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Speaker 1: So, Daniel, how much did it cost to find the

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Speaker 1: Higgs Boson? Well, do you want the answer in dollars,

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Speaker 1: in euros or in aircraft carriers? His aircraft carriers a

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Speaker 1: real unit of currency. Yeah. Absolutely, The large hage On collider,

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Speaker 1: for example, cost one aircraft carrier. Awesome, that sounds like

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Speaker 1: a good deal. And so how much is that in dollars?

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Speaker 1: It's about thirteen billion dollars per aircraft carrier. Okay, now

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Speaker 1: it's sounding a little bit out of my budget, and

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Speaker 1: that's exactly why we quoted in aircraft carriers. Actually, maybe

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Speaker 1: we should have made the collider cost like point nine

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Speaker 1: nine aircraft carriers to make it sound cheaper. Sold, I'll

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Speaker 1: take two. Did you want a plastic bag with that?

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Speaker 1: Or did you bring you around? Hi? I'm Daniel. I'm

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Speaker 1: a particle physicist and a professor UC Irvine, and I

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Speaker 1: would love to go shopping for bigger colliders. And I'm

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Speaker 1: Katie Golden. I'm the host of Creature Feature and I

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Speaker 1: always take my reusable bag when buying aircraft carrier's worth

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Speaker 1: of Hadron colliders because I like to live sustainably. And

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. Daniel and Jorge explain the universe

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Speaker 1: in which we aim to buy all of the knowledge

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Speaker 1: in the universe. There's nothing out there we don't want

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Speaker 1: to know, and we will encourage humanity to spend, spend,

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Speaker 1: spend until we figure it out. We want to know

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Speaker 1: what's on the inside of black holes. We want to

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Speaker 1: know all about the soup that's in neutron stars. We

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Speaker 1: want to understand the tiniest buzzing particles in the passage

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Speaker 1: of time, the origins of the universe and its final fate.

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Speaker 1: We dig into all of this on this podcast, and

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Speaker 1: it's playing all of it to you. My friend and

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Speaker 1: co host Jorges not here today, so we are lucky

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Speaker 1: to be joined by one of our favorite guest co

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Speaker 1: host Katie. Katie thinks very much for joining us today.

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Speaker 1: Always a blast coming on here, sometimes literally. So, Katie,

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Speaker 1: what is the biggest thing you have put in a

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Speaker 1: reusable bag? Oh, that's a good question. I mean I

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Speaker 1: want to go with like a huge supply of toilet

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Speaker 1: paper is probably the most accurate answer. The heaviest thing

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Speaker 1: probably be when I got like weights from the store

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Speaker 1: and you know, like exercise weights, and they're really heavy

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Speaker 1: and I'm carrying them back to my apartment, and I'm thinking,

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Speaker 1: this sucks. This is so heavy. But then when I

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Speaker 1: just lift them voluntarily, it's like, this is great, this

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Speaker 1: is exercise. But when I had to carry them back,

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Speaker 1: that's when it sucks. Well, I think that in our house,

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Speaker 1: the thing that's most commonly put in bags are other bags.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you end up with the same scenario,

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Speaker 1: but we have like bags stuffed with bags filled with

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Speaker 1: other bags, and eventually we're like, why do we even

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Speaker 1: have these bags if they're just to hold other bags,

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Speaker 1: But you need bigger bags to hold the bags that

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Speaker 1: are holding the smaller bags. It's like we're afraid will

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Speaker 1: be caught out without the right size bag at some moment,

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Speaker 1: so we end up just being like drowning in bags.

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Speaker 1: I reorganized our garage the other weekend, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like it was about fifty just bags. Maybe that's the

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Speaker 1: true sort of gray goo that's going to overtake the

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Speaker 1: earth as bags and bags and bags. I think. So

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Speaker 1: when the aliens do come, they will find the remnants

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Speaker 1: of our civilization buried in plastic bags. But I hope

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Speaker 1: that we as a civilization can aim higher than just

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Speaker 1: producing more plastic bags or even sustainable bags. I hope

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Speaker 1: that we can produce great works of science and technology.

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Speaker 1: When I look at something like the Golden gate Bridge,

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Speaker 1: I think like, wow, go humans, Look what we have accomplished,

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Speaker 1: something that a single human could never build on their own.

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Speaker 1: But a bunch of people coming together and putting their

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Speaker 1: brains to it and designing it and spending years and

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Speaker 1: of course millions of dollars have accomplished something really incredible.

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Speaker 1: And the same is true for some of our great

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Speaker 1: science experiments. The International Space Station floating above the Earth,

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Speaker 1: large ha John Collider underground. These are like enormous monuments

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Speaker 1: to the human intellect, don't you think? Yeah? I mean

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking a sort of theme park on the moon

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Speaker 1: where we have like a Golden gate Bridge, maybe a

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Speaker 1: statue of liberty. Would that be a good waste of

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Speaker 1: our money? Or maybe we should do something a little

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Speaker 1: more scientific. Maybe we should take a bunch of bags

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Speaker 1: and recycle them into a huge monument for humanity. Mm

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Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah. What would you say are some

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Speaker 1: of the great monuments to science in biology? Like what

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Speaker 1: can you point to and say, look what we have built?

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Speaker 1: I mean, when we're talking about biology, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: on a very small scale, right. I feel like some

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Speaker 1: of the greatest monuments to our knowledge and biology are

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Speaker 1: the smallest things, like our ability to make vaccines and

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Speaker 1: to have these really precise surgeries. So when it comes

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Speaker 1: to biology, these really tiny, little, itty bitty discoveries are

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Speaker 1: the most incredible things, like a COVID vaccine, which can

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Speaker 1: totally change the course of human history and save thousands

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Speaker 1: or millions of lives. Right, it is really incredible what

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Speaker 1: biology has accomplished, exactly. Yeah, But with physics, sometimes you

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Speaker 1: need to go big to even find the teeniest, tiniest particle, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: it seems like the smaller and more elusive the particle,

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Speaker 1: the bigger the structure around it has to be to

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Speaker 1: actually measure it. That's right, And that's the history of

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Speaker 1: particle colliders. We started in the fifties with EO. Lawrence

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Speaker 1: in Berkeley building cyclotrons and these things, you know, like

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Speaker 1: one or two mems around so the electrons could get

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Speaker 1: up to what at the time felt like very high energies.

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Speaker 1: And then they just got bigger and bigger, and we

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Speaker 1: had colliders all over the world. We have colliders in

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Speaker 1: Chicago that were kilometers long, and now we have one

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Speaker 1: in Geneva which is tens of kilometers long, and people

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Speaker 1: are talking about building even bigger colliders and bigger colliders,

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Speaker 1: and so a fun question to consider is like, well,

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Speaker 1: how big can we go? Should we aim for? Like

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Speaker 1: Solar system sized colliders, galaxy size colliders? Are there aliens

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Speaker 1: out there that have already built galaxy sized colliders? Are

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Speaker 1: we part of an aliens collider? You know? Joking aside?

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Speaker 1: There is it really fun mystery there because the Earth

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Speaker 1: is bombarded by very high energy particles from space cosmic

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Speaker 1: rays that nobody can explain. And one ridiculous but fun

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Speaker 1: theory is that maybe it's pollution from alien particle physics experiments.

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Speaker 1: Like somebody out there has built an ginormous collider and

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Speaker 1: we're basically the beam dump. Is this an accident or

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Speaker 1: maybe alien crimes? Maybe it's messaging, right, They've built this

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Speaker 1: collider to send these particles to us to like tell

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Speaker 1: us the secrets of the universe, and we just don't

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Speaker 1: know how to decode it. Yeah, I mean it would

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Speaker 1: be something if we thought this was a message and

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Speaker 1: then we just realized it's garbage from space that they've

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Speaker 1: been shooting at us. But we don't just build these

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Speaker 1: colliders bigger and bigger because we think it's fun and

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Speaker 1: because we want to build larger and larger monuments to physics.

