WEBVTT - Horror Vacui, Part 4 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.480 Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.520 your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and on Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.640 and we're back with part four of our series on horror. 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.760 Vacui or fear of the void or fear of the vacuum, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.319 a concept that has relevance in art and design, where 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.920 it describes an impulse to fill in blank or uniform 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.599 spaces with detail, as well as relevance in philosophy and 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.120 in physics, where it's been used to describe the longstanding belief, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.960 often derived from Aristotle, that a vacuum or a void 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.920 could not exist in nature, and that empty space was 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.559 in fact an incoherent concept. So in the previous episode 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.760 of this one, we talked about how this view in 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.600 physics persisted through the Middle Ages and part of the 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.880 early Modern period in Europe, and important experiments by figures 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.280 like Evangelista Torcelli, the man with the batman symbol for 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.399 a mustache, or rob I think, as you pointed out 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.399 at the sort of the crucifix goatee h as sort 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.520 of the crucifix Van Dyke, Yeah, yeah, him and uh 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.720 and Blaze. Pascal, of course, established that an approximate vacuum 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.960 could actually be created inside a glass tube, and that 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:28.560 the force truly responsible for preventing a void from forming 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:30.960 in most cases, such as in the case of like 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:36.200 a pump or a siphon, was not nature's mysterious hatred 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.400 for vacuums, but in fact the weight of the air 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:44.320 we breathe, known today as atmospheric pressure. But something we 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.560 alluded to in the previous episode is also the fact 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.040 that while the laws of nature don't exactly rule out 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.960 a vacuum in the way that Aristotle and the Scholastics thought, 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.520 there is also some nuance to the issue, because you 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.840 can create an approximate vacuum, but it's really hard or 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.359 perhaps impossible to create a perfect vacuum, depending on how 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.360 you define your goals. When we talk about a vacuum 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.600 in like real world examples, instead of you know, ideal 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:20.760 thought experiments, we are never talking about completely empty spaces 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.320 with no particles whatsoever. Instead, we're usually talking about an 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:29.440 area where the density of gas particles is very low, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.080 or the inside of a container where the density of 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.720 gas particles is much lower than the density of particles 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.080 on the outside, and the latter type of vacuum, where 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:42.880 a container that has a lower density of gas particles 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:47.160 than the world outside is is common throughout the world 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.240 of technology and electrical appliances and scientific equipment, especially of 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.760 years past, but still somewhat today. A couple of classic 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.200 examples incandescent light bulbs. They make light by running current 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.480 through a filament. It gets so hot that it starts 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.720 to emit photons starts to glow. But these bulbs are 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.000 not full of air at regular atmospheric pressure, and if 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.360 they were, that would be a problem. The filament would 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.639 tend to fail very quickly. That's not good for incandescent bulbs, 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.280 so instead they are typically either filled with an inert 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.320 gas like argon or nitrogen, or they are pumped out 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.560 to contain a vacuum. The earliest light bulbs were vacuum 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:31.480 based rather than inert gas based. Another component used in electronics, 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.440 one that will be very familiar to electric guitar players, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.760 as vacuum tubes, which were once commonly used to manipulate 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.560 current to amplify and rectify electrical signals. They've been replaced 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.920 with silicon transistors in most modern devices, but they still 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.280 have their uses. And by the way, if you want 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.480 to see something really weird and awesome, look up pictures 0:03:54.560 --> 0:04:00.160 of vacuum tube based computers. Before transistors took over to 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.960 become the logic circuitry inside computers. I guess that happened 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.520 roughly around the sixties or so. But before that, the 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.600 information processing in computers was done on large arrays of 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:16.159 vacuum tubes. And I'm very tempted to say like that, 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.000 I wish to see a certain kind of computer snobbery 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.599 arise where they're like gamers who are like, oh, you 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.160 play on transistors, I've got a vacuum tube rig. Yeah. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:28.680 Some of the images that come up from me they 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.360 look very uh, there's a mad science quality to these. 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.040 They look like there's some sort of strange experiment containing uh, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.960 you know, contained gases or something. Yeah, it does look 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:41.800 like that because they look like almost like kind of 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:43.919 like pills in a blister pack, you know, the little 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.000 blisters popping out. But they're they're not containing special gases. 