1
00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:11,840
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what's it like to discover a new particle

2
00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:12,600
Speaker 1: of nature?

3
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,280
Speaker 2: You know, it's a lot less dramatic than you might expect.

4
00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:19,599
Speaker 1: Oh really, there's no Eureka moment or some grand reveal.

5
00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:22,960
Speaker 2: It's usually a lot more gradual than like dropping a

6
00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:25,880
Speaker 2: velvet curtain or something. It's more like watching water drain

7
00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:28,520
Speaker 2: out of the tub to reveal the toys at the bottom.

8
00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:29,920
Speaker 1: You make it sound so exciting.

9
00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:32,159
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how Steven Spielberg is going to portray

10
00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:34,519
Speaker 2: that in a moment of my life. But you know,

11
00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:38,040
Speaker 2: it gets even worse. Sometimes we don't even agree about

12
00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:40,240
Speaker 2: whether or not we did discover something.

13
00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:42,559
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like it is that a toy at the

14
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:45,360
Speaker 1: bottom of the tub or is that something else? But

15
00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:47,360
Speaker 1: what do you mean? Like, sometimes you discover something and

16
00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:49,040
Speaker 1: some people are like, no, I don't think that's the thing.

17
00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:52,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can basically disagree about anything in particle.

18
00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 1: Physics, even about whether you disagree or not.

19
00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:56,240
Speaker 2: That's the one thing we can agree on.

20
00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:14,760
Speaker 1: I am more handmade cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics.

21
00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:17,720
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

22
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:20,160
Speaker 2: at UC Irvine. And when I got into this field.

23
00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:22,119
Speaker 2: I really did think there were going to be more

24
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:23,759
Speaker 2: discoveries to be had.

25
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:25,480
Speaker 1: Well, isn't it kind of up to you to make

26
00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:27,960
Speaker 1: those discoveries? Why are you sound like you're complaining.

27
00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:31,600
Speaker 2: It's partially up to me, but it's also up to nature.

28
00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:33,800
Speaker 2: You know, when you go out and do research, you

29
00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:35,560
Speaker 2: never know what you're going to find, and you never

30
00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:38,319
Speaker 2: know what's out there for you too fine. It's like

31
00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:40,760
Speaker 2: the folks who were hoping to discover life on Mars.

32
00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:43,840
Speaker 2: They worked hard, they did their job, they built their rovers.

33
00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 2: There just wasn't life on Mars for them, too fine.

34
00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:49,520
Speaker 2: And it's sort of the same way in particle physics.

35
00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:52,279
Speaker 2: It's been a little bit dry for us thirsty folks.

36
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:54,560
Speaker 1: Mmmm. Are you going to ask for your money back

37
00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:56,480
Speaker 1: from nature or your career back?

38
00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,080
Speaker 2: I'm hoping the government doesn't ask for their ten billion

39
00:01:59,240 --> 00:02:06,960
Speaker 2: dollars back. We'll have to auction off bits of the LHC.

40
00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:09,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there you go, offer it the souvenirs like

41
00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 1: memorial you know, special keepsakes. You get a little bit

42
00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:15,000
Speaker 1: of this super conducting magnet.

43
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 2: The world's nerdiest Etsy shop bits of the LHC. There

44
00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:21,760
Speaker 2: are actually people who've done salvage on the super Conducting

45
00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:24,120
Speaker 2: super Collider in Texas. A lot of the equipment there

46
00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:26,440
Speaker 2: was just abandoned and people have grabbed some of it

47
00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:27,760
Speaker 2: and saved it as keepsakes.

48
00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:30,640
Speaker 1: A bit of people would buy a piece of the LC, right,

49
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:33,720
Speaker 1: wouldn't they. It's the thing that discovered the Higgs boson.

50
00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:37,000
Speaker 1: That's kind of a big deal. Like you might actually find,

51
00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:39,680
Speaker 1: you know, the little sensor pad that actually caught the

52
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,359
Speaker 1: first Higgs. Let's let's get in on that. Let's kill

53
00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:45,240
Speaker 1: it on the Daniel and Jorge online shop.

54
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:48,760
Speaker 2: It can be like pieces of the true Cross. We

55
00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:50,639
Speaker 2: can sell more of them than actually existed.

56
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:55,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Amazingly. It's magical as well. It

57
00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:58,399
Speaker 1: multiplies the LHC. But what do you think you would

58
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,440
Speaker 1: have done if you hadn't been a particle physics someone

59
00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:02,080
Speaker 1: who explores life on Mars.

60
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:06,320
Speaker 2: Well, I actually did two degrees as an undergraduate physics

61
00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:09,079
Speaker 2: and computer science, and I also applied to grad school

62
00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:11,920
Speaker 2: and computer science. I was going to do artificial intelligence

63
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,280
Speaker 2: and machine learning, so that was sort of my other life.

64
00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:18,560
Speaker 1: Wow, man, I'm sorry to say, but you totally missed

65
00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:21,960
Speaker 1: that boat. He would probably a billionaire, I guess, But

66
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:25,240
Speaker 1: then we wouldn't have this podcast, or we would have

67
00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:27,239
Speaker 1: a super popular podcast about Ki.

68
00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:29,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then I'd be responsible for people's self driving

69
00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:31,680
Speaker 2: cars crashing, and I don't know if I could handle

70
00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:33,320
Speaker 2: that kind of responsibility.

71
00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:35,680
Speaker 1: Well, it's not your fault, it's the car's fault. That's

72
00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:40,320
Speaker 1: why you give them sentience to absolve yourself of any responsibility.

73
00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:41,600
Speaker 2: Right right, Just like we're not responsible for whether our

74
00:03:41,640 --> 00:03:43,440
Speaker 2: kids grew up to be serial killers or not.

75
00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:47,600
Speaker 1: Exactly right, Wait, what what's going on with your kid there?

76
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:51,160
Speaker 1: Maybe it's your kids are already making a head.

77
00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:55,200
Speaker 2: I do wonder about those serial killers and whether their

78
00:03:55,240 --> 00:03:56,800
Speaker 2: parents feel responsible. Yeah.

79
00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:58,800
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna say I do wonder about my son.

80
00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,680
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, But anyways, Welcome to our podcast,

81
00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:06,240
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.

82
00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:10,160
Speaker 2: We are not responsible for the incredible, crazy, bonkers, beautiful

83
00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:13,160
Speaker 2: universe out there, but we do feel responsible for helping

84
00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:16,360
Speaker 2: you to understand it. We dig in deep into what's

85
00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:18,560
Speaker 2: going on out there in the universe, and we try

86
00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:20,840
Speaker 2: to process it. We chop it up, and we serve

87
00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:23,960
Speaker 2: it all up to you, hoping to educate and entertain

88
00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:25,040
Speaker 2: you at the same time.

89
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:29,560
Speaker 1: It's right, welcome to our two hundred and ninetieth course

90
00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 1: meal here on the amazing food for thought that is

91
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:35,000
Speaker 1: the universe, because it is pretty awesome. And to be honest,

92
00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:36,560
Speaker 1: I do feel a little bit responsible to that.

93
00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:39,240
Speaker 2: You know, you were reaching for a big number there,

94
00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:40,919
Speaker 2: but I think the number of episodes is more like

95
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:42,559
Speaker 2: four hundred and eighty or something.

96
00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:45,120
Speaker 1: By now, oh my goodness, it's like the banquet that

97
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:48,200
Speaker 1: never ends. Like maybe it's more like a buffet where

98
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:50,479
Speaker 1: we take a bring on this food little by little.

99
00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:52,800
Speaker 2: That's right. Every course has to be super tiny for

100
00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:55,159
Speaker 2: you to be able to finish course number five hundred.

101
00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:56,440
Speaker 2: Eventually we'll get to dessert.

102
00:04:56,520 --> 00:04:58,719
Speaker 1: Now, do we reveal each course of this meal or

103
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:01,400
Speaker 1: do we just let the work and let the food

104
00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:02,000
Speaker 1: say that good.

105
00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:04,839
Speaker 2: Bottom Every episode is letting the water drain and hoping

106
00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:07,120
Speaker 2: that there's some understanding to be revealed.

107
00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:10,600
Speaker 1: That is how we record it. We just sit down,

108
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:14,720
Speaker 1: you start talking, and we hope that some knowledge comes

109
00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:15,040
Speaker 1: out of it.

110
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:17,200
Speaker 2: We hope there's gold and not a floating turret in

111
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:18,240
Speaker 2: that Baptob.

112
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:20,800
Speaker 1: Oh Man, can you say that on our podcast? I

113
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:21,640
Speaker 1: guess you just did.

114
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:23,640
Speaker 2: Let's see if it guests passed the sensors.

115
00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:24,520
Speaker 1: Which are you?

116
00:05:24,839 --> 00:05:25,039
Speaker 2: Yes?

