1 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:11,760 Speaker 1: Hey, Katie, are you reading anything good right now? Yeah, 2 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:15,680 Speaker 1: I'm actually on like a multi year journey of reading 3 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:19,959 Speaker 1: the Earth Sea books. They're really good. And did you 4 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,640 Speaker 1: read them with photons? Yeah? I guess that's a very 5 00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:25,239 Speaker 1: particle physics way of asking if I read it with 6 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:28,240 Speaker 1: my eyeballs? And yes, yes I do. I read it 7 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:31,920 Speaker 1: with photons that go into my eyeballs. And so are 8 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:34,519 Speaker 1: you not a fan of audio books for example? No, 9 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 1: I I do actually like audio books, but yeah, I 10 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:41,720 Speaker 1: like to read with my eyeballs and my earballs. And 11 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:43,920 Speaker 1: how about Brail. Do you know anyone who can read 12 00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:47,239 Speaker 1: with their fingerballs? I don't, but I would love to 13 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:50,320 Speaker 1: learn it's it seems fascinating. I wonder how different it 14 00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:54,240 Speaker 1: would be to experience a book with smell or with taste. Well, 15 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:56,400 Speaker 1: do you remember scratch and sniff? It's been a long 16 00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:58,720 Speaker 1: time since I read a textbook with scratch and sniff. 17 00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:01,400 Speaker 1: I would love to smell outer space because I've heard 18 00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:19,280 Speaker 1: it smells kind of funky. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a 19 00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:23,120 Speaker 1: particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I've 20 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:26,880 Speaker 1: never eaten a physics book. I am Katie. I am 21 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:31,480 Speaker 1: the host of a animal biology podcast. And I have 22 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:36,319 Speaker 1: sometimes nibbled on the corners of a physics textbook, And 23 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:41,440 Speaker 1: how does physics taste? Taste kind of like cellulose that 24 00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:44,760 Speaker 1: has been converted into readable format. Well, maybe you should 25 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,120 Speaker 1: print it on the surface of a cake, like frosting, 26 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:49,880 Speaker 1: and that would be tastier. In fact, I should make 27 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:53,080 Speaker 1: that assigned reading from my next class cake printed textbooks. 28 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:57,840 Speaker 1: I wish you could learn by printing textbook pages on 29 00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:02,400 Speaker 1: a cake and eating it. And welcome to the podcast. 30 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:07,120 Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe production of I Heart Radio, 31 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:10,040 Speaker 1: in which we serve up the entire universe as a 32 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:13,519 Speaker 1: slice of delicious knowledge. We try to bake all of 33 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,480 Speaker 1: the ingredients that make up this amazing cosmos, the quarks, 34 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:21,079 Speaker 1: the gluons, whatever is smaller and underneath, which weaves together 35 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:23,880 Speaker 1: to make our incredible reality, all the way up to 36 00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:28,120 Speaker 1: the largest portions of galaxies and superclusters. We love the 37 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:31,280 Speaker 1: way it's all come together into this delicious and amazing 38 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:35,400 Speaker 1: and totally crazy universe, and we love sharing all of 39 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 1: it with you because we think everybody deserves a delicious 40 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 1: bite of the universe. Do physicists like to celebrate discoveries 41 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:45,840 Speaker 1: by bringing in like cookies and naming them things after 42 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:49,520 Speaker 1: the universe, like quais our crunch and so on. You know, 43 00:02:49,639 --> 00:02:52,960 Speaker 1: at certain we often have cakes to celebrate things. You know, 44 00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:55,440 Speaker 1: just finished a big piece of the detector, or wow, 45 00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:59,120 Speaker 1: this multimillion dollar apparatus actually worked, or you know, we 46 00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:02,120 Speaker 1: started up the exil orator and didn't create a black hole. Yeah, 47 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:04,720 Speaker 1: let's have a cake. I think maybe it's just part 48 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:07,280 Speaker 1: of the European culture, something the wheel in a cake 49 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:10,040 Speaker 1: often for these celebrations. I like that. I like that 50 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:13,240 Speaker 1: scientists are being motivated with cake, not to start a 51 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:15,840 Speaker 1: new black hole. It's good, keep the cake coming and 52 00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:18,639 Speaker 1: joking aside. I think there's a real connection between our 53 00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:23,360 Speaker 1: senses and our knowledge of the universe, because philosophically, everything 54 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:26,200 Speaker 1: that we know about the universe, while it might sit 55 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:29,560 Speaker 1: in our heads as a sort of theoretical mathematical framework, 56 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:33,400 Speaker 1: it's all informed by things that we saw or tasted 57 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:37,200 Speaker 1: or touched or smelled or nibbled on. Our window to 58 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:41,960 Speaker 1: the universe is through our senses, and often in science 59 00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:45,200 Speaker 1: we are using our photons and we are using our ears, 60 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:48,040 Speaker 1: but we do have more senses to detect the universe, 61 00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: and we know that the universe out there is more 62 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,800 Speaker 1: than we do sense. Yeah, it's like every sense we 63 00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:58,400 Speaker 1: have is a little porthole into the universe, and it 64 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:02,000 Speaker 1: varies from person to person like some people have, you know, 65 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:06,160 Speaker 1: like different kind of senses, are different strengths with different senses, 66 00:04:06,200 --> 00:04:09,640 Speaker 1: but each sense it's like one method of reaching out 67 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:12,680 Speaker 1: to the universe and letting it kind of come into 68 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:16,760 Speaker 1: your little private world that is your own brain. Yeah, 69 00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:19,200 Speaker 1: and we build this little mental model of the universe 70 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:21,719 Speaker 1: in our brain that's informed by our senses. But we 71 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:24,600 Speaker 1: also know that our senses are not a complete picture 72 00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:27,479 Speaker 1: of everything that's out there. I mean even just think 73 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:30,040 Speaker 1: about the photons that you can see with your eyeballs, 74 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:33,400 Speaker 1: where you can only see the visible part of the spectrum, right, 75 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:35,840 Speaker 1: that's why we call it visible. But there are other 76 00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:40,000 Speaker 1: kinds of photons out there there, ultraviolet photons whose frequency 77 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:42,520 Speaker 1: is too high for your eyeballs to see. There are 78 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:46,040 Speaker 1: infrared photons whose wavelengths are too long for you to see. 79 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:49,320 Speaker 1: The universe would look very different if you could see those. 80 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,599 Speaker 1: And we as humans have built technological eyeballs that allow 81 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:56,599 Speaker 1: us to see out into space and look at the 82 00:04:56,640 --> 00:04:59,960 Speaker 1: universe in these other wavelengths to James Web Space telescope. 83 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:03,360 Speaker 1: Example is in the infrared those pictures you see of 84 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:06,320 Speaker 1: the James Webb. You couldn't see those with your eyeballs 85 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:08,400 Speaker 1: if you went out into space and stared out in 86 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:10,880 Speaker 1: those directions, because the photons that are hitting the James 87 00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:14,200 Speaker 1: Web Space telescope would be ignored by your eyeball. So 88 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:17,719 Speaker 1: all those pictures are colors shifted. They take the photons 89 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:20,400 Speaker 1: that land in the telescope and they change their frequencies 90 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,080 Speaker 1: so that you can see. It's sort of like taking 91 00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:25,040 Speaker 1: music that only dogs can hear and shifting it into 92 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:28,080 Speaker 1: a lower spectrum so that the human ear can hear it. 93 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:30,280 Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do that because I know my 94 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:34,240 Speaker 1: dog is probably listening to some dog music and not 95 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:36,560 Speaker 1: letting me in on it. But when you said the 96 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:38,680 Speaker 1: thing about like, you know, we can't see u V, 97 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:41,960 Speaker 1: of course, that's like for for human beings, our eyes 98 00:05:42,200 --> 00:05:47,240 Speaker 1: are not naturally capable of seeing UV light, although there 99 00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:50,120 Speaker 1: are a lot of animals that can see UV light. 100 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:53,200 Speaker 1: In fact, humans actually seem more like the exception in 101 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:56,880 Speaker 1: terms of not being able to see UV. But there 102 00:05:56,920 --> 00:06:00,360 Speaker 1: are rare cases in which humans can see u V 103 00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:05,360 Speaker 1: and that is when people have eye surgery, and UV 104 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:08,919 Speaker 1: light can actually trigger the rods and cones on the 105 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:12,920 Speaker 1: on our corneas, but it can't get through like the lens. 106 00:06:12,960 --> 00:06:14,680 Speaker 1: And so if you have some kind of surgery where 107 00:06:14,680 --> 00:06:17,719 Speaker 1: there they are removing that sort of top layer of 108 00:06:17,760 --> 00:06:22,160 Speaker 1: your lens, it can actually get through your I hit 109 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:24,839 Speaker 1: the back of your eye. And people can actually see 110 00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,479 Speaker 1: UV light occasionally, like after getting eye surgery, because they'll 111 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:32,600 Speaker 1: replace the lens with sort of like an artificial lens 112 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,719 Speaker 1: that helps you focus on the image, but it is 113 00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:39,680 Speaker 1: different a different material than our natural biological lenses. And 114 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,000 Speaker 1: so people can actually see UV and they describe it 115 00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:45,960 Speaker 1: as this like sort of purply light, but of course 116 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,040 Speaker 1: they can only describe it using words that exist in 117 00:06:50,080 --> 00:06:53,279 Speaker 1: the English language. That we're made by humans that can't 118 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:55,280 Speaker 1: see UV lights, so it's very hard to know what 119 00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:58,920 Speaker 1: exactly they're seeing, but it is really fascinating. And there's 120 00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:03,479 Speaker 1: this theory that Monet had because he had a cataracts 121 00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:07,159 Speaker 1: later in life and he had a sort of rudimentary 122 00:07:07,200 --> 00:07:10,920 Speaker 1: cataract surgery that he actually saw UV light and that's 123 00:07:10,960 --> 00:07:15,640 Speaker 1: why some of his later paintings were so violent and 124 00:07:15,760 --> 00:07:19,480 Speaker 1: vibrant with Purple's. Wow, incredible. There are people out there 125 00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:22,920 Speaker 1: who can see our invisible universe. I would love to 126 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:25,160 Speaker 1: be able to do that. I have this sense that 127 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:28,840 Speaker 1: we are walking around almost blind, that there's so much 128 00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:31,960 Speaker 1: information out there about the universe that we are not 129 00:07:32,080 --> 00:07:35,360 Speaker 1: absorbing that doesn't inform our mental models, that leaves us 130 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:38,880 Speaker 1: sort of ignorant. I recently read Ed Young's book about 131 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:42,400 Speaker 1: Animal Senses, and we recently had on the podcast Aria 132 00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:46,200 Speaker 1: Kurshionbaum Zoologists talking about the different kinds of senses that 133 00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:49,520 Speaker 1: animals have. And I was amazed learning about, for example, 134 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:54,240 Speaker 1: fish that can directly sense electric fields and birds that 135 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:57,720 Speaker 1: can sense magnetic fields with their eyeballs, And I wonder, like, 136 00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:00,240 Speaker 1: what's that like to be able to say it's a 137 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:02,720 Speaker 1: magnetic fields. What does it feel like? Yeah? I mean 138 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:07,520 Speaker 1: it's so interesting. So with fish that can sense electric fields, 139 00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:11,560 