Speaker 1: better looking casts. Usually sometimes I think there's a new

143
00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,480
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park movie coming out that has the original cast

144
00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:49,480
Speaker 1: from the first movie. I'm amazed those folks are still alive.

145
00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:52,640
Speaker 1: Or maybe they're not. Maybe the cost their zombie versions.

146
00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,760
Speaker 1: Maybe the dinosaurs are Oh my goodness, you just give

147
00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:59,800
Speaker 1: me an idea, dino zombies. I'm sure somebody in Hollywood

148
00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:02,840
Speaker 1: is it's that to somebody else already. Let me call

149
00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:06,440
Speaker 1: the Discovery Channel. They we'll have a shared universe with

150
00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:10,600
Speaker 1: the sharknadoes and alligator Hurricane. I'm already looking forward to

151
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:16,200
Speaker 1: the zombie dinosaur Tornado sequel crossover event. That's right, that

152
00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:23,120
Speaker 1: those would be the quantum dinosaurs. No God, they'll be

153
00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:27,080
Speaker 1: both brilliant and terrible at the same time. Don't collapse

154
00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:30,160
Speaker 1: the wave function at your own peril. It's called the

155
00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:34,080
Speaker 1: Heisenberg Hollywood principle. But anyways, it is a pretty interesting

156
00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:36,720
Speaker 1: universe full of life cycles. Things that have come into

157
00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:39,400
Speaker 1: being and then explode or fade away, but then they

158
00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:42,000
Speaker 1: have a way sometimes of coming back. In this universe,

159
00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,040
Speaker 1: and apparently it happens also with stars. That's right. Stars

160
00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:49,080
Speaker 1: have lots of different ways to live out their life cycle.

161
00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:51,720
Speaker 1: They can burn on for trillions of years if they're

162
00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:54,319
Speaker 1: very small, or they may very rapidly burn up their

163
00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:58,520
Speaker 1: fuel and end in a cataclysmic explosion, a supernova that

164
00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:00,800
Speaker 1: tears it apart. And you I think that a super

165
00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:03,719
Speaker 1: over will always kill a star, would shred it from

166
00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:07,120
Speaker 1: the inside and destroy any chance of its future burning.

167
00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:09,840
Speaker 1: But that might not always be the case. So to

168
00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:16,960
Speaker 1: be on the podcast will be tackling the question what

169
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:20,840
Speaker 1: is a zombie star now, Daniel? Is this a star

170
00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:23,840
Speaker 1: that's a zombie or like a zombie that's also like

171
00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:27,760
Speaker 1: a Hollywood star? That's right, This is a zombie whose

172
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:31,240
Speaker 1: career is really on the rise, and a list zombie

173
00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:34,920
Speaker 1: was that it's supposed to be a zombie punt? Yeah, exactly.

174
00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,720
Speaker 1: You know, we resurrected their career from the dead. You know,

175
00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:40,640
Speaker 1: for example John Travolta, he is a zombie career, right.

176
00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:45,000
Speaker 1: You know these are after physical objects, not folks in Hollywood.

177
00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:47,880
Speaker 1: This is not, after all, an entertainment podcast, as much

178
00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:51,960
Speaker 1: as we'd like it to be sometimes, So Zombie Stars,

179
00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:54,200
Speaker 1: is that the official physics term or is that just

180
00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:56,800
Speaker 1: what you're calling them. I did not invent this term.

181
00:09:56,920 --> 00:09:59,360
Speaker 1: This is a term that exists in science. Is the

182
00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:02,839
Speaker 1: term of those co into by astrophysicists. And as you learn,

183
00:10:02,920 --> 00:10:05,400
Speaker 1: I think it's actually a pretty good description. Interesting, and

184
00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:08,240
Speaker 1: these are these related to z bosons? Is that what

185
00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:13,000
Speaker 1: the z and the z boson is zombie boon? No,

186
00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:15,280
Speaker 1: that's what zombies exchange when they meet each other. No,

187
00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:17,520
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with z bosons. Though. It

188
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:20,280
Speaker 1: would be awesome if you could form a star purely

189
00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:22,520
Speaker 1: out of z boson, So that would be a very

190
00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:25,920
Speaker 1: weird kind of matter. Interesting. And then it dies and

191
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:29,319
Speaker 1: becomes a zz boson star, or it maybe turns into

192
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:31,680
Speaker 1: a different kind of court, then it'll be the zz

193
00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:34,960
Speaker 1: top cor And I don't even know where this is going,

194
00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:38,040
Speaker 1: but anyways, we're wondering how many people out there had

195
00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:41,160
Speaker 1: heard of this term zombie star and whether or not

196
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:43,920
Speaker 1: it's meet it out into the public like zombie virus.

197
00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:45,719
Speaker 1: So Daniel went out there into the wilds of the

198
00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:49,000
Speaker 1: internet to ask people what do they think is a

199
00:10:49,080 --> 00:10:52,440
Speaker 1: zombie star? So thank you to everybody who volunteers to

200
00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:55,640
Speaker 1: answer these questions. Whereas on the podcast. It's super helpful.

201
00:10:55,760 --> 00:10:57,480
Speaker 1: If you're out there and you've been listening to the

202
00:10:57,520 --> 00:10:59,440
Speaker 1: podcast for a while and you would like to hear

203
00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:02,320
Speaker 1: your one voice in the podcast. Please don't be shy.

204
00:11:02,559 --> 00:11:05,160
Speaker 1: Just write to me two questions at Daniel and Jorge

205
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:07,720
Speaker 1: dot com and I'll let you know how to participate.

206
00:11:07,800 --> 00:11:09,440
Speaker 1: To think about it for a second, what comes to

207
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:12,480
Speaker 1: mind when you think of a zombie star. Here's what

208
00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:15,000
Speaker 1: people have to say. I'm gonna take a wild guess

209
00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:17,840
Speaker 1: and say that a zombie star is a star that

210
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:23,120
Speaker 1: continues to live by sucking material, sucking mass out of

211
00:11:23,280 --> 00:11:26,680
Speaker 1: a nearby star. They can be killed with a neutron

212
00:11:26,720 --> 00:11:30,640
Speaker 1: bullet to the head. The zombie stars, I think it's

213
00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:38,640
Speaker 1: the type of remnant star after a supernova. Zombie stars,

214
00:11:38,960 --> 00:11:42,840
Speaker 1: I suppose, are stars that have used up all of

215
00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:47,080
Speaker 1: their stellar material but have stayed small enough to not

216
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:50,200
Speaker 1: explode or become black holes. And so they maybe are

217
00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:56,760
Speaker 1: brown dwarf stars that perhaps crash into another star of

218
00:11:56,920 --> 00:12:01,080
Speaker 1: enough mass that the whole thing will reignite away, reanimating

219
00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:05,680
Speaker 1: a dead star like a zombie. Zombie stars are stars

220
00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:10,240
Speaker 1: that blew up and went cold and then got it up.