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Speaker 1: This isn't Ausimandias, right. We build these colliders larger and

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Speaker 1: larger because the bigger the collider, the more I can

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Speaker 1: tell us about the nature of the universe. You can

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Speaker 1: think about these colliders sort of like microscopes. The bigger

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Speaker 1: the collider is, the smaller the thing it can see,

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Speaker 1: the more it can peer into the nature of matter

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Speaker 1: and tell us like, what's really going on down there,

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Speaker 1: what's inside the particles that we think are fundamental are

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Speaker 1: their new particles out there? And so it's not just Hubrius.

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Speaker 1: It's not just because we want to have a bigger

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Speaker 1: collider than the next guy. It's because we really want

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Speaker 1: to answer these questions about the universe. And it's sort

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Speaker 1: of like the pinnacle of modern particle physics to build

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Speaker 1: these huge cathedrals to investigation. Now, it is a little

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive that they're so big, because when I think about

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Speaker 1: studying something small, I'm thinking of having to shrink down

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Speaker 1: to the size of the small thing to be able

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Speaker 1: to see the small thing. So why would you need

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Speaker 1: such a big structure to study something so small? Because

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Speaker 1: in our universe, as opposed to the marvel cinematic universe,

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Speaker 1: where antman can just shrink himself down to the quantum scale,

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Speaker 1: we can't do that. We have to stay at our size,

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Speaker 1: and so we have to tear apart quantum objects, which

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Speaker 1: requires huge energies. You want to pull apart the nucleus

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Speaker 1: of the atom. That stuff is really tightly bound together.

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Speaker 1: You want to peer inside the proton. The gluons inside

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Speaker 1: the proton are really holding it together. So you need

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Speaker 1: really really powerful hammers basically to smash these little bits

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Speaker 1: so that you can see them. Sounds a little dangerous.

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Speaker 1: I would recommend getting in the way of that hammer,

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Speaker 1: no matter how many layers of plastic bags you have

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Speaker 1: wrapped around you. But physicists are talking about this kind

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Speaker 1: of thing seriously because these collider take decades to build.

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Speaker 1: They take even more decades to plan and to fund

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Speaker 1: and to organize the politics of getting the billions of

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Speaker 1: dollars all lined up to build them. And right now

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Speaker 1: particle physicists are engaged in a project to plan out

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Speaker 1: the next ten twenty fifty years of particle physics, and

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Speaker 1: so people are talking about what should we build next?

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Speaker 1: And there are practical suggestions for what the next collider

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Speaker 1: might be, and they're also fanciful ideas for what the

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Speaker 1: next or next next collider might be. I bet there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of not in my backyard types who

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Speaker 1: don't want a h drawn collider in their backyard. But oh,

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Speaker 1: sure in someone else's backyard. You joke, but that is

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Speaker 1: part of it. And so on today's episode will be

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Speaker 1: exploring one of these crazy ideas for a new particle collider,

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Speaker 1: will be answering the question should we build a particle

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Speaker 1: collider on the Moon? Well nineteen something something called and

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Speaker 1: they want their Austin Ours movie building back. It does

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Speaker 1: sound like something you would build while stroking your white

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Speaker 1: cat and sitting under your volcano in your layer. So

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Speaker 1: when I first sent you this idea, did you think

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Speaker 1: it was totally ridiculous? What do you think? Wow? I

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Speaker 1: would be amazed if humans could do that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we put Tartar grades those little tiny water bears on

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Speaker 1: the Moon, So I don't see any reason why we

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Speaker 1: shouldn't put a particle collider on the Moon and then

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Speaker 1: let the tartar grades run it. That's the actual next

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Speaker 1: step for you. You're like, if they're tartar grades there,

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Speaker 1: we should put a collider there. Yeah, why not? There

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Speaker 1: are tartar grades everywhere. They're tarte grades in the Pacific Ocean.

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Speaker 1: She would put a huge particle collider in the Pacific. Well,

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Speaker 1: as long as it doesn't get in the way of

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Speaker 1: any like snapping shrimp mating strategies, then maybe. Well, as

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Speaker 1: we're leading into on today's episode, you'll find that putting

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Speaker 1: a particle collider on the Moon might answer some deep

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Speaker 1: questions about physics and solve some problems about existing colliders,

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Speaker 1: but it comes with its own unique set of challenges.

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Speaker 1: And so, as usual, before we dug into the topic,

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Speaker 1: I went out there to ask people what they thought

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Speaker 1: about this question. Would it be practical to build a

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Speaker 1: particle collider on the Moon. So thanks to everybody who

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Speaker 1: volunteered to answer random questions in their inbox from a

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Speaker 1: physicist without the opportunity to do any googling. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to participate and here yourself baselessly speculate on difficult

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Speaker 1: topics on the podcast, please don't be shy right to

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Speaker 1: me two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. So

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Speaker 1: before you hear these answers, think to yourself, should we

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Speaker 1: build a particle collider on the Moon. Here's what people

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Speaker 1: had to say. Yes, we should definitely build a particle

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Speaker 1: collider on the Moon, but we should use such financial

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Speaker 1: resources to achieve fusion and I'm sure we can survive

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Speaker 1: on this planet. First, I'm assuming this question is being

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Speaker 1: asked because there's a lot of space up there, and

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Speaker 1: you don't have to go around buildings, and it's quiet,

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Speaker 1: there's no electromagnetic disturbances. I don't know if those benefits

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Speaker 1: would outweigh the detriments of it being so far away

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Speaker 1: and so hard to maintain and so hard to staff.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like a fun idea, but probably not the

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Speaker 1: best use of our resources. I don't know how much

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Speaker 1: the effects of gravity impact our design of particle accelerators,

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Speaker 1: but that and possible interference from ground traffic, earthquakes, all

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Speaker 1: those sorts of things that can potentially disrupt experiments, UH

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Speaker 1: could all improve the results from testing That would be

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Speaker 1: seriously expensive. If we could conduct experiments up there that

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Speaker 1: we just couldn't do down here, then yeah, I'd be

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Speaker 1: all for it, and I think we should build it um,

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Speaker 1: But if the experiments aren't going to be that different,

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Speaker 1: then I think those resources could be better spent elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we should be the particle collider, even on Marth. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think we should do this all these things because

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Speaker 1: you never know whant to go, what you're gonna find.

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Speaker 1: Let's create jobs. I think we should definitely build a

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Speaker 1: particle collider on the Moon, maybe even around the entire Moon.

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Speaker 1: I have no objections to that. I say why not.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna say now, because the Moon has a lot

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Speaker 1: of different particles in there are Earth. Well, because there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of the plants on Earth and there's basically

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Speaker 1: no plants on the Moon, that that is quite true.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe there's a maybe because it's in

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Speaker 1: vacuum and cold, maybe we could do something with superconductors. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so maybe it would be easier to have more electricity there.

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Speaker 1: We can actually make it go a bit faster or something.

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Speaker 1: I think it would be interesting to build one of

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Speaker 1: the Moon, at least not maybe not a very large

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Speaker 1: HC or the Fermi lat form, but I think it

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Speaker 1: would be possible to build quite uh, small particles collator

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Speaker 1: in the moon, see some interesting stuff without the gravity.

