1
00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:12,360
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I have a question for you about aliens. Oh,

2
00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:14,960
Speaker 1: I'm always ready to gobble that up. When you meet

3
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:18,119
Speaker 1: another human culture, it means a lot to share a

4
00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:20,480
Speaker 1: meal together, you know, like if you visit somebody or

5
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:23,120
Speaker 1: in a different country, it's important, you know, to sit

6
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,319
Speaker 1: down and eat together. But if aliens visit, would you

7
00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:30,040
Speaker 1: be willing to try their food even if it looks

8
00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:33,400
Speaker 1: super gross? You know, the fate of the earth might

9
00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:36,919
Speaker 1: be on the line. You don't want to offend them.

10
00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:38,840
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I could take a bite and smile.

11
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,080
Speaker 1: I think maybe we should send our Ambassador of Weird

12
00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:45,320
Speaker 1: snack Foods. Oh wow, that sounds like a prestigious title.

13
00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:47,080
Speaker 1: Who did you have in mind? I just admitted the

14
00:00:47,080 --> 00:01:07,000
Speaker 1: form to nominate you. Sounds delicious. Hi am Jorge. I'm

15
00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:10,800
Speaker 1: a cartoonist and the creator of PhD comments. Hi I'm Daniel.

16
00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:13,840
Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist. But I honestly do like weird

17
00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:18,280
Speaker 1: snack foods. What's the weirdest snack would you ever eat? In? Then?

18
00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:21,000
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it was. Because we have

19
00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:24,480
Speaker 1: some Japanese markets here where there's nothing in English, and

20
00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:26,679
Speaker 1: sometimes we just go in and get a few bags

21
00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:32,000
Speaker 1: of weird really Japanese roulette with the snack Japanese snack roulette,

22
00:01:31,959 --> 00:01:34,000
Speaker 1: And I'm like, is this a salty snack? Is it

23
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:37,319
Speaker 1: baby food? Is it dessert? I don't even know. Does

24
00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:39,640
Speaker 1: it have fish in it? Does it have fish and

25
00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:42,600
Speaker 1: cheese on it? Everything has fish in it. Everything is fishing.

26
00:01:42,640 --> 00:01:46,960
Speaker 1: It's the Japanese market. It's all extracted from shrimp somehow. Yeah, yeah,

27
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:49,040
Speaker 1: but I love it. Yeah. Well, Welcome to our podcast.

28
00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:53,120
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge talk about snack foods, eat, weird stuff,

29
00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:56,800
Speaker 1: and the universe. No. Welcome to our podcast. Daniel and

30
00:01:56,840 --> 00:01:59,720
Speaker 1: Jorge explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio,

31
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,960
Speaker 1: which we talk about all the amazing and tasty and

32
00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:06,400
Speaker 1: weird things about our universe that we find ourselves in.

33
00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:09,600
Speaker 1: You have woken up as a conscious being in this universe,

34
00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:12,720
Speaker 1: imbued with curiosity, and look out into the cosmos and

35
00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:15,320
Speaker 1: wonder why is it like that? Well, we are here

36
00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:17,919
Speaker 1: to tell you why, right? And what does it taste like?

37
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:20,760
Speaker 1: That's important? Does that ever cross your mind? Daniel? I

38
00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:23,959
Speaker 1: wonder what aliens taste like? You know, maybe they won't

39
00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:29,040
Speaker 1: eat us? Maybe no, No, I'm trending more and more vegetarian.

40
00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:31,160
Speaker 1: But I have wondered. You know, sometimes they talk about

41
00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:34,680
Speaker 1: like a teaspoon of neutron star ways as much as whatever,

42
00:02:34,919 --> 00:02:36,720
Speaker 1: and I wonder, what does that taste like? You know,

43
00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:40,240
Speaker 1: what is a teaspoon of neutron stars? Probably probably kind

44
00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:42,480
Speaker 1: of heavy. Maybe you should spread it on toast or something,

45
00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:44,360
Speaker 1: you know, mix it with a little cream. I don't know,

46
00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:49,720
Speaker 1: sparkling a toast to toast. But yeah, welcome to our

47
00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:52,440
Speaker 1: podcast in which we talk about all of the amazing

48
00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:55,000
Speaker 1: things in the universe, all the delicious things, and all

49
00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:57,720
Speaker 1: of the things that may not yet exist or happen

50
00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:00,160
Speaker 1: in this universe. And we like to talk about the

51
00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:03,520
Speaker 1: real universe, the one that's actually out there that scientists

52
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:06,120
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out, because it's filled with crazy

53
00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:10,560
Speaker 1: puzzles and amazing mysteries and mind blowing discoveries. But sometimes

54
00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:12,720
Speaker 1: the best way to explore our universe is to think

55
00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:17,280
Speaker 1: about other hypothetical universes that might be and also might

56
00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:20,760
Speaker 1: be our universe. Yeah, because businesses, I think you we

57
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:23,839
Speaker 1: think of them as explorers, you know, the universe, trying

58
00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:26,679
Speaker 1: to discover new things, but even more out there, I

59
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:31,040
Speaker 1: would say maybe the advanced scouts of the human consciousness

60
00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:33,880
Speaker 1: and search for knowledge are sort of the the inventors,

61
00:03:33,919 --> 00:03:37,080
Speaker 1: you know, the artists, the writers who think of what

62
00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 1: could possibly be possible and what would happen if we

63
00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:43,440
Speaker 1: found them. That's true. Artists certainly are at the forefront

64
00:03:43,520 --> 00:03:46,280
Speaker 1: of what is possible and what might be impossible. I'm

65
00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:49,280
Speaker 1: glad that you think about physicists as explorers, though sometimes

66
00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:51,800
Speaker 1: you describe me as an explorer from the couch, like

67
00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:55,480
Speaker 1: a couch explorer. You probably know that couch really well,

68
00:03:56,160 --> 00:03:59,120
Speaker 1: you know every it's well suited to the shape of

69
00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:02,440
Speaker 1: my bottom. That's true. So if it's physicists explore the

70
00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 1: universe from the couch, then artists explore the universe from

71
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:12,200
Speaker 1: from from their brains, from inside. Nobody uses typewriters, um,

72
00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:14,480
Speaker 1: but you know, from their computers, from their fingers and

73
00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,080
Speaker 1: the keyboards. No. It really is a mental exercise, though,

74
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,279
Speaker 1: to think about how the universe is and how the

75
00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:21,880
Speaker 1: universe might be. And that's why I'm such a huge

76
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:25,000
Speaker 1: fan of science fiction, because to me, the fun puzzle

77
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,680
Speaker 1: of science fiction is figuring out how does this universe

78
00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,440
Speaker 1: work that some artists or some writer has created. And

79
00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:33,600
Speaker 1: that's the same puzzle we're facing in our actual universe,

80
00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:36,560
Speaker 1: and so the mental exercise is very similar. It's a

81
00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:41,040
Speaker 1: big physics, scientific detective mystery. And so today on the program,

82
00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:45,120
Speaker 1: we're having the third of our series of interviews and

83
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:49,880
Speaker 1: reviews of famous, well known science fiction novels, otherwise known

84
00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,719
Speaker 1: as Daniel's Excuse to talk to all the authors. He's

85
00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:57,880
Speaker 1: a big fan of uh welcome to Daniel becomes a

86
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:02,719
Speaker 1: fanboy live in front of the people and loves every

87
00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:04,960
Speaker 1: minute of it. Now, this has been super fun. We

88
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:07,000
Speaker 1: talked already to Ann Lecky, who in The Hugo and

89
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:09,520
Speaker 1: the Nebula, for her great book Ancillary Justice, and we

90
00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,840
Speaker 1: recently talked to Blake Crouch about his really fun book Recursion.

91
00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:15,360
Speaker 1: And so today we're excited to talk to you about

92
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:18,160
Speaker 1: another book. Yeah, it's a pretty and it's a kind

93
00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 1: of a different science fiction type of book. I haven't

94
00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:22,839
Speaker 1: read it, and so I'm looking forward to hearing about

95
00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:24,760
Speaker 1: it from you, but you're you're telling me that it's

96
00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:27,640
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of hard science fiction, but it's also

97
00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:29,960
Speaker 1: kind of a humorous book, Like it has a sense

98
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:34,359
Speaker 1: of humor which you don't usually associate maybe unless you

99
00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 1: think about Douglas Adams, right, and and The Hitchhiker's Guide

100
00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:41,480
Speaker 1: to the Galaxy. Yeah. Well, you have some science fiction

101
00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:43,920
Speaker 1: books that take themselves very seriously, and you know, I'm

102
00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:45,839
Speaker 1: a big fan of those. And then you've got the

103
00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:48,680
Speaker 1: ones that don't take themselves that seriously. You know, Star Trek,

104
00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:52,320
Speaker 1: where they're sort of like winking at you when they're saying, well,

105
00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:56,320
Speaker 1: you know they have seriously, Well, then do you know

106
00:05:56,320 --> 00:05:59,320
Speaker 1: how to reverse the polarity on the taw generator? Yeah?

