WEBVTT - What is toponium? 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.720 Hey, they're extraordinaries Kelly here, So I absolutely cannot believe 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.400 this is happening. But my book A City on Mars 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.560 is Barnes and Nobles Nonfiction pick for August. I am 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.319 so excited. So if you swing by your local Barnes 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:16.720 and Noble, there's likely a display near the front of 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.599 the store with my book, and of course it's on 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.600 Barnes and Nobles's website as well. So to learn about 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.239 where we're likely to settle in space, whether we can 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.200 make babies in space, why astronauts love taco sauce, and 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.479 the legal status of space cannibalism, head over to Barnes 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.040 and Noble and check out A City on Mars? Can 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.800 we settle Space? Should we settle space? And have we 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:39.080 really thought this through? 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:39.720 Thanks? 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:45.960 Everyone. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.199 We smash particles together at the Large Adron Collider not 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.319 just because it's cool or because we want to know 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.400 what the universe is made out of. It's all those reasons, 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:03.560 but also we want to understand how those basic bits 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.199 of matter come together to make up our world. Why 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.039 do they interact this way not that way? Can they 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.440 fit together in some new way? We've never seen the 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.880 story of particle physics discoveries is a story of cycles, 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.040 swinging between confusion the many kinds of particles to insight 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.240 about how they come together. Today we'll be tackling a 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.880 topic that has received a lot of attention recently in 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.680 the news. Topponium. What is it and what does it 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.920 tell us about the nature of matter and energy? It 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.400 turns out to be the latest chapter in a rich 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:42.039 history of discovery, betrayal, and urination. Yes, that's right, I 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:47.920 said urination. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:02.680 Hi. I'm Kelly Waidersmith. 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.720 I study parasites and space, and I do not know 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:07.200 what toponium is. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.560 Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist. I do know 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.800 what toponium is, and I'm also looking forward to declaring 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:15.320 the discovery of white sonium. 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.720 Oh that would be great, So I await that day. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:20.640 I'm sure it will come. 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:23.440 But my question for you today is what is your 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.240 favorite name for a physics thing? What do you think 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.280 is like the best name physicists have come up with 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:29.359 for something so far. 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.160 I think one of my favorite names is the rate 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.320 of change of acceleration, which is called jerk which is, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.880 you know, also a fun word, but it's kind of 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.280 you know, you can jerked around. It kind of makes sense. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:44.320 Yeah, yeah, I like that. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.200 All right, good, good job physicists, you got one. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.320 But before you applaud us too much for giving jerk 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:53.200 a cool name. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:54.800 I all just named it, didn't. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:59.480 They They went a little crazy after jerk and rate 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.560 of change jerk is called snap, and the rate of 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.640 changes snap is called crackle. And the rate of change 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.440 of crackle You want to guess pop? 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.880 Yeah, I bet that was named by children of the eighties, 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.880 isn't that when raised Chrispy's a hit their zenith of popularity. 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:22.320 That's exactly right. Physicists trying desperately for cultural relevance. 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.400 Sorry guys, but you know, we do our best to 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.680 be relevant because in the NB are trying to understand 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:32.440 the way the world works, what it's all made out of, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:33.600 what you are made out of, what. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.600 Your breakfast cereal is made out of, and more than 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.840 just what it's made out of, but what it can do, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.560 because your life isn't dominated by fundamental particles, but by 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.400 those particles put together an interesting, weird, delicious, and hilarious ways. 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.600 Oh I like the delicious ways. I think that's my favorite. 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.000 So you sent me an outline I said, we're talking 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.640 about toponium, and I was like, well, this is yet 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.160 another one of those instances where Kelly gets to learn 0:03:58.200 --> 0:03:59.960 on air and ask stupid questions. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.760 I have no idea what this is. 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.240 Intelligent questions, intelligent questions. Intelligence, that's what you're here for. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.960 That's right. I'm continuing to earn my pod in physics. 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.200 Absolutely, yes, we are also offering a POD in physics 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.800 to our listeners, and so let's go ahead and hear 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:15.320 what they think. 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.719 To Ponium is the particle with the most protons neutrons, 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.159 electrons crammed into it to make it the biggest, biggest 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:23.680 top of the table. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:29.640 Element theoretical matter that has a top quack or something 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.640 like that. Probably some type of metal like strontium. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:34.360 That sounds like an element. 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.000 I don't know, but it sounds like a chemical element. 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.200 I'm going to assume that to ponium is related to 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.280 physics and not biology, so there's a good chance that 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:50.080 it's a mathematical equation. It's the opposite of bottominium. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.000 Obviously, a mineral developed for the Marvel cinematic universe. 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:57.640 And then stolen by James Cameron for an upcoming film. 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:03.120 Matter perhaps purely fear ratical composed of top quarks only 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.800 Toponium is the top quark matter fraction of unobtainium after 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.120 quantum centrifugal separation of unobtainium, or. 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.800 The theoretical element with no protons and no electrons gets 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.680 its own special row at the top of the periodic table. 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:23.040 Thus topponium, toponium or not toponium, that is the question. 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.520 Rare element, I would say, perhaps a hypothesized element that 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:29.120 hasn't been discovered yet. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.599 I've never heard of toponium, but it ends in iem, 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.360 so it makes me think of deuterium or tritium, some 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.040 sort of combination of things. But the only top anel 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.120 is a quark, so it's not some weird combination of 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.080 only top quarks, is it. 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.880 I don't know, But if it doesn't sit on top 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.200 of middleium and botamium, I'm going to be very disappointed. 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.279 These are wonderful answers, I mean, as always, but yeah, 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.600 this one in particular had a lot of funny answers, 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:01.160 and I'm guess that's because a lot of people are 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.560 in my situation which is to say, no idea, Daniel, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:05.719 absolutely no clue. 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.479 And they're trying to reverse engineered from the name, which 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.360 is smart but assumes the physicists give names to things 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.200 in logical ways that can be reverse engineered, which isn't 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:15.920 always true. 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.400 Big mistake, Big mistake. That's right. 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.720 It's either confusing or wrong or misleading something like that. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.560 All right, well, let's not keep people in suspense anymore. 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.440 Toponium is a fascinating new thing recently explored by the 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.279 Large Hadron Collider, and it has to do with how 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.760 quarks can come together, which is a whole fascinating area 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.640 of physics that explains how I'm built and you're build 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.000 and how the whole world around us comes together. Plus 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:47.080 is filled with crazy stories of physicists being outrageous amazing. 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.039 So when you say recently, do you mean like this 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.080 decade or yeah, what do you mean by recently? 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.960 The toponium paper came out last year? Oh wow, Yeah, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.240 this is a fresh hot off the press, and a 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.120 bunch of people emailed me and said, hey, can when 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.840 you explain this? I don't understand it, because probably the 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.680 paper was too hard to digest, and even the Science 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.720 communication articles about toponym. I felt like they talk about it, 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.800 but they don't really convey the crucial ideas that I 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.720 want people to understand about why this is exciting area 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:16.360 of research. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.200 And we are here for the one hour version of 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.400 all of those things. So let's start from the beginning. 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.880 What is a quark? And you gave me the ability 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:27.520 to explain this to my daughter the other day we 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.960 were talking about quarks, and I felt pretty cool that 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.680 I could go ahead and kind of explain it. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:32.600 But let's hear it from you. 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.120 So quarks are something we discovered about fifty years ago. 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.560 They're what make up the protons and the neutrons. So 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:41.160 you know, you and I are made out of molecules. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.560 Those molecules are made out of atoms. Every atom has 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.640 a nucleus in it with protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.680 But those protons and neutrons are not fundamental. They are 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:54.560 made up of other smaller particles called quarks. And in particular, 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.360 there's two quarks, the upcork and the down cork that 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.400 make up the proton and the neutron. I know this 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.720 for sure until about the late sixties and seventies, and 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.120 how we figured out that protons and neutrons are made 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.239 of quarks. Is a really fun story and a tricky 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.920 one because we can't see quarks by themselves. We have 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.040 to infer their existence. There's a lot of really cool 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.720 and mathematical puzzles that had to be solved to even 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.920 suggest that quarks might be there. So to set the stage, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.720 we have to go back to like the late nineteen forties. 