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Speaker 1: Ay, Daniel, do you sometimes think that physics is too complicated? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Sometimes I think it's amazing that we can understand anything

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Speaker 1: at all that's going on out there in the universe.

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Speaker 1: Don't you think there might be a simpler answer to

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Speaker 1: everything out there? That does strike me sometimes if I'm

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Speaker 1: like doing a calculation and I get a whole page

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Speaker 1: of mathematical symbols, that I wonder, like, did I miss

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Speaker 1: a mind is sign somewhere or a factor too? Yeah? Right,

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Speaker 1: Like maybe there's a better way of looking at things

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Speaker 1: that might be simpler. Yeah, Like maybe we should just

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Speaker 1: do physics with cartoons instead of math exactly. Basically my

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Speaker 1: messages you should hire more cartoonists. Well, you know, we

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Speaker 1: do try to do that a little bit with Finnman diagrams.

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Speaker 1: They're basically cartoons. Oh, there you go. Feinneman was a cartoonist,

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Speaker 1: although his punch lines MA not so funny, and so

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Speaker 1: maybe cartoons are actually the problem. Yeah, that's the simple answer,

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Speaker 1: isn't it land the cartoonists. It's all because of big

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Speaker 1: cartoon Hi. I'm jorgem and cartoonists and the co author

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Speaker 1: of Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe. Hi I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and a professor at u C Irvine,

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Speaker 1: and I'm always amazed that we can understand anything about

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Speaker 1: the universe. I'm always amazed that I understand anything at all.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio, in which we think

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Speaker 1: about the biggest questions in the universe, the hardest questions,

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Speaker 1: the easiest questions, the most confusing questions, and we try

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Speaker 1: to explain all of them to you. So it's some

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Speaker 1: questions you don't want the answer to. But I look

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Speaker 1: out at the universe and I wonder, why is it

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Speaker 1: possible to use our kind of little brains to come

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Speaker 1: up with these little stories that can actually tell us

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Speaker 1: something about what's going on out there in the universe.

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Speaker 1: We fight these intellectual battles with the chaos of the universe,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes we come out with a nice little story. Well,

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Speaker 1: you're assuming we know the answer to things. Maybe we don't.

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Speaker 1: Maybe what we think about the universe is actually wrong,

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Speaker 1: or actually much simpler than what we think. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: definitely true that everything we think about the universe is

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Speaker 1: probably wrong, but we hope that the degree of wrongness

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Speaker 1: is decreasing with time, that we're like asymptotically approaching some

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Speaker 1: kind of truth, you know, the way that like Newton's

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Speaker 1: theory of gravity wasn't wrong, it just wasn't as close

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Speaker 1: to the truth as Einstein's right. But wouldn't you need science,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you're getting less wrong, in which case

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Speaker 1: that science could also be wrong. Yeah. Actually there's a

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Speaker 1: whole field of philosophy and how to quantify scientific wrongness,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people argue but exactly how to

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Speaker 1: do those calculations. So yeah, there's the science of new

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Speaker 1: in science. It sounds like relying on philosophy to tell

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Speaker 1: you if science is right, and I don't know that's

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Speaker 1: the best idea. I think. In the end, everything relies

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Speaker 1: on philosophy. It's the foundation of everything. Maybe not breakfast,

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Speaker 1: but it's a foundation of all intellectual pursuits. Doesn't sound

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Speaker 1: very scientific though, Yeah, philosophy is definitely not scientific. You know.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you talk about ideas that you can't test, but

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Speaker 1: they're still important for understanding the way we think about things.

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Speaker 1: I guess technically all PhDs are philosophers, right, that's what

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Speaker 1: the pH PhD means right, that's right. Yeah, you have

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Speaker 1: a philosophy degree in mechanical engineering, don't you. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think I think about mechanical engineering all the time, philosophy

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Speaker 1: of mechanical engineering. I'm thinking of giving myself a PhD

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Speaker 1: in cartooning from a cartoon university. Yeah, why don't you

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Speaker 1: just found your own university? Absolutely? You know. I once

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Speaker 1: went to the crackpot session at the American Physical Society

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Speaker 1: annual meeting. This is the meeting where they have to

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Speaker 1: give you a presentation if you're a member. If you

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Speaker 1: pay a hundred bucks, you can give a talk at

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Speaker 1: the American Physical Society. And there's always one session where

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Speaker 1: they put all the people who are like Einstein was

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Speaker 1: wrong and everything is worldpools man. And one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite talks at that meeting was given by a guy

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Speaker 1: who came from a university he named after himself, where

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Speaker 1: he was the honor or a chair named after himself,

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Speaker 1: and he had given himself the prize named after himself.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that what all universities are anyways? I mean, Stanford

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Speaker 1: just made one and named it after himself. But is

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Speaker 1: that really a session? It's called the crackpot session. Or

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Speaker 1: is that just what you're calling those people? That's what

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Speaker 1: I call it, But I think officially on the schedule,

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Speaker 1: it's like miscellanea. On the schedule, it's Daniel's colleagues. It's

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Speaker 1: definitely one of the funnest sessions to go to. It's

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Speaker 1: a lot of creative ideas there. Yeah, well some of

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Speaker 1: the ideas might sound crack, but but but sometimes you know,

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Speaker 1: looking at things in a different way can be the

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Speaker 1: right way to kind of push science forward. Right, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: that's right. We need creativity and a basic element of

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Speaker 1: doing science is thinking about new ways to do things,

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Speaker 1: new ways to think about the universe, new ways to

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Speaker 1: tackle problems. Yeah, sometimes the biggest discoveries in science come

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Speaker 1: when people think about new ways or new descriptions of

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Speaker 1: what they already know or they think they know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And there are lots of times in the history of

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Speaker 1: science when people are struggling with something. Things seem confused, using,

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Speaker 1: or complicated or getting really elaborate, and then somebody has

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Speaker 1: a new idea and all of a sudden it seems

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Speaker 1: simple again, like when people were trying to understand the

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Speaker 1: motion of the planets and putting the Earth at the

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Speaker 1: center of the solar system required all these complicated shenanigans,

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Speaker 1: you know, loops within loops within loops. But if you

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Speaker 1: just put the Sun at the center of the solar system, boom,

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Speaker 1: you had a much simpler mathematical explanation for what you

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Speaker 1: were seeing. So there are these moments when just another

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Speaker 1: way of looking at things, a different way of doing calculations,

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Speaker 1: a different starting point, can really simplify what was once

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Speaker 1: very difficult. I thought you were going to say, it's

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Speaker 1: simpler if you just give up or change careers or

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Speaker 1: become a philosopher, then you're just run into new kinds

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Speaker 1: of problems. Man, you can't run away from your problems.

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Speaker 1: New kind of financial problems usually be switched to philosophy.

