WEBVTT - Will A Gamma Ray Burst Kill You? 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.880 Hey, Jorge, do you worry much about things from space 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:15.960 coming to kill you? Not until right now? Why should I? Well, 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.919 it depends. It depends on what. Well, if there was 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.280 nothing you could do to prepare for or prevent it, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.160 would you still want to know? Yeah? I think so. 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.759 It'd be nice to know. Um, so you can get 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.200 my things in order, and you know, get a couple 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.040 of finish that TV series I I've been watching. In 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.320 that case, I highly recommend you pay attention to this 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.279 episode of our podcast because it's going to prepare you. 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:40.879 Why should I listen to the episode or finish my 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.959 TV series? I'm confused? What should I do? Daniel? I imagine, Well, 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.639 we're recording this episode. You do sound this tracked sometimes? Well, 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:53.320 I say, she'd multitask exactly. There's a you know, death 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.520 from space is coming, so you've got to get stuff done. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.000 I feel like the universe is huge and there's there's 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.160 a million things out there that can kills instantly at 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.800 any time. Are you saying there's something in particular I 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:23.600 should be worried about. Stay tuned find out. Hi. I'm Borhand. 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.600 I'm a cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.600 piled Higher and Deeper or PhD comics. He's also a 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.720 shill for big banana corporations, but you'll hear more about 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.080 that later. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:40.360 part time podcast host and amateur baker, and also a 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:45.160 shill for Marvel Comics and DC whatever. Man, I'm totally 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.720 a DC guy. That's why he sold out to Marvel, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.600 because it's the most successful, more successful franchise. Well, I 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:53.400 am still waiting for that check, by the way, for 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.960 selling out to Marvel. I think I think they're waiting 0:01:56.000 --> 0:02:01.240 for um Tony Stark design it. Yeah. Well I was 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.920 fact checking their Pin Particle episodes and I sent them 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.240 a long list of corrections and never heard back. So 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:09.880 maybe I'm maybe they don't want to hear from me anymore. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.640 I know the scientific advisor of the at My Movies. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.040 He's a buddy, so I could we could just have 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.760 the whole podcast with him, really, because I got a 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:21.960 few things to say about the pin particle and the 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.280 quantum realm. Now he's a quantum physicist. Are you sure 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.440 you're you're off for the for the challenge? Well, he's 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.320 either right or he's wrong. There's no in between, right, No, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.440 he is, he's both. No, he's right and wrong at 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.720 the same time. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, this is our podcast, 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.000 Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.640 Heart Radio, where we talk about all the amazing and 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.280 mysterious things are that are out there in the universe 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.000 that may or may not kill you instantly. That's right. 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.360 That Sometimes we talked about the real universe. Sometimes we 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:54.960 talk about the Marvel universe, or the DC universe, or 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:59.040 the Banana universe, whatever is interesting today. Yeah, and so 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.920 today on the podcast, we are going to talk about 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:10.000 a very interesting topic. That's right. Today's topic is gamma 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.080 ray bursts. A bunch of listeners wrote in and asked 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.160 us to explain gamma ray bursts. What are they? Can 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.280 they kill us? Can they really turned Bruce Banner into 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.600 the Hulk? What's going on? Please break it down? Wait, 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:24.760 gamma ray births. I thought we were talking about Billy 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.000 ray Cires. I thought, isn't that the weird thing from 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.320 space that we were No, Billy ray Cirus. His career 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.200 is based on getting irradiated by gamma ray bursts. That's 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.160 the connection. He used to be a mild mannered singer, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.160 and then he got gamma rays and now he's like 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.680 crazy Billy ray Cirus, all right, and so gamma rays 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.440 are involved. I totally made that up. That is completely fabricated. 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.040 I apologize to Billy ray Cirius and all of his 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.920 fans for implying that the mere mortal could not have 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:59.640 written that music the hokey pokey. So he didn't write 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.480 the hokey pokey anyway. But but gamma rays do play 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.760 a big role in the Marvel universe, right, because back 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.640 when gamma rays were the crazy thing people were worried about. 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.400 It showed up in comic books all the time. And 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.920 that's how Bruce Banner got turned into the Hulk. That's right. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.360 And I'm surprised you know this fact about the Marvel universe. 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:19.159 I thought you were a d C guy. Well, you know, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.680 Marvel is not paying me, so I figured i'd do 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:27.040 some research. So yeah, so he he gets irradiated by 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.159 gamma rays and some kind of accident and that's what 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.840 turns him into the Hulk. And so these are like magic, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.080 mysterious raise right, that's right. And you know, I gotta 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.800 wonder about this origin story the Hulk, Like, do you 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.240 think they're trying to make it seem like it's his fault? 