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.880 They are containing lower density of gases. What that what 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:56.520 those tubes contain is relatively nothing compared to the atmosphere. Uh. Now, 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.000 one place tubes are still popular in electrical devices today 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.600 is in guitar amplifiers, where a lot of players prefer 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.120 the feeling of playing with tubes as opposed to solid 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.200 state amps. Rob, I don't know if you've ever come 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.719 across this debate, you know, sometimes I think people look 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.880 on the tube preference as a kind of snobbery. Personally, 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.400 I can see both sides, Like, I think solid state 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:23.039 amps sound great, but tubes are. They're cool? Yeah, I 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.960 not being a guitar player myself, I rarely get any 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.960 of these conversations, and I rarely hear any of this. 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.240 So is this something where I know a lot of 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.960 a lot of conversations for regarding like retro technology and 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.680 music and recording and production. It actually does come through 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.760 to the final product. It actually is something that affects 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.719 the final sound of the music. Is that the case here? 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.239 People argue about this, I mean the people argue about 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.679 to what extent you can hear the difference in something 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.120 that comes out of a tube amp versus a a 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.200 good modern attempt to approximate that with transistors. I'm not 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.039 going to try to weigh in on one side of 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.840 the bait here. Uh. Basically, my experience is that. Uh. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.840 Solid state amps sound fine, they sound great, but there's 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.280 also just something kind of cool about tubes. They might 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.360 kind of feel differently when you're playing a guitar through one, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.800 especially if you're in the room with it, as opposed 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.440 to listening to a recording. I'm not sure. Yeah, listeners, 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.640 let us know. Do you think tubes are tubular or 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.360 do you think solid state is solid? I don't know. 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:29.440 I will weigh in and say I think it's a 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.240 stupid thing to like get mad at people or criticize 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.880 people about one way or another. Calm down, guys, fair enough, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.800 But coming back to the bigger point. In cases like 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:43.080 the vacuum lightbulb or the vacuum tube for current amplification, Uh, 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.559 the area inside the glass and these devices is again 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.840 not a perfect vacuum. There are particles of atmosphere in there, 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.840 they're just way fewer of them than in an equivalent 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:58.000 area outside. And there are actually designations for the different 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.479 levels of vacuum that are achieved through technological means. You know, 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.760 you can have like a medium vacuum, a high vacuum, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.480 and ultra high vacuum uh and uh and and so 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.920 so that's what's possible on Earth. But then you might 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.120 be wondering in response to that, Wait a minute, though, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.520 isn't outer space at least a vacuum? Isn't isn't the 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.160 space between the planets or the space between the stars 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:24.000 at least a vacuum. Again, the answer here is yes 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.040 and no. It depends on what you mean. Space is 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.160 a vacuum when compared to Earth's atmosphere, and it is 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.200 even lower density than most partial vacuums created by humans. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.000 I was trying to find a good estimate for the 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.160 density of outer space, and I came across a couple 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.760 of things in that book I was talking about. In 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.680 the last episode called the Void by the by the 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:51.240 physicist Frank close Uh, he writes about well, he's writing 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:55.520 about the reasoning that led people to assume that outer 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.080 space was a vacuum. When scientists such as place Pascal 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.080 started to know, notice that the atmospheric pressure was different 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.320 at different altitude. So you go up on a mountain, 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.880 the atmospheric pressure is lower. That does tend to suggest 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.520 that if you go higher and higher, the density of 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.480 particles just keeps getting lower and lower, and you would 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.760 eventually reach an altitude at which there was effectively no 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.360 nowhere to breathe anymore, There was no atmosphere anymore, which 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.920 some people found maybe kind of like threatening in principle 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.120 or maybe threatening to their theological ideas of how the 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.960 universe was put together. Nevertheless, you could show it was true. 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.200 As you go higher and higher, the density gets lower, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.920 so close rights quote, at a height of a hundred kilometers, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.040 the pressure is less than a billion of that on 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:47.120 the ground, at four hundred kilometers a million million, and 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.960 en route to the Moon in space it is down 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.240 by ten to the nineteen, an amount that is less 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.439 than the size of a proton compared to a kilometer. 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.760 We can thus say that essentially all of the atmosphere 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.080 is a thin shell whose thickness is less than one 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.520 thousand of the Earth's radius. Wow. I I don't doubt 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.560 that's true. But that's the kind of thing that I 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.520 don't even I don't usually picture it that way. I 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.680 you know, I picture the atmosphere is extending much higher 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.920 up off the surface of the Earth. Yeah. And you know, 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:23.560 for for for me, this like the reality of of 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.280 the thinning of the air. Uh. At the higher altitude 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.079 you get to. This was always kind of spelled out 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.800 for me by looking at something like the Lockheed you 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:36.440 to the spy aircraft that have these just a super 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:41.000 long um super a wide wingspan than enabled it one 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.440 of several design functions, but the most obvious one that 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.400 enabled it to uh to to to to fly at 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.199 such high altitudes where there is just there's just less air. Yes, 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.080 the air is thinner, it's harder and harder to generate lift, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.160 but okay, that's how much thinner the atmosphere gets as 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.680 you extend up off of the surface of the Earth. 