WEBVTT - Why can quarks never be alone? 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.560 Hey, or hey, did you know that not all particles 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.960 are created equal? You mean, like some of them are 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.600 heavier or more charged than others. Oh, that's definitely true. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.599 But also not all of them have the same rights, 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:25.640 the same rights. I mean, is there a is there 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.360 a particle constitution that grants them certain freedoms? Only some 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.000 of them have freedoms. Electrons can be free, but quarks cannot. Oh, man, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.080 poor quarks. Somebody ought to hit the streets and protest 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:39.600 for them. That's right, I can see the clever signs 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:59.880 already set the quarks free. Hi. I'm or hammate cartoonists 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:03.480 and the creator of PhD Comics. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.760 a particle physicist, and I'm an activist for the freedom 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.640 of corks. And welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.040 Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.600 which we talk about all the amazing and crazy and 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.400 wonderful and beautiful and insane things about our universe and 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.440 try to explain them in a way that makes you 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.399 laugh and hopefully makes you understand the way they work. 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.600 That's right. We talked about all the big things in 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.000 the universe, the origin of the universe. How big is 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.560 the universe? And we also talk about the smaller things 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.840 in the universe, the little bits that make up everything 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.840 around you. I feel like it's kind of cheating that 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.440 in physics or in particle physics, I get to work 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.840 on both the biggest, the baddest, the most original, the 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.760 cosmic questions, and also the tiniest. I feel like it's 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.920 at both extremes of the universe, right everything in between. 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:57.080 You don't care. That's chemistry, man, who cares? Chemistry, biology, philosophy, life, 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:02.760 your happiness, that's right, democracy, human rights, that's all beyond 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.680 the scope of your physics research. Yeah, exactly, And I 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.920 don't mean to say nobody cares about chemistry. Chemistry is 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.040 really important, otherwise we wouldn't have pharmaceuticals and all that 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.359 good stuff. I also said human rights study, but you 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.200 don't seem to want a caveat human rights as well. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.920 I'm more worried about backlash from chemists than people advocated. 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.760 The chemists have acids, assets and dangerous things that can 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.960 kill you. Yeah, but maybe it's just that you know 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.519 that stuff is harder. It's more complicated for me. Physics 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.760 at the extremes they're really tiny and they're really big. Uh, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.680 sort of the simplest questions, the most basic, and therefore 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.040 the most interesting and also easier to grapple with. Well, 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:42.480 today we're getting into some things that are kind of 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.600 the opposite of that, Right, We're getting into the nitty 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:50.000 gritty complex details of the legality of particles, kind of 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.120 what rights particles have. Yeah, because when we study the universe, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:55.880 what we like to do is to take it apart. 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:57.520 If I look at the banana in front of me 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.160 and I say, what's this made out of? I'm mean, 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.799 what particles is it made out of? And when you 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.480 do that, you're sort of taking an intellectual leap. You're saying, 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.280 this banana could get blown up into its constituent particles. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.240 You could break it up into these little bits, and 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.799 that's an important part of how we think about understanding 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.720 the universe. But it's not always possible to actually separate 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.200 those particles. Right, do you actually have a banana in 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.640 front of you, Daniel, I have a metaphysical banana here 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:27.640 in front of me. Here, I'll pass you my banana 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:33.240 using the Ray and Kyler ren teleportation system. Just digitize 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.400 the banana and email it to me. Oh, there you go, 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.440 there you go. Somebody should develop a device that scans 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.720 a banana, turns it into an electronic banana signature, and 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.040 then at the other side like three D prints of banana. Right, 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.800 using AI. Don't forget AI, using AI precisely because every 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:54.120 kitchen appliance needs AI now. But anyways, we are going 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.320 to be talking about the some of the rules that 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.320 governed the universe at the smallest levels, because there are 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.840 a rule and that's kind of what physics is a 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.000 little bit all about. Right. Yeah, And once recently on 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.960 a podcast, we talked about magnetic monopoles, how you could 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.560 take an atom and separate it's positive and negative charges 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.720 and move them far away to infinity and they could 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.039 ignore each other. But you can't do that with the 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.080 north and south of the magnetic monople And today we'll 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.120 be talking about a sort of similarly confusing, sticky topic 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.200 in particle physics. Right. It's a rule about the universe 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.120 that physicists don't really know why it's there. Right, It's 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.120 kind of another of the big mysteries in nature. Yeah, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.600 I think that describes every rule about the universe. You know, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:38.760 we don't know why any of them are there. Some 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.800 people write in and they ask me questions like that, 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.480 to say, why is electromagnetism this way and not that 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.520 other way? And I think, wow, you're a physicist, because 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.159 that's the question we all want to answer to. We 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.719 don't know. You're a physicist because you don't know anything. 