221
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:15,160
Speaker 1: Some yeah, some new materials like new Maybe they went

222
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:18,960
Speaker 1: through a field of gas or something of hydrogen and

223
00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:23,160
Speaker 1: reached critical mass again and fired up again, and yeah,

224
00:12:23,480 --> 00:12:29,000
Speaker 1: now they're one stead but alive again, basically like rogue

225
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:32,000
Speaker 1: dead stars that didn't collapse into a black hole. I

226
00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:35,000
Speaker 1: have no idea, but I'm going to guess that it

227
00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:39,319
Speaker 1: has to do with a start dying and not exploding

228
00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:42,000
Speaker 1: or turning into a black hole. Maybe it's mass is

229
00:12:42,040 --> 00:12:45,600
Speaker 1: not massive enough to create a singularity, and so that

230
00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:49,959
Speaker 1: star just burns out and just stays out there, dead,

231
00:12:50,440 --> 00:12:55,800
Speaker 1: encircling a galaxy. Uh, stars just wandering the universe that

232
00:12:55,960 --> 00:12:59,840
Speaker 1: don't have, you know, a stable place where they exist.

233
00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: Maybe stars that are appeared to be dead but then

234
00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:09,040
Speaker 1: they come to back to life or something to do

235
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:13,520
Speaker 1: with the cranberries. Of course, there are stars which were

236
00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:20,360
Speaker 1: dead so after they were super nova they somehow start

237
00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:25,360
Speaker 1: capturing material and comm alive again. But that would be

238
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:28,760
Speaker 1: close to what class hours are, but class ours are

239
00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:34,000
Speaker 1: for black holes. No idea, stars that are dead but

240
00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:38,559
Speaker 1: still produced light. All right, it seems pretty much everyone

241
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:41,920
Speaker 1: I knew exactly what you were talking about. That that's

242
00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:44,760
Speaker 1: that's a very powerful thing about the word zombie it's

243
00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:47,600
Speaker 1: like you you kind of everyone knows what that means. Yeah,

244
00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:51,679
Speaker 1: I think it's actually a well named phenomena in after physics, right,

245
00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:56,280
Speaker 1: I don't really believe that they actually call these zombie stars.

246
00:13:56,559 --> 00:13:59,280
Speaker 1: Show me the paper, all right, will include a link

247
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,840
Speaker 1: to the paper in the show notes, so that everybody

248
00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:04,880
Speaker 1: can verify for themselves that I have not fabricated this.

249
00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:06,760
Speaker 1: But if I did fabricated, then I should get the

250
00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:09,800
Speaker 1: credit for naming these things zombie stars. So in fact, yeah, sure,

251
00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:13,920
Speaker 1: I'm happy to take the credit. This was my brilliant idea. Wow. Yeah,

252
00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:16,840
Speaker 1: I feel like you're gaslighting me. Now you're both asserted

253
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:18,400
Speaker 1: that you came up with it and that you didn't

254
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:21,000
Speaker 1: come up with it. That's right, it's quantum credit. It's

255
00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:27,800
Speaker 1: quite quantum plagiarism. No, but everyone seems to sort of

256
00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:30,120
Speaker 1: kind of know what you're talking about, or at least

257
00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:31,880
Speaker 1: how I think they have an idea what you're talking about,

258
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,400
Speaker 1: Like a star that dies and then comes back to life?

259
00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:37,680
Speaker 1: Daniel stepp us through here. What is a zombie star?

260
00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:39,640
Speaker 1: How do you define a star that dies and then

261
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:42,480
Speaker 1: comes back? Yeah, so a zombie star is exactly that.

262
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,120
Speaker 1: It's a star that sort of survives its own death.

263
00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:47,280
Speaker 1: And you might be wondering, well, you know, how do

264
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:50,640
Speaker 1: stars die? What does that mean? Well, the most spectacular

265
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 1: way for a star to end its life or to

266
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 1: die is to blow up, is to go supernova. That's

267
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:59,240
Speaker 1: when it stars, gravity can no longer contain it, and

268
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,560
Speaker 1: it erupts and sprays its material out into space and

269
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:06,920
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily bright for a very brief amount of time. Right,

270
00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 1: But there, I think there are several kinds of supernova's. Right,

271
00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:12,920
Speaker 1: then one of them it actually happens when it runs

272
00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:16,360
Speaker 1: out of fuel and gravity takes over. Right, that's right.

273
00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:18,920
Speaker 1: There's a couple of different varieties of supernova. Actually there's

274
00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:22,000
Speaker 1: lots of different varieties, but sort of two major categories.

275
00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:24,040
Speaker 1: The one that people typically think about it is called

276
00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:27,000
Speaker 1: a core collapse supernova. That's when you have a star

277
00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:29,440
Speaker 1: that's like ten to a hundred times the mass of

278
00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:32,800
Speaker 1: the Sun, so a really big massive star. And at

279
00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 1: the heart of the star, remember what's happening is fusion.

280
00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:37,400
Speaker 1: You squeeze together hydrogen to make helium, and then if

281
00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:39,960
Speaker 1: it's a big enough star like these guys, that helium

282
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,360
Speaker 1: then gets fused to make something heavier, and the net

283
00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:44,800
Speaker 1: gets fused to make something heavier, and if you keep

284
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:47,480
Speaker 1: going far enough, you get all the way up to iron.

285
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:50,200
Speaker 1: Problem is, when you fuse iron, it doesn't make any

286
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,400
Speaker 1: more heat, it doesn't fuel the star, doesn't continue the burning.

287
00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,600
Speaker 1: It sucks up heat, so it cools the star down.

288
00:15:57,120 --> 00:15:59,280
Speaker 1: So now all of a sudden, this balance between the

289
00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:02,520
Speaker 1: energy of usuon pushing out on the star and gravity

290
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:06,200
Speaker 1: pushing in is disrupted and the star very suddenly collapses

291
00:16:06,360 --> 00:16:08,920
Speaker 1: and then has this shock wave outwards. So that's a

292
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,680
Speaker 1: core collapse supernova. And these are really dramatic and they

293
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:15,440
Speaker 1: can like trigger the formations of new stars as the

294
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:18,920
Speaker 1: shock wave propagates through the universe. It's really pretty incredible.

295
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:21,880
Speaker 1: That's the core collapse type of supernova. That's one kind.

296
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:24,880
Speaker 1: The kind of we're interesting today is actually not that kind.

297
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:27,960
Speaker 1: It's from the star that didn't make it to supernova

298
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:30,800
Speaker 1: and then later on gets the material that it did.