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Speaker 1: Go bigger, go home? Definitely, why not even bigger? Let's

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Speaker 1: build one the size of our solar system so we

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Speaker 1: can really measure some gigantic things. Where we get money

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Speaker 1: for this? I have no idea. I really like the

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Speaker 1: answer of we should do it, but maybe not a

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Speaker 1: very large one, just a little one, you know, just like, yes,

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Speaker 1: we should have one, but let's be reasonable people, Let's

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Speaker 1: make it, you know, medium size. You know, it's so

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Speaker 1: reasonable to build a little any medical eider very very

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Speaker 1: far away when nobody can get to it. No. I

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Speaker 1: like the one that says, let's go big, build one

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Speaker 1: the size of the solar system. I mean, while we're

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Speaker 1: spending a jillion dollars, why not spend a budget jillion dollars? Right?

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Speaker 1: It all just feels like made up money at this point. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if we turn our currency into

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Speaker 1: aircraft carriers, maybe we're gonna get somewhere. Joking aside, I

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Speaker 1: think there is an important point there. These things feel

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Speaker 1: really expensive to us, like ten billion dollars. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's so much more than you and your entire family

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Speaker 1: will earn your entire lifetime. I mean, I don't know

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Speaker 1: what you've invested in, but I'm imagining not a billionaire.

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Speaker 1: It just seems like an unimaginedly vast sum of money,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it. But it's not that much money on the

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Speaker 1: scale of societies, you know, collectively, the financial power of

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Speaker 1: a country is enormous, So that like ten billion dollars

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Speaker 1: is a tiny blip in the US budget. It really

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Speaker 1: is just like one more or one fewer aircraft carrier.

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Speaker 1: You know, the US Congress spends five billion dollars without

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Speaker 1: even thinking about it too much. When you're talking about

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Speaker 1: unlocking the secrets of the universe, we're like in the

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Speaker 1: store where they sell the secrets of the universe, and

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Speaker 1: we have enough money in our pocket to buy it,

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Speaker 1: we're just deciding not to because we want to go

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Speaker 1: down the street and go to the aircraft carrier store instead.

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Speaker 1: So these things really are achievable, either by the US

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Speaker 1: or by the global community. It's just a question of

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Speaker 1: whether we want to do it. Yeah, And I feel

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Speaker 1: the perhaps more important metric isn't necessarily money directly, but

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Speaker 1: the idea of the carbon cost of things. So is

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Speaker 1: it too much of a carbon cost to build something

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Speaker 1: or is the knowledge that we get from it worth

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Speaker 1: that kind of you know, exchange in terms of the

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Speaker 1: amount of fuel we would need to get to the

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Speaker 1: moon or something. But that's not really reasoning that we

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Speaker 1: use often when we're building aircraft carriers. I don't think

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Speaker 1: we think about, hey, the cost of the environment of this,

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Speaker 1: But that would be my my only sort of concern

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Speaker 1: in terms of the budget on uh, building a big thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's interesting point. I wonder if Elon Musk is designing

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Speaker 1: an all electric aircraft carrier, you know, Tesla's first aircraft carrier. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's take into the question, and I think maybe the

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Speaker 1: place to start is to try to understand why particle

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Speaker 1: colliders have to be so big. I mean, it's not

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Speaker 1: just that we like to build big things, but there's

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Speaker 1: a reason why these things are massive, right, Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: this is what I want to find out more about

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Speaker 1: because I think of a really tiny thing. You know,

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Speaker 1: what's with all of this extra space. Surely you don't

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Speaker 1: need that much storage space for like a little cork, right,

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Speaker 1: That's right. It's not about like having a big enough

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Speaker 1: bag to hold a cork. It's about tearing that cork

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Speaker 1: out of the bonds that it's held in. And there

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Speaker 1: really are two different things that we want to do here,

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Speaker 1: but both of them require a lot of energy. One

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Speaker 1: is take the particles that we know and try to

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Speaker 1: break them into pieces, like find out what's inside a cork.

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Speaker 1: Is a cork made of smaller little bits, maybe strings

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Speaker 1: or sub corks or quirkinos or whatever you would want

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Speaker 1: to call them. I'm sure we should consult Jorge when

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Speaker 1: the time time comes you know what are they made

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Speaker 1: out of? And what we've discovered in the last few

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Speaker 1: decades is that as you go deeper and deeper into

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Speaker 1: the atom, the bonds get more and more powerful. Right Like,

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Speaker 1: the bonds that hold an electron to the nucleus are

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Speaker 1: very strong. They're much more powerful than gravity, for example,

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Speaker 1: which is the force you deal with on everyday basis.

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Speaker 1: And the bonds that hold the nucleus together are the

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Speaker 1: strong force, which are even more powerful, which is why

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Speaker 1: fission and fusion and nuclear power have so much capacity

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Speaker 1: to release energy bound in the nucleus. So we suspect

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Speaker 1: that as we go deeper and look inside the proton

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Speaker 1: and then inside the cork, will need even more energy

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Speaker 1: to tear that apart. The second reason we need a

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Speaker 1: lot of energy in these collisions is that we want

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Speaker 1: to make new stuff. We want to discover new particles

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Speaker 1: we haven't seen yet. And sometimes those new particles are very,

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Speaker 1: very heavy, Like the Higgs boson is a hundred and

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Speaker 1: twenty five times as massive as a proton, So to

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Speaker 1: make it, you can't just toss two protons together gently.

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Speaker 1: You've got to give those roton is a lot of energy.

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Speaker 1: That's the whole E equals mc squared thing. So the

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Speaker 1: short answer is you want a lot of energy in

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Speaker 1: your collider in order to answer the deep questions of

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Speaker 1: the universe. So my understanding of atom smashing is somewhat

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Speaker 1: limited to nuclear explosions. So when I think about smashing

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Speaker 1: an atom, I think of mass destruction. How do you

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Speaker 1: make a collider not explode? That's a great question, and

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Speaker 1: that's not a question I've ever been asked before, Like,

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Speaker 1: why don't we have a nuclear bomb every time two

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Speaker 1: particles collide? That's a great question, But the answer is

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Speaker 1: basically that we do. The thing is that we don't

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Speaker 1: have a sustained reaction. So what happens is you smash

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Speaker 1: two protons together for example, and the protons collide and

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Speaker 1: they get broken apart, and the corks inside them interact,

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Speaker 1: and you do get a massive release of energy, but

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Speaker 1: the energy is like fairly small compared to a nuclear bomb.

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Speaker 1: A nuclear bomb you have like killing rams of fuel

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Speaker 1: and the nuclear reaction starts and then it goes off

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Speaker 1: in the chain reactions. So you have like you know,

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Speaker 1: ten to the twenty six protons all releasing their energy

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Speaker 1: simultaneously in a very short amount of time. That's a bomb.

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Speaker 1: You have a single proton releasing its energy. It's not

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Speaker 1: actually that much energy. It's just one proton. So the

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Speaker 1: reason we don't have like nuclear explosions all the time

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Speaker 1: is that we had to do one proton at a time. Basically,

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Speaker 1: I say, so, you're really only in danger if you

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Speaker 1: stand on the target area, probably with a bunch of

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Speaker 1: warning signs around for you not to stand there. Yes,

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Speaker 1: nobody should stand in the beam or near the beam.

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Speaker 1: There is radiation produced in these collisions. You smash two

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Speaker 1: protons together and a bunch of particles fly out of

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Speaker 1: very high energy. And that's why these collisions are usually

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Speaker 1: done underground, like large hadron collider in Geneva is about

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Speaker 1: a hundred meters underground, and that's enough ground to absorb

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Speaker 1: all the radiations, so nobody on the surface should feel

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Speaker 1: a thing, and people down operating the collider they protected

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Speaker 1: by lead or or some kind of shield. Absolutely surround

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Speaker 1: the whole thing with concrete and with layers of lead,

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Speaker 1: and the people who are operating it are usually actually

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Speaker 1: up on the surface, and so there's nobody down at

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Speaker 1: the beam level when the thing is running. That's a

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Speaker 1: clever way to tell me that there aren't a secret

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Speaker 1: society of more people operating these colliders. Maybe there are,

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Speaker 1: but it's a secret. But the key thing is that

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Speaker 1: you want a lot of energy so you can peer

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Speaker 1: inside the nature of matter or maybe make new weird particles,

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Speaker 1: particles that haven't existed since the beginning of the universe.

