WEBVTT - Why is the universe inflating? 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.080 Hey, Daniel, did you have a good holiday break? Oh? 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.880 I did, but you know, as usual, I ate too much. 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.480 You mean you ate cosmically too much? Yeah, I totally 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:21.799 overdid it. I'm like on the verge of becoming a 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:26.480 black hole myself. Would you say your waistline is inflating, 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.560 I'd say a few more bites and I'd be risking 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:36.560 becoming my own personal big bang big Daniel. I'm talking 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.279 dark matter here people. Oh no, let's cut to the 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:58.640 theme song. Cut to the theme song. Hi am or 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:03.280 handmade cartoonist and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.760 I'm a particle physicist, and I am actually full of 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.480 dark matter. Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.600 the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in which 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.520 we examine all things fascinating and amazing and bonkers about 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.920 our universe and explain them to you in a way 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.399 that you can actually understand. So it's a new decade here, 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:25.520 and so, Daniel, what do we have to look forward 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.679 to in physics? What do we have to look forward 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.880 to in physics? Wow? So much? There are all sorts 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.080 of new exciting telescopes coming online that will let us 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.800 see further and further into the ancient past. The Large 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.199 Hadron Collider is going to keep running and maybe discover 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.440 some crazy new particles. But you know the best thing 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.640 about looking forward in physics is that we have no 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.760 idea what we're going to discover. There are always surprises 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.640 out there waiting for us. There are surprises everywhere. Yeah, 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.200 that's awesome. Yeah there might be Hey, a new kind 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.000 of plantain or a strawberry flavored banana discovered by scientists somewhere. 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:04.040 You never know science. It's what's for dinner, and so 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:05.760 there's a lot of good stuff to look forward to. 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.160 I look forward to in looking back and thinking, Man, 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.720 those folks in had no idea what was coming. Interesting. 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:16.840 You look forward to the future so you can laugh 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.920 at the past. Yeah, it's a wonderful feeling to think, 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.160 look at what we know about the universe, and look 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.600 at how the people before us, including ourselves ten years ago, 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.880 really had no clue what was coming. And that's exciting 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.320 to me because it makes me enthusiastic about the next 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.679 ten years. You know, the mind blowing discoveries that physics 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.239 and the rest of science will reveal. Man, you're making 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:43.839 me feel bad about humans. They were so clueless, oh man, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.919 with their like new Facebook craze and they didn't even 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.720 have TikTok or Instagram. No, but we learned a lot 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.960 about the universe in the twenty tens. You know, we 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.120 saw a whole bunch of new exo planets and discovered 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.320 the Higgs boson, and you are there really some pretty 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.359 big shifts that our understanding of the universe in the 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.919 last ten years. And since science is just accelerating exponentially, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.520 then I look forward to even more mind blowing stuff 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.040 in the decade to come. Yeah, and technically we have 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.680 more universe now than we had in Right, the universe 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.760 is constantly expanding and getting bigger. There's new space being created, 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.600 so we have also that to look forward to. Right 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.600 in the future, there there will be even more space. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.280 That's right, in the future, you will occupy a smaller 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:35.200 fraction of the universe because the universe is inflating. Oh no, wait, 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.280 so you're saying that the people in were more significant 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.280 than we are. Well, you know, what's the fraction of 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.800 infinity is still zero so relatively speaking. But you know, 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:47.520 I had a listener right in and make a really 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.680 fascinating point about the expansion of the universe that I 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.320 had never thought of before. Yeah, And they said, well, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.600 what about in time travel books, if you go back 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.720 in time, then doesn't your body occupy a smaller space 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.920 in the universe back then than it does now? And 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.160 how do you account for that? And it's true, you know, 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:12.200 the space that you occupied twenty years ago has expanded 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.320 to a larger space, and so somehow you have to 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.520 factor that into your time travel novel. WHOA like if 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.000 you if you send your consciousness back, it has to 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.560 somehow fit into a smaller package or something. Yeah, it 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.560 has to shrink exactly. You gotta squeeze your way back 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.520 into the universe from ten years ago or twenty years ago. 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.320 On today's episode, we are going to not look forward 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.040 in time, but we're going to try to look backwards 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.080 in time almost as much as you can look backwards. Right, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.880 that's right. We're gonna try to rewind all the way 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.080 back to the very beginning. Because I've noticed that in 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.599 conversations with listeners and just with folks around campus, that 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.880 there's still a lot of misunderstandings about the very beginning 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.240 of the universe. Right, because right now we have a 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.680 lot of space, there's a lot of universe, but at 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.839 some point in the past there was very little of 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.280 the universe. I don't know. I mean, I think right 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.080 now the universe is pretty dilute, but in the past, 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.280 the universe was more dense. It could be that the 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.159 universe has been infinite since its conception. So in that sense, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.039 it doesn't really make sense to talk about having less universe. 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:20.760 It's just more compact, right, A denser infinity, yes, a 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:26.000 denser infinity exactly, versus a water down infinity, which you know, 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.599 it just doesn't taste as good. That's right. But I 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:31.400 think a lot of people when you talk about the 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.960 beginning of the universe and the Big Bang, they have 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.000 sort of an old idea in their head of what 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.560 the Big Bang was like this just this big explosion 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.159 from a singularity, and that's not really the modern view. Wait, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.719 you're saying the name big bang doesn't actually describe the 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.640 Big Bang. I think it was pretty big and it 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.040 might have been a bang, so you know, from that 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.400 point of view. But I think the ideas in people's 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.800 heads need updating. I see, it's it's a kind of 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:00.560 big bang, yes, exactly. Big Bang and compass is like 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.280 a whole spectrum of ideas and physics has moved on, 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.599 while popular conception is sort of stuck in the eighties version, right, 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:10.839 And so this is a question that you said to me. 