Speaker 1: like one of my favorite ones is the elephant nose fish. 140 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:14,840 Speaker 1: It's an amazing looking fish because it has this long 141 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:18,160 Speaker 1: protrusion on its lower jaw that looks like this really 142 00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:22,600 Speaker 1: long nose. It's not actually a nose, but um it's 143 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:26,360 Speaker 1: called a Schnauzen organ, which I love. I just love 144 00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:28,840 Speaker 1: that name so much. Are you want to take that 145 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:33,880 Speaker 1: it's real? I do sometimes wonder because I read these 146 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:37,280 Speaker 1: papers and maybe someone just like decided I'm going to 147 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:40,600 Speaker 1: start calling it a schnauz a organ starting now, put 148 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:44,440 Speaker 1: it in their paper and hopes no one notices. Uh, 149 00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:47,640 Speaker 1: but yeah, this fish is covered in electra receptors. But 150 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:51,760 Speaker 1: not only that, it can generate a weak electric field 151 00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:56,559 Speaker 1: with its tail. With this special electric organ in its tail, 152 00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,160 Speaker 1: that's like these modified muscle cells, because when our muscle 153 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:03,040 Speaker 1: cells act debate, they actually produces very weak electrical pulse, 154 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:08,320 Speaker 1: which actually some animals can use to detect your movement 155 00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:12,520 Speaker 1: by sensing your muscles. And when our muscle cells activate, 156 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:15,320 Speaker 1: there's that that electrical pulse. But this fish is organ 157 00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:20,240 Speaker 1: creates a stronger electrical pulse, and so it basically forms 158 00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:24,800 Speaker 1: this like field around itself of weak electric force. And 159 00:09:24,840 --> 00:09:27,920 Speaker 1: then when that weak electric force hits something like an 160 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:32,640 Speaker 1: obstacle or prey or another fish, the schnells and organ 161 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:37,000 Speaker 1: and other electro receptors on its body receives sort of 162 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:40,319 Speaker 1: this bounce back information of like this electric field got disturbed. 163 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:44,040 Speaker 1: There's something over here. And if you think about it, 164 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,840 Speaker 1: it's similar to how bets will be able to sense 165 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:52,199 Speaker 1: their environment through um a location where they're sending out 166 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:54,840 Speaker 1: instead of an electric field, they're sending out sort of 167 00:09:54,840 --> 00:09:58,679 Speaker 1: a sonar sound field that bounces back to them and 168 00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:02,440 Speaker 1: they receive that. It's incredible because when it really comes 169 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:05,400 Speaker 1: down to it, things have to bounce into us for 170 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:08,040 Speaker 1: us to receive them. And so with humans, with our 171 00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,600 Speaker 1: sight and our smell, and I suppose also touch and hearing, 172 00:10:11,920 --> 00:10:15,120 Speaker 1: things are actually bouncing into us, even though sometimes it 173 00:10:15,160 --> 00:10:18,840 Speaker 1: doesn't feel that way. But the difference is that typically 174 00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:22,800 Speaker 1: we don't produce a field, so we don't like unlike 175 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,720 Speaker 1: these fish that produce an electric field or bats that 176 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:30,800 Speaker 1: produce sort of this sound wave, we typically don't do that. 177 00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:34,000 Speaker 1: Where we produce, we don't shoot out photons from our 178 00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:36,320 Speaker 1: eyes and have them bounce back at us. We just 179 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:39,600 Speaker 1: received photons that bounce into our eyes. Some of us 180 00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:43,440 Speaker 1: are so brilliant that we do glow, actually, Katie, but 181 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:46,200 Speaker 1: I think that's really fascinating what you brought up about echolocation. 182 00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:48,439 Speaker 1: One of my favorite bits in ed Young's book is 183 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:51,120 Speaker 1: when he talks about dolphins that can echolocate. Not only, 184 00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:54,160 Speaker 1: of course, can they navigate, but they can identify objects 185 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:58,000 Speaker 1: in echolocation. And he talked about an experiment where dolphins 186 00:10:58,120 --> 00:11:00,920 Speaker 1: they're shown an object while they're mindfolded, so they can 187 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:03,880 Speaker 1: only sense its shape using echolocation, and then the dolphins 188 00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:08,360 Speaker 1: can recognize the same object on a TV screen using 189 00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:11,160 Speaker 1: their eyeballs, which tells you that they have like a 190 00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:15,959 Speaker 1: mental model of this object that they're comparing across different senses. Right, 191 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:18,440 Speaker 1: It's like somebody gives you a shape and you're not 192 00:11:18,559 --> 00:11:20,679 Speaker 1: to touch it, and then later you have to identify 193 00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:22,640 Speaker 1: it just by looking at them. That gives me a 194 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:24,440 Speaker 1: little bit of a window and like what it's like 195 00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:26,599 Speaker 1: to be a dolphin, which is really to me the 196 00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:30,200 Speaker 1: philosophically fascinating question of what it's like to have these 197 00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:32,600 Speaker 1: other senses, to be able to see the universe in 198 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:35,320 Speaker 1: other terms, because so much of what we do in 199 00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:38,880 Speaker 1: physics is explain the unknown in terms of the known, 200 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,680 Speaker 1: just as you were saying describing the ultra violet in 201 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:44,520 Speaker 1: terms of what you do know words for like violet. Right, 202 00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:46,920 Speaker 1: But if we had other senses, if we we had 203 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:50,240 Speaker 1: evolved with the ability to detect other kinds of particles 204 00:11:50,320 --> 00:11:52,920 Speaker 1: neutrinos or dark matter or something else. We might have 205 00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:55,800 Speaker 1: a whole different experience of living in this universe and 206 00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:59,880 Speaker 1: vocabulary for explaining it and exploring it. It might be 207 00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:02,160 Speaker 1: uch easier to talk about the nature of the universe 208 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:05,440 Speaker 1: if we only had evolved one or two more senses. Dangity. 209 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:08,439 Speaker 1: So biology is the reason physics is hard. That's my 210 00:12:08,559 --> 00:12:12,720 Speaker 1: main point. I apologize, I guess, yeah, no, it is. 211 00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:15,960 Speaker 1: It is really interesting to think about how different the 212 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:18,920 Speaker 1: human experience would be if we did have different senses, 213 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:22,200 Speaker 1: which could have been very possible given how different the 214 00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:25,360 Speaker 1: senses are of so many different animals, even ones close 215 00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:29,040 Speaker 1: to us, like dogs, who are very smell based, but 216 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:31,280 Speaker 1: they're they're like our buddies, there are friends, and so 217 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:34,640 Speaker 1: we have this sense of like we're very emotionally are 218 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:37,520 Speaker 1: are kind of emotional connection to dogs. We can really 219 00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:39,920 Speaker 1: relate to them, but they have this whole kind of 220 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:45,000 Speaker 1: hidden communication of smells that goes far far beyond our ability, 221 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,959 Speaker 1: Like we can smell things, but it's so far beyond 222 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,720 Speaker 1: our ability to distinguish smells. It's sort of like, you know, 223 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:56,240 Speaker 1: the difference UH envisioned between like an aunt and like 224 00:12:56,480 --> 00:12:59,280 Speaker 1: a you know, an eagle, and so we'd love to 225 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:01,280 Speaker 1: understand what it's like to be an aunt or an 226 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:04,000 Speaker 1: eagle or a dog. But beyond that, we also wonder 227 00:13:04,120 --> 00:13:07,160 Speaker 1: what would we like to see the universe in terms 228 00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:11,000 Speaker 1: of other particles, not just photons and not just phonons, 229 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,360 Speaker 1: not just touching stuff, but to see some of the 230 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:16,719 Speaker 1: truly invisible parts of the universe. And we know from 231 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:19,960 Speaker 1: our particle physics experiments that there are other particles out 232 00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,079 Speaker 1: there flowing through us and over us right now, rich 233 00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:26,760 Speaker 1: with information about the universe. We're talking about the almost 234 00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:30,000 Speaker 1: invisible particle, the neutrino. What would it be like to 235 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:34,920 Speaker 1: have a neutrino schnauzen an organ which could detect neutrinos? 236 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:37,120 Speaker 1: And I swear I didn't make that up, you know, 237 00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:39,559 Speaker 1: that's in the literature. No, I totally just made that. 238 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:44,640 Speaker 1: From what I know about languages, is like in Italian, 239 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:49,600 Speaker 1: anything with eno usually means like small, like bambino is 240 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:53,960 Speaker 1: like a baby, and you know, newts or like seems 241 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:57,640 Speaker 1: to come from neutral. So the name neutrino, to my 242 00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:02,959 Speaker 1: ears and to my brain means a teeny tiny neutral thing. Yeah, 243 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,480 Speaker 1: that's exactly right. It was actually named by an Italian, 244 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:08,439 Speaker 1: of course, for it was actually discovered, it was hypothesized 245 00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:11,920 Speaker 1: and named to be a tiny, little neutral particle. And 246 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:14,720 Speaker 1: so today on the podcast, we're gonna be talking about 247 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:17,520 Speaker 1: whether we can use those particles to learn more about 248 00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:20,520 Speaker 1: the universe and to actually talk to each other. So 249 00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:28,040 Speaker 1: on the episode today we'll be asking the question can 250 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:33,200 Speaker 1: you communicate with new trinos? And is this new plan 251 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:37,080 Speaker 1: going to cost be more money than T mobile? That's right, 252 00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:38,720 Speaker 1: you're now going to have something else to pay your 253 00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:43,479 Speaker 1: new trino bill every single month. Fortunately, new trinos are everywhere. 254 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:46,320 Speaker 1: They surround us. They're produced in the Sun. There are 255 00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:50,960 Speaker 1: a hundred billion neutrinos passing through every square centimeter of 256 00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:54,160 Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth every second, So that's a 257 00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:57,200 Speaker 1: hundred billion, two hundred billion, eight more seconds, and there's 258 00:14:57,200 --> 00:15:00,920 Speaker 1: a trillion neutrinos that have passed through your fingernail. And 259 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,080 Speaker 1: that just gives you a sense of the scale of 260 00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:06,640 Speaker 1: how much we do not see about the universe, how 261 00:15:06,680 --> 00:15:09,680 Speaker 1: many ways the universe can do stuff that we don't 262 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:13,120 Speaker 1: participate in. Because for our ancestors, it just was not 263 00:15:13,200 --> 00:15:17,960 Speaker 1: an evolutionary advantage to build internal neutrino detectors. And you 264 00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:20,000 Speaker 1: might think, well, it's too difficult, it's too subtle a 265 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:23,520 Speaker 1: thing for evolution to master. But remember that evolution has 266 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:26,720 Speaker 1: figured out how to sense the Earth's magnetic field using 267 00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:30,000 Speaker 1: chemical reactions in the eyeballs of birds, or how the 268 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:34,320 Speaker 1: chemistry happens depends on the external magnetic field. So evolution, 269 00:15:34,400 --> 00:15:38,200 Speaker 1: if there's an advantage, is capable of developing very very 270 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:42,280 Speaker 1: sensitive detectors to all sorts of weird physical phenomena. I mean, 271 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:45,600 Speaker 1: even our own eyeballs. The fact we can see we 272 00:15:45,640 --> 00:15:47,680 Speaker 1: can maybe take for granted. But the fact we can 273 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:51,080 Speaker 1: have such a sharp image from being able to have 274 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:55,960 Speaker 1: a photon hit a protein structure and change its shape 275 00:15:56,200 --> 00:16:00,600 Speaker 1: that sends a signal to a nerve is incredible. I mean, 276 00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:04,480 Speaker 1: it's that to me. If some alien that had no 277 00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:08,080 Speaker 1: eyeballs and no vision, like was told that you could 278 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:11,480 Speaker 1: sense the world and photons hitting a protein, they'd go like, no, 279 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:13,880 Speaker 1: that's absurd. Yeah. We talked about that in a really 280 00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:16,680 Speaker 1: fun episode about how the human eye is sensitive to 281 00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:21,560 Speaker 1: individual photons and not just that you can respond really quickly. 