WEBVTT - The next revolution in theoretical physics 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:11.440 Hey, Daniel, did you guys figure out quantum gravity yet? 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.000 Not yet? How about a dark matter Nope, still working 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.880 on it. Dark energy not that one either, Quantum wave 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.120 function collapse we got nava. Oh. Man, We've been doing 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:25.759 this podcast for years now, man, talking about these mysteries, 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.800 and you've made no progress. What's going on? Maybe the 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:30.600 problem is I've been spending a lot of time on 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.640 the podcast, or maybe you just need a new idea, 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.239 like another podcast. Yeah, Daniel, Jorge actually solves the mysteries 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.440 of the universe instead of just talking about it. We 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.440 could just put a microphone in your office, maybe the 0:00:43.520 --> 0:01:01.560 sound of Daniel napping. Hi. I'm Orge. I'm a cartoonist 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.479 and the creator of PhD comics. Hi I'm Daniel. I'm 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.640 a particle physicist and a professor UC Irvine, and I'm 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.440 totally ready to take to the streets for the next 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.479 scientific revolution. What do you mean, take to the threets 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.000 to protest or to celebrate? I don't know. That's just 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.080 how revolutions start, right, Everybody runs into the streets and 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.800 raises a stick and yells, and boom, the government just 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.000 falls over. Isn't that what happens? Oh? I see. You 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.360 want to promote a revolution, you need to put up 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:33.600 like barricades and streets with equations. I guess that's right. Everybody, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.720 grab a piece of chalk. We're gonna do physics on 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.160 the street. Literally. And then who are we claiming independence from? 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.279 Or who are we overturning big physics? Man? Of course? 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.160 Oh is that like the big lobby or good physics 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.640 or or bad physics. I'm really confused about this revolutionary idea. 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:52.960 It's a bunch of physicists in the back room. Instead 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.400 of smoking cigars though, they're just napping around a bunch 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.240 of chalkboards. Oh and you want to overthrow them and 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:03.160 put them to the guillotine theoretically speaking, yes, intellectual guillotine exactly, 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:08.000 the intellectual gailloty. Oh boy, heads will roll in your head, 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.680 but yeah. Welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.160 the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in which 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.400 heads roll and minds are blown. When we talk about 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.240 the crazy ideas of the universe. We know that our 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.000 current theories of the universe must be wrong. They are 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:28.320 definitely incomplete. They cannot describe nature correctly, and we join 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.200 you in a search for those new ideas, probing ever 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.760 deeper into the very nature of space and time and 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.320 the universe, what this reality is around us, asking questions 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.000 about the very basic nature of consciousness and measurement and information, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.880 and just trying to figure it all out. Man. Yeah, 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:48.799 because it is a pretty crazy universe full of amazing 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.560 things to discover and find out, and we're just puny, 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.280 little tiny beings on this floating rock in space trying 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.320 to figure out how it all works. It's sort of 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.360 like we are solving the biggest detective mystery in the universe, 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.480 because the whole universe is a big mystery for us 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.959 to unravel. And over thousands of years, we've been slowly 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.280 putting together a few ideas about how this bit works 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:13.160 and how that bit works. And sometimes those ideas even 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.280 fit together to make a bigger, clearer idea, and we 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:18.920 get these flashes of insight that tell us how the 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.080 universe works. Yeah, because we don't just live in the universe. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.800 We also wonder about it and we want to figure 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.160 out how it works. Because sometimes it's very useful information, right, 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.600 it depends on who has that information. It can be useful, 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.680 it can be dangerous, but it is absolutely enticing to me. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.080 It's all about knowing the way the universe works, revealing 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.120 that truth, peeling back those layers of reality to see 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.360 its inner mechanisms. And we've done it pretty good over 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.040 the year, as the centuries. Now that science has been 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.400 going on, and we have some pretty good theories about 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.680 how things work, and let us build amazing structures and 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.560 machines and send things to space and back. But we 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.280 are not quite theory in terms of understanding the very 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.240 small details of how the universe works, especially at the extremes. Yeah, 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:06.520 you might be forgiven for thinking that physics has it 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.160 mostly figured out. You know, we've developed incredible technologies. We 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.600 have revealed a lot about the way the universe works, 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.120 but we've also revealed how little we know. There's so 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.040 much of the universe that we haven't even begun to describe, 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.560 the dark matter, the dark energy, and enormous open questions 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.520 about the part of the universe that we can describe. 