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Speaker 1: For example, the way that we discovered the top Cork

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Speaker 1: was by smashing particles together at energies. Nobody's ever done

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Speaker 1: it before, and because we created enough energy in one

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Speaker 1: tiny little spot, we were able to turn all that

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Speaker 1: energy into a new massive particle. The reason the top

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Speaker 1: Cork took so long to discover, decades of searching, was

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Speaker 1: because it was more massive than anybody expected, so we

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Speaker 1: had to put more energy into it than anybody expected.

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Speaker 1: So we have to build a whole series of larger

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Speaker 1: and larger colliders to get to those high energies. So

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Speaker 1: when you're building this larger collider, I'm imagining sort of

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Speaker 1: a an area where some kind of beam is focused.

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Speaker 1: But to put it in very simple terms, because I'm

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Speaker 1: going to need that to understand it, what is the

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Speaker 1: shooty part, Like, how does the shooty part work? And

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Speaker 1: what is it doing when it is sort of shooting

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Speaker 1: this energy into into these particles. It's a great question.

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Speaker 1: Colliders come in two varieties. There are linear colliders that

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Speaker 1: are like a straight line where they accelerate the particles

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Speaker 1: and smash them together. Or particles come in the circular variety,

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00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: right like the large Hadron collider, where the particles go

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Speaker 1: around a lot of times before they collide. And the

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00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:48,760
Speaker 1: advantage of the circular one is that you can push

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Speaker 1: the particles many many times to get them up to

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Speaker 1: even higher speeds before they collide. So in a circular collider,

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Speaker 1: which you have our little sections that push the particles,

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Speaker 1: and these are just sections that have like electromagnetic waves

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Speaker 1: that push the particles of particles like surf on these

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic waves there. RF cavities have a lot of energy

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Speaker 1: in them, and any particle that goes in there that

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Speaker 1: has a charge like an electron or a proton, is

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Speaker 1: going to get pulled out the other side. So that's

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Speaker 1: sort of the shooty part. It pushes the particles. We

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Speaker 1: only really know how to do that in a straight line,

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Speaker 1: like we can't really make a bendy accelerator. We can

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Speaker 1: make a little straight line accelerator. So to make an

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Speaker 1: accelerator that goes in a circle, which you need are

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Speaker 1: a bunch of these RF cavities, the shooty parts that

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Speaker 1: give the particles a kick, and then you need something

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Speaker 1: to bend it. So we have magnets. So these really

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Speaker 1: powerful electromagnets will bend the path of a particle. So

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Speaker 1: when a particle hits a magnetic field, it curves. That's why,

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Speaker 1: for example, the magnetic field of the Earth protects us

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Speaker 1: from particles from space because it bends them and deflects

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Speaker 1: them away from hitting the surface. So a big collider

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Speaker 1: like large hadron collider, has parts that push the particles

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Speaker 1: and then bend and then push them bend and then

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Speaker 1: push them bend and there's like twelve magnets all the

429
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,200
Speaker 1: way around this thirty three kilometer ring. Wow, don't get

430
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 1: your computer near that thing. I've learned that it'll wipe

431
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 1: your credit cards in just a moment. But yeah, that's

432
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: essentially the shooting part. And that's also why these things

433
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 1: have to get bigger and bigger, because if you want

434
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 1: the particle to get higher and higher energy, you need

435
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 1: more of those bits that push on it that make

436
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 1: it go faster. You know, imagine particles are going around

437
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,120
Speaker 1: the ring and each one is giving it a little kick,

438
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: so sort of like you're running through a room with

439
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: your friends and everybody gives you a little push as

440
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 1: you go by. By the time you get out the

441
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:33,119
Speaker 1: other side of the room, you're going really fast, and

442
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: so you want to go faster and faster, you need

443
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: more of those things that push it. At the same time,

444
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: the faster you're going, the stronger the magnets you need,

445
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: or the more magnets you need to keep it going

446
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,240
Speaker 1: in a circle. So you can either have like really

447
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: strong magnets or you can have a really really big ring.

448
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 1: So it's like the world's biggest and most expensive game

449
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 1: of curling. Shout out to all the Canadians. You're listening exactly.

450
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 1: So you want higher energy so you can explore the

451
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: universe more deeply and answer some of the big open questions.

452
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: But the more energy you have, the bigger the collider

453
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,199
Speaker 1: has to be, so you have more of those pushy

454
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: bits that make it go faster, and also so you

455
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: can effectively bend it in a circle because you can

456
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,479
Speaker 1: go around many, many times that you can get your

457
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 1: particles up to even higher and higher energies because you

458
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: can reuse those pushy bits and at a large change

459
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: on collider before the particles smash into each other. They

460
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: go around the ring billions and billions of times. It's

461
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: lots of laps before the end of the race for them. Well,

462
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: so how long does it take for a particle to

463
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: go around the loop? A billion times? That's a great question.

464
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:39,439
Speaker 1: So you know, these particles are basically going at the

465
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: speed of light. It's like point C and they're going

466
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 1: thirty three kilometers, So it takes about one micro second

467
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: for a proton to go all the way around the

468
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 1: ring fast. It's pretty fast, right, thirty three kilometers in

469
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: a microsecond. That's the speed of light for you. But

470
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: it goes around lots and lots of times, and actually

471
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 1: we inject the beam, which is like this little cloud

472
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: of protons that whizzes around the collider, and the beam

473
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: lasts for you know, tens of hours before eventually enough

474
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: protons have collided and the beam has gotten sort of

475
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: diffuse that they dump it and they start again with

476
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,919
Speaker 1: a fresh beam. So an individual proton can be in

477
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: the large Hadron collider for like a day, day and

478
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:21,679
Speaker 1: a half sometimes, which means it makes a lot of

479
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: trips around. It's a lot of laps. Wow, you get

480
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: to take home the stale protons after after work or

481
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 1: is that not advisable. That's a great question. I've never

482
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,200
Speaker 1: seen what they do with the used up protons um.

483
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,640
Speaker 1: I think they just smashed them into a beam dump

484
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 1: and nobody uses them. You know, they should sell them

485
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: in the gift store. Though this proton was in the

486
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 1: large haye On collider, it's not a radioactive So I

487
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,199
Speaker 1: want to talk some more about why we want to

488
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,919
Speaker 1: build bigger and bigger colliders, the secrets of the universe

489
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: that we might unlock, and then why people are talking

490
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: seriously or semi seriously about building one on the moon.

491
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break and I'm going

492
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: to look up those used protons on the black market.

493
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we are starting our Etsy

494
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: store selling used protons from the Large Hadron Collider. How

495
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 1: much food be sell them for? Look, I'm feeling generous today,

496
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:30,959
Speaker 1: so maybe half of an aircraft carrier, that's right, and

497
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: but bring your own bag. Right, this is definitely a

498
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: B Y O B kind of Styes, re usable, reuse, recycle.

499
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 1: We're sustainable here. So people out there might be wondering, like,

500
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: why do you want to build a bigger collider? What's

501
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: left to figure out? After all, didn't we discover the

502
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 1: Higgs boson, which is called the last piece of the

503
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: standard model? What mysteries are there left to unlock? Are

504
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: you guys just wanting to build bigger colliders because you

505
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: like building big stuff or they're real scientific questions left

506
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: to be answered in a real as killed But you know,

507
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: while the Large Hadron Collider was amazingly successful in discovering

508
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: the Higgs boson, which is a triumph for modern physics,

509
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. Regular listeners to the podcast will

510
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: definitely be familiar with the open questions of particle physics.