282 00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:25,200 Speaker 1: These little protein machines change configuration when a photon hits 283 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:26,920 Speaker 1: them and then they switch back and they're ready for 284 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:30,960 Speaker 1: another photon like very soon afterwards, so that not only 285 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:32,800 Speaker 1: can you see the world if it's very dim, you 286 00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:35,720 Speaker 1: can also see very fast moving things. It's a really 287 00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:39,200 Speaker 1: an incredible piece of technology. So kudos to biology and evolution. 288 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:43,120 Speaker 1: And maybe in another billion years are neutrino Schnelzen's will evolve, 289 00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:46,320 Speaker 1: so we can smell neutrinos in the universe. One can 290 00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,200 Speaker 1: only hope. But until then it's the physicists who are 291 00:16:49,320 --> 00:16:52,040 Speaker 1: in the lead, because we have detected the existence of 292 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:54,600 Speaker 1: these ghostly particles and we have studied them, and they're 293 00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:58,440 Speaker 1: a fascinating window into the nature of reality because these 294 00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:01,160 Speaker 1: particles are produced everywhere in the universe, but they hardly 295 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:04,240 Speaker 1: ever interact, but they do sort of hold a place 296 00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:08,199 Speaker 1: in the periodic table of the fundamental particles, the basic 297 00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:11,240 Speaker 1: organizing system of the universe as we know. It's so 298 00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:13,439 Speaker 1: far and so now that physics has revealed to us 299 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:17,000 Speaker 1: the existence of these other particles, naturally the engineers are 300 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,120 Speaker 1: wondering what are they good for? Can we do something 301 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:23,080 Speaker 1: with them? Is it possible to do something with neutrinos 302 00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:26,000 Speaker 1: that we couldn't do with photons, and so I was 303 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:28,680 Speaker 1: wondering if people thought it was possible to use new 304 00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:32,280 Speaker 1: trinos to communicate, for example, to stream movies while you're 305 00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:34,720 Speaker 1: deep underground. Perhaps, so I went out there into the 306 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:38,360 Speaker 1: Internet and tapped our cadre of volunteers who answer these 307 00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:41,320 Speaker 1: random questions without a chance to prepare, to give you 308 00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:43,919 Speaker 1: a sense for what other people out there are thinking 309 00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:46,600 Speaker 1: about these questions. And if you'd like to participate for 310 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:49,560 Speaker 1: a future episode, please don't be shy. Everybody's welcome. Just 311 00:17:49,840 --> 00:17:52,400 Speaker 1: right to me two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot 312 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:54,640 Speaker 1: com and I'll set you up. So before you hear 313 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,080 Speaker 1: these answers, think for a second, what do you think 314 00:17:57,359 --> 00:18:01,280 Speaker 1: is it possible to communicate with new tri trinos. Here's 315 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:04,040 Speaker 1: what everybody had to say. It is possible to send 316 00:18:04,119 --> 00:18:08,639 Speaker 1: messages with neutrinos. Even saw a movie that everybody was 317 00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:13,280 Speaker 1: trying to send messages to stock market the fastest possible. 318 00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:17,280 Speaker 1: At the end of the movie that was this is 319 00:18:18,040 --> 00:18:20,960 Speaker 1: what they this guy was thinking about, to send messages 320 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:25,359 Speaker 1: with neotrinos that would go through the curvature of Earth. 321 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:28,680 Speaker 1: You just go and pass by it and this will 322 00:18:28,840 --> 00:18:33,040 Speaker 1: get you the fastest message ever from point to point. 323 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:35,080 Speaker 1: So I think some future tech could develop that could 324 00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:37,439 Speaker 1: allow us to communicate with neutrinos. But I do remember 325 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:40,600 Speaker 1: from a past episode that you mentioned a neutrino could 326 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:43,680 Speaker 1: pass through a mile or a light year long break 327 00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:47,000 Speaker 1: of lead and only half interactions, so even if you 328 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:48,639 Speaker 1: could communicate, you might not want to stream with it. 329 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:51,320 Speaker 1: I don't even remember what neutrinos are from college or 330 00:18:51,359 --> 00:18:54,600 Speaker 1: your podcast, so I have no idea. Well, since neutrinos 331 00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:58,640 Speaker 1: don't interact with other types of matter, I don't think 332 00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:01,560 Speaker 1: you can use them for communicycation because I think the 333 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:06,719 Speaker 1: reason why electromagnetic waves can carry and um as supposed 334 00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:11,280 Speaker 1: to transmit information is that because they can interact with 335 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:13,840 Speaker 1: I don't know, antennae and stuff. I'm gonna say we 336 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:16,919 Speaker 1: can't communicate with neutrinos just based on I guess what 337 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:19,959 Speaker 1: I would define communication itself as, which I think applies 338 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:22,320 Speaker 1: sentience of some kind, like like a knowing exchange of 339 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:25,080 Speaker 1: information between at least two different beings. And I don't 340 00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:27,560 Speaker 1: really see neutrinos a sentience, so I don't really see 341 00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:30,560 Speaker 1: how they can communicate with us. I'm trying to think 342 00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:33,760 Speaker 1: of what movie the first respondent mentioned that they saw 343 00:19:33,800 --> 00:19:36,280 Speaker 1: a movie where someone wanted to send messages as fast 344 00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:40,760 Speaker 1: as possible. I guess using neutrinos. Yeah, it's interesting because 345 00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:42,720 Speaker 1: if you want to send messages as fast as possible, 346 00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:45,240 Speaker 1: obviously the speed of light is as fast as possible, 347 00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:47,879 Speaker 1: and photons travel at the speed of light, so you know, 348 00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:50,680 Speaker 1: fiber optics are pretty good. Maybe they have the impression 349 00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:53,520 Speaker 1: that neutrinos could somehow travel faster than the speed of light, 350 00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:57,880 Speaker 1: or maybe like because neutrinos can go through stuff, right. 351 00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:00,040 Speaker 1: Neutrinos can, in fact and go through a lot of 352 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,320 Speaker 1: mostly because the universe is transparent to them. They don't 353 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:05,960 Speaker 1: really interact with this stuff, so they just like fly 354 00:20:06,119 --> 00:20:08,600 Speaker 1: through it. So maybe even if they're not as fast 355 00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:12,720 Speaker 1: as the speed of light, they can get through things better, 356 00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,800 Speaker 1: so like they won't be blocked by things until you 357 00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:17,760 Speaker 1: receive them. Oh, that's a good point. If you want 358 00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:19,880 Speaker 1: to send a message from here to Beijing, for example, 359 00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:22,480 Speaker 1: you could send it through the Earth rather than having 360 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:24,560 Speaker 1: to go along the surface of the Earth. That would 361 00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:27,800 Speaker 1: save you a few nano seconds. Your email arrives first 362 00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:31,119 Speaker 1: to Beijing before everybody else, your new tree mail. I 363 00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:35,160 Speaker 1: guess neutron mail. Wasn't that something or was that proton 364 00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:37,399 Speaker 1: I don't know, man, proton mail is still a thing. 365 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:40,240 Speaker 1: I think it's for the super security conscious people. Yeah, 366 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:43,439 Speaker 1: well they should do neutrino mail. I'd sign up for that. 367 00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:45,560 Speaker 1: You have a lot of emails. You just can't see them. 368 00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:50,320 Speaker 1: You just can't see them so like normal email. So 369 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:56,119 Speaker 1: neutrinos are teeny tiny neutral particles that can sort of 370 00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:59,960 Speaker 1: like like they seem so ethereal. I need a little 371 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:03,800 Speaker 1: more help sort of understanding something that's essentially like a 372 00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:06,720 Speaker 1: tiny ghost. It's really fun to think about neutrinos. They're 373 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,080 Speaker 1: one of my favorite particles. Let's start with this description 374 00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:11,520 Speaker 1: used of tiny. What do we mean when we say 375 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:15,800 Speaker 1: neutrinos are tiny? Are they like smaller than other particles? 376 00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:18,159 Speaker 1: If you put a neutrino next to an electron, like 377 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,959 Speaker 1: which one would be smaller. We don't really have a 378 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:24,159 Speaker 1: sense for the size of these particles, if you'd like 379 00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:27,080 Speaker 1: to think about them as like tiny little balls of stuff. 380 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:29,920 Speaker 1: In our theory, we treat them all as point particles. 381 00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:34,520 Speaker 1: Corks and electrons and neutrinos really have essentially zero volume 382 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:36,960 Speaker 1: in our theory. That's not because we know they have 383 00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:39,320 Speaker 1: zero volume. We just treat them that way because we 384 00:21:39,359 --> 00:21:42,919 Speaker 1: don't know what's inside. Realistically, it's probably the case that 385 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:45,600 Speaker 1: all of these particles are made of something even smaller 386 00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:47,960 Speaker 1: that we just can't see yet. But it's whatever it is, 387 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:49,760 Speaker 1: it's so small that we can treat them as if 388 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,199 Speaker 1: they have no size. But the neutrino is tiny compared 389 00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:55,280 Speaker 1: to the electron and the other particles in sort of 390 00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:59,479 Speaker 1: another way, not in literal volume, but in mass. The 391 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:03,240 Speaker 1: mass these neutrinos is something just above zero. We know 392 00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:06,320 Speaker 1: it's not zero, but we also know it's very very small. 393 00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:09,280 Speaker 1: There are many orders of magnitude less massive than the 394 00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,800 Speaker 1: electron and the corks, so in that sense they are tiny. Wow, 395 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:16,040 Speaker 1: And electrons and corks are pretty tiny as well. So 396 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,239 Speaker 1: at a certain point of tininess, it's hard for me 397 00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:23,280 Speaker 1: to even conceive of the tininess of a thing As 398 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:25,360 Speaker 1: it gets smaller and smaller. It's kind of like when 399 00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:29,720 Speaker 1: you try to think of infinity. It's really hard. It's 400 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:32,119 Speaker 1: just like when you try to think of something getting 401 00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:34,800 Speaker 1: so tiny, my brain can't process it well. You can 402 00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:36,760 Speaker 1: use Italian as a bridge. There. You can say you 403 00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:38,920 Speaker 1: have tiny and then you have tiny no, or you 404 00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:46,320 Speaker 1: do Spanish right tinito or or whatever piccolino. People also 405 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:50,560 Speaker 1: talk about neutrinos as tiny because they can go through matter, 406 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,640 Speaker 1: and I think people have the impression that neutrinos sort 407 00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,240 Speaker 1: of like wiggle their way through the gaps in stuff. 408 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,840 Speaker 1: Like if you have a huge sheet of lead, a 409 00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,040 Speaker 1: neutrino can pass right through it, and you might wonder, like, 410 00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:05,480 Speaker 1: how does it get through the lead? Is it's so 411 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:08,000 Speaker 1: small that it can like find its way through the 412 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,640 Speaker 1: holes in the lattice? Well, its size there again isn't 413 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:13,520 Speaker 1: helping it because technically it's just as small as an electron. 