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.880 A lot of listeners asked wrote in to ask about 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.400 a lot of people are wondering and asking us to 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:20.000 explain what this idea is. Yeah, and so, as usually, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:21.600 we want to cater to our listeners. We want to 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.719 answer the questions that are in your minds, and we 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:26.640 want to bring you to the forefront of science. We 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.240 want you to understand what scientists out there, who are 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.000 experts in this field, who know the most that any 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.479 human is ever known about the beginning of the universe, 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.160 what they are thinking about. We want to explain it 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.360 to you in a way that makes sense. So that's 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.880 our goal. So today on the episode, we'll be asking 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:54.040 the question, what is cosmic inflation? Inflation? Inflation? That's right, 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.839 it's not controlled by the Federal Reserve. It's not the 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.320 reason why your bank account is emptying. Wait, you mean 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.599 cosmic interest rate? Don't don't make a difference here. No, 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.000 we can't borrow money from the other universe. Orything can 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.720 my cosmic debt somehow bring it down? That's your karmic debt, actually, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:15.760 and there's nothing you can do about that. Then do 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.120 good things for people, like explain the universe to them. 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.880 I think that's definitely a positive on the karmic debt, 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.080 right right, But today we're talking about cosmic inflation, and 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:27.320 that kind of sounds simple. It just means that the 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:32.200 cosmos is getting bigger or got bigger. But in this case, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.800 scientists use this phrase for something very specific, right, like 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.400 a very specific moment in time right after the Big Bang. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.040 Sort Of, it's both a specific moment in time that's 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.239 after the Big Bang, it's also sort of our modern 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.840 view of what the Big Bang was, and and it's 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:57.240 also connects the like primordial inflation, these first moments when 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.360 the universe is expanding with the current inflation, and it 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.440 says maybe these things are connected. So it's sort of 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.360 like saying the Big Bang wasn't the moment of creation. 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.000 It happened just afterwards. And it's saying maybe the Big 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.480 Bang is still banging. We're still banging, yes, exactly, that's 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.240 how big this bang is. Well, it sounds like it's 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.280 it's pretty interesting and maybe there are a lot of 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.320 subtle ideas here, so we'll get into all of that. 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.760 But first, as usual, we were wondering how many people 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.480 out there heard of the phrase cosmic inflation and if 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.400 they knew what it was. That's right. And so since 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.680 it was winter break and you see, Irvine was closed, 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.760 I walked around coffee shops in Irvine and I asked 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.400 random strangers who were amenable to being interrogated about physics 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.000 topics while on their holiday break if they knew anything 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.000 about cosmic inflation. Here's what they had to say. Oh, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:50.560 I feel like I've heard the term, but I do 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:56.719 not know what it means. Um, cosmic inflation is that 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.680 like the theory where everything in space is like constantly 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:04.360 moving away from itself, like there's an explosion and everything's 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.120 still expanding. Yeah, I have no idea. I think it 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.920 means that just like crowding together, maybe like everything's coming together, 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:17.520 but I don't know. The universe is expanding and getting 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.079 bigger with each but as time passes, so something that's 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.920 happening now or in the past, it's still happening from 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.559 the universe. That's something that's happening now or in the 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.680 beginning the universe, or it's always been happening. Yes, what 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.719 is it? That's essentially the basis of the big bank theory? Okay, Um, 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.280 when did it happen fourteen point three billion years ago? 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:44.240 We might have more more satellites of space, space stations 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.559 or something. I have no idea. I mean it sounds 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.920 like the expansion of space, cosmic inflation. No, alright, a 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.240 lot of knows I feel, not a lot of inflated 0:09:55.280 --> 0:10:01.520 answers here. No, no, no, and confusion people thinking like 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.240 space is getting smaller or the Earth is getting more crowded. 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.960 That maybe they thought space was getting devalued. Maybe there's 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.120 the there's the negative flip side to it that surprised. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.040 The market for space is sad oversaturated. So better spend 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:22.000 your space now before it's worth nothing. Better use it up. Better, 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.960 eat more so you can take up more space. That's 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.440 that's my New Year's resolution. Eat more dark matter, take 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:33.480 up more space, make more dark better. But there were 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.960 some some core ideas here. You know, people have heard 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.239 of some connection to the Big Bang or some ideas 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.280 for things that happened in the early universe. So there's 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.480 definitely some nuggets there Yeah. A lot of people said 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.040 it related to the expansion of the universe, which is 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.960 I guess not a big stretch, right. Inflation and expansion 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.839 sort of sound the same. Yeah, And in fact I 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:53.920 think they're right. It is related to the expansion of 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.360 the universe as far as we know, which is not 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.800 very much, it turns out, you know, and this is 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.160 fascinating to me because it's something where we've made a 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.520 lot of progress in the last twenty years coming up 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:06.480 with new, crazy ideas about the universe, but something that 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.319 we're also still puzzled over, Like there are huge unanswered 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.360 questions about the Big Bang and cosmic inflation. There are 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.120 things that scientists are arguing about. You know, the guy 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.960 who came up with inflation, one of the architects of 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.280 the theory, Paul Steinhardt, is now the guy arguing against 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:27.640 the theory most Yeah, he's trying to deflate inflation, that's right. 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.160 He's trying to pop the bubble of his own creation. 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.600 So what's interesting I think is that, you know, if 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.200 you had asked what is the Big Bang, a lot 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.200 of people might have said, yes, it has had some 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.000 ideas about that. It's about the beginning of the universe, 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.120 but cosmic inflation, which is almost as important, doesn't have 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.280 the same kind of market recognition. Yeah, and that's what 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.840 we're going to try to correct today on the podcast. 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.080 We're gonna bring some panash to cosmic inflation. We're gonna 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.959 show people how big bang is sort of the old 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:58.040 busted theory and cosmic inflation is the new hotness. M 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.200 it's a new bang. It's the new bang. That's right 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:06.960 out with the old bang, in with it's climb. Are 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.360 you still banging the old way? Man? What's wrong with you? Try? 