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Speaker 1: Hey, or Hey, did you know that there are physics truthers? What?

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Speaker 1: I know there are particle theorists, but I didn't know

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Speaker 1: there are conspiracy theorists. The conspiracy theorists some of them

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Speaker 1: don't believe that antimatter is a real thing, so they're

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Speaker 1: anti antimatter. All matter matters. What do they just think

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Speaker 1: that you made up this concept of antimatter? Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: turns out a lot of people don't think antimatter is real.

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Speaker 1: They don't believe in it. Well, maybe they just need proof,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe they're not crazy, they're not bananas. Well

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Speaker 1: it turns out the proof is bananas. Who are bananas antimatter? No,

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Speaker 1: but it turns out bananas produce antimatter. Hi am Jorge,

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Speaker 1: I'm made particle physicist, and I'm Daniel. I'm a cartoonist,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not the author of PhD comics. And those

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Speaker 1: are the anti versions of the real us. The host

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Speaker 1: of this podcast, Daniel and Jorge explain the universe de

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Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Although since you've been listening

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Speaker 1: to me talk and talk and talk for all these years,

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Speaker 1: by now you're basically a particle physicist. That's right. I

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Speaker 1: feel like I talked to you more than you probably

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Speaker 1: talked to your grad students, so probably should give me

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Speaker 1: a PhDs. Don't tell my grad students that do you

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Speaker 1: allow them to hear hear this podcast? Do you let

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Speaker 1: them out of their basement every once in a while.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious if they listen. I think I've mentioned it

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Speaker 1: to them. Actually, some of them appear in our interviews

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Speaker 1: from time to time. Oh, I see people who can't.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I wonder if it's extra stressful for them

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Speaker 1: if they say no, Are you going to judge them

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Speaker 1: based on what they know or don't know? No, I

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Speaker 1: think it's extra stressful if they say yes, and then

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Speaker 1: I asked them a particle physics question they really should

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Speaker 1: know the answer to. Then they're on the spot, and

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Speaker 1: you have them on tape. I have them on tape exactly,

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Speaker 1: but the podcast universe to listen, that's right. But the

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Speaker 1: goal of this podcast is not just to embarrass my

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Speaker 1: graduate students and put them on the spot, but to

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Speaker 1: teach all you people out there about the amazing universe

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Speaker 1: of particles and stars and bananas that we all get

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Speaker 1: to live in. That's right, All the things that exist

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Speaker 1: out there in the universe and all the things that

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Speaker 1: maybe don't exist or that exist in a constant state

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Speaker 1: of denial, that's right, or things that currently only exist

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Speaker 1: in the minds of particle theorists, ideas about what the

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Speaker 1: universe might be like that we don't know if they

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Speaker 1: are real, right, because even the things that might not

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Speaker 1: be real tell us a little bit about how things

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Speaker 1: really are and why they are there where they are right,

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Speaker 1: that's right. And in physics we have this sort of

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Speaker 1: cycle of people making predictions and saying, what if the

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Speaker 1: universe works this way, and then people going out to

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Speaker 1: check and say, hey, it turns out you were wrong.

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Speaker 1: Go back to the drawing board. And there are many

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Speaker 1: many beautiful theories out there that people came up with

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Speaker 1: that they were convinced we're real, but then we're confronted

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Speaker 1: by the evidence that they're not. That's right. There are

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists. Even in physics. There are people who are

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Speaker 1: skeptical about the things that physicists have found. Right, even

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Speaker 1: physicists themselves who are skeptical, Well, it's our job to

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Speaker 1: be skeptical, but we like to think that's sort of

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Speaker 1: a reason skepticism. You know, when presented with the evidence,

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Speaker 1: we don't come up with an even more elaborate conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theory to deny it. We accepted, we move on. But

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Speaker 1: it's true that some of these ideas that are in

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Speaker 1: the minds of physicists, they can be kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to accept, and some people still out there think that

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Speaker 1: they're just ideas, that they're not actually real, right, because

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Speaker 1: it's kind of an interesting cycle in physics where you

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Speaker 1: might see something in nature and then you come up

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Speaker 1: with the theory, and then you do an experiment that

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Speaker 1: validates or disproves this theory, and then you come up

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Speaker 1: with more theories, and so it's like this weird and

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Speaker 1: interesting loop, and so it's hard to tell sometimes where

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Speaker 1: ideas come from. Yeah, especially in particle physics, we seem

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Speaker 1: to obscolet between two modes. One is where theorists are

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Speaker 1: leading the field, where they have ideas for what they

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Speaker 1: think is happening in the universe, and then experimentalists have

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Speaker 1: to go out and basically check those ideas. And the

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Speaker 1: other mode is where experimentalists are taking the lead, where

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Speaker 1: we're out there finding crazy stuff nobody understands and theorists

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Speaker 1: are scrambling to keep up to explain all the bizarre

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Speaker 1: stuff that we've uncovered. So what do you think it's

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Speaker 1: that determines who's taking the lead. Is it like just

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Speaker 1: who has more free time in their hands to play

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Speaker 1: around and discover things, or who's more suspicious of the other.

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Speaker 1: It's just up to nature. It's just up to how

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Speaker 1: much stuff there is to discover. You know, in the

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Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, they were discovering a new particle every

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Speaker 1: time they turned on the accelerator. They called it the

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Speaker 1: era of the particle zoo. Whereas these days it's like

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Speaker 1: decades between particles, and that gives the theorists a lot

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Speaker 1: out of time to be creative, to come up with

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Speaker 1: new ideas, to say, maybe it's this, maybe it's that,

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Speaker 1: because we don't have anything to sort of constrain them

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Speaker 1: right now, we're in a really fury driven mode of

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Speaker 1: the field. Is there a song for the particles? I

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Speaker 1: feel like there should be a song particles, particle zoo

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Speaker 1: doing the things particles do. There you go wow on

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Speaker 1: the spot, jingle making that's right by. They might be

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Speaker 1: particle physicists PhD and jingle engineering, granted, but it's interesting

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Speaker 1: history right in the fifties, we were discovering new particles