414 00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:16,320 Speaker 1: But if you shot an electron at a wall of lead, 415 00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,640 Speaker 1: the electron would interact with all the other particles there. 416 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:22,480 Speaker 1: So what happens, For example, when you push against the wall, 417 00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,800 Speaker 1: why doesn't your hand go through it. It's not because 418 00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:27,000 Speaker 1: the particles in your hand are too big to get 419 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,520 Speaker 1: through the wall. It's because the particles in the wall 420 00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,399 Speaker 1: are pushing back against the particles in your hand. The 421 00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,400 Speaker 1: particles in the wall feel the electromagnetic force, and so 422 00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:39,920 Speaker 1: does your hand. But the neutrino doesn't. It has zero charge. 423 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:42,760 Speaker 1: That's why it's neutral. So when it hits the wall, 424 00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:45,679 Speaker 1: it ignores the electrons and it ignores the corks. It 425 00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,080 Speaker 1: doesn't interact with them using electromagnetism at all. So it's 426 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:51,840 Speaker 1: sort of like the way glass is transparent to some photons, 427 00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:55,040 Speaker 1: because those photons don't interact with the atoms in the 428 00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:57,480 Speaker 1: glass because they don't have the right energy level, so 429 00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:59,920 Speaker 1: they can't interact, and so they just fly right through. 430 00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,600 Speaker 1: I sometimes I want to be like a neutrino when 431 00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:05,280 Speaker 1: I'm just not really in a good mood and I'm 432 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,439 Speaker 1: walking through town and like, I love people and I 433 00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:10,560 Speaker 1: love to say hi to people, but there are days, 434 00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:12,280 Speaker 1: you know, there are days where I want to be 435 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:16,959 Speaker 1: a little neutrino just passing through and not interacting with anyone. 436 00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,160 Speaker 1: And I think that's an interesting handle on this question 437 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:21,800 Speaker 1: of like what's really out there in the world. You 438 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,280 Speaker 1: use mostly photons and your sense of touch to get 439 00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,800 Speaker 1: a sense of what's out there, but you're really building 440 00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,159 Speaker 1: a picture of the world that depends on the force 441 00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,720 Speaker 1: that you were talking about electromagnetism. Mostly, if you were 442 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,520 Speaker 1: to explore the universe like a neutrino that didn't sense that, 443 00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:37,520 Speaker 1: then all that stuff would be invisible to you, and 444 00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:39,199 Speaker 1: you would have a very different sense of like what 445 00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,800 Speaker 1: is out there in the universe. Neutrinos can interact with stuff, 446 00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,480 Speaker 1: they're not completely sterile or inert, but they only interact 447 00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,680 Speaker 1: via the weak force, which is much much weaker than 448 00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:52,800 Speaker 1: all the other forces. Okay, so what is a weak 449 00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,520 Speaker 1: force then? Right? So we have four fundamental forces in 450 00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,879 Speaker 1: the universe that we're aware of. Right, there's the strong force. 451 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,160 Speaker 1: Every particle that has what we call color, like corks 452 00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,760 Speaker 1: and gluons, interact with the strong force. This is what 453 00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,240 Speaker 1: holds the nucleus together. And electrons and photons don't have 454 00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,119 Speaker 1: the strong force. They don't have color. So not every 455 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:15,320 Speaker 1: particle out there feels this force. And it's really interesting 456 00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,480 Speaker 1: to me that in our sort of table of particles, 457 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:19,440 Speaker 1: some of them feel some forces and some of them 458 00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:21,320 Speaker 1: just don't. And we don't know why. Are like, why 459 00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,760 Speaker 1: doesn't the electron feel the strong force? We don't know, 460 00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,119 Speaker 1: it just doesn't. Why do we use the term color 461 00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,399 Speaker 1: to describe that the particles that do have the strong 462 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,280 Speaker 1: force because we like confusing people by reusing words that 463 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,040 Speaker 1: have other meanings. No, it's an analogy. It's because the 464 00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:38,560 Speaker 1: strong force is very different from the other forces in 465 00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,359 Speaker 1: that it has three kinds of charges instead of two. 466 00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:45,480 Speaker 1: Electromagnetism has positive and negative. The strong force has three 467 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,280 Speaker 1: kinds of charges, and if you combine them all together 468 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,119 Speaker 1: you get something neutral. And that reminds people sort of 469 00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,200 Speaker 1: how you can combine three different colors to get white. 470 00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,520 Speaker 1: And so the sort of mathematical structure of the charges 471 00:25:57,560 --> 00:25:59,760 Speaker 1: of the strong force is sort of similar to the 472 00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:01,879 Speaker 1: way we think about color, and so that's what we 473 00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:03,280 Speaker 1: do in physics a lot. If you're like, oh, this 474 00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:05,480 Speaker 1: reminds us of this other thing. It's not perfect and 475 00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,280 Speaker 1: Orge wouldn't be happy with it, but we're going to 476 00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:11,880 Speaker 1: use this word anyway. Well, I'm not Orges, but I'm 477 00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,399 Speaker 1: also not happy with it. So here we are. So 478 00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,520 Speaker 1: that was the strong force and electromagnetism. Only things that 479 00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,960 Speaker 1: have electric charge feel electromagnetism. There's sort of a chicken 480 00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:23,879 Speaker 1: and egg thing, right, We might say, like, why do 481 00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,000 Speaker 1: some particles have charged to feel electromagnetism. That's sort of 482 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,640 Speaker 1: what charge is. We call things charged if they feel electromagnetism. 483 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,120 Speaker 1: If they don't feel it, we call them not charged. 484 00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,320 Speaker 1: So in one sense, having charged just means you feel 485 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:41,120 Speaker 1: electromagnetic fields and not having charge means you don't. It's 486 00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:46,159 Speaker 1: not like the same kinds of particles will very about 487 00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,280 Speaker 1: whether they have electromagnetism. It's always specific particles that either 488 00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:54,800 Speaker 1: do or don't. All electrons have electromagnetism, right, Yes, all 489 00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,800 Speaker 1: electrons have the same charge, which is really interesting and 490 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,720 Speaker 1: might wonder like why are there not different kinds of electrons, 491 00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:02,399 Speaker 1: And yeah, we don't know. We think they're all just 492 00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,000 Speaker 1: different ripples in the same quantum field for electrons, so 493 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,119 Speaker 1: in some sense they're all like part of the same 494 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,400 Speaker 1: universe spanning electron. But there are other particles like neutrons 495 00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,280 Speaker 1: and photons that don't have electric charge, so they sort 496 00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,280 Speaker 1: of see the universe differently. And neutrinos are fascinating because 497 00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,280 Speaker 1: they don't have the strong force, so they don't have color, 498 00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,960 Speaker 1: they don't interact with gluons. They also don't have electric charge, 499 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,240 Speaker 1: so they don't interact with the electromagnetic force. They only 500 00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:31,959 Speaker 1: have the weakest of all the forces. Everything else they 501 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,880 Speaker 1: just idore. And the weak force is something that like 502 00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,840 Speaker 1: all particles kind of have, but it's not as well understood, 503 00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,520 Speaker 1: like what is actually going on. Yes, the weak force 504 00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,400 Speaker 1: is fascinating because it's the only force we know of 505 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,639 Speaker 1: that every single particle in the universe feels, except maybe 506 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,720 Speaker 1: dark matter. We don't know if dark matter is a 507 00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,160 Speaker 1: particle and what it is exactly, and we don't think 508 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,520 Speaker 1: it actually feels the weak force. But all the particles 509 00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,000 Speaker 1: that we know about that we've discovered, the w z, 510 00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,000 Speaker 1: the quarks, the electro on, all of those feel the 511 00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:05,040 Speaker 1: weak force, and so it seems like really important. It's 512 00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,760 Speaker 1: like very universal, but it's also super duper weak. It's 513 00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:13,920 Speaker 1: like ten thousand times weaker than electromagnetism. So interesting. And 514 00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:18,280 Speaker 1: that's not the Vanderwals force. That's that's weak of electromagnetism. 515 00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:22,440 Speaker 1: Or is Vanderwals force actual weak force? I think the 516 00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:26,760 Speaker 1: Vanderwall's force is just a manifestation of electromagnetism in certain arrangements. 517 00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,280 Speaker 1: But hey, you know that's chemistry, So we need to 518 00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,760 Speaker 1: get a chemical expert in here. This isn't a chemistry podcast, 519 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,080 Speaker 1: all right, Well, we want to dive more into the 520 00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,280 Speaker 1: mysteries of the neutrinos and avoid talking about chemistry. But 521 00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,360 Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. No chemistry allowed. He 522 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:57,400 Speaker 1: heard it here first, folks. All right, we're back and 523 00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,640 Speaker 1: we're talking about the mysteries of the universe and specifically, 524 00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,040 Speaker 1: and we are wondering about neutrinos and if we can 525 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,560 Speaker 1: use them to see the universe in a different way 526 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,080 Speaker 1: and to build new technology to use them to talk 527 00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:13,640 Speaker 1: to other humans. So we've talked about how neutrinos they 528 00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:18,280 Speaker 1: basically can just move through the universe without interruption, not 529 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:23,040 Speaker 1: because like they can wiggle through the gaps and say 530 00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:27,520 Speaker 1: atoms or something, but because they simply do not interact 531 00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,440 Speaker 1: with a lot of the forces in the universe, so 532 00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:35,840 Speaker 1: they only have the weak force effect on them, which 533 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,560 Speaker 1: I guess, based on its name, I'm going to guess 534 00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,600 Speaker 1: it's not too strong. And so you're putting a lot 535 00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,880 Speaker 1: of faith there in physicist ability to name things accurately. 536 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,640 Speaker 1: You guys did name like a force color uh, without 537 00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,880 Speaker 1: it actually being about being colorful, but some strange you're 538 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,400 Speaker 1: just trying to confuse us at this point. Yeah, Well, 539 00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,320 Speaker 1: I think the thing to take away about this question 540 00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,760 Speaker 1: of neutrinos is in the weak force is that what's 541 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,680 Speaker 1: opaque and what's transparent in the universe is not universal. 542 00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,000 Speaker 1: It's not like you have some blob of stuff, and 543 00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:10,040 Speaker 1: every particle is going to see it as opaque or 544 00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,959 Speaker 1: every particle is going to pass right through it without interacting. 545 00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,959 Speaker 1: It depends on the particle and it depends on the energy. 