WEBVTT - How do you spot a wormhole? 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:03.320 Hey, it Jorhan Daniel here, and we want to tell 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.880 you about our new book. It's called Frequently Asked Questions 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.719 about the Universe because you have questions about the universe, 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.399 and so we decided to write a book all about them. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:14.800 We talk about your questions, we give some answers, we 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.520 make a bunch of silly jokes as usual, and we 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.159 tackle all kinds of questions, including what happens if I 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.880 fall into a black hole? Or is there another version 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.480 of you out there that's right? Like usual, we tackle 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.960 the deepest, darkest, biggest, craziest questions about this incredible cosmos. 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:31.800 If you want to support the podcast, please get the 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:33.879 book and get a copy not just for yourself, but 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:39.360 you know, for your nieces and nephews, cousins, friends, parents, dogs, hamsters, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.640 and for the aliens. So get your copy of Frequently 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.440 Asked Questions about the Universe is available for pre order now, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.239 coming out November two. You can find more details at 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.160 the book's website, Universe f a Q dot com. Thanks 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.000 for your support, and if you have a hamster that 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.240 can read, please let us know. We'd love to have 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:10.840 them on the podcast. Hey or hey, would you be 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.399 willing to take the ultimate cosmic bungee jump. I do 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.080 like to bungee jump. But is there a safety equipment 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.480 here involved? Do I get to wear a helmet and 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:24.360 have some liability insurance? Oh no, there are absolutely no guarantees. 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.479 It's just you and a wormhole. You're gonna take the jump, 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.440 just me and the warm hole, and let even close 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.360 in my wearing clothes. All right, I'll give you a space, dude. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.320 All right, Well, that's a tough question, you know. I mean, 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.360 on the one hand, there could be something amazing on 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.600 the other side. On the other hand, I could, you know, 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.120 be shredded to bits before I even go in, or 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:47.560 maybe the thing will collapse while I'm going through it, 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:49.800 or maybe i'll I don't know, take me to a 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.120 black hole. All right, Well, you're standing on the edge. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.280 Time to make your decision? Are you going in? I 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.360 think I'll be polite and let the physicists go in 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.080 first after you. Daniel, this is this our sign, just 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.040 not the subjects. Well, you can multitask, then you can 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.559 be the first to study it, sending my paper from 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.600 within the wormhole. You can have a loophole within the wormhole. 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.560 Hi am or Hamman cartoonists and the creator of PhD comments. Hi, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.360 I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.000 U c Irne. And I've never written a paper from 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.880 inside a wormhole? Interesting? What holes have you written papers 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.840 from inside of? Sometimes my office feels like a black hole. 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:44.080 You know, he can't actually get out. Oh, no information 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.360 comes in. Grad students go in, nothing comes out. Undergrads 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.519 come in, but they do escape, and usually with actually 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:51.960 more information than they came in. So maybe my office 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.440 is actually a white hole. Yeah, maybe you're just admitting 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.600 hawking radiation or Hawking graduate students, whites and radiation or 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.440 Daniel tegious physics. It is a white holy because your 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.760 your wife, your son of white. But welcome to our podcast, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.400 Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.160 Heart Radio in which we emit all kinds of crazy 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.080 radiation from our brains into yours. We try to boil 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.640 down everything in the universe and explain what we know 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.160 and what we don't know to you, because the universe 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.440 presents enormous, cosmic, amazing mysteries that are just fun to 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.840 think about, fun to explore, fun to wonder about, and 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.799 that's what we do with this podcast, is that we 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.280 marin it in the joy of our cluelessness and the 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.600 small amount of knowledge that we do have about the universe, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:37.840 and share all of it with you. Yeah, it is 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.240 a wondrous universe, and we like to dive in and 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.200 take a journey and try to worm all of this 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.880 information and knowledge into your ears and into your brains. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.040 You could say we are creating an informational wormhole from 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:53.360 our brains to yours. Yeah, we're connecting all of these 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.119 brains across the planet together in a way right through 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.760 electromagnetic radiation. Absolutely, And you know that's mostly a joke, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:02.640 but there are people out there who say that every 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.440 bit of quantum entanglement, every bit of quantum interaction, is 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.720 actually a mini wormhole between particles. And so while we 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.760 joke about it, it could technically actually be true that 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.960 we are creating wormholes from our brains to our listeners. Yeah. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.159 And so the universe has been surprising ever since we 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.440 started studying in with interesting and incredible things like black 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.520 holes and quasars and nutron stars, and so people and 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.000 scientists wonder if there are more interesting kinds of things. 