WEBVTT - Daniel Whiteson: Particles and Science 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.560 I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you welcome 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.400 to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.439 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And I was just out 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:19.919 of town for about a week and a half. So 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.239 where were you recorded some interviews while I was out? 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.200 That's right, I didn't have you to talk to, so 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:25.840 I'm like, who am I going to talk to? So 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.880 I just started calling people up and saying, hey, let's 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.080 let's talk about some stuff. And one of these individuals 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.879 was Daniel Whitson, who is a physicist and the co 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.960 host of the podcast Daniel and Jorae Explain the Universe. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:43.320 We've been meaning to talk to these guys for a while, 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.680 and I'm sorry I missed the chance to chat with 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:47.920 you and Daniel, but I'm excited to hear what you 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:49.600 all talked about. Yeah, this is a this is a 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.919 fun little conversation we talked. We talked a little bit 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.560 about you know, physics and particle physics, a little bit 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.480 about science communication and just also just the nature of science. 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.480 And yeah, it was just really a really fun little chat. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.520 It was nice to to actually, you know, chat with 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:06.760 a physicist about this, because you know, there are times 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.039 where you and I we we are not physicists, so 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.840 a little bit not and and so when we're tackling 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.000 some of these like really complicated physics related topics, you know, uh, 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.679 we're we're at times struggling with the content, and you know, 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.160 having and helping the listeners struggle with the content is 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.560 when our nature is generalists is brought out. Yes, and 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.240 I think there's a there's certainly an advantage in being 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.400 a journalist and listening to a journalist, but uh, it 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.160 was also just really cool to to speak to an 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.840 expert about some of these topics. So yeah, it's a 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.960 it's a really really fun one. Uh So, without further Ado, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.320 let's go ahead and jump into the interview, and we'll 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.160 jump out for ad Rex of course, and then we'll 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:54.760 meet you at the end. Hi, Daniel, welcome to the show. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.600 Can you go ahead and just introduce yourself, your name, 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.200 and your title for for everybody out there listening, Hey, 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.320 thanks a lot for having me on. I'm Daniel Whiteson. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.680 I'm a professor of experimental particle physics at University of 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.680 California at Irvine, I'm also the co host of Daniel 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.160 and Jorge Explain the Universe, our podcast that comes out 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:19.160 twice a week about mind blowing crazy stuff about the universe, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.600 and together with Jorge cham we also wrote a book 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.600 called We Have No Idea, A Guide the Unknown Universe 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.920 that tells you all about all the things that we 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:33.239 don't know about the universe. And uh, how, let's see, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.200 how when did the show actually start? I know it's 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.880 been going for uh for for quite a while. Now 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.799 you have a number of episodes banked up. Yeah, we're 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.040 actually just hit a hundred episodes. Oh nice, So we've 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:45.880 been Yeah, it comes out twice a week, and so 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.440 we've been doing it for just over a year. And 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.960 you know, the topics vary from like how big is 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.360 the universe to more pedantic stuff like how does lightning work? 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.200 And does anybody actually understand it? We just look for 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.119 mysteries anywhere, you know, puzzles that physicists like to unravel, 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.200 and we hope our listeners like to hear us blather about. 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.919 Now again, you're you're a physicist and a science communicator. 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:15.919 Jorge is um a science communicator and a comic artist. Correct, 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.680 that's right. But he actually also has a PhD of 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.200 his own. Oh yeah, he has a hilarious background. He 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:27.000 went to grad school in robotics and was developing little 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.520 robots that could run like cockroaches, which is pretty hilarious. 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.360 But on the side he started doing a comic strip 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.960 just so sort of procrastinated the real work he should 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.880 have been doing. And then that took off and became, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.120 you know, frankly more popular than his academic research and 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:44.720 turned into a full time gig for him. So how 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.400 did you guys come together first on the book and 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.880 then again you know, the podcast to follow. Well, we 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.480 met on Tinder of course. Like no Um, Jorge is 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.280 sort of is something of a celebrity in academia. Um 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.040 his comics that he's been putting out, called pah d Comics, 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.720 really captured the sort of existential angst or doing research 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.320 and working under a professor and being a grad student. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:09.480 And so when I was a grad student, I loved 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:11.680 his work, and everybody around me loved his work because 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.240 they expressed something we were all feeling, you know, how 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.080 you can be in the lab all day and make 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.040 no progress or even move backwards. So he was something 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.839 of a celebrity, and maybe ten years ago, I was 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.440 working on some science communication and I had the idea, 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.080 what if we could use comics to explain some of 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:32.240 these complicated concepts in physics that might be much simpler visually. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.280 But the problem was I don't have any artistic skill myself, 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.279 so I couldn't draw these things. So my wife, who's 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.880 also an academic, she suggested to me. She's like, oh, 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.160 why didn't you email Jorge cham and asked him to 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.840 do your drawings? And I was like, yeah, and then 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.080 I'll email Brad Pitt and asked him to a movie 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:50.520 with me, right, I mean, it's sort of at the 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.839 same level for me. But emailed Jorge cold email and 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.440 he actually wrote back, and I thought it was sounded 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.640 like a fun project, and we've been working on stuff 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.200 ever since. Awesome. Well, yeah, I mean obviously it worked 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:04.440 well together in the book. But and then on the 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.200 podcast you guys have Wonderful or four. Yeah, we um, 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:09.719 we had fun. We have fun doing the podcast, mostly 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.440 because we have fun talking science to each other. I mean, 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.039 when we were working on the book, we would spend 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.880 a lot of time talking about the concepts and figuring 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.159 it out and Um, something that Jorge is really good 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.280 at is teasing out what's interesting about a topic and 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.799 figuring out how to connect it to the general public. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.400 You know, he's not trained as a physicist, but he 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.160 has a science background obviously the brain force, so we 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.800 can understand these concepts, but he's outside the field, so 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.960 he's able to sort of bridge between you know, the 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.919 the hard science and the general public. And so I 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.240 think that works really well. But yeah, we just had fun. 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.040 We're just laughing all the time while talking, and so 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.760 we thought it'd be fun to, hey, record those conversations 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:49.880 and share them with people. So you are you already 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:51.640 touched on this a little bit, but the you know 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:53.680 part of this. You know, as a scientist and a 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.680 science communicator, you you're you're privy to the the inside 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.360 world of scientific research and an acade me, but then 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.320 you're you're communicating it to a more general audience. And 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.680 you mentioned the you know, the idea of going in 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.839 working every day and either feeling as if you're not 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.120 making progress or feeling like you're you're slipping backwards. Do 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:16.320 do you feel that there is a like there's a 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.760 myth or a misconception concerning science in the general public 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.200 that you know, regarding like the rate of progress uh 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.839 in in science or what progress looks like. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.039 I think that most people have no idea what the 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.880 life of a scientist is like, just out of not 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.679 having had the experience. You know. I think most people 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:38.400 go to work and they have a pilot work in 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:40.719 front of them, and then they work through it, you know, 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:42.919 and then at the end of the day they've done 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.480 something right. You know, even somebody who's job is very simple, 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.279 like a chopping wood or something right. This is famous 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.919 time when Einstein spent a day chopping wood and he 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.000 was like, wow, that is really satisfying. Spend a day, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.479 you get a day's worth of work done. Um. Whereas 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.080 in science you can work for or months and make 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.359 no progress or ruin things that you have established. But 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.640 then one day, you know, you can make a huge 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:09.840 leap forward, and those are the days we live for. 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.960 It's very stochastic, um. And it's hard for me to 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.600 really remember what I thought science was like before I 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.520 became a scientist. But you know, as a kid, I 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.160 imagined it was days filled with insight and discovery and 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.800 mind blowing realizations about the universe, you know, but those 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.880 are very rare and few and far between. Yeah, I 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.240 think on you know, on the exterior and in the 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.760 general public, we tend to focus in on those those 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.760 big moments, right, those aha moments, those discoveries, like the 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.000 final paper, or not the final paper, but the resulting 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.760 paper that comes out. Uh, you know. It's it's those 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.400 moments and not the day to day to day that 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.040 we end up focusing on. That's right. And in order 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.120 to be a scientist, you need to be interested in 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.840 those big moments, those drive you, that's what pulls you 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.400 through the work. But you also have to have an 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.160 appreciation for the craft of it, right, the day to 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.120 day actual work. And I learned this when I was 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.280 trying to become a scientist because I first joined the 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.480 field that I thought was exciting, like I became a 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:10.040 plasma physicist when I was um first exploring physics, and 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.360 