546 00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:18,480 Speaker 1: Like when we look out into the universe, even with photons, 547 00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,480 Speaker 1: we can see different things in the infrared and in 548 00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,640 Speaker 1: the ultra violet because some stuff out there will block 549 00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,520 Speaker 1: photons only of certain energies, so really long wavelength is better, 550 00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,400 Speaker 1: and like seeing through dust clouds which would otherwise block things, 551 00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,440 Speaker 1: our atmosphere mostly blocks ultra violet, so if you want 552 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:37,680 Speaker 1: to UV telescope, it's got to be out there in 553 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,719 Speaker 1: space because our atmosphere is like a solid wall for 554 00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,880 Speaker 1: ultraviolet photons. So that shows you how even the same 555 00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:47,719 Speaker 1: particle of different energies will see different objects as transparent 556 00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,360 Speaker 1: meaning they can fly through it, or opaque meaning they're 557 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,120 Speaker 1: blocked and they interact. So it's really microphysically speaking all 558 00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:58,640 Speaker 1: about the interactions. And for neutrinos they hardly interact with anything, 559 00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,360 Speaker 1: so almost the entire universe is transparent to them. You 560 00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:06,240 Speaker 1: say they hardily interact with anything, is the only interactions 561 00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,480 Speaker 1: through this very weak force are there? Like specific situations 562 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,240 Speaker 1: in which the neutrino will actually react to something. It's 563 00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,520 Speaker 1: just through the weak force. And in order for a 564 00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,640 Speaker 1: neutrino to interact, they have to encounter another particle which 565 00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,520 Speaker 1: feels the weak force. Now, every particle does, but imagine 566 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:24,040 Speaker 1: you have a sheet of matter in front of you 567 00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,360 Speaker 1: and a neutrino is approaching an electron, for example. Is 568 00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,520 Speaker 1: a chance of the neutrino interacting with that electron, but 569 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,920 Speaker 1: it's really really small. So it's like the universe rolls 570 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,360 Speaker 1: to die, but it's like a ninety seven million sided 571 00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,560 Speaker 1: die and only one number results in a hit. So 572 00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:40,760 Speaker 1: how many electronics do you have to go by before 573 00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,840 Speaker 1: on average, you're gonna hit one like million. That's why 574 00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,240 Speaker 1: neutrinos can go through like a light year thick wall 575 00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,320 Speaker 1: of lead and have a fifty percent chance of interacting, 576 00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:53,040 Speaker 1: which means half of them go through and ignore it completely. 577 00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,600 Speaker 1: Like a light year of lead is not a small 578 00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,040 Speaker 1: amount of material to pass through, right now, that seems 579 00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:04,200 Speaker 1: a pretty yeah. So these are really the most introverted 580 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,080 Speaker 1: particles in the universe. Absolutely they are, but there are 581 00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,280 Speaker 1: a lot of them out there right They're produced in 582 00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,360 Speaker 1: the sun. They are a byproduct of fusion, an enormous 583 00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,160 Speaker 1: amount of the energy produced by the Sun comes out 584 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,280 Speaker 1: not in photons but in new trinos, and we just 585 00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,000 Speaker 1: mostly ignore it, just like flies right by us. It's 586 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,440 Speaker 1: the kind of thing that makes me wonder why evolution 587 00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:26,120 Speaker 1: didn't pick up on it, because you know, it took 588 00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,560 Speaker 1: evolution like how many years, like a billion years to 589 00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,840 Speaker 1: figure out how to eat photons, how to grab all 590 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,680 Speaker 1: this energy which was around, not just to see them, right, 591 00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,640 Speaker 1: eyeballs are different from photosynthesis, to capture this energy. Well, 592 00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,080 Speaker 1: there's also a huge amount of energy in new trinos. 593 00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,360 Speaker 1: Imagine if you could eat new trinos, you just like 594 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,200 Speaker 1: walk around all day and get energy without doing anything. 595 00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,960 Speaker 1: You could take naps and fuel up, right, It's like 596 00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,400 Speaker 1: charging your batteries. Yeah, I mean it's It is a 597 00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,320 Speaker 1: funny thing about evolution because it's like evolution doesn't really 598 00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,240 Speaker 1: have a plan. It can't think in these clever ways 599 00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,160 Speaker 1: like an engineer might think we should do something thing 600 00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,840 Speaker 1: like this because it's a good idea. Here's an available 601 00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:08,480 Speaker 1: resource for us to exploit, whereas evolution just blunders its 602 00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:12,400 Speaker 1: way into managing to work out. So like if if 603 00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:17,680 Speaker 1: something some little protein strand manages to survive and copy itself. 604 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,640 Speaker 1: There it is. That's evolution, and that's about it. I 605 00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:22,440 Speaker 1: get the point that I can't expect the universe to 606 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,600 Speaker 1: be sitting at its drawing table and thinking what's the 607 00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:26,920 Speaker 1: way that we could figure out to detect neutrinos or 608 00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:29,080 Speaker 1: to capture their energy. But it just feels like, if 609 00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,720 Speaker 1: there's so much energy out there that's available, if some 610 00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,280 Speaker 1: chemical reaction turns out to be sensitive to it in 611 00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,280 Speaker 1: some subtle way, there'll just be a river of energy 612 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,320 Speaker 1: that you could tap into. And it's incredible to me 613 00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,400 Speaker 1: that in billions of years, nothing on Earth has evolved 614 00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,880 Speaker 1: the ability to capture or interact with neutrinos. Yeah, I mean, 615 00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,400 Speaker 1: I guess how do we even know that's true? That 616 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:53,120 Speaker 1: nothing can detect or use the energy from neutrinos? How 617 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:58,000 Speaker 1: do we even detect neutrinos using scientific instruments? Hey, that's 618 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,240 Speaker 1: a great point. You're right. There could be micro ups 619 00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,320 Speaker 1: out there right now gobbling neutrinos and we don't even 620 00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:04,920 Speaker 1: know about it. We should have invited them on the 621 00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:07,320 Speaker 1: podcast to speak up. I mean, we try to always 622 00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,480 Speaker 1: talk about both sides of every issue. No jokes aside 623 00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:12,560 Speaker 1: that is a really good point, but no spin zone 624 00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:17,680 Speaker 1: except for the up or down spin um. But you're right, 625 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,719 Speaker 1: and it's tricky, right, It's not easy to see neutrinos. 626 00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,840 Speaker 1: Neutrinos were theorized. The idea for them came about in 627 00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,720 Speaker 1: the first half of last century because we saw beta decay, 628 00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:29,920 Speaker 1: we saw radioactive decay, and the energy didn't add up. 629 00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:32,720 Speaker 1: There was like more energy and momentum in the initial 630 00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:34,879 Speaker 1: state and then in the final state, and we thought 631 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:36,960 Speaker 1: that those things were conserved. And so people thought, well, 632 00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:40,480 Speaker 1: either energy and momentum isn't conserved in the universe, which 633 00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,560 Speaker 1: would be weird, or there's something out there, something invisible, 634 00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:47,400 Speaker 1: something little and neutral, that's carrying away this momentum. So 635 00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,919 Speaker 1: it was named before we actually saw it, and then 636 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,359 Speaker 1: it was so difficult to see because they are so 637 00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,319 Speaker 1: shy that it took decades for people to develop the 638 00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:59,239 Speaker 1: detection technologies to see neutrinos. The basic principle there is 639 00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:01,360 Speaker 1: to get a huge which vat of some kind of 640 00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:05,080 Speaker 1: liquid and put it underground so it's shielded so you 641 00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:07,600 Speaker 1: don't think anything else is going to bump into that liquid. 642 00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:09,520 Speaker 1: And you choose a kind of liquid so that if 643 00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,120 Speaker 1: a neutrino bumps into one of your electrons, it makes 644 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,239 Speaker 1: like a little flash of light. And then you put 645 00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,760 Speaker 1: an underground for like years, and you count the number 646 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,480 Speaker 1: of flashes that you see, and you figure out how 647 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,440 Speaker 1: many flashes you can explain by other stuff like radioactive 648 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,320 Speaker 1: decay in the rock nearby, or muans that happen to 649 00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,000 Speaker 1: have penetrated, and you convince yourself that you've seen more 650 00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,680 Speaker 1: than can be explained through other sources. And that was 651 00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,640 Speaker 1: basically the discovery of the neutrino. But it took building 652 00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:39,279 Speaker 1: enormous detectors, like many tons of weird liquid underground, not 653 00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,680 Speaker 1: the kind of thing you expect, you know, some critter 654 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,160 Speaker 1: crawling along a leaf to be able to develop I 655 00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:46,759 Speaker 1: know some other weird liquids that you need to use 656 00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:50,200 Speaker 1: to be able to draw introverted particles out of their shells. 657 00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:55,040 Speaker 1: But that is really interesting. So we know that they exist, 658 00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,000 Speaker 1: or at least we guess that they exist due to 659 00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,719 Speaker 1: how they represent at a sort of mathematical conundrum. And 660 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,960 Speaker 1: then we were able to detect them using these just 661 00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,920 Speaker 1: like a law of large numbers. I guess some of 662 00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:12,640 Speaker 1: these new trinos are by you know, a very low 663 00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:16,920 Speaker 1: chance of ever, you know, sort of bonking into anything 664 00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:20,719 Speaker 1: with the weak force. But then they do occasionally, and 665 00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,920 Speaker 1: so we see that. So I guess how do we 666 00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:29,440 Speaker 1: go from there to actually being able to reliably detect 667 00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,120 Speaker 1: these because being able to like or or being able 668 00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:34,560 Speaker 1: to communicate with them. Because it's one thing to be 669 00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,799 Speaker 1: able to buy chance once in a while catch one 670 00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,160 Speaker 1: that bumps into these vats of liquid, and it's an 671 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:43,759 Speaker 1: entirely other thing to be able to reliably sort of 672 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:48,080 Speaker 1: have this like stream of information that comes from new trinos. Yeah, 673 00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,279 Speaker 1: and if folks are interested in more details about how 674 00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,319 Speaker 1: the new Trino was discovered, is actually Professor's here at 675 00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,560 Speaker 1: you see Irvine who won the Nobel Prize for it 676 00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,480 Speaker 1: a few decades ago. And so we have a whole 677 00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,040 Speaker 1: episode about how the new trino was discovered and the 678 00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:01,960 Speaker 1: clever techniques that were used to see them. So go 679 00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:03,920 Speaker 1: check that out. But your question is a good one, 680 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,360 Speaker 1: is that how do we actually use this for communication? 