WEBVTT - How small is an electron? 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.800 Hey, or hey, you're a visual artist, so I have 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.800 a question for you about how you visualize things. Well, 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:17.840 first of all, thank you for calling me an artist. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.720 Cartoonist don't usually get that kind of respect. But do 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.320 you mean can I draw my answer? Yeah, maybe when 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.920 we upgrade this podcast to a YouTube channel, But until then, 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:33.320 here's my question. What is the biggest distance that you 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.720 can visualize that you can sort of see in your mind? Well, 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.120 I think anything bigger than the distance between my bed 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.280 and the fridge feels like an infinity. I guess maybe 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.480 like the biggest distance that I can wrap my head 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.320 around would be maybe like the size of the solar system, 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.840 you know, Like I think I have a intuitive sense 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.000 of that, but maybe anything bigger it just kind of 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.640 blows my mind. All right, So then turn it around. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.080 What is the small all this distance that you can visualize? 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:08.040 Probably the width of a thinly sliced banana. Feels like 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.080 maybe you should have had a snack before we did 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:29.480 today's podcast. I am Rhammad, cartoonists and the creator of 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.600 PhD comments. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.200 I don't eat bananas no matter how then you slice 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.160 them really you're anti banana like you avoid them. I'm 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.959 anti bananite, yes on the air. I didn't know that. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.280 Oh my god, how do we even get along all 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.040 these years? I don't know if we I can continue 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.640 doing this with you anymore. So if you if you 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:53.600 get him in a salad, you picked them out or something. 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.880 How far puts banana in a salad? What are you 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:01.480 talking about? You were offending salads? How far this is 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:06.080 anti bananas? Goes go? Daniel, Well, let's see, if I 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.040 was dying of starvation next to banana tree, I would 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.480 eat some bananas. I'll put it that way. I would. 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.320 I see. Oh man, you don't know what you're missing. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.440 But for those of you who are not anti banana, 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.960 welcome to this podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.800 a production of Our Heart Radio, and banana lovers and 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.200 banana haters are all welcome on this podcast because we 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.200 only the lovers, because we all share the love of 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.640 the universe and the mystery is and the incredible cosmic 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.600 questions like how can anybody stand to eat a banana? No? Like? 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.440 How big is our universe? And does it all make sense? 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.320 Should ever rebody Daniel that bananas are part of the universe. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.760 If you love the universe, technically you love bananas. But 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.000 welcome to our podcast, in which we do try to 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.080 explore everything around us, including bananas and other delicious or 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.160 non delicious items, and explore lane how it all works 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.880 to you. Yeah, we try to think about the bigness 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.840 of the universe, the limits of space and planets and stars, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.239 but we also like to talk about the small things 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.600 in life and in the universe, and and sometimes it 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:15.840 really stretches your mind right to sort of sort of 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.680 in one conversation think about how big the universe is 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.040 and how also how small things are. Yeah, and we 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.200 try to take you on a tour of the sort 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.880 of current thinking of scientists. How do scientists think about 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.360 this stuff? How do they fit the whole universe in 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.440 their brains? Or what do they visualize when they think 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.960 about the inside of a black hole? Or how do 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.280 scientists think about the very very tiny What does a 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.000 particle look like inside the mind of a party goal physicist? Yeah, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.320 because you know, we know that the universe is made 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.840 out of tiny little particles, and we like to say 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.320 tiny little particles. But I guess you don't often think 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.360 about it, what tiny really means. Yeah, we do this 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.520 a lot when we think about the quantum realm. We 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.520 try to sort of use the ideas we have from 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.520 our everyday experience and apply them to particles, apply them 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.720 to these tiny little bits so that we can make 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.120 sense of them, because you know, you can't see these 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:09.360 things directly, so you have to sort of build a 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.200 mental picture, and we try to talk about how they 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.120 have mass and charge, and we even give them you know, 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.480 labor and spin and other sorts of things that were 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.479 familiar with from our world. But you have to wonder, like, 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.320 how well does that really work? Is it really relevant 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:28.200 or is the quantum realm just totally alien and we 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.080 will never really get our minds around it. Yeah, I 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.120 thought we had already decided that everything looks like Lego 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.159 pieces down at the fundamental level. They don't look like 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.120 little blocks with circles that say Lego on them. Well, 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:41.800 