because because I wanted to solve the world's energy problem 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.240 and develop fusion, I thought that was really awesome. But 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:18.800 the day to day work of working on these reactors, 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.960 I found mine knowingly dull, right, just the concept like 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.040 I might one day develop a fusion reactor wasn't enough 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.400 to interest me every day. And and then I tried 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.960 condensed matter physics, where you're like shooting lasers at GOO 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:34.520 and trying to make it do weird stuff, and I 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.040 thought that was awesome, But day to day you're like 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.800 tweaking a laser and trying to make it work, and 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.520 that wasn't that much fun. And then eventually I stumbled 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:44.839 on particle physics, where most of the work day to 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.400 day is writing computer programs, so you're solving these little 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:53.040 intellectual puzzles involved with debugging computer programs and understanding statistics, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.000 and for me, that was really fun. It's totally separate 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.920 from the actual big questions we're trying to answer every day. 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.040 You know, what's the universe? It out of what's the 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.760 smallest thing. So I tell this a lot to grad 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.400 students who are thinking about particle physics. I say, find 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.520 a field where you're excited about the big questions, but 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:10.480 you also got to enjoy the day to day wood 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.160 shopping because that's what you're mostly doing. So in your work, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.840 you you deal with sub atomic particles and UH and astronomy, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.200 you deal with reality at the micro scale and the 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.400 macro scale. Distances smaller and and vaster than our our 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.640 as humans are evolved sensory perceptions. What does it feel 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.040 like as a as a human scientist to be sort 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.120 of trapped between these two realms that you know at 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.640 times are are difficult to imagine. Yeah, it makes me 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.200 feel very very small. You know. It's ah. I feel 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:44.760 like the job of physics at this level is to 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.120 expand our horizons. You know, we've seen the universe sort 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.800 of the scale of stuff that's like a meter down 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.319 to a centimeter, down to maybe a millimeter we can 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.880 grasp right with our minds, and what we're trying to 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.360 do is push those boundaries to the very very small 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.960 and very very large. And you know, the first thing 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.400 you learn is that there's a huge amount going on 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.959 at the very small level and at the very big level. 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.320 And that just makes me feel like, you know, small 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.280 and insignificant in so do the best possible way. I mean, 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.240 it's like it tells me that the universe is so 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.400 fascinating and so filled with mysteries, um that we're really 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.520 just beginning to crack the surface. And I love that feeling. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.720 I love feeling like there are amazing discoveries out there 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.120 waiting for us, and so it makes me feel like, 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:31.640 you know, I'm an explorer and there's a huge amount 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.640 of territory that is left to touch. So it's an 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.080 exciting feeling, but also intimidating. Now there's I guess there's 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.360 you know, even no matter how you know, large or small, 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.600 the you know, the details of the universe you're dealing 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.520 with your there there is this bedrock experience of reality 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.320 and uh, you know, I've I've I've read a little 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.040 bit about you know, the idea that you know can 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.840 read lead to um like a reality bias. Is that 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:02.439 a problem for physics? A reality bias? That's awesome? Um, 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.240 I think it's a problem for physics. But it's also 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.679 the only thing we can do. I mean, most of 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.040 what we do in physics is try to extrapolate from 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.600 what we know into what we don't know. Right, let's 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.600 explore the new territory, the sum atomic particles. How does 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.880 that stuff work? What does it look like? When we 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.680 do that, we build mental models, right, models in our 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.000 mind of what might be happening that are based on 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.000 the kind of things we know. Right. When I say particle, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.520 probably in your head you're thinking tiny little ball, Right, 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.120 maybe it's spinning or something. Why do you think that? 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.360 Because that's one of the things in the catalog of 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.839 your mind. It's harder to come up with a completely 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.480 new thing. Right. It's like if somebody gave you a 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.920 totally new fruit you've never eaten before, you might be like, 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.480 it's kind of like apple with maybe a little bit 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.720 of cherry and banana in it. Right. You describe things 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.280 you don't know in terms of things you know, because 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.440 that's the only thing we really can do. So, yeah, 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.480 we have a reality bias because we've experien oarence the 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.920 world in this sort of very specific, unusual set of 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.920 circumstances where we're not moving close to the speed of light, 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.880 where don't have as much energy as the sun. And 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:11.880 because of that, we have a sort of a set 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.120 of basic objects we can build off