681 00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:13,160 Speaker 1: Remember that all communication microphysically is about interactions. It's about particles. 682 00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,480 Speaker 1: Like you were saying earlier, when you see something, you're 683 00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,480 Speaker 1: receiving particles in your eyeball. When you hear something. You're 684 00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,680 Speaker 1: receiving sound waves, which are just pressure waves in the 685 00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:27,160 Speaker 1: electromagnetic structure of the air. Right, it's air molecules bumping 686 00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,960 Speaker 1: into other air molecules and using their electromagnetic interaction to 687 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:32,960 Speaker 1: push on each other. But some people could also think 688 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,799 Speaker 1: about those just as sound waves, which we sometimes call phonons, 689 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,080 Speaker 1: which you can think of a sort of a quasi particle. 690 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,120 Speaker 1: And you know, when you send an email to your 691 00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,600 Speaker 1: friend in China, for example, that gets transmitted digitally, right, 692 00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,839 Speaker 1: those are electrical pulses, So in the end, those are 693 00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:51,719 Speaker 1: also photons. So every kind of communication involves particles, right, 694 00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:56,239 Speaker 1: involves communicating somehow by sending information via particles. And that 695 00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:58,279 Speaker 1: makes you wonder, now you've discovered a new kind of 696 00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,920 Speaker 1: particle in the world, a new trino that has different 697 00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,120 Speaker 1: capacities and different weaknesses and strengths and other particles, whether 698 00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:09,480 Speaker 1: it's possible to also send information using this new kind 699 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:15,520 Speaker 1: of particle, right, because the like basically for communication, you 700 00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:21,000 Speaker 1: need something to receive that particle, and once it receives it, 701 00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,200 Speaker 1: you need to be able to process that, causing a 702 00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:29,399 Speaker 1: chain reaction in that receptor to like a nerve or two. 703 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,279 Speaker 1: If it's a non biological thing to something that will 704 00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,319 Speaker 1: record it. So if we think about it, those big 705 00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:40,800 Speaker 1: vats of fluid deep underground, or like a very very rudimentary, 706 00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:45,759 Speaker 1: huge eyeballs that can only detect things in a very 707 00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:47,839 Speaker 1: simple way, which is like when you actually look at 708 00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:51,560 Speaker 1: some of our the earlier versions of eyeballs in our 709 00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,960 Speaker 1: more flat worm esk ancestors, it really is like these 710 00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,040 Speaker 1: kinds of things of like, oh, is it there or 711 00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,560 Speaker 1: isn't it there? Did a photon bond into it or 712 00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:04,000 Speaker 1: didn't it and give us sort of like that very 713 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,799 Speaker 1: limited amount of information. But yeah, in order for it 714 00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:12,120 Speaker 1: to actually to be able to communicate better with these neutrinos, 715 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:16,560 Speaker 1: we need to have more interactions. I would think, Yeah, 716 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,759 Speaker 1: you're right, these vats of liquid underground are basically primitive 717 00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:23,720 Speaker 1: engineered neutrin no schnauzen. Right, there are a technological version 718 00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:27,040 Speaker 1: of what biology has so far as we think, maybe 719 00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:29,080 Speaker 1: failed to develop. And you're right that if you want 720 00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,360 Speaker 1: to send complicated information, you need to be able to 721 00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:35,440 Speaker 1: detect these things reliably. But fundamentally, the underlying principle is 722 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,919 Speaker 1: use particles to communicate, and that's the basic building block 723 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,239 Speaker 1: of it. From there you can build a more complicated things. 724 00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:43,480 Speaker 1: Right if you and your friend are using flashlights to 725 00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,600 Speaker 1: flash to each other across the street when your little kids, 726 00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,200 Speaker 1: you can start out just flashing your flashlights and say look, 727 00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,120 Speaker 1: I'm here, and then you can develop some code like 728 00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:52,880 Speaker 1: this kind of flash means this, and that kind of 729 00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,320 Speaker 1: flash means that, And then you can develop some alphabet 730 00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:57,920 Speaker 1: from which you can make almost any kind of communication. 731 00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:00,600 Speaker 1: And you know, basically, from there you're inventing the Internet. 732 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,400 Speaker 1: Now go back and do it. At the heart of 733 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,880 Speaker 1: it all is the ability to send and receive particles, 734 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,160 Speaker 1: and so that's sort of the fundamental bit. And listeners 735 00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:12,280 Speaker 1: out there who are interested in quantum mechanics might be wondering, 736 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,200 Speaker 1: what about quantum entanglement. Isn't it possible to send information 737 00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,520 Speaker 1: using quantum entanglement when you collapse one particle and one 738 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,600 Speaker 1: part of the universe which collapses another particle somewhere else 739 00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,920 Speaker 1: without sending particles in between. Check out our podcast episode 740 00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:30,000 Speaker 1: about quantum entanglement and communication. It is possible to entangle 741 00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,200 Speaker 1: particles that are very very far from each other, like 742 00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:35,320 Speaker 1: maybe if I have an electron and Katie has an electron, 743 00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:37,160 Speaker 1: we can create them in such a way that we 744 00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,279 Speaker 1: know there's spins have to be the opposite. So if 745 00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,239 Speaker 1: I look at my electron, I can see, oh, it's 746 00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,000 Speaker 1: spin up. That means Katie's must be spinned down. Or 747 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:45,840 Speaker 1: if Katie looks at her electron and says hers, the 748 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,040 Speaker 1: spin up means mine must be spinned down. And there's 749 00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,360 Speaker 1: a weird thing that happens there, which is my electron 750 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,400 Speaker 1: could be up or down and Katie's could be up 751 00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:55,160 Speaker 1: or down. And as soon as one of us looks 752 00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:58,440 Speaker 1: at ours, the other one's collapses. And that happens instantaneously 753 00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:03,160 Speaker 1: across space. But it can't be used to send any information. 754 00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,080 Speaker 1: I can't control my electron to make it spin down 755 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,640 Speaker 1: so to make Katie spin up. And Katie can't even 756 00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,560 Speaker 1: tell whether I've collapsed my electron or not. All she 757 00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:13,279 Speaker 1: can do is look at hers and see is it 758 00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,920 Speaker 1: up or down? And I can do the same. So 759 00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,320 Speaker 1: kartum entanglement it feels like a way to get around 760 00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,799 Speaker 1: this and send information without sending particles. But actually you 761 00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:26,239 Speaker 1: can't can't send any information using quantum entanglement. Unfortunately, I see, 762 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,319 Speaker 1: because there's no way to like know that you have 763 00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:33,040 Speaker 1: like a basketfull of up particles, and then as soon 764 00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,880 Speaker 1: as you look at the entangled particle to see what 765 00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,719 Speaker 1: kind it is, then it's already collapsed the wavelength of 766 00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,400 Speaker 1: the other one, and so there's no no way to 767 00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,120 Speaker 1: then like communicate with the other person with it. I 768 00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,719 Speaker 1: can't change the states of your particles from up or down. 769 00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,279 Speaker 1: I can make your particles collapse, but there's no way 770 00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:54,840 Speaker 1: for you to know that I've made your particles collapse. 771 00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:56,440 Speaker 1: When you look at your particle, you don't know if 772 00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,000 Speaker 1: has already been collapsed or if you are collapsing. It unfortunate. 773 00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:01,960 Speaker 1: A lot of folks writing with that idea, they're like, 774 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,000 Speaker 1: what if I have a bunch of particles here, and 775 00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,359 Speaker 1: you have a bunch of particles there, and I collapse, mind, 776 00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:08,080 Speaker 1: and you can see that they're collapsed, and that we 777 00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:10,560 Speaker 1: can use that at the basis for communication. But there's 778 00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:12,960 Speaker 1: a flaw there because if I collapse my particle, you 779 00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:16,120 Speaker 1: can't tell that yours has also been collapsed, even though 780 00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,640 Speaker 1: we think it has been. So it's very tantalizing. But 781 00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,680 Speaker 1: back to neutrinos, you might also wonder, like why would 782 00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,680 Speaker 1: we want to use neutrinos to communicate like photons are 783 00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,760 Speaker 1: pretty good, right, Well, that listener who commented about sending 784 00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,000 Speaker 1: things faster than light is making a good point, because 785 00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:34,600 Speaker 1: you know, photons are blocked by things. If you want 786 00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,080 Speaker 1: to communicate with China, you do need to go mostly 787 00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:40,000 Speaker 1: along the surface of the Earth, not through it, whereas 788 00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,480 Speaker 1: neutrinos can go through other kinds of stuff, right. And 789 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,400 Speaker 1: this is also useful to astronomers because it allows us 790 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,279 Speaker 1: to see things in the universe that would otherwise be 791 00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:51,799 Speaker 1: blocked the way we use infrared light to see through 792 00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,440 Speaker 1: dust clouds. Neutrinos can get through stuff which otherwise is 793 00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,120 Speaker 1: totally opaque to all photons, and so being able to 794 00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,680 Speaker 1: see the universe in neutrinos it's like another window into 795 00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,560 Speaker 1: the universe. You can see things you otherwise couldn't. One 796 00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:08,640 Speaker 1: example is that we can see the inside of supernovas. 797 00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,560 Speaker 1: Supernovas the cataclysmic death of stars. Right, things explode and 798 00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:14,720 Speaker 1: it's very furious, and it sends out an enormous amount 799 00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,520 Speaker 1: of light. It actually sends out more energy in neutrinos 800 00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,799 Speaker 1: than in photons, and the neutrinos see the star that's 801 00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,920 Speaker 1: exploding as transparent, so neutrinos from the heart of the 802 00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,640 Speaker 1: supernova just fly right out and come to Earth and 803 00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,919 Speaker 1: we can detect them, whereas photons created at the heart 804 00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:34,040 Speaker 1: of the supernova get reabsorbed by all that other stuff 805 00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,560 Speaker 1: that's part of the supernova exploding, so they can sort 806 00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:39,480 Speaker 1: of like X ray supernovas to see stuff. So we're 807 00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:44,160 Speaker 1: actually already using neutrinos to communicate or at least receive 808 00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:48,320 Speaker 1: information from the universe. Yeah, the universe is using neutrinos 809 00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:53,080 Speaker 1: to communicate with us at least right it's sending those 810 00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,600 Speaker 1: messages all the time in terms of neutrinos, and we've 811 00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:59,400 Speaker 1: seen supernovas with neutrinos. You can also see the Sun 812 00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,040 Speaker 1: in new trinos. You should google this. It's super cool. 813 00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:04,560 Speaker 1: You can see the Sun through the Earth. This experiment 814 00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:08,000 Speaker 1: in Japan's Supercamioconda is another one of these huge vats 815 00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,560 Speaker 1: of liquid. They can see neutrinos and when the Sun 816 00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:12,480 Speaker 1: is on the other side of the Earth, when it's 817 00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,160 Speaker 1: the middle of the night in Japan, they can see 818 00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,239 Speaker 1: neutrinos that come through and interact with the Earth and 819 00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,839 Speaker 1: then hit their detector, so they can see the Sun 820 00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,080 Speaker 1: is still there even though it's nighttime, they can like 821 00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,799 Speaker 1: check to make sure the Sun has not exploded. So 822 00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,839 Speaker 1: that would be a useful technology for birds for when 823 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:31,839 Speaker 1: you throw a blanket over their cage, you're like, up, 824 00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:34,759 Speaker 1: Sun's gone, must be nighttime. And you know, we're also 825 00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,680 Speaker 1: wondering what's out there in the universe, and we're looking 826 00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:41,800 Speaker 1: for alien life, for example, mostly in terms of electromagnetic radiation. 