107
00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:04,880
Speaker 1: Just uh, Daniel, I'm not I'm not a scientist. I'm

108
00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:08,080
Speaker 1: just an engineer. Um. And then you have your sort

109
00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:11,080
Speaker 1: of like wacky science fiction hit Tiger's Guide to the Galaxy,

110
00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:14,599
Speaker 1: for example, filled with crazy characters and silly hijinks and

111
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:16,760
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff, and this one, I think

112
00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:20,320
Speaker 1: sort of stretches all those genres. It's like very hardcore

113
00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:22,960
Speaker 1: about the physics and how that universe works. She really

114
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:25,360
Speaker 1: tried hard to make it realistic and interesting. But then

115
00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:29,200
Speaker 1: it's also mostly about the emotional story of these characters

116
00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:32,279
Speaker 1: and the bonds they make together and their antics and

117
00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,000
Speaker 1: the silly food they eat together, and so it's a

118
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,600
Speaker 1: really human story. Sounds like it's a sitcom space opera,

119
00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:42,120
Speaker 1: a little bit sitcom space opera. Yeah, and you provide

120
00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:44,520
Speaker 1: the laugh track. I laughed a lot while reading this book.

121
00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:48,200
Speaker 1: Oh really, you actually laugh out loud? Yeah? I left

122
00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:49,840
Speaker 1: a lot. I woke up my wife several times while

123
00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:53,400
Speaker 1: reading this book. Really. Wow. Well, maybe maybe I'll check

124
00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:55,719
Speaker 1: it out. But it's kind of an interesting story for

125
00:06:55,800 --> 00:07:00,719
Speaker 1: a book because the author self published it first online

126
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:03,520
Speaker 1: or is your kickstarter, and then it got picked up

127
00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:05,479
Speaker 1: by a publisher and then it sort of took off

128
00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:09,800
Speaker 1: and won a Hugo Award for the whole series last year. Yeah,

129
00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:13,120
Speaker 1: it's a real inspiration for everybody out there who wants

130
00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:16,200
Speaker 1: to be a mainline science fiction author and thinks they

131
00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:18,080
Speaker 1: have what it takes but isn't sure and doesn't know

132
00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:20,440
Speaker 1: how to break in. Here's the story of somebody who

133
00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:23,560
Speaker 1: has just started writing and then it took off on

134
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:26,000
Speaker 1: its own. It's sort of like an Andy Weird story, right.

135
00:07:26,520 --> 00:07:29,000
Speaker 1: She owned herself, she published to be a kickstarter, and

136
00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,680
Speaker 1: then later somebody sort of influential found it and funded

137
00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:35,120
Speaker 1: the rest of the series, and now she's a winning

138
00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 1: massive prizes and getting paid to do this full time.

139
00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:41,760
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a really exca prestigious podcast. I mean,

140
00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:44,480
Speaker 1: that's living the dream, is she can I get invited

141
00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:48,120
Speaker 1: to a prestigious podcast that sounds like fun talking about

142
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:52,480
Speaker 1: ut Daniel whoop. Sorry, yeah, damnit, Daniel fake until you

143
00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:56,320
Speaker 1: are not a podcast host. No, it's um. She has

144
00:07:56,320 --> 00:07:58,840
Speaker 1: a fun story and she has a lot of personalities

145
00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:01,400
Speaker 1: I think you'll hear in the interview. And she's really

146
00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,480
Speaker 1: done a great job of carrying that personality into her

147
00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:09,080
Speaker 1: characters and creating realistic characters in a fascinating science fiction universe. Awesome.

148
00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:11,480
Speaker 1: And so today on the program, we'll be talking about

149
00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:21,360
Speaker 1: the fun science fiction universe of Becky Chambers. The Long

150
00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:25,160
Speaker 1: Way to a Small Angry Planet, And even just that title,

151
00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:27,320
Speaker 1: it really drew me in from the very beginning, Like

152
00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:30,200
Speaker 1: that sounds like a good story, doesn't it. The Long

153
00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:32,640
Speaker 1: Way to a small Angry Planet. I guess it's the

154
00:08:32,679 --> 00:08:38,240
Speaker 1: play between like long small angry. Yeah, it's kind of funny.

155
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:40,880
Speaker 1: I used to think of a like a bitter, bitter,

156
00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:43,360
Speaker 1: little shriveled up planet. Well, it tells you that there's

157
00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:45,400
Speaker 1: going to be a journey involved, and you already like that.

158
00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:47,600
Speaker 1: It's like tolkn esque, right, it's a long way. The

159
00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:49,800
Speaker 1: story is going to be about traveling, and when you

160
00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:52,079
Speaker 1: get there, there's gonna be something exciting because this planet

161
00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:57,680
Speaker 1: is piste off really interesting. Well I'm hooked already. Um,

162
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:01,960
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what the basic idea of the

163
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,400
Speaker 1: novel is and then let's talk about the signs of it,

164
00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:07,960
Speaker 1: and then we'll play the interview for you guys. Um,

165
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:10,199
Speaker 1: but what is this a small angry planet? It is?

166
00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:12,200
Speaker 1: It's not us? Is it? Is it Earth? We are

167
00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:15,040
Speaker 1: not the angry planet. No, So to set the scene

168
00:09:15,080 --> 00:09:18,040
Speaker 1: in her universe, we all live in the galaxy. But

169
00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:22,160
Speaker 1: the galaxy is filled with aliens, all sorts of crazy aliens.

170
00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:24,760
Speaker 1: Aliens that have more legs or fins, are all sorts

171
00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:28,600
Speaker 1: of weird stuff. But they're sort of human like, you know,

172
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:32,000
Speaker 1: they're very understandable. They have a similar sense of humor,

173
00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:34,880
Speaker 1: they eat in a kitchen, they sleep, Um, they can

174
00:09:34,920 --> 00:09:38,880
Speaker 1: be like interspecies romance. So you know they're alien, but

175
00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:41,960
Speaker 1: they're also not that alien. Is it? Is it more

176
00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,800
Speaker 1: like Star Wars or Star Trek in terms of its

177
00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:49,360
Speaker 1: budget for um, you know, special makeup, in effects. I'd

178
00:09:49,360 --> 00:09:51,280
Speaker 1: say it's a little bit more Star Trek that way,

179
00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:53,560
Speaker 1: you know, like the Klingons are like humans, but with

180
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:55,640
Speaker 1: little ridges on their heads and they tend to be grumpy,

181
00:09:55,960 --> 00:09:58,400
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. All the aliens are like humans,

182
00:09:58,440 --> 00:10:01,040
Speaker 1: perturbed in some interesting went. I see. It's not like

183
00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:04,040
Speaker 1: your your fallen in love with the blob of of

184
00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:07,640
Speaker 1: scenting gas. I got nothing against that. You know, between

185
00:10:07,640 --> 00:10:10,520
Speaker 1: consenting blobs of scenting gas can do whatever they like.

186
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:13,240
Speaker 1: But in this book, there are no sentient blobs of

187
00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:20,360
Speaker 1: aliening gas, only sentient blobs of water and minerals in carbon. Yeah,

188
00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:22,520
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating, and you know, I think that that's

189
00:10:22,559 --> 00:10:25,600
Speaker 1: sort of unrealistic. We'll get into that later, but yeah,

190
00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:29,080
Speaker 1: for sure, I feel like you lost me already. But

191
00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:31,000
Speaker 1: I think that she did this on purpose to sort

192
00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,640
Speaker 1: of make the aliens approachable, because the book is mostly

193
00:10:34,679 --> 00:10:37,680
Speaker 1: about this gang that lives on a ship and they're

194
00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:40,319
Speaker 1: like a work gag. They have a job. They're building wormholes,

195
00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:42,719
Speaker 1: and you know, they've got a contract. They've gotta work

196
00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:44,520
Speaker 1: together and sort of sort of like what it's like

197
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:47,760
Speaker 1: to be on this ship together with this crew that's

198
00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:55,640
Speaker 1: multi species. It totally is a sitcom. Here's what wormholes. Yeah,

199
00:10:55,760 --> 00:10:58,000
Speaker 1: and um. In order for that to work, you know

200
00:10:58,080 --> 00:10:59,760
Speaker 1: that the aliens have to be able to talk to

201
00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:02,880
Speaker 1: each other and share experiences and relate to each other.

202
00:11:03,800 --> 00:11:05,480
Speaker 1: I see what you mean. They'd sort of not just

203
00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:09,360
Speaker 1: look alike a little bit. They're humanoid, but they're also

204
00:11:09,760 --> 00:11:14,480
Speaker 1: you know, sort of um share kind of a human sensibility.