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:55.919 You two can get paid for it like I am, 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.200 because you embrace your ignorance, and you want to ask why. 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.119 And it's a deep question in physics, why is something 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.760 this way not the other way? You know, maybe someday 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:06.680 in the future of physics will be looking at the 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.039 equations of the universe and will say, oh, it makes sense. 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.960 This is the only set of equations we could possibly have, 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.359 and so it has to be this way. Or we 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.280 can be looking at the equations to say, well, this 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.240 is one of ten to the one hundred possible universes, 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.400 So why is it this way not the other way? 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.800 We might not ever know, right right, again, you don't know. 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.839 That's the way you summarize physics. It's some we don't know. 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:30.520 We have no idea, which is the title of a 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.440 great book I've heard about which everyone should check out. 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:34.840 I don't know. I heard it has a lot of 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.840 puns in it. Oh, like the are they as good 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:39.600 as the as the ones we have in our show here, 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:46.040 they're better because they're edited the Thank you Courtney. Well, 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.000 today on the podcast, we'll be tackling a pretty sticky subject, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.120 and it's the question of a special rule that governs 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.000 one of the particles of nature. So today on the podcast, 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:06.480 we'll be tackling the question why can quarks never be alone? Yeah, 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.080 So it turns out that one of the fundamental particles 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.719 in nature, the cork, has some special rules that govern 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.520 what it can and cannot do. That's right. Quarks feel 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.599 the strong nuclear force and electrons don't. And anything that 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.520 feels the strong nuclear force is subject to that forces 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.200 really weird properties. We've talked about it a few times 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.600 in the podcast how it has strange properties like color. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.760 But today we've been talking about one very special property 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.479 that really likes to stick these quirks together. Yeah, and 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.159 so the question is why why whether course can be 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.400 alone by themselves? And you know, does it does it 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.839 mean alone like um like psychologically like they feel alone, 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.800 or is it like alone where they have to be 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.680 They can't be in a room by themselves. Yeah, you 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.200 you can't put them in solitary confinement for too long 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.800 or they go crazy. There's another kind of quirk you 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.280 never heard about, Not the strange corps or the charm cork, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:05.360 but the crazy cork. That's right, the inmate cork. No, 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.680 that's not a laughing matter. Solitary confinement is pretty serious stuff. 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.960 But we have found in physics, and as you said earlier, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.480 we don't know why, but we have found in physics 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.520 that when you try to separate a cork, to pull 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.280 it far away from everything else, to isolate it the 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.480 way you could take, for example, an electron and put 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.000 it in the middle of space. You just can't do 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.680 that with the cork. It's physically impossible. Wow, the universe 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.680 doesn't allow it. It would take an infinite amount of energy, 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.200 which would then just collapse into a bunch more quirks. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.880 All right, we'll get into that in more detail. But first, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.520 as usual, we were curious to know how many people 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.760 out there. First of all, I had heard of corps, 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.480 and second of all, knew whether or not courts can 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.600 ever be alone. So you see, Irvine was closed for 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.440 the holidays, and so these questions went to random strangers 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.120 at coffee shops who were amenable to answering questions, and 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.040 as usual at you see Irvine pot nine percent of 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.880 random students are willing to answer my questions, but the 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:04.840 rate of acceptance of coffee shops is much much lower, 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.560 which I think says something awesome about students that you see. 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:13.440 I so a physicist wearing sandals and scraggly hair is 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.480 normal at a college campus, but in a commercial, regular 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.600 coffee shop, you're seen with more skepticism. Yeah, or you know, 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.880 maybe it's just the slice of people that you encounter 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.640 at a coffee shop are less open to that kind 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.040 of stuff. I'm surprised you did it twice because they 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.840 didn't kick you at the first time. I had to 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.120 go to a variety of coffee shops, you know. I 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.800 see you're trying never to hit the same one twice. 