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Speaker 1: nobody understood. And in the very early days of particle physics,

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Speaker 1: like the first particle was discovered, right, that wasn't predicted,

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Speaker 1: it was discovered, and then the photon was like thought

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Speaker 1: up to explain an experiment that people had seen. So

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Speaker 1: the very beginning it was driven by experiments. But these days,

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Speaker 1: of course it's driven more my theory. And so today

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Speaker 1: we'll be talking about one such thing that has been

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Speaker 1: seen or had that some people have seen in nature

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Speaker 1: and physics, but maybe some physicists don't really believe that

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Speaker 1: it exists. Oh, I think most physicists believe it, but

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Speaker 1: I just wonder about the general public. Oh so it's just, um,

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Speaker 1: you say true things, you mean physicists or people? I

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Speaker 1: mean people, because physicists or not people. Is that what

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Speaker 1: you're saying. You just trapped me. You totally led me

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Speaker 1: into a trap there, Daniel, Are you a person or

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Speaker 1: a physicist? Take one? No, I think that you know,

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Speaker 1: this is really fascinating because it's one of the first

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Speaker 1: things that was ever predicted before it was seen. This

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Speaker 1: is the first time somebody said, maybe this crazy new

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Speaker 1: thing does exist out there. In the universe, somebody go

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Speaker 1: look and sort of sort of the dawn of the

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Speaker 1: New era. And it's taken a long time for people

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Speaker 1: to believe that it's real, and some people out there

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Speaker 1: still don't. So I guess at some point this was

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Speaker 1: a topic where some people thought it was true, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of physicists maybe didn't think that we would

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Speaker 1: see it or that it would be proven to exist.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Between the prediction and its discovery. It was contentious,

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Speaker 1: and it's a pretty interesting topic because it talks about

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Speaker 1: a huge part of the universe that is both intriguing

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Speaker 1: and super dangerous. Yeah, and fascinating. And you hear all

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Speaker 1: about it in popular culture, like it's everywhere. It's even

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Speaker 1: in Dan Brown novels, so you know it's got to

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Speaker 1: be cool. Oh man, it must be true then if

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Speaker 1: it's a Dan Brown never Yeah, I think those are

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Speaker 1: all heavily researched. The Da Vinci particle. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: so today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question,

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Speaker 1: how do we know antimatter is a thing or an

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Speaker 1: anti thing? What's the correct way to how do we

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Speaker 1: know antimatter is not a thing? Or how do we

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Speaker 1: not know that antimatter isn't not a thing? That's put

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Speaker 1: it more more negative, No, I and anti that kind

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Speaker 1: of use of language, Daniel. I think that often the

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Speaker 1: history of particle physics and the topic of particle physics

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Speaker 1: is framed from a theoretical point of view, like what

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Speaker 1: is our understanding of the particles? That it's out there?

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Speaker 1: And that's cool, But for me, I'm an experimentalist. I

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Speaker 1: want to know, like, how do we know these things?

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Speaker 1: Like you say, these particles exist, how do we know

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Speaker 1: that it's real? What experiment? What? What the thing happened

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Speaker 1: that proved to us that it had to be there,

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Speaker 1: that it's part of the universe. So we did a

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Speaker 1: podcast episode about how do we know even particles exist?

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Speaker 1: About the electron and how do we know photons exist

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Speaker 1: in this kind of stuff? And and why are their muans?

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Speaker 1: And so this is sort of in that series of

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Speaker 1: like telling people about the moment when we confronted something

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Speaker 1: that proved to us that this new thing had to

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Speaker 1: be a part of our universe. Yeah, and so antimatter

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Speaker 1: is a is a word or two words put together,

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Speaker 1: and we kind of know it's a thing, but we

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Speaker 1: were wondering how much people out there know about it,

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Speaker 1: or that they know that it is a thing and

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Speaker 1: not just one of those crazy physics ideas that are

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Speaker 1: floating around. Yeah. So I went around and my goal

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Speaker 1: was to ask people if they knew how anti matter

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Speaker 1: was discovered. But I had to back up because it

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Speaker 1: turns out a lot of people didn't even know that

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Speaker 1: anti matter actually had been discovered, so they didn't know

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Speaker 1: that it was a thing. Yeah, that was so surprising

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Speaker 1: to me. But listen to these interviews and thinks to yourself,

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Speaker 1: do you know how we discovered antimatter? Here's what people

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Speaker 1: had to say. I know about about it, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how they discovered it now, No, I don't have

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Speaker 1: heard of it, and like science fiction and stuff, um,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know how the logistics of it would

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Speaker 1: even be possible. So I'm not too sure. But I know,

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Speaker 1: like the phrase I've heard it like a lot of

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Speaker 1: is it a real thing or just science fiction? I like,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like theory, So it's not too sure.

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Speaker 1: I think they are because I read it something about

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Speaker 1: it keeping the universe from expanding too fast? So how

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Speaker 1: do we know anti matter is a real thing? Like?

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Speaker 1: How was it discovered. I don't know exactly, but my

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Speaker 1: best guess is that that it could be shown through

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Speaker 1: like how the universe expands. But it seems like it's

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Speaker 1: being limited by a certain the end. It's predicted to

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Speaker 1: the antimatter Right now, it's all theoretical, isn't I don't like,

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Speaker 1: have we actually done anything with like large hangar clider

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Speaker 1: as far as any matter? Yeah, I'm not sure. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what that means for now.