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Speaker 1: But it is interesting how in science sometimes you do

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Speaker 1: sort of need that kind of change in perspective and

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Speaker 1: then it all sort of makes sense. I imagine the

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Speaker 1: quantum revolution was kind of like that too. Absolutely that

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Speaker 1: required a complete evolution in our very understanding of the

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Speaker 1: nature of the universe at its most microscopic. But as

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Speaker 1: soon as Plunk and Einstein thought about light as made

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Speaker 1: out of these little quantized packets instead of just like

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Speaker 1: classical waves, then all of a sudden, the photoelectric effect

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Speaker 1: made a lot of sense, and black body radiation suddenly

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Speaker 1: didn't have a catastrophe in it. So all sorts of

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Speaker 1: problems that were plaguing people for a long time just

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Speaker 1: sort of went away as soon as you took a

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Speaker 1: new approach at things. And you can sometimes get the

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Speaker 1: sense of this yourself. If you're ever doing a calculation

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Speaker 1: and things are just like going horribly wrong, then maybe

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Speaker 1: you've made a little mistake, or maybe you sort of

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Speaker 1: like tried it the wrong way. You know, you're using

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Speaker 1: the wrong mathematical tool, or you're thinking about in an

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Speaker 1: overly complicated way. There's just sometimes a simpler solution at hand. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so I guess scientists are always looking for better

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Speaker 1: ways of looking at things. I guess you're always trying

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Speaker 1: to simplify your life, right, Nobody wants to complicated life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. We have a certain set of mathematical tools

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Speaker 1: that we can use to do calculations, to try to

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Speaker 1: figure stuff out, to answer questions that we have, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes they work beautifully and it's just like a few

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Speaker 1: lines on a page and boom you get an answer,

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Speaker 1: and then you can test it with the experiment and

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Speaker 1: you can learn something about the universe. Sometimes they get

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Speaker 1: bogged down and you end up with like pages upon

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Speaker 1: pages of calculations or thousands upon thousands of lines of

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Speaker 1: computer programs just to get a sample answer. And that

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Speaker 1: makes you wonder, like are we going in the right direction,

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Speaker 1: or maybe we need a new kind of tool you know,

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Speaker 1: should you be trying to describe the motion of a

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Speaker 1: baseball by thinking about all the tiny little particles inside

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Speaker 1: of it? Or is there a simpler equation that describes

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Speaker 1: the trajectory of an object under free fall? Right? Right?

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Speaker 1: The old like goes up, must come down wall, and

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Speaker 1: it's an incredible thing in our universe, right that, Sometimes

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Speaker 1: a new approach can make things much easier. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can solve almost any problem in lots of different ways.

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Speaker 1: Students of physics know this. If you're tackling a homework problem,

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Speaker 1: you can start it in some way that gives you

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Speaker 1: pages of equations, and other ways you can find the

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Speaker 1: answer in just three lines. So we have lots of

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Speaker 1: different mathematical toolkits, and some of them are appropriate are

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Speaker 1: some problems, but not so appropriate for others. Right, And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of where particle physics is these days, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean sometimes you need supercomputers, right to sort of

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Speaker 1: predict what's going to happen at some particle collisions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we use these little cartoons, these finming diagrams to describe

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Speaker 1: what we can happens when particles collide. But in complicated

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Speaker 1: situations sometimes you need thousands or millions of these diagrams

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Speaker 1: that lead to huge calculations that are really hard to do.

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Speaker 1: We can't do them by hand anymore. We have to

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Speaker 1: use supercomputers. And that makes people wonder like, maybe this

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Speaker 1: isn't the way the universe is doing this calculation. Maybe

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Speaker 1: instead of adding up all these time a little bits,

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Speaker 1: we need to step back and get a more global view.

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Speaker 1: Maybe there's a simpler approach. Yeah, maybe there's a simpler

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Speaker 1: way to do Daniel's job. And so to the on

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Speaker 1: the program, we'll be asking the question, what is an

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Speaker 1: AMPLU two hedrawn? Well, that's a hard word to say.

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Speaker 1: How many syllables is that? Like? Ten? It's like the

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Speaker 1: most complicated word for an idea that's supposed to simplify things,

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Speaker 1: all right, I want to just call it a d

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Speaker 1: I don't know if somebody need to call you up

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Speaker 1: and ask you for advice about how to name this thing. Obviously, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do have a PhD and naming things in physics

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Speaker 1: by now. It's given to me by Daniel Whites in university.

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Speaker 1: That's right, philosophy of naming things two pH pH PhD.

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Speaker 1: But this is a really fun new idea in physical

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Speaker 1: It's sort of a glimmer of an idea. It's like

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Speaker 1: a potential new way forward that might make things that

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Speaker 1: once we're very, very complicated, nearly impossible, suddenly just snap

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Speaker 1: into focus. And it involves a lot of geometry and

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Speaker 1: possibly quantum field theory. So we're gonna have a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun here on this audio podcast. Exactly what's better

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Speaker 1: for talking about geometry than an audio format. It's like

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Speaker 1: talking about architecture or describing geometry. It's the same concept.

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Speaker 1: Are you saying there aren't architecture podcasts. I'm sure there are.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll go as well as today. But it

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Speaker 1: is a long word, and it's also an interesting word,

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Speaker 1: maybe one that a lot of people haven't heard before.

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Speaker 1: So as usually, we were wondering how many out there

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Speaker 1: had heard of this concept. So thank you very much

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Speaker 1: to everybody who volunteers to answer these questions without a

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Speaker 1: chance to prepare at all. It's very valuable for us

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Speaker 1: to hear what you guys are thinking about, and also

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Speaker 1: very helpful for other listeners to know whether or not

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Speaker 1: this is something other people have heard about. So thanks

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Speaker 1: very much for participating, and if you would like to

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Speaker 1: hear your voice on the podcast, please don't be shy

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Speaker 1: right to us. Two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

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Speaker 1: So Dannon went out there into the wilds of the

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Speaker 1: internet to ask people what do you think and amply

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Speaker 1: to hedron is or is pronounced? Here's what people have

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Speaker 1: to say. It sounds like a shape, I guess, but

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Speaker 1: a made up one. So now it's the shape the

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Speaker 1: sound waves make when my husband plays guitar out of

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Speaker 1: a two vamp. What is I've never even seen this

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Speaker 1: word before and full of pedro uh uh amplute, hedron,

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Speaker 1: amplitude something. Is it some kind of weird amplitude particle?

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Speaker 1: That's that's mine. That's my guess. I can even pronounce that,

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Speaker 1: but um, you know again the word head drawn. I'm

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Speaker 1: guessing it has something to do with the shape that

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Speaker 1: has multiple sides. An amplitude hedron is a quasi three

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Speaker 1: dimensional shape where all of the faces, instead of being

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Speaker 1: two dimensional surfaces, all right, forces with varying amplitudes. If

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Speaker 1: I look at the two base words amplitude heedron, I

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Speaker 1: know a heedron is a geometric shape with a number

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Speaker 1: of facets or faces um. Amplitude looks like the word amplitude,

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Speaker 1: meaning strength or degree um. Putting their two words together, However,

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Speaker 1: I simply have no idea. It sounds like a geometric shape,

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Speaker 1: and I would say it has to do with the

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Speaker 1: amplitude of something I couldn't tell. Unfortunately, I don't know

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Speaker 1: what it is, but it sounds cool, and I would

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Speaker 1: really know, I really really want to know what it is.

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Speaker 1: I think a head drown is a kind of particle,

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Speaker 1: so it must have maybe something to do with the

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Speaker 1: amplitude of a particle. That's my best guest. And note,

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Speaker 1: of course that I didn't pronounce it for these people, right,

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Speaker 1: I sent them an email, so they had to deduce

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Speaker 1: for themselves how to say this word. Oh man, it

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Speaker 1: was like a double quiz. Can you guess what it

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Speaker 1: is and how it's pronounce or even spelled? Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of people saw he drawn and thought about

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Speaker 1: had drawn, because of course we're talking about had drawns

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Speaker 1: all the time on this podcast, so that's a reasonable misunderstanding,

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Speaker 1: right right. It sounds like you named the hadron a

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Speaker 1: little bit confusing there. Do you think we should have

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Speaker 1: had a large he drawn collider? I think that's how

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Speaker 1: a lot of people pronounce it. Anyways, you might as well.

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Speaker 1: Today we are smashing polygons and triangles, smashing geometry. But

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Speaker 1: it is sounds like a lot of people have heard

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Speaker 1: of the word before, although they are a lot of

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Speaker 1: people sort have caught on that it has maybe something

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Speaker 1: to do with amplitude. Yeah, there's some intuition here that

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Speaker 1: the basic ideas involved our amplitudes and geometry, and in

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Speaker 1: fact that's the core idea. It's a way to try

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Speaker 1: to use geometry to help calculate particle amplitudes like how

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Speaker 1: wide they are or what sized pants they were? Is

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Speaker 1: that what you mean? Well, particle amplitudes are what tell

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Speaker 1: us what's likely to happen when you smash two particles together.