117
00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:31,480
Speaker 1: Crazy? Well, speaking of pushing things out, let's dive into

118
00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:34,279
Speaker 1: the topic of the episode here today. So it is,

119
00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:36,800
Speaker 1: as we said, an amazing and incredible universe full of

120
00:05:36,839 --> 00:05:40,640
Speaker 1: amazing and lots of little things, lots of little things

121
00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:42,440
Speaker 1: out there that keep the universe together.

122
00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:44,680
Speaker 2: And over the last fifty years or so, we have

123
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:48,640
Speaker 2: pulled apart matter to reveal its basic constituents. We know

124
00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:51,760
Speaker 2: that you are made of molecules, which are made of atoms,

125
00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:54,960
Speaker 2: which are built out of electrons, protons and neutrons. We've

126
00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,719
Speaker 2: even pulled the protons and neutrons apart to discover that

127
00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:00,640
Speaker 2: they are made of quarks. We have found the quarks

128
00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:02,839
Speaker 2: out there and other versions of the electron. We have

129
00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,560
Speaker 2: this wonderful periodic table of the fundamental particles that we

130
00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:09,480
Speaker 2: describe using the standard model, which paints a very nice

131
00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:13,279
Speaker 2: picture of what's going on microscopically inside of me and

132
00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:15,160
Speaker 2: you and at the hearts of stars.

133
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:17,359
Speaker 1: That's right. We've come a long way from thinking that

134
00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:19,440
Speaker 1: the universe and everything in it is made out of

135
00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:22,680
Speaker 1: four things like earth, wind and fire and water, to

136
00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:26,919
Speaker 1: basically chop up the entire matter of the universe into

137
00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:30,400
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller bits until we get to basically bits

138
00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:31,640
Speaker 1: that you can't chop up anymore.

139
00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:34,720
Speaker 2: And it's been a really fascinating ride, not just discovering

140
00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:38,720
Speaker 2: what matter is inside of us, which is mostly the upcork,

141
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,839
Speaker 2: the down cork, and the electron because you can assemble

142
00:06:41,839 --> 00:06:44,680
Speaker 2: the upcork and the down cork into protons and neutrons

143
00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:47,160
Speaker 2: and put the electrons around them to make atoms, but

144
00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 2: also to discover what else the universe can do. The

145
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:53,239
Speaker 2: things that we are made out of are the stable bits,

146
00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:55,880
Speaker 2: the things that last forever and can get mixed together

147
00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:58,920
Speaker 2: to make more interesting chemistry. But there are also other

148
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:01,320
Speaker 2: weird things that the universe can do, things that don't

149
00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:04,640
Speaker 2: last for very long, so they take special conditions to

150
00:07:04,839 --> 00:07:05,440
Speaker 2: reveal them.

151
00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:08,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, the universe has its own buffet of things that

152
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:10,320
Speaker 1: it can make out there, and not just the things

153
00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:12,280
Speaker 1: that we can eat that make up who we are.

154
00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:14,360
Speaker 1: There's lots of other things out there in the universe,

155
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,200
Speaker 1: and little by little we've put together a pretty complete

156
00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:19,480
Speaker 1: picture of what's out there or what can be out

157
00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:20,440
Speaker 1: there in the universe.

158
00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:23,720
Speaker 2: We have a whole fun series of podcast episodes about

159
00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:27,560
Speaker 2: the discoveries of these particles, how the top quark was discovered,

160
00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:30,560
Speaker 2: how the gluon was discovered, how the photon was discovered.

161
00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:32,840
Speaker 2: All these pieces of the Standard Model, and we put

162
00:07:32,840 --> 00:07:35,600
Speaker 2: them together into a picture and ask like, does it work?

163
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,280
Speaker 2: Are there any missing bits? And that's how some of

164
00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:40,960
Speaker 2: those discoveries were made. We like assemble them together and

165
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,200
Speaker 2: we notice patterns. We say, huh, there's a hole here.

166
00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:45,680
Speaker 2: I wonder if there's another particle missing. The way you

167
00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:48,080
Speaker 2: can look at the periodic table and say, where's element

168
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:49,960
Speaker 2: thirty four? Why is there a thirty three and a

169
00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:52,240
Speaker 2: thirty five? There should be one in the middle. In

170
00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:54,240
Speaker 2: the same way, we filled in a lot of the

171
00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:56,680
Speaker 2: gaps in the Standard model just by looking for patterns

172
00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:01,320
Speaker 2: and hoping for simplicity and mathematical beauty and symmetry. And

173
00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:04,560
Speaker 2: this has been a very useful guiding principle in helping

174
00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:07,160
Speaker 2: us to discover things. That's how, for example, we knew

175
00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:08,880
Speaker 2: to look for the Higgs boson.

176
00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:12,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a periodic table for the fundamental particles

177
00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:15,240
Speaker 1: of nature. It's called the Standard Model, and it does

178
00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:17,640
Speaker 1: kind of look like the periodic table right, it's a

179
00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:19,840
Speaker 1: grid and you got little spas for all the different

180
00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:24,200
Speaker 1: particles like quarks and electrons and neutrinos, and they're sort

181
00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:26,200
Speaker 1: of in order. Also, it sort of looks like a

182
00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:28,680
Speaker 1: periodic table. Yeah, because there are patterns there.

183
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:31,120
Speaker 2: Like you can take the electron, the muon and the

184
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:34,600
Speaker 2: tow and you notice that they're increasing in mass. The

185
00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:37,560
Speaker 2: muon is heavier than the electron, the tow is heavier

186
00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:40,480
Speaker 2: than the muon, And the same pattern exists in the upcork,

187
00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:42,599
Speaker 2: the charm cork, and the top cork. The charm in

188
00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:44,920
Speaker 2: the top is just like heavier versions of the upcark.

189
00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:47,360
Speaker 2: So we notice these patterns. We see these things in

190
00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:49,840
Speaker 2: the table, and so we arrange our table in that

191
00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:52,679
Speaker 2: way to bring out those patterns to like inspire us

192
00:08:52,679 --> 00:08:55,240
Speaker 2: to think about what could be explaining them. And so

193
00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:57,520
Speaker 2: there's sort of two directions to think about there. One

194
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:00,280
Speaker 2: is like, well, what's inside these particles? Is there a

195
00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:03,480
Speaker 2: deeper layer of reality? And so that's definitely something we're exploring.

196
00:09:03,559 --> 00:09:06,080
Speaker 2: But sometimes we look in the other direction and we say, well,

197
00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:09,040
Speaker 2: what are the consequences of these particles? What can these

198
00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:11,400
Speaker 2: particles do? If this is real? If those particles are

199
00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:13,760
Speaker 2: actually out there, what do we expect to see in

200
00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:16,800
Speaker 2: our colliders? What can these things come together to make?

201
00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:20,000
Speaker 2: And that's another very fruitful way to test our understanding

202
00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:22,080
Speaker 2: of what's going on in the particle world.

203
00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:24,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have a grit called the standard model,

204
00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:27,520
Speaker 1: and it's called the standard model because they think it's

205
00:09:27,520 --> 00:09:30,120
Speaker 1: standard and it's a model. But when did they come

206
00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:31,920
Speaker 1: up with this name? I wonder? And how did they

207
00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:34,360
Speaker 1: know it is going to be standard for the entire universe?

208
00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:37,400
Speaker 2: I knew you were going to have concerns about the names.

209
00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:41,640
Speaker 2: The standard model itself comes out of the seventies when

210
00:09:41,679 --> 00:09:45,440
Speaker 2: people realized that there were connections between the weak force

211
00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:48,120
Speaker 2: and electromagnetism and that explained a lot of what we

212
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:51,000
Speaker 2: were seeing happening with the electron and the muons, and

213
00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:53,760
Speaker 2: so they put this together into a model of leptons,

214
00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:57,520
Speaker 2: which then became a standard model of leptons, and so

215
00:09:57,559 --> 00:09:59,960
Speaker 2: it was sort of adopted around then. And the standard

216
00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:02,560
Speaker 2: that sense, just sort of means like consensus. There are

217
00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 2: lots of different views of what was happening in particles,

218
00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:08,160
Speaker 2: and this just sort of emerged as the most popular model,

219
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,240
Speaker 2: the one that people thought was the most parsimonious and

220
00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:14,520
Speaker 2: explained what we were seeing, and it also predicted the

221
00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:17,040
Speaker 2: Higgs boson, and so when we saw the Higgs boson

222
00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:19,600
Speaker 2: in nature, people were like, Yep, that's it.

223
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:22,520
Speaker 1: The standard model is the way to go interesting. It's

224
00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:25,320
Speaker 1: it's like the thing that all physicists can agree on, kind.

225
00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:30,160
Speaker 2: Of mostly that can happen. It can happen, although of

226
00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:32,880
Speaker 2: course there are lots of disagreements about what is the

227
00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:35,480
Speaker 2: standard model. Some people, for example, say that the standard

228
00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:38,320
Speaker 2: model requires neutrinos to have no mass, but we know

229
00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:41,800
Speaker 2: neutrinos do have mass, and some people say, no, no,

230
00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:44,520
Speaker 2: we can have massive neutrinos in this standard model. And

231
00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:47,319
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of disagreement about exactly what constitutes

232
00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:49,920
Speaker 2: the standard model. Probably was a bad idea to call

233
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:51,199
Speaker 2: it standard in the first place.