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Speaker 1: It's it is just an idea surreal thing. Okay, how

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Speaker 1: do we know it exists? By calculation? To make your

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Speaker 1: to accommodate the amount of our understanding of matter in

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Speaker 1: the universe? Do you think matter? I thought there was

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Speaker 1: some anti matter dirt matter connection, Okay, not that I'm

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Speaker 1: aware of. Don't know. Don't antimatter Well, it's like I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of doesn't exist. I mean, if it were. No, wait,

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Speaker 1: because it goes to show that I know nothing about

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Speaker 1: particle physics. But there's something. I mean, listen to my

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Speaker 1: podcast for office. I would love to listen to your podcast,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure that that there's something I would learn

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Speaker 1: from it. Antimatter is a real thing as a it's

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Speaker 1: a counterpart to a regular matter rights. How do we

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Speaker 1: know it exists because to create matter, you have to

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Speaker 1: also create antimatter, and it's been a proven reaction, and

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Speaker 1: we know that it exists despite not being able to

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Speaker 1: necessarily detect. I have not heard of that term actually,

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Speaker 1: all right, So it sort of seems like people are

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Speaker 1: skeptical about it, or they weren't. Not a lot of

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Speaker 1: people seem sure that it is a thing, Like they

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Speaker 1: talk about it like it's a theoretical thing, or it's

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Speaker 1: not proven, or it's an idea. Maybe actually I just

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Speaker 1: realized maybe it's because it's in a Dan Brown novel

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Speaker 1: and they thought, oh well, then it must be b Yes,

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Speaker 1: thank you, Dan Brown. And that should be called like

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Speaker 1: anti science communication anti science. I don't think he claims

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Speaker 1: to be a scientist or claims to be a work

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Speaker 1: of nonfiction. No, But you know, when he made that movie,

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Speaker 1: of course, we're referring to Angels and Demons, Dan Brown's

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Speaker 1: novel about an anti matter bomb, in which the science

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Speaker 1: is mostly right actually about antime matter. But when they

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Speaker 1: made yeah they did, um yeah, yeah, the science in

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Speaker 1: there's is mostly correct. But they made that movie. They

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Speaker 1: filmed it actually where I was working at the time,

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Speaker 1: because I was at Sern and they were filming the

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Speaker 1: movie at Stern and uh, and then I wanted to

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Speaker 1: get a camera. What's that did you get? Did you

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Speaker 1: get a camera? Next? With Tom Hanks? Only the most

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Speaker 1: v I P of v I P has got to

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Speaker 1: give Tom Hanks a tour. So I was like, not

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Speaker 1: even in the top five list of people who would

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Speaker 1: get to have lunch with Tom Hanks, unfortunately, But now

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Speaker 1: now you now you would be making the top Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm really moving up. But the cool thing was when

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Speaker 1: I watched the movie, they had taken our like normal

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Speaker 1: boring workspaces, which which is basically just a bunch of

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Speaker 1: computers and screens, and they had science fictioned it up,

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Speaker 1: so people had like cool heads of displays and like

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Speaker 1: fancy interfaces with their computers, las, lasers and scanning devices.

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Speaker 1: And I thought, that looks pretty cool. We should upgrade

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Speaker 1: the way our office works to look like the movie.

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Speaker 1: You're like taking your pocket and looking at a metal key.

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Speaker 1: You're like reality versus world. But it was cool to

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Speaker 1: see what like Hollywood's best designers would do with my office.

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Speaker 1: Pretty cool, all right, So it seems like people are

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Speaker 1: not quite sure that it's real. They think it's maybe theoretical.

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Speaker 1: Do you think maybe they were confusing antimatter with other

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Speaker 1: things like dark matter or yes, absolutely, I hear that

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Speaker 1: a lot. Actually, I think that people know that there's

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Speaker 1: something out there is a miss dearious counterpart to matter.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out there's sort of a few mysterious

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Speaker 1: counterparts to matter. Right, there's this whole antimatteric thing. It's

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Speaker 1: dark matter that there's super particles, and so there's antimatters,

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Speaker 1: there's quasi matter, there's matter, there's exotic matter. You know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know that's a real potentially could be a thing thing.

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Speaker 1: Splatter matter, there's mats matter, and now you're making me

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Speaker 1: matter matter um. And so there's sort of a lot

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Speaker 1: of different ideas to keep track of. And so if

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Speaker 1: you're not like a particle physicists like you are, then

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Speaker 1: maybe it's hard to keep your finger on which ones

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Speaker 1: are real and which ones are theoretical. Right, And I

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Speaker 1: have to say, antimatter does sound a little ridiculous, does it.

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Speaker 1: It sounds very like nineties fifties science fitching. It's antimatter,

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Speaker 1: it's like matter, but it's anti The whole concept is absurd, right,

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Speaker 1: But as we said on this podcast, absurdity is no

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Speaker 1: obstacle to reality. Right. Turns out the universe is kind

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Speaker 1: of bonkers. Yeah, I feel that way every time I

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Speaker 1: read the news every morning these days. It used to

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Speaker 1: be just physics, and now it's also politics. Is bomb beers.

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Speaker 1: But anyways, um so yeah, let's talk about anti matter.

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Speaker 1: And we have a whole episode about anti matter. If

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Speaker 1: you scrolled through our archive, you can find that episode

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Speaker 1: and learn a little bit more about it. But here

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Speaker 1: we'll just kind of go over quickly about what it

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Speaker 1: is and how it's not actually dark matter. That's right.

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Speaker 1: Antimatter is not dark matter. It's a whole other, enormous,

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Speaker 1: fascinating puzzle about the universe. Anti matter is a statement

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Speaker 1: about particles and patterns. It's noticing that particles come in pairs.

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Speaker 1: And so some of the particles that we've discovered, the electron,

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Speaker 1: the muan, the corks, there's another particle that looks just

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Speaker 1: like them, except it's the opposite in a couple of ways.

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Speaker 1: And so, for example, the electron is a particle. We

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Speaker 1: know it, we love it, we're made of it. It's

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Speaker 1: in ice cream. And there's this other particle called the positron,

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Speaker 1: which is just like the electron accepted, has a positive

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Speaker 1: charge instead of a negative charge. It has other negative

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Speaker 1: things about it, right, like the opposite spin or the

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Speaker 1: opposite quantum color, and other kinds of charges, right that

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Speaker 1: are different. Some of the other charges for the for

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Speaker 1: the forces are opposite. The electron actually doesn't have a

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Speaker 1: color because it's doesn't feel the strong force, but it

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Speaker 1: has the same mass and spin. So the positron are

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Speaker 1: the same in mass and quantum spin. They're both spin

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Speaker 1: one half, and they have exactly the same mass as

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Speaker 1: far as we know, but they have the opposite electric charge.