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.600 We still haven't seen out there. We know there are 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:32.720 things out there we haven't seen. Every time we turn 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:34.480 on a new kind of eyeball look out in the 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.200 universe and the new telescope, we find things out there 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.040 that we never expected. So the story of the universe 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.520 is one of constant surprise, of constantly going beyond the 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.120 edge of our imagination and shocking us with the crazy 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.159 things that reality has waiting for us. Yeah, we are 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.120 eager to discover these crazy surprises. And one of the 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.799 things that might be out there there are pretty interesting 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.520 and could actually solve a lot of problems is this 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.320 concept of a wormhole. Oh yeah, what kind of problems 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.800 could wormhole solve? Like vacuum cleaners, Well, you know, I 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.800 could fertilize our space compost. That's what warms do, and 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.160 they could feed the space birds. That brings up an 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.200 interesting question because in compost piles it's mostly the warm castings, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.200 to use the fly phrase, that fertilize the ground. And 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.160 so are you suggesting that wormholes also like have some 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.720 sort of product. Yeah, if you come out the other 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.839 end of a wormhole, you are technically warmhole poop. You're 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.480 transformed into something and nourishing now to fertilize the rest 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:33.520 of space, and you probably have been scrambled, and so 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.400 you are there for universe compost. I guess you could 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.000 say that actually we are all made out of stars 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.279 that have been composted right to allow for refertilization, and 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.320 so we are all made out of star compost. I 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.520 think we're pushing out the analogy. But the idea is 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.440 that there might be wormholes out there. And you know, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.800 I guess the problems I was thinking about was space travel. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:54.680 You know, like, how are we ever going to get 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.120 to another galaxy that's millions of light years away, or 0:05:58.120 --> 0:05:59.920 even just to the other side of our galaxy, which 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.320 hundreds of thousands of light years away, Like even if 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.200 you went at the speed of light, which is impossible, 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.920 it would still take four hundred thousand years to get 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.279 to the outside. Yeah, space is impossibly vast, and the 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.120 speed of lights, though it seems fast, it's actually slow 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.880 compared to the distances involved. So you're right, Actually getting 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.600 around this incredible universe would require millions of years. And 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.560 so if we could somehow connect places in space from 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.440 here to there, so the distances between them were shorter 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.880 than we originally thought we could drive through a loophole 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.280 using wormholes to get there, and so indeed, it would 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.920 be exciting if wormholes were there, But on the other hand, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.440 it might be dangerous. It would mean that other places 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.320 in the universe could come to find us more rapidly. 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.360 What if we just don't answer the door, you know, 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.599 or page the wormho on our Yeah, I don't know. 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.160 The wormholes have doors or locks on them, right, We 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.800 can't just like somebody's ringing the doorbell on the other side. 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.080 You can't just like, you know, not answer it. Well, 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.800 in movies and science fiction movies, they use wormholes a lot. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.599 I feel especially they're recently right, I feel like they 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.320 don't use warp drives anymore than now. They use wormholes. 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.080 And it always looks like a giant ring that opens 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.320 up some kind of like energy door, and then you 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.120 go through the door and you appear on the other 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.320 side in another part of the galaxy. It's like star 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.320 Gate or something. Yes, star Gate that was the original wormhole, right, 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.160 And they're all over the place in Rick and Morty 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:19.720 if you watch that shows, it's like wormhole Bananza man. 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.000 So they're used a lot, and they seem pretty simple 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.760 on TV and on the movie screen, right, you just 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.880 kind of walk through them. Yeah, you can like look 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.160 through them, you can toss stuff through them. They seem 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.720 to just sort of like connect to places in space 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.160 and in time, and often they like not surrounded by anything, 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:37.920 you know, there's just there or maybe they have like 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.360 a small mechanical frame for whatever device is creating them. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.520 So yeah, they're pretty simple stuff. And so that would 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.200 solve a lot of problems in terms of space travel 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.360 and galactic travel and universe travel. But I guess the 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.239 question is do they really exist and if they did, 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.560 could we make one or find one at all? Right, 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.440 it's a fun question like what if there are wormholes 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.760 all over the universe? Where if they exist naturally, would 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.240 we even know? Would it be possible, could there be 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.400 one floating around in our solar system? How could we 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.400 even tell? So to be on the podcast, we'll be 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:18.840 asking the question, how do you spot a wormhole? How 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:20.440 do you find a spot on a wormhole? Or how 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.320 do you find a spot on a wormhole? No, it's 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:24.560 more like you're driving down the freeway and you're looking 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.920 for an exit, you know, so you're like, where's my exit. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.120 So now you're like, I gotta get to Alpha Centauri. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.880 Where is the nearest wormhole? It's like, where's this nearest 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.600 subway station in Manhattan or something. You know, you got 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.200 to look for the little sign and tells you they're 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.080 stepped down. Just follow the rats. So the question is 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.200 how do you find a wormhole? Especially, I guess even 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.160 more difficult this how do you find a wormhole that 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:46.120 takes you where you want to go? Yeah, that is 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.800 a good question. I think let's start with like finding 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.640 wormholes at all, and then we'll talk about planning trips 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.160 and you know, bringing much. Well, well, I kind of 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:56.760 want to know where I'm going for a Daniel, you 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:58.640 mean we're just going to jump into this podcast without 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.440 knowing where we're going. That's another really funny question. But 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:04.599 you know, look, we'll pack enough snacks so we'll be 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.760 fine no matter where we end up. All right, that's good. 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.080 So anyways, it's usually we were wondering how many people 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.720 out there maybe had an idea about how to find 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.520 a warmhole or had heard of an idea about how 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.840 to find one. So Danny went out there into the 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:21.079 internet to ask people, could we ever detect a nearby wormhole, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.000 And so in the depths of these strange times, I'm 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:28.040 very grateful to everybody who's answering questions online and participating 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.080 in the podcast. We are soon opening up campus here 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.560 you see irvines. I'll be walking around campus asking people 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.200 in person. But if you'd like to participate online, you 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.000 are still very welcome. Just right to me. Two questions 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.680 at Daniel and Jorge dot com. So think about it 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:44.760 for a second. If you are looking for a warmhole, 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.800 how would you find it? Here's what people had to say. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.480 Probably it's emitting some kind of radiation. If it's a wormhole, 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.600 it's probably emitting some kind of lights. And maybe if 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:59.959 it's interacting with other very massive things than some gravitational radiation. 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:07.000 What is lately a lot of movies showing UFOs and 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:12.640 it looks like the Navy said they confirmed that they 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.280 are UFOs that they know. I don't know what they are. 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:20.400 Probably somebody came through a wormhole and forgot to close it. Well, 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.000 technically there's no way to know. Well, aless, you on 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.720 Earth and you have a very talent the hole which 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.600 would take you. If outside this window there was a 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:32.440 worm hole, how would you know there was a worm 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:37.120 all over there well afternoons, open the window and watch. 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.120 That's true. I do not think we could detect a 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:47.199 nearby wormhole. Hmm, interesting question. I don't know if we 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.960 could be able to detect a wormhole because I don't 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:55.320 even know if they made any light or radiation. So 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.719 I actually think if there were a wormhole nearby that 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:05.120 we probably wouldn't be able to detect it, unless maybe 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.480 we were super close and could observe some of the 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.640 effects directly. I'm not sure we wouldn't be able to 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.640 detect it, but we might be able to observe it. 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.400 For instance, if there was a new group of stars 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.640 or a new constellation of stars that we've not seen before, 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:28.080 maybe that could lead to the discovery of a wormhole. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.240 I think one possible way to do it is to 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.760 basically shoot beam of light and kind of measure how 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.920 far it goes into that warm hole. But I'm actually 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.040 thinking about it again. Maybe a better response would be 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.880 if we could detect the gravity coming from that location. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.040 Um that we did that we think that holds there probably, 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.199 I think is the best response here. Well, I guess yes, Um, 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:57.880 we would see the gravitational distortion. If there's something behind it, 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.080 a cluster of stars or something, than we would see 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.079 a sort of lensing effect. Yeah, if it collides with 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.840 something big then like another wormhole, I guess we could 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:12.920 have gravitational waves to see them. But I guess that's it, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.559 all right, A lot of polarized questions. People are like yes, 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:21.560 some people are like no, possible. Nobody said like maybe maybe, 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:23.240 I don't know. There need to be a lot of 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.839 confidence here. Yeah, some people are skeptical that wormholes couldn't 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.560 even exist in our universe, right, right, And we have 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.640 a whole podcast about what a warm hole is, right, absolutely, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.480 we do. We talked about the science of it. We 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.360 have another podcast about white holes, and lots of podcasts 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.240 about black holes and all these fun concepts. Which holes 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.760 haven't we talked about so many holes that we should 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.800 never talk about. Yeah, it's not that kind of podcast. 