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Speaker 1: Hey, they're extraordinaries. Kelly.

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Speaker 2: Here my book, A City on Mars? Can we settle Space?

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Speaker 2: Should we settle space? And have we really thought this through?

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Speaker 2: Comes out in paperback on July twenty ninth, So if

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Speaker 2: you've been interested in reading it but the hardback version

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Speaker 2: was just too expensive or the wait list at your

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Speaker 2: library was intolerably long, then you're in luck. In this

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Speaker 2: book we answer questions like where are we likely to

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Speaker 2: settle in space? Can we make babies in space? Why

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Speaker 2: do astronauts love taco sauce? And what's the legal status

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Speaker 2: of space cannibalism? So grab yourself a copy of A

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Speaker 2: City on Mars wherever fine books are sold. Conflicting advice

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Speaker 2: is making me twitch?

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Speaker 1: Is it good or is it bad? To scratch my itch?

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Speaker 3: If the ort cloud is filled with icy rocks? Why

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Speaker 3: isn't our view of the stars blocked?

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Speaker 2: Are honeybees Nature's mathematicians? Or can nature forge hexagons without cognition?

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Speaker 3: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 3: answers will make it right.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist and I love

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Speaker 3: hearing questions from the public. What people are wondering about,

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Speaker 3: what they're curious about, what they are confused about. Right

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Speaker 3: to be please and share with me your confusion.

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Speaker 4: Hello.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kelly Winer Smith.

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Speaker 2: I study parasites and space, and I totally agree with Daniel.

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Speaker 2: And also I have to note that these questions have

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Speaker 2: pointed out to me how many things I don't think

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Speaker 2: hard enough about. Like today we have some very basic

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Speaker 2: questions about like why do we itch? And I you know,

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Speaker 2: I must scratch ten or so times and like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: maybe even more without thinking about it. And I've never

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Speaker 2: really thought about why. And so I am loving the

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Speaker 2: opportunity to dig into all of these different questions.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fun on so many levels, Like we get

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Speaker 3: an opportunity to learn more about areas that we've always

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Speaker 3: been curious about but never had an excuse to dig into,

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Speaker 3: Like yeah, when have you told yourself I have an

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Speaker 3: hour free, I'm a to read about itching? But now

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Speaker 3: you have a reason, right, Yep. You also discover how

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Speaker 3: many basic things in science we're still pretty clueless about,

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Speaker 3: you know, like how many things we understand at really

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Speaker 3: just the surface level. Yeah, which means that there's lots

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Speaker 3: of things to figure out for all you young scientists

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Speaker 3: out there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, all the kids who are listening, there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of work for you to do, and just

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Speaker 2: keep a list as we go through these episodes of

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Speaker 2: questions that need answers that you might be the one

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Speaker 2: to answer.

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Speaker 3: That's right. The forefront of human knowledge is not that

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Speaker 3: far away from where you are right now in lots

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Speaker 3: of cases. I mean, yeah, we've been doing physics for

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Speaker 3: a long time and we've made some progress, and it

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Speaker 3: takes a while to understand all the details of particle physics,

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Speaker 3: but they're still very basic questions even about particle physics,

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Speaker 3: that we don't know the answers to. Why are there

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Speaker 3: so many particles? What do they all do? What is

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Speaker 3: the rest of the universe made out of? You know,

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Speaker 3: basic stuff everybody wants to understand. And so if you

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Speaker 3: have a question about the universe or parasites or parasites

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Speaker 3: in the universe, you might be asking a question right

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Speaker 3: at the forefront of our knowledge. So don't be shy, ask.

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Speaker 2: Away and let us do the research for you. So

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Speaker 2: I have an answer I'm just itching to share with you.

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Speaker 2: We got we got there must have been something itchy

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Speaker 2: in the air, because within a very short amount of

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Speaker 2: time we got two different questions about itching and scratching.

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Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and hear the questions.

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Speaker 5: I'd like to know what causes itches and why does

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Speaker 5: scratching stop them. I don't mean itches that have a

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Speaker 5: clear source medicine, side effects, bug bites, rashes, irritating clothing scenes,

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Speaker 5: et cetera. I mean when you're just going about your

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Speaker 5: day and suddenly some random part of you itches. How

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Speaker 5: will you scratch it the itch stops?

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Speaker 4: What's up with that? Hey, I'm loving the show. I

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Speaker 4: wonder if you could answer a question for me. This

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Speaker 4: might be one for Kelly. I've heard recently about a

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Speaker 4: study which said, I think it was in mice, that

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Speaker 4: if you scratch an itch, then it's beneficial because that

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Speaker 4: allows antibodies to go to the site and to clear

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Speaker 4: up any infection. But then there was another study, also

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Speaker 4: in mice, saying that scratching and itch is problematic because

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Speaker 4: it activates pain nerves, which then causes more riching and

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Speaker 4: more inflammation. Which is it, Should I ignore the urge

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Speaker 4: to scratch an itch or should I just go ahead

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Speaker 4: and scratch it. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

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Speaker 3: I think these questions are pretty deep. They're not really

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Speaker 3: just surface level, you know. I think they're really dig

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Speaker 3: down into what's going on. I didn't eat the skin, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I had a ton of fun digging in.

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Speaker 2: And actually, it turns out that our understanding of itching

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Speaker 2: has apparently undergone some pretty major changes in the last

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Speaker 2: few decades. So initially we thought that itching was a

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Speaker 2: minor form of pain, which would suggest that it's using

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Speaker 2: the same pain receptors. And it's just sort of like,

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Speaker 2: if you tickle the pain receptors just a little bit,

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Speaker 2: you get an itch, but when you really hurt them,

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Speaker 2: then you get pain.

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Speaker 3: But back up and give me the bigger picture here.

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Speaker 3: When you say pain receptors, you're talking about like nerve

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Speaker 3: endings just under the skin. And I don't know enough

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Speaker 3: biology to even know, like, are there different nerves for

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Speaker 3: pain and for like cold and for other stuff? How

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Speaker 3: does that all work?

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Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, great questions.

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Speaker 2: So there are different nerves for different things, and so

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Speaker 2: we do have some nerves that specifically are there to

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Speaker 2: tell us about pain. And so for anyone who's gotten

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Speaker 2: tattoos out there, you know, that there are some areas

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Speaker 2: that hurt to get tattooed more than others. Daniel, you're

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Speaker 2: shaking your head, yes, knowingly. Do you have tattoos?

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Speaker 3: I do not, but I have a teenager who wants

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Speaker 3: to get tattoos, and so we've had lots of conversations

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Speaker 3: about making ferman decisions for your body.

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Speaker 1: Got it okay.

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Speaker 2: So there are some parts of your body that have

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Speaker 2: more pain receptors than others, and those areas tend to

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Speaker 2: hurt a little bit more when you get tattoos. And

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Speaker 2: what these receptors do is they deliver messages from like

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Speaker 2: the surface of your skin up to your brain to say, oh,

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Speaker 2: something hurts, and then you respond to it, and often

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Speaker 2: you respond to it without even really thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: You have sort of a reflexive response.

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Speaker 3: And so, for example, I know that I have a

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Speaker 3: lot of nerves and the tips of my fingers, so

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Speaker 3: I could tell the difference between one needle and like

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Speaker 3: two needles very close together, and the tips of my

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Speaker 3: finger has been not like on my elbow because I

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Speaker 3: have fewer nerves there. I can't resolve it. But that's

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Speaker 3: a different nerve system than the ones that help me

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Speaker 3: sense pain.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're getting a little bit outside of my

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Speaker 2: area of expertise here, but I think that those are

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Speaker 2: touch receptors that you would be detecting there, unless you

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Speaker 2: were like stabbing those needles into your fingers, which I

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Speaker 2: assume you're not. I think we're talking about touch receptors there,

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Speaker 2: and we've got receptors for cold and for hot and

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Speaker 2: stuff like that.