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Speaker 1: And so you might just say like, oh, well, it's

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Speaker 1: just a different particle, and it is. It's a different particle,

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Speaker 1: but there's definitely a relationship there. So we group them together.

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Speaker 1: And this is what we do all the time in physics,

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Speaker 1: and especially in particle physics, is we're looking for patterns.

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Speaker 1: We're looking for, you know, relationships that help us simplify.

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Speaker 1: We're looking for symmetries that give us insight. And so

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Speaker 1: it's interesting not just because the electron has this weird

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Speaker 1: partner particle, But so does the muan, and so do

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Speaker 1: all the quarks, right, and and we call it matter

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Speaker 1: and antimatter because the ones we call matter are the

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Speaker 1: ones that make of most of the things we see.

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Speaker 1: A round is right, like positrons and anti mu as

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Speaker 1: an anti quarks. I'm not made of any of these things.

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Speaker 1: I'm made out of the regular versions, the provisions. That's right,

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Speaker 1: you're made of the regular versions. But you're right also

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Speaker 1: that we call them regular versions because they're familiar. They're

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Speaker 1: like the first ones we encountered, because they make up

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Speaker 1: the world we know, and so there's nothing anti about

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Speaker 1: the other ones. They're just sort of not the first

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Speaker 1: ones we found. Maybe maybe a different word might be

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Speaker 1: like mirror matter or symmetric matter that's actually already taken.

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Speaker 1: There's a whole other theory about mirror matter we can

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Speaker 1: talk about another time. But it's a crowded field of

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Speaker 1: terrible names for particles, and you're running out of English

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Speaker 1: words to append to your existing physics concepts. Banana matter taken.

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Speaker 1: Banana matter is not even an idea yet, not until

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Speaker 1: this podcast comes out. Is banana matter not ever a

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Speaker 1: phrase anybody's effer Herd in their mind. But it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: because it seems to be like a thing. It's like

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Speaker 1: a symmetry in the world, you know, like a lot

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Speaker 1: of these particles which exist, there is also this other

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Speaker 1: one of them in the same way that we notice

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Speaker 1: that electrons and muans and taws have a relationship, right,

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Speaker 1: They all have the same electric charge and the same

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Speaker 1: weak interaction, and they're organized in a similar way, but

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Speaker 1: they have different masses. So it's like these different directions

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Speaker 1: along which patterns sort of form. All these particles are

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Speaker 1: kind of different versions of each other, Like one of

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Speaker 1: them has a little bit of this more, or this

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Speaker 1: one has the opposite of that more. But they're all

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Speaker 1: sort of particles that we know and love because some

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Speaker 1: of them make us who we are, that's right, And

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Speaker 1: we're tempted to define one of them is like the

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Speaker 1: normal one. But again that's just the first one we discovered.

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Speaker 1: It's like, you know, what's real chocolate, dark chocolate or

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Speaker 1: white chocolate. You know, maybe if you grew up in

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Speaker 1: a family or white chocolate was the first thing you ate,

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Speaker 1: then dark chocolate would seem to be like the anti chocolate,

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Speaker 1: do you right? Yeah, that I think we should we

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Speaker 1: should do that, just call it anti chocolate. Um. And

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Speaker 1: and and remember also the antimatter is has positive mass,

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Speaker 1: right as far as we oh, it's made of the

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Speaker 1: same kind of stuff, and so it is antimatter because

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Speaker 1: it has the opposite charge. And if you collide matter

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Speaker 1: and antimatter, they interact and turned into light and turned

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Speaker 1: into energy. But in that sense, they're just more matter.

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Speaker 1: It's just you know, they have this relationship. We could

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Speaker 1: have called it something other than antimatter. We could have

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Speaker 1: called it, called it oppositely charged matter, or something that's

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Speaker 1: a little bit longer to fit into it didn't focus

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Speaker 1: group as well. Yeah, alright, so that's what antimatter is.

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Speaker 1: And there's this whole mystery about how most of the

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Speaker 1: universe seems to be matter and not antimatter, which we

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Speaker 1: got into into in our last podcast about antimatter. But

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Speaker 1: in this case, this one is more about how we

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Speaker 1: discovered it and how we know that it actually is

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Speaker 1: a thing. Right, that's right. The history of antimatter is

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Speaker 1: like almost a hundred years old now, um, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of surprising, but positrons, the first antimatter particle ever discovered,

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Speaker 1: were found You know in nineteen thirty two, so we've

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Speaker 1: known about them for a long long time, which kind

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Speaker 1: of surprised me that people still don't necessarily believe that

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Speaker 1: they're a thing or are aware that it's a thing,

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Speaker 1: because it's been a thing for decades. People, Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I think antimatter is anti celebrating birthdays, so that's probably

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Speaker 1: why maybe nobody has noticed. But let's get let's get

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Speaker 1: into whether or not antimatter really is real or theoretical,

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Speaker 1: and how we know that it's real or anti real,

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Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. But first let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break, all right, Daniel, So antimatter is real, whereas

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Speaker 1: an anti real or anti fake, which makes it real.

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Speaker 1: I'm so confused. It's really really anti anti real. So yes,

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Speaker 1: it's real. That did not help. Okay, So it's real

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Speaker 1: in the sense that not only can it exist in theory,

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Speaker 1: but you can actually like see and touch antimatter. You

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Speaker 1: can see in touch antimatter. I don't recommend actually touching

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Speaker 1: any antimatter because it's quite reactive. But it is a thing.

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Speaker 1: And you know, there's sort of two ways something can

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Speaker 1: be a thing. One is it's in the list of

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Speaker 1: particles that can exist in the universe, like the potential particles,

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Speaker 1: and the other is that it's actually made, that it

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Speaker 1: really exists. You can imagine a universe where that's cold

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Speaker 1: and dead and the only thing in it our photons,

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Speaker 1: for example, and you could in theory and that universe

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Speaker 1: have electrons. It just don't exist. Right, So one thing

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Speaker 1: is like being on the list of potential particles, the

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Speaker 1: other is actually existing an antimatter is both, but started

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Speaker 1: off on the theoretical list and then people actually found it.