234
00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 1: Ye should have called it a model. But it's interesting because,

235
00:10:56,559 --> 00:10:58,360
Speaker 1: like what you said, is that it's not just a

236
00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:01,360
Speaker 1: sort of like a listing of all the fundamental particles,

237
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:03,520
Speaker 1: kind of like the periodic table is. It's also kind

238
00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:06,920
Speaker 1: of about the rules that govern what happens between the

239
00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,120
Speaker 1: things in the table, and a lot of it is

240
00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:11,080
Speaker 1: also just the math of how all of these things

241
00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:12,959
Speaker 1: work just like the periodic table. It's not just the

242
00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:15,880
Speaker 1: listing of element. It's also like a model of how

243
00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:18,920
Speaker 1: the electron you know, orbits around the nucleus, and what

244
00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:22,240
Speaker 1: happens when two atoms get close together, how do they

245
00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:24,760
Speaker 1: share electrons and things like that. The Standard model also

246
00:11:24,840 --> 00:11:26,840
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to it than just the listening

247
00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:27,480
Speaker 1: to particles.

248
00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:31,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. We often focus on the matter particles like

249
00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:33,679
Speaker 2: the upcork, the down cork, and the electron, but also

250
00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 2: in the standard model we have the force particles, the photon,

251
00:11:36,760 --> 00:11:39,280
Speaker 2: the W, the z, the gluon, and as you say,

252
00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:42,120
Speaker 2: these play a very important role in building things. Without

253
00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 2: the forces, you couldn't put the up, the down, the

254
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 2: electron together to make ice cream or kittens or lava

255
00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:51,480
Speaker 2: or hamsters or anything. Right. Really, the forces are required.

256
00:11:51,559 --> 00:11:53,600
Speaker 2: And I often feel that way when somebody says, oh,

257
00:11:53,640 --> 00:11:57,080
Speaker 2: the atom is mostly empty space, because they imagine the

258
00:11:57,200 --> 00:12:00,360
Speaker 2: tiny little nucleus or the tiny electrons really are apart

259
00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:02,840
Speaker 2: from each other in mostly empty space. But the truth

260
00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:05,600
Speaker 2: is is not really empty. It's filled with fields, force

261
00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:09,200
Speaker 2: fields and virtual particles tying them together. It's a swarm

262
00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:11,480
Speaker 2: of oscillating energy and so you're right, we need to

263
00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:13,600
Speaker 2: think not just about the little bits of matter, but

264
00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:16,439
Speaker 2: also the forces that tie them together and how that

265
00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:19,080
Speaker 2: works and what those can do. And that's something we

266
00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:21,880
Speaker 2: are still exploring, still trying to figure out.

267
00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:23,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's something that maybe a lot of

268
00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:26,040
Speaker 1: people don't know. And I wonder if that's because, you know,

269
00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:28,079
Speaker 1: when they discovered the Higgs Boson, it was kind of

270
00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,760
Speaker 1: a big deal. At least that's what the headline said.

271
00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:32,959
Speaker 1: That it was a big deal because it completed this

272
00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:35,559
Speaker 1: standard model. The Higgs Boson sort of like was the

273
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,080
Speaker 1: cherry on top where it put the last little lego

274
00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:41,720
Speaker 1: piece or jigsaw puzzle piece on the standard model and

275
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:44,480
Speaker 1: then you guys were done, right, you could all retire

276
00:12:44,760 --> 00:12:47,280
Speaker 1: and become hey experts or something.

277
00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:50,000
Speaker 2: We've been napping in our offices ever since. Yes, confirmed,

278
00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:52,400
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's good to know. Then I do want

279
00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:57,760
Speaker 2: my money back, Please wait for the check. Yeah, and

280
00:12:57,800 --> 00:12:59,240
Speaker 2: so it was sort of a big deal because they

281
00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:02,760
Speaker 2: said they'd the standard model. But you're telling me maybe

282
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:06,360
Speaker 2: that it's not complete. Maybe it's something that people disagree about.

283
00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:06,679
Speaker 1: Still.

284
00:13:06,960 --> 00:13:08,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's not like the New York Times were

285
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:11,480
Speaker 2: liars or anything. When they said it completed the standard model.

286
00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:14,920
Speaker 2: That's true from one perspective, from the perspective of like

287
00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:17,959
Speaker 2: looking at the periodic table of fundamental particles and saying,

288
00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:20,280
Speaker 2: do we have all the pieces necessary to make a

289
00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:23,680
Speaker 2: complete theory? You know, are there any obvious holes? And

290
00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:25,600
Speaker 2: so we had found the top core, we had found

291
00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,800
Speaker 2: the Towe leapt on, and the last like definitely predicted

292
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:32,840
Speaker 2: missing fundamental piece, little jigsaw piece, as you say, was

293
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:35,320
Speaker 2: the Higgs boson. It was definitely missing, and we definitely

294
00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:37,720
Speaker 2: needed to find it if the Standard Model was real,

295
00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:39,839
Speaker 2: if it was a description of nature. And now we

296
00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:41,920
Speaker 2: found it, and it clicks in, and we do have

297
00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:44,600
Speaker 2: what we consider a fairly complete theory. Of course, it

298
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:47,480
Speaker 2: doesn't describe gravity or dark matter or all sorts of

299
00:13:47,559 --> 00:13:49,720
Speaker 2: other crazy stuff. And we just did an episode about

300
00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:51,960
Speaker 2: like the problems of the Standard Model. But you know,

301
00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:54,440
Speaker 2: from one perspective, it really did complete it. It was

302
00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:56,560
Speaker 2: like an obvious hole that needed to be filled. There

303
00:13:56,559 --> 00:13:59,640
Speaker 2: are no more open holes in that sense, like fundamental

304
00:13:59,640 --> 00:14:02,840
Speaker 2: particle that the Standard Model predicts that we haven't found yet.

305
00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:05,800
Speaker 2: From another perspective, there's lots of things left to study,

306
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:08,480
Speaker 2: you know, like how these particles dance together to make

307
00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:12,120
Speaker 2: new things. That's not how these particles come together to

308
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:15,320
Speaker 2: make more interesting, complicated things. That's not something we fully

309
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:18,120
Speaker 2: yet understand. And there are lots of predictions there that

310
00:14:18,200 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 2: have not yet been verified.

311
00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:21,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like you're pulling off a nice marketing

312
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:24,680
Speaker 1: trick here, where you're saying, like, what we did was awesome,

313
00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:27,080
Speaker 1: and where's all that money? And we finished it, but

314
00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:30,440
Speaker 1: there are still things less to do to keep giving

315
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:30,960
Speaker 1: us money.

316
00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:34,880
Speaker 2: That is the summer of every science grant proposal ever, basically,

317
00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:38,600
Speaker 2: not just in particle physics.

318
00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 1: I see, it's just a reflex for you know.

319
00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:43,480
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's the story. It's like, look, we

320
00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:45,320
Speaker 2: did awesome stuff with the money you gave us. We

321
00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:47,440
Speaker 2: will do more awesome stuff with the future money we

322
00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:49,920
Speaker 2: hope you keep giving us. That's the way it works.

323
00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:52,920
Speaker 1: Well, like you said, there's still more to discover, I guess,

324
00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:55,440
Speaker 1: or to check off about all of the things that

325
00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:58,640
Speaker 1: the standard model predicts. And so one of those predictions

326
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:01,840
Speaker 1: is kind of an interesting sounding object.

327
00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:05,000
Speaker 2: It is a super fun prediction of the standard model,

328
00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:08,040
Speaker 2: and one people have been hunting for for a long

329
00:15:08,160 --> 00:15:12,320
Speaker 2: time and disagree about whether it's possible to find it,

330
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:14,000
Speaker 2: or whether we already have.

331
00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,560
Speaker 1: It's a sticky subject. Well, to the end of the episode,

332
00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:25,280
Speaker 1: we'll be tackling the question what is a glue ball?

333
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:29,160
Speaker 1: That sounds like something that happens when you're playing with glue.

334
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:31,400
Speaker 2: It does sound like a very everyday object, but it's

335
00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:36,000
Speaker 2: also a very esoteric prediction by the standard model that's

336
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 2: been surprisingly difficult to verify.

337
00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:41,040
Speaker 1: Actually, it does kind of sound like something that might

338
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:43,760
Speaker 1: be useful, like a ball made out of glue that

339
00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:45,920
Speaker 1: then you can use to stick things together.

340
00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:47,760
Speaker 2: It sounds like the thing you could keep next to

341
00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:53,360
Speaker 2: your rubber band ball. Yeah right, let's start selling those.

342
00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,800
Speaker 2: You can get those on our online store now, balls.

343
00:15:56,440 --> 00:15:58,960
Speaker 1: Of glue, oh man.