827 00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:45,200 Speaker 1: We should also be aware that maybe aliens like to 828 00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:48,440 Speaker 1: speak in neutrino Maybe they're sending us weird new trino 829 00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,160 Speaker 1: pulses and they're screaming at us, but we just haven't 830 00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,319 Speaker 1: been paying attention. So it's definitely something worth listening to. 831 00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,319 Speaker 1: Would we know how to send out neutrinos like from 832 00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:02,120 Speaker 1: our like, say we wanted to send aliens a message, 833 00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,200 Speaker 1: Could we like shoot out some new trinos or is 834 00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,359 Speaker 1: that something only the Sun has kind of gotten down 835 00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:11,120 Speaker 1: to a science. That's a great question, and let's dig 836 00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,480 Speaker 1: into whether we can produce messages using new trinos and 837 00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:18,040 Speaker 1: then read them back. But first let's take another quick break. Okay, 838 00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:32,799 Speaker 1: I'm going to check for aliens during the break. All Right, 839 00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:35,520 Speaker 1: we're back, and we're wondering if Katie got any new 840 00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,480 Speaker 1: treemail about aliens or from aliens. Yes, yeah, I got 841 00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:43,359 Speaker 1: a new treat mail that said, great offer. Just send 842 00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,240 Speaker 1: money the horsehead nebula and we will make a transfer 843 00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,680 Speaker 1: to your bank account. And so I've done it. Okay, 844 00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,399 Speaker 1: you built a huge catapult, for example, and launched gold 845 00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:57,960 Speaker 1: coins in datospace, just throwing dollars and coins up at 846 00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:01,279 Speaker 1: the air, hoping the alien AMers got it. Well, your 847 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:03,759 Speaker 1: beams of gold coins are one thing. But on this 848 00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,200 Speaker 1: podcast today, we're talking about creating beams of neutrinos and 849 00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:10,320 Speaker 1: using that to pass information. You asked a great question 850 00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:13,839 Speaker 1: just before the break, whether we humanity has the technology 851 00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,520 Speaker 1: to create neutrino beams and use that to encode information. 852 00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:20,359 Speaker 1: The answer is yes, actually we can. We know how 853 00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,920 Speaker 1: to build beams of neutrinos. Yeah, gasps, because like you 854 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,880 Speaker 1: said earlier, that neutrinos are made in the sun, so 855 00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,320 Speaker 1: it seems like it would be kind of an energy 856 00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,320 Speaker 1: intense process, right, Yeah, if you wanted to rebuild the 857 00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,799 Speaker 1: sun and reverse engineer the sun, that's tricky, and people 858 00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,279 Speaker 1: are doing that right, that's called fusion. But there are 859 00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,560 Speaker 1: other ways to make neutrinos. We do them at particle 860 00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,839 Speaker 1: colliders of course, and so for me National Accelerator Lab, 861 00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,560 Speaker 1: which used to be the host of the largest energy 862 00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,760 Speaker 1: collider in the world, the Tevatron, before it got outpaced 863 00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,040 Speaker 1: by the large Hadron collider, but has a place in 864 00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,440 Speaker 1: my heart because it's where I did my pH d thesis. 865 00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,680 Speaker 1: It's not been converted mostly into a neutrino facility. They 866 00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,400 Speaker 1: build the most intense neutrino beams in the world. And 867 00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,160 Speaker 1: you might wonder like, well, how do you make neutrinos? Well, 868 00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:08,440 Speaker 1: like everything else, we start with the building blocks we have. 869 00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,040 Speaker 1: So in this case protons, we shoot them up to 870 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,800 Speaker 1: really really high energies and we just smash them into rock. Basically, 871 00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:18,920 Speaker 1: seems like you're answered to everything. Particle physicists just just like, 872 00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:21,920 Speaker 1: how do we detect these particles? How do we make particles? 873 00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:23,680 Speaker 1: We just smash them? Hey, you know, when all you 874 00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,800 Speaker 1: have is a hammer, everything is a nail. And so 875 00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:29,239 Speaker 1: we try to solve every problem with a particle accelerator. 876 00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:33,480 Speaker 1: And so we smash protons into a carbon target more specifically, 877 00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,960 Speaker 1: and that creates a huge spray. So protons are these 878 00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,080 Speaker 1: bound little objects of quarks which have the strong interaction 879 00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:42,600 Speaker 1: and they smash into carbon, which is also chock full 880 00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,640 Speaker 1: of protons and neutrons. And there's protons and neutrons smash 881 00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,360 Speaker 1: into each other and break open those strong forced bonds 882 00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:51,360 Speaker 1: and then reform as all sorts of other weird exotic 883 00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:56,080 Speaker 1: particles made out of those corks, things like pions and chaons. 884 00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,000 Speaker 1: These are just rearrangements of the corks that were once 885 00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,840 Speaker 1: inside the protons and neutrons into other higher energy configurations. 886 00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:05,440 Speaker 1: So pions, for example, are like an upcork and an 887 00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,520 Speaker 1: anti upcork. Kons are also two corks, but they sometimes 888 00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,120 Speaker 1: contain a strange cork. And the cool thing about kaons 889 00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:13,800 Speaker 1: and pions and all this other stuff that's produced is 890 00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:16,440 Speaker 1: that they are not stable. They decay because they're like 891 00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:20,000 Speaker 1: higher energy, higher mass, and when they decay they often 892 00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:23,600 Speaker 1: produce neutrinos. Yeah, and so you didn't have any neutrinos 893 00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:27,320 Speaker 1: to start with, but you smashed stuff together in outcome neutrinos. 894 00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:30,960 Speaker 1: It's part of this amazing like alchemy that is particle physics. Right. 895 00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:33,239 Speaker 1: You don't need to have the basic ingredients of it. 896 00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:36,200 Speaker 1: You just need to have energy, create the right interactions, 897 00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:38,560 Speaker 1: and then sometimes the thing you want to fly out. 898 00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:41,040 Speaker 1: So like if I'm trying to give the talk to 899 00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:46,719 Speaker 1: a teenage neutrino, I would say, like when a particle decays, uh, 900 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,760 Speaker 1: and they love each other very much. When a particle 901 00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:52,600 Speaker 1: has had a long, rich life about you know, tending 902 00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:54,960 Speaker 1: the minus six seconds and it's ready to move on, 903 00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,880 Speaker 1: then yes, it decays and other stuff, including sometimes a neutrino. 904 00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,200 Speaker 1: And so most of the stuff that comes out is 905 00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,680 Speaker 1: this big explosion of stuff we don't want, right It's 906 00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:05,640 Speaker 1: pions and cans and protons and all sorts of crap 907 00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,000 Speaker 1: that we're not interested in. And so what we do 908 00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:10,560 Speaker 1: is we try to filter it out. We use magnets 909 00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,120 Speaker 1: to bend any charge particles out of the way that 910 00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,279 Speaker 1: separates the charged and the neutral stuff. We can just 911 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:18,480 Speaker 1: send all the charge particles into the rock, for example, 912 00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:21,920 Speaker 1: to absorb it. It's like Looney Tunes like whiley Coyote 913 00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:26,200 Speaker 1: like drawing a fake road on a on a cliff 914 00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:30,359 Speaker 1: or something, and although Roadrunner always runs through it, which 915 00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,160 Speaker 1: that Looney Tunes logic of like road Runner can like 916 00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:36,279 Speaker 1: go pass right through that fake painting of a road, 917 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,160 Speaker 1: whereas while E Coyote smashes into it. That seems like, 918 00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,080 Speaker 1: exactly what these physicists are doing. Yeah, exactly. The road 919 00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,319 Speaker 1: runner passes right through everything. Yeah, and the next age 920 00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:48,640 Speaker 1: is exactly that is to send the neutral part of 921 00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:51,440 Speaker 1: the beam also into rock, and they pass it through 922 00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,600 Speaker 1: two hundred and forty of rock, so that everything else 923 00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:57,120 Speaker 1: that's neutral that didn't get filtered out by the magnets 924 00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:59,719 Speaker 1: does get absorbed by the rock because everything else has 925 00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:03,360 Speaker 1: long interactions or even though it's neutral, like a neutron, 926 00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:07,880 Speaker 1: its components might have electromagnetic interactions, right, and so everything 927 00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:11,520 Speaker 1: else eventually gets absorbed by the rock except for the neutrinos. 