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:44.120 Like crazy scientists just wants to learn about the universe, 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.719 doesn't care about the risks to humanity gets irradiated, Like 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.839 is that like a moral punishment like tisk tisk, You 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.960 shouldn't be playing with these forces you don't understand. Yeah, 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.720 for sure. Wait are you saying that comic books can 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.600 have like literary you know, secret mess it is and 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.359 thieves and they're definitely there's definitely literary. I don't know 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.560 if it's so secret though. I just wonder about like 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.640 how is interpreted at the time, you know, like our 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.320 scientists like the leading edge, they're bringing us into the 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.720 atomic age, look at all the wonderful things we're getting 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.960 out of science, or is it like I'm kind of 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.240 scared of science. Scientists don't seem trustworthy, look at all 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.560 the crazy stuff they're doing. I think it was a 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.880 It's supposed to be kind of a take on you 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.640 know Dr jackl and Mr Hyde, you know, the scientists 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.599 who's trying to understand things and playing maybe with things 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.479 he doesn't quite fully understand, and then he he gets 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.160 turned into a superhero and into a multiple near franchise 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.039 we kind of worked out for the scientists. Yeah, so 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.600 the lesson is everybody should do crazy radiation experiments in 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:46.559 their basement, right, you know what? Gamma rays do feature 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.719 a lot in comics from a long time ago, and 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.000 they are a real thing. Gamma rays really are a 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.080 real thing, and gamma ray bursts are a real thing, 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:56.080 and so we thought it'd be fun to do an 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.680 episode where we explain it. Um. It turns out that 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.240 they are quite a scientistic puzzle. Um. For a long time, 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.719 physicists have not understood where they came from and what's 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.400 generating them. And should we be worried about them? Yeah? 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.560 Should we worry about them exactly? And are we all 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.440 going to turn into the Hulk? And how do you 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.800 feel about that anyway? And should you watch your TV? 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.800 I don't, Well, you mean, what happens if you turn 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.039 into the Hulk and you have all those TV shows recorded? 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:22.640 Do you think the Hulk likes to watch the same 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.640 TV show as you do? Do you need like separate 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.599 tvrs for when you're in Hulk mode when you're not 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.720 in Hulk mode? You know, I don't think the Hulk 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.039 would get past, you know, the pilot episode of most 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.440 TV shows. You know, you'd probably smash the TV right away. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:45.600 No stars from no unnecessary dialogue. That sounds like how 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.320 my son reviews in most television shows really pretty much 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:54.760 talking too much talking. Where is the action? Exactly exactly? 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.000 They sound pretty cool. Gamma rays, right, gamma rays. I 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.520 mean it sounds like some sort of new kind of 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.400 ray energy, Yeah, exactly. Does it have a positive connotation 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.600 to you, like, oh my god, look at this amazing 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.360 source of energy, all the good we can do for 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.040 the world, or does have a negative connotation like is 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.320 this a weapon that's gonna kill me? I think it 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.480 just sounds like something out of science fiction, you know, 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.160 like if you called it, like, um, puppy dog rays, 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.880 I'd be like, Oh, that's cute, it's safe. What you 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:27.760 called it? Like? You know whathero can I can't let 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.600 that go. I can't let it go. What if a 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.880 scientist is experimenting with puppy dog rays and gets irradiated, 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.520 what kind of superhero does he turn into? The UK puppy, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:42.760 The hush puppy goes around licking everybody, snuggling with them. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:48.120 The husky, the husky. There you go, husky exactly, the 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.800 green husky, which sounds pretty adorable. But no, yeah, they 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.280 sound mysterious. They sound revery sci fi, right, like gamma 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.040 Like all you have to just pick a Greek letter 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.560 and marry it to like a scientific physics term and 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.840 you have something sci fi. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now you're right. 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.320 It does stay fit. But the cool thing about it 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.680 is that it's actually also science e Like, there's are 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.680 a lot of really interesting science behind gamma ray bursts. Yeah, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:12.800 and a big mystery, right, there was a big mystery 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.000 about them. Yeah. Yeah, So I was wondering what people 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.320 knew about gamma ray bursts. Were they worried about them? 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:19.880 Do they know what they mean? Do they know what 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.720 a gamma ray is at all? So, as usual, Daniel 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.600 went out there and asked people on the street, random strangers, 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.080 what they thought a gamma ray was. And these interviews 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.760 happened partially on the campus of you see, Irvine, and 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.160 also partially at the Irvine Spectrum. So you're gonna get 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:40.439 a selection of students and random people. What's the Irvine Spectrum? 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.760 What's the Irvine Spectrum? Oh my god, how do you 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:50.200 not know about that people like you in in Orange County? 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.680 Is it like the range from Dark Based Dark Baby. 