WEBVTT - Will we ever Travel Faster than Light Speed? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.720 Guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? So, have you seen 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.240 the Last Jedi yet? I have. I was going to 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:07.080 ask you a question about it, but we have to 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:09.960 keep this spoiler free here, so I'm honestly kind of 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:13.520 scared to say anything. Uh do you want to say 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.800 it in pick laden? No? No, I'm just I'm too nervous. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.479 But I will say this. So it seems fair to 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.400 say that light speed plays a pretty big role in 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.000 the Star Wars films. That's what you wanted to say. 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:26.759 I mean, it's true, but well, you know, as I 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.200 sat there in the theater, my mind started wandering again. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.200 You know, not because it isn't a great movie. I 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.199 really liked it, but I started thinking again about the 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.920 idea of traveling at or beyond light speed. And it's 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.400 one of the age old questions, you know, will anything 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.080 ever travel beyond light speed? Well it's a good thing. 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.080 We have a brilliant author here today is to answer 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.400 some of the biggest questions about the universe, and only 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.040 one of them is about Star Wars. Yeah, but the 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.479 book that he's written is called We Have No Idea. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.880 But you're right, we should give him a shot anyway. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:19.280 So let's dive in m he their podcast listeners, Welcome 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.480 to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.760 I'm joined by my good friend man guest Tic and 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.720 the man on the other side of the soundproof glass 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.880 sporting an impressive coral saken hair part. That's our friend 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.360 and producer Tristan McNeil, who knew his hair could even 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.920 part like that. So that's not what we're here to 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.040 talk about, or is it maybe another episode? I don't 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.760 think it's anyway. So I know you and I have 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:42.720 recently been talking about the fact that over the past 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.240 few years there have been all these big signs events 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.600 that have just gotten so much attention and people have 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.160 gotten really excited about. We had the discovery of the 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.280 Higgs boson a few years ago. We had that big 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.639 eclipse that you and I and our families all traveled 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.440 out to see. There was um quantum teleportation and all 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.360 this x excitement and confusion surrounding it, and so much more. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.720 It's fun with events like these capture the world's attention. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.359 But but sometimes these events and the science around them 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.000 can be very difficult to communicate. But today we've got 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.000 to truly give the communicator and one of the co 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.280 authors of a book called We Have No Idea Daniel Whites, 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.880 and welcome to part Time Genius. Hello, and thank you 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.200 very much for having me on now. Daniel, this is 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.079 a really interesting partnership for this book. You know, you're 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.000 a particle physicist that you see Irvine doing a lot 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.000 of your research over it cern and and you've partnered 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.480 with a terrific cartoonist and Jorge cham And It's been 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.520 a lot of fun getting to know you guys over 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.240 the past couple of months. Now. Jorge also has a 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.400 PhD and robotics. So I have to ask, how did 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.720 you guys meet and then decide to take on a 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.640 project like We Have No Idea? Well, we met on 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.440 Tinder first. Oh good, it's a great way to get going, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.680 you know, like most modern couples that we did meet 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:59.600 on the internet. It was maybe ten years ago now, 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.600 and I was thinking about other ways we could communicate 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.560 physics to the general public because I felt like there's 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.720 a lot of exciting questions we're asking with physics, but 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.200 we're not always doing a great job of expressing that 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.200 excitement and the basic ideas to the general public. And 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.600 I thought there was an opening there to communicate some 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.519 of the stuff using cartoons. Actually, I saw a really 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.359 awesome technical comic put up by Google when they put 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.000 out their latest browser, the Chrome Browser, and Scott McCloud 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.400 made a technical comic about the Chrome browser, and like, 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.120 if you're not into writing browsers, you might not be 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.960 into reading comics about browsers. Because they had a great 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.280 job of making this seem interesting, and I thought, wow, 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.720 if they can make browser development sound fun, and maybe 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.640 cartoons are a good way to show other things like physics. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.360 But I don't have any artistic skills myself, and so 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.880 I couldn't draw these cartoons myself. Um, but of course 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.400 I was aware of Jorge and his amazing work PhD comics. 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.360 You know, he's some think of an Internet celebrity. In academia. 