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Speaker 1: To say, for example, you throw an electron at a positron,

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Speaker 1: and you wonder like what's going to happen Each possible

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Speaker 1: outcome has an amplitude. One possible outcome is that they

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Speaker 1: bounce off each other and go back the other direction.

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Speaker 1: Another possible outcome is that they annihilate and turn into

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Speaker 1: a photon, which then turns into something else. There's a

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Speaker 1: whole list of possible outcomes from quantum mechanics and quantum mechanics.

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Speaker 1: A scigns each of these things an amplitude. That's actually

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Speaker 1: what you get out of the shorting or equation, and

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Speaker 1: the larger the amplitude, the more likely it is for

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Speaker 1: that outcome to happen. So it's sort of like a

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Speaker 1: way of calculating the probabilities for an outcome of a

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Speaker 1: particle collision. As a shorthand is the amplitude, because that's

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Speaker 1: what comes from the wave function, right, Because that is

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Speaker 1: the best possible name you could give to the probability

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Speaker 1: of an outcome, is the amplitude, which normally means the

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Speaker 1: width of something right right, Well, in this case, it's

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Speaker 1: talking about the height of the wave function. So if

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Speaker 1: you solve the Shorteninger equation for some situation, you get

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Speaker 1: the wave function, and the amplitude of that wave function

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Speaker 1: is what we're talking about here. To get the probability,

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Speaker 1: you take the amplitude square, you take it to magnitude,

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Speaker 1: because the amplitude can be a complex number, though the

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Speaker 1: probability is one step beyond the amplitude, and the amplitude

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Speaker 1: does in fact talk about sort of the height of

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Speaker 1: the wave function. Well, this might get a little bit

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Speaker 1: abstract and complicated, so maybe let's start with the basics

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Speaker 1: and start with the question we're asking, which is what

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Speaker 1: is an amplitue hedrawn? So how would you describe what

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Speaker 1: this thing is? So an amplitude heedraw and isn't like

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Speaker 1: an abstract geometric object. Imagine some high dimensional space, you know,

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Speaker 1: not just two dimensions or three dimensions, but like ten

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Speaker 1: or eleven dimensions. Let's not let's no, that doesn't help

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Speaker 1: me much. Let's start with just three dimensions. Like what

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Speaker 1: would an amplitudehedron look like or is or would be

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Speaker 1: in just like three dimensional space? So an amplitude hedron

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Speaker 1: in three dimensional space is just a polygon, right, Just

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Speaker 1: it's like a bunch of points with lines in between them.

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Speaker 1: So it's a shape like a triangle or a pyramid.

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Speaker 1: Triangle could be one, a tetrahedron could be one. You know,

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Speaker 1: it depends on what kind of thing you're trying to calculate,

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Speaker 1: you know, a decahedron, All these kind of things could

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Speaker 1: be amplitude heedrons. The point is it's a geometric object.

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Speaker 1: So it's like a shape like just the a connection

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Speaker 1: of dots in space, kind of like if you did

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Speaker 1: a connected dots and three dimensional space, you would get

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Speaker 1: some kind of weird polygon, you know, geometric shape exactly.

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Speaker 1: So put a cloud of dots in space and now

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Speaker 1: connect them with lines and then put planes between those lines.

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Speaker 1: You have like a shape, like a three D shape, right,

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Speaker 1: like a surface, you know, imagined like a mesh of

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Speaker 1: points that make a surface. And so you have this object.

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Speaker 1: It's just like a three D object in space. And

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Speaker 1: it turns out that there's a connection between the geometry

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Speaker 1: of this object, meaning like how you calculate its volume

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Speaker 1: and things we want to know about particles. So if

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Speaker 1: the points you created represent the particles that you're interested in,

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Speaker 1: then the volume of this object that that's created helps

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Speaker 1: you calculate what's going to happen to those particles when

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Speaker 1: they collide. So that's the amplitu hege on. It's like

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Speaker 1: a geometric object that helps you calculate what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen to particles when they smash together. Right, But the

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Speaker 1: points in the geometric shape are not the actual particles, right,

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Speaker 1: They just represent points in some space that you're doing

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Speaker 1: your math in for the particles, Like, they're not the

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Speaker 1: actual particles floating in space. They're not the actual particles

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Speaker 1: floating in space. You know, they're like possibilities. They are

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Speaker 1: things that you're connecting together in some space that you're

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Speaker 1: doing your meth in, right exactly. And often we create

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Speaker 1: abstract spaces to do calculations, Like a lot of normal

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Speaker 1: vanilla quantum mechanics is in complex space, meaning you have

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Speaker 1: real numbers and imaginary numbers, and you have to keep

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Speaker 1: track of both of them. Does it actually exist in reality?

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Speaker 1: Like the complex numbers are imaginary, right, they're not real,

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Speaker 1: but we keep them around to do these calculations. So

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Speaker 1: we do this all the time in physics. We create

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Speaker 1: an abstract space, something which isn't real, but where mathematical

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Speaker 1: objects live, so we can do calculations in that space

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Speaker 1: that give us answers about what happens in our universe. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like a particle in space might have a place and

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Speaker 1: a velocity, but maybe you're doing your math in some

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Speaker 1: other properties of that particle or some other kind of

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Speaker 1: space that describes the particle. Yeah, like the wave function, right,

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Speaker 1: where is the wave function for the particle. It's in

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Speaker 1: some abstract space because it's gonna have weird values like

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Speaker 1: two plus five I. It doesn't exist in the universe.

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Speaker 1: You can't look at it and say this is where

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Speaker 1: the wave function is. It's right here, doesn't have a location,

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Speaker 1: exists in some sort of abstract space. Okay, So an

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Speaker 1: amplitude heedron is like a geometric shape in some kind

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Speaker 1: of space that you're doing your meth in that somehow

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Speaker 1: represents particles. And I think you're saying the d the

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Speaker 1: idea is that maybe this shape in this space of

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Speaker 1: math that you're doing could somehow make calculating things about

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Speaker 1: particles easier. Yeah. The thing that we want to calculate

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Speaker 1: is what happens when we run our collider, when we

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Speaker 1: smash particles together. What happens We want to be able

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Speaker 1: to calculate that because we're gonna do those experiments and

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Speaker 1: we need to be able to predict what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen and compare our predictions to the experiment, and so

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Speaker 1: these amplitude heedrons make those calculations much much simpler. Those

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Speaker 1: calculations which turn out to be really complicated and burden

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Speaker 1: some in a lot of basic situations, can become really

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Speaker 1: simple if you use the amplitude heedron. Well, maybe step

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Speaker 1: us through this. Why is it complicated? I mean, you're

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Speaker 1: just smashing like two protons. Why is that hard to

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Speaker 1: figure out what's gonna happen. It's hard to figure out

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Speaker 1: what's going to happen because lots of different things can happen.

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Speaker 1: Say you're smashing two particles together. Let's not use photons

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Speaker 1: from the moment, because they're actually even more complicated because

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Speaker 1: they're not actually fundamental particles, their bags of particles. So

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Speaker 1: let's say you're smashing together to fundamental particles like an

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Speaker 1: electron and a positron. So what can happen? While they

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Speaker 1: can turn into a photon, and that photon can turn

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Speaker 1: into another pair of particles. But along the way that

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Speaker 1: photon can do other things. It can create other virtual

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Speaker 1: particles which then spawn other photons, or before the collision happens,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the electrons could radiate an extra photon.

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Speaker 1: There's all sorts of different things that can happen, and

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Speaker 1: we can calculate that. We calculate each of those things

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Speaker 1: by drawing a little fine min diagram that describes what's

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Speaker 1: going to happen in that situation. But to figure out

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Speaker 1: what is the overall chances for something that happen, you

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Speaker 1: have to add up all the different possibilities. You have

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Speaker 1: to account for all the different ways that each thing

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Speaker 1: can happen. So if you want to know, for example,

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Speaker 1: all right, what's the probability that if I smash my

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Speaker 1: electron and positron together, I'm going to get a photon

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Speaker 1: of this energy? Get to figure out all the different

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Speaker 1: ways that can happen and add them all up, and

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Speaker 1: technically there's an infinite number of ways that that can happen.