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Speaker 1: You mean, people looked at the equations of the universe

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Speaker 1: at the time and they said, you know, we have

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Speaker 1: a little pocket here where there could be like an

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Speaker 1: electron with a positive charge. Like, there's nothing that would

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Speaker 1: prevent the equations from making this real. So you're saying

401
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Speaker 1: that's one way that something can be real if it's there,

402
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Speaker 1: if the equations point to it as being possible. Yeah,

403
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Speaker 1: and more than just the equation saying it's possible, you

404
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Speaker 1: could prove that it exists. But it doesn't have to

405
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Speaker 1: always actually exist, you know, like the Higgs boson, right,

406
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Speaker 1: the Higgs boson. We know it it's a thing, but

407
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Speaker 1: it doesn't actually like get created very often you know

408
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Speaker 1: you have you have specially need very special circumstances to

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Speaker 1: actually make one. So it's sort of like knowing that

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Speaker 1: the recipe works and actually making the cake. Right, It's

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Speaker 1: like unicorns can exist, but maybe they're just technically aren't

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Speaker 1: in right now the unicorns, what's the difference here, Daniel?

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Speaker 1: But and the matter is real. It occurs naturally in

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Speaker 1: cosmic rays. You don't actually need like a particle collider

415
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Speaker 1: or special physics lab to make it. It's created in

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Speaker 1: collisions in the atmosphere. Um, every time you have rate,

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Speaker 1: you active decay, you can create antimatter. Sometimes these decays

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Speaker 1: will create anti neutrinos or anti electrons or stuff like this.

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Speaker 1: Really in our atmosphere, we're getting rained down. Wait, it's

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Speaker 1: it's like regular matter is coming from the Sun as

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Speaker 1: cosmic rads hitting the atmosphere, and then in those collisions

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Speaker 1: you're saying antimatter is produced. That's right. Antimatter and matter

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Speaker 1: can turn into each other, right. Um Photons, for example,

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Speaker 1: can turn into a pair at an electron and apositron

425
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: one is matter? What is antimatter? All you have to

426
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: do is follow the rules of physics, which say, like

427
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,439
Speaker 1: conserve electric charge. But if you have photons, they can

428
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: turn into matter and antimatter. So you have in the

429
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: atmosphere because of cosmic rays, you have all these crazy complicated,

430
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: high energy collisions, and some of those just turned into

431
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: antimatter particles. Does that mean we're constantly and currently being

432
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:58,400
Speaker 1: rained down upon by antimatter? Absolutely? It is antimatter rain.

433
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 1: I think that is a song by Prince wasn't it? Yeah,

434
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: anti Prince Um. But the wait I thought it was dangerous.

435
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: How can I be getting rained on by antimatter and

436
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 1: not exploding like you said I would? It is dangerous

437
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 1: in high quantities, but there's not that much antimatter, Just

438
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: like you know, there's radiation coming from the upper atmosphere

439
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:24,639
Speaker 1: all the time, and radiation is also dangerous. You know,

440
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: protons and muans that go through your body have the

441
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 1: opportunity to damage your DNA, but there's not that much

442
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 1: of them, And so the higher you go up in

443
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:35,160
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, the more there there is just particle radiation,

444
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: and some of that is antimatter. So what happens if

445
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: a positron hits your arm, Well, it encounters an electron

446
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 1: and it turns into a photon. That photon has the

447
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 1: energy that's the equivalent twice the mass of the electron

448
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: because all that mask got turned into a photon. But

449
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: that's not that much, so you know, you one photon

450
00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: gets created. Should I be wearing anti sunscreen? Then said,

451
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:03,479
Speaker 1: there's no sunscreen. You can wear it to protect your

452
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: things that matter or just antimatter. Just make me glow

453
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: in a way that's desirable. Antimatter. It gives you an

454
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: anti tan, So actually what you want to do? Yeah,

455
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: you do look brighter, I guess in a way, so

456
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: it's almost like you're The amazing thing about antimatter, though,

457
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 1: is that it is really energy dense because it converts

458
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: all of the masses inside of it into energy. So

459
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: if you had, for example, like a raisin's worth of antimatter,

460
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: which is a lot more than one positron, right it's

461
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 1: ten to the twenty three particles or something, then that

462
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: would be as much energy as a nuclear bomb exploding.

463
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: But again that's a much bigger dose. And in the

464
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,199
Speaker 1: atmosphere you get you know, a few few positrons at

465
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: a time, and it's not just the atmosphere. Your favorite

466
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: snack actually is an antimatter of factory. What. Yeah, a

467
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: random banana has potassium in it. As we've mentioned before,

468
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 1: potassium is unstable and it decays radioactively and produces one

469
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 1: positron every seventy five minutes. One positron, Like a sitting

470
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 1: banana will shoot out a positron or does it get

471
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 1: caught by the other you know, banana electron banana on.

472
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: It depends. I guess where it gets produced. If it's

473
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: produced in the skin to the banana, it will shoot

474
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: out into the air. But of course positrons don't last

475
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 1: very long because they interact with electrons. But yeah, your

476
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: favored fruit, whether it's sitting on the table or you know,

477
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: in a high speed banana accelerator or whatever you do

478
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: with your bananas, produces about one positron every seventy five minutes.

479
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: It doesn't get stopped by the peel electrons electron. Yeah,

480
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: if it's produced in the center of the banana, then

481
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: it could. But if it's produced near the edge, and

482
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: then you could make it out of the banana into

483
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: the air. Well, maybe that's where I get my superpowers. Dan,

484
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: You get antimatter, you get that banana's proportional strength. Yeah,

485
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: there you go. I can make anyone slip and fall.