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.720 We're not explaining that kind of universe. No, We've done 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.360 the white, the black, the worm There's no gray holes 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.199 in physics as far as I'm aware. Blue holes, red holes. 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:58.920 Somebody's got to come up with the theory of blue 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.080 holes and red holes. Should just go with that. You know, 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:02.680 do it the other way around. Start with a cool 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.720 name and then form a physics theory around it. What 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.440 do you mean, start the other way around? That's how 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:11.200 they usually start. Man people like supersymmetry. Is that a thing, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.280 Let's make that a thing that sounds cool. That sounds cool, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.080 Let's devote my life to it. And for example, Higgs 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.440 obviously had a name before he had a particle, right, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.079 so he's like, I'm gonna invent the Higgs boson whatever 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.960 it is. Interesting. He knew when he was little that 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.080 he was going to discover that the story is totally bunk. 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.800 He was not such an immodest person. He didn't name 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.320 it the Higgs boson. Somebody else coined that phase later 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:35.440 in the literature. So I do not mean to malign 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.760 Peter Higgs. I see, well, in your case, you should 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.120 just study white holes because your name is white Sun, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.080 so he could be the whites and white hole. No, 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:44.760 I want to discover a particle and call it the 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.600 white song. Oh there you go, So I already got 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.040 my name picked out. I just haven't found any particles yet. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.760 But then you then you're gonna have anti white sons. 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:00.319 Isn't that you aren't you an anti whit sun. I'm 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.480 not an anti white sun. I'm a supersymmetry. Yeah, I'm 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.120 a s white sun. There you go, a supersymmetric whit sun, 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.280 like the other side of the coin. There you go. Together, 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.560 we complete the universe. But I think we should recap 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.800 today what a wormhole is because there might be people 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.720 out there who didn't listen to that podcast episode. So 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.520 I guess for our listeners, Daniel, how would you explain 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.200 what a wormhole is? Yeah, and I agree it's important 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.120 before we talk about how we find that we talk 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.440 about what exactly it is, because understanding what it is 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.720 and what it does is going to be crucial for 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.120 figuring out how to see it. So the simplest way 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.040 to think about a wormhole is just a connection between 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.880 two points in space time. And you know, we're used 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.760 to stuff being connected, but usually those connections are simple. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.600 Like you are in one point in space, you're connected 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.040 to the points in space around you, meaning you can 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.040 get to them from here. You can go forwards, you 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.280 can go backwards, you can go up, you can go down. 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.440 You're like connected to the nearby points in space time. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.600 And so now imagine if instead of just being connected 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.560 to things that are around you, you're somehow also connected 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.960 to something which otherwise is very very far away. These 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.440 are like non trivial connections. Instead of spacetime just being 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.120 like a nice mesh where everything is just connected to 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.400 the things right next to it, Instead you have these 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.680 weird shortcuts where one point in space is connected to 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.800 something which is otherwise very very far away. Right. That's 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.240 a pretty mind blowing concept, And a lot of people 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.920 use this analogy of like living in the roll of 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.600 toilet paper, right, Like, if our universe is sort of 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.280 like if you imagine it to be like a sheet 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.080 of paper, if you bring it down to two dimensions, 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.800 like we're living on a sheet, and then what happens 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.480 if you like bend the sheet and make two points 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.400 touch each other that are on paper far away from 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.320 each other. Yeah, well, you just came up with another 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.400 whole theory. This is Jorge's toilet whole theory of the universe. Yeah. No, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:51.920 I definitely have it on my bucket list to invent 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.360 any toilet. And these are helpful analogies, but they can 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.480 also be a little bit misleading. That analogy is helpful 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.320 because it makes you think about how points in space 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.840 that are far away can be close together. If you 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.160 think in another dimension, like you have a sheet of 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.320 paper and you have two points in space that are 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.040 far apart. Now fold that paper, so those two points 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.360 are close together. The thing that's misleading or confusing is 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.000 that the connection is now in some third dimension. You're 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:18.840 like folding this two D sheet of paper and a 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.080 third dimension bringing it closer in that third dimension. The 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.920 difference is that our space time doesn't fold in some 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.920 higher dimension. These connections we're talking about are intrinsic, not 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.400 external in some higher dimension. And so when we say 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.400 this point in space is nearby another point in space, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.400 we really just mean that the distance between these two 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.880 points is now small. It's just the same way that 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:43.119 like the bending of space time is intrinsic. It's not external. 