205
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:17,640
Speaker 1: You know, it really hard to talk to a centient

206
00:11:17,679 --> 00:11:21,120
Speaker 1: blob that you know prioritizes different things than us. Yeah,

207
00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:23,280
Speaker 1: and will also be hard to have an alien be

208
00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:26,079
Speaker 1: your cook on your ship if they had no idea

209
00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:28,000
Speaker 1: how to make human food, or if they had no

210
00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:32,000
Speaker 1: interest in human food. Um. And so she enforces this

211
00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:35,760
Speaker 1: sort of to make this this overlap, okay, and you

212
00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:38,280
Speaker 1: know she acknowledges that she winks to it in the book,

213
00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:40,959
Speaker 1: Like everybody's wondering why all the aliens so human? Is

214
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,600
Speaker 1: there some sort of like common ancestor, you know, she's

215
00:11:43,640 --> 00:11:46,120
Speaker 1: aware ofeness. So I thought that was done pretty well.

216
00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:50,440
Speaker 1: But that's sort of The galaxy right choked filled with aliens,

217
00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:52,360
Speaker 1: is all sorts of kinds, more than I can keep

218
00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:55,839
Speaker 1: track of. But the core structure of the book is

219
00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:58,480
Speaker 1: about how you get around the galaxy, and like, how

220
00:11:58,520 --> 00:12:01,640
Speaker 1: do you get from solar system to solar system. Oh,

221
00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:03,679
Speaker 1: I see, because that you were saying they work at

222
00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:07,640
Speaker 1: a wormhole factory or a wormhole station or where do

223
00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:10,800
Speaker 1: they work. They work on a ship that builds wormholes.

224
00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:13,160
Speaker 1: And so, of course to get from one solar system

225
00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:15,600
Speaker 1: to another takes a long time. If you're traveling at

226
00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:18,200
Speaker 1: less than the speed of light, take millions of years

227
00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:21,240
Speaker 1: to get across the galaxy, you know, it's some small

228
00:12:21,280 --> 00:12:22,800
Speaker 1: fraction in the speed of light. Or even if you're

229
00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:24,960
Speaker 1: moving at the speed of light, it would take you, you

230
00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:26,680
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred thousand years to get across the

231
00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:29,720
Speaker 1: milky Way. That's not really good for building a galaxy

232
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:32,040
Speaker 1: sized society. So you have to have some way to

233
00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:35,200
Speaker 1: connect these solar systems, and in her book they do

234
00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:38,440
Speaker 1: a via wormholes, and you know, wormholes we've talked about

235
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:39,760
Speaker 1: on the show, and we'll talk in a minute about

236
00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:43,040
Speaker 1: whether they're realistic. The thing that's really cool about this

237
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,160
Speaker 1: book that's different from a lot of other books that

238
00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:48,520
Speaker 1: have wormholes in them is that she doesn't just sort

239
00:12:48,520 --> 00:12:50,640
Speaker 1: of hand wave her way to wormholes, like, oh, and

240
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,200
Speaker 1: there are wormholes. She she talks about like, how do

241
00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:57,720
Speaker 1: you actually build a wormhole. She has instructions in the

242
00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:00,480
Speaker 1: book about how to do it. Yeah, and the characters

243
00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:02,960
Speaker 1: in this book live on a ship and work together

244
00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:07,040
Speaker 1: building wormholes. So they're like flying this wormhole construction ship

245
00:13:07,160 --> 00:13:09,840
Speaker 1: around the galaxy and each one is kind of a

246
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:12,240
Speaker 1: pain in the butt. I mean, later when people use it,

247
00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:15,280
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy. But actually constructing the wormhole, she's stopped

248
00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:17,880
Speaker 1: through like how you would do that and the difficulties,

249
00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:21,680
Speaker 1: and you know, built up this whole bureaucracy and infrastructure

250
00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:24,800
Speaker 1: around how that would work in the economics of it,

251
00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:27,320
Speaker 1: And so you are on a journey of building a

252
00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:31,040
Speaker 1: wormhole in this book. Yeah, you call it a wormhole engineering,

253
00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:34,880
Speaker 1: which sounds like an awesome title for a degree. I'm

254
00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:38,000
Speaker 1: a wormhole engineer. Oh man, are we creating more kinds

255
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:43,240
Speaker 1: of engineers already? You can't have enough? And I thought

256
00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:45,719
Speaker 1: you would like that because it's not just like, well,

257
00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:48,880
Speaker 1: the physicists say it's possible, so therefore we have them

258
00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:50,800
Speaker 1: in our world. It's like, well, how would you actually

259
00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:53,439
Speaker 1: make one? You know, physicists say a lot of things possible.

260
00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:57,640
Speaker 1: Space elevators are possible, other orbits are possible. How do

261
00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:01,360
Speaker 1: you actually make it? Happen, So she not just thought

262
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:04,400
Speaker 1: that through but makes it sort of the central driving

263
00:14:04,440 --> 00:14:07,520
Speaker 1: plot of the book is this crew building this this

264
00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:11,080
Speaker 1: difficult wormhole to an angry planet. Okay, so I'm getting

265
00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:13,520
Speaker 1: the sense that it's sort of a mix of Star

266
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:17,960
Speaker 1: Trek cheers and Discovery Channel documentary about how to build

267
00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:24,200
Speaker 1: bridges in the best possible way with with food apparently

268
00:14:24,240 --> 00:14:27,000
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, yeah, I think the author drinks a

269
00:14:27,080 --> 00:14:28,920
Speaker 1: lot of tea, So there's a lot of discussion of

270
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:31,200
Speaker 1: different kinds of tea and weird alien tea and all

271
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:33,960
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. All right, So so that the novel

272
00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:36,880
Speaker 1: is spends a lot of time and in the mechanics

273
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:39,560
Speaker 1: of building a wormhole, which sounds pretty interesting. And then

274
00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:42,240
Speaker 1: you also noted here that um, they do have faster

275
00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:44,560
Speaker 1: than light travel, but they don't use it. Yeah, it's

276
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:47,040
Speaker 1: sort of a toss away in the book she mentions

277
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:50,960
Speaker 1: briefly like, and of course, some scientists figured out how

278
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,760
Speaker 1: to do faster than light travel. They built a faster

279
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:56,080
Speaker 1: than light drive, but it led to all sorts of

280
00:14:56,120 --> 00:15:00,480
Speaker 1: like bureaucratic complications. Because it's violet, it's causality, has time

281
00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:03,360
Speaker 1: travel and basically just gives everybody a headache, so they

282
00:15:03,400 --> 00:15:09,240
Speaker 1: outlawed it, which always works obviously oddline things totally makes

283
00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:11,360
Speaker 1: them all go away and nobody ever tries it. Or

284
00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:15,600
Speaker 1: that's right FTL prohibition. And I asked her about that

285
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 1: in the interview. You'll hear her response, Um, I thought

286
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:21,160
Speaker 1: it was pretty fun, though, I'll be honest, if fast

287
00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:24,560
Speaker 1: and light travel was possible, I would definitely be ignoring

288
00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:26,400
Speaker 1: the laws against it, like I would like to go

289
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:29,160
Speaker 1: to another for sure, once you take a bootleg ride

290
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:31,640
Speaker 1: to another planet fast like Well, I don't know, what

291
00:15:31,720 --> 00:15:34,360
Speaker 1: are these alien prisons look like if you get caught.

292
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:38,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. We sound good. Alien prisons are never good.

293
00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:40,160
Speaker 1: But if you have a faster than light drive, how

294
00:15:40,160 --> 00:15:42,000
Speaker 1: are they going to catch you? Right? You can always

295
00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:45,240
Speaker 1: get away from them, true, true, And you can buy

296
00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:48,400
Speaker 1: late postalities, so your kid, I don't know, raised them

297
00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:51,200
Speaker 1: before they catch you. I don't know, yeah, exactly. All right, Well,

298
00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:54,320
Speaker 1: let's get into the signs of it and whether or

299
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:56,520
Speaker 1: not it's plausible from your point of view, and then

300
00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:58,880
Speaker 1: we'll get to the interview with biking. But first let's

301
00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:14,160
Speaker 1: take a quick break. All right, we're talking about Biggie

302
00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:17,560
Speaker 1: Chambers debut novel, Long Way to a Small Angry Planet,

303
00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:20,040
Speaker 1: which won the Hugo for Best Series. The series is

304
00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:23,000
Speaker 1: called Wayfarers, right, Yeah, and there's three books in the

305
00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:25,760
Speaker 1: series and they all have fun titles, and they track

306
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 1: the exploits of this crew and the rest of the

307
00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 1: galaxy and all the stuff that happens in to these people.