344
00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:00,840
Speaker 2: With little bits of the LEDC stuck inside.

345
00:16:01,280 --> 00:16:04,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Or it's sticking together bits of

346
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:04,720
Speaker 1: the lac.

347
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,680
Speaker 2: Even better, How does the lac work it's held together

348
00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:09,000
Speaker 2: with spit in glue balls.

349
00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:11,120
Speaker 1: Well that might be actually true, right.

350
00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:13,040
Speaker 2: That might be actually trueious.

351
00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure a lot of physicists were drilling

352
00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:18,040
Speaker 1: when they were putting it together. That's where all this

353
00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:20,240
Speaker 1: bit comes from. Well, anyways, as usual, we were wondering

354
00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:22,480
Speaker 1: how many people out there had heard of a glue

355
00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:25,160
Speaker 1: ball or have any idea what it can be.

356
00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:27,400
Speaker 2: So thank you very much to everybody who answers these

357
00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:30,120
Speaker 2: random questions. It's super helpful to get a sense for

358
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:34,120
Speaker 2: what people already know and what they think about these ideas.

359
00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:36,360
Speaker 1: So think about it for a second. What do you

360
00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:40,480
Speaker 1: think a glue ball can be? Here's what people had

361
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:40,840
Speaker 1: to say.

362
00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:43,480
Speaker 3: There must be some silly ball made by kids to

363
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:47,680
Speaker 3: play with during lunch of races. Yeah, I'm kidding. So

364
00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:51,200
Speaker 3: glue ball is a very relatively new concept. It is

365
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:55,880
Speaker 3: basically combination of glue on particles without anyone and squawk.

366
00:16:56,200 --> 00:17:00,000
Speaker 1: A glue ball sounds like something to do with glue ons.

367
00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:02,600
Speaker 1: That's maybe like a ball of glue on, just a

368
00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:05,720
Speaker 1: bunch of them just interacting and stuff, just hanging out.

369
00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:09,119
Speaker 4: A glue ball. Yeah, I have no clue what that

370
00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:12,120
Speaker 4: could possibly be. The only thing that comes to mind

371
00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:15,200
Speaker 4: maybe is it might have something to do with glue ones.

372
00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:18,560
Speaker 4: But other than that, I can't even begin to guess.

373
00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:23,320
Speaker 1: Uh, probably something my cat pukes after she ates some clue.

374
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:26,919
Speaker 1: I don't know. All right, sounds like we're not the

375
00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:31,720
Speaker 1: only ones who thought it's a kit's toy, or that

376
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:33,679
Speaker 1: it involves spit somehow from cats.

377
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:35,879
Speaker 2: I feel sorry for that guy's cat. I mean, who

378
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:37,760
Speaker 2: lets their cat eat glue? Seriously?

379
00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:40,400
Speaker 1: I don't know. But are you responsible if your cat

380
00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:42,480
Speaker 1: eats glue? Or is that the cat's faut.

381
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:43,879
Speaker 2: I don't know, But if your cat turns out to

382
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,080
Speaker 2: be a serial killer, maybe you are responsible.

383
00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:48,240
Speaker 1: Well, at least the cat wouldn't get far, very far.

384
00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:54,399
Speaker 1: Just get stick to everything. The sticky glue ball, serial

385
00:17:54,480 --> 00:17:56,840
Speaker 1: killer sticky cat? Did you mean?

386
00:17:57,160 --> 00:17:59,280
Speaker 2: But I think a lot of these folks really got

387
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:03,400
Speaker 2: the idea from the name, right, a ball of gluons.

388
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 2: Maybe this is actually a thing in particle physics that

389
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:09,120
Speaker 2: has gasp an appropriate name.

390
00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:10,880
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know, it's if it is a ball

391
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,240
Speaker 1: or not. I bet it's more like a teohedron or something.

392
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:16,760
Speaker 2: I see you're gonna withhold judgment, all right, let's dig in.

393
00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:23,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see what happens here. We'll step us through this, Daniel,

394
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:24,640
Speaker 1: What is glue ball?

395
00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:28,240
Speaker 2: So a glue ball is a predicted particle that would

396
00:18:28,280 --> 00:18:33,800
Speaker 2: be made entirely of gluons, No quarks, no electrons, no

397
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:37,720
Speaker 2: other matter particles at all, just gluons.

398
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:43,400
Speaker 1: M Okay, So it's a theoretical or a predicted object

399
00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:45,240
Speaker 1: that can happen out in nature, and you would get

400
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 1: it by putting together gluons. Now what are gluons?

401
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:50,639
Speaker 2: Right? So this is a predicted particle of the standard model.

402
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:53,159
Speaker 2: It says gluons should be able to come together and

403
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,280
Speaker 2: make this weird thing we call a glue ball. So

404
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:59,280
Speaker 2: to understand that, you have to understand what is a gluon? Right. So,

405
00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:02,480
Speaker 2: as we said, each of the forces that are out there,

406
00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:05,760
Speaker 2: the fundamental forces that we know about, get mediated in

407
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,360
Speaker 2: terms of fields, but you can also think about them

408
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:12,480
Speaker 2: in terms of particles. Like what happens when two electrons

409
00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:14,040
Speaker 2: talk to each other, But they're doing it as they're

410
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:15,640
Speaker 2: pushing on each other, and they push on each other

411
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:18,640
Speaker 2: using their electric fields. But you can also think about

412
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:22,119
Speaker 2: those fields as like a swarm of virtual photons. So

413
00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:24,720
Speaker 2: one way to think about how two electrons talk to

414
00:19:24,760 --> 00:19:27,440
Speaker 2: each other is that they bounce photons back and forth.

415
00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 2: They're using photons to send messages to each other. So

416
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,720
Speaker 2: every force that's out there you can think about in

417
00:19:32,840 --> 00:19:35,840
Speaker 2: terms of a field or the particle for that field.

418
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:39,840
Speaker 2: So for electromagnetism, we have the photon, which is the

419
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,439
Speaker 2: particle which carries the electromagnetic force. And then for the

420
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:47,560
Speaker 2: strong force, we also have fields, and those fields are

421
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,640
Speaker 2: gluon fields, and so the gluon is the particle that

422
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,440
Speaker 2: carries the strong force. So, for example, how do you

423
00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:57,800
Speaker 2: make a proton. We make it out of upquarks and

424
00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:00,399
Speaker 2: down quarks. How do you tie the up quarks and

425
00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:04,160
Speaker 2: down quarks to gather into a proton? You use gluons.

426
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:07,560
Speaker 2: So inside the proton is not just upquarks and down quarks.

427
00:20:07,720 --> 00:20:10,719
Speaker 2: There's a whole mess of gluons in they're holding it together.

428
00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:12,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked a little bit about this in our

429
00:20:12,600 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 1: last podcast, about how photon are the particles that kind

430
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:19,440
Speaker 1: of mediate, like you said, the electromagnetic force, like every

431
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:22,399
Speaker 1: time an electron is repelled by another electron, or an

432
00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:25,520
Speaker 1: electron is attracted to another particle like a proton, there's

433
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:27,960
Speaker 1: an exchange of photons. But we also kind of talked

434
00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:31,399
Speaker 1: about how these are not like real, real particles, like

435
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:34,159
Speaker 1: they don't actually exchange these particles. It's more sort of

436
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 1: like in the sense of like quantum virtual particles.

437
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. I find it more intuitive

438
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:42,159
Speaker 2: to think about these things in terms of fields, like

439
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:45,160
Speaker 2: the electron has a field and it's using that field

440
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:47,359
Speaker 2: to push on another electron. But if you don't like

441
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:49,400
Speaker 2: the idea of fields, you can also think about these

442
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:52,439
Speaker 2: things in terms of virtual particles, and you just replace

443
00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:56,240
Speaker 2: the field with an infinite number of virtual particles that

444
00:20:56,280 --> 00:20:59,119
Speaker 2: are filling space. Mathematically, it's really the same thing. And

445
00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 2: those are the virtual particles, which you're not like real particles.

446
00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:05,520
Speaker 2: But these fields are also capable of having real particles,

447
00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 2: Like what is a real photon? A photon that leaves

448
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,399
Speaker 2: the Sun and hits your eyeball. That's a ripple in

449
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 2: the electromagnetic field. And in the same way, a gluon,

450
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:17,879
Speaker 2: like a real gluon, is a ripple in the gluon field.

451
00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 2: So there can be virtual gluons exchanged between particles inside

452
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,560
Speaker 2: a proton, for example, and they're also real gluons that

453
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:25,959
Speaker 2: can like fly through space.

454
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:30,359
Speaker 1: Okay, so there are real gluons and virtual gluons, and

455
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,760
Speaker 1: so like you're saying, these are the particles that mediate

456
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:37,000
Speaker 1: or that transmit the strong force, which is what keeps

457
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:40,320
Speaker 1: quarts together to make protons and neutrons, And those are

458
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: the nuclei and all of the atoms in your body.