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.039 We don't understand a lot of the fundamental forces. We 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.159 can't bring together gravity and quantum mechanics. There are all 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.800 sorts of things where physics has hit some sort of 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.560 a roadblock. Yeah, so where would you put our estimate, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.000 would you say that we understand about the three percent 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.840 of the universe? Now, is that what you mean by 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.599 mostly understand the universe about three percent? Because we don't 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.040 understand the full five percent of what we're made out of, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.080 and there's like ninety five percent of the universe we 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.000 don't know anything about. Yeah, I would generously assess our 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.000 understanding the universe at zero point zero zero zero zero 0:04:54.040 --> 0:05:00.440 one percent, And that's rounding up what from zero hang 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.279 out from? Wow, So you think out of the five 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.160 percent of the universe that is made out of, you know, 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.920 atoms and fonted particles, you think we understand about zero 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.120 point zero zero one percent of it. Yeah. I think 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.880 we are very primitive in our understanding of the nature 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.200 of reality. I think people will look back at our 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.919 ideas in a thousand years and they will chuckle. You know, 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:20.760 they will look down their nose at us, because our 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.800 ideas are so simple and so ridiculous, the way we 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.760 look back at the Greeks or even further back, you know, 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.200 at cave many cave women their perspective on the universe. 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.360 We are really just beginning our exploration, and so I 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.120 think we haven't even really had time to develop the 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.640 right ideas or the right way to generate those ideas. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.120 I mean, we've been asking questions about the universe for 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.599 thousands of years, but we've only had a strategy for 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:50.719 building knowledge, this empirical scientific method for a few hundred years, 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.560 and you know, the mathematics to undergird it is much 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.479 more recent. So we're really just getting started. You know, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.480 it's like we just put our shoes on. We haven't 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.479 even really walked out the door to explore the universe yet. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.160 The feature scientists are so snobby. If you cut us 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.000 a break. You know, there's a lot going on right now. 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.080 You know, it's a lot of good stuff on Netflix, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.440 not even just future scientists, future five year olds. Right 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.600 there will be children's books about the universe in the 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.240 year three thousand that you and I will not understand. 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.080 We would read them and go, what, that's crazy, that 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.200 can't possibly be true. That's wild. So those five year 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.400 olds give a seminar at like M. I. T. And 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.880 all of the famous physicists would go and probably be clueless. Yes, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.120 it sort of sounds like we are not that far 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.599 along in our knowledge of the universe. Sometimes, but you know, 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.640 there's always hope, and maybe there's always a sort of 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.520 a revolution in theoretical physics and physical thinking, maybe right 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.000 around the corner. You never know, right, You never do know. 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.680 And when we look back at the development of ideas, 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.320 they seem sort of linear, you know, like Sally figured 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.840 out this, and then Alicia figured out that, and then 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.200 Bob came along and put this cherry on top and 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.320 tied it together and took credit for all of it, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:00.720 and this kind of stuff. It seems sort of linear, 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.240 But when you're in the middle of it, it it feels 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.120 much more like a huge cloud of confusion. There are 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.479 people going in all sorts of directions, and nobody knows 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.080 which one is going to be the foundation of future 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.760 brilliance and which one is totally a dead end. And 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.840 so it's really hard to tell in the moment what 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.520 the path of future physics is. Yeah, it could be 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.320 that the idea that changes everything or solves everything is 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.440 out there right now in the mind of a physicist, 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.160 but then maybe nobody takes him or her seriously. Yeah, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.160 it certainly could be. And it also could be that 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.000 there's been a new development of a kind of mathematics 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.320 that was developed just because it's math and it's fun, 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.960 and then in ten years some physicists will figure out 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.880 how to use it to solve some deep problem in physics. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:40.920 We've seen that happen a bunch of times. You know, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.040 field theory and group theory, all these things were developed 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.400 not for physics, but then we're later applied to physics 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.200 and have become incredibly useful. So you never really know 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.640 when sort of like the pieces of the puzzle are 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.240 going to find each other and click together to really 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.000 give us that glimpse of the next generation of ideas. 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.560 So today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question, 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.800 are we witnessing a revolution in theoretical physics? You mean, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.000 like it's happening right now. We could be witnessing it. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.000 We just don't know it. Yeah, we could be living 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.040 in the middle of it right now. Exactly. There are 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.400 some crazy new ideas that have been developed in the 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.080 last few years that suggests an entirely new way to 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.440 try to attack these questions of the fundamental nature of 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.200 the universe. And we don't know if this is a 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.440 dead end which will be added to the dust bin 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:33.960 of dead ends, or if you know, it will be 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.120 seen later as a critical turning point in the history 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.080 of physics. M Yeah, it's interesting because you know, if 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:41.920 you look back at the history of science, it does 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.280 seem like sometimes we think we figured everything out, but 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:45.960 then the more we look into it, the more we 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.360 realize that our theories don't work. You know, like Newtonian physics, 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.400 we thought we had unlocked, you know, the secrets of 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.920 the universe, but then eventually we found that it doesn't 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:55.840 work all of the time. And then we came up 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.199 with quantum theory, and we thought we had solved the 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.920 mysteries then, but then it turns out it doesn't quite 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.600 work all of the time. Yeah, exactly. That's why the 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.960 more we know, the more we realize we know less 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.520 and less, Which is why I was trying to really 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.160 hard to be conservative in giving an estimate of our 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.079 fraction of the universe that we have understood, because frankly, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.680 it seems to just drop as time goes on. Well, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:19.840 I guess maybe when you give such a low estimate, 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.679 what you really mean is that maybe the theories we 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.240 have now are you know, they work for most of 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.040 the time, and for most of the cases that we 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.560 sort of are in, you know, here on Earth sending 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.880 things to space. It works pretty well. But I think 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.360 maybe what you're thinking about is that maybe it's's like 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.560 fundamentally wrong, like there's something wrong with its very foundation. Yeah, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.240 it could just be the wrong way to attack the problem. 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.120 And sometimes the wrong approach works for a while and 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.040 then you get stuck. You know. For example, Aristotle and 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.280 Plato and those folks, they made a lot of progress 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:52.080 in understanding the nature of life and experience and consciousness 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.000 and you know, laid the foundations of philosophy. But it 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.440 wasn't until Galileo and folks in the fire or so 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.479 realize that it's important to actually go out and do experiments, 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.360 to make measurements, to ask the universe questions. This branch 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.120 of science we now call experimentation was a vital contribution 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.559 to like building knowledge and adding to our machine to 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.680 systematically build more knowledge. So sometimes we don't just make 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.360 progress in the ideas, but in the ideas for how 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:24.240 to make new ideas, and that can reveal something fundamentally 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.079 new about the nature of the universe. M Yeah, I 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.400 guess it's kind of a philosophical thing, you know, like 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:31.880 if you have a theory that works ninety five percent 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.880 of the time, but it's fundamentally incorrect. Is it still 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.160 a good theory or not? You know, like our current 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.599 theories allow us to send things to Mars and to 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.320 maniplate atoms and things like that, And so I would 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.720 say as an engineer, that's pretty good. You know, we're 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.560 like nine of the way they're you know, we're not 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.960 going into a black hole anytime soon, or you know, 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.240 going faster than the speed of light anytime soon. And 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.120 so I would say we've done pretty good. But maybe 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.360 as a theoretical physicist, you might be thinking, like, what 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.920 if it's all fundamentally wrong, that means we're zero percent right. Yeah, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.480 And it depends on the question you're asking. It depends 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.040 on what your goal is. If your goal is to 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.040 send something to Mars, then you don't really need to 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.560 understand quantum gravity and the deep fundamental nature of space time. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.680 But if those are your motivating questions, if the reason 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:15.439 you get out of bed and the thing that pulls 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.640 you through life is this desire to understand the universe 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.280 at its most basic level, and it's fundamental, foundational level, 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.640 the essential ingredients that make it what it is, then 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.200 you're not satisfied with like an approximate version that mostly works, 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.600 because the theory we have today it does mostly work 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:33.880 for the kinds of experiments we can do. We also 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.960 know that absolutely cannot be the real theory of the universe, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.280 the one that describes, you know, the very first few 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.640 moments and the crazy situation of very high energy and 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.440 high density. It can't describe what happens when space and 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.000 time distort very dramatically. It just fails, it breaks down, 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.480 and so it can't be the real story of the universe. 