511
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: There's so many things that we don't know about the universe.

512
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: For example, we've discovered the nature of the matter that

513
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: makes us up, but we still don't know what most

514
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: of the universe is actually made out of. Right, five

515
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 1: of the universe is made out of the familiar particles

516
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: quarks and electrons. That accounts for things like stars and

517
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: gas and dust and the visible galaxies and hamsters and

518
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: lava and plastic bags and aircraft carriers. But this twenty

519
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: five percent of the universe is made of something else,

520
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: dark matter, which is not made out of quarks and electrons.

521
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: And so that's a pretty big open question. Is dark

522
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: matter of particle? Could we make it the large Hadron collider?

523
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: What is it made out of? Just one example of

524
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: the kind of questions about the universe that remain open. So,

525
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: if we can make colliders here on Earth underground that

526
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: are safe, why would we even need it on the

527
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: Moon in the first place. Well, it's a great question.

528
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: We can build colliders here on Earth that are safe,

529
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: but they're getting sort of awkwardly big, Like the collider

530
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: that we have now is thirty three kilometers in circumference,

531
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: and it's so big that it crosses two countries. It's

532
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: partially under Switzerland and partially under France, and has the

533
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: energy of thirteen trillion electron volts, which sounds like a lot,

534
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: and we're upgrading it this year actually to thirteen point

535
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: six trillion electron volts. And people are talking about bigger

536
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: and bigger colliders. But as you get bigger, it's harder

537
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: to figure out, like where are you going to put

538
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: this thing. People don't like having colliders, like right underneath

539
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: their house, and to find enough space to put something

540
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: that's like a hundred kilometers in circumference is a little awkward.

541
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: So we got to go to the moon. We gotta

542
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: go to the moon. There are plans for like a

543
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: hundred kilometer circumference colliders, maybe in China. People are talking

544
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: about maybe putting one in Europe. There's an idea for

545
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: a collider called collider in the sea, a floating collider

546
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Mexico. But these things get a

547
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: little awkward, right, you have to invent all this new

548
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: technology to have this thing floating. It's a little crazy.

549
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: So people thought the moon is right there. There's a

550
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: lot of land there that nobody's using. Maybe we could

551
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: put one on the moon. Yeah, that's pretty real estate.

552
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: So all right, we want to put a collider on

553
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: the Moon because that solves the land issue. But the

554
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: Moon is really different from Earth. I mean, it's a moon,

555
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: it's not a planet. So would the physics even work

556
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: to put a collider somewhere where gravity is different and

557
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: we don't have an atmosphere and you know where the

558
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: ground is all sharpened powdery, Yeah, you don't need gravity

559
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: for a collider. Like the fact that we have gravity

560
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: on Earth basically is a relevant for these protons. They're

561
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: traveling at basically the speed of light, so we can

562
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: ignore the effected gravity. And also remember protons are super

563
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: duper tiny. They have almost no mask compared to like

564
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: an apple, and so the effect of gravity on them

565
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: is very very small, and so we can basically ignore it.

566
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 1: And you know, building a collider on the Moon where

567
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: there's less gravity, that's not a problem. Also, colliders operate

568
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: in near vacuum, like inside the collider the bean pipe

569
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: itself where the protons go around. We try to get

570
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: that down to basically a vacuum so the protons don't

571
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: bang into other stuff along the way. So operating without

572
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: an atmosphere also not a problem. With one exception. We

573
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: build our collider here on the surface of the Earth,

574
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: and the atmosphere is actually a protectant. As rocks hit

575
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: the Earth, for example, meteors and all sorts of other stuff,

576
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: the atmosphere protects us from their collision. So you build

577
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 1: your experiment on the surface of the Earth, you don't

578
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 1: expect to come back and have it be like a

579
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: crater because some rock from space has killed it. But

580
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: the Moon has basically no atmosphere, which is why its

581
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: surfaces pop marked with craters from all these rocks that

582
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: slam into it all the time. So if you build

583
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: your collider basically on the surface of the Moon, then

584
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: it's destined to be smashed into by these rocks, and

585
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: so you need some other way to protect it. Giant

586
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: Space umbrella patent pending my idea. All right, so we

587
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: have already an issue we would have to, in addition

588
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: to building the collider, build some kind of protection. Is

589
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: the Moon too small to be able to build a

590
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: subterranean collider or is it too difficult to excavate the Moon. No,

591
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: that would actually be a great idea because another problem

592
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: with putting a collider on the surface of the Moon

593
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: is that the temperatures on the surface are bonkers because

594
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: it has no atmosphere. Because if it's weird tidal locking,

595
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: the surface of the Moon gets like superheated during its

596
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: day and then super cold during its night. So during

597
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: the day it's like a hundred and twenty seven C

598
00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 1: and during the night it's like minus a hundred and

599
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: seven the six s and those kind of temperature variations

600
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: are not great for like high precision scientific equipment, right,

601
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: And so we could bury it, but would we basically

602
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 1: look up at a moon that we see this giant

603
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: just like giant excavators and cranes on and would that

604
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: change the surface of the Moon. That would be cool

605
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: though if you could see it from Earth. The idea

606
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: is to build a collider just like a few meters

607
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: underground on the Moon, because if you dig down like

608
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:34,239
Speaker 1: a few meters, the temperature variations are much smaller. It's

609
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: basically pretty stable temperature wise, except for the surface. And

610
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: so you bury this thing like a meter or two,

611
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: and then you build it all the way around the

612
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: Moon like a belt around the moon, and yeah, you

613
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: might be able to see it firm earth. I don't

614
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: know if that's a good thing or a bad thing,

615
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: And people would feel like, hm, you kind of spoiled

616
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: this incredible natural view, but you would be like a

617
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: line across the moon. I mean, I feel like we

618
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 1: just gotta a sort of take a poll of everyone

619
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: on Earth and see if they're cool with it. Shouldn't

620
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 1: be too hard. You know, it sounds like you're making

621
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 1: a joke, but I think that there's something serious there.

622
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 1: You know, when we take steps that affect all of humanity,

623
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 1: we really should think about how to make these decisions.

624
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: It's a similar question when we think about like should

625
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: we try to message aliens or if we get a

626
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: message from aliens, how should we respond. We had Jill Tartar,

627
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: head of the Study Program, on the podcast recently and

628
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: she was talking about like how to include all different

629
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 1: kinds of cultures in this decision about how to write

630
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: back to aliens. And in a similar way, I think

631
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 1: it would be important to think about like how people

632
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: look at the moon and how it important it is

633
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:43,359
Speaker 1: to them. You know, science can't just be like we're

634
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 1: going to come and take this land and do what

635
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: we want with it. For science. Yeah, we can't colonize

636
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: the Moon. I mean we can, but we shouldn't because

637
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: the Moon doesn't really belong to anyone, which is I mean,

638
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: we may like to think it does sometimes, but I

639
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: think that is something that's kind of charming about the

640
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: Moon and the planets is that nobody can really claim them.

641
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: So to build a collider on the Moon, to build

642
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: this this moon belt, as incredible and amazing it would

643
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: be for unlocking these mysteries, it would also require some

644
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: astronomical pun intended levels of cooperation between countries and people's

645
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: you're right, and not just the people who would benefit

646
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,240
Speaker 1: from it and who would pay for it, but basically

647
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: everybody for whom the Moon is important, which is basically

648
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: everybody on Earth. You can't just like scribble on the

649
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: night sky and say hey, I did it. And that's

650
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: an issue you know, with for example, Elon Musk, Right,

651
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: he's launching these Startlink satellites which are in low Earth orbit,

652
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: which are changing our view of the cosmos, and he

653
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: basically just got permission from one US regulatory authority, you know,

654
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 1: But like, are they in charge of the sky. It's

655
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: crazy to imagine one US government agency is making decisions

656
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: for all of humanity. So I create it's a really

657
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: important question. Yeah, it's something I feel like could go

658
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: two ways, Like it could be this incredible cooperations amongst

659
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: nations and people, or it could be something where it's

660
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 1: seen as kind of a foisting our our desires from

661
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 1: like a few rich nations onto the rest of the world.