308
00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:34,520
Speaker 1: Is a sequel called The Longer Way to a Smaller,

309
00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:39,400
Speaker 1: angerer Planet or a Short Way to a Large Happy Planet. Um, no,

310
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:42,440
Speaker 1: this she has more clever titles. The next ones are

311
00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:46,720
Speaker 1: called A Closed and Common Orbit, and then the Record

312
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,400
Speaker 1: of a Spaceborn Few And I gotta say she has

313
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 1: a bit of a knack combing up for cool titles.

314
00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:53,840
Speaker 1: These are those are good titles. Yeah, they tell a

315
00:16:53,880 --> 00:16:56,920
Speaker 1: story onto themselves. Yeah, they summarize the whole book in

316
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:00,000
Speaker 1: just a few words. It's cool. Alright. So then, um,

317
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:02,480
Speaker 1: you're telling me that a lot of the book is

318
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:05,959
Speaker 1: about building wormholes and the engineering of it, and so

319
00:17:06,040 --> 00:17:08,840
Speaker 1: let's let's dig into that. Is it sort of plausible

320
00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:12,000
Speaker 1: what she talks about in the book, Um, not just

321
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:14,920
Speaker 1: wormholes as an idea, but just the way she's talking

322
00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:18,200
Speaker 1: about describing how you would build one. Well, I would

323
00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:21,520
Speaker 1: say on the large scale, yes, and then wormholes are

324
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:26,640
Speaker 1: totally theoretically possible in our universe and nobody knows how

325
00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:29,600
Speaker 1: to build one at all. So she's operating and sort

326
00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:31,680
Speaker 1: of a void there for like how you would actually

327
00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:34,960
Speaker 1: build them. If I had to guess how wormholes worked

328
00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:36,920
Speaker 1: and how you would construct them, I don't think I

329
00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:39,199
Speaker 1: would have come up with the solution she found. But

330
00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:42,560
Speaker 1: you know I can't criticize it. Well, maybe let's reach

331
00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:45,600
Speaker 1: out for the audience. A wormhole is, right now, a

332
00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:49,479
Speaker 1: theoretical kind of shortcut in space, right, like the ideas

333
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:53,879
Speaker 1: that you somehow connect space here to a bit of

334
00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,760
Speaker 1: space somewhere far away, and the laws of physics actually

335
00:17:57,800 --> 00:18:00,960
Speaker 1: allow you to do that, that's right. And the motivation

336
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:04,280
Speaker 1: is to get somewhere far away without going through all

337
00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:07,320
Speaker 1: the space between here and there. And the idea is

338
00:18:07,359 --> 00:18:10,359
Speaker 1: to somehow shorten the space between here and there, not

339
00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,000
Speaker 1: like a warp drive, which like squeezes it, but to

340
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:17,119
Speaker 1: actually make a connection between here and there, and like

341
00:18:17,160 --> 00:18:19,920
Speaker 1: a bad door, like a back door. And there's sort

342
00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:22,280
Speaker 1: of two different mathematical ways to think about them we

343
00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:26,160
Speaker 1: can talk about. But general relativity says that they're possible,

344
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:28,640
Speaker 1: Like if you write down the laws of general relativity

345
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,840
Speaker 1: to tell us how space bends and how space is connected,

346
00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:35,760
Speaker 1: you can find a solution to those equations that connects

347
00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:39,080
Speaker 1: too far away points in space via this wormhole, and

348
00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:40,760
Speaker 1: you have a black hole on one side and a

349
00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:43,560
Speaker 1: white hole on the other side. Well, and and so

350
00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:46,400
Speaker 1: one thing I've always wondered about about wormholes is does

351
00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:50,800
Speaker 1: a math math suggest that they're you know, you're connecting points,

352
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,680
Speaker 1: and so you're connecting points. How can you fit anything

353
00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:56,960
Speaker 1: through it? Or can you make warmholes that are bigger

354
00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,880
Speaker 1: than a point? Yeah, that's one of the problems. If

355
00:18:59,880 --> 00:19:02,400
Speaker 1: you just make a wormhole that's a point, it will

356
00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:05,960
Speaker 1: collapse that it's unstable. They will not stay open, and anyway,

357
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:08,200
Speaker 1: you can't get anything through it if it's just a point.

358
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:10,600
Speaker 1: So what you need is to keep it open and

359
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:13,960
Speaker 1: to expand that hole. And the way you need to

360
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:16,840
Speaker 1: do that is somehow have some sort of negative pressure.

361
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:20,560
Speaker 1: You need negative gravitational pressure, which is not something we

362
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:24,439
Speaker 1: know how to do, but theoretically people think, well, maybe

363
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,879
Speaker 1: if there were particles that had negative mass. We call

364
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:30,040
Speaker 1: this exotic matter, and we talked about it recently on

365
00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:33,760
Speaker 1: the program. Then if those existed, maybe they could hold

366
00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:36,439
Speaker 1: it open and keep it stable and have the opening

367
00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:38,800
Speaker 1: be big enough that you could pass an object through,

368
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,240
Speaker 1: maybe even a spaceship. But there's a lot of steps there, right,

369
00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:43,720
Speaker 1: And she sort of has that into her book. You

370
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: were telling me, like you in her book, you open

371
00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:48,560
Speaker 1: a wormhole and then you have to throw buoy's in

372
00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:51,360
Speaker 1: there to keep it open. Yeah, so maybe let's talk

373
00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:53,760
Speaker 1: about the idea she has for a wormhole, and then

374
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: let's talk about whether that lines up with wormholes in reality.

375
00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,359
Speaker 1: So in her imagining wormholes, the way they work is

376
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:02,679
Speaker 1: that our space, our three dimensional space, is sort of

377
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:05,720
Speaker 1: embedded in a higher dimensional space, the way like a

378
00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:08,600
Speaker 1: sheet of paper is two dimensions and it's embedded in

379
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:11,600
Speaker 1: our three dimensional space. And in three dimensions, you can

380
00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:13,960
Speaker 1: twist a sheet of paper and you know, you could

381
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:17,920
Speaker 1: leave the surface and come back somewhere else. And imagine,

382
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 1: for example, if that surface was rolled up, if that

383
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:22,560
Speaker 1: two dimensionals sheet was like a roll of toilet paper,

384
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:25,920
Speaker 1: then you might actually be really close to other places

385
00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:28,400
Speaker 1: on that two D surface without realizing it, because you're

386
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:31,480
Speaker 1: close sort of in three dimensions, right, because you're you're

387
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:35,160
Speaker 1: folded in that higher dimensional space. And actually you're sitting

388
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:37,840
Speaker 1: right next to each other, but to us it seems

389
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 1: far away because you have to go all around the

390
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,560
Speaker 1: toilet paper first. Yeah, and so she calls this the

391
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:46,600
Speaker 1: space between space, the sub layer, and in her universe,

392
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:49,760
Speaker 1: you can punch a hole and sort of move off

393
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: the surface of our three dimensional space into this higher

394
00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:57,640
Speaker 1: dimensional space, transit through this weird subspace, and then punch

395
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:00,639
Speaker 1: another hole and get back. And the the job of

396
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,639
Speaker 1: these ships is to punch that whole and then to

397
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 1: navigate through that space, which is pretty tricky, dropping buoys

398
00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 1: along the way so that ships that come later can

399
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:12,080
Speaker 1: just follow the buoy's. So you're saying, we're sitting in

400
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:16,199
Speaker 1: a bigger space, but I guess is that possible or

401
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:18,199
Speaker 1: is it possible we're sitting in a bigger space. So

402
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:20,520
Speaker 1: it is possible that we're sitting in a bigger space,

403
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,200
Speaker 1: And by bigger we don't mean like larger, like more

404
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:25,879
Speaker 1: three D space, but that there are other dimensions, There

405
00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 1: are different ways to move the way that a two

406
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,040
Speaker 1: D sheet of paper is sitting in a three D space.

407
00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: Try to imagine our three D space in some four

408
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:37,679
Speaker 1: D or five D or ten dimensional space, and as

409
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 1: we talked about once in the program, we don't know

410
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: how many dimensions of space there are. There could be three,

411
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 1: there could be eleven, there could be twenty six, there

412
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,480
Speaker 1: could be more. We just don't And it is like

413
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:50,359
Speaker 1: like it is that you know, like you and I

414
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:52,960
Speaker 1: are far apart from each other right now, but maybe

415
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:55,360
Speaker 1: there's a dimension that if I just take a step

416
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:59,400
Speaker 1: in that direction in this higher dimensional space, suddenly I'm

417
00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 1: next to you. Yeah, if if this three D space

418
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:06,360
Speaker 1: happens to be folded in that higher dimensional space so

419
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:09,600
Speaker 1: that we're close in this higher dimensional space, you have

420
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,880
Speaker 1: to find those folds, And is that part of the plot,

421
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 1: like finding those folds? Yeah, And apparently it's very difficult

422
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:18,440
Speaker 1: to navigate, and only certain kinds of beings know how

423
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:20,719
Speaker 1: to do it, and that part is kind of hand wavy.