of. And and 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.200 that that changes how we see the world, and it 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.400 changes um what we think we have learned about the world, 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.720 and and it leads to mistakes, right, Like photons and 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.679 other particles are not tying little balls, and there are 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.160 a lot of misconceptions there. But it's also I think 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.040 all we can do. I can't sweep away everything we've 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:36.079 learned and start tabby larassa. You know, I think one 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.160 exciting way to probe that reality bias, frankly is talking 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.400 to alien physicists. This is why I'm so excited for 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.840 the arrival of extraterrestrial because I have so many questions 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:48.280 I want and I want to know, like how do 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.680 you guys think about photons? Or do you think about 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.400 photons or you know all this? I have so many 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.680 questions for the aliens, and right, you know, I was 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:57.600 I was thinking about this the other day when my 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.320 my son, who's um, whose seven, is asking about about 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.200 light and light years. I think it had to do 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.640 with its telling about some news about a planet a 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.880 hundred and eleven light years away and UM and trying 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:11.480 to explain it to him. And I was thinking at 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.040 the time, well, it's kind of like I have I 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.680 have two ways of looking at or thinking about light. 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.000 There's the you know, the explanation of photons, and then 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:24.000 there's this kind of default but incorrect version of like 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.200 of light that I kind of fall back into, you know, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.800 the sort of like sight as a laser beam, um, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.880 you know, where where it's something emitted rather than received, 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.199 but but based on on the way you just described 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.600 it, it it makes me think, well, maybe they're really doing 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.760 like three different levels. They're sort of like photons as 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.559 they actually are. The metaphor metaphorical version of photons that 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:51.040 we used to understand that, and then the you know whatever, 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.760 the sort of basic incorrect version based on just the 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.960 experience of physical reality is yeah, and we even have 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.559 more than one metaphor right, because one doesn't do the 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.679 job right. Photons is a particle. We also have photons 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.640 as a wave because sometimes photons do things like, you know, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.199 interfere with each other um in patterns that we see 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.240 waves do. And so we're like, oh, well, let's explain 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.320 that using our wave analogy. And then we're like, okay, 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.839 but now the photons are like bouncing around the way 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.560 particles do. Okay, now let's use our particle analogy. And 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:22.880 the question we often get on our podcast is like, 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.160 our photons particles or are they waves? Or are they both? Right? 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.240 And the answer is there neither right. They're not. They're 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.640 not particles, they're not tiny little balls, they're not waves. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.560 Those are two different metaphors we used to try to 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.920 capture the fundamental essential weirdness of this thing, which we 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.920 never can completely describe in terms of things we're familiar with, 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.960 because they're totally different from anything we've ever seen before. Right, 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.400 it's this weird quantum mechanical particle. They can do things 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.880 that basketballs and water waves just cannot do. So some 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.440 combination of those two ideas comes closer to this scribing 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.400 what it is. But I don't think we'll ever truly 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:07.120 deeply understand it the way we understand the way basketball bounces, 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.280 just because we didn't grow up experiencing it. Right. It's 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.320 like if you don't grow up hearing Chinese, you're never 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.600 going to speak it without an accent. It's just impossible. 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.800 In the same way we're never going to really understand photons, 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:23.760 no matter how many banan appeals we smoke. Um. I 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.480 like the idea you mentioned about about alien physicists, So 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.840 so yeah, if they had to do you know, any 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.320 Unfortunately I do not. But but but I love the 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.480 idea of of an alien being, you know, not only 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.960 having you know, perhaps access to you know, different technological 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.320 levels of understanding regarding you know, the cosmos, but having 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.880 access to like different metaphors based on uh, you know, 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:51.120 different levels of sensory awareness, etcetera. Yeah, and I think 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:53.320 we would learn so much, you know, in terms of 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:55.920 like what is the language they used to describe this stuff? 