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:38.839 That's how you can. They have my picture up on 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:43.160 the wall, and so they pressed that little red button 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.520 on the counting when they see me coming. Oh man, 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.120 I can picture you walking into one in the disguise 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.040 just to try to get your coffee. That's right, I'm 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.760 disguised as a chemist. Sometimes you were the grutch marks, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.920 you know, glasses and nose and mustache. But no, way, 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.199 that's already you. No, I just put it on a 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.560 lab coat and safety goggles. Right, chemistry, and you were 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.800 nice clothes, he said, Is that what you're saying yourself? 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.640 Physicists have to dress up to become chemists. Yes, that's 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.320 definitely true. Alright, So here's what people at that coffee 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.559 shop had to say. Um, and have you guys heard 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.360 of the particle called the cork? Yes? Now did you 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.319 know the corks can never be found by themselves? Now, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.559 I've heard of it, but I don't know too much 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:27.400 about it. You never did you know you can never 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.080 find a cork by itself? They can never be alone? No? Yes? 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.600 Did you know the quarks can never be alone? No? 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.320 I did not know that. Although there are two meanings 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.400 for cork, I wasn't sure if you meant the yogurt 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.200 meaning or um, the particle meaning. I think yogurt can 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.000 be alone. Yeah, but I can't tell you what it 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:52.080 is because you know that corks can never be alone. Animal. No, 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.920 it's a tiny little particle. Okay, yes, you know the 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.040 corks can never be by themselves. Actually, I didn't know 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.440 that I guess I haven't looked into it deep in. No, 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.320 I actually think I have, and I have no idea 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.760 why I wouldn't know that or what it is. Yeah. 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.840 Of course they're made up of blue once, I believe, 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.160 and they make up protons and electrons, and I think 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.880 neutrons too. Did you know the corks can never be 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.240 by themselves? They can never be alone, Yeah, because they 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.800 have to switch between because I don't I tried to 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.679 study this, but I don't completely understand, because I know 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.480 I can't remember as the quarks that are labeled red, blue, green, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.320 and they have to switch from zone to zone. They 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.520 always have to be occupied and they can't exist by themselves. 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.440 I do not know why. No, I couldn't figure that out, actually, kid, 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.040 all right, I guess, um. Not a lot of people 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.199 I've heard of the cork. No, there's not a lot 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:54.040 of familiarity about the cork the particle, though. One friendly 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:58.360 person commented on cork the yogurt. Oh again, all right, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.760 it must be a really popular brand yogurt. It's a 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.040 whole it's a whole dairy product. I think it's not 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.439 even just a brand. It's like kind of thing, you know, Well, 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:08.960 I like how this person said, do you mean the 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.559 particle or the yogurt? Because this person knew about both, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.880 and he's like, let's terrify are we talking? Are we 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.280 talking food or physics? Here? She was ready to talk 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.959 about quirk the yogurt or quirk the particles. Yes, it's 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:27.720 a renaissance person right there. Yeah, precisely. And there were 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.400 some misunderstandings about quirks, people who think that they are 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.040 made up of gluons or that electrons are made up 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.040 of quarks. So definitely a topic that we should cover. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.560 Explain to people what quarks are and how they were right, 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:44.120 because obviously they're not made out of gluons. Everyone knows that. No, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.760 of course, not glue is made out of glue. It's 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:53.760 a sticky subject, of course. Yeah, so let's get into it. Um. So, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.760 first of all, Daniel water quirks and talk to me 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.319 about this idea that that that they can never be alone. Yeah. So, 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.080 corks are one of the fundamental particles. If you take 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.920 matter apart, you'll find, of course that it's made out 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.800 of atoms, and those atoms have inside them electrons whizzing 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.320 around the nucleus and then inside the nucleus, We have 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.160 neutrons and protons. Even glue is made out of the 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.560 same of those same things. Everything is made out of 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.040 those things. Everything that you've eaten, at least there are 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:23.920 kinds of matter out there in the universe that are 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.320 not made out of atoms, dark matter specifically, but everything 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.760 that you've encountered, everything you've sat on, everything any human 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.040 has ever eaten or thrown at each other is made 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.640 out of atoms. And so it's pretty universal recipe. Right, 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.640 What if my kid ate some dark matter? Should I 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.800 call the doctor or um? I think you should eating 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.240 because you're getting a Nobel prod proving that dark matter 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.240 exists for feeding my child dark matter? Are you talking 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.000 about the dark matter that goes into your child or 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.360 out of your child though, because that's a whole different topic. 