662
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,359
Speaker 1: And so I'd like to think it would end up

663
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: in the more cooperative sort of building a more connections

664
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: between people on Earth. But you never know. It seems

665
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: often that we just kind of strong arm other people

666
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: into accepting like, yep, now we've got Elon Musk's name

667
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 1: and brand on the moon, deal with it. No, you're right.

668
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: It is a really fun show called for All Mankind,

669
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,360
Speaker 1: which explores this issue in some depth. Imagine some alternative

670
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 1: history with the space race didn't peter out, and the

671
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,439
Speaker 1: US and the Russians landed on the Moon and built

672
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:55,240
Speaker 1: elaborate Moon presence and basically started, you know, a wars

673
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,720
Speaker 1: on the Moon because they're valuable resources there and everybody

674
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: was afraid of getting cut out. And we might be

675
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 1: looking at that in our future. I mean, NASA has

676
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 1: plans to build a Moon base to make a quote

677
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: sustainable presence by t It's part of the new Artemis program.

678
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,919
Speaker 1: They want to explore the entire service of the Moon

679
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: with humans and robots and have plans to place like

680
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: large scale lunar infrastructure, and so a lot of these

681
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: other questions arise, like can we just put a base

682
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: on the Moon and not get anybody else's okay? Would

683
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: we be okay with other countries just like grabbing a

684
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: chunk of the Moon and saying, hey, we're building here,

685
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: this is our spot, Get off our lawn. Seems like

686
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: we need a globally elected Moon president and I'll do it.

687
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: All right, Fine, I'll do it. That was quite a campaign.

688
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: Would you like to be president of the Moon? Really?

689
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 1: Where did that job come with? Where are the benefits there?

690
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: Seems like it would come with a really cool hat

691
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:56,800
Speaker 1: and outfit though, So that's my main motivation. But ethics acide,

692
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: which I love to say all the time, ethics acide

693
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 1: and politics aside. If you have a collider on the Moon,

694
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: let's say we could even get it up there, which

695
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: seems difficult given it seems pretty heavy, and how does

696
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: it get power because you can't run like a plug

697
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: from the US all the way to the moon. That's right,

698
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:20,720
Speaker 1: That thing would get so tangled up. Oh my gosh,

699
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: it would be a nightmare. I mean, notice how every

700
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: rope always get knotted up. Like if you have headphones

701
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: in your pocket they come out, they're always knotted up.

702
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: It's some like property of a string. It's most relaxed

703
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: state seems to always be in a knock. Does this

704
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: dude to small particle behavior or is it pocket gremlins?

705
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: I think pocket gremlins are definitely a part of it. Also,

706
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: there's something in there about statistical mechanics, about just having

707
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: like the number of ways that a string can be configured,

708
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: the configurations without a knot, or like a small fraction

709
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: of that. So if you just like randomly rearrange a

710
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: string and will away end up in a knock. But

711
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:57,919
Speaker 1: you raise a great question which is powering this thing?

712
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: And as you get up too high and higher energies

713
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: in your collider, you need exponentially more power. The amount

714
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 1: of power we use the large dron collider is not

715
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: that much, but as you get your particles up to

716
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: higher energies and then you curve them around this collider,

717
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: then they radiate away more energy. Every time you bend

718
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: a particle, you're curving it. That's acceleration, and acceleration happens

719
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: through radiation. Like when a particle wants to turn left,

720
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 1: it can't just turn to conserve momentum. It's got to

721
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: like throw something off in the other direction. It radiates

722
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: a particle, so they lose energy. You need a lot

723
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 1: of energy in those little bits that push it just

724
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 1: to keep the particles at that energy. And for the

725
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 1: Moon collider, we're talking about energies a thousand times higher

726
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: than our current collider, which is like terribly exciting from

727
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: a particle physics point of view, like the kinds of

728
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: things we could discover, but really tricky from a power

729
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,240
Speaker 1: point of view. So this thing would need about ten

730
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: terra lots of energy. That's similar to hearing the number

731
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 1: like a hundred billion dollars, since only becomes meaningless to

732
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: me because I can't conceive of tin tara wats of energy.

733
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: Tin tara watz is a lot, you know, for scale,

734
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: the entire human population uses about eighteen tara wats over

735
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 1: a year or over a day, like or in total

736
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: tara watts is energy per second, and so it's like

737
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,879
Speaker 1: the rate of energy use. And so this thing would

738
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: have a constant use of about fifty percent of the

739
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,720
Speaker 1: entire budget of the Earth, all the energy we produce.

740
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 1: So even if you could run a line from the

741
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: Earth to the Moon, it would not be advisable because

742
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: you need to increase the Earth's energy budget by a

743
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: huge amount. Probably a fuse, right exactly, That'd be a

744
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: very thick cable. You just need one person trying to

745
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: run their hair dryer and the fuse to blow out

746
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 1: on all of Earth exactly. And so people have thought

747
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,760
Speaker 1: about like, well, how could we power such a collider?

748
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: Definitely you need a power source on the Moon. And

749
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: one attractive thing to think about is like vision, you know,

750
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: could you build nuclear power plants on the moon in

751
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:01,399
Speaker 1: order to power the thing? And you know, getting into

752
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: like the ethical issues of producing nuclear waste and staring

753
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,439
Speaker 1: it on the moon is a whole other rabbit hole

754
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: we could even dig into, because fish and plants are

755
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 1: not even practical. Like all the fishing plants we have

756
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,839
Speaker 1: currently produced about four hundred giga watts of energy, so

757
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: you need like fifty times the amount of fission power

758
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 1: plants we have operating now on Earth suddenly running on

759
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: the Moon. I mean, it just seems impossible, right, But

760
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:28,919
Speaker 1: there's gotta be other types of plants that you could

761
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 1: have on the Moon, right absolutely. And one thing that

762
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: the Moon does have is a lot of sunlight, Like

763
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: there's lots of land out there and planning of places

764
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: to build solar panels. And you know, you don't have

765
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: clouds on the Moon. There's no weather on the Moon.

766
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: So solar power on the Moon is actually much more

767
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: stable and reliable than it is even here on Earth.

768
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: The biggest problem people have with solar power on the

769
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: Earth is what do you do on a cloudy day

770
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: or what do you do during winter or when it's raining.

771
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:57,839
Speaker 1: But on the Moon, there's nothing between you and the sun.

772
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: So you could actually power this thing with point one

773
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: percent of all the solar power that hits the Moon.

774
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 1: So it's like a set of solar panels about the

775
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: size of Delaware power this thing. Okay, So as long

776
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: as we're okay with seeing Delaware on the Moon all

777
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: the time, we could probably power a collider exactly, and

778
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to build it in just one spot,

779
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: because then part of the time it would be in darkness.

780
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: The idea is to build the collider in a big

781
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 1: ring around the Moon, and then to cover it with

782
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: solar panels, so you have like a big ring of

783
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 1: solar panels around the Moon, so part of it is

784
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: always in the sunshine. Could we make it like a

785
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,879
Speaker 1: smiley face, because I think that might sell it better

786
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: to you, the people of Earth. I'll put that front

787
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: of the committee. I think that's a great idea. But

788
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,719
Speaker 1: I think we should have a competition, you know, for

789
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: like what designs we'd like to put on the Moon.

790
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: You know, maybe a spiral would be good. We should

791
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: have all the artists of the Earth contribute. All right,

792
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: So let's dig into a little bit more about the

793
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,879
Speaker 1: practicalities of how actually build this thing on the Moon.