424
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:22,439
Speaker 1: In the book, she doesn't get into the details. It's

425
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:25,080
Speaker 1: just sort of like everybody who gets into the subspace

426
00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 1: sort of like loses their sense of time. But there's

427
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 1: this special category of sentient beings that know how to

428
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:33,440
Speaker 1: navigate it and find their way and build these wormholes.

429
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: If you eat the spice, then let's see it's actually

430
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 1: if you get this weird brain virus that they pass

431
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:44,560
Speaker 1: on to their children. It's quite fascinating virus. Yeah, yeah,

432
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:46,880
Speaker 1: And so that's that's one way of thinking about wormholes

433
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 1: is like moving in some higher dimension and imagining that

434
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:52,479
Speaker 1: the constraints of our universe are only because we're not

435
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: seeing the full picture, and if we could only move

436
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: in this other way, then maybe we could find shortcuts.

437
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 1: See so that's her flavor of warmholes. And you're saying

438
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 1: there's another flavor that physicists have also considered or think

439
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 1: is maybe more realistic. I think it's more realistic. I've

440
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: considered it. So you know that's one physicist at least

441
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: um And that's sort of an intrinsic one. I mean,

442
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: when we talk about bending of space, we don't think

443
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:21,959
Speaker 1: about the bending of space in the context of some

444
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: higher dimension. Like when when the Sun bends the space

445
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:28,679
Speaker 1: near the Earth so that the Earth is moving in

446
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: an orbit, it's not bending, it's in some higher dimension,

447
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 1: the way like a bowling ball and a rubber sheet

448
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: bends a two D space in three D. Instead, the

449
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 1: bending is intrinsic. It's not relative to some external ruler.

450
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 1: It just changes the relationship between bits of space. It

451
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: changes how far things are from each other. And so

452
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 1: that's an intrinsic kind of bending instead of an extrinsic bending,

453
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:53,679
Speaker 1: and physicist in general sort of think this one is

454
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: more realistic. Well, intrinsic bending is definitely what happens in

455
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: our three dimensional space due to math in general relativity,

456
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: So that's definitely the kind of bending we have seen.

457
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: We don't know if we're in a higher dimensional space.

458
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: We've never seen extrinsic bending relative to that, but we

459
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: have seen intrinsic bending, and the equations of general relativity

460
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 1: are consistent with this sort of intrinsic connection between two

461
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:20,160
Speaker 1: points in space, a black hole in one, a white

462
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,640
Speaker 1: hole in the other, and then at their core those

463
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: two points are the same point. Right. But but this

464
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: is also thing that we might be living in a

465
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: higher dimensional space, right, Yes, that's their dimensions, that's right.

466
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 1: There may be other dimensions. We've never seen them. We

467
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,400
Speaker 1: can't rule them out, however, and some theories of physics

468
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: predict them, like like bosonic string theory and superstring theory

469
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: predict eleven or twenty six dimensions. Those are theoretical ideas

470
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,439
Speaker 1: we've never seen those dimensions. We've never seen bending in

471
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 1: those dimensions. We have, however, seen bending in these three

472
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 1: this intrinsic bending. We just change the relative relationship between

473
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: bits of space. That's happening all the time. You're doing

474
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: that right now with the mass of your bending space.

475
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: Right now, you blow mines and bend space. All right, Well,

476
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: it sounds like, um, it sounds like you maybe want

477
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: to write the opposing novel The Long Way to a

478
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: small angry physicist, and in that in that version, if

479
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: you build a wormhole, there would be no traveling in between, right.

480
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: The one side of the wormhole is the other side

481
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: of the wormhole. There's no like working through higher dimensional

482
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: space or subspace. It's just instantly connected. Yeah, it's not

483
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: about navigating the folds. It's just like you, it's just

484
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: joined together. But you know, a fair criticism is nobody

485
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: knows how to build that. Like it's consistent with the

486
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: laws of physics. That doesn't mean we know how to

487
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: make it happen, right, It's a big difference. It sounds

488
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: like what she what she did was sort of plausible,

489
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 1: totally totally plausible. Maybe not the favorite theory of physicists

490
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: but it sounds like, um, it's plausible, and how she

491
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: describes building one, is that sort of realistic or is that,

492
00:25:57,680 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: you know, just her using her imagination At that point

493
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: it's her using her imagination because nobody knows anything about

494
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: what would happen in these higher dimensions with the laws

495
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: of physics would be like there. Um, But you know,

496
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 1: she built a credible idea and she followed it through

497
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: and she stuck to the rules of her story. So

498
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: you know I give her five stars for that. Well, well,

499
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: I am certainly interested in reading this book now and

500
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: so again the book is called The Long Way to

501
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. And so, now, Daniel,

502
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: you spoke to Becky recently and asked her a bunch

503
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,120
Speaker 1: of questions I did. She was kind enough to give

504
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: me some of her time and to share with me

505
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: how she built her science fiction universe, why she made

506
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: the choices she did, how she designed her characters, and

507
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: also to tell me, in her own words, a bit

508
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: about her personal journey from totally unknown, struggling writer to

509
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,919
Speaker 1: Hugo winning science fiction author. Wow, I guess he's not

510
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: as angry anymore. She seems like a pretty happy person.

511
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: It's been a long way to a large, happy career,

512
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 1: to a large, happy shelf full of awards. Yes, so

513
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: thanks Becky for spending your time and congrats on all

514
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: your success. Awesome. Well, here is Daniel interviewing science fiction

515
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: author Banky Chambers. Okay, thank you very much for coming

516
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: on our podcast. Would you mind first introducing yourself for

517
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: our listeners. Absolutely. My name's Becky Chambers, and I'm the

518
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: author of varied sci fi books. I'm best known for

519
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: my Wayfair series, which currently includes The Long Way to

520
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: a Small Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and

521
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: Record of a space Born Few. I'm also the author

522
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 1: of a standalone novella called to Be Taught If Fortunate. Well,

523
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: congratulations on all of your success. It's been kind of

524
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: a journey for you. Can you tell us a little

525
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 1: bit about how you got to be where you are? Yeah,

526
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 1: I still don't know exactly how I got to work.

527
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: It all started in two thousand and twelve. I was

528
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 1: working on the Long Way to a Small Angry Planet,

529
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: and I was doing freelance writing at the time, which

530
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: you know is not the most stable of professions. And

531
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 1: I reached one of those points I think it's familiar

532
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: to most freelancers. Where I ran out of paying gigs

533
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: for a few months. I was really close to finishing

534
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: the book and I didn't want to stop, is what

535
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: it came down to, And and pitching and and finding

536
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 1: gigs is something that takes up a ton of time

537
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 1: an effort, and it I knew that I kind of

538
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,679
Speaker 1: had a choice there as to which I was going

539
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: to focus on. So I turned to Kickstarter and I said, Hey,

540
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: I've got this idea for a book. I need two

541
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: months to finish it. Would you help me out? And

542
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: to my eternal surprise, um, the Internet obliged and I

543
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: was able to to finish it and myself published and

544
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: put it out there, and I kind of thought that

545
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: was it. You know, I I had given my backers

546
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: what I said I would make it. You know, I

547
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:57,479
Speaker 1: sold a little bit, but not much. And then I

548
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: had the extraordinary lightning strike good fortune of meeting just

549
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: the right person at a convention a couple of years later,

550
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: and we had beers and chatted, and that was that.

551
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about the book at all. Uh. And

552
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: then a few months later she got in touch because

553
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: she had read it and offered me my first book

554
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: deal and it's been a crazy ride ever since. So, um,

555
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: this is now what I do full time, which is

556
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: the best job ever. Well depending on which day you

557
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: catch me. But yeah, when people ask me, you know,

558
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: how do you get published? How do you go about

559
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: writing a book? I have no idea what to say, because, um,

560
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: it really has been um kind of a crazy ride. Well,

561
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: congratulations on all of your success, and I hope that

562
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: your story serves, like, you know, an inspiration to other

563
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: folks out there who are hoping to break in and

564
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: seeing that it's possible from you know, from the outside

565
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: to just write something wonderful that resonates with people and

566
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: have a take off. Thank you very much. So in

567
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: these interviews, we'd like to get to know an author

568
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: a little bit by asking them some class sak science

569
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: fiction questions. So here's a philosophical question about transporters like

570
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: Star Trek style. Do you think that it actually moves

571
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: you from one place to another or that it sort

572
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: of kills you, disassembles you and clones you somewhere else.