459
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 1: But maybe let's paint the picture of how these gluons

460
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,959
Speaker 1: actually keep things together, and then let's talk about what

461
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,840
Speaker 1: happens when you try to glue two gluons together. So

462
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: let's get into that, but first let's take a quick break.

463
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 1: All Right, we're talking about glue balls, which is not

464
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:11,679
Speaker 1: a toy, but it is a pretty good name for

465
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:12,120
Speaker 1: a toy.

466
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Gluons sound ridiculous, but they are a

467
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:18,919
Speaker 2: real thing in particle physics, and we use them in

468
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 2: our calculations and exist in nature sticking your quarks together

469
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 2: to make you okay.

470
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: So we talked about how gluons are the particles that

471
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,920
Speaker 1: transmit the strong force, and so you said they sort

472
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 1: of come up when, for example, a quark is attracted

473
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: to another quark. So maybe paint is a picture. I'm

474
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:38,919
Speaker 1: a quark and I have another quark here next to me,

475
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: and I feel the strong force between us. What does

476
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:44,439
Speaker 1: that mean? Does that mean I'm like throwing gluons at

477
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:47,360
Speaker 1: each other, or does it mean that there are virtual

478
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:49,959
Speaker 1: gluons popping up in the space between us, or what

479
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:50,480
Speaker 1: does that mean?

480
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:52,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way you should think about it is that

481
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 2: quarks have a field. That field is just like an

482
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:01,000
Speaker 2: electric field from an electron. But electrons have a electric charges,

483
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 2: which is what makes the electric field, and quarks have

484
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 2: a different kind of charge. They have a charge for

485
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 2: the strong force, which is a different force from electromagnetism,

486
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 2: and that kind of charge we call a color charge

487
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 2: because it has three different varieties red, green, and blue.

488
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 2: So electromagnetism has like plus and minus charges, the color

489
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:24,680
Speaker 2: charge is much different and very weird as three versions

490
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 2: of it. Quark can be like blue or green or red,

491
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 2: and so it can have a field, a color field,

492
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 2: and that color field pulls or pushes on other things

493
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 2: that have color charges to them. So, for example, that

494
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:42,119
Speaker 2: quark inside your proton has a color field, and that

495
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 2: color field is applying a force to the other quarks

496
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 2: inside the proton. And now you can always think about

497
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 2: these fields in terms of virtual particles, and so the

498
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 2: virtual particle for this field is a glue on. So

499
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 2: one way to think about it is these quarks are

500
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 2: bound together because of their color field that's putting forces

501
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 2: on the other quarks, or that they're exchanging virtual gluons

502
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 2: constantly to tie themselves together into a proton.

503
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: And you sort of need this idea of particles that

504
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: transmit the force because these forces are not, as far

505
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: as we can see, instantaneous, like from a quark here

506
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 1: and you're a quark over there. I don't exert a

507
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,959
Speaker 1: force and you kind of immediately or magically right like

508
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 1: there's something that has to somehow go from here to there.

509
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,640
Speaker 2: No information can move instantaneously in the universe, and that's why.

510
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 2: For example, if you take an electron, it has a

511
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 2: static electric field, but then if you wiggle that electron,

512
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 2: the whole field doesn't move all at once. If that

513
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 2: field extends from here to your neighbor's house. But if

514
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 2: you wiggle the electron, your neighbor can't tell that you

515
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 2: wiggled it instantly. They have to wait for that wiggle

516
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 2: to move through the field to get to him. And

517
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 2: that's what we think of as a ripple in that field,

518
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 2: which you can interpret as a particle. In fact, that's

519
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: how you make photons. You take electrons and you wiggle them.

520
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 2: That's an he is and so you can interpret these

521
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 2: ripples in the field sometimes in terms of real particles

522
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 2: if they have certain properties special ripples or if there

523
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 2: are other kinds of ripples in the field, then we

524
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 2: just call them virtual particles.

525
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: Okay, so now let's paint the picture. I have a

526
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: quark right here in front of you, and it's a

527
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: red cork, and you right next to me have a

528
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 1: green cork, and so, which means that two quarks are

529
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: sort of attracting each other, right, I'm pulling on each

530
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: other to smush them together through the strong force. But

531
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: they're not moving yet. What's happening? Are there like virtual

532
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 1: gluons popping up in between the two? Is my quark

533
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 1: sending gluons to your quark? How would you describe it?

534
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: Or nothing's happening until one of them moves.

535
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 2: Remember that these are quantum particles, so you can't really

536
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 2: think of them as having like a specific location and velocity.

537
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 2: The same way you can't really think about the electron

538
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 2: as having a specific location and velocity as it moves

539
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 2: around the nucleus. Instead, you can think of it as

540
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 2: having like a probability distribution of various possible locations around

541
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 2: the nuclear Because it's trapped in a little well, the

542
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,479
Speaker 2: nucleus creates an electromagnetic potential, which traps the electron inside

543
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 2: of it, and the electron is somewhere in that well,

544
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 2: but we don't know exactly where. So in the same way,

545
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 2: these quarks all create color potential, a strong force potential

546
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 2: which traps the other quarks with them inside this potential.

547
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 2: So where is any individual quark well, it's not determined

548
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 2: just as a probability distribution, but it's all balanced and solved,

549
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 2: and all the quarks have a happy wave function to

550
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 2: be on top of each other inside this little potential

551
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 2: well that they all create. So it's like a little

552
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 2: bound state of these quantum functions.

553
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: I guess it's sort of like you know, like you're saying,

554
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: the quark that I have here in my red QRK

555
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: isn't really like a billiard ball. It's more like a

556
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,439
Speaker 1: fuzzy cloud here that I'm holding. And then your quark

557
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: is also not a billiard ball. It's another fuzzy cloud.

558
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: And so when I sort of bring them together, the

559
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: two clouds cand of merge or smoosh together into one,

560
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: sort of like a system made out of two particles.

561
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: That's kind of what you're saying, right, It's like it's

562
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: more like the two quantum functions or wave functions merge

563
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 1: together to make one that maybe has some sort of

564
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 1: potential to stay together.

565
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 2: Remember that quantum mechanics tells us that the universe is random,

566
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 2: but it's not totally random. It's still deterministic in some way.

567
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 2: Like old Newtonian classical physics told us that everything was

568
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 2: like a billiard ball, and if you bounce things the

569
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 2: same way twice, the same thing would happen. Everything was deterministic.

570
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 2: Quantum mechanics says, well, we're deterministic, but only about the probabilities.

571
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 2: Quantum mechanics says, I will predict exactly what the probability

572
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 2: of various outcomes is. I won't to tell you which

573
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 2: outcome is going to happen, but i'll tell you the

574
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 2: various probabilities. So here quantum mechanics applies to these little particles,

575
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 2: and it says, well, your red cork has a higher

576
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 2: chance of being over here and the smaller chance of

577
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 2: being over there, and they have to satisfy all the

578
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 2: mathematics of the equations. And so you can solve these

579
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 2: equations and figure out where the red cork is likely

580
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 2: to be, given that there's a blue cork nearby and

581
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 2: a green cork nearby side the proton. The really cool

582
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 2: thing about the strong force is these weird charges. Like

583
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 2: the atom is neutral because you have a positively charged

584
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 2: nucleus and a negatively charged electron. Plus one and minus

585
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 2: one makes zero. Right, Well, the proton has no color

586
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: charge because inside of it it has one of each

587
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 2: of the charges. It has a red, a green, and

588
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 2: a blue, and together those add up to make no

589
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 2: color or white as we call it, in the same

590
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 2: way that like having one of each of the electromagnetic

591
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 2: charges plus and minus add up to zero electromagnetic charge.

592
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: And so that's how the quarks add up. But then

593
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: where do the gluons come in?

594
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 2: So the gluons are super duper weird and much more

595
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: complicated than in electromagnetism. Electromagnetism you have two charges and

596
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 2: you just have the single photon which transmits it. The

597
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 2: photon itself is not charged, right, The photon is a

598
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 2: neutral object, which is going to be important because photons,

599
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 2: they don't like, bounce off of each other. They pass

600
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 2: right through each other for the most part. Check out

601
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 2: our whole podcast episode about lightsabers and photons bouncing off

602
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 2: each other. But gluons are different. Gluons are charged in color.

603
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 2: In fact, gluons have two colors. So for example, like

604
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 2: a quark has one color like red or blue or green,

605
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,959
Speaker 2: a gluon has two colors simultaneously. It can be like

606
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 2: red and anti blue or blue and anti green.

607
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: Does that depend on sort of like what the two

608
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: quarks are that are interacting? Like if I have a

609
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: red cork and you have a green cork, is it

610
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: that they can only exchange red green or red anti

611
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: green bluons?

612
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like that. If you have, for example,

613
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 2: a blue cork and a green cork, a blue cork

614
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 2: can emit a blue anti green gluon and then it

615
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 2: becomes green. Its blueness has gone into the gluon and

616
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: it becomes green because they also gave that gluon anti green.