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Speaker 3: So you were saying that people used to think that

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Speaker 3: itching or stimulating the pain receptors the nerves that when

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Speaker 3: something hurts, Yeah, that doesn't really make a lot of

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Speaker 3: sense to me, because itching doesn't feel like pain. It

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Speaker 3: feels like uncomfortable and enjoys me crazy, but doesn't hurt

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Speaker 3: the same way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, so I wonder if it was because sometimes if

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Speaker 2: you itch for a really long time, you scratch and

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Speaker 2: then it starts to hurt. And so maybe people were

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Speaker 2: just like imagining a continuum there that doesn't exist. But also,

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Speaker 2: it's not so surprising we got these two systems sort

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Speaker 2: of mixed up because they have a lot of cross talk.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of times when you stimulate one system

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Speaker 2: and it sort of interacts with the other. For example,

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Speaker 2: when I got an epidural when I was pregnant with

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Speaker 2: my second. The first one was natural, second one, I

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Speaker 2: had an epidural.

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Speaker 3: Uh not just like a Friday night epidural.

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Speaker 2: No, yeah right, No, I mean fun not recreational.

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Speaker 1: Recreational.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no judgments to anybody out there who does that,

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Speaker 3: you know, just clarifying here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, But that would be an expensive habit,

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Speaker 2: I'm guessing, because I think you'd need to get insured.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, so when I got my epidural, I started

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Speaker 2: itching like crazy.

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Speaker 1: And I didn't.

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Speaker 2: Find like a paper that specifically said some people who

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Speaker 2: get epidural.

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Speaker 1: Scratch like crazy.

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Speaker 2: But I found a couple of papers that were referencing

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Speaker 2: how sometimes when you do something for pain, you get

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Speaker 2: this weird itchy side effect, and sometimes when you do

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Speaker 2: something for itching, you get this weird pain side effect.

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Speaker 2: And so these two systems seem to have a lot

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Speaker 2: of cross talk, and they interact, but they are separate. Interesting,

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Speaker 2: and so we do have specific receptors for itch.

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Speaker 3: We do, so we've like evolved a whole system to

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Speaker 3: make you uncomfortable.

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Speaker 2: Well, okay, so I would say that a lot of

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Speaker 2: times it does seem like our itch system does things

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Speaker 2: that are maladaptive. Give me a second to do a

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Speaker 2: little bit more explaining, and then we'll get back to that.

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Speaker 2: So you've got these itch receptors and they can be

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Speaker 2: stimulated externally or internally. So externally would be like there's

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Speaker 2: a tick crawling on your skin and you feel itchy,

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Speaker 2: and your immediate response is to try to brush it off,

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Speaker 2: and that is pretty adaptive. You know, you move it off,

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Speaker 2: and now you don't have that tick on there anymore.

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Speaker 2: And I'm very proud of my body because I feel

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Speaker 2: like I am really tuned to ticks. I've almost never

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Speaker 2: had one bite me, but I've taken loads off of me,

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Speaker 2: so like I feel them when they're moving around, So

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Speaker 2: that's good.

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Speaker 3: That's definitely a plus. I understand that, like your body

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Speaker 3: wants you to feel uncomfortable having that critter crawl over you.

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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, Like your attention needs to be drawn to

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Speaker 2: that you need to take care of it right away.

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Speaker 2: We also have responses to internal things like histamines and

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Speaker 2: various things that your immune system does. So for example,

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Speaker 2: if you in the winter have really dry hands and

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Speaker 2: you like make a fist and your skin cracks and

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Speaker 2: bleeds like mine does, your immune system responds to those

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Speaker 2: cracks and it recruits to where those cracks are, and

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Speaker 2: the presence of those immune system cells trigger your itch receptors.

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Speaker 2: And that's why your hand gets itchy when it's all

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Speaker 2: broken and bleeding.

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Speaker 3: Help me understand why internal histamines trigger the same receptors

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Speaker 3: as a tick crawling across myself. Does that make sense.

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Speaker 2: For some reason, I'm not sure that it does make sense.

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Speaker 2: So there's a couple of different hypotheses here. So one

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Speaker 2: hypothesis is that our species itches as.

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Speaker 1: Sort of like an evolutionary hold over.

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Speaker 2: So we used to have fur, and it used to

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Speaker 2: be that we would when we would itch, we wouldn't

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Speaker 2: damage ourselves because the fur got in the way. But

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Speaker 2: now we don't have fur, and so when we itch,

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Speaker 2: we damage ourselves. And so it could be that most

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Speaker 2: of the time when there was an immune response, maybe

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Speaker 2: it was because, for example, there was a tick that

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Speaker 2: had bit and the immune system was responding to it.

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Speaker 2: And so if you scratch, and you scratch through your fur,

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Speaker 2: you get that tick off. And you know, I can

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Speaker 2: still imagine the immune system drawing your attention to the

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Speaker 2: presence of a tick, and you know, the sooner you

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Speaker 2: remove a tick, the better, because some of them don't

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Speaker 2: give you the diseases they're carrying until they've been on

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Speaker 2: there for a while. And now I feel like I'm

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Speaker 2: crawling with ticks because we're talking about it.

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Speaker 3: I hope everybody out there getting itchy and ticky.

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Speaker 2: Yes, guys and gals, So yeah, I mean I think it.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes scratching is good because it removes something, or maybe

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Speaker 2: it recruits more immune cells.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes scratching is just bad.

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Speaker 3: So I think you're saying that itching on the surface

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Speaker 3: is very clear. It's to help us get rid of

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Speaker 3: something that's crawling across us and might bite us and

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Speaker 3: is bad for us, And that itching internally might also

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Speaker 3: be good because it's a signal that something is already

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Speaker 3: bitten us, and if we scratch it, we could get

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Speaker 3: rid of it. So it's not that they trigger exactly

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Speaker 3: the same mechanism. It's like two ways to protect us

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Speaker 3: from critters. But are they biochemically the same mechanism, Like

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Speaker 3: does it tick crawling across your skin trigger the same

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Speaker 3: histamines and that whole same channel, or are they two separate.

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Speaker 2: Mechanisms Both mechanisms trigger the same itch receptors to send

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Speaker 2: a message to your brain that says scratch. And I

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Speaker 2: think in both cases you can get good information that

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Speaker 2: tells you to scratch when you should scratch, but both

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Speaker 2: externally and internally you can also get bad information. So,

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Speaker 2: for example, your skin might be particularly sensitive to certain

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Speaker 2: kinds of allergens, or you know, certain kinds of compounds

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Speaker 2: and soap, right, and then you might start scratching for

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Speaker 2: no good reason. And you know, same thing with your

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Speaker 2: body responding internally by releasing histamines at places where you

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Speaker 2: really don't need to be scratching. And additionally, when you

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Speaker 2: start scratching, you can initiate what's called the itch scratch cycle.

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Speaker 2: And here's what happens there.

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Speaker 3: So this sounds like a nightmare.

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Speaker 2: So you start itching, and when you start itching, we

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Speaker 2: all know that it feels amazing often, and so what's

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Speaker 2: happening there is that your itch signal is being overridden

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Speaker 2: by a pain signal, because when you scratch, you're causing

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Speaker 2: yourself a little bit of pain. And I think the

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Speaker 2: rest of this explanation is a little bit like, here's

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Speaker 2: what we think is happening, but we're not one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent sure. But they think that after you scratch and

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Speaker 2: your pain signal overrides the itch signal, you also release

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Speaker 2: some serotonin, which makes you feel better and sort of

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Speaker 2: makes the pain eventually go away. And so scratching feels good.

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Speaker 2: But when you scratch, you often damage the skin a

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Speaker 2: little bit, especially if you're giving it a really strong scratch.

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Speaker 2: And if you give it too hard of a scratch,

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Speaker 2: now you've caused damage, and that damage recruits more immune cells,

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Speaker 2: which makes you itch even more. And so by itching,

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Speaker 2: you can make yourself itchier. And so there are people

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Speaker 2: who have chronic itching issues and they get stuck in

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Speaker 2: this itch scratch cycle. You know, if you tell someone

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Speaker 2: who's itchy, oh, just don't scratch it. The scratching is

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Speaker 2: what's causing the problem. That's like maddening, I think to

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Speaker 2: tell someone because once you've got an itch, how do

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Speaker 2: you avoid scratching that itch?