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:16.240 Are you physics bace banging? Yeah? I don't know what 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.400 advertisers are going to go for that. Somebody out there 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.920 has got a product that fits that. Alright, Diana, So 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.440 let's get into it. Let's get into this idea of 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.960 cosmic inflation. So, first of all, what is how would 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:34.200 you define inflation in a physics way? Basically, inflation is 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.160 the expansion of space. It's saying, let's take space and 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.400 stretch it. Let's make space bigger and it it's important 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.920 there to understand that it's not the moving of stuff 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.960 through space. It's really the stretching of space itself. So 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.440 are we stretching space or creating new space both both. 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.720 That is how you stretch spaces and you create new space. 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:57.959 I see, like there's more meters. It's not like the 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.400 meter got bigger, so it's just more meters of space. Yeah, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.320 there are more meters of space. So stuff can be 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.160 further apart without moving through space. Right. It's like if 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.520 you take a ruler and you put a penny on 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:13.880 the one meter and on the two m and then 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.760 you stretch the ruler. The ruler itself is like may 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.480 out of elastic, and you stretch the rulers to make 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.160 it longer than the two pennies are further apart even 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.679 though they haven't moved relative to the ruler. That's expansion 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.400 of space. That's inflation of space. Right. But it's not 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.720 just that the ruler expanded. It's like the wood of 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.400 the ruler got bigger. You definitely add more to the ruler. Okay, 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.760 And so that's different than kind of the old idea 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:44.520 of how the Big Bank happened after the beginning of time. Yeah, 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.840 so let's dig into that in that way. Let's like 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.280 define what I think most people think the Big Bang 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.640 was and the sort of old idea of what the 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.360 universe was, and then let's contrast it with with sort 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.640 of what they should replace in their heads with. Okay, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.640 so what's the old thing. The old thing, I think 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:03.280 is this idea that the universe started from a point 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:08.520 like a singularity and infinitely dense dot primordial atom, which 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.880 was a point in space. It was like somewhere and 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.240 it was infinitely dense. And remember, like nobody has in 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.520 the idea where this thing might have come from, what 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.760 could have created it. But that's sort of just like 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.400 swept under the rug, you know, the primordial rug, Like well, 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.360 you know, we don't know what came before, but let's 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.720 just start from there. Right, it was like a little tiny, 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:30.480 infinitely energetic package in sitting in space actually right like 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.520 it was. People think it was like a grenade sitting there. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.480 It was really really small, exactly, And that's really key 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.520 insight there that space was already created. You already had space, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:41.640 and you just had this dot in space. And then 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.560 it exploded and that stuff then flew out and it 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.560 spread out and slowly got more and more dilute, right 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.120 less dense like an explosion would, and spread out to 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.880 eventually form of the universe, and that's the stuff moving 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.440 through space. And that's what we call in science the 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.000 hot big Bang model. The hot big Bang is now 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.320 the old Big Bang. It's right, you know, it's like 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.480 your ex girlfriend and boyfriends. You still think they're hot, 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.880 but it's not really for you anymore. Man. So that's 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.440 probably the idea most people have in their heads when 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.120 you say big bang or creation in the universe. And 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.080 I think that's what I thought that the Big Bang was, 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.440 you know, way before, when I was in high school 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.560 or before I started hanging out with physicists, was that 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:27.400 the Big Bang is really just like a bang, Like 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.160 everything that we know about was in a small spot 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.720 and then it just exploded. And now all the stars 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:34.800 and galaxies and dust that was in that little bit 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.640 doot are now flying through space outwards. Yeah. And you know, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.840 when you started hanging out with physicists, basically the moment 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.200 your universe was created. Everything else before that is like, oh, 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:50.760 waste of time. I see you. You created my universe, Daniel, 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.880 my universe started. There's nothing before I met you. There 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:58.160 you're supposed to go with you complete my universe. You're 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.280 saying you made my universe. Then that's even more romantic. Wow. 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.480 Well all right, yeah, I think on the back pedal 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:06.440 on that a little bit, But no, you're right, and 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.400 I think that's what most people think um as sort 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:11.400 of how the universe began, and you know, there's lots 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.400 of questions there um. But one big problem with that 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.600 conception is that it has a center, has a place 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.520 where the Big Bang happened. And if you were looking 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.040 at the explosion from any point of view, you would 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.640 see stuff sort of flying sideways, unless you happen to 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.760 be at the center, then everything would be flying in 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.560 a certain direction, right, and you could tell maybe where 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.880 the center of the universe was just by looking at 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.360 where all the things were, and you're flying away from 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.680 precisely and as a foreshadowing moment, that's not what we 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.480 see when we look out into space. Yeah. So at 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:50.400 some point a humanity physicist and scientists decided or started 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.400 to realize that this old model of the big band 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.760 was not the right one. Yeah. I mean it's a 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.400 good first draft. Like we're thinking about the universe, is 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.680 expanding what could have created it. You know, we don't 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.400 want to criticize those scientists, is being dumb or something 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:06.520 It's just sort of like science evolves, and this is 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.840 how it evolves. You have an idea, you compare it 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.159 to what you see. Doesn't quite work, so you improved 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:16.199 the idea. Right, They did a bang up job. It 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.520 was a big project. But but what I guess what 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:21.720 I mean is it at what point did we start 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.439 to sort of realize maybe this view was not the 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.439 correct one. Well, there's been a lot of problems with 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.120 the Big Bang basically since early on. You know when 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.320 ed when Hubble looked out into the universe and realized 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.719 it's like a hundred years ago that the universe was expanding, 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.480 That's sort of what gave birth to this concept of 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.760 a big Bang. He's the one who discovered that everything 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.200 was moving away from us, and everything was moving away 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.480 from us sort of the same speed in every direction 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.159 you looked. So this is an outstanding problem for the 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.639 Big Bang for a long time, and it wasn't until 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.440 this idea of inflation came along that it helped solve it. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.760 So the Big Bang was not like totally accepted for 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.280 many many decades. And one problem what with it was, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:06.679 you know, are we at the center? Why does it 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.480 look like we are at the center. Oh, I see. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.119 He tried to figure out where the center of the 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.520 grenade was, and so he looked around and he found 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.520 that the center was us, which is weird, which was like, 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.000 too coincidental. It's too coincidental. Any time in science you 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:23.760 appear to be at the center of the universe, you 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:28.520 gotta wonder my biased or I'm just thinking about this wrong. 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.000 You know, you want to avoid coincidences. You want to 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.359 avoid things that are really unlikely, or especially things that 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.320 put humanity in the very important place in the cosmos. 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.680 Because we've made that mistake before, right, Like before we thought, 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.639 we like the Earth with decent was the center of 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:46.600 the Solar system. More than that, we thought it was 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.240 the center of the cosmos, right without everything was created 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.520 around the Earth, Yeah, right, right, And then it turns 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.480 out that the Sun, not even the Sun, is the 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.960 center of the universe. It's like just one star in 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.359 the rotating galaxy, which is part of something even bigger. Yeah, 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:04.800 And we like to think more democratically now. We like 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.920 to think that every point in space is equal, not 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.560 because they're voting or anything, but just that you know, 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.760 there should be no special locations because special locations require 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.160 special explanations. It just makes the most sense if everywhere 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.000 in space follows the same rules and is the same. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:21.720 And that's why I like the Big Bang is a 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:23.639 point never really made sense to me, because then you 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.159 can always ask, like, well, why they're why did the 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.400 Big Bang start there and not like a meter over 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:30.640 or over there or a light year in the other direction, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.000 why they're nowhere else? And so you avoid those questions 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.240 if you say, everywhere in the universe is the same. 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.560 All right, So that's the old bang, the old hot bang, 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.320 and now let's talk about the new hotter bang, I guess, 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.520 and in terms of trendiness um and why why we 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.639 think it happened and why is it still a mystery? 0:19:49.760 --> 0:20:06.200 But first let's take a quick break. Okay, So Danny 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.320 telling me that the universe, the Big Bang is not 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.760 like a grenade that exploded that was full stuff and 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.840 then exploded, But the universe, the Big Bang is actually 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.600 something different where new space is being created and space 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.040 is being stretched. It's not an explosion, that's right. And 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.120 we still have to reconcile the fact that we think 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.479 the universe was more dense in the past than it 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.840 is today, and that makes you want to go to 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.840 the explosion explanation because you know, like, how else could 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:37.040 it happen? Right, because the grenade was denser before the explosion, 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.760 So you might be tempted to apply to our universe. Yeah, 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.760 So another approach and a better way to think about 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.600 it that it requires swallowing a really big idea, is 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.800 that the Big Bang essentially happened everywhere all at once. 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.840 That the universe wasn't created as a tiny singularity which 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.359 then exploded, but that the entire uni verse, an infinite 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:05.960 universe filled with an infinite amount of stuff, was created somehow, 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.760 we don't know how, in a very dense state, and 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.520 the Big Bang was the expansion of that state, the 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:16.400 stretching of space itself to make that stuff more dilute. 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.840 But that it was created everywhere and happened everywhere all 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.000 at once. So like that's an infinitely big bang. Okay, 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.720 So you're saying that the universe was has always been infinite. 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:28.600 It's not like it started as a point and became 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.600 exploited into infinity. You're saying that the universe was always infinite, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.760 but that before it was like a dance and compact 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.000 infinite infinity but now it's more of a bigger and 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.800 more expanded infinity. Precisely, that's the idea. And of course 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.119 we don't know the size of the universe, and we 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:48.480 don't even know it's shape, but this is the idea. 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:52.639 It explains what we see, an infinite universe created infinitely 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.480 big and always filled with an infinite amount of stuff. 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.359 There's no edge to the matter, and there's no edge 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.439 to the universe, and just started out really hot and 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.800 dense and then stretched out right, But that's only one possibility, right, 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.400 that it's infinite. It could also be that the universe 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.480 is finite as far as we know. Right, it could 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:13.600 be right, but it at least has to be big 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:18.840 enough to fill our observable universe with a homogeneous stuff. Right. 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.000 If there is an edge to the stuff in the universe, 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.439 we don't see that, and so it has to be 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.800 really really big and and pretty uniform, at least in 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.480 our neighborhood. So it's possible that there's an edge to 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.960 the stuff in the universe. But it's sort of simpler somehow. 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.560 It's weird. It's weird. It's simpler to imagine an infinite 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:39.520 universe with infinite stuff because then you don't have to 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.199 explain the edges. Even though I can't explain how you 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:45.480 create an infinite universe with an infinite amount of stuff 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:50.159 in it either, well, nobody can explain it finite universe either. Right, 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.920 All this stuff defies explanation. But you know it's it's 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:55.880 like pushing the rock further up the hill. You don't 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:58.159 have to have the answer to every question. You just 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:00.119 have to ask have the answer to this question in 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:02.680 and then it gives you the next question. Like if 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:06.480 you say, let's assume the universe started infinitely large, filled 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.920 with an infinite amount of stuff, then what would have happened? 