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.240 I never realized the dramatic irony of Irvine calling anything 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.599 a spectrum because there is no spectrum. You're right, um, No, 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.840 it's a big mall here in Irvine. People actually like 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.000 fly here from Japan, stay in a hotel and just 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.320 shop of the mall and then like fly back. It's crazy. Really, 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.559 is it like a fancy or is it like a 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.520 mega Minnesota Malvey America's I'm not the right person to 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.240 evaluate malls. I spent as a little time in them 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.120 as possible. I was there because my kids were in 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:25.680 spring break and I took them to a movie, And 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.200 while they were in the movie, I interviewed people about 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.560 Gamma rays. You didn't go into the movie with them, No, No, 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.200 I stood outside looking like a weirdo, asking people weird 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.480 science questions. All right, well, those of you at home, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:40.200 think about it for a second. If you if a 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.880 random physicist approach you outside of a movie theater in 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.400 a fancy mall and ask you, what is the gammerie, 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:50.240 what would you say? Good? Step away, ster, You'd say, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:52.719 I didn't fly here from Japan, just to answer your 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:58.559 questions security security. One fascinating thing is that on campus 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.560 a U s I nine nine of people will answer 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.280 my questions, whereas it the spectrum, only like one in 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:09.040 ten are willing to answer questions. Really huh yeah, I 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.400 wonder whether that why that is. I don't know. So 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.360 here's what people had to say. First question is have 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.480 you ever heard about gamma ray burst? Do you know 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.240 what that is? No? No, I don't know, but I've 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.160 heard of it because they definitely has to do something 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:26.520 with UV light. It's like a sun ray. I'm assuming 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.400 it's just I know that it modifies like your DNA 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.920 or something. I could just blast your DNA and that 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.560 could cause some damage to you, like severely. Yeah. Yeah, 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.680 so that's about it, but not too into a Gamma 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:48.240 rebers a kind of game or I don't know. Yes, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.079 but the star explodes and it will admit a lot 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.440 of frequency of photons and the country a large exposure 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.720 identific because it will be high. I will make Gamma 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.000 explosion something okay, and it's a something to worry about. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.040 I don't think it will be that powerful that makes 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.040 us worry. It depends on how close the stories Honestly, 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.960 I couldn't tell you, all right, because I have something 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:16.200 with stars or m it's when the sun explodes or something, right, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.440 something is it's something to worry about, I would seem 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.840 so yeah, alright, so pretty binary response. Right. Most people 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.880 didn't know or they knew all about it, Yeah, exactly 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.199 a lot of people have never heard about them, or 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.920 like it tickled something in their brain maybe, but they 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.680 were not able to say anything concrete about it. But 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.920 some folks clearly had done some reading. Yeah, but nobody 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.520 mentioned the Hulk. No, nobody mentioned the Hulk. Um though 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:43.679 you know, I've been bulking up recently, so I sort 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:45.840 of digging for compliments there. But no, I didn't get me. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.360 Did you paid yourself green as well? Know that? And 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:53.360 you're not allowed to be green and irvine. It's only 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.280 beige allowed. Oh, the beige Hulk. That would be the 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:05.440 irvine version. So that's sound. They sound pretty mysterious. Gamma rays, um, 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.280 so what are they done? And let's break it down 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.600 for people? What are gamma rays? So in the end 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.800 of gamma ray is not as exotic as it sounds. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.720 It's just a kind of photon. So remember photons are 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:20.679 the particle that carry electromagnetic radiation. So all light you know, 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.840 radio waves to visible light, to X rays and all 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.400 the way up to gamma rays, they're all just photons 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.080 of different frequencies. They're just light wiggling at different wavelengths. 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:33.760 And we called different parts of the spectrum different things 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.520 because they were discovered different times, and we treat them 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.280 differently or the qualitatively different. But in the end, they're 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.839 all just parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. So wait, did 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.360 they think before that they were different, like a different 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.439 kind of ray or particle or was this before they 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.800 even knew about particles. Yeah, before we even knew about particles, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.480 and we knew about rays, like we had cathode rays 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.840 and stuff like that in X rays, and we didn't 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.839 understand for a long time that rays were particles. And 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.439 and later they unified a lot of these different things 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.600 um and understood them all just be parts of the 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.720 same thing. So they just thought it was like a 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.920 just like a different kind of ray, Yeah, like a 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.080 different kind of beam of something. Yeah, because particles at 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.720 different energy, photons at different energy act really different. You know, 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.240 photons that are the visible wavelength, you can see them. 