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.880 You know, we have these analogies where somebody puts a 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.280 bowling ball on a rubber sheet to show you like 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.080 the bending of space, and again it shows you the 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.640 rubber sheet bending, but it's bending in some external third dimension. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.000 Where really happens when you have a mass in spaces 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:02.360 that space bends intrinsically. It just changes the relative distance 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.200 between points. There's no like super space in which space 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.280 is hanging out in and bending in that other dimension, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.000 and so here for wormholes. It's helpful, you know, maybe 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.639 to practice thinking in a higher dimension, but really this 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.600 bending happens just in our own dimensions. It's just it's 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.720 an internal intrinsic bending, a changing of the relative distances 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.320 between two points in space. Right, Well, I feel like 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.760 these analogies with the toilet paper and the sheet of 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.080 paper that bends, it just kind of helps you make 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.080 sense of it, right, because otherwise it just kind of 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.600 feels like magic, Like you're telling me, like space is 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.000 the same and it's not been like a sheet of paper. 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:39.639 It's just the way it is. But somehow, magically, my 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:42.640 point you're on the right is somewhow connected to Alpha Centauri, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.280 you know what I mean. Like it feels like magic. 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.320 It feels like magic, but that's because space is different 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.920 from what you imagine. Space can do things like that, 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.880 like he can change the distance between points, and that's 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.600 what space bending is. Space can also ripple and it 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.000 can expand. So it feels like magic because it's counterintuitive, 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.159 but space can do things that are not intuitive, that 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.720 are new and weird to us because we only recently 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.280 have a sense for what space is. Are you saying 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.199 then that, you know, maybe at this point on my 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.360 right here is bend so much that it actually touches 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.200 another point in alva centry. I'm saying that space can 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.639 do things like bend, which changed the relative distance between points, 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:21.600 sort of that photon, for example, appears to curve when 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.320 it goes near a planet. But also space can be 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.159 connected in non trivial ways. That the connection space can 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.919 have are not just like a big mesh where everything 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:32.919 is connected only to the things next to it, but 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.600 these connections can be weird and non trivial. General relativity, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.199 which tells us the rules for how space works and 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.760 what the curvature is, says that that kind of connection, 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.480 that kind of shape, right, not just like the curvature, 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.280 but the shape of space is allowed to have these 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.879 weird connections. Interesting theoretically, I guess like there's nothing in 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.439 the theories that says that they can't be connected in 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.320 this way through warmholes. But it's not something we see 0:18:57.320 --> 0:18:59.720 every day, right exactly, It's not something we've ever seen. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.199 These are only theoretical, But you know, theoretical explorations of 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.840 general relativity are really interesting and very fruitful. That's how 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.720 we discovered the idea of a black holes. That people 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.200 were looking at the equations and said, you know, if 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:14.159 these equations are true, if these are the ones that 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:16.760 tell us what space can do, then they allow space 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.760 to do this really really weird thing, like accumulating a 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.320 huge amount of mass and having an event horizon. So 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:24.400 that's where the concept of a black hole came from, 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.000 from these theoretical explorations of what can space do. So 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.479 it's a very fruitful way to explore, like the physics 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.240 of the possible universe. Right, except that on our last 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.000 episode you kind of convinced me that black holes don't exist. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.119 So now I don't believe anything you say. I have. 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:42.200 Black holes might not exist in our universe, but they 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.119 definitely exist in the universe of general relativity. We just 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.800 don't know if that actually is our universe. I see 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.400 there's a loophole here, there's another hole, another hole within 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.159 the hole. Is that loophole going to take you to 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.639 the toilet hole or the white hole or the wormhole? 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:00.639 Hopefully a whole we can out of I know, but 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:02.600 you have to listen to the whole episode to find 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:07.920 out the nice right. And also, wormholes are pretty interesting 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.719 because they cannot just connect points in space that are 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.640 far apart. They can also connect points in time. Yes, exactly, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.960 these are constructs in space time right where we're imagining 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.720 space has three of the dimensions of a four dimensional 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.200 object called space time, where time is the fourth dimension. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.480 And we know that relativity is this theory about how 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.160