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Speaker 1: That's like all you can think about.

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Speaker 3: This is fascinating to me to understand exactly what happens

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Speaker 3: when you scratch an itch, because I do this all

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Speaker 3: the time. I'm the kind of person who's very sensitive

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Speaker 3: to mosquito bites. They like torture me, and if I

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Speaker 3: have one that's like really buzzing, and I scratch it.

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Speaker 3: It's like the greatest relief in the world. Oh my god,

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Speaker 3: that feeling is just like it's not just that the

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Speaker 3: itch goes away, like actually feels really good, but you're right,

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Speaker 3: scratch it hard, then that really fades, and then the

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Speaker 3: pain comes through and then it gets itchy again. And

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Speaker 3: scattered through my house are like dozens of these itch

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Speaker 3: relief sticks, oh, which I totally rely on, and their

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Speaker 3: lile benagyl sticks, and they are antihistamines. So I think

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Speaker 3: that personal piece of data that the anecdote supports your

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Speaker 3: hypothesis there. But it's fascinating to hear about like the serotonin,

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Speaker 3: Like that's why I feel good, Right, It's not just

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Speaker 3: that the itch has stopped and the discomfort has gone,

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Speaker 3: but there's something in my body that is making me

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Speaker 3: actually enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: That is the current hypothesis. Yes, I don't know that

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Speaker 2: we've absolutely nailed that down. And it's interesting that you

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Speaker 2: mentioned antihistamines because one of the reasons that we know

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Speaker 2: we don't really understand itch well is that you can

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Speaker 2: give somewhat antihistamines in a case where you think that

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Speaker 2: should solve the problem. Yeah, and it doesn't, and so

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Speaker 2: it is more complicated. And you know, for some people,

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Speaker 2: if you've got an itch, you scratch it, that's the

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Speaker 2: end of the story. But for other people, their immune

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Speaker 2: systems are a little bit more sensitive. You scratch it,

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Speaker 2: that recruits more immune cells and you start getting in

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Speaker 2: the cycle. You also can get chronic itch for reasons

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Speaker 2: that you know, we again don't understand really well.

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Speaker 3: So, for example, chronic itch.

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Speaker 1: I know chronic itch.

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Speaker 3: I would never wish that on my worst enemy.

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Speaker 2: I was listening to an interview on NPR's Fresh Air

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Speaker 2: from a woman who has a disease. I think it

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Speaker 2: was of her liver or kidneys, and it creates chronic itch.

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Speaker 2: And we don't understand why that particular issue should result

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Speaker 2: in chronic itch, but she itches all the time. There's

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Speaker 2: also folks who have chronic itch related to mental health issues,

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Speaker 2: so like when they get depressed or anxious, it kind

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Speaker 2: of makes them itchy, and so they scratch.

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Speaker 1: A lot more.

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Speaker 3: What's the connection there, I don't think we know. Just

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Speaker 3: another amazing mind body connection. You know, it's incredible to

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Speaker 3: me how much your mental state influences your body's health.

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Speaker 3: And vice versa.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the only reason I ended up on

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Speaker 2: anxiety medication is because I went to my doctor and

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Speaker 2: was like, everything hurts, my stomach hurts, and why is it?

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Speaker 2: And she was like, I think it's uh, you know.

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Speaker 2: She didn't say I think it's in your head. She

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Speaker 2: was much nicer about it. But yes, when we're stressed

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Speaker 2: out or anxious or depressed, it impacts our body in

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Speaker 2: weird ways. So yeah, the studying of chronic itching and

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Speaker 2: how to relieve it is a big area where there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of work that we still have left to do.

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Speaker 2: So the first question that we had was why do

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Speaker 2: you itch when there's nothing there to make you itch?

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Speaker 2: And I think part of the answer could be that,

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Speaker 2: you know, for some people it's a mental health thing.

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Speaker 2: Maybe they're anxious and stressed and there is nothing there.

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Speaker 2: But I think a lot of the times it's something

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Speaker 2: did cause you to need to itch, But maybe it's

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Speaker 2: just escaping your consciousness. So for example, maybe there's like

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Speaker 2: some fiber in your shirt that your body is confusing

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Speaker 2: as a tick, or there was something in your soap

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Speaker 2: that's creating a little bit of an allergic reaction in

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Speaker 2: your back.

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Speaker 1: That you didn't know about.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think in general, something usually initiates this

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Speaker 2: need to scratch, but we just can't always tell what

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Speaker 2: it was.

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Speaker 3: And the second question I think is one that's to

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Speaker 3: my heart, which is, tell me, Kelly, from the point

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Speaker 3: of view of science, should I scratch or should I resist?

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Speaker 3: Am I a bad person for scratching my itches? All?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 2: One, you are not a bad person for scratching your itches.

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Speaker 2: There is no judgment here U.

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Speaker 4: Two.

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Speaker 2: I think it depends on why you're itching. So the

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Speaker 2: listener mentioned that there was a study in mice that

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Speaker 2: found that if you scratched, it recruited immune cells to

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Speaker 2: the area, and that maybe that immune cell helped you

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Speaker 2: deal with an infection or something. So it's possible that

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Speaker 2: under some conditions, maybe you're able to recruit more immune

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Speaker 2: cells if you've got like an infection or something that's itchy.

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Speaker 2: But I think in a lot of cases, itching will

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Speaker 2: feel good, but there's some chance that something bad will

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Speaker 2: happen afterwards, and that something bad would be you could

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Speaker 2: maybe open up a wound and give yourself an infection,

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Speaker 2: or you could start off a new round of the

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Speaker 2: itch scratch cycle, and so well, I think there's nothing

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Speaker 2: wrong with like giving a light scratch to a mosquito bite,

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Speaker 2: or if you've got an itch, making sure you don't

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Speaker 2: have an insect crawling on you or tick crawling on you.

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Speaker 2: But in general, I think the answer, because it's biology,

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Speaker 2: is it depends. And if you are going to scratch,

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Speaker 2: if you can scratch with like I don't know, your

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Speaker 2: knuckles or something to try to like not break the

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Speaker 2: skin so much, that would be great. But you know,

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Speaker 2: just at the end of the day, some of us

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Speaker 2: we can't help but scratch, and it's it's just hard

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Speaker 2: to avoid.

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Speaker 3: All right. Well, now I have a question which you

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Speaker 3: may be the only person in the world qualified to answer.

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Speaker 3: What because it connects itches in space? Are there cases

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Speaker 3: where astronauts had crazy itches they couldn't scratch because they

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Speaker 3: were in a space suit? And what are you supposed

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Speaker 3: to do?

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Speaker 1: Oh, oh my gosh, that must have happened.

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Speaker 2: So you know, you can, like I guess you could

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Speaker 2: try to like rub your skin against the inside of

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Speaker 2: the suit.

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Speaker 3: And so I wish you all could see the dance

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Speaker 3: Kelly is doing right now to mimic how to scratch

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Speaker 3: your back inside a spacesuit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are so many things that sound uncomfortable about

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Speaker 2: being in a spacesuit, and the most uncomfortable of which

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Speaker 2: is elamination.

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Speaker 1: Have we talked. Do you know what that means?

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Speaker 3: No, it sounds like you're removing your skin.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you're removing your nails. So those gloves, I'm so

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Speaker 1: so yeah.

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Speaker 2: So those gloves are really hard to bend. And there

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Speaker 2: are some cases where people have tried to bend it

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Speaker 2: and their nails have kind of got stuck in their

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Speaker 2: nails are pulled up from the nailbit.

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Speaker 1: I know, so gross. So anyway, and then.

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Speaker 3: You can't scratch your itches because you have no more fingernails.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Oh, so many layers of horror. Don't

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Speaker 1: go to space.