617
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 2: Then the green cork absorbs the blue anti green gluon

618
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 2: and it becomes a blue cork. So like a blue

619
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 2: cork and a green cork, or can swap colors by

620
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 2: exchanging a gluon.

621
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: And so this swapping happens when they move relative to

622
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: each other. Is it always happening at all times? Like

623
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: with these virtual particles? What exactly is going on?

624
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 2: Well, like everything else quanta mechanical, nothing is definitive. So

625
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 2: you have your quarks inside the proton, and none of

626
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 2: them are like actually red, or actually green or actually blue.

627
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 2: They all have a probability to have one of those

628
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: colors simultaneously, And if you really needed to know, you

629
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 2: would like send a really high energy particle inside the

630
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 2: proton to break it up to figure out what the

631
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 2: color was, and then the universe would roll the die

632
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:40,479
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, this one happened to be green at

633
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 2: that moment, or this one happened to be red at

634
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,719
Speaker 2: that moment. But just right now, inside your proton, as

635
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 2: everything is jiggling, each of your quarks has a simultaneous

636
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 2: probability for each of these colors. But the fact that

637
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 2: the gluon has to have these colors itself makes it

638
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 2: really complicated. So two gluons can also interact with each

639
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 2: other the way two photons really cannot. Two gluons can

640
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 2: talk to each other directly.

641
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: Okay, and you're talking about the real gluons or the

642
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: virtual gluons.

643
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 2: Both all kinds of gluons. These fields all bounce off

644
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 2: each other and interact with each other and make more gluons.

645
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 2: Two gluons can come together to make two more gluons.

646
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 2: It gets really complicated really fast, because everybody's talking to

647
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 2: everybody else.

648
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: All right. So then gluons are particles, just like an

649
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: electron is or a photon is that they have their

650
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: own field in the universe. I'm trying to put the

651
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: picture here together. And what they do is they sort

652
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: of fly or exist between different quarks that have the

653
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: color charge, and that's sort of how the strong force

654
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: comes about. And they have different flavors, different colors. And

655
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: sometimes these gluons can interact with each other, and I

656
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: imagine they can also stick to each other, which is

657
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: maybe where a glue ball comes in exactly.

658
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 2: Because they can talk to each other, and they have

659
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 2: charges relative to each other, they feel forces relative to

660
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 2: each other. They can also get bound together. They can

661
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 2: form complicated stuff.

662
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: But wait, if two gluons can interact and push on

663
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 1: each other, what causes to push it? Is there a

664
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: force another force particle just for transmitting the strong force

665
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: or the glue force between gluons.

666
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 2: No, they can push on each other directly, the way

667
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: like a photon can push on an electron directly. That's

668
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 2: an immediate interaction. Those two fields couple and energy can

669
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 2: flow from one to the other. Gluons can talk to

670
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 2: each other directly without any other intermediate particle. Like quarks

671
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 2: can't talk to each other directly. They have to use

672
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 2: photons or gluons, whatever, But those photons can talk to

673
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: quarks or two electrons. Gluons can talk to each other directly,

674
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 2: like in the language of finement diagrams. You can have

675
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: a vertex that's just like gluon, gluon, gluon or four

676
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 2: gluons in fact, can make a vertex, so you don't

677
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 2: need an intermediate field. This is the field and it

678
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 2: can talk to itself.

679
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: And that's kind of weird, right because for example, the

680
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: photon is another particle that transmits forces, but it can

681
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: interact with itself.

682
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 2: That's right. It can't interact with itself, so you can't

683
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 2: have like a light ball. There is ball lightning out there,

684
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 2: I think people think, but it's not like photons bound

685
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 2: together in the same way. But gluons, because they can

686
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 2: do this, they can talk to each other, they can

687
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 2: feel forces relative to each other. They can create a

688
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 2: little potential well and trap each other inside, and they

689
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 2: can make. We think this particle called a glue ball,

690
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 2: which is a particle made just out of gluons, which

691
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 2: is really weird because it would have no matter particles inside,

692
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 2: no fermions at all, no electrons, no quarks, nothing that

693
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 2: we think of as making up matter. It would be

694
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 2: pure force.

695
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: Now do gluons only attract each other or do they

696
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: also repel each other? Or does it depend on what

697
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: color combination they are.

698
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 2: It depends on the color combination. It also depends on

699
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 2: the distance. The strong force is super duper weird, and

700
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: it's very attractive at some distances and repulsive at other distances.

701
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 2: And the strong force in general is very difficult to

702
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: understand and also to do calculations with one because it's

703
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 2: so strong. Like a lot of times when we're doing calculations,

704
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 2: the actual calculation we want to do is impossible. Say,

705
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 2: for example, I want to know how an electron is

706
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 2: going to move through the universe. To really know that,

707
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 2: I have to account for like all the electrons that

708
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 2: are out there, the electrons in other galaxies. Technically those

709
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 2: affect my electron, but because they're so far away, I

710
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,839
Speaker 2: can ignore it. I'll mostly get the right answer that's

711
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 2: not true for the strong force. The strong force is

712
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 2: so strong, so powerful that a lot of these effects,

713
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 2: other quirks in other places and gluons that are created

714
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 2: by other gluons become very very difficult to calculate and

715
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,359
Speaker 2: are not small effects. And so the approximations that help

716
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 2: us succeed in doing otherwise impossible calculations for other forces,

717
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 2: those tricks don't work for the strong force. So a

718
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 2: lot of basic stuff about the strong force we just

719
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 2: don't know how to calculate because gluons can do this

720
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 2: thing where they create other gluons, and because the force

721
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 2: itself is so so powerful.

722
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: Mmmm. Well, going back to my question, I guess is like,

723
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: what makes two gluons attract each other? Is it like

724
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: all the red ones attract anything with red or repel

725
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: anything that has read in it? You know, like you

726
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 1: have a red blue glue on, what does it get

727
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: attracted to a green blue?

728
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 2: Well, you can't have a red blue gluon. You can

729
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 2: have like a red anti blue or a blue anti red,

730
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 2: or like a red anti red gluon. But whether they're

731
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:31,720
Speaker 2: attracted to each other or repel to each other depends

732
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 2: on a lot of complicated calculations. I mean, the attraction

733
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 2: comes from like having a potential. Now, are all forces

734
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 2: in the universe really come from potential differences? Forces are

735
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:44,439
Speaker 2: due to changes in the potential. Things like to roll

736
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 2: down hill as a gravitational force because the gravitational potential

737
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 2: energy is lower at the bottom of the hill, or

738
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 2: electrons are pushed towards the nucleus because that's where the

739
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 2: bottom of the electromagnetic potential is. So to think about

740
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 2: things in terms of forces pulling or pushing, you have

741
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 2: to understand where the potential is at a minimum, and

742
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 2: that's really complicated. For the strong force, it's not always

743
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 2: that simple. Remember we even try to talk about it

744
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:10,439
Speaker 2: once for the weak force, and it's not always obvious whether,

745
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 2: for examples, W bosons and Z bosons push or pull

746
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 2: on each other. They can do both or sometimes it

747
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 2: depends on the context. And that's even more complicated here

748
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 2: for the strong force. So in some arrangements, these gluons

749
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 2: can tug on each other, create a potential minimum and

750
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 2: get trapped in this well and become a bound state.

751
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm getting the sense that it's complicated. It's complicated,

752
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: but it can seem to happen throughout If you sort

753
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: of pierce through all of the mass, there are situations

754
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: where you can get a couple of two or maybe

755
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: more gluons kind of wanting to hang out with each other,

756
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: really close together. That's kind of the idea I'm getting.

757
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, from the calculations, which are not perfect and are approximate,

758
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 2: and nobody is one hundred percent confident in them, we

759
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 2: see this prediction emerge that gluons should be able to

760
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 2: get bound to each other and create this persistent state

761
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 2: that lives for a while, not forever. It's not stable.

762
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 2: It's not like you can make a glue ball and

763
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 2: then come back a billion years later and still have

764
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 2: a glue ball. But very briefly, they'll hang out in

765
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 2: this little state, do their thing, and then explode into

766
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 2: a shower of other particles.

767
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: That's the prediction, and so when they come together, that's

768
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 1: what you would call a glue ball, Etceterronically, the gluons

769
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: don't stick around very long.

770
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: They're not as sticky as we'd like them to be.

771
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 1: Gluons are not sticky. You mean, glue balls don't stick together.

772
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: And you were saying this is a good name.

773
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 2: Maybe in super symmetry, we'll have super gluons and those

774
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 2: will make super glue balls that will really stick together.

775
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: There you go, all right, so then so gluons can't

776
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 1: stick to each other, and then you think this happens. Now,

777
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: does this happen with real gluons or virtual gluons, or

778
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:47,919
Speaker 1: it can happen to both.

779
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:50,759
Speaker 2: This happens from real gluons. So if you create enough

780
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 2: real gluons, they can come together to make a glue

781
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 2: ball in the same way that for example, if you

782
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 2: make quarks, you make a spray of quarks. Quarks do

783
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 2: not like to be a part Two quarks are very

784
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 2: far apart from each other. There's a huge potential energy there,

785
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 2: and that potential energy gets turned into other particles, and

786
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 2: those particles quickly find partners and form masons and baryons.