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Speaker 1: Do you end up adding up lots of little pieces

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Speaker 1: to try to get this answer, So it becomes really

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Speaker 1: complicated if you want precise answers about even pretty basic interactions, right,

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Speaker 1: because I think maybe one thing people don't understand or

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Speaker 1: know about particle physics is that it's not like you

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Speaker 1: just smash particles and then you see what comes out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you do see what comes out. But sometimes

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Speaker 1: you don't really know what actually happened even though you

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Speaker 1: have the bits of the remaining bits that that came out.

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Speaker 1: Why could have happened between the actual smashing and the

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Speaker 1: debris that you get afterwards. There can be a lot

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Speaker 1: of possibilities there, Right, Yeah, we don't see the actual collision.

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Speaker 1: We can't trace all of the details. So if all

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Speaker 1: you see is what came out, like you put an

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Speaker 1: electron opositron in and out came a muan and an antimuan,

402
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Speaker 1: you don't know exactly what happened in the intermediate step.

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Speaker 1: There's lots of different ways to go from your initial

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00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:55,200
Speaker 1: step electron apositron to your final outcome. And in order

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Speaker 1: to calculate the chances of seeing that, in order to

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Speaker 1: figure out how often you expect to see that outcome,

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Speaker 1: you need to account for all the different ways that

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Speaker 1: it can happen, and so you have to add up

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Speaker 1: all those possibilities, and that can become really complicated. Right, Like,

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Speaker 1: maybe can you step us through an example like the

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Speaker 1: Higgs boson? Right, Like, you don't actually see or catch

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Speaker 1: a Higgs boson when you smash particles together, but you

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Speaker 1: can sort of figure out that it was likely that

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Speaker 1: there was a Higgs boson somewhere in the middle. Using

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Speaker 1: all of the possible ways or knowing all the possible

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Speaker 1: things that could have happened, Yeah, we can talk about

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Speaker 1: the Higgs boson. For example, we discovered the Higgs just

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Speaker 1: about ten years ago, actually on this day, by seeing

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Speaker 1: how it turned into two photons. So we don't see

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Speaker 1: the Higgs boson itself, We see two photons that come

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Speaker 1: out from the detector. We take those two photons and

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Speaker 1: we add them together and we see that they probably

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Speaker 1: came from a particle at about a mass of a

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five GV. But there's lots of ways

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Speaker 1: for that Higgs boson to be created. You can have

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Speaker 1: that Higgs boson created because two quarks from the protons

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Speaker 1: fused together. You can have that Higgs boson be created

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Speaker 1: because a couple of gluons fused together. And before the

429
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:01,639
Speaker 1: blue ones fused together. They can do all sorts of

430
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 1: really complicated things like turn into top corks or turn

431
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 1: into other corks. So if you want to write down

432
00:22:06,600 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 1: the ways that this can happen, you start to get

433
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 1: a pretty long list of ways that can explain just

434
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:14,840
Speaker 1: this pretty simple thing of producing the Higgs boson and

435
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 1: seeing it turn into two photons. Right, it's like you

436
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: gotta know all of the possible things that could happen

437
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 1: so you can duce would actually happen. Yeah, and even

438
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: more important, you have to understand the other things that

439
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:27,679
Speaker 1: can come out that word from a Higgs boson, Like

440
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: it's possible to produce two photons without involving a Higgs boson.

441
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: There's lots of ways to do that. In fact that

442
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 1: that's much more common. So if you're gonna say I've

443
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 1: discovered the Higgs boson, you need to understand all those

444
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: collisions that produced Higgs boson looking like things that weren't

445
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 1: actually Higgs boson. So we need to understand, like the background,

446
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 1: how often do we expect to see these kinds of

447
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:50,640
Speaker 1: things if there wasn't a Higgs boson. Those calculations are

448
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: even more important if we're going to claim discovery of

449
00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 1: a new particle. We need to understand how often we'd

450
00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: see this kind of signature without the Higgs, and those

451
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,320
Speaker 1: calculations and require lots and lots of these Fineman diagrams

452
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 1: to add up, because the Fineman diagrams can only describe

453
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: like the most basic interaction. One particle comes in, another

454
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 1: one comes in, and they do something. But most things

455
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:12,960
Speaker 1: that happen in nature require lots of these things. It's

456
00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: like putting together legos to build something complicated, right, Anything

457
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,919
Speaker 1: that's interesting or complicated requires lots of these pieces to

458
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: come together, right, Because in a way, you're sort of

459
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 1: like you're just kind of guessing that the Higgs boson

460
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 1: was there, right, But to make it a good guest,

461
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:29,399
Speaker 1: to make sure that it's the best guest possible, you

462
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 1: kind of have to rule out or take into account

463
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:34,400
Speaker 1: everything else it could possibly happen. And that's the complicated

464
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,880
Speaker 1: part to caltily. Right. Yeah, you could call it a guest,

465
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 1: or you could say, you know, it's a statistical statement.

466
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: We never know anything for sure, as we were saying

467
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: philosophically earlier, but we can make a statistical statement about

468
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: the probability of having seen this kind of data if

469
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: there wasn't a Higgs boson, and we claim discovery of

470
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: the Higgs, when that probability is very very small, and

471
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: we're very confident that if the Higgs wasn't there, it's

472
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 1: very unlikely that we would have seen this peak in

473
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: our data, and so you're right, we need to calculate

474
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: that very precisely. And to do that, we need to

475
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: understand exactly what we expect to see without the Higgs boson.

476
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: So seeing all those collisions that would produce things that

477
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: look sort of similar to the Higgs, we need to

478
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 1: understand that really, really well. And to do those calculations

479
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,479
Speaker 1: is hard, and it gets harder and harder as our

480
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: energy goes up and as the number of particles involved

481
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,160
Speaker 1: in the collision goes up, and so it becomes really important. Okay, cool,

482
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 1: So let's dig into what makes it such a hard

483
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: calculation and how this amplitude hedron could maybe simplified. But first,

484
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. All right, we're talking about

485
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: an amplate two heedron, which I'm guessing, or at least

486
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: I'm making a statistical statement that, Um, it's a complicated word.

487
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 1: It's a complicated word for sort of a beautiful and

488
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: simplistic geometric idea. Wish they would have chosen a beautiful

489
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: and simplistic geometric word for it. Yeah, let's try it, Dannie,

490
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: what would you have called it? That is not my

491
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 1: area of skills. How about just an ahedron that sort

492
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 1: of sounds like an antihedron, like you collid to heedron

493
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: and ahedron together and boom. About just a geometric shape,

494
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: a symmetron or something that but that probably exists already.

495
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: There you go, Yeah, it's good transformers. But I guess

496
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: the basic idea is that making predictions in particle collisions

497
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: is really hard and you need a lot of masks.