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Speaker 3: Well, I haven't been to space, but I've had the

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Speaker 3: situation where I had a cast and had itches inside

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Speaker 3: the cast, and you know, we've all devised that long

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Speaker 3: scratchy tool you can stick underneath the cast. Yeah, but

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Speaker 3: I can't imagine what you would do if you are

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Speaker 3: on in like a six hour EVA and you had

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Speaker 3: an itch and you just had to keep going.

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Speaker 2: I would be so distracted. It would be so hard

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Speaker 2: for me to finish the mission.

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Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's check in with Jane and Kay

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Speaker 3: to see if we scratched their itch, and then we'll

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Speaker 3: take a break before we come back and go into

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Speaker 3: outer space to answer more questions.

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Speaker 4: Oh, Kelly, I'm so sorry for asking such a controversial question.

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Speaker 4: I do hope people weren't scratching too much whilst listening.

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Speaker 4: Did you answer my question? Well, you seem to say

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Speaker 4: that I need to resist the urge to scratch, so

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Speaker 4: I'll try my best. But Kelly, I was so proud

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Speaker 4: of you that you resisted the urge to combine poop

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Speaker 4: and parasites. In the answer, I understand the itch resulting

439
00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:35,440
Speaker 4: from scabies. My infestation is mainly caused by their waste products.

440
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:39,240
Speaker 4: We thank you for answering my question. This is another

441
00:20:39,359 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 4: reason why you're my favorite podcast.

442
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:03,639
Speaker 1: Okay, we're back.

443
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:07,479
Speaker 2: So imagine you are an itchy astronaut heading towards the

444
00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,639
Speaker 2: ort cloud and Tim from the UK has a question

445
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:11,800
Speaker 2: about what that would be like.

446
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 6: Hi, Daniel N. Kelly, Tim from the UK here love

447
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:19,879
Speaker 6: the podcast. Here's my question. The Orc Cloud surrounds our

448
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 6: solar system and is filled with trillions of objects. He's

449
00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:27,880
Speaker 6: one to three light years thick, so then surely our

450
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:31,760
Speaker 6: true view of the universe outside of the cloud must

451
00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 6: be getting obscured or obstructed. And why is our view

452
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:39,400
Speaker 6: of the night sky relatively permanent fixed points of light

453
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,920
Speaker 6: coming in from the stars. Surely there should be times

454
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 6: when the stars are completely obscured by the massive objects

455
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:49,399
Speaker 6: in the cloud. If the cloud thins, then more of

456
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,880
Speaker 6: the stars should be visible. If the cloud thickens, then

457
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:54,560
Speaker 6: some of the stars should disappear.

458
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:55,320
Speaker 3: That's it.

459
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:56,880
Speaker 6: Keep up the good work by.

460
00:21:57,040 --> 00:21:59,119
Speaker 3: Thanks Tim for this wonderful question and for giving us

461
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:01,960
Speaker 3: an opportunity to scratch your orty itch.

462
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 2: All right, So when I was looking at your outline,

463
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 2: there was a fact in your outline that absolutely blew

464
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:11,720
Speaker 2: my mind. So let's get to it. Let's jump into

465
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 2: what is the Ork Cloud?

466
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:17,880
Speaker 3: So the Orc Cloud is a theoretical cloud of icy

467
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 3: mini planets, meaning I.

468
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:21,919
Speaker 1: Thought we knew it existed.

469
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 2: The fact that it's theoretical is blowing my mind. The

470
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:25,880
Speaker 2: Ork Cloud is a maybe.

471
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:28,959
Speaker 3: It's a maybe for exactly the reason that Tim is asking,

472
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:32,520
Speaker 3: Because we can't see it. Oh my gosh, we can't

473
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,160
Speaker 3: see it. We've never seen it. There's like one observation

474
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 3: of a thing people think might have come from the

475
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 3: Ork Cloud, and people think comets maybe probably come from

476
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 3: the Ork Cloud. But the Ork Cloud itself is not

477
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 3: something we've ever seen, and it's a shame because it

478
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 3: would be amazing. So let's back up and remind people

479
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 3: what is the Orc Cloud? Anyway? So we're talking really

480
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 3: far out in the Solar System. So you know, the

481
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 3: Sun is at the center, and the Earth orbits of

482
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 3: what we call one a A and the big planets

483
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,359
Speaker 3: are at like five ish AU, and if you go

484
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:06,639
Speaker 3: all the way out to Pluto, it orbits at a

485
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 3: radius of like forty ish AU. So like really far

486
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:13,760
Speaker 3: out there in the Solar system, right, But the Orc Cloud,

487
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,760
Speaker 3: if it exists, is two thousand to like one hundred

488
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 3: thousand AU from the Sun. Oh my god, we're talking

489
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 3: about like one to three light years. This is a

490
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:27,880
Speaker 3: big blob of objects that are very very very far

491
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 3: away from where we are currently, so they're not technically

492
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,400
Speaker 3: part of the Solar System. They're sort of like captured

493
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 3: by the Sun's gravity, but very very far out there.

494
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:40,719
Speaker 2: So when you say two thousand to two hundred thousand,

495
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,719
Speaker 2: is that a huge error bar or just a huge

496
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,119
Speaker 2: area that's occupied by the Orc Cloud.

497
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:49,919
Speaker 3: It's a huge area. So like if you were going

498
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 3: to go visit the Orc Cloud, it would start at

499
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 3: like fifty thousand AU and you'd still be going through

500
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:58,439
Speaker 3: and come out the other side somewhere around one maybe

501
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,439
Speaker 3: two hundred thousand AU. Oh my gosh. So it's a

502
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 3: huge area exactly, and it has lots and lots of

503
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 3: objects in it. Like the Oor Cloud is not like

504
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 3: two little pieces of ice. We think. It has like

505
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 3: trillions and trillions of little icy bits out there, a

506
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 3: lot of them bigger than like one kilometer wide, billions

507
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 3: of them bigger than twenty kilometers wide. So it's a

508
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,199
Speaker 3: lot of stuff. But space is really vast. You know,

509
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 3: volume grows very quickly with radius, so as you get

510
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 3: far and out there, we're talking about an incredible amount

511
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 3: of space. So even though there's a lot of stuff

512
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:36,719
Speaker 3: in there, it all adds up to like five times

513
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 3: the mass of the Earth if you clump it all together.

514
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 3: It's spread out really, really far, so you wouldn't be

515
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 3: like dodging asteroids like in Star Wars. You'd be like

516
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,119
Speaker 3: using telescopes to find an object even if you were

517
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 3: in the middle of the Ork Cloud.

518
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 2: Whoa so I had imagine that the ork cloud was

519
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: dust and small rocks, but it makes more sense that

520
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 2: the cloud is made of water. Or you said ice,

521
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 2: Is that ice made of water? And how did water

522
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 2: get out there?

523
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 3: Yeah? Water is actually everywhere in the Solar System and

524
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 3: in the universe. It's not just water ice though, there's

525
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 3: like methane, ice and other frozen stuff. And it's not

526
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 3: unusual to find ice or frozen water or frozen other

527
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 3: stuff out there in the far Solar System. You know,

528
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 3: Neptune and Urinus have a lot of these things in

529
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 3: them as well. Anything past the frost line in the

530
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 3: Solar System, which is the inner part of the Solar System,

531
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 3: where the Sun's radiation is going to melt or vaporize

532
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 3: any sort of water that's out there, you're going to

533
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 3: find a lot of it. That's why Jupiter and Saturn

534
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 3: are bigger, for example, because as those planets started to

535
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 3: form in the early Solar System, they could gather ice

536
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 3: because it was around, and so they could grow faster

537
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 3: than the inner planets. So the sort of more solid

538
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 3: stuff out there because the Sun's radiation hadn't blasted it

539
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 3: into vapor all right.

540
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 2: So there is maybe a massive cloud of ice, but

541
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 2: maybe not.

542
00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 3: And it's sort of the third cloud. In our Solar system.