it's easy to do a test. You know, if you 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.000 step on them and they cause you great pain, then 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.560 they definitely are the shape of Lego pieces. I think 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.760 they make round legos too. Now finally to save parents, 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.200 But you know, this is all we can do as 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.680 humans is we can take the ideas we are familiar 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:57.320 with and we can try to map them down to 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.760 the quantum realm to think about this. Yeah, and sometimes 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.599 that intuition kind of fails, right, or it breaks down 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:07.080 when you get down to that quantum realm, that quantum level, right, 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:12.039 our ideas of what something is, or how solid something is, 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:13.839 or what shape it has, and it all sort of 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.960 breaks down into kind of mathematical goop right down at 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.520 the quantum. I think it has a little bit more 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.520 substance than mathematical GOOPI gloop, but really it's a bit 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:34.000 more No, it's a bit more poetic than mathematical sometimes 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.320 because well, we try to draw connections, like we talk 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.320 about quantum spin, and we fully admit that these particles 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.479 are not actually spinning, but they're doing something that is 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.240 very much like spin. It has a lot of similar characteristics, 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.479 and so we draw this analogy. And I think this 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.640 is one of the most beautiful things about physics, is 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.640 trying to describe the unknown in terms of the known. 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.440 You know, that's what languages, that's what art is, that's 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.200 what that's what it means to explore the universe is 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.479 to express it in a way that we can understand it, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.840 and so that's all we can do. Yeah, are you 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.120 saying you don't understand google Goog? I'm saying googly groop 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.360 suggests some lack of understanding or nonsense, whereas in its 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.479 place there are some elegant intellectual structures to guide your mind. 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:23.120 I see, you know, potato, potato again, theoretical structures, googly goog, 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.400 it's all, it's all, you know, different names. But so 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.479 to the other podcast, we thought we would take a 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.680 trip down to that quantum level and kind of think 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.839 about a particular, you know, object that I think we're 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.599 all familiar with, and to sort of challenge our understanding 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:40.640 of what it looks like and what shape it has 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.960 and most importantly, what size it has down at the 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:46.880 quantum realm. And this is something that I have struggled 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.200 with as a particle physicist, just trying to visualize, just 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.839 trying to conceptualize it. How do I put this in 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.000 my mind? How do I think about this so I 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.719 can get some intuition right? And so today we'll be 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:07.839 tackling the question how big is an electron? Or how 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.440 small is an electron? Oh? Man, is this another potato 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.440 po typle thing. It's big and small depending on which 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.440 country here. The representatives of the Electron Union prefer to 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.880 be called big rather than small. Oh, I see, But 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.640 what does the electron itself prefer? Does it see itself 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.880 as a as a big or a little? Interview with 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:32.280 an Electron speculative fiction novel by J H winner of 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.600 the Nobel Price in literature and physics at the same time. 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.680 But yeah, you know, electrons are everywhere. They're one of 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.560 the three fundamental particles that make up everything that we are, 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.000 that you are, That planets and stars and galaxies and 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.720 dust are made out of um. And so it's an 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.240 important particle. And it makes yourself phone work, which without 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.160 which you would probably not be listening to this podcast. Yeah, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.080 and it sort of sits at the frontier of particle physics. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.800 Our goal is to explain everything in the universe in 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:05.120 terms of the smallest bits and pieces, the tiniest, roundest 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.680 lego pieces anywhere, And as far as we know, these 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.280 are the smallest bits. And so we wonder, like, is 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.520 it made of something smaller? How small is this thing? Anyway? Yeah, 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.120 what's the size of an electron? I guess that's a 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.560 question we haven't really talked about before. We just sort 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:22.520 of talked about electron and what they can do and 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.640 what they do, and we know they're small. But I 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.080 guess the question here is how small it is? Or 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.520 how big is it? Not? How big isn't it? Yeah, 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.679 And like with many of these mappings to the quantum realm, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.320 I'm pretty sure you're going to be dissatisfied with the 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:40.400 answer because did you misname something again? Is it not 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.280 really called? Is it like an electron? Not really an electron? Well, 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:45.760 I don't want to give away the end there, you'll 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.120 have to stick around for another half hour. Well, this 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.280 is a question that, as always, we were wondering how 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.400 many people out there had thought about or wondered about 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.160 and what they knew about the answer to this question. So, 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.560 as usual, Daniel went out there into the wilderness of 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.640 the streets of Irvine, California and ask people how big 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.280 they thought an electron is. I like the way you 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.760 make it sound dangerous, like I'm hacking my way through 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.880 the jungle. I think talking to perfect strangers, it sounds 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.080 terrified to me. Well, here's what people had to say. 