498
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:39,160
Speaker 1: Nowadays you need supercomputers, and people argue for years over

499
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 1: whether you're accurate to the right decimal place, and so

500
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: it's kind of complicated. And maybe step us through Daniel,

501
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 1: then why is it so complicated to calculate everything that

502
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: can happen in a particle collision? It's complicated just because

503
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: there are so many different ways that you have to

504
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: account for, you know. I think a good analogy is

505
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: thinking about, like how our comedies figured out how to

506
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: calculate the volume of a really complicated shape, right. I

507
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: think the story is he wanted to be able to

508
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: figure out what the volume was of the king's crown

509
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: so we could figure out what the mass and the

510
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: density was to see if it was real gold. But

511
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: it's hard to do calculations with weird shapes. You know,

512
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: it has like curved and triangles, and how could you

513
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 1: do this? Well, one thing you could do is like

514
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 1: laboriously measure every tiny little shape of the crown and

515
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: think about it as a little triangles and squares and

516
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: add them all up. It would take you a long

517
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 1: long time, but in principle, you could add up the

518
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 1: volume of the crown. The other way to do it

519
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: is just like sink it in a bathtub of water

520
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: and see how much the water goes up. And that

521
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 1: gives you the same answer because the water like feels

522
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: in all the cracks and so like, that's an example

523
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: of how you can use the universe. Use this trick

524
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: in the universe to make what seemed to be like

525
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 1: a hard calculation much simpler. And so in particle physics,

526
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: it's sort of the same story. Figure out like what

527
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: happens when two gluons smashed together. You have to think

528
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: about all the different ways that they can smash together,

529
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: in all the different ways that they can produce results,

530
00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: And so it's adding up lots and lots and lots

531
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: of little bits. Each little bit is not hard. It's

532
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: like calculating the volume of a cube is not hard.

533
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: Each individual one is not hard. But when you have

534
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 1: billions of them and you have to multiply them against

535
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: each other to get trillions of diagrams, then it becomes

536
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: really difficult to do these calculations right. And I think

537
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: part of what makes these calculations difficult is that they're

538
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: kind of recursive, or they're kind of like almost like

539
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: a fractal, Like two particles can smash and they turn

540
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 1: into one thing, but then that thing could also turn

541
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: into something else in the meantime, But then the two

542
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: things that that thing turned into could also turn into

543
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: something else, and then it can actually loop back and

544
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: turn into the original particles, and so you get these

545
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: kind of infinite loops of things that could happen during

546
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,239
Speaker 1: that closion. Yeah, the loops are especially tricky because they

547
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: don't involve anything that you see and imagine, for example,

548
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 1: two particles coming in and two particles coming out. You

549
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: might imagine the simplest possible thing, which is just like

550
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: put too fine and diagrams together and you get that

551
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: kind of interaction. But you can also add a loop

552
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: where like in between some new particles created and it

553
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: only exists briefly and then it's reabsorbed, right, So it

554
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: creates this like loop in the Fineman diagram, which otherwise

555
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: just looks like a tree structure. And those loops require

556
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: integrals because you have to sum overall that if impossible

557
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: momentum that loop could have. And then as you say,

558
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: you could have interactions involved two of those loops, or

559
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 1: three of those loops, or five and twenty seven of

560
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: those loops. So it gets to be really laborious to

561
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: get an exact answer. In fact, to get an exact answer,

562
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,119
Speaker 1: you have to include an infinite number of diagrams. So

563
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: we never actually do that, right. I wonder if it's

564
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: kind of like playing chess, you know, like to know

565
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: if a good move is the right move, you would

566
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: have to kind of calculate all of the possible things

567
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 1: that could happen after you make your move, right, And

568
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: so you get into these branching kind of scenarios where

569
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: there's like an infinite number of possibilities and you only

570
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: really know if this one is the right move if

571
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: it gives you a winning strategy in all of them. Yeah,

572
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: and there's lots of different ways to get to a win, right,

573
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: and so in a similar way, you need to think

574
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: about all the possible intermediate things that could happen from

575
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: here to where you want to go, Like is it

576
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: possible from my opponent to derailist strategy? So you have

577
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: to think about lots of different possibilities. Absolutely, So if

578
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: you could come up with a way to very simply

579
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,719
Speaker 1: calculate the probability of winning or losing when you make

580
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: a move, that would be tremendously helpful in chess. Right,

581
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: it would make chess a very simple game. That's why

582
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: chess is hard, because it's difficult to calculate these possible

583
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: outcomes for every given move, Right, Like, maybe there's a

584
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: move where you can just stand up and punch your

585
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: opponent and win, and then that's a much simpler way

586
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: to solve the whole scenario. Right, is that still chess?

587
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: Though I'm not. That's m M a chess. There's this

588
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: moment in particle physics a couple of decades ago when

589
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 1: folks were working on one of these calculations involved like

590
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: billions of terms, billions of terms to the billions. Wait

591
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: is it infinite actually? And so billions billion is actually

592
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: just an approximation or is is billion, like all of it.

593
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: The full calculation would be an infinite number, but to

594
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: get a reasonably accurate calculation, they needed to use about

595
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: a billion terms. Yeah yeah, and each term is like

596
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: a possibility of what can happen during a collision, right exactly.

597
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: To calculate these probabilities, you have to take these things

598
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: and square them, which means you get all these cross terms.

599
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: So the number of terms just getting really really large.

600
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: But these guys were working really hard and they took

601
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: these billion terms. They're really good with symbols, right there

602
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: is how this special skill like know how to manipulate

603
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: symbols on the page. And they were able through like

604
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: just sweat and blood and fought to reduce this thing

605
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: down to a nine page formula, which means like it

606
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: took nine pages just to write down the expression, right,

607
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: the algorithm expression for the answer to this thing. They

608
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: reduced her from a billion terms down to a nine

609
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: page formula, which is already really impressive. Well that depends

610
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: that did they use both sides and what size font

611
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: did they use? Like, if he's a big enough font,

612
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: anything can be a nonpage formula. You know, this is

613
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: standard ltech on an eight and a half by eleven,

614
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: or maybe it was a four. It's one of those

615
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: European But the really cool thing about it was not

616
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: that they got it down to a nine page formula,

617
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,239
Speaker 1: which is totally unwieldy, but that then they took an

618
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: intuitive guess. They're like, you know what, I think that

619
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: this probably could be reduced to a simple single expression,

620
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: like a very small short expression but just a few

621
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: variables in they that gives you the same answer. They

622
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: made this guess based on their experience because they're like

623
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: familiar with these kinds of calculations and they've seen things before,

624
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: and they said, maybe this is similar to other results

625
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: we've gotten. Is it possible it just works like this?

626
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: So they guessed the answer, and then they checked it

627
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: with a computer. Right, They said, well, does this give

628
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: the same result in every single case? And the computer

629
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: said that it was right. So that means that there

630
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 1: is an answer, right, There is a simple mathematical expression

631
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: that gives you the answer you want that doesn't require

632
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 1: a billion terms, It doesn't require a nine page formula.

633
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: It is just a simple thing you can write down

634
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: in like one second. Well, that's crazy. They just guess

635
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: what it could be yeah, you know, based on a

636
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: lot of experience and intuition. They guessed based on other

637
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: similar things that they had looked at. You know, they've

638
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: done a lot of these calculations in the past. So

639
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: there is guessing in physics, there is guessing, absolutely, but

640
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: then they checked it right. And so to me, that's

641
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:55,080
Speaker 1: a lot like this Eureka moment of our comedees right

642
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: figuring out that there is a simpler way to do

643
00:31:57,640 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: this calculation, that you don't have to add up all

644
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: the little pieces one by one, that there is an expression,

645
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: it's out there, the math is waiting for us, that

646
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: there is a simpler way to do these things. That

647
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: was sort of like a real moment of inspiration for

648
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people in particle physics, because it suggested

649
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: that if we could somehow figure out a mechanical, like

650
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: a methodological way to get to that short answer quickly,

651
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: then we wouldn't have to go through this thousands and

652
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: billions of terms and nine page calculation and then guessing right.

653
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: It's not like a robust way to do science, right.

654
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the baseball analogy you brought up earlier,

655
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: like to calculate what happens when you throw a baseball.

656
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: You could maybe like track each and every single particle

657
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: in the baseball and how it's interacting with each other

658
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: and all the air molecules. Or you can just use

659
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: like a parabola, right, and which also tells you the

660
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: same and sort of where the baseball is gonna land exactly,

661
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: because a lot of those little details end up averaging out.

662
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: You know, maybe you need a billion terms. So maybe

663
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: those billion terms actually half of them pushed this way

664
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: and the other half pull the other way, and so

665
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: they basically just cancel out to something simple. And so

666
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: the path of a bag bolt isn't governed by what

667
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: an electron is doing on the bottom half of it.