543
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 3: Have the Asteroid Belt, which is past Mars, and it's

544
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 3: a bunch of rocks left over that we think can't

545
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 3: coalesce into a planet because of Jupiter's gravitational pull in

546
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 3: the tidal forces. Then there's the Kuiper Belt which is

547
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 3: out there that provides short period comets, and it's just

548
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 3: like a bunch of icy rocks. But the Ork Cloud

549
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 3: is maybe a thousand times further out than the Kuiper Belt,

550
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 3: so it really is like a halo for the whole

551
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 3: Solar System.

552
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 2: And so the stuff that's out there in that cloud,

553
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 2: can you give me a sense for like how much

554
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 2: stuff is out there?

555
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 1: Like if you mushed it all together, how much would

556
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 1: you have?

557
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:37,880
Speaker 3: So it's like five times the mass of the Earth.

558
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 3: So it's not a tiny amount of stuff, right, It's

559
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 3: just spread out over an incredible area, you know how

560
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 3: Like when you start with a tub of frosting, you're like, Oh,

561
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 3: this is definitely gonna be enough frosting for this cake,

562
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 3: and then you start spreading out the cake, You're like, uh, oh,

563
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 3: this might not be enough frosting. Like the oork cloud

564
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 3: is spread super duper thin. You know, it's like the

565
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 3: sun is the most lightly frosted thing you've ever seen.

566
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 2: I thought you're this, this is a bit of insight

567
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 2: into me. Maybe I thought you were going to say,

568
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,479
Speaker 2: when you sit down with the frosting and a spoon,

569
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 2: this is.

570
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: Definitely more than enough dessert. And then you're like, no,

571
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: I wanted more.

572
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 3: You know, there's a warning on the side of the

573
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 3: frosting that says not to be eaten on its own.

574
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: Are you serious?

575
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 3: I am serious?

576
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: Why do they are? They like prohibiting joy in.

577
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 3: This whole episode of the Hyperfixed podcast about exactly that

578
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:26,919
Speaker 3: you should go dig into it. It's a fun story.

579
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 1: Oh all right, my family might be in a lot

580
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: of trouble. I'll dig in anyway.

581
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 3: I'm not a doctor, but I don't recommend that you

582
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 3: eat all of I'm roasting by yourself. At least share

583
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:37,479
Speaker 3: it with your family.

584
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: I share it with the kids, all right. So moving on, And.

585
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 3: We're not one hundred percent sure what the org cloud

586
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 3: is made out of because we've never seen it directly. Right,

587
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 3: if we could see light bouncing off of it, we

588
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: could understand how it reflects and absorbs light and we

589
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 3: could get some spectrographic information, or if we had a

590
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 3: great theory for how it formed, we can understand it.

591
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 3: But we have a few various ideas for like how

592
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,479
Speaker 3: one gets an org cloud. One is that it's sort

593
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 3: of the detritus from the formation of the Solar System.

594
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 3: There's a lot of like gravitational interactions, and sometimes things

595
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 3: get sort of tossed out of the center, you know.

596
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 3: We think, for example, there might have been another gas

597
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 3: giant that in the early part of the Solar System

598
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,479
Speaker 3: because of the push in the pull of the various

599
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 3: other planets, could have gotten tossed out. It's not that

600
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 3: easy to stay in orbit. If you get a big

601
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 3: enough push from something else, you might find another orbit

602
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,959
Speaker 3: or you might just be lost. And so these orc

603
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 3: cloud objects might be like little bits that were formed

604
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 3: closer to the Solar System and then got kicked out

605
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 3: and ended up in a stable orbit very far from

606
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:37,119
Speaker 3: the Solar System.

607
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: Whilst we could have had like another Saturn, yeah, but

608
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 1: now it's out in the ork cloud. That's crazy exactly.

609
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 3: Or it could have been that as our Sun was forming,

610
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 3: there was another star that was forming nearby stars tend

611
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 3: to form in clumps. Right, you have a huge cloud

612
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 3: of gas that collapses into a solar system, but doesn't

613
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,479
Speaker 3: usually collapse into one solar system, It collapses into several

614
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 3: based on where the over densities were in that gas cloud.

615
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 3: And so it could have like exchanged material with sister

616
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,719
Speaker 3: stars and this old clouds could be like, you know,

617
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 3: the last bit of that tug of war between the stars.

618
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: Huh.

619
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 2: So we've got theories for why it exists, but what

620
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 2: is our evidence that it exists? Do we just think

621
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 2: that it exists because we have some theories saying it should,

622
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 2: or has someone like look through a telescope and been

623
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 2: like kind of looks like a cloud out there.

624
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, why would anybody imagine this thing exists if we've

625
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 3: never seen it? Right, Well, one of the original reasons

626
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 3: for this concept was to explain long period comets. So

627
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 3: comets are ice balls that plummet towards the center of

628
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 3: the Solar system, go around the back of the Sun,

629
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 3: and then zoom back out. And they can have shorter periods,

630
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 3: you know, years, decades, or they can have longer periods

631
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 3: hundreds of years, And people wonder, like, where do those

632
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 3: ice balls come from that. They take hundreds of years

633
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 3: to orbit the Sun, and so they imagine maybe there's

634
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 3: a huge cluster of these balls out there, sort of

635
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 3: floating in distant space, and sometimes one of them gets

636
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 3: perturbed and falls in towards the inner Old System and

637
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 3: becomes a comet. So this is where the hypothesis of

638
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 3: the Ork cloud comes from. Oh interesting, yeah, and highlights

639
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 3: something which I think is often overlooked, which is comets

640
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 3: are a real danger. You know, people think about asteroids

641
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 3: hitting us, and we monitor the asteroid belt and that's cool.

642
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 3: But like asteroids, we can see, we can predict, and

643
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 3: mostly we know where the big ones are. But they're

644
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 3: also not that far away from us. So if they

645
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 3: hit us, they're not going that fast. But comets they

646
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 3: come out of the darkness, right, We have no idea

647
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 3: the trillions of them out there. They can just get perturbed,

648
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 3: comes suddenly out of the darkness, and by the time

649
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 3: they hit the Earth, they're going incredibly fast. And so

650
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 3: like in terms of existential danger, like comets in the

651
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 3: Ork Cloud are a huge gun loaded with trillions of

652
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 3: bullets pointed at the Earth.

653
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 2: And if existential dread is your jam, you should check

654
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 2: out our earlier interview with Phil Plate where we just

655
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 2: talked about the many ways the universe is trying to

656
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 2: kill us exactly.

657
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 3: And so we've never seen the work Cloud, but we've tried.

658
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 3: You know, the Oork Cloud is so far that is

659
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 3: past Voyager one, which is the probe the humanity is

660
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 3: sent out into space and is the furthest fastest human ship.

661
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 3: It might reach the beginning of the Oor Cloud in

662
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 3: three hundred more years, though the power on that thing

663
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 3: is rapidly running out. But of course we can also

664
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 3: try to see the or Cloud from Earth. And this

665
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 3: gets really to Tim's question, like why isn't it blocking

666
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 3: our view? It's not blocking our view because it's a

667
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 3: lot of really really tiny objects super far away. It's

668
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 3: like if an astronaut threw sand into space, it wouldn't

669
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 3: block your view, right, And that's effectively what's going on here.

670
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 3: They're really small. Each object, because it's so far away,

671
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 3: would block the tiniest little portion of the night sky.

672
00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 3: So even though there are so many of them, they

673
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 3: don't add up to blocking much of your night sky.

674
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 3: But it's something that people are looking for. The way

675
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 3: you could see the Ork Cloud is exactly. That is

676
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 3: to see, like, can we see an object pass in

677
00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 3: front of a star? These little mini star eclipses would

678
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 3: give us a hint that the Oorkcloud is real. And

679
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 3: then it's out there, and there is one tentative observation.

680
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 3: This object called Sedna, we think is one hundred and

681
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 3: forty billion kilometers from the Sun. It's a tentative observation

682
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 3: of this thing.