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.560 Everybody knows him, and his comics are really captured the 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.960 restoration of research and academic life. Anyway, my wife suggested 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:13.200 she's also an academic and she's a big fan of 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.640 because she said, why don't you email or him and 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.000 asked him to do it, And I thought, yeah, right, 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.440 that's just like emailing Brad Pitt and asking about the 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.719 movie that's that's pretty awesome. And the project that resulted 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.280 from that a few years later, obviously is is we 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:29.039 have no idea, So can you tell us a little 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.120 bit about the the idea behind this book. Yeah. I 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.039 thought that there's a lot of great science communication that's happening, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.920 but most of it was focused on what we do 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.600 know about the universe, all the amazing things that science 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.440 has learned, and it's important to show people what we 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.479 figured out. But I thought something was missing that. I 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.680 felt like people had a misunderstanding of how much we 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.800 knew about the universe. So we thought, let's instead write 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:57.520 a book showing people all the huge but very basic 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.240 open questions to the universe, really simple stuff that we 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.600 haven't yet figured out, stuff like how big is the universe? 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:06.960 And how did it start? And how will it end? 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:09.960 I thought there must be an appetite for people who 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.040 are really interested in this basic stuff and excited to 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.960 learn that we haven't yet figured it out. Because to me, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.159 ignorance is an opportunity. It's a possibility of things you 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.840 could discover in the future. And when I was a kid, 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.160 I was always excited about that possibility of exploring the unknown. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:30.719 And figuring out something new, discovering that the world was 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.039 different from the way we thought it might be and 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.280 turned out to be completely uh counterintuitive, like the discoveries 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.680 of quantum mechanics and relativity. I wanted to give people 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.080 the sense that such discoveries discoveries, that that basic scale 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.040 might still be ahead of us, that there are still 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.000 really big, basic questions that we haven't answered. So that 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.880 was the idea behind writing this book. And do you 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.400 tell us just a little bit about you know, I 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.720 know you're a particle physicist, that's certain, but what does 0:05:57.760 --> 0:05:59.680 that mean exactly? And what are you doing in the lab? 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.360 So it's certain we collide protons together. We take the 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.000 protons and speed them up to nearly the speed of light, 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.480 and then the particles inside the protons collide and turn 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.799 into little balls of energy. Temporarily, they lose their form 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.840 of matter and turn into pure energy. And then that 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.039 energy has this amazing feature which it can turn into 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.440 any kind of particle in the universe as long as 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.800 there's enough energy budget there. So if you've poured enough 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.520 energy into your collisions, you can make any kind of 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.000 particle there is, which means you can discover new kinds 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.000 of matter even if you didn't know it existed. So 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:38.640 that's sort of awesome. It's a it's a way to 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:40.840 explore the universe. And that's the thing that got me 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:45.160 excited about particle physics is exploring what the universe has 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.600 made out of How is it work at its smallest levels, 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.880 what is the organizational principle for this whole ridiculous, beautiful 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.120 universe we find ourselves in. And the fascinating thing about 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.400 that is that it used to be the particle physics, 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.920 which looks at the very very small told disconnected from cosmology, 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.719 which looks at like the very big history of the 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.240 universe the future of the universe. These days, these two 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.080 fields have kind of converged because we're asking a lot 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.920 of similar questions. Like one of the big questions and 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.440 cosmology is what is all the dark matter? Right? Where 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.120 is all this missing invisible matter in the universe. Well, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.720 it's certain what we're trying to do is make dark matter. 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.560 We're trying to collide those particles together to make a 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.360 new kind of matter, and we might produce dark matter 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.480 in the laboratory, giving this insight into what's happening at 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.040 the very very big scale. I love that there's so 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.280 many fascinating things in that statement and also so many 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.640 questions I have coming out of it. And I also 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.920 just love that like it starts with such a simple idea, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.960 like the joy of crashing things together and creating all 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.440 these new things that it's stunning. But um, I know, 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.160 Will general crushing things together is a good way to 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.840 start the scientific experiment. Well. Will was asking at the 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.560 beginning of the f So it about the last Jedi. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.080 You don't want to have said anyone with spoilers, but 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.240 he talked about how the speed of light does come 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.600 up in it, and is it possible or will it 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.640 be possible for anything to travel faster than light speed? 