787
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 2: Those are combinations of pairs or triplets of quarks. So

788
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 2: for example, you have protons or pions or k masons

789
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 2: or all sorts of other stuff. You know, at the

790
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 2: Large Hadron Collider, when we smash two protons together, we

791
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 2: expose the quarks inside them. Briefly, we got these sprays

792
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 2: of quarks and gluons but they really don't like to

793
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 2: be by themselves, and so they very quickly create these

794
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 2: streams of other particles with them, and then they form

795
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 2: these states. And so what we actually see in our

796
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 2: detector are streams of like protons and chons and neutrons

797
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 2: and all sorts of other stuff. So quarks do this,

798
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 2: they find partners and form other states. And so we

799
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 2: think that maybe gluons can do this too, that like

800
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 2: two or three gluons can come together and make something

801
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 2: we call a glue.

802
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: Ball, because the math is telling you that they are

803
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: sort of compatible, that there is sort of a way

804
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 1: where you can put together two or three gluont where

805
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: they'll want to stick together exactly.

806
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 2: And they will be color neutral. They will be white.

807
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:06,600
Speaker 2: You can match all their colors together to make a

808
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 2: color neutral object, which in principles should last for a

809
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 2: little while.

810
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's stick a little bit deeper into

811
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,319
Speaker 1: what a glue ball is like and whether or not

812
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: we found it, and if we have, what does it

813
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,879
Speaker 1: mean about our understanding of the universe. But first, let's

814
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: stick another quick break. All right, we're talking about a

815
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: very sticky subject glue balls, which is what happens when

816
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: you potentially get a couple of gluons together, they'll maybe

817
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: stick to each other and form basically a ball.

818
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 2: Of glue, a literal ball of fundamental glue.

819
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're saying that if you take a

820
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: couple of gluons and they do stick together, then they

821
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't be stick anymore because it would all sort of

822
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: cancel each other out in terms of their charge. Right,

823
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: So glue ball be sticky at all, It wouldn't right,

824
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: it would just be lethal.

825
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 2: That's a great point. They'd be sticky on the inside, right,

826
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 2: but all the stickiness would be reserved for the other gluons.

827
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 2: On the other hand, you know, that's also truer protons. Technically,

828
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 2: protons have no color charge, and yet if you bring

829
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 2: a bunch of protons together, they can get stuck together

830
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 2: from the residual color charge. If you're on one side

831
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 2: of the proton, you might be closer to one of

832
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 2: the quarks than the others, so the charges don't exactly balance,

833
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 2: and that's how the nucleus is together. So in principle,

834
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 2: it might be possible to like have a bunch of

835
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 2: glue balls and have them all stick together. But yeah,

836
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 2: they're stickiest on the inside, for sure.

837
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 1: You mean they might be sticky on the outside, but

838
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,879
Speaker 1: from afar, a glue ball would not be very glue.

839
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, a glue ball technically has no color charge and

840
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 2: no electric charge either.

841
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:49,280
Speaker 1: All right, well, what else can you tell us about

842
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 1: these theoretical glue balls.

843
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 2: So it's predicted that if these gluons exist, that they

844
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:56,839
Speaker 2: would not be very very heavy. You know, they would

845
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,760
Speaker 2: only be like one to five giga electron volt in mass,

846
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 2: which is not that heavy. You know, a proton is

847
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 2: about one gigle electron bolts. So we're talking about something

848
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:09,240
Speaker 2: that's like one to five times as massive as the proton,

849
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 2: and that sounds like something we should be able to

850
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 2: discover because our collider has found things that are much

851
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 2: much heavier. We're usually limited by the energy. You want

852
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 2: to make something really massive, you have to pour enough

853
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 2: energy into the collision to make that thing, because remember

854
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 2: energy and mass are sort of interchangeable. You want to

855
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,399
Speaker 2: make a heavy Higgs boson, you have to have enough

856
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 2: energy of one hundred and twenty five protons in your collision.

857
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 2: But our collider is super powerful. It's thirteen thousand GeV

858
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 2: in the collision, so there's plenty of energy to make

859
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 2: heavy stuff. Glue balls are really pretty light in comparison,

860
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 2: They're not really very massive. There are only a few

861
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:44,839
Speaker 2: proton masses worth.

862
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting that they have mass, right the gluons, Like,

863
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: does an individual gluon have mass by itself? It's a

864
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: force force transmitting particle, Does it have mass on its own?

865
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,320
Speaker 2: It doesn't. Gluons themselves do not have mass, like photons

866
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 2: do not have mass, but a globe all would have mass,

867
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,720
Speaker 2: the same way that, like a proton has mass, Most

868
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 2: of the mass of a proton doesn't come from the

869
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 2: quarks that make it up, Like a proton is one GeV,

870
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 2: but the quarks inside of it are like one percent

871
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 2: of that mass. Most of the mass of the proton

872
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:20,280
Speaker 2: actually comes from the gluons inside the proton. Because remember

873
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 2: that mass is this weird thing. It's not just like

874
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 2: how much stuff is inside something. It's all of the

875
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 2: internal stored energy. So if you have a bunch of

876
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 2: energy stored in the bonds between your quarks, that counts

877
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 2: towards your mass. And that's true for other kinds of things,

878
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 2: like if you could get a bunch of photons and

879
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 2: store them inside something. Even if they're massless, they would

880
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 2: add to the mass of that object. In fact, you

881
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 2: take a rock and it absorbs a photon, that rock

882
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,760
Speaker 2: gets more massive because it's now absorbed that photon's energy.

883
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 2: So mass is a weird thing. You can make it

884
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 2: out of massless stuff.

885
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: Well, we talked about before, and I know we talked

886
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: about this in our book. Frequently asked questions about the

887
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: universe that the mass doesn't really exist, Like mass is

888
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: just energy, and what you think of as gravity or

889
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:09,880
Speaker 1: inertia is really just what happens when you kind of

890
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: concentrate energy in one little spot. And so that's kind

891
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 1: of what's happening here. Is like an individual gluon doesn't

892
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 1: have mass, but when you put it together with another gluon,

893
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: you're sort of trapping energy in one spot and then

894
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: suddenly you've got a little spot of energy, and so

895
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: that feels gravity and it feels inertia.

896
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what we call mass, right, that's inertial. Mass

897
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 2: is localized. Internally stored energy has this property that if

898
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 2: you push on it, it takes a force to accelerate it.

899
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 2: That's what we call inertial mass, and that's kind of

900
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,879
Speaker 2: a weird and deep mystery of the universe. But yeah,

901
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,319
Speaker 2: you can make it out of massless stuff, as you say,

902
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 2: as long as you concentrate some energy in there. And

903
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 2: glue balls definitely have energy inside them. These gluons have

904
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 2: energy even though they are massless.

905
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: All right, Well, it sounds like a glue ball is

906
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: not really sticky, and like you were saying, it's also unstable,

907
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,319
Speaker 1: like it's not only not sticky, but it doesn't want

908
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: to stick to its over.

909
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, like many of these particles, it's unstable. You know,

910
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: the proton is a very unusual particle because it is stable,

911
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 2: but every other combination of quarks, for example, is unstable.

912
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 2: Even the neutron will fall apart in about eleven minutes.

913
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 2: And these other particles, pions and chons, they're created, they

914
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 2: live sometimes very briefly before they spray out into other

915
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 2: lighter particles. And the glue ball is no different. It's

916
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 2: a combination of these strong color charged particles. But it

917
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 2: also decays into other stuff. And so for example, glue

918
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: ball can turn into two photons, or can turn into

919
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 2: like four quarks or a shower of gluons or all

920
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 2: sorts of other stuff.

921
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:43,280
Speaker 1: You can get showered with blue bits.

922
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can basically explode into little bits of glue.

923
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: Wow, doesn't sound very glue like at all. I'm slowly

924
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: ungluing your use of the name glue here. Oh man, Well,

925
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: I get The big question now is have we found

926
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: glue balls? Theoretical, we think they can exist and maybe

927
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: exist out there using our math, but have we found one?

928
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:07,720
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a googball?

929
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 2: The weird thing is that we're not sure. Sometimes it's

930
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 2: very obvious when you've discovered a particle because there's only

931
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:16,359
Speaker 2: one thing that it can do and nothing else can

932
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 2: do that. So, for example, when we discovered the Higgs boson,

933
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 2: we didn't see the Higgs directly, but we saw pairs

934
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 2: of photons that it decayed into that were flying apart

935
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,840
Speaker 2: from each other with a very specific characteristic energy. We

936
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 2: found lots and lots of examples of photons with those

937
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:34,800
Speaker 2: kinds of energies, and we said, this can only really

938
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 2: come from the Higgs boson, and therefore we're pretty sure

939
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 2: we found the Higgs boson. And the key there is

940
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 2: that it was doing something unusual, something that made it

941
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 2: like stick out from the background. Now, glue balls are

942
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 2: much more complicated because number one, we're not exactly sure

943
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 2: what they can do, Like, we're not sure exactly how

944
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 2: much masks they have. Maybe they have one GV, maybe

945
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 2: they have five GV. Maybe we're wrong and they have

946
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 2: like fifty gvre. Because the calculations we talked about are

947
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 2: very complicated and make a lot of approximations that nobody

948
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,319
Speaker 2: really believes are right, and we hope didn't mess up

949
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 2: the calculations. And also there's lots of other particles down there,

950
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 2: like the Higgs boson we found it where there are

951
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 2: very very few particles of that kind of mass, very

952
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 2: heavy particles, but there's lots and lots of very light particles.