299
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:34,360
Speaker 1: So that's called the type one A supernova, which is

300
00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:38,000
Speaker 1: different from this core collapse kind of supernova. And I see,

301
00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:40,200
Speaker 1: so we're talking today about the type one A. And

302
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 1: sometimes that type one A can turn into a zombie.

303
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:44,960
Speaker 1: So step us through what's happening in a type one

304
00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:47,240
Speaker 1: A supernova. So the type one A supernova is when

305
00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:49,760
Speaker 1: you have a lower mass star, one that's on its own,

306
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:52,000
Speaker 1: could never become a supernova. So you have like less

307
00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:54,520
Speaker 1: than eight times the mass of the Sun, and this

308
00:16:54,560 --> 00:16:57,400
Speaker 1: thing goes through its normal life cycle, maybe becomes a

309
00:16:57,440 --> 00:17:01,040
Speaker 1: red giant. It burns, the hydrogen burn is the heavier stuff,

310
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:03,800
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have enough mass, for example, to burn

311
00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:07,159
Speaker 1: carbon inside of it. So the carbon that's inside of it,

312
00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:10,640
Speaker 1: it just accumulates like ash. And what happens in these

313
00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:13,199
Speaker 1: stars is that you get a gravitational collapse when it

314
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:15,399
Speaker 1: runs out of fuel, when it can no longer burn

315
00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:18,160
Speaker 1: because now it's just like filled with carbon at its core.

316
00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:20,880
Speaker 1: You get a gravitational collapse, but you don't get a supernova,

317
00:17:20,920 --> 00:17:22,240
Speaker 1: and you don't get a black hole, and you know,

318
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: you don't get a neutron star. What you end up

319
00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:28,120
Speaker 1: with is a white dwarf. A white dwarf is something

320
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,040
Speaker 1: that's no longer fusing. It's just like a big hot

321
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:34,119
Speaker 1: lump of stuff sitting out there in space. It's like

322
00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:37,040
Speaker 1: a mix of oxygen and carbon, but again it doesn't

323
00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:40,440
Speaker 1: have enough mass to keep going, and so most white

324
00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:42,399
Speaker 1: doors just sit out there, and they can sit in

325
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:47,160
Speaker 1: the universe for millions, billions some people think trillions of years,

326
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:50,920
Speaker 1: just sort of glowing and not fusing until eventually they

327
00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,320
Speaker 1: become black dwarves. So that's a typical life cycle for

328
00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:58,440
Speaker 1: a star like that. But sometimes something intervenes. If one

329
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:00,199
Speaker 1: of these white dwarfs is actually the member of a

330
00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:04,560
Speaker 1: binary system, meaning there's another star nearby, then they can

331
00:18:04,560 --> 00:18:06,920
Speaker 1: start to steal some of the material from that other

332
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:10,000
Speaker 1: star and that can trigger a supernova that can give

333
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:12,480
Speaker 1: it enough material to get it like over that hump

334
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:15,840
Speaker 1: to collapse into a supernova. All right, that was kind

335
00:18:15,840 --> 00:18:17,800
Speaker 1: of a lot a lot there, but it sounds like

336
00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:20,640
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a star not much bigger than

337
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:22,720
Speaker 1: our It's like only eight times bigger than our sun.

338
00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:25,640
Speaker 1: And then that kind of happens in the same way

339
00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:28,640
Speaker 1: that's the other stars that do supernova. It runs out

340
00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:32,040
Speaker 1: of things to fuse together, it just doesn't have enough gravity,

341
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:34,560
Speaker 1: and so it collapses and then it just simmers there.

342
00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:36,800
Speaker 1: You're saying, well, what happens is that it collapses, but

343
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:38,960
Speaker 1: not as a supernova. It just sort of like becomes

344
00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:41,960
Speaker 1: a white dwarf and it just sits there hot, glowing

345
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,640
Speaker 1: into the universe until it's a neighbor this binary star.

346
00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:49,159
Speaker 1: Maybe that one becomes a red giant or gets too close,

347
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:51,639
Speaker 1: and then the white dwarf can steal some of the

348
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:54,160
Speaker 1: mass from its neighbor, and now the white dwarf. Otherwise

349
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:56,600
Speaker 1: we just sit there happily. But when this new material

350
00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,520
Speaker 1: accumulates to the surface of the white dwarf, then it

351
00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:02,080
Speaker 1: pushes is it over the limit the gravitation limit for

352
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,880
Speaker 1: a stable white dwarf, and then it collapses. So it's

353
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,400
Speaker 1: like you didn't have enough mass to go for collapse

354
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,479
Speaker 1: from the beginning, like a typical core collapse supernova, but

355
00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:13,240
Speaker 1: instead you've got like a late second helping and it's

356
00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 1: extra stuff you steal from your binary partner that lets

357
00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:19,399
Speaker 1: you collapse to a supernova. And this is a type

358
00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 1: one a supernova, and it's famous because it's helped us

359
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:25,320
Speaker 1: understand like the shape and the acceleration of the universe.

360
00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:28,800
Speaker 1: M I see. So this only happens in binary star systems,

361
00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:31,640
Speaker 1: like star systems with two stars in it or more.

362
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:36,120
Speaker 1: It almost only happens with binary star systems, probably not exclusively,

363
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:40,240
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's the best way to accumulate some extra material.

364
00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:42,679
Speaker 1: So then you have this white dwarf which is just

365
00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,320
Speaker 1: like a ball of oxygen and carbonages simmering, just glowing

366
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:48,800
Speaker 1: there from the heat. And then you're saying, like the

367
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:51,720
Speaker 1: other it's partner stars somehow falls in or get sucked

368
00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:53,760
Speaker 1: in or or what happens to it. Yeah, these two

369
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:55,719
Speaker 1: things can be near each other, and remember a binary

370
00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 1: star system. Eventually they get closer and closer and even merge.

371
00:19:59,240 --> 00:20:01,760
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can them even like one goes inside the

372
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,320
Speaker 1: other star. But eventually these two stars in the binary

373
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:08,159
Speaker 1: system get close enough that the white dwarf can steal

374
00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:10,680
Speaker 1: some of the material from the other one. You've probably

375
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 1: seen these like artistic renditions. You know, you have two stars,

376
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:16,240
Speaker 1: one much bigger than the other one and the smaller

377
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:19,679
Speaker 1: one having this like trail of material accumulating from the

378
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:22,400
Speaker 1: bigger star. And I see they're like rotating around each other.