794
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 1: What we would build it's out of how we get

795
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: the materials there, and then let's talk about what we

796
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: might learn from it and whether we think it's a

797
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: good idea. But first, let's take another quick break. I'm

798
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 1: going to drop some plans for the shapes I want

799
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: to see on the moon. All right, we're back, and

800
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: we're talking about scribbling on the face of the Moon.

801
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: Is that a good idea? I did draw a kittyicap

802
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: that I think people will like universally. So would that

803
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: require building little ears let's stick off the top of

804
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: the moon. That doesn't sound expensive at all. I'm sure

805
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: we do that it'll be worth it. So, you know,

806
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: we do have realistic plans to build the next collider,

807
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:50,360
Speaker 1: the hundred TV collider, it's a hundred kilometers long, and

808
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: thoughts about how much it might cost cost about a

809
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars using current technology, current magnets and current

810
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: RF technology and the detectors and all that stuff, which

811
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: sounds like a huge amount of money, And it's definitely

812
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: a good political question to ask, like is that worth

813
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: spending our money on? Which we can dig into. But

814
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 1: when you're talking about building a collider on the Moon,

815
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:14,879
Speaker 1: something that's thousands of times bigger than even the large

816
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: Hadron collider or that next collider, you have to wonder

817
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: like how much is this thing gotta caused? And where

818
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: can you even get the materials? Like how do you

819
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: actually go about building this thing on the moon? Do

820
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: we even have enough fuel to transport that amount of

821
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: materials to the Moon. So people have gone through this

822
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 1: exercise and wondered about that very question, and just like

823
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:39,839
Speaker 1: that with the question of power, I think the best

824
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,319
Speaker 1: idea is not to find the stuff on Earth and

825
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: lifted to the Moon, because that would be incredibly expensive

826
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: every launch is, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars,

827
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 1: but instead to try to build it with the materials

828
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: that are already on the Moon. So, for example, one

829
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 1: of the most difficult elements of a particle collider are

830
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: these magnets. Magnet are hard to build and hard to

831
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 1: make powerful, and so we tend to use super conducting magnets,

832
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: magnets that have very very low resistance, so they have

833
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: very very high magnetic fields when you power them with electricity.

834
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: But a lot of these use rare Earth elements, things

835
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:19,439
Speaker 1: like gatolinium or euterium or other elements I don't even

836
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 1: know how to pronounce. And because they're rare Earth elements,

837
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: they are rare and there's not a lot of them,

838
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: and there are other industries that want these things, like

839
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 1: battery industries, which are going gangbusters here on Earth, and

840
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 1: so it'd be hard to like divert a huge amount

841
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 1: of Earth's rare earth elements and launch it up to

842
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: the Moon. Current estimates are that you'd need like sixties

843
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: six hundred tons of rare Earth elements to make the

844
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,959
Speaker 1: super conducting magnets you'd need for this collider on the Moon,

845
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: So that sounds like a no go for sure. So

846
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: le mean, guess there's got to be a planet out

847
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: there somewhere with like giant blue, really attractive aliens where

848
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: they have all these rare metals abundance that we can plunder.

849
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: That's right, but they are charging an arm and a

850
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 1: leg literally. Yeah, you know, there might be asteroids out

851
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: there filled with these rare Earth elements, and there's a

852
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: whole fun question about like mining those asteroids and what

853
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: you can do with them. And eventually, if we do

854
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: build heavy space industry, we will have to tap into

855
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: those resources because it's ridiculous to launch these things from

856
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: the gravity well of the Earth. You definitely want to

857
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 1: find them already out there. But then there's that whole

858
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: other question who owns these asteroids and how you regulate

859
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: that complicated question. But people think that the Moon might

860
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: have other materials which would make for good magnets, like

861
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: probably there is a lot of iron on the Moon,

862
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: because you know, there's iron all over the Solar system.

863
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 1: Most of the rocky stuff that's out there in the

864
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,880
Speaker 1: Solar system has huge quantities of iron and nickel, And

865
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: people are working on technology where you can combine iron

866
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: with arsenic and with phosphorus to make iron based superconductors.

867
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: And so it might be possible eventually, when we're ready

868
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: to build this thing, to find a way to build

869
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: it using materials that are already on the Moon. So

870
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: we would need moon miners to be up there, and

871
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: so would we send humans up to go work on

872
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 1: the Moon or would that be the job of robots?

873
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,839
Speaker 1: And then should the robots have labor rights? They should

874
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: definitely get royalties, you know, for the songs they write

875
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:18,359
Speaker 1: while working on the moon collider, like the classic one

876
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: zero zero zero one zero one, which is covered by

877
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: one zero one zero zero zero one exactly. That has

878
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: got quite a beat. No, it's a real question, you know,

879
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: we're talking about building lunar infrastructure anyway, like a smoon collider. Aside,

880
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 1: NASA wants to have effectively a permanent presence on the

881
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: Moon by later this decade, and so we're talking about

882
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: having people up there. But I think that a lot

883
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: of this work would be pretty dangerous, and so you'd

884
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:47,879
Speaker 1: want robotic miners and robotic construction. And this is not

885
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 1: something we know how to do today or tomorrow or

886
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: even really project about when we'll be able to figure

887
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: it out. But a project of this size would require

888
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 1: either an enormous labor force or rob audit mining and construction.

889
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: So I think you definitely want to go to the

890
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 1: robotic side. Have you seen that movie Moon? I have

891
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,759
Speaker 1: seen that movie that with a guy like gets in

892
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: a time lapse or like kills various copies of himself

893
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, yeah, spoilers alert if you ever want

894
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: to see it. But yeah, so there's this guy who

895
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: is on the moon doing basically moon mining work like

896
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,359
Speaker 1: we're talking about, and spoiler alert in case you haven't

897
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 1: seen it yet. He turns out he is just one

898
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 1: clone in an endless line of clones. The mistake happens

899
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,839
Speaker 1: where there are two clones at once, and so you know,

900
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 1: plot ensues. But it is an interesting idea of like

901
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:44,320
Speaker 1: the ethics of you know, his original bodies signed away

902
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 1: his rights to these clones, and now this endless line

903
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: of clones who don't know their clones are laboring on

904
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: the Moon. But the I guess, in terms of our conversation,

905
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: the question of is it ethical to have a labor

906
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 1: force on the moon because what kind of quality of

907
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:04,479
Speaker 1: life would people lead and would people feel pressured into

908
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: doing it due to, you know, the need for money,

909
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: and is that right? It's a great question. And you

910
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:12,839
Speaker 1: definitely have to have enough protections for those folks who

911
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,720
Speaker 1: the Moon is a pretty inhospitable place and the cancer

912
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: rates would be a lot higher because you don't have

913
00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: atmospheric protections or magnetic fields, so you need a lot

914
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: of shielding and definitely be very dangerous. You need people

915
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: to be fully informed for sure before they went up

916
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 1: there to work on this project, something that reams and

917
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: reams of lawyers. I'm sure we'll be arguing about for

918
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: a decade if we ever decided to build this thing.

919
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 1: And you know, it's hard to even figure out, like

920
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:40,080
Speaker 1: what would a price tag be for a project like this.

921
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: You know, the large HHN collider cost ten billion dollars.

922
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:47,880
Speaker 1: If you just scale that up like per meter per kilometer,

923
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 1: then you get a number for the Moon collider like

924
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: almost two trillion dollars, which even in units of aircraft

925
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: carriers is a very very big number. And what that

926
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: tells you is not this is something we should never do.

927
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: It's we can't do this today like our current technology.