573
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: I'm in the disassembling camp, which is really graham. I

574
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: hate it, but I feel like that's what happens, and

575
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: if so, would you use a transporter? Absolutely not, I'd

576
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: be like I'd be like bones in this situation where

577
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't want to get in that. Ever,

578
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: the thing is people use them, you know, every day,

579
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: and they don't think too much about it. But I'm

580
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: the sort of person who would overthink it, because when

581
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: a transporter goes wrong, it goes really really wrong. So

582
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: I think i'd I think i'd stick to shuttles unless

583
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: I absolutely had to. Well, then, thinking more broadly in

584
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: science fiction that you read, what sort of technology that

585
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: you see in science fiction would you like to see

586
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: actually come into reality? Oh? Are we talking about technology

587
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: that's likely or anything anything? Think broadly, I would like

588
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: sticking with Star Trek. I'd love a replicator because I

589
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: hate cooking and just bring me constant joy, just to

590
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: not have to put any thought into dinner, just to

591
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: be like I'm having filet mignon tonight or whatever. I

592
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: also think artificial gravity would be a good one, because

593
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: I really want to go to space and that I'd

594
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: love to see Earth from orbit. I'd like to go

595
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: out there, but I also get really emotion sick, so

596
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that me and micro gravity might

597
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 1: not be the best of friends. So if you can,

598
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: if you can give me somewhere where I can actually

599
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: sit on a couch in a couple of and look out,

600
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: that would be That would be fantastic. Well, very good.

601
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: That sounds like a very nice wish list. It's all

602
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: creature comforts now that I'm thinking about. It's nothing revolutionary.

603
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: I should have said some sort of medical technology, but no,

604
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: I just want to be comfy and eat my steak

605
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 1: right and have a wonderful view of Earth exactly. Well.

606
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed reading your book. It was a lot

607
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: of fun. I read a lot of science fiction, and

608
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 1: I don't finish everything that I read, but yours I

609
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: found a lot of fun. I was really impressed with

610
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 1: the characters you created, and I loved how you could

611
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: really get to know these characters. I mean, they are

612
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: all facing really different challenges than anything I've ever faced,

613
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,239
Speaker 1: but I still sort of felt like, Hey, these are

614
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: real people and they're going through struggles that I can

615
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: identify with a little bit, or at least enough to

616
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: get to know them. And it seems to me like

617
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: quite a challenge to create characters in this alternate universe

618
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: that are different enough from us that they're like honestly

619
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: in that universe, not in hours, but still similar enough

620
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: that we can identify with them. I'm happy to hear

621
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: you say that, but yeah, it it is tricky. I

622
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: always have to figure out what that, what the anchor

623
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: points are right, because, um, yeah, I like to take

624
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: you on kind of a journey in that respect. You know,

625
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: I want you to think outside of your box. I

626
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: want you to consider other cultures and ways of thinking

627
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: and other structures of families and all of that. But

628
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: there has to be uh degree of relatability, and there's

629
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: something where you can get in and really, you know,

630
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: even if you know you're very physically different, or if

631
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: you're very culturally different, that you can still relate to

632
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: them on some level. Um. And so I mess with

633
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: that in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it's physicality. Um.

634
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: If it's a character that I want you to be

635
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: able to trust right off the bat, I'm more likely

636
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: to make them buy people because because if somebody walks

637
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: up to you looking like a giant lobster, you're gonna

638
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: have that moment of book. Um, even if they're the

639
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: nicest person in the world. You know, it's things like that,

640
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: or just things like maybe sharing food or or um,

641
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: you know, just having an honest conversation about well, here's

642
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: how my family works, here's how you know, here's how

643
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: my language works. Because you can learn a lot about

644
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: how a person thinks by the way they speak, etcetera. UM,

645
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: So those are the things I've I've really I really

646
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: enjoy teasing out, um figuring out finding that good balance

647
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: between I want to make this weird. I want to

648
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: make you stretch your brain a bit, but I also

649
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,239
Speaker 1: want you to feel like this is a person you

650
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: could be friends with. It's seems like you spent a

651
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about how the various aliens would

652
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: interact with each other, which food from this species would

653
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,319
Speaker 1: work for the other one, and how social ideas from

654
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: one culture could be different from another. I imagine in

655
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: our universe it would be much more difficult than what

656
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: you describe. I mean, I think real aliens would be

657
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: so vastly different that you couldn't have tea with them

658
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: or share a kitchen. But if you want to have

659
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: a culture and have them interact in some way, then

660
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: you have to Is that what motivated you to make

661
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: them all sort of human like, to make them frankly

662
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: a bit unrealistically human. Absolutely, it's it's very intentional on

663
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: my part, and it's not with the Wayfarers universe, it's

664
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: not reflective of what I think life in the universe

665
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: would actually be like. Much as I'd love to go

666
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,720
Speaker 1: have tea with an alien, I don't think that would

667
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: would be possible. I imagine something much more like UM,

668
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: say Arrival, for example, where they're they're so odd and

669
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 1: they're so alien that that it's it's upsetting and disconcerting,

670
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 1: and even though you're trying to figure each other out,

671
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult and painful and um and you never

672
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: even when you get there, you can't really explain it

673
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: to anybody else. I think if if we were lucky

674
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: enough to exist at the same time as another civilization

675
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: level species, that's more what it would be like. UM.

676
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: But with the Wayfarer's books, the the intent is to

677
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: to follow in the footsteps of things like Star Trek

678
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: and for Escape and Star Wars, all these wonderful multi

679
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: species universes that I grew up with, and to make

680
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: you feel like you could be part of it. That

681
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: you could easily inhabit it um. So it is a

682
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: very conscious choice on my part to um to make

683
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: them more a little more human than I than I

684
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: think they would be. Well, I think you succeeded because

685
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 1: I would love to hang out with your aliens and

686
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: have a meal with them. I mean, in general, I

687
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,240
Speaker 1: would love to hang out with aliens. I have so

688
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: many physics questions for aliens. I would like to ask

689
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: the alien ins about wormholes and interstellar travel and all

690
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 1: that stuff. So it frustrates me to imagine that they

691
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 1: might show up on Earth and then we'd have like

692
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 1: no way to talk to them. But let me turn

693
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: them into the physics of your universe, because I'm a

694
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: physicist and our show is mostly about physics, and I

695
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 1: was really intrigued by the physics of the universe that

696
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 1: you built in your novel. My take on it is

697
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: that in your novel, to get around the galaxy, you

698
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: use wormholes. But these wormholes require like actual work to construct.

699
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: This is unusual to see in the science fiction book

700
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: to really think about how the wormholes would get built.

701
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 1: I mean, in your universe, you have to like punch

702
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 1: a hole into this sub layer of space this space

703
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: between space and then make these connections sort of manually

704
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: before people can actually use them for transport. Is that

705
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,840
Speaker 1: how you describe sort of the major physics of your universe?

706
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: I would, I would, Okay, awesome. I wanted to make

707
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: sure I got that right. So what gave you the

708
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: idea to build your universe your story around that? I mean,

709
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: did you start from this sort of science and engineering

710
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: concept of having wormholes that are difficult to actually build?

711
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,760
Speaker 1: Or did you have a story you wanted to tell

712
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: and you needed something with that sort of story structure

713
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,759
Speaker 1: in it. So it's it's started with the characters um

714
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: In Uh, you know, I I wrote this crew first

715
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: and like them. Alatton was like, okay, well where do

716
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: they live and what do they do? Um and propulsion

717
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: became the first obvious question, you know, because that that

718
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: shapes so much of what kind of science fiction story

719
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: you're telling. Are you living in a Star Wars future

720
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: in which or past? I guess because it's a galaxy

721
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but um, you know, are you

722
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: living in a in a Star Wars style universe where

723
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 1: you can get anywhere instantly? Or are you talking sort

724
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: of a generationship style thing where it's going to take

725
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: you decades or centuries to get between systems. These are

726
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: very different kinds of stories, and so I wanted to

727
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: be somewhere in the middle bit closer to to faster

728
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: travel well, and that I didn't want it to take

729
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: years to leave a system, you know. I wanted you

730
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 1: to be these people, to be able to hop between

731
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: planets from chapter to chapter. And wormholes just seemed like

732
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: the obvious fit. Wormholes have been something or something that

733
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: have captured my imagination for a really long time. Um

734
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: some of my my biggest or like entry points into

735
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: into science fiction. Um, you know, we're um Carl Sagan's contact. Um.

736
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: The movie came out when I was twelve years old,

737
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 1: and I was wrapped, um and and uh you know,

738
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: then read the books and whatnot, and then you know,

739
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: round about the same time, um, Deep Space nine was

740
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: on TV and I watched that every week. So Wormholes

741
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: were just sort of this this I don't know, they

742
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: had a moment there in my tweens and and and

743
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: stuck with me. So um yeah, it just it felt

744
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: like the obvious choice for me personally, and also something

745
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 1: um that I thought would be fun to play with.