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.560 But before you hear these answers, think to yourself, what 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.720 would you guess is the size of an electron? Very small? 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.120 I know, like a couple of billion Adams can fit 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.119 on a period in in a book, So an electron 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:33.680 is Chillian quadrillion. I don't know. Sudden thinkers like small, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:40.040 like smaller than that. Best guys like like a hundred 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.400 of a nanometer ten to the minus sixteen. Well, I 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:46.319 guess it's when it's a way function falls off? Is 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.040 one over eight or something like that? Is that how 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.120 we want to call it? What's thirteen point six e 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.120 v s and nanometers that it does red stuff? So 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.080 a couple d nanometers? Let's doing that? Also, no idea, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:04.199 best es not that big tend to the negative on 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:09.120 all eleven or twelve or something like that. Like all right, 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.200 some pretty I feel like, pretty educated answers, Like some 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.080 people were talking about electron volts even I like the 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.360 guy who says smaller than a centimeter, like yeah, that's 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:25.640 that's true, yes and also correct, Yes, it's definitely correct. Um. No, 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:27.760 we shouldn't make fun of these people. They are giving 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.000 us their time, their and their energy, and so it's 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:31.920 fun just to just to know what people have in 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.280 their minds. And I think one of the common answers 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.000 is like, tend to the mind is a pretty big number. 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:38.680 But yeah, know I thought they were pretty I guess 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.319 you're at a at a university, so maybe a lot 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.079 of these folks just think in physics or something. But um, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:46.640 you know, if you ask me, I don't know if 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.760 I would guess with exact figures or units. Well it's 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.000 interesting because if you ask me, I don't know what 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.160 I would say. It's a tricky question. Even what is 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.680 the meaning of the question, Like what does it mean 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.040 for the electron to have a side? Is? So it's complicated. 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.520 So someone interviewed on you on the street and ask 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.800 you this question, you'd be like, let's sit down for 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:11.760 a couple of hours, let me pull out my white board, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.160 thank you for asking that question. And you see the 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.000 panic in their eyes. I've been waiting all my life 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.000 for perfect strangers. They would feign a phone call and 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.200 run away quickly. All right, Well, let's get into the 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:24.960 trying to answer this question. And I guess the first 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.079 thing is is that you're telling me is that this 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.400 is even Um, it's kind of almost a philosophical question. 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.800 It's like a tricky question in itself to ask what 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.280 is the size of an electron? Yeah, And you have 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.719 to be really careful about what you're doing. When you're 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.439 asking a question that you're used to asking about macroscopic 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:43.920 stuff and then applying that to microscopic stuff, you have 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.920 to be really careful about what you mean and what 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.400 exactly it is you're trying to learn. You know, like 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.240 when we think about a ball moving through space, we 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.000 can talk about its velocity. Cool, But when you want 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.480 to talk about the velocity of an electron, it's more 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.920 complicated because it doesn't have like the same kind of 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.360 half and so it's philosophy changes, and sometimes you can 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.000 know it, sometimes it's unknown, and so you know, there's 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.000 an analogy you can make there, but you have to 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.560 be careful about exactly what you're asking. And the same 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.079 is true when you ask about the size of something 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.840 super duper tiny, right, and and especially when you ask 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.040 about the size of a single thing, right, Like what 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.319 is it? What does it even mean to ask about 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.200 the size of anything? Is it like how much space 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.120 you occupy? Is it like the my longest dimension? Is 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.520 it the distance between you know, one and one side 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:34.400 of me to the other side of me. I think 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.880 that's it. I think it's the distance between your edges. 