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.120 All right, let's move on before somebody calls Social services off. No, 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.160 But the amazing thing about this is that it's a 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.480 recipe for all kinds of stuff. Like everything out there 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.079 has the same number of protons, neutrons and electrons. And 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.160 just can't get over this fact. Like every kind of 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.800 material out there, every element right has one proton per 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.160 electron and just about one neutron per proton. So it's 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.320 one to one to one no matter what it is, right, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.840 And so it's not just any particle or any random 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.760 or insignificant particle nature. This is like the particle, right, 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.560 I mean, I mean you and I are made out 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:29.880 of the out of them. Everyone is made out of them. 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.840 It's one of the big h two particles that make 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.840 up everything. Yeah, and so the most of the stuff 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.400 that's inside you is made out of these protons and neutrons. 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.679 But the protons and neutrons are not actually themselves fundamental. 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.720 They're made of these smaller particles. And those are the corks, 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.920 the up cork and the down cork. And you mix 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:49.800 those together in one way you get a proton. You 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.680 mix them together another way you get a neutron. But 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.360 of course the proton and the neutron, you know, those 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.439 are the physical particles that we can see, we can 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.600 interact with, we can separate them. You can have like 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.480 one proton and have one neutron over here. And for 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.000 a long time people thought that they might be fundamental. 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.960 But then in the seventies, by shooting super high energy 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.760 electrons at the proton, we found that there was structure 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.000 inside the proton. We found that there were particles inside there, 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.480 and so that's what the corks are, right, And so 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.360 that's what a cork is. And there's something funny about 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.440 them because, for example, electrons can't be by themselves. You 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:26.880 can't have it like a sink. You can hold a 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.480 single electron in your hand, for example. The corks you're 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:32.840 telling me have come as a kind of a special 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.320 rule that they can never be alone. Yeah. The way 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.080 that we found out about electrons, you know, is that 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.520 we separated them from their atom. We isolated them so 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.280 we could study them. And we talked about in the podcast. J. J. 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.000 Thompson ionized atoms and made beams of electrons before he 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.240 even knew what he was doing. And the way we 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.680 discovered the nucleus is the same way. We separated and 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.040 we broke the atom into pieces so we could study it. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.000 But with the quarks, we've never been able to do that. 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.520 What we've been able to do is poke the inside 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.400 the proton and see the corks sort of bouncing around 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.720 in there. We have been able to break up the 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.840 proton into quarks, but we can't ever see the corks 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.880 by themselves. They are so much in love with being together. 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.440 You always find them in pairs or triplets. But well, 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.080 I'm a little bit confused because you you told me that, 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.560 you know, at the large Hattern collider, and you take 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.040 protons and you smash them together. But when you smash 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.440 them together, you're saying, they don't actually break apart. But 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:30.960 we do smash protons together at the large had Run collider. 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.440 You're right, I was not lying. And what happens there 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.120 is that the corks inside one proton interact with the 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.320 quarks inside the other proton. But there's a rule about 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.200 sort of the maximum distance that a cork can ever 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.560 be from another cork. And so what happens there is 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.640 you can have like two corks go pair off to 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.280 be their own little particle. The quarks can never leave 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.600 by themselves. Oh so you smash protons together, which are 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.320 made out of quarks inside. But when they smash to 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.840 the together, it's not like in a an explosion where 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.520 everything flies off in all kinds of directions. Uh, the quarks. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.640 You know, you can't have a cork flying off from 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.040 a collision by itself, That's right, you can't do that. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.880 They always have to be found in pairs or in triplets. 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.640 There's no way to find a cork all by itself. 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.200 But well, you've never seen it by by itself, right, Yes, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.760 you're right. Um, In physics we should never say never. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.720 We don't think it's possible. Nobody's ever seen a free cork. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.520 Nobody's ever isolated a cork by itself. Quarks are in 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.280 that sense more mathematical than any other kind of particle, 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.760 because we've never seen them on their own. They only 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.320 exist sort of as part of our model for what's 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.920 inside all these particles that we think are made up 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.280 of quarks. You've got protons, you've got neutrons, and you 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:47.840 mix corks and lots of other ways. You can get 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.360 all sorts of other crazy particles pions and masons and 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.040 ada particles and omega particles and um, all sorts of 0:16:55.040 --> 0:17:02.440 crazy stuffs. You're just gonna try to slip that in. Yeah, uh, 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.840 to just go with it. Um, But I guess paid 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.160 the picture from me right. So, at the large hattern collider, 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.480 you have protons kind of going at each other right there, 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.560 coming at huge speeds. So and and in each proton 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.879 you have three quarks kind of bound together. They're stuck 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.840 together at each one and then they the two protons 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.840 smash into each other. They do, and you create this mess. 