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.159 And you can show that that's consistent with what we 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:13.320 see so far, then you get to go back to 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.800 that other question, say, okay, let's roll up our sleeves 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:19.320 and figure out how it's possible to create an infinite universe. Um. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.119 So that is that your approach to teaching as well, Daniel, 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.160 Just make it up as you go along, push all 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:28.160 the problems off until tomorrow. That's my approach to life. 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:34.800 Yes to my inbox as well. Yeah, and so the 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:38.679 idea is you create an infinite universe filled with an 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.480 infinite amount of stuff, but it's very hot and dense. Right, 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.520 it's like a huge singularity essentially. Okay, so I think 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:46.159 you're saying that the best way to think about the 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:48.840 big band it's not as like a little point that exploded, 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.320 but just as an infinity going from a really dense 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:57.640 infinity to a bigger infinity. Yeah, And that's what cosmic 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:01.840 inflation is, is taking that really dense um infinity and 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:06.320 stretching it out to a much more dilute infinity, because 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:09.040 that is what we see, that's what we have evidence for, right, 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:12.640 Like we see that the universe is really sparse and 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:15.159 I'm kind of empty now, and and we see that 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:19.320 everything used to be much much denser. Yeah, we need 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:21.879 to have inflation order to explain a bunch of stuff 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:24.120 that we see in the universe. And we can get 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:26.240 into that in a few minutes if you like. But 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:30.000 this explains why the universe looks the way that it does. 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:34.119 And without inflation, the universe doesn't really make sense. Like 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:38.200 if you just create the universe at this current density 0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:41.920 and said it expanding now um ten billion years ago, 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:44.400 it wouldn't make sense. It doesn't explain what we see. 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:47.040 So you need to have this inflationary period in order 0:24:47.040 --> 0:24:49.040 to get all the sort of the clumpiness and the 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.840 structure that we see in the temperature of stuff all correct. Okay, 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:55.920 So I think that's another key concept about inflation, which 0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:59.160 is that it's not you know, the universe went from 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:03.560 a as infinity to a wider infinity, but it didn't 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:06.119 do it sort of evenly, right, like there were there 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:08.400 was a period of time where it was really expanding 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:11.159 really fast, and now it's expanding but not as fast. 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:14.239 And so what do you call inflation? Is it that 0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:16.600 rapid expansion or is it the whole thing, or is 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:20.760 it that's still kind of undecided. That's a little bit fuzzy. Yeah, 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:23.800 I think if you talk to most cosmologists, they would 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:27.600 think about inflation as this very narrow period from tend 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:31.320 to the minus thirty six seconds after somehow the universe 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:34.440 was created, to tend to the minus thirty two seconds 0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:37.119 after the universe was created, in which you had this 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.480 enormous expansion in the universe. It seems like a factor 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:43.520 of ten to the twenty six. That's what they would 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:46.240 think of as inflation. But I'd also like to think 0:25:46.280 --> 0:25:48.480 about what, you know, what expansion is still happening, and 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:50.760 so maybe this is still really part of inflation. But 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:53.640 that was the most dramatic moment, and so I think, 0:25:54.119 --> 0:25:56.000 you know, if you talk about inflation, that's the moment 0:25:56.040 --> 0:25:58.520 that people are thinking about. Oh, I see, like we're 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:01.480 maybe it's just at the air party of the inflation, 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:05.160 but you could technically maybe still call it inflation night, 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:07.840 you know, like the Oscar's Night. That's right, is the 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:10.600 celebration after the super Bowl part of the super Bowl. Yeah, 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:14.639 you know, but it's nothing like yeah, like the tailgating 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:18.719 counts as part of the event, surely, yeah, exactly. The 0:26:18.720 --> 0:26:21.359 tailgating created the whole thing. It's only because the fans 0:26:21.400 --> 0:26:23.880 and you can even have a super Bowl. So there 0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:26.000 you go. And one of my favorite things about inflation 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:28.880 is just sort of the mind boggling numbers. We're talking 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:31.320 about a really brief amount of time. Tend to the 0:26:31.400 --> 0:26:35.120 minus thirty two seconds. It's like impossible to think about. 0:26:35.119 --> 0:26:38.680 We talked recently on a podcast about how long particles live, 0:26:39.160 --> 0:26:41.000 and I said that they last like ten to the 0:26:41.040 --> 0:26:45.439 minus twenty three seconds, which seems impossibly short, but you know, 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:48.000 compared to tend to the minus thirty six. That's a 0:26:48.119 --> 0:26:50.720 huge amount of time. The ideas that the universe went 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:57.400 from almost or actually infinitely dense and infinitely dense infinity 0:26:58.000 --> 0:27:02.480 to a less infinite lead dance infinity in a matter 0:27:02.520 --> 0:27:06.879 of seconds or fractions of fractions of a second. And 0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:10.080 the expansion also is incredible. I mean ten to the 0:27:10.160 --> 0:27:13.760 twenty six expansion is hard to get your mind around. Yeah, 0:27:13.840 --> 0:27:18.120 it would take one meter and expanded to ten billion 0:27:18.359 --> 0:27:20.760 light years. That's what happened at the beginning of time. 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:24.120 Is that a meter, Like suddenly a meter became ten 0:27:24.119 --> 0:27:26.960 billion light years. Yeah, so the stuff that's in a 0:27:27.000 --> 0:27:30.000 meter of space got stretched out and spread out over 0:27:30.160 --> 0:27:33.560 ten billion light years in a matter of ten to 0:27:33.760 --> 0:27:36.640 minus thirty two seconds. Yeah, one pachinko second or whatever 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:41.240 that unit is second. You know, if you're a cosmology is, 0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:43.680 you get to make up whatever terms like because you're 0:27:43.960 --> 0:27:47.440 this is uncharted territory in terms of scientific prefixes. Right, 0:27:47.600 --> 0:27:49.199 I think I think you should claim it right now, 0:27:49.640 --> 0:27:52.320 go online to chink that's the sound of me claiming 0:27:52.359 --> 0:27:56.240 pachinko second and then gaining royalties from it. Then you 0:27:56.280 --> 0:27:59.240 get to change seconds and the other thing to wrap 0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:01.400 your mind around is that this is stuff that's happening 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:04.439 faster than the speed of light. You know, light can't 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:07.719 travel ten billion light years in ten to the minus 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:10.840 thirty two seconds, obviously, right, it would take ten billion 0:28:10.920 --> 0:28:14.880 light years years to cross that distance. That's right, even 0:28:14.880 --> 0:28:17.040 Han Solo would take twelve par Sex to get that far. 0:28:18.600 --> 0:28:20.159 Which hand Solo though? That do you want here? The 0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:24.600 old of course, the old one, the original? And I 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:26.320 want to get a shout out to all those fans 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:28.960 out there who wrote in and gave me an explanation 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:32.239 for why Han Solo quoted his Kessel run time in 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:36.240 par Sex because he found a shortcut. He wasn't using 0:28:36.240 --> 0:28:38.240 it as a measure of time. He was referring to 0:28:38.280 --> 0:28:40.520 the fact that he took a trip near some gravitational well, 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:43.440 which basically shortened his trip through space. So thank you 0:28:43.480 --> 0:28:45.880 to all those fans who educated me on the physics 0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:48.560 of Star Wars. Sounds like a whole episode we should do, 0:28:48.920 --> 0:28:52.520 We should, certainly. But the idea here is that space 0:28:52.560 --> 0:28:55.040 expanded faster than the speed of light. And so for 0:28:55.080 --> 0:28:57.880 those of you physics afficionados who are thinking, what nothing 0:28:57.920 --> 0:29:00.240 can go fast in the speed of light, you're night 0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:02.360 that nothing can go faster than the speed of light 0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:06.800 through space. But there's no limit to how fast space 0:29:06.840 --> 0:29:09.600 can expand really no limit. You think you think space 0:29:09.640 --> 0:29:14.440 can expand infinitely. Well, it made a pretty impressive expansion 0:29:14.440 --> 0:29:16.280 in the first few moments of the universe. I mean, 0:29:16.360 --> 0:29:18.680 I'm impressed we are not aware of a limit. I 0:29:18.680 --> 0:29:20.840 mean there could be a limit, but you know, we 0:29:20.880 --> 0:29:25.280 have evidence that this expansion happened in a mind boggling speed. 