683
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's I mean, to be able to

684
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 2: see a teeny tiny object passing in front of the

685
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 2: Sun seems to me like it would require amazing telescope abilities.

686
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And Sedna is really hardest spot. It's twenty

687
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 3: times further away from the Sun than Pluto, so its

688
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 3: orbit is at about one thousand AU and it's a

689
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 3: very very elongated orbit. But you know, it's just probably

690
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 3: one of like zillions and zillions of things that are

691
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 3: out there that we can just barely spot. But as

692
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 3: we improve our telescopes, we'll get a clearer view of

693
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 3: what's out there in the Oork Cloud, which is important

694
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 3: because the better we understand the Orc Cloud, the better

695
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 3: we're able to model in and predict what might happen.

696
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 3: You know, every once in a while, another star comes

697
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:57,959
Speaker 3: near our star, and when they approach each other they

698
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 3: can gravitationally nudge on each other. There's ort clouds potentially

699
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 3: stimulating like a shower of comets into the inner Solar System.

700
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 3: And yet, doesn't that seem like something we'd like.

701
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 2: To understand when you say every once in a while,

702
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:12,719
Speaker 2: I hope you mean every like a few billion years,

703
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 2: not in my lifetime, or what does everyone's in a

704
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 2: while mean?

705
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 3: There is a prediction that in one point three million years,

706
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 3: another star is going to come within around twenty or

707
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 3: thirty light days of our star, and so yeah, it's

708
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 3: not going to be for a while.

709
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah, I don't suspect I'll still be around

710
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: by that point.

711
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 3: But you know, the Sun oscillates relative to the galaxy.

712
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 3: It doesn't just go around the center of the galaxy.

713
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 3: It goes up and down through the plane of the

714
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 3: galaxy like every thirty million years or so. So it's

715
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 3: not like our galactic neighborhood. It's constant. You know, we're

716
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 3: always zooming through the galaxy and changing our neighbors, and

717
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 3: so they can come and go, and that affects the

718
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 3: ork cloud, and you know, life on Earth.

719
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 2: That's so amazing to me, how many things are happening

720
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: at the very tiny scales and absolutely huge scales that

721
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 2: you mess Like the other day, I was walking and

722
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 2: I saw this little shimmer in front of my face

723
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 2: and it was a baby spider. When they eventually go

724
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,399
Speaker 2: off to start their lives, they release a tiny little

725
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 2: bit of silk that catches the air and they it's

726
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 2: called ballooning, and they sort of balloon off. And there's

727
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 2: all these little things that are happening that you only

728
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 2: get a glimpse of very rarely, and you're missing it

729
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 2: on the micro scale, and there's all this Like I

730
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 2: just now learned that we're on a carousel around the

731
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:31,320
Speaker 2: galaxy and I was missing that too.

732
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: It's amazing.

733
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 3: Well, you're right, there is so much going on in

734
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 3: the universe. We perceive a tiny little bit of it.

735
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 3: We pay attention to an even smaller slice, and we

736
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 3: understand and even smaller slice of that. And so we

737
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 3: hope this podcast helps open up your eyes and your

738
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 3: mind to what's going on in the rest of the universe.

739
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 3: And so Tim tell us, if we have successfully stretched

740
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 3: your brain out to the edges of the Ord Cloud,

741
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 3: and explained why it doesn't block your view of the

742
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 3: beautiful night sky.

743
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 6: Let us know, guys, Thanks very much, keep up the

744
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 6: good luck.

745
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 3: All right, we're back and we're answering questions from people

746
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 3: like you who are curious about the universe and want

747
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 3: to know how things work. Please send us your questions

748
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:35,839
Speaker 3: to Questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org. We'd love

749
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 3: to have you on the pod. So we've talked about itches,

750
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,280
Speaker 3: we've talked about space, and now we're going to zoom

751
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 3: back in to talk about something that's happening right in

752
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 3: your backyard. Humans aren't the only clever engineers on the planet.

753
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll see that's the payoff at the end. So

754
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,479
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and listen to a question from Eric

755
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 2: in Idaho.

756
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,320
Speaker 7: Hey, Kelly, I was inspired by your passion for byology

757
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 7: on the show and came across something called the honeycomb conjecture.

758
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 7: Bees create hexagons for a fascinating reason, and in the

759
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 7: last couple of decades a gentleman named Thomas Hales prove

760
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 7: the conjecture using math.

761
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 3: I have a few.

762
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,879
Speaker 7: Questions for you that I'd love to get your thoughts on.

763
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,319
Speaker 7: What is the history behind the conjecture, why do bees

764
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 7: create hexagons?

765
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 3: To begin with? What are the advantages to do in this?

766
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 7: Also do biologists see any other species creating hexagons? And

767
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 7: also I've been thinking a lot about math, and we

768
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 7: all know math and physics go hand in hand. However,

769
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 7: I don't hear much about mathe and biology going together.

770
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 7: How prevalent is math and biology? Do you use it

771
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 7: daily in your research? One thing too, I've been thinking

772
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 7: about a lot is that some physicists believe that the

773
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 7: universe nature is inherently mathematical. What do biologists say on

774
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 7: this matter? What is their opinion? Is the universe? Is

775
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 7: nature inherently mathematical? Or is this just the language that

776
00:36:55,920 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 7: we human beings create to describe such crazy things like

777
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 7: hexagons in nature? All right, I certainly appreciate everything you

778
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 7: and Daniel do. Thank you for considering my questions.

779
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 3: Eric is a long time listening to this show and

780
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 3: a frequent emailer, and we love hearing from him. If

781
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 3: you would like to email with us and have us

782
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 3: answer all your science questions, please please please write to

783
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 3: us to questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org. We

784
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,359
Speaker 3: mean it anyway, Kelly, what can you tell us about

785
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 3: the honeycomb conjecture and bees. How long have people been

786
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 3: thinking about this?

787
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I love this question because it's

788
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 2: a nice intersection of physics and biology, and so you know,

789
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 2: I'll expect you to give most of the answer here,

790
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 2: Daniel totally.

791
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 1: No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

792
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 2: I did my research, all right, So this is a

793
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 2: question we've been asking.

794
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:42,280
Speaker 1: Ourselves for a really long time.

795
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:47,280
Speaker 2: So around thirty six BC, this guy, Marcus Tarentius Vero

796
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 2: sorry about my pronunciation as ever, was writing a book

797
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 2: about agriculture and he mentioned that honey bees make hexagonal

798
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 2: honeycombs and that there was some debate about why this happened.

799
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 2: And one of the first options was, well, bees have

800
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:06,920
Speaker 2: six legs, honeycombs have six sides.

801
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: Maybe bees are just like using their.

802
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: Legs to kind of determine the like vertices of the

803
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 2: honeycomb and it so maybe it just has something to

804
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: do with the fact that they have six legs.

805
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 1: There was some connection there.

806
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:21,399
Speaker 3: Interesting. Well, I mean, you notice simple patterns, you draw

807
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 3: dotted lines between them. Sure it makes sense?

808
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, Then you test your conjectures.

809
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 3: So how do you test that? You like, cut some

810
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,799
Speaker 3: legs off of bees and see if they make square honeycombs.

811
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that you could do that, you could,

812
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: but we don't. It turns out we don't need to

813
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 2: because actually the first thing you should do is make

814
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 2: careful observations. And as we're gonna get to later, if

815
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,399
Speaker 2: you make careful observations, you'll see that actually bees are

816
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 2: making circles that then melt into like a hexagonal shape.

817
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 2: And so so if you just watch, you'd be like, oh, actually,

818
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter that they have six legs because they're

819
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 2: just making circles.

820
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 3: You're saying that bees when they originally make their honeycomb,

821
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 3: they're making perfect circles or very close to it, and

822
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 3: they just relax into honeycombs. Yes, wow, I had no idea.