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:14.760 So I just saw that movie and I was thinking 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.120 about the same stuff when I was watching it. I 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.480 thought they did it without spoilers. I thought they did 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:22.559 a pretty good job of bringing some real physics into 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.320 that situation. Um. But your question was will we ever 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.520 travel faster than the speed of light? Um? Of all 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:31.520 the things we don't know about the universe, this is 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.960 one we're pretty sure we know that nothing can move 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.679 through space faster than the speed of light. Now, I 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.120 didn't answer your question directly, I changed it a little 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.840 bit so I could be more more definitive. That is, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.160 nothing can move through space faster than the speed of light, 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.679 so an object flying through space can't ever go faster 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:55.600 than lighthood. However, that's a really important copy moving through 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.040 space because recently we discovered in the last few decades 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.160 that space is a weird thing. Space can do things 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.920 that we didn't understand. If you think space is just 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.440 like the emptiness in the universe, the backdrop on which 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:10.720 everything happens, and then you need to get caught up 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.360 with some modern physics, because space does really weird things 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:18.680 like thend and expand and ripple. So if your goal 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.600 is not necessarily to move faster than light through space, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.200 but just to get somewhere fast, like you want to 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.800 go from you know, your rebel base to wherever you 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.160 need to go, and you want to not spend a 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.640 million years getting there, then instead of moving through space 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:36.560 fast from the speed of light, you might want to 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:41.560 just compress space itself. Right, so you can bring these 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.319 two locations, which ostensibly are very very far apart, if 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.440 you can bring them closer together by by shrinking space, 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.280 by compressing space, then you can get there rapidly without 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.320 going faster than the speed of light. And that's the 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:01.240 actual idea behind developing actual work drives. So while you 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.880 can't move through space faster than the speed of light, 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.760 we might actually technically be able to eventually construct warp 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.040 drives that can get us to distant places faster than 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.720 light traveling through normal space. That's just it's as simple 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:19.560 as that. Really, that's all there is to it. I 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.120 assume that we're pretty close to this whole space compression thing, 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.040 like with the next five to ten years, we should 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.120 be able to do this. Is that right, Daniel? I 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.600 would not invest in those companies, but you know there's 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.040 a fascinating transition there, right. Anytime, if something is just 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.360 totally impossible, it's totally impossible. But now we've moved warp 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:43.760 drives from totally impossible to completely impractical and very very 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.520 very difficult, which means, yeah, in ten years it will 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.319 probably just be an app on your iPhone, right because 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.240 now we just handed it from physicists to engineers, and 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.160 in current calculations, you know, the energy to run a 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.760 warp drive, even go to like Alpha Centauri would require 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.720 more energy than is contained in like the planet Jube, 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:08.560 all the massive planet Jupiter. Okay, so vast incredible quantities 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.680 of energy we can't even imagine. However, you know, it's 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.120 it's it's just become an efficiency problem. Now somebody can 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.480 build a better one and build a more effective one. 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.240 Right And of course, for your listeners, nobody's actually constructed 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.360 any sort of functioning warp drive. But theoretically it's not 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.719 impossible to compress space to travel places faster than light 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.280 could um. And that's what I liked about in that movie. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.520 You know, they don't just go places instantly in the 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.160 last They don't just disappear from one place and appear 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.199 somewhere else. They have to get there. And even though 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.320 they're moving through hyperspace, right, there's still a speed they're 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.160 moving through hyperspace and a maximum this limitation there. And 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.199 so that's where the physics comes in, right, is in 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:56.280 providing plot points and the limitations. Well, I have a 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.400 follow up question to that in terms of headlines from 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.880 earlier this year that dealt with traveling through space, and 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:04.480 I want to ask you about that. But before we 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:19.679 do that, let's take a quick break. Welcome back to 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.360 Part time Genius we're talking to Daniel Whites, and one 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.959 of the co authors of We Have No Idea, this 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.000 awesome book that talks about all of the things in 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.400 the universe, not necessarily that we do know, but the 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.400 many big questions that we don't know. And we're putting 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:35.880 Daniel on the spot today and asking him to answer 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.679 every single big question about the universe that seems reasonable 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.360 to me. Think, So what do you think? So? Yeah? So, 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.600 So before the break, I mentioned that I had another 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.680 question that related to headlines that we saw everywhere earlier 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.800 this year. There was a headline that said, first object 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.640 teleported from Earth, and I have to be honest, Daniel, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.000 I struggled with the way the media was covering this 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.040 event that happened, this quantum teleportation, and I wanted to 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.079 see if you could talk to us a little bit 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.360 about that and does it relate to what we were 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.880 talking about earlier, this idea of you know, being able 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.280 to travel through space at faster than the speed of light. 