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.600 They look green. For example, photons that are high enough 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.319 energy to penetrate through you and give you a picture 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.840 of your bones. You know, we call those X rays. Uh, 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.880 they're just photons of a higher energy. But qualitatively they 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.560 seem different, right, And so before we understood a lot 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.120 more about how things worked, they we treated them like 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.679 different things. But that's that's the whole goal of physics, right, 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.160 is to take a bunch of disparate phenomena, things that 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.920 don't seem related, and discover that they're actually connected. They're 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.480 all just different parts of the same thing, different sides 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.040 of the same die. I guess they thought there were 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.240 different things because they they're made differently, right, Like you 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.959 make cather raise one way and you make visible light 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.120 another way, and you make gamma rays different way, and 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.200 so they thought, hey, these are just different things that 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:06.280 come out when you do these other things. Yeah, you 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.640 make them differently, and they behave differently, Like one of 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:10.559 them can penetrate through the wall and the other one 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.320 can't write. And so if you don't have a microscopic 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.480 understanding of it, it makes sense to categorize them differently. Um, 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.480 so it's pretty cool later when you stitch it all 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.920 together and realize that these are all just different flavors 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.640 of the same thing, or different colors quite literally of 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.000 the same thing. And gamma rays specifically are the very 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.520 very high edge of that spectrum. So anything that's you know, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.840 like a million times more energetic than a visible photon, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.440 you call it a gamma ray. It's not like a 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.240 hard cut off and not like a little below and like, sorry, 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.040 you don't get to be a gamma ray. You know, 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.200 it's sort of a rough thing, um, but there's no 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:49.240 upper limit. It's like a it's like a soft definition. Yeah, 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.920 that's what point does it? And the photon become trying 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.760 from a regular photon to ama. Well, you know, I 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.040 think photons would be insalted be called regular photons. You know, 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.680 they're all special Okay, they all can do something that 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.600 no other photon can do. That's right. Sorry, they're all bright, 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.640 shining points of light. Yeah. I mean, is there's some 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.320 colors that you like more than others? Or hey are 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:14.880 you you know, are you a colorist? But I've worked 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.280 with a lot of colorists. Yeah, that's true. You are 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.520 a cartoonists. You should be pro color man um. Yeah, 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:23.840 so you got radio waves the very very low edge, 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.160 and then you got um infrared right just below what 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:28.840 we can see. Then you've got the visible spectrum. The 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.320 radio waves are the bottom. Radio waves are the very 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.840 longest wavelengths are the lowest energy. Exactly the way you 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.360 said at the bottom makes it sound judgmental. You know, 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.120 radio ways are awesome, they're super powerful and fantastic and 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.920 the reasons we can see black holes and stuff like that. Um, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:48.760 But yeah, radio waves are at the bottom in terms 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.200 of energy. Then you get infrared, then you get the 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.160 visible spectrum. Then you get X rays, right, and then 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.320 you get there just above the ultra violet, you get 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.360 X rays and then you get gamma rays. So emorys 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.440 are the hardest, fastest, most energetic kind of photon you 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.400 can have. But they're all photons, Like, they're all the 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:11.240 same particle through just kind of vibrating differently or the 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.080 different wavelength or sizes. What's the difference. Yeah, they're all photons. 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:16.640 They all travel at the speed of light. But the 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.560 difference is the frequency, right, how often they are wiggling. Right. Remember, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:25.520 photons are vibrations of the electromagnetic field, right, and they 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.520 oscillate and the speed at which they oscillate that gives 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.080 you the frequency. Right, how many times per second do 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:32.920 they go up and down? Does they let the magnetic 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.160 fields go up and down? And they're all moving at 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:40.560 the speed of light? One radio photons moving at the 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.040 same speed as a gamma ray photon. That's right. If 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.840 you had a race, and you had a source of 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.360 radio waves and a source of gamma rays, and you 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.480 shot them at each other, they would have different energies 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.360 but move at the same speed. They all travel at 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.200 the speed of light, even if they have different energies. 