379
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,800
Speaker 1: But eventually, over time they orbit collapses and it starts

380
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:28,280
Speaker 1: to suck suck it in to the bigger one, which

381
00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:30,760
Speaker 1: is the white dwarf exactly. And if the white dwarf

382
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 1: gets enough material, then it can actually go supernova, and

383
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,360
Speaker 1: it's really fascinating because these white dwarfs are very regular,

384
00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:40,359
Speaker 1: like there's a very specific critical mass at which a

385
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:42,720
Speaker 1: white dwarf will get triggered to go into one of

386
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:45,760
Speaker 1: these type one A supernova, and that makes it very

387
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:48,199
Speaker 1: nice to study because that critical mass is like a

388
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,040
Speaker 1: basic feature of the physics. It's the same everywhere in

389
00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 1: the universe, and that means that these type one A

390
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:56,760
Speaker 1: supernova are very regular. They're sort of easy to standardize.

391
00:20:57,040 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: There's a simple relationship between the light curve, like how

392
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,879
Speaker 1: much light is admitted per time and the true brightness,

393
00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:05,919
Speaker 1: which is one of the things that allows us to

394
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:08,439
Speaker 1: calibrate them, to say, oh, we know how bright it

395
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:10,240
Speaker 1: was at its source, and so we can figure out

396
00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:12,680
Speaker 1: how far away they are. And that's why they played

397
00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,760
Speaker 1: such a crucial role in extending our distance ladder and

398
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:18,960
Speaker 1: helping us understand how far away some of these distant

399
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:22,199
Speaker 1: galaxies are. I think you're saying that this process for

400
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,199
Speaker 1: the supernova through the white dwarf is very repeatable, like

401
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:27,600
Speaker 1: it always kind of happens at the same time or

402
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: at the same point in the life cycle of the

403
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,640
Speaker 1: star YEA. As soon as this white dowarf accumulates enough

404
00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:35,679
Speaker 1: mass and gets over this threshold boom, that's when it

405
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: goes supernova. And so that's very repeatable exactly. And so

406
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 1: the supernova is really pretty incredible process. You know, it's

407
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 1: a supersonic propagation of energy out of the heart of

408
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,960
Speaker 1: the star. You know, the explosion is happening faster than

409
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 1: the speed of sound inside the star, and so it

410
00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:55,600
Speaker 1: builds up this shock wave which propagates out at you know,

411
00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,240
Speaker 1: some like significant fraction of the speed of light. It

412
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 1: can be going like ten kilometers per second through this

413
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:04,960
Speaker 1: stellar material. That's like more than five of the speed

414
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: of light. Wow. All right, well, let's get a little

415
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 1: bit more into detail of what's happening when this thing collapses,

416
00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:14,199
Speaker 1: and let's talk about how that gives rise to zombie stars.

417
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:29,119
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, we

418
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:32,080
Speaker 1: are back from the dad here talking about zombie stars,

419
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:35,920
Speaker 1: stars that come back from the dead, and we talked

420
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,679
Speaker 1: about how you said that these come usually in in

421
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 1: binary star systems, where one of them turns into a

422
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,080
Speaker 1: white dwarf, meaning it runs out of fuel, it collapses,

423
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:46,720
Speaker 1: it's simmering there and then it sucks the mass from

424
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 1: its partner star and somehow that gives it enough I

425
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,400
Speaker 1: don't know, juice to explode. What's happening there, Like it increases.

426
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: It was nice and stable and simmering, but now it

427
00:22:56,359 --> 00:22:58,560
Speaker 1: has extra mass. So what happens? Yeah, Well, the white

428
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: dwarf is stable, and to understand how it becomes unstable

429
00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 1: and turns into a supernova, you have to understand what

430
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: the forces are at play. So pushing it in, of

431
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: course is gravity. Gravity is compressing it. It's very dense,

432
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 1: it's very heavy, so there's a lot of force inwards.

433
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 1: What's pushing out, what's keeping this thing from collapsing into

434
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: a black hole or something else, is actually quantum mechanics.

435
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 1: This thing is super dense, but the electrons that are

436
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 1: inside the white dwarf they don't like to overlap with

437
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 1: each other. Electrons are a special kind of particle. They're

438
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:31,680
Speaker 1: called fermions that don't like to be in the same

439
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,480
Speaker 1: quantum states as any other fermion. So they don't like

440
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: to overlap and they resist, and that's what keeps white

441
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: dwarfs from collapsing. But that's not infinite. If you put

442
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,400
Speaker 1: enough gravitational pressure on this thing, it will eventually collapse

443
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: into a supernova and maybe leave you at the heart

444
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,199
Speaker 1: with a black hole or a neutron star. So what

445
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,879
Speaker 1: you need is more gravity. Which you need is more mass.

446
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: So if you add extra helping of stuff to your

447
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,679
Speaker 1: white dwarf, then it will actually collapse and create a supernova.

448
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: But I guess it's keeping the electrons from collapsing into

449
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 1: each other. You're saying they don't like being together because

450
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: of quantum gravity, But what's the actual force there? Is

451
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: it like an electromagnetic forces kind of repelling each other apart. Yeah,

452
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: that's a really fun question, like what force is actually

453
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 1: at play keeping electrons apart? You know, and you don't

454
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: have to think about everything in physics has happened as

455
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:22,719
Speaker 1: requiring a force. You know, this is just something that

456
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: like quantum mechanically is suppressed. Electrons don't like to do this.

457
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: You can overcome it by squeezing these things down and

458
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: basically having the electrons being captured by the protons that

459
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: are also inside the star, converting them into neutrons, and

460
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: so then you can avoid the electron degeneracy pressure. But

461
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: that takes a lot of energy, a lot of gravitational

462
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: pressure to basically push the electron inside the nucleus, so

463
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: it gets captured and gets converted into a neutron. That's

464
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: not an easy thing to do. Takes a lot of

465
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,160
Speaker 1: gravitational pressure, all right, So then you had this white dwarf.

466
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: It was sitting there. Happily it got more stuff, and

467
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: now it's so heavy that it collapses, like the gravity

468
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: kind of overcome is this propulsion and it collapses. And

469
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 1: then how does that lead to an explosion? Well, it collapses,

470
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: which is an implosion, right, which creates incredible density at

471
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:12,159
Speaker 1: the core, and that triggers basically a thermonuclear explosion. So

472
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:13,919
Speaker 1: it happens there is that all of a sudden, you

473
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 1: do have the conditions you need to create carbon fusion.