0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:27.360 So things that used to be close by, they used 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:30.280 to be like a meter apart, where all of a sudden, 0:29:30.880 --> 0:29:35.120 cosmically separated. They were in their own essentially observable universes. 0:29:35.160 --> 0:29:37.280 You know, they could no longer see each other or 0:29:37.280 --> 0:29:42.280 communicate with each other. That's a little sad. You know, 0:29:42.440 --> 0:29:45.480 something tore them apart. Yeah, something tore them apart. And 0:29:45.560 --> 0:29:48.720 that's actually an important clue as to why we think 0:29:48.800 --> 0:29:52.280 inflation happened. And you know, this kind of expansion is 0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:55.200 the same kind of expansion that we're talking about now 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:58.120 that we're talking about for dark energy. You know, people 0:29:58.240 --> 0:30:01.160 in the interviews who said, huh, in space expanding now 0:30:01.280 --> 0:30:06.320 is cosmic inflation talking about the current expansion of the universe. Maybe, right, 0:30:06.400 --> 0:30:09.120 that there's no difference in the kind of expansion we're 0:30:09.160 --> 0:30:12.120 seeing now that's driven by dark energy and the kind 0:30:12.120 --> 0:30:15.280 of expansion that we're talking about for cosmic inflation. They're 0:30:15.320 --> 0:30:20.360 the same expansion of space, right, And so so this was, 0:30:20.840 --> 0:30:25.400 um what we that short, super crazy period happened near 0:30:25.440 --> 0:30:29.560 the beginning of time, and it happened really fast, but 0:30:29.600 --> 0:30:32.680 we don't know kind of why it happened, right, We 0:30:32.720 --> 0:30:35.160 don't know what happened, and we don't know why it 0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:38.000 stopped happening and sort of cool off for a while, 0:30:38.480 --> 0:30:40.920 and then we don't know why it started happening a 0:30:40.960 --> 0:30:44.520 little bit again five billion years ago when dark energy 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:47.120 sort of started taking over the universe. So yeah, we 0:30:47.160 --> 0:30:50.520 don't understand the mechanism of it at all, right, but 0:30:50.560 --> 0:30:52.920 it is pretty crazy, and maybe that is that kind 0:30:52.920 --> 0:30:55.080 of where the idea of a big band came from, 0:30:55.160 --> 0:30:58.400 Like from this crazy expansion. It's almost like an explosion 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:01.080 of space, right, you might call it or a bang 0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:04.000 of space, or I think the original name big Bang 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:06.400 came as a sort of a joke trying to mock 0:31:06.480 --> 0:31:09.440 somebody else's scientific theory, and that was thinking of the 0:31:09.480 --> 0:31:13.040 universe is starting from a point and an explosion through space. 0:31:13.360 --> 0:31:15.600 And people were like, what are you suggesting as a 0:31:15.680 --> 0:31:18.200 theory of the whole universe? Something as whimsical as that 0:31:18.320 --> 0:31:21.280 Big Bang? You know, I think probably said with a 0:31:21.280 --> 0:31:25.560 snotty British accident, you know exactly what the sneer, right, 0:31:26.400 --> 0:31:29.840 the curled lip, but it caught on it like the 0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:34.680 Big mag like the Big mag. It was catchy precisely, 0:31:34.720 --> 0:31:37.280 and you know it has its own special sauce. And 0:31:38.960 --> 0:31:41.120 but it is sort of it is sort incredible that 0:31:41.360 --> 0:31:43.160 I mean, it's sort of like if you were alive 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:45.479 back then, it would you would not survive that, right, 0:31:45.520 --> 0:31:47.800 It would feel like an explosion. It would feel like 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:52.840 this crazy violent, uh you know, sudden thing that it 0:31:52.960 --> 0:31:55.920 just happened suddenly. Yeah, if you're two ms high, then 0:31:55.920 --> 0:31:59.840 you would suddenly become a twenty billion light year long 0:32:00.160 --> 0:32:03.720 staying on the universe. Right, I feel like I'm a 0:32:03.760 --> 0:32:06.480 staying in the universe now that yeah, but you're localized, 0:32:06.880 --> 0:32:10.760 like infinitely stayed. Do you want to be a cosmic 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:13.719 smear in the universe? You know? And if you are 0:32:13.760 --> 0:32:16.600 reading that time travel device, be careful don't go back 0:32:16.600 --> 0:32:21.120 to far because you do not want to experience cosmic inflation, right, 0:32:21.120 --> 0:32:23.640 but you know it's it's space and time are tied together. 0:32:23.800 --> 0:32:27.000 So is this was time also moving slower or was 0:32:27.120 --> 0:32:31.000 time moving? Is this all measured at the same time scale? 0:32:31.480 --> 0:32:33.400 Oh yeah, that's a great question and a deep one, 0:32:33.600 --> 0:32:36.040 and we don't really understand. But we're measuring these things 0:32:36.080 --> 0:32:39.959 according to our time, so our proper time. You know 0:32:40.040 --> 0:32:42.800 what when you have experienced in terms of time, if 0:32:42.840 --> 0:32:46.040 you're living through that period, I don't know. And we 0:32:46.040 --> 0:32:49.080 don't really have a mechanism for explaining how this happened. 0:32:49.080 --> 0:32:51.120 We just sort of sort of describing that it did. 0:32:51.680 --> 0:32:53.960 And so we don't understand, like, is this part of 0:32:54.000 --> 0:32:56.480 general relativity, there's some term you can add to the 0:32:56.480 --> 0:32:59.720 equations of general realtivity that create this expansion, or is 0:32:59.720 --> 0:33:02.719 it some totally different than it is stretching space? And 0:33:02.800 --> 0:33:05.000 so the answer to how it affects time depends a 0:33:05.040 --> 0:33:07.960 little bit on the details of what's doing it, whether 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:12.240 it's part of general relativity or not. I think time 0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:16.200 itself cost inflation about that? Is that a new idea? 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:21.320 Lame Craig lame credit to that high fi novel. That's right, 0:33:21.360 --> 0:33:24.880 that is officially your idea. And look forward to seeing 0:33:24.920 --> 0:33:28.280 the paper you're writing on it. All right, let's get 0:33:28.320 --> 0:33:31.480 into why we think costmic inflation even happened in the 0:33:31.520 --> 0:33:33.960 first place, and let's get into what is still a 0:33:34.000 --> 0:33:50.000 big mystery about it. But first let's take another break. Okay, 0:33:50.080 --> 0:33:53.960 Daniel Lid we're talking about cosmic inflation, which is the 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:56.160 new Big Bang? Should we just call it the big 0:33:56.480 --> 0:34:03.440 inflationary Bang, the Biggest Bang? Maybe the bangie inflation. But 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:05.800 so that's a crazy idea, that this idea that the 0:34:05.960 --> 0:34:11.320 universe went from an infinitely dense infinity to a less 0:34:11.440 --> 0:34:15.600 infinitely dense infinity in less than ten to the twenty 0:34:15.640 --> 0:34:18.760 six seconds. That's crazy. It's crazy. But you know, the 0:34:18.880 --> 0:34:23.560 universe and reality are no stranger to absurdity, right, They 0:34:23.560 --> 0:34:26.480 don't care what your definition of crazy is. Yeah, and 0:34:26.640 --> 0:34:29.240 crazy stuff has happened. And that's one of my favorite 0:34:29.239 --> 0:34:32.560 things about physics is learning that the universe is bonkers, 0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:37.040 bonkers beyond our imagination sometimes so it stretches our concept 0:34:37.120 --> 0:34:39.640 of reality completely. I guess my question to you is 0:34:40.040 --> 0:34:43.160 why do scientists think that so much happen is such 0:34:43.160 --> 0:34:46.200 a short amount of time? You know, basically, why do 0:34:46.239 --> 0:34:49.440 we think that the Big Bang or the inflation happened 0:34:49.440 --> 0:34:51.920 in the first place. Yeah, well, it solves some problems. 0:34:52.000 --> 0:34:54.000 It explains some of the things that we see that 0:34:54.120 --> 0:34:56.480 we can't otherwise resolve. I mean, you might come up 0:34:56.480 --> 0:34:59.879 with another theory that explains what we see out there, 0:35:00.000 --> 0:35:01.719 but it has to explain all the stuff that we 0:35:01.760 --> 0:35:04.279 see and tie up all the loose ends. And one 0:35:04.280 --> 0:35:06.440 of the things is what we mentioned earlier on is 0:35:06.480 --> 0:35:08.719 that we seem to be at the center of the 0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:11.719 universe and that doesn't make sense. And the the hot Big 0:35:11.760 --> 0:35:14.440 Bang model we have a point that explodes out, but 0:35:14.520 --> 0:35:17.719 it does explain what we see if the whole universe 0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:21.320 was infinite and expanded out everywhere at once, because then 0:35:21.440 --> 0:35:24.000 everywhere looks like it's at the center of the universe. 0:35:24.400 --> 0:35:26.080 It's like you're in the middle of a loaf of 0:35:26.120 --> 0:35:29.040 bread and all the reasons as it's baking, all the 0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:31.479 reasons are moving away from you. That's true, no matter 0:35:31.520 --> 0:35:34.760 where you are in this infinite loaf of bread. Yeah, 0:35:34.840 --> 0:35:37.120 it's like being in a rubber sheet. Right when you 0:35:37.160 --> 0:35:40.200 stretch it out wherever you stand, it looks like everything's 0:35:40.200 --> 0:35:44.320 blooming away from you. Yeah, exactly, And and that's pretty compelling. 0:35:44.719 --> 0:35:46.680 But then you might ask, all right, well, that just 0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:49.120 requires that the universe is infinite and it is filled 0:35:49.160 --> 0:35:51.000 with an infor amount of stuff. Why do you think 0:35:51.040 --> 0:35:54.720 it had this crazy expansion? And part of that comes 0:35:54.800 --> 0:35:56.840 with what we see out there in the universe is 0:35:56.880 --> 0:35:59.839 that the universe is pretty smooth. I mean, there are 0:36:00.040 --> 0:36:02.880 clumps and galaxies and solar systems. Will get into that 0:36:02.960 --> 0:36:05.560 in a moment, but if you average out over it, 0:36:05.920 --> 0:36:09.000 it looks pretty smooth. And most specifically, if you look 0:36:09.040 --> 0:36:13.120 at this cosmic microwave background radiation, this light we've talked 0:36:13.120 --> 0:36:16.400 about that comes from like three hundred thousand years after 0:36:16.800 --> 0:36:19.440 the Big Bang, when the universe was a hot plasma. 