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.520 And you're saying that you know, everything that leaves out 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.879 of that collision, that explosion has to be paired up 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.280 like the No matter how you smash them together, somehow 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.439 they always corks always pair up when they fly off together. 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.360 That's right. And one possibility is that you just sort 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.960 of rearrange the quarks. You say, I got three quarks 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.360 from this proton. I got three quarks from the other proton, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:48.400 so I'll just pair them up. Maybe I'll get like 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:50.800 three pairs of quarks and this is gonna go fly 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.000 off and make me three pions. That's one possibility. But 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.200 sometimes if you put enough energy into these things, the 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.800 corks sort of try to go free, like you get. 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:02.080 You push one cork off in one direction, another one 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.159 off in another direction, and there and none of the 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.919 other original quirks from the proton are near it, and 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.480 it's like flying off into outer space by itself. But 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.840 physics says no, and what yeah, And what happens there 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.560 is that some of its energy gets converted into making 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.159 a new cork. It pops a new cork out of 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.840 the vacuum, so that cork doesn't have to be by itself. 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.080 Wait what so you're saying one of the corks after 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.600 the collision was going off to the left, but because 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.760 physics says no, it like it disappears and it reappears 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:34.720 somewhere else. Say, for example, you have a quirk going 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.920 off really fast to the left and another cork going 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.840 off really fast to the right, so the distance between 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.720 them is growing. Well, what happens is that takes a 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.560 huge amount of energy, and that energy gets converted into 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.000 making new corks. Like you create new corks, one for 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:51.639 the one going to the left and one for the 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.440 one going to the right, so that each of them 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.600 now has a companion, so they're not by themselves. The 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.960 universe is like you're going off by yourself here, I'll 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.879 make you a companion it. Yeah, And that's because the 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.080 strong nuclear force is super duper weird. And we'll talk 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.080 about that in more detail in a minute, I hope. 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:11.000 But the short version is unlike electromagnetism, where as the 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.440 distance between them grows, the force gets weaker and fades. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.720 In the strong force as the distance between them grows 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.880 the force gets stronger, so it takes more and more 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.919 energy to separate them, and eventually there's enough energy to 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.800 create new matter. All right, let's get into the details 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:28.720 of that a little bit more. But I think it's 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.240 pretty considered of the universe not to to be looking 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.000 out for quirks like that. You know, it depends. I mean, 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.320 if you're quirking, you just want some like me time, 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:42.439 then it's not a little love is a curse you're saying. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:46.320 If you ever grew up in the house that's kind 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.840 of crowded, you know that there's value to time by yourself. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:50.679 You know, you want time with your book. And just 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.919 like nobody asked me to do something or ask me 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:57.159 a question. You know, my family is pretty quirky, and 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.520 you've got some strange quirks in your family and some 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.160 charming works, you know, of course. Right, all right, let's 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.960 get into more of this kind of mysterious force that 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.439 makes quarks just so that they're not alone. But first 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:24.280 let's take a quick break, all right. I know, so 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.080 it seems like the universe doesn't like for courts to 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.159 be alone, to the point where it even makes up 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.399 new corps when it needs to whenever it sees a 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:33.440 cork going off to be alone, it makes a new 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.320 cork to pair up with it, which is pretty amazing. 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.199 And you're telling me that this is all because of 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.840 the force between courts. Yeah, one of the three or 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.040 four fundamental forces of nature, depending how you count. We 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.520 have gravity, which we don't understand quantum mechanically. We have 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.200 electromagnetism and the weak force, which I think of together 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.160 as bound as part of the electroweak force. And then 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.760 we have the strong nuclear force. And this is the 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.679 thing that holds the proton together and holds the neutron together, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.439 and also it's a thing that holds the nucleus together 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:06.880 because there's a little residual bits of it left over 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.320 after you've made the proton and the neutron. But this 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.840 force is really powerful and really different from any of 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.440 the other forces. It's called the strong force, right, Yeah, 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.400 not the Strange force, though maybe they should have called 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.639 it the strong nut. If you get a pc in 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.600