486
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: That's superpower. I can't make anyone uncomfortable with my ban

487
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: ant a chewing. All right, Well, let's just slide on

488
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: past that discussion. Yeah, alright, So antimatter is real. It

489
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: is a thing. It's all around this. In fact, you're

490
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: probably baild in antimatter even though you maybe didn't know

491
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:17,199
Speaker 1: it um. And you can also like make it in

492
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: a lab, right, like a certain you guys have been

493
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: making anti protons and anti hydrogen for a while, like

494
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: you have an antimatter of factory there. Yeah, that's right,

495
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: And the reason is that we're curious about it. We're

496
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: curious about like how symmetric our matter and antimatter. You know,

497
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: For example, can you make an anti proton and pair

498
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: it with an anti electron to get anti hydrogen? Does

499
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: chemistry work for antimatter? You know? Can you get enough

500
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: of it to test its gravitational properties? We don't even

501
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: know if antimatter feels gravity the way matter does, or

502
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: or if it feels like anti gravity because you just

503
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: never made enough of it. Really, the equations don't tell

504
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: you whether it should have mass or anti mass. Yeah,

505
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,439
Speaker 1: because it's really hard to measure the gravitational force on

506
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: a particle because it hardly has any mass. And in

507
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 1: the history of particle physics, we've made something like twenty

508
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: nanograms of anti matter ever total, and so it's pretty

509
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: hard to measure the gravitational effect of such a tiny scrap.

510
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: But you have made anti protons and anti hydrogen, which

511
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: is pretty cool, right. It's like a hydrogen, but the

512
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: complete opposite. Yeah, And as far as we can tell,

513
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: it works exactly the same way as a hydrogen atom.

514
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: So they get into a bound state, they can get excited,

515
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: they emit photons. It's exactly the same. So it's super

516
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: fascinating either to learn that they're different or to learn

517
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: that they're the same, you know, and it brings up

518
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: all sorts of interesting questions like why why is there antimatter?

519
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: It seems like such an interesting clue, Like why does

520
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 1: universe have this weird reflection? You know, it has all

521
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: these reflections. I love all these symmetries and particle physics,

522
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: but each one should tell us something about the universe.

523
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: They're a big, deep clue that says, here's something fastening

524
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: that's going on. We just don't know what it means, well,

525
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: you know, some people are just really contrarian, you know,

526
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: and to mabe, the universe is just just being anti

527
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: anti for no reason other than to just be anti.

528
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: But if it, But if antimatter exists, then why aren't

529
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: there other sort of reflections? You know, Why can't you

530
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: have all the same particles but with different spin. Oh

531
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: well that's supersymmetry, you know, why this reflection not other reflections? Anyway,

532
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: it's kind of stuff that makes me wonder do you

533
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: think it's these other mirror images exist? Do you think

534
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: they would have better names in physics, like actually good

535
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: ones because they're to be the opposite. Well, they can't

536
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 1: have much worse names. So there you go. All right,

537
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: Well it does exist. It's real. You can we can

538
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: make it in the lab. It's my banana makes it

539
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. And there are still a lot

540
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: of open questions about anti matter. So now let's talk

541
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: about how it was discovered, because that's a pretty interest

542
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: seeing story as well, and what it could mean for

543
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: the future of the universe. But first, let's take another

544
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, Daniel, So how is antimatter discovered? Were

545
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: they not looking for it and found it that would

546
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: be a great story. No, and that matter is sort

547
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: of a theoretical triumph because it happened actually very similarly

548
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: to the joke you made earlier, or the comments you

549
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 1: made earlier about people sort of noticing a gap in

550
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: the equations. What happened was the Paul Drac who's famous

551
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: theorist of around the beginning of when quantum mechanics was

552
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: was being formed, he was taking the Shortinger equation, the

553
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: equation that describes the motion of particles, and he was

554
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: trying to make it work for really fast moving particles.

555
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: He was trying to fold in relativity and quantum mechanics,

556
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: which amos is very hard to do, but he was

557
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: able to actually unify um, quantum mechanics, and special relativity

558
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: the laws that tell you what happens when things move

559
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: really really fast. So he came up with Yeah, he

560
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: came up with a new equation. It's called the Dirac equation,

561
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: and it's like the relativistic version of the Shortinger equation.

562
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: Shortinger equation tells you what happens for quantum particles that

563
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 1: are not moving that fast. The direct equation tells you

564
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: what happens when quantum particles are moving fast enough that

565
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: relativity kicks in. So he had this awesome equation already

566
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: a triumph, right, and it turned out to be true. Right,

567
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: This theory is as far as you know now. Yeah,

568
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: and that's amazing, right, direct unified special relativity and quantum mechanics.

569
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: And remember we've never successfully unified quantum mechanics and general

570
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: relativity theory by like bending space. That's still like to

571
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: be done. So folks out there looking to make a

572
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: big impact on physics that's been an open problem for

573
00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: a hundred years TVD to be discovered. That's right. But

574
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: then Derek looked at this equation. He's like, this is

575
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: something weird about this equation. He noticed that the equation

576
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: worked for a negatively charged particles like electrons, but it

577
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: would also work for positively charged particles. They thought, that's interesting.

578
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: Did did the equations have a pocket or like an

579
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: empty space for an anti electron? Or he just figured

580
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: out that this equation that we think describes the universe

581
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: could also work for something that looks like an anti electron. Yeah,

582
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: it's an equation with two solutions, just like you find

583
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: all the time and equations that have like squares in them,

584
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: like X squared equals nine, while there's a solution there, right,

585
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: X equals three, But there's another solution X equals minus three, right,

586
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: because minus three ties minus three is also plus nine. Yeah, exactly.