0:36:19.960 --> 0:36:22.040 We see that light and we use that light to 0:36:22.080 --> 0:36:24.680 measure it's sort of the temperature of the universe by 0:36:24.719 --> 0:36:29.760 the frequency of the light. And it's really really, really smooth. 0:36:30.320 --> 0:36:32.839 Like it looks like the universe was basically the same 0:36:32.960 --> 0:36:36.960 temperature everywhere. And that's weird. It's it's very even, right, 0:36:37.040 --> 0:36:39.640 It's like it it all, it all looks the same 0:36:39.719 --> 0:36:42.919 almost from every direction. Yeah, it looks like a smooth bath, 0:36:43.480 --> 0:36:46.719 you know. It looks like the temperature varies by one 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:48.960 part in a hundred thousand or one part in ten 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:51.880 thousand from here to there to the other place. And 0:36:51.960 --> 0:36:55.200 you might be thinking, well, what what's weird about that? Right, Well, 0:36:55.280 --> 0:36:57.800 it's weird from the point of view that those things 0:36:58.120 --> 0:37:02.080 are cosmically far upon heart. If you look at light 0:37:02.160 --> 0:37:04.800 that's coming to us from one direction in the cosmic 0:37:04.880 --> 0:37:08.120 micro background radiation, it's been traveling the whole history of 0:37:08.120 --> 0:37:10.759 the universe, just got here. If you look from the 0:37:10.840 --> 0:37:13.920 other direction, life coming from the other direction has also 0:37:14.000 --> 0:37:16.759 been traveling the whole history universe and just got here. 0:37:17.080 --> 0:37:19.359 So it's the first time they ever met, right from 0:37:19.400 --> 0:37:22.120 different ends of the universe. Right, one of them came 0:37:22.160 --> 0:37:24.200 from the left edge of the universe and the other 0:37:24.239 --> 0:37:27.160 one came from the right edge of the right. Yeah, well, 0:37:27.200 --> 0:37:29.760 even if there aren't any edges, they came from totally 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:32.600 separated spots, spots that have not had time to talk 0:37:32.680 --> 0:37:35.200 to each other or communicate in any way since the 0:37:35.280 --> 0:37:40.640 beginning of the universe. Right, that's weird. That's weird because 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:42.759 they're the same temperature, and the only way you can 0:37:42.840 --> 0:37:45.520 get stuff to be the same temperature is to let 0:37:45.600 --> 0:37:48.440 it mix, Right, Like if you put an ice cube 0:37:48.760 --> 0:37:52.160 into hot water, then you have a cold spot in 0:37:52.320 --> 0:37:54.919 your water, and you have to wait for things to mix, 0:37:55.000 --> 0:37:57.520 for the temperature to get so even. And so it 0:37:57.719 --> 0:38:00.320 looks like the universe had a chance to mix. It 0:38:00.440 --> 0:38:05.000 looks like the temperature smoothed out. But how did that happen? 0:38:05.160 --> 0:38:07.239 Because these things have never had a chance to talk 0:38:07.280 --> 0:38:09.640 to each other before. Why what? What if it touch 0:38:09.680 --> 0:38:13.000 is how the universe was before? Yeah, it could be. 0:38:13.360 --> 0:38:16.920 You know, a lot of these problems are sort of aesthetic. 0:38:17.200 --> 0:38:19.200 You're like, well, I don't really get it. I don't 0:38:19.280 --> 0:38:21.520 like that assumption. And so you could say, well, the 0:38:21.600 --> 0:38:25.319 universe were just created like perfectly smooth. Yeah, just came 0:38:25.400 --> 0:38:29.719 off the factory floor, nice and nice and toasty. Yeah, 0:38:29.880 --> 0:38:33.800 nice and toasty. It's not exactly smooth. We see little 0:38:33.960 --> 0:38:37.640 clumps in there, and the distribution of those clumps is 0:38:37.680 --> 0:38:40.640 another thing that's explained by inflation. But you're right, this, 0:38:41.000 --> 0:38:45.920 you know, by itself, this smoothness problem is not completely bulletproof. Right. 0:38:45.920 --> 0:38:49.240 You could say, maybe the universe was just created almost 0:38:49.280 --> 0:38:52.640 perfectly smooth, like maybe when photons are creative at the beginning, 0:38:53.080 --> 0:38:55.600 they all have the same temperature. There would be another 0:38:55.600 --> 0:38:57.000 way to explain it. There would be another way to 0:38:57.040 --> 0:39:00.080 explain it. But the explanation that comes from inflation and 0:39:00.760 --> 0:39:03.879 is that these things did once have a chance to mix. 0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:07.440 That you know, before inflation, these photons, which were ten 0:39:07.520 --> 0:39:10.480 billion light years apart, were only a meter apart. And 0:39:10.600 --> 0:39:13.040 so there's a lot of time in this early plasma 0:39:13.120 --> 0:39:15.359 for stuff to slash around and for things to get 0:39:15.440 --> 0:39:18.160 smoothed out and for the universe to get to an 0:39:18.239 --> 0:39:23.239 even temperature before things got inflated. Right, And so I 0:39:23.320 --> 0:39:25.920 think I remember this that the the the way that 0:39:26.000 --> 0:39:28.640 this explains it. It is that you need this kind 0:39:28.680 --> 0:39:33.560 of rapid and violent expansion of space to basically take 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:38.160 the left edge photon and the right edge photon far 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:42.120 enough apart where it makes sense now. Yeah, so these 0:39:42.160 --> 0:39:45.000 two have had to been inside the same sort of 0:39:45.200 --> 0:39:49.600 cosmic horizon before, and now they're outside the cosmic horizon. 0:39:50.160 --> 0:39:53.719 Cosmic horizon is something that is so far away that 0:39:54.000 --> 0:39:56.839 you have not seen it because light from it has 0:39:56.920 --> 0:39:59.600 never reached you in the history of the universe. Right, 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:02.200 there's a no way they could have talked before, And 0:40:02.320 --> 0:40:05.719 yet it seems like they had have talked before. And 0:40:05.880 --> 0:40:08.319 the expansion of space faster than the speed of light 0:40:08.440 --> 0:40:09.839 is the thing that can do that. It can take 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:13.239 things that were inside the same cosmic horizon, right, that 0:40:13.280 --> 0:40:15.400 are close enough to interact and talk to each other, 0:40:15.480 --> 0:40:18.359 and smooth them become the same temperature, and push them 0:40:18.400 --> 0:40:21.359 apart into their own separate cosmic horizons so that they 0:40:21.680 --> 0:40:24.120 can no longer interact. And so that's what we think 0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:27.160 we see now is that light from this from two 0:40:27.239 --> 0:40:30.839 directions in the universe is now the same temperature, even 0:40:30.920 --> 0:40:33.640 though without cosmic inflation, we don't think that they could 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:36.360 ever have met, right, It's like it's like a crazy 0:40:36.440 --> 0:40:38.400 thing you've see in the universe that can only be 0:40:38.520 --> 0:40:43.200 explained apparently by this crazy idea of inflation. Yeah, precisely. 0:40:43.719 --> 0:40:47.520 That's one reason why we like inflation. It explains that. 0:40:48.280 --> 0:40:52.440 And more specifically, the universe is not all the same temperature. 0:40:52.560 --> 0:40:55.200 If you look at the cosmic microwave background radiation, this 0:40:55.400 --> 0:40:57.960 light from the early universe, we said, it's like the 0:40:58.080 --> 0:41:00.239 same too, within one in ten thousand, one in a 0:41:00.320 --> 0:41:04.319 hundred thousand. Those wiggles are actually important. Those those deviations 0:41:04.440 --> 0:41:07.640 from being exactly the same temperature are really important, and 0:41:08.080 --> 0:41:11.240 we study those really carefully because those are the seeds 0:41:11.440 --> 0:41:13.880 of the rest of the universe, right, that they're the 0:41:14.080 --> 0:41:18.600 wrinkles that came from basically this giant stretching of the universe. Yeah, 0:41:18.680 --> 0:41:22.080 those those wrinkles came from the giant stretching. And you 0:41:22.160 --> 0:41:25.400 might wonder, like, all right, say the universe was created 0:41:25.560 --> 0:41:28.520 perfectly smoothly, like you were saying earlier, Right, why couldn't 0:41:28.560 --> 0:41:31.400 just come off the factory floor, like totally homogeneous. Well, 0:41:31.440 --> 0:41:33.960 if you have a universe like that, then you never 0:41:34.120 --> 0:41:36.800 get any sort of clumping. You don't get anything like 0:41:37.080 --> 0:41:41.000 solar systems and hamsters and galaxies and stuff, because everything 0:41:41.120 --> 0:41:44.439 is perfectly smooth and there's no place where things start 0:41:44.520 --> 0:41:47.280 to clump together. To get any sort of clumping or structure, 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:50.600 you need something and that's not homogeneous, right, And so 0:41:50.960 --> 0:41:54.800 you're saying, inflation is our only explanation for why the 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:59.640 universe is smooth and clumpy just the right amount that 0:41:59.840 --> 0:42:02.120 we see it right now. That's right, because in physics 0:42:02.200 --> 0:42:06.200 we have only one way to introduce random clumpiness, and 0:42:06.320 --> 0:42:09.840 that's quantum mechanics. So the idea is the universe was 0:42:09.880 --> 0:42:14.719 really really dense and perfectly smooth, and then quantum fluctuations 0:42:14.760 --> 0:42:16.440 just like created a few particles here and a few 0:42:16.480 --> 0:42:19.400 particles there. Now, normally, when that happens, and it's happening 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:21.360 all the time, it's not a big deal because there 0:42:21.400 --> 0:42:23.440 are the quantum level so you don't see them. But 0:42:24.160 --> 0:42:27.400 what if just when you're making those fluctuations, the universe 0:42:27.480 --> 0:42:30.759 decides I'm gonna blow this up to ten billion light years? 0:42:31.160 --> 0:42:34.480 Then all of a sudden, tiny little quantum fluctuations become 0:42:34.560 --> 0:42:39.200 really big cosmic fluctuations, right, they become spread out over 0:42:39.320 --> 0:42:43.600 the whole cosmos. Then they're big enough to seed gravity, 0:42:43.680 --> 0:42:46.840 to get things moving, to clump stuff together. Right and 0:42:46.960 --> 0:42:51.000 if so, so, if an inflation was not as dramatic, 0:42:51.600 --> 0:42:55.319 then we wouldn't see those quantum fluctuations, right, because let's 0:42:55.360 --> 0:43:00.640 say that inflation had actually taken longer than you wouldn't 0:43:00.840 --> 0:43:03.799 you know, it wouldn't stretch those quantum fluctuations because things 0:43:03.840 --> 0:43:07.080 would even out before you stretch out to the to 0:43:07.200 --> 0:43:09.120 what we see now. Yeah, And that's why you need 0:43:09.160 --> 0:43:11.600 to have inflation happened at the scale that had happened 0:43:11.680 --> 0:43:14.719 like so dramatically and so quickly. You've got to catch 0:43:15.040 --> 0:43:20.160 those quantum fluctuations with their pants down. Otherwise it doesn't 0:43:20.200 --> 0:43:23.520 explain the universe were in. That's right, Their cosmic embarrassment 0:43:23.640 --> 0:43:27.160 is the reason why we are here. Yeah, that's sort 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:30.200 of basically right, right, Like, it's like you needed to 0:43:30.280 --> 0:43:33.160 catch the universe just the right time with this crazy 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:37.000 expansion like this photograph in order to explain what we 0:43:37.080 --> 0:43:39.400 see now. Yeah, And we talked on the podcast recently 0:43:39.440 --> 0:43:43.040 about another possibility, another different idea, which was cosmic strings. 