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.079 It can still be very very useful, the way Newtonian 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.160 physics is much more useful than Einsteinian physics to like 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:01.960 calculate the trajectory of a baseball, right, It could still 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.839 be very helpful and very effective. It's just not the 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.440 fundamental story. So that's what wakes you up in the morning, 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.560 gets you out of bed. But then what makes you 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.120 when I get taken napp then the same thing because 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.840 it's exhausting to think about. So we might be witnessing 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.960 a revolution in theoretical physics, and in particular we're going 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.280 to talk about a special kind of theory or a 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.000 special theory that it's a pretty good candidate for maybe 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.800 overtaking or overturning everything we know about physics. Right, that's right, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.000 And this is not necessarily a new idea about what 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.920 the universe is as much as a new method to 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.600 try to find new ideas. It's like adding experiments to 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.600 your strategy for figuring out the universe. This is like, well, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.120 let's take a new approach to finding new ideas about 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.040 the universe. Let's add to the scientific method. Let's give 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.640 it a tweak, and maybe that will reveal new ideas 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.160 we've overlooked before. It's like a meta theory, like how 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.280 to make theories theory interesting. But it's not control by 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.360 Mark Zuckerberg, thankfully, and it's real you can actually maybe 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.880 touch it. So we have this meta theory, this theory 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.760 of theories called constructor theory. That's the name of it. Yeah, 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.520 it's called the constructor theory. And it was developed by 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.960 a couple of folks at Oxford. One of them is 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.360 David Deutsch, and he's famous for doing like quantum information theory. 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.240 He's an expert in quantum computing and he's had sort 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.560 of the inspiration for this idea a while ago. And 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:28.559 then a grad student worked with him. Her name is 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.559 Kiara Marletto. She really elaborated it and tried to make 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.800 a concrete and try to turn it into something. And 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.240 together they've been developing this constructor theory for a few 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.080 years now and it's got quite a few converts and 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.640 lots of our listeners have written in and said, what 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.040 is this thing? Can you please explain it to us? Yeah, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.319 because it's it sounds interesting. It sort of sounds sort 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.160 of like a toy from my childhood, like a construction 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.080 toy maybe like you get different pieces and you can 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.160 build them together, or like a transformer. I think there's 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.120 something called constructor cons Well, you know, they do have 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.560 transformations in constructor theory, so maybe you're on the right track. 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.440 Maybe they'll develop, you know, tinker toys. Also maybe watch 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.480 the same shows. So yeah, this is a new theory 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.760 of theories. And so, as usual, we were wondering how 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.640 many people out there had heard of this or had 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:15.719 an idea of what it could be. So Daniel went 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.240 out there into the internet to ask people what is 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.560 constructor theory? So thanks to everybody who was a willing 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.840 participant in this fun game of answer A tough physics 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.400 question without any preparation. If you'd like to participate, please 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.000 don't be shy. If you've been listening for a while 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.480 and never dipped your toes in, now is the time 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.239 right to us two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.280 So think about it for a second. What would you 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.960 guess is constructor theory. Here's what people have to say. 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.920 I know that it is linked with physics, but I 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:52.240 don't know this time what it's about. I haven't heard 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.640 of constructor theory before, but I'm guessing it has to 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:01.520 do with an idea of how either things on a 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.960 very tiny scale or a very large scale are put together. 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:12.880 Constructor theory is the theory of how there is, planets, 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:18.040 and other types of styles have been created by ancient aliens, 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:23.280 maybe an alternative to creationism as opposed to the Big 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.400 Bang theory. The assumption is this has something to do 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.680 with a theory that is based upon some form of 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:36.880 building blocks, meaning that whatever that this constructor theory relates 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.760 to in whatever aspects of physics, this has something to 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:45.320 do with building upon a base of knowledge, as opposed 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:50.040 to something groundbreaking and out of left field by the name. 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.640 I would think it's something to do with creation, how 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:59.240 the universe started, or how we have been created, or 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:04.600 how just everything being created. Really, I've not heard of 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:09.040 constructor theory, but it sounds like a theory on how 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.000 the universe was made or constructed. My guess is it 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:17.640 would be it's to do with building something, So it 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.200 could be to do with putting atoms together or putting 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.720 subtomic particles together to make something bigger. I've never heard 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.800 of the constructor theory, but it does remind me of 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.720 the Bible and God creating everything in seven days, So 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.680 could the constructor theory have anything to do with that? 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.720 I'd say something that has to do with engineering, maybe 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:43.680 like building things, but I have no idea. Ten points 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:48.240 to the person who said something about physics, because that's 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.680 true in all situations, right, Any any answer can probably 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.560 be answered by something about physics. Yeah, that's true, and 0:16:54.720 --> 0:17:00.240 especially when it's this podcast, so yeah, of that time, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.160 or something about bananas that would also work. They'll take 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.680 you that last percentage home. Yeah, somebody said something about 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:10.360 engineering too, which I technically also applies to all answers. M. Yeah, 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.520 that's true because all engineering, fundamentally is just physics. Yeah, 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.359 and all physics is fundamentally useful only for engineering and knaps. 