474
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: Remember the white dwarf died because it accumulated all of

475
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: this carbon at its core, and it wasn't big enough

476
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: and hot enough to create the temperature necessary to fuse carbon,

477
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 1: so sort of stopped. And then all of a sudden, boom,

478
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: you have incredible pressure from this implosion, this shock wave

479
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 1: that's traveling inwards because the gravitational collapse, and that does

480
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: create the conditions needed for carbon fusion, and all of

481
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,880
Speaker 1: a sudden, all that carbon goes up in just like

482
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: you know, days, So instead of taking millions or billions

483
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: of years to burn all of it, it's like a

484
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: huge bomb goes off instead of a self sustaining reaction. Wow,

485
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: it's like you brun the entire sun in like a

486
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: matter of a few days. Yeah, it's so much energy

487
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 1: that it basically unbinds the star. It just blows up

488
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: out into space and disperses its material over a huge region.

489
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just blows everything out into space. So that's

490
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,880
Speaker 1: really like the death of a star, or at least

491
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: one particular death of of this kind of binary star.

492
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: And you say when it explodes, When this kind of

493
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: star explodes, the type one A, that's the kind that

494
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: we use as standard candles right as to kind of

495
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: measure how far galaxies are. Yeah, because they do so

496
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: in a very predictable way. The light curve has a

497
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: very distinctive shape, and so we can spot it was like, oh,

498
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: that one's a Type one A. We know what happened there.

499
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: And because the shape of the light curve is easy

500
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,880
Speaker 1: to relate to the true luminosity, like the actual brightness.

501
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: So if you look at the light curve, you can say, oh,

502
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 1: it's one of these type one A. It's one of

503
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: those type one A, so you can know exactly how

504
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: bright it actually is. Sort of similar if you remember

505
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: to how we first measured cosmic distances, which with these sephids,

506
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: these variable stars, where their period was related to their brightness,

507
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: so you can measure the period of their variability and

508
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 1: you could use that to deduce how bright they were

509
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 1: the source. That's always what you want to do to

510
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: understand how far away something is is understand how bright

511
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: is it really if you were right next to it,

512
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: and then you can compare that to how bright it

513
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: appears here on Earth and you can know how far

514
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: away it is. Right. I think what you're saying is

515
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 1: that this type of supernova, it almost always explodes with

516
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: the same brightness, Like you don't have this kind of

517
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: supernova for a small white dwarf. It only happens for

518
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: very particular size of a white dwarf. And when it happens,

519
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: it always happens at the same brightness, which means you

520
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,360
Speaker 1: can tell where it is. Almost is one little wrinkle there,

521
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: which is they're not all exactly the same brightness, but

522
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 1: you can tell how bright they are by how rapidly

523
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: they emit light and then fade away. So the shape

524
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: of that light curve over time tells you what the

525
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: brightness is. So it's not exactly that they're all the

526
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: same brightness, but you can figure out how bright they

527
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,199
Speaker 1: are by measuring this light curve. I see. All right,

528
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: So that's one way for a start to die. And

529
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: you're saying, this is the kind of explosion, this kind

530
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: of death of a star that leads to a zombie star.

531
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: So this kind of explosion destroys the star that's are dead,

532
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: dead and never coming back. It's like a big with

533
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,199
Speaker 1: a big cloud of dust and gas. Yeah, exactly, But

534
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: what we noticed about twenty years ago is that that's

535
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: not always what happens. Sometimes, when you have a type

536
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: one day supernova, it doesn't actually destroy the star. It

537
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 1: explodes a little bit differently, and it leaves behind something

538
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 1: that has enough stuff to keep glowing, so it can

539
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: sort of like have a supernova and still survive. Wait what,

540
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: So it collapses, it creates incredible fusion in the middle.

541
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 1: It explodes from that, but not completely like it doesn't.

542
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: It doesn't all disperse. It stays there and no black

543
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: hole is for me, that's right, it's sort of like

544
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: it tries to go supernova but doesn't quite make it.

545
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: So this peculiar kind of supernova comes from the same

546
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: sort of basic setup. You have a white dwarf in

547
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: a binary star system. It accumulates some mass, but for

548
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: reasons that are not fully well understood, it doesn't actually

549
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: trigger the same kind of supernova trigger sort of like

550
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: halfway supernova. It does definitely do a collapse, and there's

551
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: some carbon fusion that's happening at the core, but not

552
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: enough to like really ignite it. So it like blows

553
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: up a little bit, sends out a huge amount of light,

554
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: but not quite a full on type one A supernova,

555
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: and it leaves behind something which can still burn. So

556
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: basically it just collapses. It doesn't actually explode that much.

557
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: It does create carbon fusion, and that does create a

558
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: ripple through the star, but the key is that that

559
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: ripple is not supersonic and so it doesn't create a

560
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: shock wave. And that's key. I think about what happens

561
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: as you row your boat through a lake, right you

562
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: leave ripples, and those ripples passed through the lake. If

563
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: you're driving a motor boat, for example, you're going super

564
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: fast you're going faster than the speed of your ripples.

565
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: Then you create a wig because all those ripples are

566
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: catching up to each other, they're adding up at the

567
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: same place. And so that's what happens in a Type

568
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: one A supernova is the explosion is supersonic, so it

569
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: creates this incredible shock wave which blows up the star.

570
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: And a Type one A X supernova this weird version

571
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: of a Type one A. It doesn't quite me. It

572
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: doesn't go supersonic, and so it sort of heats up

573
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: the star. It gets bright, but it doesn't actually blow

574
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: it up. See now you're confusing me. Now you're saying

575
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: it's called a one A X. Shouldn't have been like

576
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: a one It should totally have been a one A Z.

577
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: I think they must have labeled it one A X

578
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: because when they saw these, they were like, hold on

579
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: a second, this is really weird. Type one A supernova

580
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: usually super regular and predictable. Here's a weird version. So

581
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: they like X for like X files, So this is

582
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: like the X file star. And so what's the difference,

583
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: Like what made this one explode in a different way

584
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: than the other one. They're not sure, but one theory

585
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: is that it depends on the kind of stuff that

586
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: the white dwarf is accumulating. Like if your binary star,

587
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: the companion, the one that's feeding you this extra material

588
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: that triggers you, that has a lot of helium instead

589
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 1: of just a lot of hydrogen, and that might set

590
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: off a different kind of reaction. It might only make

591
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: carbon fusion happen within a specific bubble of the star.

592
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: It doesn't trigger it well enough. But truth is, we

593
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: don't really understand the process of a supernova well enough

594
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: to predict it and to understand it and to disentangle it.

595
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like a puzzle. We need to

596
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: figure this out. We don't know why it didn't blow

597
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: up like the other ones. Yeah, we don't know. What

598
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:15,959
Speaker 1: we do know is that they look different, right, So

599
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: these things are less bright. There's still really dramatic events,

600
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: but they're not as bright as type one a supernova.

601
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: The stuff that flies out of the star as much

602
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: lower velocity, so you're still like exploding part of the star.

603
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: You can stand out like half the mass of the star.