746
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:13,919
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break, we'll be back. So tell

747
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 1: me what's fascinating to you about wormholes. What is it

748
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: about wormholes that really sticks in your brain? The whole

749
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: concept of it's this sphere, right, it's we think it's

750
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 1: al easy as for us to think of it like

751
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: a door that you just kind of open and you

752
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: walk through space on the other side. But no, it's

753
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: an it's an object, and no matter where you enter from,

754
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: you're coming out somewhere else. And that is the most

755
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: mind bending, uncomfortable idea to me because it doesn't make it,

756
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: you know, to to us uh, three dimensional beings, it

757
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: makes no sense whatsoever. And there is a degree of

758
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: magic in it. To me, Um, I think it's you know,

759
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: I try not to make things too fantastical, but the

760
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: fact that you know wormholes are, um you know, something

761
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: that sthmatically have been talked about as to whether or

762
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: not they could exist, um, gives the universe this, uh,

763
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,919
Speaker 1: this wonderful esoteric quality. To me that that just shows

764
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: how much we don't know and how much we don't understand,

765
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: and how we are very locked tom our dimensional understanding

766
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah, my favorite thing about a lot of

767
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: these topics in physics is that they're very counterintuitive. Right,

768
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: we don't experience any of these things in our everyday life.

769
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: But then learning that our experience is not representative of

770
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 1: what's going on out there in the universe that could

771
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: be totally weird and different. That's super fun, especially when

772
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: you discover that these things could be real, like wormholes

773
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: could actually be happening out there. So I want to

774
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: ask you a little bit more about the mechanics of it.

775
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 1: If you don't mind what is going on in this

776
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: sort of sub layer, this space between space, How do

777
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: you build a wormhole in your universe? All right? So

778
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,720
Speaker 1: I'm going to preface this by saying I don't actually

779
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: know how to build a wormhole, but however, BS my

780
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: way around it. Sure. So the the idea is that you, um,

781
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: you first punch a hole, right, and that there's this

782
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: space between space and you you build a tunnel through

783
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: it by using these and and you're building through space

784
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: and time. This is important. This is why you have

785
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: to be licensed to build a wormhole, because you want

786
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,439
Speaker 1: to make sure you're coming out at the right time. Um,

787
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: otherwise it causes a lot of problems. So you you

788
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:31,359
Speaker 1: are creating a tunnel through this space between space, and

789
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: you drop these booies that basically hold it open right

790
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: so that it doesn't because it naturally would just collapse

791
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: back and on itself. So, um, you're you're creating this

792
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: corridor from point A to point B and then around

793
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: the entry and exit points, you have this cage that

794
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 1: keeps space. It keeps the hole open, but it also

795
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: keeps it from ripping further, so that, um, you know,

796
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: you're not you're not causing damn, you're not getting you know,

797
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: having planets get sucked in or what have you. It's

798
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: it's a stable Um, it's a it's a stable highway essentially. Now,

799
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: as to the mechanics of how any of that works,

800
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,919
Speaker 1: I have no idea. But in your mind, is our

801
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: three dimensional space sort of embedded in a higher dimension

802
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: and you're making a tunnel through that higher dimensional space?

803
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 1: Or are you like connecting three D space in a

804
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: new way that's just sort of changing the way the

805
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: space is organized? Right? So I I imagine that there

806
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: is that there we're talking about a higher dimension as

807
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: you said, like that that there's some there's a connective

808
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,840
Speaker 1: tissue there that we're not aware of and that UM

809
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: instead of like folding space necessarily you you you are

810
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: able to um traverse through that you know, the sub layer,

811
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: as it's called um, in order to take shortcuts. It

812
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 1: doesn't behave UM. You know, distances don't mean the same

813
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: thing there that they do here. UM. So that's that's

814
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 1: that's how I picture it. At least, well, I really

815
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. UM. It was really unusual. Your universe sort

816
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 1: of sits between the various kinds of science fiction universes

817
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: I've seen before. One where you can just like sort

818
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: of get anywhere instantly, and then another one where you

819
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: can sort of and then other ones where like literally

820
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: takes forever to get and then other ones where it

821
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: takes almost forever to get anywhere. Here, it's like it's

822
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: a struggle to get somewhere the first time because you

823
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 1: actually have to build this wormhole. And I sort of

824
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 1: like that that nod did engineering, you know, like, hey,

825
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 1: maybe physicists can come up with the idea for the wormhole,

826
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: but actually building one is real work, Like it's the

827
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,720
Speaker 1: project of this whole novel, and it's not just like boom,

828
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 1: You've got a wormhole. It's like, let's build one. I

829
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,320
Speaker 1: think Jorge would like that thanks to his engineering background.

830
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: So then my next question for you is, do you

831
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: imagine that this might actually be possible in our universe?

832
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: Do you think that it requires different physics or do

833
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: you think that these wormholes might actually work in our universe?

834
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: I think it would require different physics probably, or at

835
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: least it would require UM technology and an understanding of

836
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:18,279
Speaker 1: physics that we do not currently have. That's the caveat

837
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: I I The internal caveat I always have with with

838
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:25,839
Speaker 1: all of UM these books is that I just assume that,

839
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: you know, centuries and centuries in the future, people have

840
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,919
Speaker 1: a much better understanding of how to work with the stuff,

841
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:34,319
Speaker 1: and they're able to do things that now seem impossible

842
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: given my understanding of the universe. UM. You know, here

843
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: in I don't think what I've written is possible. But

844
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 1: if somebody six hundred years from now wants to prove

845
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 1: me wrong, that would be fantastic. But UM, but I

846
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 1: am definitely UM taking a few flights of fancy with it.

847
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think that's a really important point

848
00:44:55,680 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: about what's possible, Like if physics hasn't said it's impo possible,

849
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 1: but we haven't figured out how to do it yet.

850
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: You can just speculate about how it might just take

851
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: a few hundred years to figure it out. But it

852
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: sounds to me like you're specifically not doing anything that

853
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: physics would say no to today. So in that sense,

854
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: you're sort of placing it in our universe far in

855
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: the future and handwaving you know some of the technological solutions.

856
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: Is that fair? Yeah, that's that's it exactly, And and

857
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: that too, is done very intentionally and that I want

858
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: to make the reader feel like this is a place

859
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: they can inhabit really easily, and so that does require

860
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: things like, um, you know that the ships all have

861
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: artificial gravity so that you can actually like eat off

862
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: of a plate on a table, and you know, have

863
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: scenes where you're having tea with someone or comfort creature

864
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: comforts or you know, um a, a trip between planets

865
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: sakes several weeks or months, but it's not going to

866
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: take your whole life, you know. Um, these are these

867
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: are little um shortcuts that I take to make sure

868
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: that the readers having fun and can easily imagine themselves there.

869
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: But I'm also trying to not um break the laws

870
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 1: of physics too much, or if I do, I I

871
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 1: often will not add it intentionally with somebody be like,

872
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 1: I don't know how that would work, and then be like,

873
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it works, um, Because ultimately, what I

874
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: want is for the reader to feel a connection to

875
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: our our universe as it exists, you know. And that's

876
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: why I shy away from too much. You know, it's

877
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: straying too much into the space, magic realm of things,

878
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: because I want people to get interested in the real

879
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: thing and I want people to to uh feel that

880
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 1: connection to the larger universe. And so if I if

881
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: I mess with the rules too much, I'm worried that

882
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 1: I might shoot myself in the foot in that regard. Okay,

883
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: very nice. So then let's talk about the rules in

884
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: your universe, because wormholes are such a big part of

885
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: the universe. But then you also include faster than light travel,

886
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: but then it's sort of outlawed because it creates too

887
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: much trouble. Tell me more about why you wanted to

888
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: do it that way. Have both faster than light travel

889
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: and worm holes in your universe. I think that faster

890
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: and night travel would be an absolute logistical and bureaucratic nightmare.

891
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 1: You know, how do you because because since I'm not

892
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: breaking the laws of relativity, um, how do you deal

893
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 1: with that? How do you deal with with people aging

894
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 1: at different rates or you know, showing up seventy years

895
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 1: in the future and they've only aged two years or

896
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:28,359
Speaker 1: what you know? That to me is that's a very

897
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: different kind of science fiction story, and it would break

898
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: the universe as I've written it, in which you can

899
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 1: have people who aren't um, you know, in an in

900
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: an interstellar sort of way, you know, like leaving their

901
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 1: families behind and and seeing that their kids have already

902
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: aged and died in etcetera. Like that's that's not what

903
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: I was intending to write. So, um, I just I

904
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 1: wanted to give that little nod of like, yeah, it's

905
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: the thing we can do, but we we decided we

906
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: decided not to. It's too much a mess. Oh but

907
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,479
Speaker 1: that was agony for me though. I was like, oh

908
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: my gosh, what really tell me more about it? And

909
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 1: then you just sort of like put it aside and

910
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: it seemed like a tease. I also thought it was

911
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:13,839
Speaker 1: it was pretty fascinating as a solution to this storytelling

912
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 1: issue like fast and life travel would break your universe,

913
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: and so you decided to fix it with like a

914
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: bureaucratic obstacle. I mean, if I were writing it, I

915
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: would be like, you know, handway woo woo, some science obstacle.