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.360 What out when you go even beyond that? Well, I 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.240 came across some sort of quick and dirty estimates by 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.839 a radio astronomer named Alistair Gunn doing a short Q 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.720 and A for the BBC, And note that the following 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.319 are approximate. But what gun says is that roughly within 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.160 the Solar system uh space between the planets contains an 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.440 average of about five atoms per cubic centimeter. So that's 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.520 very low density, but there still is gas out there, 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:34.000 it's just extremely dispersed in interstellar space, the space between 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.520 Solar systems in our galaxy, so like where you know 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.400 where the voyager probes are eventually headed to or where 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:45.720 Mumua came from. That interstellar space has about one atom 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.960 per cubic centimeter according to gun here, and then in 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.640 intergalactic space, the space between galaxies, uh, the density is 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.880 about a hundred times less than that. It gets pretty 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:01.000 lonely out there, right, But still there are not no particles. 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.640 They just get farther and farther apart on average. So 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.800 the reason space is so empty is of course gravity. 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.560 Objects with mass attract one another, so mass tends to 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:16.400 clump together over time, creating this varied terrain of cosmic density, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.240 with very high density say in the middle of a star, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:24.439 and still still lower density around that star and around 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.360 the planets around that star, and then lower density in 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.280 between the stars, and then lower density in between the 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.200 galaxies and so forth. But it wasn't always this way. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.920 In the early history of the universe, matter was dispersed 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.559 far more evenly, and you could think of the early 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:42.880 universe in a way as a kind of well in 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.040 a in a strange way, almost kind of like an ocean. 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.640 I guess it wasn't liquid, but like an ocean or 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.199 a cloud or something where uh, there were there were 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.400 more uniform distributions. But then as space expanded that more 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.439 varied terrain that we know today influenced by gravity emerged. Yea, 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.199 So we had the accretion of these various cosmic bodies 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.880 of different sizes, and then the resulting sort of shrinkage 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.760 between these accretions. So in a weird way, you could 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.839 argue that Aristotle is kind of technically vindicated in that 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:20.679 there probably are no large scale, long term areas of 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.760 perfectly empty space in the universe. But I think that 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.800 in the normal way of understanding Aristotle, he was wrong. 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.480 You can create a volume of functional vacuum, but it's 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.760 not a perfect vacuum. Yeah, and it sounds like you 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.080 can also do a fair amount of arguing over the 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.560 size of said vacuum. Yeah. This was making me wonder, like, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:47.120 what what is the average density of the universe overall? Um? 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.760 And so I was looking around at that I did 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.520 find a NASA page on this. This is according to 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.200 research I think carried out by the by w MAP, 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.040 by the Wilkinson Microwave and Isotropy probe that was looking 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:03.200 at fluctuation in the cosmic microwave background. And in uh 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.720 in a write up on that research by NASA that 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.120 they say, quote w Map determined that the universe is flat, 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.080 from which he follows that the mean energy density in 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.840 the universe is equal to the critical density within a 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.120 zero point five percent margin of error. This is equivalent 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.439 to a mass density of because as an aside, ultimately 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:24.920 mass and energy can be exchanged for one another. They 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.839 are with you know, mass is just a huge amount 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.040 of energy um. Coming back to the quote, this is 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.880 equivalent to a mass density of nine point nine times 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.280 tend to the negative thirty grams per cubic centimeter. But 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.480 the density of normal matter is not even that high 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.600 because most of the energy density in the universe is 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:47.240 not normal matter. It's dark matter or dark energy. So 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.440 maybe normal it is not even the right word, because 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:51.439 the kind of matter we're talking about that we're familiar 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.160 with is the minority of stuff. Less than five percent 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.560 of the stuff in the universe is actually made of atoms. 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:03.079 So the the the quote actual energy density of atoms 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:08.040 is equivalent to roughly one proton per four cubic meters. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.559 So you can imagine kind of a like a large 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.160 palette box and that's like one proton in there, and 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.440 that's the the average density of the universe. Yes, so 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.960 if we were to like redistribute it, that's how it 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.200 would play out. I think we should redistribute it get 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.080 a fresh start on this thing. Now. These numbers are admittedly, um, 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.720 maybe maybe a little bit challenging to sort of picture 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:33.760 in your head all the time. But I do like 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.360 that we're dealing with with with hard numbers. Here, we're 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:43.960 doing with dealing with objective numbers related to the vacuum 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.440 and the void. Uh, something we don't always have in 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:52.160 this particular journey. Uh. Sometimes we're dealing with very very 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:57.400 subjective qualities. Oh, you mean, like Aristotle's argument that you 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.880 couldn't have empty space because if it not be by 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.560 d it could not exist. Yeah, or certainly getting into 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.320 some of the philosophical uh ends of the spectrum where 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:11.920 we're dealing with what's the difference between uh, emptiness and nothingness, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.640 what's the difference between eternity and nothing? Um, it can 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.720 it can get a little lucy goosey, well, the difference 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:24.120 between I'm gonna defend exploring the difference between emptiness and nothingness. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.240 I think that is an interesting distinction, but one that 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:31.680 I'm not sure science has has all the answers on. Yeah, 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:33.200 I mean a lot of it does come down to 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.240 the subjective experience. I was talking with my wife before 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.520 I came in here, and she brought up the example 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.160 of isolation tanks. Isolation tanks being a situation where on 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.560 one level, you have certainly limited your space. You are 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.600 isolated or within a tank. You're floating within a tank, uh, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.560 and therefore you're cutting off how much of like the 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.920 the outside world you are in. But then there's also 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:02.040 something to the experience UH that is boundary breaking. You know, 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.240 floating in this salt um bath that is the same 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.480 temperature as your body uh serves to sort of break 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.520 down the division between where you stop and the rest 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.160 of the world begins. So, yeah, there are plenty of 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.280 cases like you don't have to have an isolation tank 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:22.880 to engage in that kind of uh boundary dispute. You know. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:27.280 I think it's interesting that people often seek uh, maybe 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.440 not isolation tanks exactly, but isolation from stimuli specifically in 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.320 order to be creative. Is and that kind of strange 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.720 that almost implies that they think a principle of psychological 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.960 horror vakay is going to come into effect, right that 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.680 if you rob yourself of the normal overwhelming stimuli of 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:48.160 everyday existence, you will get your like you will team 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.600 with ideas. Yeah, but it is one of these things 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:53.720 too where it's like a lot of times you're just 0:16:54.440 --> 0:17:01.240 you're just changing out one high stimuli environment for another. Uh. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:02.960 And maybe it's just a new one, a novel. And 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:04.400 like when you go to the beach and you walk 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.600 on the beach, Yeah, it's a different experience than being 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:09.800 you know, stuck in a city or in a library 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.120 or in your own house. But I mean that there's 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:13.960 a lot going on at the beach. You know, there's 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.200 crashing waves and expanses of sand and birds and all 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.920 sorts of little shells to look at. Likewise, of course, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.640 so I'll walk through the woods. Is just I mean, 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.119 we've we've talked about this before on the podcast, Like 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.600 your your senses are are able to fully engage in 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.320 the environment for which they have evolved, uh, taking in 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.840 all these details and in changing details in the world 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.600 around you. Oh yeah, that does relate to these theories 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.520 about how nature tends to engage our attention in a 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:48.119 different way than than built environments do. And that essentially 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.160 that it uh, I've forgotten all the details of exactly 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.439 what that theory is, but that it UH that nature 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.159 can basically be absorbing to the attention but essentially not 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.240 stress inducing. I think, yeah. And of course this is 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.919 not even getting into social isolation cutting yourself off from 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:11.040 UM wanted and unwanted UH social connections. UH. Certainly there's 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:12.800 a lot to be said for cutting yourself off from 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.720 the UH connection to one smart device and the internet 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:28.040 and so forth. Thank thank Finally, before we move on 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.399 from this, I was wondering, like, what are the superlatives 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.959 in terms of vacuums created by humans in the laboratory 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.840 or or with the aid of technology. What's the lowest 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.159 pressure humans can achieve. I'm not sure what the answer 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.000 is in terms of the lowest pressure overall, but I 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.520 definitely came across the contender and it is certainly one 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.200 of the most impressive artificial vacuum systems ever created by humans, 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.400 if not the lowest pressure. And it's actually the large 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.600 Head round collider at the way it's largest particle accelerator, 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.000 which is operated by the by the Ropean Organization for 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.040 Nuclear Research or CERN. I believe it is still the 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.560 largest vacuum system in operation in the world. It was 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.280 certainly at the time it was put together, and I 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.320 can't think of what would be larger than it. But 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:17.959 it has more than a hundred kilometers of piping held 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.840 in a state of vacuum for various purposes. There has 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.520 to be ultra high vacuum piping for the actual particle 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.520 beams to travel through so that like the accelerated particles 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.080 don't collide with gas molecules and ruin the experiments. And 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.480 I'm not sure what would happen if they did collide. 