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.000 That feels kind of weird, right, because you're used to 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.800 thinking of energy and speed is closely connected. But this 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:02.040 is something different. They have no mass and they travel 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.520 at the speed of light. Um, they all have the 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.159 same speed, but they have different energies, which means they 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.760 have different frequencies and different wavelengths. Right. The wavelength and 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.440 the frequency are closely connected. Higher the frequency, the shorter 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.920 the wavelength. And uh yeah, let's talk about that a 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:33.800 little bit more. But first quick break. Okay, so gamma 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.240 rays are photons, but they have not just a little bit, 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.920 but a lot more energy than the regular photons that 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.760 we see every day. That's right, a million times, that's yeah, 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.879 that's a lot. It's a lot. If I shot gamma 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.639 rays at you, they would deposit a lot more energy 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.120 in you than normal light, right, And also they can 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.560 penetrate into you much further, like, well it would, they 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:56.239 would deliver a million times more energy. Right, You need 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.600 a million photons to be equal to one gamma ray 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.240 photon exactly. And so gamma rays are dangerous. They can't 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.200 turn you into the Hulk probably, but they could give 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.520 you cancer, right, they can shatter your DNA and and 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.680 all sorts of crazy stuff inside your body. You don't 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.600 want gamma rays, Okay, So they're just regular photons, but 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.600 they're they're just an upper spectrum of light, that's right, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.200 they're the high ended spectrum. They are dangerous, much more 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.240 dangerous than normal light because they can damage your DNA, right, 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.400 they can. They can cause errors in DNA which get copied, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.239 and that's a big source of cancer. So what they 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.640 are is not very mysterious, right, Like we can make 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.160 them here on Earth, that's right, Yeah, exactly, we can 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.080 make gamma rays here on Earth. Um and gamma rays 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.080 are produced by radioactive elements all the time, right, they're 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:45.160 just high energy photons from radioactive decays. So there are 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.840 gamma rays around one of them just hit you right now. Um. Yes, 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.760 So gamma rays themselves not mysterious. We know all about them. 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.359 We can make them. Um. The question is what out 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:59.400 there might be making gamma rays. And that's the fascinating 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.680 part of the story. That's um the interesting mystery, right 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.240 is that we know the gamma rays are produced when 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.639 we do experience with with nuclear weapons. Right, you do, 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.000 you blow up a nuclear bomb, You're gonna produce a 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.320 lot of gamma rays. So when in the Cold War, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.359 when we had trees with with with the Russians saying 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:18.800 no testing or whatever, we sent up a bunch of 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.600 satellites to verify that they weren't testing trying to detect 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:26.159 gamma rays from nuclear explosions. And um, I don't know 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:27.840 if they found that. They haven't released that. But what 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.520 they did discover is a bunch of gamma rays not 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.320 coming from the Soviet Union, not coming from somewhere else 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.080 on Earth, not coming from the mountain volcano layer of 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:40.560 some evil villain, but instead coming from deep in space. 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:46.080 So the mysteries that we're getting bombarded by gamma rays, 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:49.240 but we don't know, we didn't know really came from. Yeah. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.399 And the really fascinating thing about them is that it's 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.040 not like a continual source. It's not just like you know, 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.280 the solar wind where it's just like constantly coming. They 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.240 come in bursts. And that's really interesting because it you 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.399 think like something happened, something created this, like some big 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.640 event occurred and must have produced this burst, right, And 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:10.399 that's a clue. It's like, what's going on out there 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.320 seems feels like a message or a clue about something 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.480 fascinating that's happening somewhere else in the universe. So what 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.639 do you mean by a burst? Like we we suddenly, um, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.080 suddenly we're washed by a bunch of gamma rays and 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:26.000 then it stops. Yeah, and it's exactly like a huge 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:27.800 pile them come all at once, you know, it's like 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.800 a big flash in the sky, like quite literally a 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.520 big flash in the sky. And then the other fascinating 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.119 thing is that there are two kinds is like short 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.040 gamma ray bursts. One that ones that last much less 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.560 than a second, like less than half a second, and 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.320 then there's ones that last like twenty or thirty seconds, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.840 um and it's not like a continuous range. It's not 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.600 like you know, every gamma ray burst is you know, um, 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.480 some somewhere less than thirty seconds, and there's a smooth distribution. 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.000 There's like two bumps if you made histogram, like a 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:57.720 lot of them. A lot of them peak at like 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.600 zero point three seconds, and a lot of them peak 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.400 it like the earty seconds. So there's definitely two kinds 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.960 of bursts happening. It kind of sounds like Morse quote exactly, 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.600 some very slow message. That's the exciting thing, Right, you 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:12.920 don't know what's creating this. You don't know is out 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:14.960 there making it, and it could be anything. It could 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.359 be like some new kind of star you never saw before, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.520 or it could be some bizarre galactic race sending you 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:27.080 messages over decades, right, who knows? Planet Hulk. Yeah, because 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:29.679