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:24.880 What was the state of particle physics in the late 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.200 nineteen forties. Well, we knew about electrons, We knew about 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.680 protons and neutrons. We also knew that there were photons 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.600 out there, right Like, we'd seen photons. Einstein and Planck 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.320 and those guys revolutionized quantum mechanics with a photoelectric effect 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.960 and the idea of photons light as a packet and 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.960 in cosmic rays. We'd seen a few other weird particles 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.360 like muons and pions, but things seemed kind of tidy, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.880 Like we had a few particles, they all came together 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.559 to mostly explain everything we knew. People felt like, hey, 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.360 we're maybe on the verge of like nailing this, you know, 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.440 narrowing things down. We'd gone from like infinite complexity of 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.520 chemistry down to like a one hundred basic building blocks 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.800 and the periodic table. Now we were down to like 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.320 three objects protons and neutrons and electrons that made everything 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.440 lava and kittens and ice cream and podcasters and everything. 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.560 People felt like, oh yeah, we're on the track. And 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.880 then came the nineteen fifties where everything got weird. 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:21.760 When you start to feel confident, the universe kicks you 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:22.320 in the face. 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.000 And this came about because we had a revolution in 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.400 particle physics technologies. Beforehand, we mostly relied on the universe 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.560 to accelerate our particles. So many of the discoveries were 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.559 making of weird particles were cosmic rays, super high energy 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.480 particles that hit the upper atmosphere and then showered. So 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.319 people would like send balloons up into the upper atmosphere 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.960 or leave like big blocks of photographic material on the 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.000 tops of mountains and then slice it super thin and 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:51.640 expose it. 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.160 Fun fact, the first chicken sandwich to go to space 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.920 was sent up on a balloon by KFC. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.240 Anyway, move on exactly. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.000 You can accomplish a lot of things with balloons. 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:03.160 Yea. 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.120 These balloons are amazing also because they start out like 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.200 pretty big on the ground, and then when they get 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.600 to the upper atmosphere because the pressure is solo, they 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:15.439 become enormous, like mind boggling, like football stadium size balloons 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.559 when they're in the upper atmosphere. It's incredible. Anyway, we've 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:20.520 been doing particle physics that way. It's just like, hey, 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.240 let's let the universe accelerate stuff and watch it as 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.720 it smashes into the atmosphere. And that was useful, and 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.200 that's how we saw muons and chaons and other kinds 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.200 of particles. But then folks figure it out better ways 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.559 to accelerate particles here on Earth. So cyclotrons and signotrons, 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.720 all these cool technologies to bend particles and a loop, 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.000 give them a kick and get them going to pretty 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.640 high energies. Let us smash particles together and open up 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.720 a whole golden era of discovery for particle physics. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:48.959 And these things are amazing. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.560 I got to go in the synchrotron facility in the 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.319 UK on Harwell's campus, cool. 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:55.320 And it was so cool. 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.200 They speed up X rays with magnets and they were 0:10:58.240 --> 0:10:59.880 showing me how all this stuff works, and it was 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:01.480 I'll never forget it. 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:02.719 Anyway, cool facilities. 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.800 They can't speed up X rays with magnets. That doesn't 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.720 work because X rays are neutral and so they don't 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.480 feel magnets. But they probably generate X rays from high 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.840 end G particles accelerated and bent by magnets. 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.840 That is right, Thank you. I appreciate the correction. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.920 Yeah, it's very cool technology. EO. Lawrence won Nobel Prizes 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:23.720 for this kind of stuff. It's why we have Lawrence 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.840 National Lab two, Lawrence National Labs. Actually, he's a really 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.719 smart dude. Anyway. By smashing particles into other particles, we 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.720 started discovering a bunch of really strange particles, particles we 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.160 literally called strange, like chaons and other kinds of pions 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.080 and all sorts of stuff. It was like every time 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.439 you turned on the accelerator you discovered a new particle, 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:45.760 which is crazy. That just doesn't happen these days. 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:46.480 That is crazy. 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.520 What you said, particles we literally called strange. There is 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.520 a particle called the strange particle. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.120 There is a particle that called the strange part This 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:57.160 is a strange quirk. But initially there were particles that 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.440 we classified as strange. We described them as range. These 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.800 are chan particles, and these particles were strange because they 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.200 sort of lasted a long time and then decayed, which 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.080 people hadn't seen before. It turns out that's because they 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.480 were decaying via the weak force, which is pretty weak, 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:13.080 and so it takes a while for it to work. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.320 But we didn't understand that at the time. But it 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.440 was an exciting moment because like every time we turned 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.520 on the accelerator, you made a new particle, you could 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:21.400 name it. It must have been a really fun time 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.040 to be a particle physicist. Yes, and they call this 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.840 time in particle physics the particle zoo. 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.360 I really love zoos, and I feel like I might 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:32.959 be disappointed if I saw a particle zoo instead of 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:33.839 a zoo zoo, but. 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:34.560 It sounds fun. 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.920 I can imagine physicists being like children enjoying the particle zoo. 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:40.600 I'm glad you take it that way, because I think 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:46.240 it's actually intended as shade against biology. Yes, because this 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.680 is the era in particle physics where we were seeing 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:50.920 a bunch of stuff we didn't understand and we were 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.160 just naming it, and so I think they were like, 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.959 we're basically doing botany. You know, we don't understand anything. 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:57.080 We just give stuff names. 0:12:57.960 --> 0:12:58.720 You guys suck. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:03.640 But it's an exciting time to be an experimentalist because 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.240 you're discovering stuff that isn't predicted. It's not like here's 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:08.920 what the Higgs boson will look like, here's how you 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.600 find it, go do it. Check the box, or here's 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.319 the top quark. It's like, well, we're not understanding anything 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.319 you're doing. Stop discovering new particles, please, because we're confused. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.240 But you know, for an explorer, that's an exciting time. 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.960 That's like, well we're just you know, collecting new stuff 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.679 and nobody understands. And it was a big puzzle. So 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.000 people have found all these particles and they were wondering 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.440 like are they all fundamental? Are we discovering a bunch 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.680 of new stuff that isn't made out of other stuff? 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.560 Is there a pattern somehow? So it was a big 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:39.239 theoretical puzzle, like what explains all of these new particles? 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.319 And people started thinking about it and trying to organize 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.400 it and like, hey, are there patterns here? Can we 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.400 look at the masses how many particles are there? And 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.080 a few clever people came up with some ideas to 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.960 explain all of these particles, and it was called the 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:54.079 eightfold way. 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.080 Oh all right, so I'm just about done stuffing the 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.560 anger that I'm feeling down that earlier comment. But you're 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:06.599 making me wonder the word particles. Is it part of 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.480 coles because it's part of other things? Was that why 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:10.800 you guys named it particles? 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.640 Hmmm? That's interesting. The etymology the word particle itself. I 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.000 think it comes from the concept of particle just being 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.840 a tiny bit of stuff, like the smallest particule, you know, 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:23.920 particularly small stuff. 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.440 Okay, got it, all right, so sorry, Moving on the 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:27.320 eightfold way. 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:28.400 The eightfold way. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.360 Yeah, this sounds like something you would learn in a 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:31.800 martial arts class. 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.120 The eightfold way. So why was it called the eightfold way? 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.440 Yeah, it's like the Tao of physics or something. Yes, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.680 because people were looking for patterns, and they were starting 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.600 with the assumption that all these particles might be their 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.960 rearrangement of smaller bits, a smaller number of basic pieces. 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.400 So imagine you have like three different kinds of legos, 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:54.640 and then you ask like, well, what can I build 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:56.800 out of these legos? Okay, they click together this way 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.800 or that way or this other way. But if there's 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:01.840 a small number of them, there's a limited way they 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.640 can come together. And so people imagine, well, what if 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.600 we have like four different kinds of legos, what can 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.720 we explain? And they noticed that if you arrange the 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.720 newly discovered particles in a certain way, that can be 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.400 explained by having four different elementary pieces that all click together. 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.800 For example, these pieces all have different electric charge, and 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.800 so it predicts like a distribution of the electric charges 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.560 of all the particles you can make with these basic pieces. 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.040 And so does that mean they went looking then for 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.280 the four basic parts that would make up the rest 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:32.800 of the stuff. 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.240 Not initially. First thing they did is they said, well, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.240 what's missing, Like, are there ways that you can put 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.880 these four basic pieces together to make a particle we 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.120 haven't seen yet? And Gellman famously stood up at a 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.800 conference and said, you know, I predict the existence of 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.880 this new particle. He called it the omega minus, which 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.080 would be a pure combination of the particle we'd later 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.320 call strange quarks, So three strange quarks put together, and 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.200 he even predicted with the mass of it would be. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:00.760 And then they went out look for it and they 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.240 found it, and that was very compelling. That's like, okay, 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.760 make a prediction. You know, this isn't just mathematical. But 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:08.680 at the time, a lot of physicists were like, you know, 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.320 we haven't seen these particles. We're just seeing the combinations 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.360 of them. And while it's compelling to say, look, I 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.160 see their patterns in the particles that are consistent with 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.480 them being made out of a small number of more 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.000 basic elements, we haven't seen them directly, and so people 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.320 just thought of them as like, you know, a mathematical 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.520 calculational tool, the way people are down on string theory 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.920 these days, right, they're like, yeah, well string theory can 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.160 solve quantum gravity, but we never seen a string, so 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.040 how do we really know. It's just mathematics. So people 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.720 sort of dismissed it as like just a mathematical tool. 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.200 They called them partons. They weren't like real particles. 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.880 And in that case, were they called partons because they 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.400 were part of something? Yes, but that's okay, but that's 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:48.960 not true for particles. 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.960 Yeah, that's right. Partons are like part of something. But 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.960 it's a special word because they're like, it's not real, 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.800 you know, it's just like math. It's not something that 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.920 you could actually see or interact with. It's not necessarily 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.880 part of the physical universe. That's how people felt about 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.200 it in the late nineteen sixties. They were like, this 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.560 is pretty compelling, but we don't know. 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:08.960 Okay. 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.960 We also had competing names for them. Murray Gelman, who 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:13.960 won the Nobel Prize for this stuff, called them quarks. 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.719 But there was another guy named Zwig who came up 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.119 with the same idea at about the same time, actually 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.600 a little earlier, but he wasn't as influential, and he 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:22.560 called them aces. 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.680 Oh which name do I like better? 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:25.960 I think aces is cool. 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.960 Actually, quarks is fun. Aces is cool. 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:33.560 Quarks comes from a James Joyce novel. Actually three quarks 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.439 for muster mark is a nonsensical phrase in that novel, 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:39.359 and that's what inspired Murray Gellman. 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.680 Oh cute, Okay, that's pretty cool. 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:47.120 Was Gilman generally a very like literate dude or into literature. 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:49.680 Yeah, he was. He was sort of like a renaissance 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:50.920 man widely read. 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.560 All right, so now we've got quarks instead of aces, 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:55.760 and so you know, you mentioned string theory and so 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.800 one I remember when we were talking to the string theorists, 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.679 a couple months ago, they were saying that they're not 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:02.480 sure that we'll ever be. 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.160 Able to test some of these ideas. 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.159 Yeah, but luckily, I believe we eventually got to the 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.119 point where we could test for some of these ideas 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.240 for these particles. So what was the jump that allowed 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:13.800 us to do that? 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.639 Yeah, So so far we've only seen the combinations of 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:22.959 these still hypothetical quirks macroscopically in our detectors, and so 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.400 in order to probe them, people followed in the footsteps 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.800 of Rutherford. Rutherford around the turn of the century, he 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.199 tried to understand the structure of the atom before we 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.960 knew like, hey, there's a nucleus inside of it. He 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.040 tried to understand, like where is all the stuff in 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.760 the atom? And what he did was he shot stuff 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.000 at it, right, So he shot particles at a gold foil, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.960 and he saw that sometimes it bounces back and sometimes 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.280 it goes through. And that led him to conclude that 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.040 matter is not evenly distributed in the gold foil. It's 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.760 concentrated in these tiny little spots, these nuclei. Right, So 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.560 we did something similar to understand the structure of the proton, right, 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:58.440 what's inside the proton. 0:18:58.119 --> 0:18:59.680 And when we get back from the break, we'll find 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:22.000 out what we did. All right, So we just talked 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:26.200 about the experiments that Rutherford did to show that atoms 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.200 have of structure, like there's a nucleus. So now let's 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.720 talk about how we figured out the structure of the proton. 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.399 Yeah, exactly. We basically copied Rutherford's strategy, and we've been 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.679 doing that for decades, which is shoot stuff at it 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.840 and see what happens, and by the angles at which 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.760 stuff comes out, you can tell the structure of something. 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.000