668
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: It's this big overall average effect that's actually quite simple.

669
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: You can describe it with a simple differential equation of

670
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: F equals m A. So that's what we're looking for

671
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: in particle physics. We feel like maybe we're just dealing

672
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: with the microscopic little details when what we really want

673
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: is the big picture. Right when what you really wanted

674
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: just to get up and punch the other player, all right,

675
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: I think you imagine physics conferences are a lot more

676
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: exciting than they really are. I think if you go

677
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: around calling people crack pots, you might you might get

678
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: punched in the face. My favorite part about the crack

679
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: pot session is sitting there, everybody else in the session

680
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: totally dismisses the other people. They're like, oh, this is

681
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: crack pottery. I can believe this guy is even in

682
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: this session. I can't believe it. None of them take

683
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: each other seriously, Like, everyone in the crap pot session

684
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: doesn't know it's called the crap pots. That's what you're saying.

685
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm saying, even you sitting in the audience. Somehow,

686
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: that's why I was there because I wanted to see it. Well,

687
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: so then this is where that concept of an amplitud

688
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: heedron comes in. Right, It's a possible way to simplify

689
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: this huge calculation that you right now have to do

690
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going to happen at a particle collision. Yeah,

691
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: it's a new recipe. It says, don't start from the

692
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 1: Fynman diagrams at all. Instead, put your points together, draw

693
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: this geometric object, and the volume of that object, this

694
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: new weird shape that you've made, is the thing that

695
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: you want is the amplitude of these particles interacting. So

696
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: if you can figure out a way to calculate the

697
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: geometry of this object in a simple way that you

698
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 1: can go straight to your answer without adding up all

699
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: the little bits. There's this theorist at Cambridge I really like,

700
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: David Skinner, and he said that using Fynman diagrams the

701
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: old way of doing things is sort of like taking

702
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: a ming vase and smashing it on the floor and

703
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: then trying to like, you know, add up what it

704
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: looked like from those little shards, and so instead just like, hey,

705
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: enjoy the vase, it's beautiful. Well, maybe step us through

706
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 1: a little bit of how this amplitude headron comes up

707
00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 1: and what the connection is to particle physics, like how

708
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: do you get an ampletohedron of say, an electron smashing

709
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: into another electron. So the thing is to avoid thinking

710
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: about it in terms of space and time the way

711
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: Fynman diagrams do Flyman diagrams think about these particles. If

712
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 1: you know how they look at their these line drawings,

713
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: they think about particles moving through space, right, so like

714
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: this one comes close to this one, and then when

715
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: they get really close they turn into something else, very

716
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: similar to the way we think of our classical objects, right,

717
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: like two balls flying through the air and then they

718
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: bounce off each other. It's sort of relying on our intuition.

719
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: It helps us keep track of like how things work

720
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 1: and how things bounce off each other. Right, sort of

721
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: like a baseball. We know in our heads that it's

722
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: made up of little particles, and all the particles are

723
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: flying together at the same time. But you're saying, don't

724
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 1: think about all the particles. Maybe think about the baseball

725
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,479
Speaker 1: as something else. Yeah, And so instead of thinking about

726
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: in terms of these Finneman diagrams, Roger Penrose came up

727
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: with a new kind of diagram that thinks about sort

728
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: of the relationships between the particles and all the possible

729
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: relationships they can have. And this is something called a

730
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: twister diagram E W I, S, T O R. And

731
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: it helps you think about how the particles can be

732
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: related to each other. And it doesn't think about the

733
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: particles in our kind of three D space, you know,

734
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: like X, Y and Z, the kind of space that

735
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: we live in. It thinks about them in some sort

736
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: of like abstract space, like we're talking about before space

737
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:21,399
Speaker 1: that doesn't represent our universe and where you are. It's

738
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: just sort of like a mathematical kind of calculation. How

739
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: do you get to that space? Like how do you

740
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: transform a particle which has an x y z and

741
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,279
Speaker 1: I'm guessing a probability in a way function, how do

742
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: you get into that new abstract space. So in that

743
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: abstract space, a particle has a different kind of representation

744
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: and our kind of space, a particle is like a

745
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: dot in three dimensional space, but in this twister space.

746
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: First of all, that space is complex, which means like

747
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: things in that space can have imaginary values, are not

748
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: limited to physical numbers, you know, like one, two, three, four,

749
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 1: or even like three, one four, one, five, nine, But

750
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: you can represent them in this kind of space. And

751
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: this is a kind of mathematical thing physicists do all

752
00:36:57,520 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: the time, like invent a whole new space and then

753
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: and figure out how to represent particles in that space.

754
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: And if you can invent the space and you can

755
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: invent the representation, like how you write down particles in

756
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: that space, then you can play all sorts of new

757
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: games in that space. And sometimes those new games are useful,

758
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: sometimes they're just mathematical silliness. And sometimes they're actually very

759
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: related to what's happening in the real world, and so

760
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 1: that's what's going on here. Penrose invented this new space.

761
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's a little bit like radar coordinates,

762
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:26,439
Speaker 1: Like you can think of as a point as having

763
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: an x y in two dimensional space, or you can

764
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: think of it as having it like a direction and

765
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: a speed or for example m Those are still physical though, right,

766
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,759
Speaker 1: that's still embedded in the same physical space. But there

767
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: must be some sort of transformation between the two, right

768
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: that it does take the physical into these this abstract space,

769
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: or not at all. There is a transformation in the

770
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: sense that you're still representing things like particles. But this

771
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 1: new space doesn't respect space and time in the same way.

772
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: Space and time the way we think about them don't

773
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 1: exist in this abstract space. And that actually turns out

774
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 1: to be something of a breakthrough for this because it

775
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: helps us think about like where space and time come from.

776
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:04,959
Speaker 1: It might be that thinking about the universe in terms

777
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: of space and time is sort of the mistake we

778
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: made why we can't, for example, get to a theory

779
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 1: of quantum gravity, because it makes us think about how

780
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: things bounce against each other in a certain way. Thinking

781
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: about it in terms of this more abstract space allows

782
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: us to get rid of concepts like space and time

783
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: and then to do these calculations. But yeah, there definitely

784
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: is a connection between particles in our space, the things

785
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: that we think about, and particles in this sort of

786
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: abstract space. It's sort of similar to the idea we

787
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: talked about once the universe as a hologram, like maybe

788
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: this three dimensional space that we think about, this information

789
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: in this three dimensional space is actually encoded in another

790
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: kind of space, like a two dimensional space with different

791
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,280
Speaker 1: kinds of wiggles on it, and so it's possible, for example,

792
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: to describe a three dimensional space in terms of information

793
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: on a two D surface. So it's sort of like that.

794
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,959
Speaker 1: It's like map the whole universe to a new way

795
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: to organize information, and then the ideas that maybe in

796
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: this new space, this super accomplished calculation is a lot simpler.

797
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: So let's get into what these twisters are and what

798
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 1: it could all mean for the future of particle physics.

799
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 1: But first, let's take another quick break. Are we're talking

800
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: about ample two heedrons, which I think it's taken us

801
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: as long just to figure out how to pronounce it.

802
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: I'm trying to avoid saying it if at all possible.

803
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,919
Speaker 1: Let's let's have a whole podcast where we avoid talking

804
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: about the subject. Isn't that what we do every episode?

805
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: Usually we avoid the subject. Here, I'm actually avoiding the

806
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: word itself. Oh boy, it's it's like Baltimore, the thing

807
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: that must not be named. Okay, so you're saying this.