587
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: And so he noticed that his equation described electrons as

588
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: we know them, but it also described something else, something

589
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: we hadn't seen before, another particle with positive charge. And

590
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:58,959
Speaker 1: it's for exactly that reason that there's a squared in

591
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 1: his equation, and it allows for you know, particles of

592
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: either charge to satisfy his equations. And so he predicted

593
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,719
Speaker 1: that this would work for an anti electron. But did

594
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,959
Speaker 1: he predicted for other anti matter particles or just just

595
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: for the anti electron? Oh? Yeah, the story gets exciting,

596
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: But first he started small. He's like, you know what,

597
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: I think this is real? And I wonder like what

598
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: went through his head there? What makes him think, Oh,

599
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: that's not just a mathematical oddity. I've discovered something about

600
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,719
Speaker 1: the universe. Because a lot of times we have equations

601
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: that describe things and we just sort of toss out

602
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: solutions and say they're not physical, Like if you're talking about,

603
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: you know, how a ball moves through the air, you

604
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: have a parabola. And sometimes there are non physical solutions

605
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: to those equations, and you say, oh, those don't make

606
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: sense because they required the ball to move through the

607
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: ground or something. But he thought, no, this is real.

608
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: It's kind of like if you said that the number

609
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: of cookies that I have times a number of cookies

610
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: you have equals nine. You wouldn't say we both both

611
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: have minus three cookies. That wouldn't that want to be

612
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: a serious solution, because let's face it, we always have cookies. Yeah,

613
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: you impose a physical requirement there at least zero cookies. Right,

614
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a negative cookie. And but

615
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: Dirac was like, you know what, what if negative you

616
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: can count it as a negative. If I eat your cookies,

617
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: then maybe you have negative cookies. I don't know. I

618
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 1: would have a very negative reaction. Sure. I think there's

619
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: probably a whole course in philosophy on theory of negative cookies,

620
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: the ethical ramifications of less than zero cookies. Yeah, anti

621
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:37,720
Speaker 1: ethics or anti pastry. But he predicted it. He was balls,

622
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: and he said, I believe in myself, I believe in

623
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: my equation. I think this thing is real. So he

624
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: predicted his way before iPhones or the internet. Yeah, he

625
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 1: couldn't have just googled for it or asked Siri if

626
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: this is real. He made a prediction. And he's sort

627
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: of famous for being, you know, a bit of an

628
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: odd guy. You know, he probably fit in well on

629
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: the Big Bang theory. It had a lot of self confidence,

630
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: but maybe not a lot of social skills. He made

631
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: the claim that these equations work for an anti electron,

632
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:10,320
Speaker 1: so therefore there must be an anti electron. Is that is? That?

633
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: Was that his big leap there? That was his big leap.

634
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: He says, I've discovered this equation, and the equation is

635
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: fundamental to the universe and it describes something happening that

636
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: we haven't seen. So I think it's happens right, even

637
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:23,479
Speaker 1: though we haven't we haven't seen it because we haven't

638
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: looked for it. This equation allows for it to happen.

639
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: So let's go see if it does happen. Was that

640
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: a shift in physics as well? You know, people thinking

641
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: that well, if the if the math predicts it, then

642
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,439
Speaker 1: it must be real. You know, like that's a big

643
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: leap to think about that. It's a big leap. It

644
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,240
Speaker 1: takes a lot of ego but it was the first

645
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,439
Speaker 1: time a particle had been predicted. Yeah. Before that, every

646
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: particle discovered had been discovered first and then explained. It's like, oh,

647
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: look who we found How does that make sense? Let's

648
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: try to stitch together a theory that that accommodates it.

649
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: It's like in baseball, it's like calling your shot run

650
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:58,919
Speaker 1: than just hitting a home run. You're like, I'm gonna

651
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: hit a home run and it's the land right over there. Well,

652
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: I guess he had a history. Maybe he had up

653
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: to that point, there was a history where they had

654
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: discovered particles and then they found out the math fits it.

655
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: So then this, in this case, the math fitted and

656
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: so he probably thought, well then it must exist. Yeah,

657
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,399
Speaker 1: And it didn't take long for him to be proved. Right.

658
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: He was a babe ruth of physics. Yeah, and he

659
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: gets better. So it was just a few years later

660
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: a guy at cal Tech named Carl Anderson. He actually

661
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,479
Speaker 1: found the first positron, and like we were talking about,

662
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:32,919
Speaker 1: he found it in cosmic rays. He just saw one

663
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: flying through the air. And what made him think it

664
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: was a positron or an anti electron? Was he looking

665
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,439
Speaker 1: for it? Or I guess maybe his setup could only

666
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: work for an anti electron. No, he was looking just

667
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: to study cosmic rays, which were fairly new discovery at

668
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: the time. The whole idea that there were these particles

669
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: being rained on us from the upper atmosphere was sort

670
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 1: of new, and he was using a pretty cool device.

671
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,280
Speaker 1: At the time, the first cosmic rays were discovered basically

672
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 1: by huge cubic blocks of film that they had to

673
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: slice up and analyze later. But he wanted some real time.

674
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: He wanted to see these things in real time, so

675
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: he used this thing called the cloud chamber, which is

676
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: basically a box of glass that you can see into

677
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: and then you fill it with air which is supersaturated

678
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: with water, and when a particle goes through it that

679
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: has a charge, it will cause droplets along its path,

680
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: and so you see are these like little drops of

681
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: water appear as a particle flies through it. You can

682
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: actually build the cloud chamber in your garage. Yeah. It

683
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: creates like a trail of bubbles as it goes through.

684
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: Not bubbles, there's there's something else called the bubble chamber.

685
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: This creates a trail of water droplets and you can

686
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: see them, and they have them in a lot of

687
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 1: science museums you can see like muans flying through them,

688
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,399
Speaker 1: and so he had seen muans and people have seen

689
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 1: electrons and stuff like this. But then he put it

690
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: in a magnetic field, and the magnetic field bends the

691
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: path of this particle, and the magnetic field will bend

692
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: a positive particle differently than it bends a negative particle

693
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 1: cool and so that this was just a few years

694
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: after direct So he did he know about directs prediction

695
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: or did he discover it kind of independently. Now, he

696
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 1: definitely knew about directs prediction. It was an idea that

697
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: was out there, so it helped him sort of interpret

698
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: his data. And what he saw was, of course, a

699
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: bunch of electrons. Electrons are much more common in the

700
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: atmosphere than positrons. But then he saw this one track,

701
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: this track that curved the wrong way, and he said,

702
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: what's that? You know? And he could tell the mass

703
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: of the particle by how much it curved, and you

704
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 1: could tell the charge of it by the direction of

705
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: its curve. So he knew, for example, it wasn't a proton,

706
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:37,240
Speaker 1: because the proton is much heavier and would have curved less.