928 00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:15,080 Speaker 1: So you create this spray which is mostly not neutrinos, 929 00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,080 Speaker 1: and you filter everything else out and then you get 930 00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:20,480 Speaker 1: a neutrino beam. So this is just an extremely expensive 931 00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:24,320 Speaker 1: and huge calendar. But instead of the method of action 932 00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:27,040 Speaker 1: being the little gaps and the calendar, it's like the 933 00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:30,480 Speaker 1: types of forces that these particles would interact with, and 934 00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:33,560 Speaker 1: neutrinos just are like I don't know, I don't care. Yeah, 935 00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,960 Speaker 1: you're shielding it from everything else except from the neutrinos, 936 00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,960 Speaker 1: and then only the neutrinos fly out. And so you 937 00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,760 Speaker 1: started out with a beam of protons in one direction, 938 00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:45,840 Speaker 1: you end up with a beam of neutrinos. So have 939 00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:48,879 Speaker 1: we gotten to the point where we can shoot out 940 00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:53,400 Speaker 1: a beam of neutrinos and then have like a technological 941 00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:57,719 Speaker 1: receptor organ that then these neutrinos hit and then we 942 00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,920 Speaker 1: detect them. Yeah, so we know how to build new 943 00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:04,800 Speaker 1: no detectors, various technologies for that supercomioconda in Japan, for example, 944 00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,359 Speaker 1: here at Fermulab, they have the Minerva detector, which uses 945 00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,680 Speaker 1: scintillating strips to detect charged particles. And the hope is 946 00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:16,080 Speaker 1: that a neutrino will bounce into an electron and produce 947 00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,480 Speaker 1: a muon and so this is something that happens very 948 00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,120 Speaker 1: very rarely, but if you have an intense enough beam 949 00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,279 Speaker 1: of neutrinos, it will happen. And so the ideas you 950 00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:26,960 Speaker 1: can produce neutrinos and then you can also detect them. 951 00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:29,960 Speaker 1: So it seems like you know the basic components of communication, 952 00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:33,360 Speaker 1: because it seems a little bit like a catch twenty 953 00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:36,600 Speaker 1: two where it's like you the way you filter out 954 00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:40,040 Speaker 1: all particles except neutrinos is that you're relying on the 955 00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:43,399 Speaker 1: fact that neutrinos really don't interact with much but when 956 00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:47,320 Speaker 1: you have the receptor for the neutrinos, you're hoping that 957 00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:51,040 Speaker 1: there's that very small chance that they do actually have 958 00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:54,920 Speaker 1: that weak force interaction. And so is it a difference 959 00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:58,520 Speaker 1: in the matter that we're using in the receptor, like 960 00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:01,279 Speaker 1: is there something different about that fluid, or is it 961 00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:05,160 Speaker 1: that it's just relying basically on statistics that if you 962 00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:08,480 Speaker 1: shoot enough of these neutrinos outwards, there are enough of 963 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:11,000 Speaker 1: them that are going to make it through this basically 964 00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:14,399 Speaker 1: neutrino gun, and then there's enough chance that at least 965 00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,080 Speaker 1: some of them are going to hit into the receptor. Yeah, 966 00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:20,719 Speaker 1: you're exactly right, it's the second one. It's statistics. So 967 00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:23,879 Speaker 1: we think that neutrinos are also interacting in the rock. 968 00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,680 Speaker 1: They're passing through hundreds of meters of rock, and some 969 00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:29,160 Speaker 1: of them are interacting. So imagine like a really bright 970 00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,600 Speaker 1: beam of neutrinos it's passing through the rock and a 971 00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,560 Speaker 1: very tiny fraction that are interacting in the rock. By 972 00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:36,560 Speaker 1: the time you get to our detector that we hope 973 00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:39,160 Speaker 1: it also interacts. Inside the detector, we can see those. 974 00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:41,560 Speaker 1: The key is that nothing else is going to survive. 975 00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:44,520 Speaker 1: So you have this intense beam of neutrinos, which mostly 976 00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:47,120 Speaker 1: ignores the rock, but as a few interactions, and then 977 00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:49,720 Speaker 1: we capture a few of those interactions in our detector, 978 00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,239 Speaker 1: but nothing else can get there. So we're pretty sure 979 00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,680 Speaker 1: when we see something in our detector that it's only 980 00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,560 Speaker 1: because of the neutrinos. So have we ever sent a 981 00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:01,080 Speaker 1: message with neutrinos? So we I've done it. And it's 982 00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,600 Speaker 1: astonishingly inefficient because you know, we can't see most of 983 00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:09,120 Speaker 1: the neutrinos. Like, if you send twenty two trillion protons 984 00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:13,040 Speaker 1: into this beam, then on average you see point eight 985 00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:17,960 Speaker 1: neutrinos with the detector, right, So twenty two trillion protons 986 00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,279 Speaker 1: make less than one neutrino on average that we see. 987 00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:25,000 Speaker 1: Isn't that always the start of a new technology? Is 988 00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:29,439 Speaker 1: just it's astonishingly inefficient. Yeah, So they actually did this test. 989 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,400 Speaker 1: They were like, well, that's interesting. I wonder if we 990 00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,200 Speaker 1: could use this to send information. The ideas they can 991 00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:36,399 Speaker 1: like turn the beam on and turn the beam off. 992 00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:38,680 Speaker 1: Turn the beam on, turn the beam off, and can 993 00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:41,719 Speaker 1: you detect that with the detector. Can you tell that 994 00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:44,839 Speaker 1: somebody upstream is changing the beam And if so, then 995 00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:47,520 Speaker 1: that's the basis for communication. It's just like two kids 996 00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,279 Speaker 1: with flashlights across the street. Right from there, you can 997 00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:53,279 Speaker 1: build up something more complicated, but the fundamental basics is 998 00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:55,239 Speaker 1: can you flip a switch when you're creating the beam 999 00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,239 Speaker 1: and detect that switch being flipped when you're looking at 1000 00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,799 Speaker 1: the beam downstream? But you sing that we've done that, right, 1001 00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:04,800 Speaker 1: They have done this exactly. The Minerva detector did this 1002 00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,040 Speaker 1: experiment a few years ago and they sent a message. 1003 00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:11,440 Speaker 1: They wrote the word neutrino in askey code. So it 1004 00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:15,640 Speaker 1: takes two bits zeros and one to send this piece 1005 00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,520 Speaker 1: of information, and it took them six minutes to send 1006 00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:22,000 Speaker 1: these bits through two hundred and fifty meters of Earth 1007 00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:25,239 Speaker 1: over a one kilometer distance, and so they've done it. 1008 00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:27,000 Speaker 1: Like you can look up the data and you can 1009 00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:29,680 Speaker 1: see that the new Trino detector registered a lot more 1010 00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,759 Speaker 1: neutrinos when the beam was on than when it wasn't on, 1011 00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,400 Speaker 1: And so they can use that to define a threshold 1012 00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:37,200 Speaker 1: like oh, this is a one, this is a zero, 1013 00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:39,400 Speaker 1: and they were able to do it successfully. You know, 1014 00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,840 Speaker 1: the rate is like zero point one bits per second, 1015 00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:45,920 Speaker 1: which is not good enough to stream the office, you 1016 00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:50,040 Speaker 1: know on your mobile platform, like certain certain Internet providers, 1017 00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:53,640 Speaker 1: which I won't mentioned, so I don't get Sue exactly. 1018 00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:55,920 Speaker 1: But you know, as you say, it's the first step. 1019 00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,759 Speaker 1: It's a demonstration of the proof of principle. The rest 1020 00:54:58,840 --> 00:55:01,319 Speaker 1: is up to the engineers. And it's cool. It's done 1021 00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:03,759 Speaker 1: with neutrinos. It's like, ah, but why is it not 1022 00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:07,080 Speaker 1: done faster? I mean, come on, give him a break. 1023 00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:11,480 Speaker 1: It's fast, like every individual neutrino is traveling almost at 1024 00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:13,959 Speaker 1: the speed of light. The problem is you can't rely 1025 00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:17,000 Speaker 1: on one neutrino to carry your message because it takes 1026 00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:20,239 Speaker 1: twenty two trillion before you're likely to even see one 1027 00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:23,879 Speaker 1: of them. Like you're doing a statistical, longitudinal study over 1028 00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,960 Speaker 1: many years for humans. It's like, you know, I can 1029 00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:31,360 Speaker 1: imagine some alien scientists thinking like using like statistics and 1030 00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:35,360 Speaker 1: human behavior is not super fast because we have to 1031 00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:40,320 Speaker 1: wait for these long statistical models over many years. Except 1032 00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:43,640 Speaker 1: in this case, like the neutrinos are much faster, but 1033 00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:47,879 Speaker 1: still like takes six minutes to get that statistical significance 1034 00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:53,080 Speaker 1: of enough of these neutrinos hitting our big technological eyeball. Yeah, 1035 00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:56,120 Speaker 1: and the limit there is the technological eyeball. If we 1036 00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:59,000 Speaker 1: could build that to be more sensitive or larger either one, 1037 00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:01,680 Speaker 1: than we could see neutrinos more reliably. We can take 1038 00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:04,600 Speaker 1: as many neutrinos to carry the same bit, the zero 1039 00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:06,920 Speaker 1: or the one, then we could have a higher throughput. 1040 00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:09,160 Speaker 1: Right now, it's pretty limited. I mean, for example, if 1041 00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:11,600 Speaker 1: you wanted to send all the information on the Internet 1042 00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:15,680 Speaker 1: using this neutrino link, you would take about fifteen billion 1043 00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,400 Speaker 1: years to download, which is still longer than the age 1044 00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:21,600 Speaker 1: of the universe. Right, and people are still making up 1045 00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:23,239 Speaker 1: stuff on the Internet, so you're just going to fall 1046 00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:28,200 Speaker 1: behind again, unnamed Internet provider, Am I right? All? Am 1047 00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:31,840 Speaker 1: I right? Fifteen billion years just to send an email. 1048 00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:34,760 Speaker 1: Maybe you should switch from new tremail back to normal 1049 00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:39,759 Speaker 1: photon mailk. Maybe this is why all my job applications 1050 00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:43,480 Speaker 1: have sent to space have not resulted in any interviews. 1051 00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:45,640 Speaker 1: But I think what this shows us is that the 1052 00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,719 Speaker 1: universe is more complex than what we can just see 1053 00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:52,200 Speaker 1: with our eyeballs or our earballs or our fingerballs. That 1054 00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:54,640 Speaker 1: there's a lot more going on out there. The universe 1055 00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:57,400 Speaker 1: is sending us all kinds of information that biologically we 1056 00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:01,120 Speaker 1: cannot see, but we are capable using is of discovering 1057 00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:04,120 Speaker 1: that it exists. And maybe also of manipulating it, of 1058 00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:06,960 Speaker 1: using it to talk to each other or maybe to 1059 00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:10,560 Speaker 1: the aliens. Wow, I mean it kind of. It's also 1060 00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:13,239 Speaker 1: like with our initial question about like why didn't we 1061 00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:16,880 Speaker 1: evolve to be able to detect neutrinos, It seems like 1062 00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:18,800 Speaker 1: a lot of it is we're just too small. So 1063 00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:22,080 Speaker 1: if there's like a giant alien species out there whose 1064 00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:25,480 Speaker 1: eyes are so big or their sensory organ is so 1065 00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:29,240 Speaker 1: big that they do have a statistical significance of receiving 1066 00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:34,120 Speaker 1: these neutrinos, maybe there's giant aliens who can like detect 1067 00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:37,760 Speaker 1: or consume neutrinos, or maybe they're not that big, but 1068 00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:41,400 Speaker 1: their eyeballs are imagine like humans with eyeballs the size 1069 00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:44,280 Speaker 1: of swimming pools. That would be a cool science fiction novel. 1070 00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:48,120 Speaker 1: Somebody out there right that for us? Please? All right, 1071 00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:50,480 Speaker 1: and thanks very much Katie for joining us on today's 1072 00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:54,959 Speaker 1: exploration and discovery of the crazy world of neutrinos. Thanks 1073 00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,680 Speaker 1: for having me, for putting that mental image in my head. 1074 00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:01,480 Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Alrighty go give your new Trinish now 1075 00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:11,800 Speaker 1: our arrest. Thanks for joining us, Thanks for listening, and 1076 00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,560 Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a 1077 00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:18,040 Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcast from my 1078 00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:21,720 Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 1079 00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:26,200 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H