808
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: This ampl two heedron might simplify a lot how you

809
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,479
Speaker 1: do particle collisions, because it's sort of maybe cuts through

810
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,359
Speaker 1: the fog of all the possibilities, Like it's somehow looked

811
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 1: at things in a much more simple or or maybe

812
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: um broader way. And it's based on these things called twisters,

813
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 1: which I guess is just kind of like a mathematical thing. Yeah,

814
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: it's a new mathematical construct invented by Roger Penrose, and

815
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: he described them as sort of like square roots of

816
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: space time, which is sort of like, you know, I

817
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: understand those words, but what does it mean when can

818
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: put them together? It's sort of like think about again

819
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,759
Speaker 1: imaginary numbers, Like imaginary numbers are like the square root

820
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: of minus one, So is an imaginary number real? Like

821
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: is I out there somewhere in the universe. It's not,

822
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 1: but we can still do math with that. We can

823
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: play with it. It helps us do calculations, and it

824
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 1: is the square root of minus one. So now think

825
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:42,280
Speaker 1: about these twisters is like not spacetime itself. You can't

826
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: think about them as space time. But if you put

827
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: them together in sort of a way, then spacetime comes

828
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: out of it the way like minus one can come

829
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: out of two imaginary numbers. And so these twisters are like,

830
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: you know, basic components that you could put together to

831
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: make space time. But it's sort of a more natural,

832
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: underlying way to think about the univer Earth. And so

833
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,760
Speaker 1: these twisters exist in this abstract space or the astract space.

834
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: Is these twisters, twister and diagrams help us do calculations

835
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 1: in this abstract space. So you create these points in

836
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: that space, you can make these shapes in that space.

837
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: You can calculate the volume of those shapes in that space,

838
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: and the volume of those shapes helps us predict what

839
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 1: happens like in our universe, in our space time. WHOA

840
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 1: what do you mean? Like you you find the volume

841
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: of the space and it tells you, hey, um a

842
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: Higgs boson came out, yeah, or it tells you here's

843
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: the probability of a Higgs boson to come out. It's

844
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: really cool because calculating volumes is typically pretty easy. Like

845
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 1: if you have three dimensional cube, the volume is easy

846
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: to calculate if you know the sides right, and there's

847
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 1: a little bit of magic there. Right, you're adding up

848
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,720
Speaker 1: like an infinite number of infinitesimals to get the volume

849
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: of this thing. But it's a very simple calculation. It's

850
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: length times with time's height. It's very simple. There's a

851
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: little bit of like calculational magic that happens there. And

852
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: so in this twister space, calculating the volume of these

853
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:03,439
Speaker 1: weird amplitude hedrawn EAPs is also pretty straightforward. Nima Arkani Hammed,

854
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 1: one of the guys who invented this thing, showed how

855
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: to write them down in this compact notation where you

856
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: calculate the volume, and then there's this connection. Here's the

857
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: beautiful part between this volume and all the possible things

858
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: that can happen to these particles in the same way

859
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: that like the volume of a cube adds of all

860
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: the infinitesimal bits inside the cube. Now, the volume of

861
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: this amplitude, he john represents all the possible things that

862
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: the particles represented by the points can do with each other.

863
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: And it works without having to know all of the

864
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,280
Speaker 1: things that can happen, you know, without having to catalog

865
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: all of the possibilities. Yeah, you just sweep them all

866
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: into the volume, right, because you don't really care how

867
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: many loops of gluons were created when this happened, or

868
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: how many photons happened. Like, we can't see those things.

869
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: We don't really care what happens. We care but the

870
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: input and the output. And so this lets you go

871
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 1: from the input to the output much quicker without having

872
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: to make all those little calculations along the way. In

873
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: another mathematical analogy, like think about calculus. You need to

874
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: integrate some function, right, x squared plus two. How could

875
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: you do it? Well? One way you could do is

876
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: like draw the function and add up all the little

877
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 1: slices to get the area under the curve. But calculus

878
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,359
Speaker 1: gives you a formula. It says, oh, here's a way

879
00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: to manipulate that expression to give you a simple expression

880
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: for the answer. Right, we know how to integrate x

881
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: squared plus two, And it's like you know, excute or

882
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 1: three plus two x right, there's an expression that just

883
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: gives you the answer. You don't have to do all

884
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: the calculations. And so in the same way, the amplitude

885
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: heatron is like that shortcut to the answer. Right. Although

886
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 1: I'm not sure a lot of people agree that calculus

887
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: makes things simpler in their lives. I guess it sounds

888
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: really cool and it sounds really amazing, this amplituo headron.

889
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: It sounds like it would solve a lot of problems

890
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 1: and make things simpler. Is it real is does it

891
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: actually work or is it still kind of a tentative

892
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: maybe possibility of how things could be done, or has

893
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: it been proven right? So it does work in some

894
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: scenarios and makes some calculations very very simple. It hasn't

895
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 1: been proven to be totally correct in every single case.

896
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: People are still playing with it. It's like a very

897
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: new mathematical tool. But it has a lot of promise,

898
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: you know, and in the calculations people have done, it's

899
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: come out correct. There aren't a whole lot of folks

900
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 1: in the universe who know how to use this thing,

901
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: Like I can't sit down and do a calculation with

902
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: this thing. It's you know, beyond my level of calculational

903
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: abilities is probably like a dozen or two dozen people

904
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,320
Speaker 1: in the world who are like actually know how to

905
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: use this new mathematical tool. Wait, what do you mean

906
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: only a few people know how to how it works

907
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: or how to use it. Don't they print out a

908
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 1: recipe or something for how to use it? I mean

909
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: there are recipes, but it involves like kind of esoteric

910
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 1: mathematics that are just not very familiar to most people,

911
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: even particle physicists, like particle theorists here in my department.

912
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: I don't think they could sit down calculate amplitude he

913
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: dron volumes. I'm sure if they spend some time they

914
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: can figure out how to do it. But it's not

915
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 1: like a very widespread technique so far. All right, So

916
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 1: then it's proven to work in some cases, but maybe

917
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 1: not all or or is it just it hasn't been

918
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: applied to other cases yet? You know one case it

919
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: hasn't been applied to yet, for example, is quantum gravity.

920
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: You know, it's been applied to quantum field theory. When

921
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 1: we have these calculations and alving these little particles smashing together,

922
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: these are the kind of calculations we already know how

923
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: to do. This would be sort of a shortcut. People

924
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: are excited because it might also apply to quantum gravity.

925
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:12,800
Speaker 1: It might help us do things like figure out what

926
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: the gravitational attraction is between two quantum particles, which currently

927
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 1: we just don't know how to do. We don't have

928
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: a theory of quantum gravity that works. So one thing

929
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: that hasn't been done yet is developed the amplitude he

930
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: drawn to figure out if it can be applied to

931
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: do calculations for quantum gravity. Also, there are some promising

932
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 1: hints there, things that make people think maybe it is

933
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: a new way forward. Well, that'd be interesting if it

934
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,800
Speaker 1: can solve quantum gravity. But I thought the main problem

935
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,240
Speaker 1: was it quantum and relativity that didn't really play well together.

936
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 1: Like one assumes spacespendable, the other one assumes it's not,

937
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 1: and so they really just don't play it well together.

938
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: Is this a possible way to bridge the two things. Yeah,

939
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: because a lot of those problems revolve around starting with space. Right,

940
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: you have space which general relativity defour worms, and you

941
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: have space which particles move through. And there are a

942
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: lot of assumptions that go along with starting from space.

943
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: One assumption is locality. We assume that things can, for example,

944
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: only perturb other things that are near them. You know,

945
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: so for example, you can't do something here which instantaneously

946
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: affects something in andromeda. You can have sort of like

947
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: short range connections between things by exchanging particles. But if

948
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: your calculations don't start from assuming that space is a thing,

949
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: they just start from this like abstract twister space, then

950
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:33,880
Speaker 1: you have a new kind of freedom and how you

951
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: like build your theory, and maybe space sort of emerges

952
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 1: from it, but you don't have to follow all the

953
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: same rules that you thought you had to follow before.

954
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: Maybe we can get rid of this requirement of locality.