823
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 2: Well wait till we're going to get to in a

824
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 2: little bit more details. So one of the interesting questions

825
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 2: that arise here than I think, is our bees purposefully

826
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 2: making hexagons or not our bees Nature's mathematicians or you know,

827
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 2: is that giving them too much credit? But so the

828
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:23,800
Speaker 2: reason it's exciting that they're making hexagons is the second option,

829
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 2: which is that they are purposefully making hexagon shapes through

830
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 2: some mechanism that we'll get to later, because hexagons maximize

831
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 2: the area inside. So since Pathagoras's time, we've known that

832
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 2: some shapes do what's called tile the plane, which is

833
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 2: to say, they fill a flat space without overlapping one

834
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 2: another or creating any gaps. Some of the shapes that

835
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 2: we've sort of studied the most in terms of tiling

836
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 2: the plane are triangles, squares, and hexagons. There are some

837
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 2: other shapes that do this.

838
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 3: Too, and this is actually a really fascinating area of mathematics,

839
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 3: like finding shapes that tile the plane and new shapes

840
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 3: that tile the plane. Something this crazy discovery of an

841
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,760
Speaker 3: object that can tile an infinite plane without ever repeating

842
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 3: a pattern, which is super amazing. This call an Einstein shape.

843
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:11,399
Speaker 3: And the best part of this story is that wasn't

844
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 3: developed by like a professional mathematician, but like a craftsman,

845
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 3: a guy who's just like good with stuff, and he

846
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,360
Speaker 3: built like a physical model to explore this anyway, super fascinating.

847
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,319
Speaker 3: That's amazing though, total digression though, So you're telling us

848
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 3: about people thinking about tiling the plane way back in

849
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 3: the time of like Greek geometricians.

850
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 2: Yes, right, So people have been talking about tiling the

851
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 2: plane for a long time. But one of the cool

852
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 2: things about hexagons is that, you know, say you're considering triangles, squares,

853
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,359
Speaker 2: and hexagons to tile the plane. If you want to

854
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 2: maximize the volume inside of the shape, then for the

855
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 2: same perimeter for each of those shapes, hexagons maximize the

856
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 2: volume inside, which you would want if you're storing honey

857
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 2: or babies or something in place in there.

858
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 3: Or babies in honey or something honeybabes, honey babes. And

859
00:40:57,520 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 3: I guess the idea here is you want to be economical,

860
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,240
Speaker 3: and so you want to store as much as possible

861
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 3: while using the minimal amount of building materials.

862
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 2: That's right, because the building materials is wax that they

863
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 2: have to make, and so you want to minimize the

864
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,760
Speaker 2: building materials you need and maximize the space inside.

865
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 3: So I love when mathematics intersects with biology, and it

866
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 3: gives us a reason. The hypothesis, I guess is that

867
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 3: bees have somehow evolutionarily discovered that this is the most

868
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 3: efficient way to store their honey by building hexagons.

869
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:29,359
Speaker 2: Yeah right, And it wasn't actually proved mathematically that this

870
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 2: was a good strategy for the honeybees until Thomas Hales

871
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 2: did it in two thousand.

872
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 3: Two thousand AD AD.

873
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: Yes.

874
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:40,720
Speaker 3: Wow, I love these mathematical questions that are like open

875
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 3: for millennia and then some dudes like, I'm going to

876
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 3: tackle that. Yeah, let's do that tomorrow.

877
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,279
Speaker 2: I'm guessing it was more than just tomorrow, but it

878
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,399
Speaker 2: was a like thirty six page proof, which I will

879
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 2: admit I just kind of.

880
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,399
Speaker 1: Like scan scan scan scan scan scan. I didn't check

881
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:54,839
Speaker 1: his math.

882
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 4: Wow.

883
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 3: I love that. That's incredible.

884
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 2: I mean, I think for some of these questions it

885
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 2: could be because nobody was like I have to know

886
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 2: if the honey bees are doing it right, Like there

887
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 2: might have been more pressing questions, but it's a fascinating

888
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 2: question to answer.

889
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 3: All right, So we know now that hexagons are the

890
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 3: best way to store honey. Do the bees know that?

891
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: Yeah?

892
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 2: So the answer at the end of the day is

893
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 2: that we really don't know. So I watch some videos

894
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 2: where people are like, oh, bees are Nature's mathematicians.

895
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: They make hexagons, and I'm like, oh, I like that.

896
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 1: That really sounds beautiful.

897
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 2: But so then the question is, like, what do the

898
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 2: bees know in terms of what they're doing and of course,

899
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 2: you know, we can't ask the bees what they know,

900
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 2: so we'll never really know. But as we mentioned a

901
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 2: little bit earlier, they do start by making circles out

902
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 2: of the wax, and as things sort of heat and

903
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 2: then cool, they end up sort of changing their shape

904
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 2: into hexagons over time. And I think you see this

905
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 2: also with bubble rafts and Daniel, maybe you can explain

906
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 2: why this is the case. This is where I thought

907
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,840
Speaker 2: Daniel's gonna chime in here, but maybe I'm wrong. So

908
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 2: you make a bunch of little circular bubbles and they

909
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 2: sort of find the spaces in between, and over time

910
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 2: they sort of settle into hexagons, and I think that's

911
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: like surface tension pulling them together into more efficient shapes.

912
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:06,839
Speaker 1: Does that sound right?

913
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what's happening there is the universe is optimizing it, right,

914
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 3: not the bees, not the bubble raft designer. It's just like,

915
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 3: if you're gonna squeeze a bunch of bubbles together, they're

916
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 3: going to end up forming a hexagon shape because otherwise

917
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 3: they're gonna pop, right, And so if you want to

918
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 3: keep bubbles open and minimize the amount of popping, then

919
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 3: you're going to pack them as hexagons. That just sort

920
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 3: of makes sense. Yeah, And so it seems like we

921
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 3: can't give credit to the bees for that, right. If

922
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:34,399
Speaker 3: they're building circles in the universe, is like, yeah, we're

923
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 3: going to turn these into hexagons. Then that's just the

924
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 3: mathematics of the universe. Isn't that physics?

925
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 2: Well that would be boring, but so, uh, just kidding.

926
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 2: So hold on, So when the bees are putting their

927
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 2: circles in, they have to place the circles in certain

928
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 2: ways so that you get the hexagons.

929
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 1: If they put them.

930
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 2: In there all randomly, then you wouldn't necessarily get like

931
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 2: the the near perfect hexagons that you get. And so

932
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 2: I don't think that they are saying, oh, we've got

933
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 2: to do it this way, because if you place them

934
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 2: this way, when they finally make their final form, they're

935
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,720
Speaker 2: going to be a hexagon, which is the mathematically ideal

936
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 2: shape for our honey storage needs. But I do think

937
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,839
Speaker 2: they have some programming in there that helps them make

938
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 2: sure that they put their circles in in a certain

939
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,959
Speaker 2: way so that when the wax settles, it will create

940
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 2: a hexagon. But here's an interesting side thing. Paper wasps,

941
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 2: which make their nests out of like fibers. So, for example,

942
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 2: I was sitting on a bench the other day and

943
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: a paper wasp came by, and it was it's an

944
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 2: old wooden bench, and it was starting to like scrape

945
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 2: the wood off of the top of the bench, and

946
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 2: then it went back and it used it to make

947
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 2: its paper nests. You're yawning, and I can't believe you're

948
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 2: yawning at paper wasp, Daniel.

949
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: They're so interested.

950
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 3: But that's not a judgmental yawn. I was like a

951
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 3: woke up too early yawn.

952
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:55,399
Speaker 1: No, I get that none of us get enough sleep.

953
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 2: And so anyway, they also make hexagonal cells, and they

954
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,760
Speaker 2: don't get like you know, wax melts into the right shape.

955
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 2: They start as circles. So the circles are sort of

956
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 2: like up at the top point where the nest starts,

957
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 2: and then as they build it out, you get hexagons.

958
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 2: And so to me that's even a little bit more

959
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 2: impressive because they do end up building the hexagons. But anyway,

960
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 2: so it's all about positioning and not necessarily about going

961
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 2: for hexagons in particular.