604
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: Or this thing is not just like a little burp, right,

605
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: it is a big explosion. And they also look different,

606
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: like there's more helium lines in these stars than in

607
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: typical type one A supernova, So there's definitely something different happening,

608
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: is something different going on, but we don't understand the

609
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: process of a supernova well enough to really pint it down.

610
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: But you're saying, then that doesn't explode is violently than

611
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: as a regular type one A supernova, which means it

612
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: leaves behind some stuff, at least stuff that can still burn.

613
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: It leaves stuff that can still burn. And this is

614
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: an incredible object, this zombie star, because it's very small,

615
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 1: it's very hot. It might be like only the size

616
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: of our moon. You know, this is a tiny, little

617
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: astrophysical object. It's blown away a huge amount of its

618
00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: stuff in this sort of like half formed supernova, but

619
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: it can still burn because it's dense enough and it's

620
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: hot enough to glow. So they think that carbon fusion

621
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: still happens on the inside, but in a more sustainable way,

622
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't explode the star. Wait what

623
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: so it's not just like a hot thing that glows

624
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: from being hot it it's actually doing fusion in the middle,

625
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: and it's only the size of the moon. You can

626
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: have a sun the size of the moon. Yeah, it's

627
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: come back to life. Man. It was fusing and it

628
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: collapsed into a white dwarf and then it's fusing again.

629
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: It can't do it forever, right, because it's a pretty

630
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: small lump of stuff relative to other things in the universe.

631
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: But the conditions that forced it to collapse can get

632
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: carbon fusing. And what you need is temperature. So if

633
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: it gets hot enough inside there to fuse carbon, that

634
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: generates this heat that you need to keep it going, right,

635
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: But I guess what keeps the star burning if it's not,

636
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: if it's only the size of the moon, whereas all

637
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 1: the gravity coming from to keep the fusion going, well,

638
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: it's sort of ignited. Right. In order to have that

639
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: kind of carbon fusion, you just need really high temperatures,

640
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: and that temperature is now coming from the carbon fusion itself.

641
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: So it's a kind of thing like once you've gotten

642
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: it's started, it's easier for it to keep going. In

643
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: many stars you just can't get carbon fusion started because

644
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: you never reach that temperature. But in these zombie stars,

645
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: you like across that threshold because of this collapse, and

646
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 1: that ignites the star and then it can burn its carbon,

647
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: even if there wasn't originally enough carbon to trigger that

648
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: temperature just from gravitational pressure. Oh, I see, So it's

649
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: like a self sustaining fusion reaction. No gravity need Well,

650
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,239
Speaker 1: gravity is still holding it together, but it didn't need

651
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: the gravity to trigger the carbon fusion. But once that's happening,

652
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: then it can keep going exactly. So these are really

653
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: fascinating objects because they're weird, right, because they're different from

654
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: the kind of tape one a supernova that you typically see. Well,

655
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird that you're calling it a zombie

656
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: star because it's sort of not undead. It's like it's

657
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: a lively star. It's burning. You know, I might might

658
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: be even insulted if you call it a zombie, right.

659
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: I see, you're saying zombies are not back to life,

660
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: they're undead. That's the distinction. I'm not sure what I'm saying.

661
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like, like our son also came from a

662
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: dead star maybe, but we don't call it a zombie star.

663
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: It's just a new star, that's true. I guess this

664
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: is more closely connected to its progenitor than the Sun is.

665
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: The Sun came from just like a big cloud of

666
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: gas and dust that swirled together to form the solar system.

667
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 1: This is like a white dwarf that's pretty closely connected

668
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,919
Speaker 1: to the original I mean, in the same sense we're

669
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: all zombies because we're all made out of organic material

670
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 1: that's definitely been used in other beings. But you call

671
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: a zombie zombie because it's like the same body. So

672
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 1: this is like the same body of the original star

673
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: that was fusing. That's sun corpse, he's saying. It's the same.

674
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: It's a reanimated corpse, and therefore that's a zombie. Exactly.

675
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: It's lost some of its mass, you know, part of

676
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: its face has fallen off, but it's still ca double

677
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: of shuffling around and entertaining you and and eating sun brains.

678
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: What does it mean? Carbon? Yeah, well I guess so.

679
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: Carbon is the brain of the sun, you know, and

680
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: carbon is the basis of organic life here on Earth,

681
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 1: and it's also at the heart of the brains. Yeah, exactly,

682
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 1: eat star brains. All right, Well, let's get into how

683
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: common they are in the universe and where we've seen

684
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: that and what does it all mean. But first let's

685
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: take another quick break. All right, we're talking about zombie

686
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 1: star stars to have come back from the dead, and

687
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: so we talked about how some stars sort of try

688
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: to explode, but they sort of only half explode, I

689
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: guess because they don't have to write ingredients to explode

690
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,319
Speaker 1: into a supernova, and so they you just kind of

691
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: get a little bit of a dead corpse of a star.

692
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: But it's still burnie. Still, it's shuffling about exactly. It's

693
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 1: like a quantum star because it's both exploded and it survived.

694
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:08,280
Speaker 1: Oh wait, now you're just confusing whether there's no quantum

695
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: superposition going on here. No, there's no quantum superposition. Now,

696
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 1: it's like half of the stars blown up and the

697
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 1: other half decided not to So it's more like a

698
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: divorce star because you know, the different halves couldn't agree

699
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:22,319
Speaker 1: on what to do. That's a different kind of Netflix show.

700
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: I feel we should maybe stick to one genre before

701
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: we refuse people. It's a zombie star. It's not a

702
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: divorce zombie star. It's not a zombie relationship. It's just

703
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: a star. Isn't there a Netflix show about Mary zombies?

704
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: There have been movies. Yes, as you can see, I'm

705
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: an expert on are Apparently you know there have been

706
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: a movie about zombie romances. Well, anyway, I love zombie stars,

707
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: even if I don't love zombie movies. Well, that's because

708
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,399
Speaker 1: you haven't seen one up close or in the middle

709
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 1: of the night. I'll consider it. All right. Well, let's

710
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: talk about how common they are. How often do we

711
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: see these zombie stars. Are we like surrounded by zombie

712
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: stars everywhere or is this kind of a rare thing. Well,

713
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 1: it's sort of an interesting paradox because we know two

714
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,919
Speaker 1: things about them. On one hand, we haven't seen very

715
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: many of these things. Only like a hundred type one

716
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: A X supernova which leads to zombie stars, have ever

717
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 1: been seen. The first one was spotted about twenty years ago,

718
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: so that's not a whole lot. You know, we've seen

719
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: a lot more Type one A supernova than that. On

720
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: the other hand, based on you know, frankly speculative models

721
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: for how this happens, if we understand what's going on

722
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 1: inside supernova and we don't, then these calculations suggest that

723
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: this should happen more often than you imagine that, like

724
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: the full Type one A supernova should fail to trigger

725
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:44,799
Speaker 1: in like of the cases. But I guess it's all

726
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: based on whether or not the companion star has the

727
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: right ingredients. So how do we know what these companions

728
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: have out there? We don't know for sure, but you know,

729
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 1: we do know a lot about what is out there

730
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: in the universe based on how stars glow. You can

731
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 1: look at the light that comes from a star and

732
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 1: you can tell mostly what's made out of what it's

733
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: hydrogen helium mix, because remember that different kinds of materials,

734
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: different elements like to glow at different frequencies because they

735
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: can absorb and amid photons that match the various vibrational

736
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 1: and rotational and orbital energy levels of that element. So

737
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: you can tell how much helium and how much hydrogen

738
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:22,800
Speaker 1: there is in a star based on how it glows.