928
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: It would just be insane. But humans don't just sit

929
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,319
Speaker 1: around where clever species. We come up with innovations, and

930
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 1: so that number comes from like needing all those magnets, well,

931
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: maybe we can come up with cheaper magnets and needing

932
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: all that power, well, maybe we can come up with

933
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: a way to make accelerators that don't require so much power,

934
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 1: more effective ways to accelerate particles. And so I think

935
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: between us and crazy big astronomical colliders, we need a

936
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: lot of layers of innovation, a lot of clever new

937
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: ideas for how to make this technology more feasible. Maybe

938
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 1: colliders will go the way of phones and go from

939
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,479
Speaker 1: being a big giant brick to being a little little

940
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: pocket collider that you can I guess that kind of

941
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 1: goes against our whole earlier premise though, if it needs

942
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 1: to be big and moon sized, but maybe more a

943
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 1: more efficient collider. No, you're absolutely right. If you could

944
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 1: develop incredibly powerful magnets, then you could have small colliders,

945
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: even if they're high energy. The only reason that collider

946
00:50:58,040 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: has to be big is because our magnets are not

947
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 1: powerful enough to curve particles in smaller loops, like you

948
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:07,080
Speaker 1: could have particles moving in a one meter loop at

949
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: the energies of the large hadron collider if you had

950
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 1: powerful enough magnets we just don't. If you had powerful

951
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: enough acceleration technology that we just don't have. But that

952
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:18,920
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's impossible. And so the dream, of course

953
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: is to come up with some new technology that makes

954
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:23,799
Speaker 1: a moon collider ridiculous, so you can have your own

955
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 1: table top large hadron collider where you build one the

956
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: size of a tennis court that has the power that

957
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 1: we're talking about for a moon collider, that would be fantastic.

958
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 1: And I think you know, a moon collider is a

959
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: pretty ridiculous project, and the real way forward is to

960
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 1: push hard on these technologies and try to innovate there

961
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: and to make the next layer of energy accessible with

962
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: better technology rather than just bigger. I like that, and

963
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to all of us being able to

964
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: get our own pocket collider, which is very convenient but

965
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:58,840
Speaker 1: also completely obliterates your phone and also probably your body

966
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: with the radiation but you know the convenience. That's right, man,

967
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 1: My collider is running so slow. I guess I need

968
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 1: to upgrade my phone. But I do think that these

969
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: projects are important, even though they are currently expensive, even

970
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: with our current technology. You know, there are questions out

971
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:19,359
Speaker 1: there that we just don't have answers to, but that

972
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,359
Speaker 1: we could get And to me, this is a kind

973
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 1: of exploration. You know, the same reason that we want

974
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: to land on alien planets and walk around and see

975
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: what's there is the same reason that we want to

976
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 1: make collisions at higher energy. Every time you build a

977
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 1: collider with more energy than anybody's ever done before, it's

978
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: like exploring another planet. You don't know what's going to

979
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 1: come out of it. When you smash those particles together.

980
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:45,439
Speaker 1: You could see nothing like the way you could land

981
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: on a planet and just see rocks and dust, or

982
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:51,360
Speaker 1: you could see crazy new particles, supersymmetry or many black

983
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: holes are all sorts of secrets of the universe could

984
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: just pour out of it and we just don't know.

985
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,879
Speaker 1: And it's exploration because we have no idea if those

986
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: secrets are around the corner, Like if we build a

987
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,320
Speaker 1: collider twice as powerful as the LHC. Would we discover

988
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: these things or if they're really really far away and

989
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:10,479
Speaker 1: we need a really really big collider to find them.

990
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:13,359
Speaker 1: We don't yet know how far away these answers are,

991
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: so we don't know how much money we have to spend,

992
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: which is what makes us want to go big. I mean,

993
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: it seems like instead of having this opposition between well,

994
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: we can't spend resources on colliders or this kind of

995
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,840
Speaker 1: really expensive science because we need those resources for people now,

996
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: it really is more the joy of life is things

997
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:40,480
Speaker 1: like new discovery, and so we need to make sure

998
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: that humanity is healthy and living good lives so we

999
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:50,240
Speaker 1: can someday just make these discoveries and enhance the human

1000
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 1: experience more. I think it can all go hand in

1001
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: hand rather than being an opposition to each other. Absolutely,

1002
00:53:57,480 --> 00:53:59,839
Speaker 1: and just the same way looking at the bridge inspires

1003
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: people and makes children wonder like, Wow, what can we

1004
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:05,160
Speaker 1: build in the future. I think that as a species,

1005
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 1: we should be trying to do things at the edge

1006
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 1: of our capability, things that twenty years ago seemed impossible.

1007
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: We should be striving for that. That's really progress, and

1008
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: I think that it serves all of humanity. You know,

1009
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:19,799
Speaker 1: the same way. Like we wonder why would you spend

1010
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 1: money on art, it's because it improves the human experience. Well,

1011
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:25,720
Speaker 1: why do you try to answer deep questions about the universe?

1012
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 1: Not just because one day it might give you some

1013
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: technological spinoff, but because understanding the nature of the universe

1014
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,759
Speaker 1: improves the human experience. It's part of who we are

1015
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: to try to understand the world around us and unravel

1016
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 1: its mysteries. So I totally agree with you, And it's

1017
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 1: not a question of like, should we spend our money

1018
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,919
Speaker 1: on this or that? In my view, we should spend

1019
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: our money on all of these things. You know, these

1020
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 1: things are cheap compared to all the things we do

1021
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: spend money on, and they pay off so much economically, educationally, inspirationally,

1022
00:54:57,280 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 1: it's definitely worth the investment. So if you are out

1023
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: there and you have rivers of money you could divert somewhere,

1024
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:06,919
Speaker 1: please send some money to science. It pays for itself. Less,

1025
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: fewer giant hammers for war, more giant hammers for smashing

1026
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,399
Speaker 1: atoms and studying them. Wow, that sounds like a good

1027
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:16,040
Speaker 1: campaign slogan for running for president of the Moon. Yeah,

1028
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:18,359
Speaker 1: would you endorse me? Is for President of the Moon.

1029
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 1: I'll wear a really fancy hat. Well, you put me

1030
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:24,120
Speaker 1: on the spot, but yes, absolutely I will back your

1031
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: candidacy for presidency of the Moon. And I'm looking forward

1032
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 1: to the first debate among the candidates going to be

1033
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 1: between me and super intelligent Tarte grades on the Moon.

1034
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: They ask a lot of good questions, all right, So

1035
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:39,920
Speaker 1: thanks very much for joining us for this fun exploration

1036
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: of a crazy idea of building a particle collider on

1037
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 1: the Moon. I think all in all it's something which

1038
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:50,680
Speaker 1: we could do that we would be massively expensive without innovations,

1039
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:52,879
Speaker 1: but it's not clear that it's something we should do.

1040
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 1: There are lots of ethical questions and questions about how

1041
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 1: to best spend our resources. But what is clear is

1042
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:00,879
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of big stories out there

1043
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: in the universe, and with just a little more ingenuity

1044
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,080
Speaker 1: and a little bit of effort and a little bit

1045
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:09,400
Speaker 1: more resources devoted to science, we could actually get answers

1046
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: to some of them. Thanks very much, Katy for joining us.

1047
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: Let us know how your campaign for President of the

1048
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 1: Moon goes. Thank you so much, and I will let

1049
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: you know I'll probably need about a hundred billion dollars

1050
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: in donations before I get there, but I'm sure it's achievable.

1051
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: All right. We'll let you all know when Katie's website

1052
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:28,800
Speaker 1: is up so you can send your some donations. Thanks

1053
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: again for joining us. Tune in next time. Thank you

1054
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: for having me. Bye, guys, Thanks for listening, and remember

1055
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 1: that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production

1056
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio or more podcast. For my heart Radio,

1057
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1058
00:56:51,920 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.