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.600 Are they mathematical? You know? We have questions about like 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.440 is a something that comes out of human the human 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.120 mind is reflect the way we think, or is it 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.200 something deep about the universe. It seems to us like 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.200 it must be deep about the universe because it's so 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.960 pure and crystalline and and clean, right, and and all 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.120 of our physical laws can to be described in terms 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.000 of mathematics, so it must be deep and true. But 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.600 that's a thought in human minds, shared between human minds, right, 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.720 we might meet an alien species that doesn't think about 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.520 math and has some other deep insight into the way 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.880 the universe works. The thing that excites and frustrates me 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.040 is those movies where the aliens come and then like 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.640 five minutes later, their physicists and our physicist around a 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.840 chalk at a chalkboard, excitedly making progress. And I'm like, 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.760 we've spent like ten years figuring out what zero means, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.840 you know, and then another five talking about real numbers, 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.120 and then maybe you know, twenty years and we can 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.560 start talking about science or something. I suspect that we 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.880 would have that that our entire you of the universe 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.200 and that we we think about physics and math is 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.560 so biased by our experience. Of course, it has to 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.040 be that we would learn a tremendous amount just by 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.800 encountering those aliens and trying to communicate with them. Yeah, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:15.960 that's interesting to think about, because a lot of times 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.359 we do fall back on this idea of of math 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.600 be at a be at this you know, wonderful human 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.720 invention that gets to the heart of reality, or being 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.240 this thing that underlies reality that we've discovered. That either way, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.760 it would be like this universal language that would not 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:34.560 in itself require translation. Yeah, and and and demonstrating that 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.960 by finding an alien species and discovering that they also 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.240 think in math, that would be an enormous question answered, 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.840 like one of the deepest questions in the history of 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.879 human experience crossed off the list. That would be a 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.159 great day. All right, it is time for a sponsor break. 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:56.520 Let's take a break, and we're back with the interview. Now. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:01.480 In terms of of things that you know, various scientific experiments, uh, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.879 you know, large scale experiments, especially h that that humans 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.920 are engaged in. Want. One question that we've asked on 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:09.719 the show before that I'd like to ask you is 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.440 if you could summon the collective will, the political capital 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.840 and of course the funding to um, you know, to 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.639 launch any terrestrial based scientific experiment, you know, be at 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.920 a collider, a telescope, etcetera. What would it be? And 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.880 uh and why oh no, oh no, you're gonna ask 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.520 me to betray my own field. Um. Well, you know, 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.080 I'm a particle physicist and I work with these amazing facilities. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.000 They caused tens of billions of dollars to smash particles together, 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.800 and they're wonderful and they provided me a lifetime so 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:46.400 far of intellectual curiosity, etcetera, etcetera. Um, last decade or so, 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.840 I haven't really revealed that many surprises. You know, we 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.359 smashed particles together. We don't know what we're gonna find. 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.719 Maybe crazy new purple bananas may mean nothing. Um, it's exploration. Recently, 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.840 we haven't really found anything. And we don't know if 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.159 building a bigger one for a hundred billion dollars would 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.920 provide anything or just or or you know more nothing. 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.000 We don't know. Um. But The thing that's always amazed 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.480 me is about is telescopes, because every time we build 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.560 a new telescope that looks out into the universe, either 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.199 in a new way like X ray or you know, 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.680 um infra red or whatever, or looks in a new 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.000 direction or looks deeper like the hubble, we always find 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.160 crazy stuff that blows your mind. Stuff that astronomers think, 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.000 what why is that there? Or we didn't think that 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:38.520 was possible. So astronomy amazes me because every time humans 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.119 open up new eyes into the universe, they see something 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.920 crazy and new that teaches us something deep about the 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.639 universe and was out there. So I think, if I 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.040 had to choose, I would build, you know, a huge, fancy, 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.119 amazing telescope that lets us look ever deeper into the 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.840 universe with clearer and clearer eyes, because there's just so 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.359 much to discover there. It feels like it feels like 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.000 every dollar spent there is a dollar of understanding. Yeah. Absolutely. 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.520 I mean, in regularly consuming the you know, the science 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.600 headlines and the new studies that come out, it's it's 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:12.960 easy to sort of grow numb to some of the 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:18.000 especially the anthropomorphized headlines. But like just in like the 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.320 last few weeks we've had we you know, we've just 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.480 yesterday there's the uh, the the new Exo planet that 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:27.679 they've been discussing, the one that's a hundred eleven light 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.440 years away, you know, the possible presence of water there, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.800 the Fermi bubbles from Sagittarius, a star. You know, there's 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.680 all there's there's something exciting. You know, it seems like 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:40.840 almost every week if you just you know, pay attention 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.960 to it. Yeah, and and you don't you can also 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:48.400 just focus on this stuff we've already found that nobody understands, like, 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.320