739
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: And so we have some idea for how common it

740
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: is to have like a very helium ish star, and

741
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: that lets people do these calculations, but you know, it's

742
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: totally speculative, and its conflicts with some of the data.

743
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: The data says, look, we haven't seen that many of

744
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: these things. Either there's a lot of them out there

745
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: we haven't spotted, or maybe something's wrong with the calculation

746
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:43,439
Speaker 1: I see, because we've only seen kind of a few

747
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: tents of these, right, like a hundred of these zombies stars.

748
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: We've only that's how many we've seen. But you're saying

749
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,239
Speaker 1: there should we should see more. Exactly, we should see more.

750
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: There should be more of them. Again, if our theory

751
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: about how this happens is correct, or maybe it's not.

752
00:38:57,400 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 1: And you know, this is the process of science. We

753
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: see something new, we go what how does that work?

754
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 1: They put together a model from maybe what makes it,

755
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: and then we look at the consequences of that. We say, well,

756
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 1: if this model is true, what does it predict about

757
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: how many more we should see and where we should

758
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 1: be able to find them? So let's go look. If

759
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: we don't find them, that means we've got to go

760
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: back to the drawing board and come up with a

761
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: different model for how this happens. I think what you're

762
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: saying is that we might be surrounded by zombie stars,

763
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: but maybe they're hiding. Is that what you're saying. It

764
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 1: sounds terrifying. They're waiting for nighttime, right, isn't that waiting

765
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: for you to go to sleep for them to shine

766
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:33,439
Speaker 1: their zombie light on me. We should be careful about

767
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 1: talking about scary things because I think some people listen

768
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: to this podcast as they're falling asleep, and we don't

769
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:39,880
Speaker 1: want to give them bad dreams unless they're fans of

770
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: zombie movies, in which case they will sleep very happily.

771
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 1: Maybe you could be a fan of zombie movies without

772
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: being a fan of having zombies in your dreams. I think,

773
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: do you want to start a zombie movie now? I

774
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: just want to dream about zombie stars? But that is

775
00:39:57,680 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: kind of what might be happening right. There might be

776
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: a lot of them and they but they might be

777
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: hiding somehow. Or maybe this failed collapse happens a lot,

778
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: but maybe just we just don't see it, like maybe

779
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: it collapses in mud blows up exactly. It might be

780
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: that happens in a different way that we imagine. And

781
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: when challenge is that we haven't ever seen one of

782
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: these in our own galaxy. Remember the Type one A

783
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: supernova are so bright that we can see them in

784
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: distant galaxies. In fact, that's why they're so powerful and

785
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,919
Speaker 1: so useful, because they can shine a light about how

786
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: far away, really really distant galaxies are. Interesting thing is

787
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: that we've never seen one of these Type one A

788
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: X supernova we've never seen a zombie star in our

789
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: own galaxy until very very recently. I guess you just

790
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:41,839
Speaker 1: made me think of a question, which is like, if

791
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: we haven't seen one in our galaxy, then how do

792
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:48,080
Speaker 1: we actually know they happen? Like you see a bright

793
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: flash in a distant galaxy, and then but then you

794
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: can't see the zombie star, can you. It's too small? Yeah,

795
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,919
Speaker 1: the zombies are itself is too small to really see

796
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: to make out in detail. But you can see that

797
00:40:57,760 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 1: the type one A X supernova has happened. You can

798
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: see the light curve that's really bright. It's not as

799
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: bright as a type one A supernova, like ten times

800
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: less luminous, but it's bright enough to see in other galaxies.

801
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: And actually one time they caught a type one A

802
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: X supernova happening accidentally. They were looking for type one

803
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: A supernova, of course, as they usually do, and so

804
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: they were using hubble to take pictures of one that

805
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 1: had recently happened. And then shortly afterwards there was a

806
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: type one A X supernova that happened in the same

807
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: region of space in this distance galaxy. So they were

808
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: able to go back because they happened to take pictures

809
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: of it before it exploded, and to see the progenitor,

810
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 1: the thing that created this Type one a X supernova.

811
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: So it helped give them a clue about how this happens.

812
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: But I guess you haven't actually seen these zombie stars, right,

813
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: You've only seen like a failed flash, but you're sort

814
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: of speculating that it leaves behind a zombie star exactly.

815
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: These zombie stars are not bright enough to see directly.

816
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 1: But in this case, it's cool because you can see

817
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: the binary star system and you can see that the

818
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: other star in that system is actually a bright blue

819
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: helium star right next to a white dwarf. And then

820
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: we see a Type one A X supernova has this

821
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:13,839
Speaker 1: characteristic shape. It's different from a Type one A supernova,

822
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 1: and so it doesn't have enough energy to like totally

823
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: destroy that star. But we see that the progenitor, this

824
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,839
Speaker 1: white dwarf, is no longer there. So it's fascinating because

825
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 1: they could see it like before it happened. That's not

826
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: something we've ever seen for a Type one A supernova.

827
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: We've never taken a picture of a star system before

828
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: it went Type one A, which is one of the

829
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: challenges for understanding how these things happen. Wait, so you're saying,

830
00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: we've never seen a zombie star in our galaxy, isn't

831
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: that weird? Yeah, it is kind of weird, And again

832
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: it goes to our lack of knowledge about what forms

833
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: these things. Some people speculate that it might depend on

834
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: the age of the galaxy, that only in galaxies of

835
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:53,240
Speaker 1: a certain age does this kind of thing happen, because

836
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 1: maybe you get more helium stars. But there's all just

837
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation in the literature about why this

838
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: might happen. Recently, people saw something that they think might

839
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: be a type one A X supernova, and that's very

840
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: close to the center of the galaxy. There's this thing

841
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,359
Speaker 1: they're called supernova remnant Sagittarius A East. So it's very

842
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: close to the black hole of the center of our galaxy,

843
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: and the light that's coming from it looks consistent with

844
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 1: what you would expect from a type one A X supernova.