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.960 And so you have a size if you have edges 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.480 that don't touch, right, if you have if there's a 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:44.640 meaning to like there being a left of view and 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:46.959 a right of view, and your size is the distance 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.080 between them. You know, we have a meter stick, how 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.120 big is it? Well, the left side is one meter 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.520 from the right side. So that's sort of makes sense, right, 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.800 And this this all sounds, you know, obvious, but it's 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:59.440 going to be important when we get to the quantum 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.600 realm to be thinking about it in the same same 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.679 sort of set of ideas. Right, Yeah, I guess you've 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.080 got to think about what makes it a thing and 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.719 when is it stopped being a thing? And then then 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.560 you calculate kind of the distance between the edges of 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.200 what is and what is not a thing. Yeah, And 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.400 so you answer the question like what a size mean, Well, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.679 it's the distance between the edges and that immediately, but 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:22.600 you can see you to the other question, what is 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:24.640 the edge, Like what is the edge of a meter 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:26.680 stick or the edge of a banana? How do you 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.760 define where that stops? And that's not so easy. Oh man, 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.880 you just make me imagine it endless banana and I 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.880 salivated a little bit. That's a whole universe to you, 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.959 right there. Man, maybe the whole universe is just one banana. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.400 We are all just banana nos in a banana. We 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.199 should start that in the restaurant. You know, Olive Garden 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.560 has the endless bowl of salad, endless bread stick. We 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.360 can we can start selling the endless banana. But anyways, 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.400 so where is the edge of the banana? Right? You 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.240 would think, oh, I'm looking at it, I can tell 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.360 where it stops. And you either you poke it or 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.559 you're just looking at it. It sort of gives you 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:02.960 a sense for like where the edges. It doesn't have 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.760 a fuzzy edge, like it stops the all the atoms 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:08.880 that make up the banana are kind of stuck together, 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.880 and at some point there aren't any more of the 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.880 atoms that make up the banana. Yeah, although, if you're 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.120 zooming close enough right, everything that's not an absolute zero 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:19.680 is has a bit of a fuzzy edge, you know, 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:21.920 it's like boiling off atoms. Like the reason you can 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.080 smell banana is that there are volatile molecules on it 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.240 that are always leaving and so zooming close enough, and 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.280 there's there's a bit of a fuzzy edge there. But 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.440 still you can like take a stick and you can 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.160 poke the banana with your tiny stick and you can ask, like, 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.240 when does the banana give me resistance? Or is the 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.280 edge of it is sort of like, you know, where 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.800 is it push back? Okay, so that that would be 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.480 the edge of like an object microscopic option you're saying. 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.840 It has to do with when it no longer interacts 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:50.440 with you in the same way as the rest of 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.160 the banana. Yeah, And there's an important idea there, I think, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.600 which is it's not where the stuff of the banana ends, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.760 it's where the bananas forces push back. Because you know, 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.720 the banana itself is mostly made of these we'll talk 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.960 about in a minute, but time much smaller particles, and 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:08.960 the stuff of the banana, the thing that gives it 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.760 its volume is the forces. Right, If there were no 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.360 forces between these particles, they will collapse to a much 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.160 smaller pile. Like you just made a pile of all 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.720 the atoms inside the banana, it would be almost invisible. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.720 Most of that volume comes from them spacing each other. 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.880 Out by the forces. So it's really the forces, the 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.880 pushing back that gives the banana it's volume and therefore 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.840 its size. I see, you wouldn't measure it as between 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.720 the center of the rightmost atom of the banana to 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.400 the center of the leftmost atom of the banana. You 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.120 would be you would extend that a little bit to 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.120 include like when that atom starts pushing back another adom 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.240 that tries to poke through the banana. Precisely because if 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.400 you bring your stick nearby, then the farthest, the most 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.800 extreme atom and your stick is not going to touch 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.920 the nucleus of that atom in your banana. They're going 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.760 to push against each other before they touch. And so 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:01.680 that's what I think of sort of the edge of 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.960 the banana is that force field that sort of protects 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.080 it from you know, external forces. Okay, so you're saying, 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.560 as a physicist, you would define the size of something 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.760 as as the edges of it, and the edges you 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:17.200 would define is when they start pushing other things from 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.600 going through it. Yeah, So really it's more about interactions 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.120 than it is about matter itself and particle physics, we 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.200 think a lot about particles and forces, matter and interactions. 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.880 And I think the size of something really depends more 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.320 on its interactions then on the stuff that's inside of it. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.200 And that makes sense because if you want to know 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.520 the size of something, you want to know it for 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.520 a reason usually right, like you want to see if 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.480 the banana fits inside of a special you know, banana 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.080 carrying case that you aren't designing. You need to know, 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.280 you know, not when the set where the centers of 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.000 the atoms are, but you want to know, you know, 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.160 if you can fit the banana inside the case. That's 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.280 exactly it. But it already raises some problems, like what 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.600 if you had a blob of dark batter the shape 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.760 of a banana, how big is it? Well, if you 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.000 can't really interact with it, if you could like put 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.440 your finger through it, then you know, does that mean 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.800 that it's a banana shaped and blob of dark batter 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:18.000 is smaller? It doesn't have a size maybe even boy. Yeah, 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.280 so it gets it gets tricky pretty quickly. This thing, 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:22.400 which which we thought was simple is actually turns out 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.399 to be kind of subtle. Yeah, it's feel back the 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.040 answer to this question and also get into how big 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.160 an atom is, and then we'll get into how big 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.720 an electron it is. But first let's take a quick break, 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:47.960 all right, Daniel. So it seems like the question of 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.760 how big something is is kind of fuzzy in itself, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.240 and so maybe a good way to kind of tackle 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.640 it is to start with the next level down from 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.560 a banana, which is like how big is a is 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.879 one of the atoms in the in the banana. So 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.400 remember that we decided that if we're going to talk 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.000 about the size of the atom, we're not going to 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.520 ask where is the stuff inside of it? We're gonna 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.719 ask where does it push back when it's poked? And 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:14.920 to figure that out, it's helpful to sort of imagine 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.040 a whole pile of atoms packed together. Here you have 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.800 you like imagine the banana is sort of like a crystal. 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.159 You know, it's like closely packed atoms of the banana. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.919 And here it's determined again by the interaction between them, 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.000 Like how closely packed are they depends on how much 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.720 they resist being squeezed together. And in this case, for 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.160 an atom, it's you know, for banana. For other stuff, 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.400 it's a it's pretty small. It's like you know, fifty 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.359 to a couple hundred trillions of a meter. Is what 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.080 how you you would define how big anatom is. Yeah, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.520 that's like this the separation between the center of one 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.640 atom and the center of another atom. Depending on the material, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.280 and different things can sort of pack more tightly together 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.200 than other things. Like hydrogen, you can squeeze it down 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:06.000 to like thirty trillions of an atom between protons. But 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.000 if you're packing lead together, for example, it's almost two 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.280 d trillions of a meter between sort of the centers 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.240 of the nuclei. I say, it's it's like if you're 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.719 trying to measure the size of a bunch of marbles. 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.440 You would stick him in a container and see how 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.520 many you can sort of cramp together, and that kind 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:24.679 of tells you the size of each marble. Yeah, the 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:26.960 distance between the centers of the marbles. There you pack 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.160 them as closely as you can, and then you measure 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.399 the distance between the centers of the marbles. Is that 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:33.119 actually sort of because you know, when I think of 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.760 an atom, I think of like, um, you know, like 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.679 the popular culture drawing of an atom, which is like, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.840 you know, little balls in the center and then electrons 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.600 flying around in orbit. You know, you know, and I 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.760 know that you know, they're actually like electron clouds. But 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.440 even the clouds have sort of a size, right, they're 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.240 drawn as little balloons that stick out of this center. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.800 Is the size is the packing size that you're talking about, 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.640 like how many you can crime in banana, the same 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.720 as the size of those like electron clouds. Yeah, it's 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.040 very closely connected. And for a reason, those electrons are 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.840 the reason that the atoms don't pack more closely together, 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.280 Like you bring two hydrogen atoms near each other. It's 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.800 the electron clouds that determine how closely they get together 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.520 because they form like a covalent bond and make an 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.280 H two or something like that. And so it's those 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.160 electrons that determine the interactions between the atoms and determine 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.520 their spacing. And it's when those two things start overlapping, 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.000 is when they can no longer really get closer together. So, yeah, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.880 the size of the electron cloud is very closely connected 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:39.480 to the size of the atom. It really is what 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.560 defines it. They're always interacting, right, no matter how far 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.760 apart there are, Like if I had a hydrogen atom 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.320 here and you had a hydrogen atom and Jupiter. Technically 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.600 they're sort of repelling each other, right or and or 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.440 attracting each other or not. They definitely do feel each other. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.440