707
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: So curved just like an electron except the other way,

708
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: except the direction. Yes, And this is amazing to me

709
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: because these days, to discover something, you don't just need

710
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: one example. You can't be like, hey, look here's the

711
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 1: Higgs boson. We found it, and here's the picture of it.

712
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: You know, um, we need like five examples or something

713
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: to show statistically that it really exists. Really, he claimed

714
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 1: his discovery with and equals one data points and equals one.

715
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: It was so conclusive. Nothing we knew of could make

716
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: that data. He didn't even wait to get another one. No,

717
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 1: he didn't even wait to get another one. And you

718
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: can see like that is famous data. You can google

719
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: for it and see like his original data that proved

720
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 1: the discovery of the positive. Sure he didn't he didn't

721
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: get at least two. He didn't wait a little bit

722
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 1: and got another one. Maybe he got some backup data,

723
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: but you know that's all he needed. That that convinced everybody.

724
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: I'm still convinced by one image. Yeah, and um, and

725
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: so he discovered that was ninety two. And then the

726
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: next year Dirac wins the Nobel Prize for predicting antimatter.

727
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: Did Carl and Anderson also get it? Or just the

728
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: just the rack in nineteen thirty three, but then Anderson

729
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: wanted three years later sort of in a combined Nobel

730
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 1: Prize for cosmic rade discoveries. But my favorite bit of

731
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: this story is that Dirac, you know, he was a

732
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 1: heavy guy, and he made of this bold prediction and

733
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: then it actually had come true. So then you know

734
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: he like called his shot at like babe Ruth. So

735
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,279
Speaker 1: then in his acceptance speech where he's like, you know,

736
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: at the Nobel Prize ceremony getting the Nobel Prize from

737
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 1: the King of Sweden, in that speech he predicts another particle.

738
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: He like doubles down. He's like, I predict a million

739
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:27,800
Speaker 1: dollars in my bank account tomorrow. He predicted the anti proton.

740
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: He was like, well, if the electron has an anti particle,

741
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: why not the proton? So he predicted it. Oh wow.

742
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: And then when he got the Nobel price for that one,

743
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: did he also make another prediction in the next speech, like,

744
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: how when did you stop? It's still going on? Actually,

745
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: I see he's still making predictions. He's like, and the

746
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 1: next election will be won by Hey, doubling down works

747
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: for you, right, you just keep doubling down. And the

748
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: exponentially you get more and more Nobel prizes. Yeah, yeah,

749
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 1: alright cool. So that's how the antimatter, the first antimatter

750
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: particle was discovered, and since then we've we've seen antimatter

751
00:41:06,640 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: particles all over the place and for all kinds of

752
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: particles to write, that's right. And these days in particle

753
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: collisions we can very easily make anti electrons, which are positrons,

754
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:21,720
Speaker 1: and anti muons, and we've seen antiquarks and all sorts

755
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff. There are some antiparticles we haven't seen yet.

756
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 1: Oh really, they're still hiding or there's still we just

757
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: haven't bothered. Well, no, there's some some that are still hiding.

758
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:36,359
Speaker 1: For example, anti neutrinos. Like we know neutrinos are a thing.

759
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 1: What we don't know is if there are anti neutrinos.

760
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: I mean we talk about it, but we don't really

761
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: know if anti neutrinos are just the same thing as

762
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: neutrinos because they have no electric charge. Yeah, how can

763
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: you be anti nothing? Yeah? Well, for example, the photon

764
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: is its own antiparticle, or you could say it doesn't

765
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 1: have an antiparticle. So we don't know if neutrinos are

766
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: in that category of particles that don't would have antiparticles,

767
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: or if they're in the category of particles like electrons

768
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: and do have antiparticles, like asking who who is the

769
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 1: anti version of Switzerland and sucerand is neutral? So nobody

770
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,919
Speaker 1: and everybody precisely. So people are trying to figure out

771
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: do neutrinos have antiparticles or are they just themselves? Um,

772
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, And then people are doing more

773
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: and more experiments to make antimatter and try to study

774
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: its chemical properties. We'd love to see, like more than

775
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: just anti hydrogen. We'd love to see you know, anti

776
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:33,919
Speaker 1: water and all sorts of crazy stuff. But I guess

777
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 1: the point is that it does exist, and that it

778
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: is something that was predicted by the physics, by the

779
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: equations first, and then we went out and found it,

780
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: and now there's in controvertible proof that it does exist,

781
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: that antimatter can exist, does exist, even if we don't

782
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: know exactly where it is in the universe. That's right.

783
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: Even though it's been featured in the Dan Brown novel,

784
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 1: it is really out there, and it's a triumph in

785
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: the theoretical physics to sort of notice these patterns in

786
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,280
Speaker 1: the universe and assume that the universe might follow those patterns,

787
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,040
Speaker 1: right to say, we think the universe makes sense, and

788
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: if we can figure out the rules that describe it,

789
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,840
Speaker 1: then maybe we can use that to predict things in

790
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: the universe we've never even seen. Right, what a crazy

791
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: step forward. Yep, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's a

792
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 1: conspiracy fact. We have a picture of it from that

793
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: says that it's true, so it must be true. It's

794
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 1: out there, it's in you, it's in me, it's in

795
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: jogees bananas, So get used to it, folks. All right, Well,

796
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that and got to learn a

797
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: little bit more about the anti universe out there, the

798
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: antihistory of physics, or the physics of antihistory, or the

799
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: history of anti physics. Well, you've definitely convinced me. Daniel

800
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:54,839
Speaker 1: am definitely pro anti matter. Now, thanks everyone for tuning in.

801
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: Before you still have a question after listening to all

802
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us the line. We'd love to

803
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

804
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or

805
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

806
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:21,280
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

807
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I heart Radio. For

808
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 1: more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart

809
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

810
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:31,760
Speaker 1: favorite shows.