955
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:47,800
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not actually an absolute thing in the universe,

956
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: but eventually you have to be able to transform it

957
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: back from the afflex space to the real space time

958
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:56,399
Speaker 1: that we live in. Wouldn't that be a problem then

959
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 1: probably not. If you're concerned, is like, well, locality is

960
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: a thing. We're pretty sure or that the universe is local.

961
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen that these things work in this

962
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: sort of way. There feels like there is space in

963
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: our universe. We're not talking about breaking that open and

964
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: saying space isn't the thing at all. We're just talking

965
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:13,919
Speaker 1: about breaking those rules sometimes, you know, in the same

966
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: way that like Newtonian theory worked and then it was

967
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: replaced by Einstein's gravity, which disagreed with it only sometimes right,

968
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: sometimes it to totally agree. And so if you can

969
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: now have a new description of, for example, what happens

970
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: inside black holes or what happened at the very beginning

971
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 1: of the universe, that doesn't make all the same assumptions

972
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: that we're trying to force quantum gravity into. You're a

973
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: little bit more freedom to do something crazy. And you know,

974
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: we don't know what's inside black holes. We don't know

975
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 1: what happened at the early universe, So there's room there

976
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 1: for crazy stuff to have happened which wouldn't be allowed

977
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 1: by our current ideas of quantum gravity. And then maybe

978
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: like quantum gravity or unified theory of quantum gravity in

979
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: the real world, maybe emerges from all of this math

980
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: in the abstract space. Is that kind of what might happen. Yeah,

981
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: in the end, you have to be able to shuggle

982
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: all of these calculations back over to our world to

983
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: predict experiments, to say does this actually work? You know,

984
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: math is fun, but in the end we're hoping that

985
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: it describes the universe. There's another like deep philosophical question

986
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: no one knows the answer to, like why does math

987
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: work at all? Why does it seem to describe our universe?

988
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: We don't know, But as physicists were excited when a

989
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: piece of mathematics helps us calculate something about the universe,

990
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 1: not just do some fancy geometry in an abstract space.

991
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 1: So it has to in the end predict something we

992
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: can test to prove that it really is a description

993
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: of the universe. That's useful, and you know, speaking philosophically,

994
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 1: if it does work, if it turns out this is

995
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 1: a very useful piece of mathematics, then a lot of

996
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: people take that to be something real. You know. I

997
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: think about the other geometrical revolution in physics, which was

998
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: general relativity. General relativity says, no, gravity is not a force.

999
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: It's actually just a consequence of this complex geometry of

1000
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: space time, which was invisible to us until now. But

1001
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: we don't just think about that it's like an abstract calculation.

1002
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: We think about that is real. We think about space

1003
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:03,879
Speaker 1: is actually really being curved. So in the same way,

1004
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: if this turns out to be right. If it turns

1005
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: out that calculations in this abstract twister space are the

1006
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: things that actually determine what happens in our space, that

1007
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: this abstract twister space is like somehow more fundamental. There'll

1008
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 1: be people who will say that's the real universe, man,

1009
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: that the universe really is in this abstract space without

1010
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: our kind of physical space and time, and that what

1011
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 1: we're experiencing is sort of like a hologram. It's just

1012
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: sort of like a construct that emerges from that. Like

1013
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:35,479
Speaker 1: maybe we're all living inside of the amplitude heedron kind

1014
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: of and are what we see every day is is

1015
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 1: not real or it's just some kind of projection of

1016
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 1: the amplitudehedro. Yeah, and those two things are not the same, Right.

1017
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: It can be very real but also just to be

1018
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 1: a projection of the amplitude hedron. It can be real

1019
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:52,360
Speaker 1: without being fundamental, Like I'm real, you're real. Doesn't mean

1020
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: that we're like basic elements of the universe. We arise

1021
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: from the complex to ing and frowing of all the

1022
00:49:57,200 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: little particles that make us up. Doesn't make us less real,

1023
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 1: just means that we're not inherent possible for there to

1024
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: be a universe without me and without you and without

1025
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: a podcast. It might be it's possible to have a

1026
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: universe without space and time, but with this abstract twister space,

1027
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: and then we'll all be forced to say the word

1028
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: amplicto heatron all the time. That'll be real fun. It

1029
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: would be the only word in the universe. But as

1030
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: you said, it does seem to work for certain cases,

1031
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: and that means that it has a promising future, like

1032
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: maybe it will sort of let you predict particle collisions

1033
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: from now on. Yeah, it's just fun to have a

1034
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:31,839
Speaker 1: new mathematical tools something which is really good at this

1035
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 1: kind of calculation that's really important and the kind of

1036
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:37,399
Speaker 1: calculation that we're bad at right now. And so it's

1037
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: just sort of like another tool in our arsenal. You

1038
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 1: know how, sometimes when you're solving a problem, you'd like

1039
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: to solve it using equations on a piece of paper,

1040
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 1: because the rules of algebra guide you there. And sometimes

1041
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:48,839
Speaker 1: it's easier to use geometry to like envision how two

1042
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: lines cross or how a plane intersects a circle. So

1043
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: it's good to have lots of different mathematical tools in

1044
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,320
Speaker 1: your toolkit because sometimes one of them makes a problem

1045
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: easy when other ones would make it hard. Right, right,

1046
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,120
Speaker 1: I just have to learn how to draw cartoons in

1047
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: with twisters, I guess, or twisty pens in abstract twelve

1048
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:11,879
Speaker 1: dimensional space amplitude cartoons. There you go. Yeah, and so

1049
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: in this twister space, locality is not fundamental, and also unitarity,

1050
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: this requirement that quantum information not be destroyed in the universe,

1051
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: and that might help us explain things like what happens

1052
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: to information that flows into a black hole, you know,

1053
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: which we talked about on the podcast a few times.

1054
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: So nima Ar Kannie Hahmed, one of the smart guys

1055
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:31,960
Speaker 1: who came up with this, He says that locality and

1056
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,399
Speaker 1: unitarity are both suspect. He doesn't believe that they really

1057
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: are fundamental elements of our universe. He thinks they're like

1058
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 1: almost approximate quantities that we've come to rely on, but

1059
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: aren't real and deep and true. They're just sort of

1060
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: real maybe in the amplitudehedral projection that we live in,

1061
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,000
Speaker 1: but in the real three universe maybe they don't matter.

1062
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,840
Speaker 1: That's what you're saying. Yeah, exactly, there's sus as my

1063
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: kids would say, And this is exciting because it's a

1064
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: pattern in physics. We tear the ail away and reveal

1065
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,280
Speaker 1: the reality is different from the way that we expected.

1066
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 1: And those are the kind of discoveries that I live for. Cool.

1067
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 1: If only you knew how to use it exactly, maybe

1068
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: you should be spending some one time trying to learn

1069
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: it rather than talking about person in the world who

1070
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 1: knows how to calculate with these things. There you go,

1071
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: a small rarefied. It's supposed to being one of the

1072
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: three people who have podcasts, right exactly, one of the

1073
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 1: few rare people who have a podcast and who can

1074
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: pronounce amplitude heedron three times. Quite man, Yeah, that's an

1075
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 1: even harder thing. I think they can give you a

1076
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: PhD for that from the amplitudhedro and University. All right, well,

1077
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:38,959
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's another stay tuned whether this new

1078
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: way of looking at things can actually revolutionize our view

1079
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,760
Speaker 1: of reality and what actually happens when two particles collide.

1080
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 1: And sometimes progress is made by people smashing things together

1081
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: and discovering new phenomena in the universe, and sometimes it's

1082
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,760
Speaker 1: made just by people thinking mathematically about patterns and shapes

1083
00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: and relationships and coming up with new mathematical tricks to

1084
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: solve those problems. Yeah, a lot of people are probably thinking, man,

1085
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: I should have paid more attention in geology class. I

1086
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 1: could change the universe. Well, we hope you enjoyed that.

1087
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,

1088
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,320
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is

1089
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from

1090
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1091
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H