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:18.199 Can you just talk to us a little bit about 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.920 this event and and how the media may have struggled 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:26.160 a little bit to communicate what actually happened in that experiment. Yeah, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.320 I read those headlines, and I was pretty excited object 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.200 teleported into space. I thought, Wow, we're gonna be beaming 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.240 up to space stations in the next few years. Right, 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.599 But you're right, the media totally failed to invade that 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:43.840 accurately because no object was teleported into space. Um. Instead, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:48.480 information was sent into space. And that's much less exciting 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.560 because it's essentially just beaming a message. Right. So you can, 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.400 we know already how to send information from one place 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.200 to another. We have lots of techniques for that radio 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.920 laser or some of these things moving the speed of light. Right. Um, 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.400 this was more interesting because it's quantum teleportation. Right. That's 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.840 a process by which quantum information like the state of 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.360 an atom or a photon, can be transmitted exactly from 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.439 one location to another. Right. And it involves like entangling 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.800 particles and using their quantum relationships to send that information. 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.440 So it's a new way to send information. But it's 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:29.880 not teleportation, right. It's not like your concept where something 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.040 disappears and is reappeared somewhere else, resembled there um. And 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.800 it's also does not move faster than the speed of light. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.080 A lot of people think quantum entanglement is a way 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:44.760 around uh sending information is a way around the maximum 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:50.960 speedling for information. Unfortunately it's not. So this headline describes them, 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.240 which would have been exciting if it was accurate, but 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:57.320 instead it was a cool technical achievement. They had transmitted 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.960 information using this new quantum technique further than anybody ever had, 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.640 and they sent it out into space, which nobody had 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.560 done before. But it doesn't break the speed limited the universe. 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.200 It's still limited to the speed of light, and it 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.400 doesn't actually send anything anywhere than information. So it's sort 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.840 of deflating, and I think it gets to a larger 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.000 point of how this stuff happens, Like how do you 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.760 do an interesting experiment and then some journalists writes it 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:25.920 up as if it's something different, as if it's something 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.920 much more dramatic. You know. There's another example of that, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.480 just a couple of days ago, when the Pentagon released 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:38.800 all of its footage from this UFO program, and of 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.240 course they saw nothing there to indicate the presence of 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.320 aliens on Earth. But I've been watching the news and 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.880 it's been everywhere. All this stuff has been covered as 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:50.160 if we're now just discovered that the that the Pentagon 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.480 has been talking to aliens and the headlines headlines or 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:58.720 things like summary of human encounters with um, you know, 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.280 a summary of human and counters of a third kind, 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.840 and it's all totally misleading click base. But I think 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.280 that's one of the problems with science journalism these days, 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.640 is that in the crowded media community to have to 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:14.000 sort of scream for attention by touting even modest research 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:19.400 achievements as incredible events in human history. So unfortunately, nothing 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:21.880 was teleported into space. Otherwise I would be in line 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.320 because I'd like to get up there. I do wish 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.160 we had talked to you about the whole alien thing, 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.280 because we're we're actually recording this from a bunker right now, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.680 so it would have been useful information. Yeah, yeah, I 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.440 wish you had quantum teleported that information to us before 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.280 a bunker. I would expect you guys to be on 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:42.880 a mountaintop with flags and come talk to us actually 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.400 on the quantum teleportation before we move on to another topic. 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.480 I mean, it is one of those things, like you said, 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.600 should have been a celebrated achievement because it is something 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.600 that had been done in a way that had never 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.400 been done before, and at that distance can you talk 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:58.880 to us a little bit about what the implications are 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.120 if we are speaking of out it accurately, of what 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.639 this could mean for us. Well, it's an improved way 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.360 to send information. So quantum teleportation is just a copying 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.639 of quantum information like the electron spin or photon state 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.440 um that can be transmitted in principle exactly from one 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.760 location to another. And the cool thing about that is 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:23.960 just sending information without noise over that information loss right, 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.600 And of course in a an actual practically built system 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.440 there is always information loss because you can't isolate these 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.679 particles from their environment. But the hope is if we 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.720 perfect this kind of technology, you