845
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: The supernova itself was actually seen on Earth like nine

846
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, and it's recorded in history. At the time,

847
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: of course, they couldn't tell that it was the type

848
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: one A X supernova. But now by looking at like

849
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 1: what's around it, and how it affected the stuff nearby it.

850
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: They're speculating that that might have been a type one

851
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: A X supernova and it might have left behind a

852
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: zombie star. Whoa wait, wait, we saw it here from Earth.

853
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: There's records of it exactly in one a d for

854
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty five nights. This supernova lit up

855
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: the sky and Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded it in history.

856
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: So something we know half and we can look at

857
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: the remnant it's very close to the center of the galaxy,

858
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: and then we can look at stuff nearby it and say, like,

859
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: what shock wave has impacted on that stuff nearby? What's

860
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 1: the velocity of the stuff moving through space? And when

861
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: they do the calculations, it looks like it's consistent with

862
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: a type one A X supernova having exploded there like

863
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 1: nine hundred years ago. I guess maybe it's a good

864
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: thing that we haven't seen a supernova in our galaxy, right, Like,

865
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: if there was a supernova nearby, we we did fried. Yes,

866
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: supernova release a huge amount of energy, a huge amount

867
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 1: of radiation, and so if one of them was too close,

868
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 1: absolutely it could sterilize half of the planet. Fascinatingly, though,

869
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:40,320
Speaker 1: most of the energy of a supernova is actually carried

870
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: out in new trinos, Like of the energy released in

871
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: a supernova comes as new trinos, which of course hardly

872
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,479
Speaker 1: interact with us. Even that one percent, though that's left

873
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: over if the supernova is close enough, is enough to

874
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: sterilize an entire planet. So are we lucky then that

875
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 1: the one near the center of the galaxy was a

876
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: failed supernova? You know, like if it had been a

877
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: real supernova, would it have affected us. It would have

878
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 1: been brighter and so it would have been more dramatic.

879
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 1: But even that one is still pretty far away the

880
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: center of the galaxies, like twenty thousand light years away,

881
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: so not close enough to really cause any damage, your honor,

882
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 1: and I guess also too far for the zombie to

883
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: come edith, I don't know, it's had nine years. Well,

884
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 1: in a way, it's kind of funny because these zombie

885
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 1: stars happen because one star eats another star. Oh that's true. Yes,

886
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: one star is feasting off of the brains of another star,

887
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: and that's what it brings it back to life. Yeah,

888
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: that's the lesson. I think, do not eat brains like

889
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:37,240
Speaker 1: turn into a zombie or if that's your aspiration in life,

890
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 1: eat away. That's right. If you if you endeavor to

891
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: be a zombie star, that would make you an zalist star.

892
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: I guess, all right, well, what what does it all mean.

893
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: I guess it means that we still don't quite understand

894
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 1: Supernovaz that will. I thought it was something that was

895
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 1: pretty well understood and modeled, but it sounds like there

896
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:55,760
Speaker 1: are still a lot of questions about how it happens

897
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: and in which way it can happen. It's a rapidly

898
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: moving field, and we're always developing better and better models,

899
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: which have gone from like two D to three D

900
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: two much more realistic, and now with our impressive computational power,

901
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,359
Speaker 1: we're making more and more detailed models. But it's very

902
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,280
Speaker 1: tricky because we're talking about something that's happening very fast,

903
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: very high density, and very high intensity, and so the

904
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 1: modeling is difficult to get right. We're talking about the

905
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:23,400
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force, we're talking about incredible gravitational forces, and

906
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: so it's difficult, and you know, our measurements are limited.

907
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: We can see a few things about them here from Earth,

908
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: but it's not easy to understand, like what's going on

909
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,320
Speaker 1: inside the supernova. And actually a lot of that information

910
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: is carried by neutrinos, which can reveal what happened on

911
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:40,720
Speaker 1: the inside of the supernova. But neutrinos are so difficult

912
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: to observe, so it's a real challenge for us to

913
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: model and for us to understand, right. And it's also

914
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of this difficult intersection for physics

915
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,800
Speaker 1: of quantum mechanics and gravity, right, Like it's it's almost

916
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: like you're looking at the heart of a black hole.

917
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 1: It's like when these supernova happened, the pressure and the gravity,

918
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,399
Speaker 1: it's all sort of makes us together. So that's something

919
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: we don't understand. Yeah, and it's very short lived and

920
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: kind of rare, and even easier problems we still don't understand,

921
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: like what's going on inside a neutron star. Neutron stars

922
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 1: are everywhere, and they last forever and they glow steadily

923
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: in the X ray, and still we don't understand sort

924
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: of the equation of state, like what's going on in

925
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: terms of the pressure and the density and the speed

926
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: of sound and the inside of a neutron star. So

927
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 1: supernova is harder because it's short lived, it's higher intensity,

928
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: and there are fewer of them, and so we have

929
00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do to understand what's going

930
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: on at the heart of these things. But seeing the

931
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 1: weird ones, the extremes are really helpful because they help

932
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 1: you understand the boundary conditions, like why didn't this one

933
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: go Type one A supernova? Why didn't that one? Is

934
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: like examples of ones that survived and came back to

935
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: tell us a story. So they're really useful clues, and

936
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: it tells what triggers the type one day supernova and

937
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: what doesn't. Yeah, that's pretty cool, and I guess also

938
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 1: the problem is there are a lot of physicists who

939
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 1: hate zombies, and so they won't even touched this stuff, right, Like,

940
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: I'm surprised to you even finish that paper, Daniel. Anything

941
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 1: for the podcast, and anything for the podcast except actually

942
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: watching zombie movies that I can send you a long

943
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 1: list of required zombie genre thanks to watch if you

944
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: want to catch up. If not, you can just run faster. Alright,

945
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 1: and listeners out there, tell us what is your favorite

946
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,760
Speaker 1: physics zombie movie. That's a that's a sub genre. I guess,

947
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,399
Speaker 1: I hope, so, I mean, apparently would watch those then yes,

948
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: there's a physicist involved, you would watch it exactly. Maybe

949
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: the physicist becomes a zombie and then she has her

950
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: best ideas and that's when her career really takes off. Yeah,

951
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 1: she becomes a zombie star in the physics community. All right, Well,

952
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:43,879
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that thinking about what happens out

953
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: there in the cosmos, and what doesn't happen in the cosmos,

954
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: and what kinds of interesting new types of stars there

955
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: can be and are being born every day. Thanks for

956
00:48:53,320 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: joining us, See you next time. Yeah, thanks for listening,

957
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is

958
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast For

959
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:13,879
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

960
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,320
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H