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.359 Maybe it could be worse than ruining experiments. Certainly wouldn't 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.600 be good. You don't want it. But there are also 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.639 advanced vacuum systems used to like insulate other elements of 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:47.520 the collider, such as the magnets or the helium distribution line. 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.600 So a lot a lot of evacuated space going on 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.920 at at the LHC facility, and it's at extremely low density. 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.720 They compare various vacuums that they create to the density 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:03.960 of interstellar space. So that is horror vakay in in physics. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:05.840 But one thing I've been wanting to come back to 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.840 is the fear of emptiness or the fear of empty 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.680 spaces as as an actual literal fear that humans feel, 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:18.840 the kind of uneasiness that one experiences in a depopulated space. Yeah, 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.920 this topic of chinophobia, um, and some and some other 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.800 related terms. I figured a good place to start on 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.879 all of this might be to return to cinema. We 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.440 talked a little bit about cinema earlier in this journey, 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.800 and in fact, we talked about the ninety seven Dario 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:42.399 Argento horror classic Suspiria, and there's a there's a scene 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.359 in that film that instantly came to mind when I 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.720 was thinking about this fear, this horror associated with depopulated spaces. 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.479 Like you're saying, uh, and if you've seen Suspiria the original, um, 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:56.760 although I really like the remake as well, and I 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.520 don't think they recreated this scene in the remake, but 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.800 I could be wrong. Uh. This scene involves a blind 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.920 man walking through an open, unoccupied city plaza at night. 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.080 There are no other human beings in sight. The environment 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.760 is is pretty well illuminated, though there's still some deep 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:17.359 pockets of shadow. There's a growing sense of threat and terror, 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:19.679 and eventually, and I think we get some very wide 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.080 shots here too, to really take in all that space. 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.800 And then as the tension builds, the dog begins to 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.720 bark and in a in a nasty twist, because again 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:31.560 this is a gilt film and they they're off a 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.520 nasty uh. The dog turns on the blind man and 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.879 kills him. But the way the scene builds up to 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.760 that moment takes just full advantage of this very open space. Uh. 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:47.159 This there this feeling that there's just something wrong in 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.520 the openness of all of this, that there's just just 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.840 this one individual and his dog out here, and something 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.240 terrible is about to happen. I think this scene is 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.320 a fantastic example, especially because of how different it is 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:03.200 than than more of uh, most of Suspiria and most 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.200 of other h you know, Italian horror films or Jealo films, 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:09.600 which we noted in the first episode in the series 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.520 are uh. They are often recognized for being especially visually busy. 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:16.879 You know, they have that artistic sense of horror vakoy 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.200 as in you you sense a desire to fill in 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:24.040 all emptier uniform spaces with detail and richness and stuff. 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.320 You know, they're full of patterns and so I think 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:29.920 the scene of you know, the man who is unfortunately 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.719 cursed by the witches and then this this attack happens 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:37.000 on him. It gets especially scary because it's so unlike 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:39.240 the rest of the movie, having all this emptiness and 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:42.760 blank space in the night. But I was thinking about 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.159 this and about how the horror genre in particular tends 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:53.840 to favor blank, vacant, empty locations in multiple ways. Uh So, 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:56.720 one way is that they tend to favor settings that 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.560 are like literally emptied in the narrative sense. They are 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.560 literally emptied of human activity or neglected by humans in 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.320 some way. So think of how much horror loves like 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.879 abandoned or empty buildings and settlements. Maybe the first idea 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.120 that comes to my mind is Dracula's Castle, which is 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.280 interesting because it is a castle that has no servants 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:23.439 bustling about, no courtiers, uh just empty halls and chambers, 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:28.080 and then the solitary figure of Dracula himself as the host. 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:30.879 It's kind of like a like a Wear's waldo, except 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:32.960 there's just one guy there on the page and he 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.040 and he's really staring at your neck. Oh man, that 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:38.080 would be a great twist center where's wild a book 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.200 Where's Dracula, And each each page is a massive level 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.280