could send information with 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.520 less noise, with less information loss over longer distances. So 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.800 it's always good to have several technologies being developed in 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.960 order to send information. So this is another one that 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.280 could could in principle in the future give us information 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.680 transmission with less power and less less noise and less 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.600 data loss. So, Daniel, I know we've chat a little 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:01.480 bit about dark matter in the in the past, and 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.239 I just thought that conversation was so fascinating, But I 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.160 want you to share some of that with our listeners, 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.120 and it's not just something that's out there, but it's 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.000 actually something that's all around us. Right. Can you talk 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.399 a little bit about that. Yeah, this is one of 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.719 my favorite things about physics is when it reveals to 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.159 us that the world we thought we lived in is 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.879 actually totally different if you look at it using a 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.280 new tool or a new perspective. And that's what we've 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.480 discovered with dark matter. We discovered that most of the 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.439 universe is not the kind of matter that you're familiar with, 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:33.280 the kind of matter that makes up the chair you're 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.199 sitting on, the air you're breathing, or the coffee you're sipping, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.480 or stars or gases or planets or dust. That most 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:42.840 of the universe, the matter in the universe is something else, 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:47.080 something invisible, this thing called dark matter. And most people, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.080 if they hear about dark matter, they think, oh, maybe 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.640 that's some weird kind of matter out there in space. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.000 But the thing about dark matter is that it's it 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.840 has gravity, It attracts everything with mass to it, and 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.760 it clusters it a lessons together, indeed, into these big blobs. 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.439 And those big blobs line up perfectly with where normal 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.359 matter is, like galaxies and stars and gas and dust. 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.040 Most of the dark matter and universe is distributed where 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.680 the normal matter is because they attract each other gravitationally. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.960 And so what that means is that very likely we 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.080 are sitting in a soup of dark matter. Like can 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.919 you imagine all the air in the room around you, Right, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.919 that's the matter that we understand, but it's invisible, and 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.560 you're cool with being surrounded by invisible matter most of 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.600 the time. But you didn't realize is that there's also 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.520 five times as much matter in the form of dark 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.720 matter that you weren't even aware of, and it's here 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.240 with us. You hold out your hands and you close 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.760 them together. You're enclosing some dark matter. You're holding dark 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.200 matter in your hands. Now, you can't interact with dark 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.560 matter and call it dark, but really it should be 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.679 called invisible or in transible, intransible. What's the word for 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.000 something you can't touch. It should be called an untouched 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:05.440 What matter sounds right? Unjudgable matter because you pass right 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.520 through it, right, You can't feel it and it can't 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.439 feel you. So, um, it's everywhere all around us. And 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:15.040 I think most people don't realize that. Every day when 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:16.600 they go to school or go to work, or get 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.679 in the car whatever they're moving through this invisible ocean 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.320 of dark matter. Yeah, that's unbelievable to think about. So 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.240 how do we know that it's there? Or how did 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.840 astro physicists figure out that dark matter was was out there. 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.920 It's a great story how dark matter was discovered. It's 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.560 sort of a classic science story where somebody was just 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.320 dotting the eyes and crossing the teas and saying, well, 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:41.560 I think we understand how this works. Let's just make 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.000 sure and do some double checks. And then those double 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.840 checks revealed that something was very, very wrong with our 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.240 understanding of the universe. So the double check was looking 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.920 at how galaxies rotate. Um. You know, galaxies are these 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.000 big swarms of stars and galaxies are spinning. Now, if 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.199 you imagine the galaxy spinning, you think of it like 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.760 a merry go round. Or you might wonder like, why 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.679 are the stars not getting thrown out into intergalactic space? 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.200 If you spin a merry go round and you put 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.080 ping pong balls on it, those ping pong balls will 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.280 fly out into space. So why are the stars not 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.639 flying out into space? The answer is is gravity in 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.439 the galaxy that's holding those stars, that keeping them from 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.679 getting thrown out into the universe. So then you can 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:24.920 do something cool, which is cross check your numbers. You 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.360 can say, if I know how fast the galaxy is spinning, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.919 then I can calculate how much gravity I need to 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.480 hold the stars in place. But then I can add 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.320 up all the stars and ask is there enough gravity 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.800 to hold those stars in place? So you add up 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.680 all the mass of the galaxy you can see, calculate 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.760