953
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:22,919
Speaker 2: If you look at like the list of particles, there's

954
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 2: like hundreds of particles around one GeV, all sorts of

955
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 2: crazy combinations of quarks. So it's hard to pick out

956
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 2: a new one and say, oh, this one is a

957
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 2: glue ball, especially because we're not exactly sure what a

958
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: glue ball would look like.

959
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,280
Speaker 1: Hmmm, I see, the theory doesn't predict what it would look.

960
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,919
Speaker 2: Like, so the theory is impossible to do perfectly. There's

961
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 2: lots of approximations people have made, and they make different predictions.

962
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 2: Some predict like one point four GeV, some predict five GeV,

963
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 2: and they also give different predictions for how these things

964
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 2: might appear. You know, these glue balls have different properties

965
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 2: from the other particles, like they're weird internal spin and

966
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 2: other quantum states. Those might make like characteristic signatures, you know,

967
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 2: like how they turn into other particles, and how those

968
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 2: particles look. There were angles between each other and the

969
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:10,959
Speaker 2: relative spin states and this kind of stuff. But again,

970
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 2: different theoretical calculations make different predictions here, and it's also

971
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 2: sometimes hard to disentangle from what we're seeing out there. So,

972
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 2: for example, there is a particle that people have found

973
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 2: that has about one and a half GeV. It's called

974
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 2: the F zero, and there's a raging debate in the

975
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 2: literature about whether or not it is a glue ball.

976
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 2: Some people say this is totally consistent with the glue ball,

977
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 2: and other people say, no, Look, it can do this

978
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 2: and that, and gloe balls shouldn't be able to do that,

979
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:39,879
Speaker 2: so we don't think it's a glue ball. Nobody can

980
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 2: really agree about whether the F zero is a glue

981
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 2: ball or not.

982
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: Whoa wait, wait, wait a minute. You've discovered a particle

983
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: out there. You gave it the name F zero, but

984
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:50,880
Speaker 1: you don't know what it is. What do you mean

985
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: you don't know what it is? What do you mean

986
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: you've found something that you don't know what it is?

987
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:55,439
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be a big deal.

988
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 2: So we found this particle, we've seen it decay into

989
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 2: like two pions into four pions, right, and so we

990
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 2: know that it exists. We can see that it's there.

991
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,240
Speaker 2: Like you find the pions, you add up their energies,

992
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 2: they're consistent with a particle of mass one and a

993
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 2: half GeV. That doesn't mean that we know what's inside

994
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 2: the F zero, Like, is the F zero made out

995
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:17,399
Speaker 2: of two quarks? Can you explain what the F zero

996
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:19,880
Speaker 2: is doing just using quarks or do you need this

997
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 2: special gluon state to explain it? People disagree about whether

998
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 2: what the F zero is doing can be explained using

999
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 2: only quarks or requires gluons to explain it.

1000
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 1: I see, so you're not quite sure if you found

1001
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 1: a particle, you found something that could be a particle.

1002
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 2: We found something. The F zero is definitely something. It exists,

1003
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 2: We're just not sure what's inside of it? Like, is

1004
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 2: the F zero made out of quarks or is it

1005
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 2: made out of gluons? Nobody's one hundred percent sure because

1006
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 2: it's a mess down there, and it's hard to make

1007
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 2: very precise measurements of what the F zero is doing.

1008
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 2: We're sure it's there. Nobody's doubting that the F zero

1009
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 2: is real. They just don't really know exactly what it's

1010
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 2: doing and what it's made out of.

1011
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:01,360
Speaker 1: Well, are people looking for glon or is this something

1012
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 1: you're just looking at from the debris of other experiments?

1013
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,399
Speaker 1: Is there like a glue ball experiment other and are

1014
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: the scientists called glue ballers.

1015
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 2: This is a really exciting frontier in particle physics, but

1016
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 2: also very very difficult. You know, it's a place where

1017
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 2: we don't have crisp predictions and it's really hard to

1018
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,760
Speaker 2: see what's happening because everything is a big, messy spray

1019
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:25,919
Speaker 2: of particles. It's not like very crisp and clear one

1020
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 2: photon one electron bouncing off of each other like in

1021
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 2: the early days. You got like a big mess of

1022
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 2: stuff you have to sift through. But there are dedicated

1023
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 2: experiments just to understanding the strong force and specifically to

1024
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 2: understanding gluons. So at Jefferson Lab in the East Coast

1025
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 2: the United States, it is an experiment called glue x.

1026
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 2: I don't know if they pronounced it gluks or glue

1027
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 2: x or glueeks. I'm not exactly sure, but it's an

1028
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 2: experiment that's running right now to study specifically gluons. What

1029
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 2: can they do? Can we find glue balls? Can we

1030
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 2: see it doing other stuff maybe that we didn't expect?

1031
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: Have they found it?

1032
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 2: They have not yet found confirmation of glue balls. They're

1033
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:05,719
Speaker 2: trying to study this f zero, but they don't have

1034
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 2: enough data yet to confirm whether or not that's real

1035
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 2: and understand it's decay products. So far, they've been putting

1036
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 2: out preliminary studies and understanding all sorts of other things.

1037
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 2: This is a sort of general powerful detector that can

1038
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 2: study lots of different things about the strong force, because

1039
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 2: whether glue balls exists is one question, but there's so

1040
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 2: many other questions about what's going on with the strong force,

1041
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 2: and this is exploring a lot of them.

1042
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:29,839
Speaker 1: Would you say then that they're kind of stuck at

1043
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: the moment.

1044
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 2: I would say it's a sticky question.

1045
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, well, let's see if they do find

1046
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: glue balls. And it's kind of an interesting idea because

1047
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: I think, as you're saying, it's not just about finding

1048
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: the glue ball themselves. It's about understanding how the strong

1049
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 1: force works, right, Like, it's one of the fundamental forces

1050
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:51,240
Speaker 1: of nature. It's what keeps our nucleus in our atoms together.

1051
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 1: But it sounds like we don't really sort of like

1052
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: know everything about it or know exactly how it works,

1053
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: and so finding or not finding a glue ball would

1054
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:00,919
Speaker 1: sort of tell you a little bit of about what's

1055
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: going on at that level.

1056
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. The same way that understanding the

1057
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 2: structure of the atom has taught us a lot about electromagnetism.

1058
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 2: You know, why electrons fill these shells, the hyper fine

1059
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,479
Speaker 2: splitting of electron energy levels has led to a really

1060
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 2: deep understanding of magnetism and spin and electricity and all

1061
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. You know, seeing these forces in action,

1062
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 2: what kind of complex things they can do or reveals

1063
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 2: their fundamental nature. So we're trying to do the same

1064
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:28,919
Speaker 2: thing for the strong force, like see the strong force

1065
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 2: in action, see what it's capable of, what it can't do,

1066
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 2: and that'll tell us if we understand what it's doing

1067
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 2: or not. But in the end, it's much harder than

1068
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 2: it is for electromagnetism because it's more complex. Instead of

1069
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 2: one photon, we have eight gluons of all sorts of

1070
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 2: different colors, sloshing around and banging into each other and

1071
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 2: confusing each other. It's like having a conversation with eight

1072
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:49,879
Speaker 2: Toddlers at the same time.

1073
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: Every PhUSE is a stream, but it sounds like it

1074
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 1: is a prediction of the current standard model, like our

1075
00:51:56,160 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 1: current model of the universe does predicted glue balls should exist,

1076
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: and so if you find them, it would be another confirmation,

1077
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: maybe the final confirmation about the standard model. But if

1078
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: you don't find them, and you can conclusively say that

1079
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: they do not exist, then maybe we need to rethink

1080
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 1: our whole model of the universe.

1081
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. It would be almost as big

1082
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 2: a deal as discovering the Higgs boson if we did

1083
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 2: find confirmation of a glue.

1084
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: Ball or not a confirmation about blueball.

1085
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you could prove that glue balls don't exist,

1086
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 2: that would also be fascinating.

1087
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: I can just see the headline scientists fine glue balls

1088
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: do not exist.

1089
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:35,280
Speaker 2: Scientists fail to find glue balls.

1090
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:38,960
Speaker 1: Again, Scientists get stuck with blue balls. All right, Well,

1091
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, see

1092
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 1: you next time.

1093
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

1094
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 2: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

1095
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1096
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.