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.840 Engineering plus naps, that's right, Yeah, making sure that you 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:23.720 get enough rest. Yes, some people thought it may be 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:28.080 related to creation, right, constructor, like maybe you're constructing the universe. 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.719 It is a very general sounding term, right, it's a 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:32.879 little vague, so it doesn't give you a lot to 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.159 really work with. If you haven't heard of it before, 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.000 you probably weren't going to guess what it was just 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.359 from the name. I guess it's interesting because you can 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.159 read it as now and like constructor theory, you know, 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.440 like maybe there's a constructor, like a like a person 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.960 or an entity. We're trying to figure out how it works. Yeah, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.720 or like who made the universe? Mmm? Oh I see, yeah, 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.560 well that explains why people were talking about God and creation. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.000 It clicks now, I get it. Yeah, yeah, maybe there 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.960 is a constructor, you know, I see theory of the constructor. 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.159 It's just starting into a conspiracy theory. Whoever the constructor is, 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.119 I hope he took a good nap after he created 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.240 the universe. He or she or it or they. I 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.160 think that's in the pile. Daniel on the Seventh Day 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.719 the constructor took a nap. There you go. See, napping 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.960 is crucial everywhere. That's right, it's a holy concept. Naps 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.960 are sacred. Yeah, so maybe step us through Daniel. What 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.639 is constructor theory? Like, what's the overall idea of it? 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.479 The idea of constructor theory is to take a different 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.359 approach to trying to develop theories of the universe. Now, 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.440 our current approach is pretty good, but it has sort 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.200 of a singular focus. It says, try to figure out 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:40.600 sort of what's going on in the universe right now, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.960 and then find the rules for how the universe is 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.159 going to change the dynamics. Like, the universe is like this, 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.879 it's two particles in this configuration. What are the rules 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.560 for how those particles should move and where will they 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.040 be in the future, and so you know, Newtonian physics, 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.640 for example, tells you if you hit a baseball, how 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.840 is it going to fly? What is its path? And 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.520 even quantum mechanics tells you if you have a wave 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.919 function and it hits a potential, well, what's going to happen? 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.320 And so a lot of current physics is what we 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.560 call like initial value problems. It says, here's the current 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.800 situation the universe, how is that going to change? And 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.680 so that's like worked for us pretty well so far, 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.120 but it does have its limitations, you mean, like it's 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.400 it's sort of embedded in the way and the reason 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.840 we do science, right, Like we sort of invented science 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.000 so we could predict the future. And so you're saying, 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.399 right now, physics and science is sort of geared or 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.400 designed or sort of assumes that you want to predict 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.159 what's going to happen in the future. Yeah, exactly, and 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.359 not just that you're going to predict what happens the future. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.320 But that's all you want to think about, is you 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.040 take this configuration of particles or the universe in its 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:44.639 current state, and you just want to know what are 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.040 the rules that are going to tell it what's going 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:48.639 to happen in the future. How is it going to 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:53.159 evolve from now into the future? Right? So, and it's useful, 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.640 right because if you want to predict what your spaceship 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:57.280 is going to do when you throw it at the moon, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.240 or whether your bridge is going to hold, that's kind 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.440 of what science is good for. Right. Yeah, it sounds 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.080 like a great strategy, right because it's it's very effective. 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.639 It helps you solve problems. If you have two particles 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.680 and you shoot them together, then our current laws will 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.640 tell you what's going to happen. And so that seems 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.640 very natural. And like a lot of revolutions in physics, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.280 they come up against something which seems very intuitive and 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.679 seems like it must be all inclusive, and like, what 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.000 could be missing out of that scenario? What possibly could 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.840 you be overlooking using this approach. But those are also 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.520 the times that you need to be skeptical, when you realize, well, 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.480 maybe we've made some assumption very back in the beginning 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:32.280 of how we started things, and we could have taken 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.240 another path, We could have started somewhere else, and maybe 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.480 we would have gotten to a different point. It's really 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.080 hard to imagine sort of a different history of physics 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:42.840 if Newton hadn't been around and somebody else had conceived 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.320