916
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of hilarious and creative that you say,

917
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: oh no, no, that's possible, we just don't do it

918
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: because it's you know, against our cultural rules. That's kind

919
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,439
Speaker 1: of fascinating. I think ultimately, you know, I am so

920
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: interested in in astronomy and in the sciences and all

921
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: of it, but the science is to me also, you know,

922
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 1: definitely includes the social side, and and that's something um

923
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:53,760
Speaker 1: I obviously really like exploring in these stories and the universes.

924
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: I imagine it is kind of a bureaucracy. It's this,

925
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,439
Speaker 1: it's this um every you know, they have to get

926
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,839
Speaker 1: permits to build wormholes, and it's all reliant on these

927
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: treaties and I'm having the right sort of licenses, and

928
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: you have to go to piloting school and tunneling school

929
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 1: and all of that. So it's it's the books are

930
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:15,399
Speaker 1: just as much about how to live in this society

931
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: that as they are here's all the cool technology we have,

932
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 1: and here's how we jump between planets. And you think

933
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 1: in that universe everyone would sort of follow the rules,

934
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't get FTL pirates or you know, FTL

935
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: smugglers or something. People wouldn't be like trying to skirt

936
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:34,719
Speaker 1: the rules and get around them. I think you definitely do. UM.

937
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 1: It's something I've never written, just because the types of

938
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 1: stories I'm writing aren't aren't UM quite the right venue

939
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 1: for that. But I think people do try to get

940
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 1: around I mean there are obviously UM and so some

941
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: of the later books UM, there we encounter cultures and

942
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 1: worlds that are estranged from the galactic commons, which is

943
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 1: the main setting that I'm describing, UM, in which people

944
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: are doing things that are very illegal UM or that

945
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: would be culturally taboo. UM. So I with specifically with FDL, though,

946
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: I think that the resources you need to do it

947
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:15,719
Speaker 1: would require, um the right connections or you know, enough

948
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: enough money to do it. I think it would be

949
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 1: difficult for your average UM, you know, just sort of

950
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,080
Speaker 1: scummy pirate to get their hands on an FTL drive. UM.

951
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: You know, it just sort of like be somebody, you know,

952
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 1: like someone getting I don't know, a nuclear weapon something

953
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:31,879
Speaker 1: unless that is going to be so tightly locked down

954
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: and it requires, um, such high tech development that, um,

955
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,360
Speaker 1: it's going to be hard for the average person to

956
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: get cool. Well that makes sense. Well, again, congrats on

957
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: thinking through this amazing universe, building it out and taking

958
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,280
Speaker 1: us on a fun tour in your book. That's really wonderful.

959
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:51,800
Speaker 1: So congrats on all of your success. It's very well deserved,

960
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:54,359
Speaker 1: and thanks for taking some time to talk to us

961
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 1: before we go. Do you have any upcoming projects you'd

962
00:50:57,480 --> 00:50:59,760
Speaker 1: like to tell our listeners about. Sure, So, I'm currently

963
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: working on the next Wayfarer's book. It is currently untitled,

964
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: but it will be out early next year. Um. I

965
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: also have a pair of novella's coming out from tour

966
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:13,439
Speaker 1: dot Com also next year. Those will be solar punk,

967
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 1: not space opera. So that's a a fun departure for me.

968
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: So it's a busy year and I'll be stuck in

969
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 1: my writing cave, but I'll have a lot of stuff

970
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,959
Speaker 1: coming out wonderful. Well, thanks again for coming on our show.

971
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. All Right, that was

972
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: Science Fetching author Becky Chambers, and she sounds really fun

973
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: and pretty amazing. Sounds like you guys that have a

974
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:36,839
Speaker 1: really great conversation. Yeah, we had a lot of fun.

975
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,359
Speaker 1: She was very kind to spend her time talking to me,

976
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,959
Speaker 1: and she clearly thought this stuff through and did her best,

977
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:45,479
Speaker 1: like make a universe that made sense. And he heard

978
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: her say she really wanted to set it in our universe.

979
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: She was not trying to invent new laws of physics.

980
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 1: You're just sort of trying to fast forward hundreds or

981
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:56,359
Speaker 1: thousands of years to what people might do with our

982
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 1: laws of physics. And I told the respect that it

983
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: sounds like she did her research. You know, it sounds

984
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,720
Speaker 1: like she's pretty knowledgeable about these high dimensional ideas and

985
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:08,319
Speaker 1: and did she just do a lot of research, thats

986
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: that she always been sort of a physics fan. I

987
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: think she was. Yes, she's been watching Star Trek and

988
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: reading science fiction for a long time and that's led

989
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,360
Speaker 1: her to be curious about physics. And so kudos to

990
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: her for doing her research. And also you can hear

991
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: on the interview she acknowledges when she's at the edge

992
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 1: of her knowledge and the things that she needed a

993
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:28,959
Speaker 1: handwave or like at some point nobody wants to see,

994
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 1: like equations in a science fiction book, right, I mean

995
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 1: where the appendix is. I want the hardest science fiction possible.

996
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: That's right. This should be a paper and it should

997
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: be published. It should just be equations, the whole novel

998
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 1: to just be long, long equation. Hey, you know, I

999
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: always say math is the language of physics. So maybe

1000
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:51,359
Speaker 1: some days somebody will write prose and even poetry and

1001
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: songs in mathematics. No, well, there you go. We can

1002
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: always dream. No. So she did a great job, and

1003
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:59,440
Speaker 1: she totally acknowledged where she ran up to her the

1004
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:01,800
Speaker 1: limits for her knowledge, and where she was inventing stuff.

1005
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: And I think she total a really fun story. I

1006
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:08,400
Speaker 1: got sucked into and I wanted to be in her universe.

1007
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 1: So I think she did a great job, and I

1008
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:13,400
Speaker 1: recommended to all the fans of science fiction out there. Awesome.

1009
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: And what do you think she's trying to say, Like,

1010
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: what's the takeaway message from you know, interacting with all

1011
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: these different types of species and kind of closing closing

1012
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 1: the distances in our universe? What does that do to

1013
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 1: humans and the human consciousness? I think she was just

1014
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 1: trying to imagine, you know, how humans would experience this

1015
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 1: other kind of universe, interacting with aliens and trying new things,

1016
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:40,200
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like a travel novel large, you know,

1017
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:44,279
Speaker 1: like going to Japan and trying weird stuff, and it

1018
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 1: sort of has that flavor of it. And I think

1019
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:48,359
Speaker 1: she just tried to like paint that on the whole

1020
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: galaxy instead. And you know, she could have made it

1021
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: like super aliens. She could have made it like, oh

1022
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: my god, we go to this planet and they're all

1023
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:57,239
Speaker 1: just blobs of gas. We can and talk to them.

1024
00:53:57,280 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: We don't know if they're angry or if they're just

1025
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: happy to see us, so they're just farting all the time.

1026
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: They couldn't Who knows, she could have made a super alien.

1027
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 1: All their jokes are far jokes, and aren't all our

1028
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:13,960
Speaker 1: jokes are our jokes too. That's the common great commonality

1029
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: in Lead. But that's the thing is she wanted to

1030
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: find the commonality. She wanted there to be aliens we

1031
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 1: could relate to, and that was her constraint, because it's

1032
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: not that much fun to read a book where you

1033
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:26,520
Speaker 1: find aliens and then you can't communicate with them at all. Right,

1034
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 1: there's no satisfaction there. Well, it sounds pretty cool, so again,

1035
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 1: if anyone wants to check it out. It's called The

1036
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, part of the

1037
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: Wayfarer series Hugo Award winning Wayfers series by Backy Chambers.

1038
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 1: So thanks to everybody who's been sending in your science

1039
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:45,080
Speaker 1: fiction recommendations. Please keep it up. I'm reading those books

1040
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 1: and if one of them strikes my fancy and we

1041
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: can get the author on the podcast, we will do

1042
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: more of these episodes. And thanks again to Baky Chambers

1043
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: for being on the podcast. We hope you enjoyed that.

1044
00:54:55,480 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 1: See you next night. Before you still have a question

1045
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:08,919
Speaker 1: after listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line.

1046
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us

1047
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:14,920
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's

1048
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:18,319
Speaker 1: one word, or email us at Feedback at Daniel and

1049
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,880
Speaker 1: Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel

1050
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I

1051
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. More podcast from my Heart Radio. Visit the

1052
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, a Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1053
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. Yea