962
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 3: Interesting and so in the end, are you going to

963
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,839
Speaker 3: give the bees credit? Do you think the bees are geometers?

964
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,280
Speaker 2: I give bees a lot of credit for a variety

965
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 2: of reasons. Studies have shown that bees are really good

966
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 2: at making economical decisions about which flowers to visit and

967
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 2: how many times to visit them.

968
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: They're good at communicating with one another.

969
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 2: Where the great food sources are, and they are able

970
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 2: to pull this trick off that maximizes the volume where

971
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 2: they store their stuff. So I think they're impressive. Maybe

972
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 2: not as impressive as we had initially imagined, but you know,

973
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 2: nature doesn't need to find the most complicated solution to

974
00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 2: a problem if an easier mechanism gives you the right solution, amazing.

975
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,640
Speaker 3: The real question in my mind, though, is our b

976
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:05,399
Speaker 3: geometers or geometricians, which is the correct word.

977
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 2: It feels like it's more your wheelhouse than mine, But.

978
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: I think they're geometricians.

979
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 3: Maybe in two thousand more years somebody will come along

980
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 3: and figure that one out.

981
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 2: You know what's really cute, though, there's these moths on

982
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 2: my property, the inch worms, and the I think it's

983
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 2: the family of inchworms are called geometer moths because they

984
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 2: are like measuring the earth the way they move along,

985
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 2: which I thought.

986
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: Is super cute.

987
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 3: It's cool, it's cute.

988
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 2: So our listener had a couple different questions. One he

989
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 2: wanted to know about the honeycomb conjecture. Two he wanted

990
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 2: to know if other species create them. And we've talked

991
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 2: about how paper wasps do. My husband Zach sent me

992
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 2: a picture of tadpole eggs in our ponds that had

993
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: naturally come together their form of hexagon.

994
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 1: Oh, pretty cute.

995
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 2: You see some plants make sort of hexagon shapes. So

996
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 2: we do see this in nature in a couple different places,

997
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 2: including in the bubble raft example. And then the final

998
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,280
Speaker 2: question was, you know math and physics go hand in hand,

999
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 2: but you don't hear much about math and biology, you know.

1000
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, Daniel jumps in there.

1001
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 2: I've heard Daniel critique biologists for not having error bars

1002
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 2: on our graphs and presentations.

1003
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 3: That's a difference. I'm criticizing biologists, not biology.

1004
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: Oh okay, got it, got it all right.

1005
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:26,800
Speaker 2: So biologists do think a lot about math. So, for example,

1006
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 2: theoretical ecologists think a lot about how we can write

1007
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 2: equations that describe dynamics in a system, like predator or

1008
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,720
Speaker 2: prey equations, or how an epidemic moves through a system.

1009
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 2: And so that requires a lot of maths, so they're

1010
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 2: thinking mathematically. There, we use a lot of statistics to

1011
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 2: try to understand what we observe, and you know, there

1012
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,879
Speaker 2: are a lot of people who think about the world mathematically.

1013
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 2: And I think over the course of my twenty year

1014
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 2: career where I've been an ecologist, I've seen a much

1015
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 2: greater emphasis on trying to describe what we see, not

1016
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 2: just in terms of, you know, a qualitative description that's

1017
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 2: maybe a little poetic, which you know, I love reading

1018
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 2: those qualitative, poetic descriptions, but also trying to capture what

1019
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 2: you want in a more quantitative way and describing what

1020
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 2: you're seeing mathematically and then trying to explain why nature

1021
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 2: has resulted in that sort of equation.

1022
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: So, yes, biologists do use math a lot.

1023
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 3: On his last question, that's sort of a philosophy question,

1024
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 3: you know, is nature inherently mathematical? And the sort of

1025
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 3: an important philosophical question that we don't know the answer to,

1026
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 3: which is why we can use math to describe the universe.

1027
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 3: You know, you might imagine that math naturally describes the

1028
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 3: universe at the smallest scale, that fundamentally, the some equation

1029
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:40,399
Speaker 3: you can write down to describe fundamental physics. But then

1030
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 3: why can you use math to describe like, you know,

1031
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 3: the predator preye reaction, or the geometry of hexagons, or

1032
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 3: you know, the shape of birds eggs or something. And

1033
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,760
Speaker 3: that's the sort of mystery, like why these fairly simple

1034
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 3: mathematical stories emerge from the crazy, chaotic combination of fundamental

1035
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 3: bits of the universe. It's not something philosophers really have

1036
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 3: a handle on, so we don't know if it's something

1037
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 3: that is inherently part of the universe or sort of

1038
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 3: the way we are framing these questions, the way we

1039
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 3: think about things, you know, the sort of our mental language.

1040
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, And one of the most popular phrases amongst people

1041
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 2: who do modeling in biology is that all models are wrong,

1042
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:20,800
Speaker 2: some are useful.

1043
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 3: That's exactly correct, even of fundamental physics. Right, as far

1044
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 3: as we know, our description of the tiniest particles, it's

1045
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 3: not the end of the story. It's a model, and

1046
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 3: it's not true in the sense that it's not describing

1047
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 3: everything that's happening inside of it, but it's still useful.

1048
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:38,720
Speaker 3: And you know, from a philosophical point of view, might argue,

1049
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 3: like what's the difference between true and useful, and model

1050
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 3: is just supposed to be useful. It's just supposed to

1051
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 3: predict the results of experiments. There's no deeper truth than that.

1052
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:49,320
Speaker 3: But that's a whole nother philosophical rabbit.

1053
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 2: That's right, all right, Well, Eric, this was a fantastic question.

1054
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 2: It was great to hear from you again. Let's see

1055
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 2: if we scratched your itch on this be question.

1056
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 7: And Daniel, I just wanted to say a huge thank

1057
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 7: you for taking the time to answer my questions about

1058
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 7: the honeycomb conjecture on your show. I was fascinated to

1059
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 7: learn more about why best create hexagons and the advantage

1060
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:12,719
Speaker 7: of that structure. It's incredible to think about how nature

1061
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 7: organizes like that. Hearing about whether other species create hexagons

1062
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 7: was really eye opening. In Your insights on how math

1063
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 7: plays a role and biology gave me a whole new perspective.

1064
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 7: I've always thought of math as more tied to physics,

1065
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 7: but now I can see how deeply it connects to

1066
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 7: the natural world in the universal ways I.

1067
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 3: Hadn't considered before.

1068
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 7: I did share what I learned with my wife, hoping

1069
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 7: it might ease her discomfort around bees, but I'm afraid

1070
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 7: she still doesn't feel any better about them. She says

1071
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 7: they're buzzing in geometry ways still gives her the creeps.

1072
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 7: Even so, your passion for biology really shines through, and

1073
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 7: I'm so grateful to have my curiosity spark.

1074
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:50,399
Speaker 3: In such an amazing way.

1075
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:52,919
Speaker 7: Thanks again for sharing your knowledge on the show.

1076
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 3: All right, Thanks very much everyone who engages with the

1077
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 3: podcast and sends us your questions, why don't you join

1078
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:00,800
Speaker 3: their ranks? What is the question and that you most

1079
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 3: want an answer to that you think maybe it's impossible

1080
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 3: to answer, Send it to us. We'll give it a shot.

1081
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 3: Questions at Danielankelly dot org. Thanks for tuning in, Thanks.

1082
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:11,359
Speaker 1: For listening, y'all.

1083
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.

1084
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: We would love to hear from you, We really would.

1085
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 3: We want to know what questions you have about this

1086
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 3: extraordinary universe.

1087
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,879
Speaker 2: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1088
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 2: for future shows.

1089
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,319
Speaker 1: If you contact us, we will get back to you.

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Speaker 3: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1091
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Speaker 3: at questions at Danielankelly.

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Speaker 2: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

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Speaker 2: We have accounts on x, Instagram, blue Sky, and on

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Speaker 2: all of those platforms.

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Speaker 1: You can find us at D and Kuniverse.

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Speaker 3: Don't be shy, write to us,