0:43:43.120 --> 0:43:45.840 People thought, maybe cosmic strings are the reason why we 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:48.240 see this sort of distribution of stuff in the universe, 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:50.719 but people look at them more carefully and it doesn't work. 0:43:50.920 --> 0:43:53.520 You don't get this sort of the right kind of wiggles, 0:43:53.560 --> 0:43:55.880 you don't get the right distribution of stuff here and 0:43:55.920 --> 0:43:59.680 stuff there. But inflation gets it just right. Inflation says, 0:44:00.000 --> 0:44:02.480 if you had that really dense plasma and then you 0:44:02.560 --> 0:44:04.960 blew it up really quickly, you would expect to get 0:44:05.160 --> 0:44:07.359 just the right density of stuff to form the kind 0:44:07.440 --> 0:44:10.480 of structure that we see today, And there's no other 0:44:10.600 --> 0:44:13.440 way to explain it in such fine detail that we know. 0:44:13.719 --> 0:44:16.160 I mean, there are some other crazier ideas, but none 0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:18.160 of them work as well as inflation, right, Yeah, Like, 0:44:18.239 --> 0:44:21.240 if inflation at lasts it tended to the negative thirty 0:44:21.360 --> 0:44:24.360 one seconds instead of tend to negative thirty two seconds, 0:44:24.920 --> 0:44:27.479 then you and I wouldn't be here. Yeah, it would 0:44:27.480 --> 0:44:30.080 be some other podcasts which would be not nearly as funny. 0:44:32.000 --> 0:44:34.560 It would probably be over quicker. But there's a there's 0:44:34.600 --> 0:44:37.080 some something else there. There's a real randomness right, Like 0:44:37.520 --> 0:44:39.839 it tells you that the structure to universe, Like why 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:44.239 does a galaxy here comes from some like electron fluctuating 0:44:44.280 --> 0:44:47.120 out of the vacuum fourteen billion years ago, And if 0:44:47.120 --> 0:44:49.080 it had fluctuated in a different direction, we'd have a 0:44:49.200 --> 0:44:53.120 different galaxy somewhere else. Like those tiny little quantum rolls 0:44:53.160 --> 0:44:57.440 of the dye determine the specific structure of our universe today. 0:44:57.920 --> 0:45:02.000 It mind boggling to think about. And they're super sensitive, right, 0:45:02.040 --> 0:45:06.440 and totally random, super sensitive and totally random. Yeah. Wow. 0:45:06.920 --> 0:45:09.120 So we we are lucky to have the universe we 0:45:09.239 --> 0:45:12.120 have right now, and you listeners are lucky to have us, frankly, 0:45:12.840 --> 0:45:15.680 and we are lucky to have you. We are very 0:45:15.719 --> 0:45:18.479 glad that you fluctuated into existence. We are all lucky 0:45:18.560 --> 0:45:21.239 to have each other. I think is the new theme 0:45:21.280 --> 0:45:24.799 for Okay cool. I feel like I really understand there's 0:45:24.800 --> 0:45:27.160 a little bit more, you know. It's it's like this 0:45:27.360 --> 0:45:32.200 idea of an infinite infinity going less dense is and 0:45:32.480 --> 0:45:34.319 very quickly in order to explain what we have now. 0:45:35.280 --> 0:45:37.479 So does that mean, Daniel, that we know everything about 0:45:37.520 --> 0:45:39.560 inflation and what happened at the beginning of time? Or 0:45:39.640 --> 0:45:42.160 are there still things we don't know? There's not an 0:45:42.280 --> 0:45:44.800 infinite amount of stuff that we don't know about inflation, 0:45:45.920 --> 0:45:48.200 infinitely amount of stuff we don't know about an infinite 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:51.880 lead dance infinity that gets less infinite. Yeah, as our 0:45:52.000 --> 0:45:54.440 knowledge grows, it feels like our ignorance is also growing, 0:45:54.560 --> 0:45:57.439 or like our knowledge of our ignorance is inflating as well, 0:45:57.600 --> 0:46:00.400 you know. But that's the fun part about science. I 0:46:00.520 --> 0:46:03.880 think the biggest mystery about inflation is like what caused it? 0:46:04.040 --> 0:46:07.520 What made it happen? What could possibly expand space at 0:46:07.600 --> 0:46:10.920 this crazy rate? Right? Like why didn't the universe just 0:46:11.040 --> 0:46:13.239 stay the way it was before? Why did it have 0:46:13.440 --> 0:46:16.239 to have this crazy expansion? Yeah, and why did the 0:46:16.280 --> 0:46:19.520 expansion stop? And so as usual, we don't have any idea, 0:46:19.560 --> 0:46:22.879 but we've already given it a name, and of course yeah, 0:46:22.880 --> 0:46:27.960 we've we've called it the infloton not a joke. I 0:46:28.040 --> 0:46:31.120 know it sounds like I'm making that up. But created 0:46:31.200 --> 0:46:33.839 this field called the infloton field, which would have an 0:46:33.840 --> 0:46:37.279 infloton particle, and the ideas that this field causes this 0:46:37.480 --> 0:46:40.840 crazy expansion. It sort of just puts off the question like, 0:46:40.920 --> 0:46:43.560 all right, well, what creates the inflotton field and what 0:46:43.680 --> 0:46:46.160 controls it? Well, we have no idea, but it's just 0:46:46.239 --> 0:46:49.280 sort of like a place to put our ideas. Interesting, 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:52.320 So we owe our existence and our universe to the 0:46:52.480 --> 0:46:55.239 infloton Yeah, and the infloton The idea there is like 0:46:55.600 --> 0:46:58.560 the universe is filled with this infloton field, which expands 0:46:58.640 --> 0:47:04.000 space and sort of decays into ordinary matter. And that's 0:47:04.000 --> 0:47:06.359 how you get ordinary matter. You have in photon field, 0:47:06.360 --> 0:47:09.719 which then turns into corks and electrons and other kinds 0:47:09.760 --> 0:47:13.240 of fields. Um. And we don't know like what would 0:47:13.400 --> 0:47:16.000 cause that decay, Like that's when inflation stops, is when 0:47:16.040 --> 0:47:18.440 it turns into normal matter. But we don't know like 0:47:18.719 --> 0:47:21.319 why would it stopped and or why was it there 0:47:21.360 --> 0:47:23.200 in the first place? Yeah, what was there first place? 0:47:23.400 --> 0:47:27.200 And also did it stop? Like there might be it 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:30.000 might be that inflation sort of stopped in our part 0:47:30.040 --> 0:47:33.080 of the universe, but it's still going on in other 0:47:33.239 --> 0:47:35.840 parts of the universe. Could be the rest of the universe. 0:47:35.880 --> 0:47:38.360 We're like in a little bubble, a pocket universe, and 0:47:38.440 --> 0:47:41.320 the rest of the universe is still inflating. And imagine 0:47:41.320 --> 0:47:43.640 how far If it got that far in ten of 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:45.800 the minus thirty two seconds, imagine what it could do 0:47:45.880 --> 0:47:50.160 in fourteen billion years. Wow. So you're saying that maybe 0:47:50.320 --> 0:47:55.120 we are even more insignificant than we had previously imagined. Yeah, 0:47:55.200 --> 0:47:57.760 that's this idea. It's called eternal inflation. That the universe 0:47:57.920 --> 0:48:02.480 is continuously inflating, and occasionally the inflation sort of decays 0:48:02.560 --> 0:48:04.279 into normal matter, and then you get the kind of 0:48:04.360 --> 0:48:06.880 universe we're familiar with, but that most of the universe 0:48:07.280 --> 0:48:11.840 is just this massively expanding infloton field. Wait, are you saying, Daniel, 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:15.719 that the infloton works in mysterious ways? I'm saying exactly that, 0:48:16.200 --> 0:48:18.600 mostly because we don't understand it at all, And so 0:48:19.080 --> 0:48:21.200 can I start a new religion based on the infloton? 0:48:22.760 --> 0:48:25.120 Are you the high priest of the inflation here? Yeah, 0:48:25.400 --> 0:48:27.920 because I am both the high priest and the parishioner 0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:31.200 of my church of the Inflaton. Yes, please donate to 0:48:31.440 --> 0:48:35.720 the Church of the Inflaton. I think we just replaced 0:48:35.760 --> 0:48:39.080 the spagetti master. Yeah, and so of course this feels 0:48:39.120 --> 0:48:41.040 like a big place holder because it is we don't know, 0:48:41.239 --> 0:48:44.680 and so it's just a way to say, if inflation happened, 0:48:45.160 --> 0:48:47.239 what's a possible way it might have happened. And then 0:48:47.320 --> 0:48:50.120 let's start to get to work on, you know, figuring 0:48:50.160 --> 0:48:52.440 out how that theory has to look. Step one, give 0:48:52.480 --> 0:48:56.319 it a science names and then figure it out. Step 0:48:56.400 --> 0:49:02.919 to get ridiculed by Jorge. Step three, get to work alright. Cool, 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:05.320 It sounds like there's still lots of answers to be 0:49:05.480 --> 0:49:08.360 found in this and these are important answers, right, I 0:49:08.400 --> 0:49:11.640 mean they're they're about the beginning of the universe and 0:49:11.840 --> 0:49:14.000 why are things the way they are? And are things 0:49:14.040 --> 0:49:16.320 going to change in the future. And you know, I 0:49:16.400 --> 0:49:18.279 think in ten years or in twenty years, people will 0:49:18.280 --> 0:49:20.600 look back at these ideas and think, oh, my gosh, 0:49:20.680 --> 0:49:23.800 how absurd. I can't believe they really believe that stuff. 0:49:24.320 --> 0:49:26.839 Because we're going to learn things about inflation, and we're 0:49:26.840 --> 0:49:28.640 going to learn things about the history of the universe 0:49:28.680 --> 0:49:30.640 and its current expansion that are going to give us 0:49:30.880 --> 0:49:33.759 better ideas, even crazier ideas that are going to be 0:49:33.840 --> 0:49:37.320 even more correct. And so this is the perfect example 0:49:37.400 --> 0:49:40.400 of how our knowledge of the universe is constantly expanding. 0:49:40.480 --> 0:49:43.160 We look back and think, wow, how silly. Yeah, you 0:49:43.200 --> 0:49:47.640 know they say twenties smart physicists are twenty thirties ignoratons. 0:49:48.640 --> 0:49:52.480 That's right, Yeah, I have twenty twenty vision, which means 0:49:52.600 --> 0:49:54.839 I look back at ten and think one a bunch 0:49:54.880 --> 0:50:00.759 of ideas. Well, I can't wait to have visions. That's 0:50:00.800 --> 0:50:02.480 what happens in our old age, right, we all get 0:50:02.520 --> 0:50:06.000 reading to us is all right? Well, maybe we'll get 0:50:06.040 --> 0:50:08.840 into these mysteries a little bit deeper in the future podcast, 0:50:09.000 --> 0:50:11.279 but for now, thanks for joining us. We hope you 0:50:11.360 --> 0:50:13.799 enjoyed that. We hope we inflated your mind and took 0:50:13.840 --> 0:50:16.200 you on a tour of the early universe. Thank you 0:50:16.320 --> 0:50:26.360 very much. Before you still have a question after listening 0:50:26.400 --> 0:50:29.439 to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd 0:50:29.560 --> 0:50:32.320 love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, 0:50:32.440 --> 0:50:36.080 and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or 0:50:36.239 --> 0:50:39.600 email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. 0:50:40.200 --> 0:50:43.000 Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain 0:50:43.080 --> 0:50:45.920 the Universe is a production of I heart Radio. For 0:50:46.080 --> 0:50:49.000 more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart 0:50:49.120 --> 0:50:52.680 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:53.440 favorite shows.