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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what's the one thing you most want to

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Speaker 1: understand about the universe? I think I might say everything

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Speaker 1: does everything count? Is one thing? Well, it does if

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Speaker 1: we understand all of it together and how it's all

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Speaker 1: like connected, you mean, like how we're all one with

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Speaker 1: the universe? Man, exactly past the banana peels. Man, that's

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Speaker 1: the goal. So when you go through an ice cream

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Speaker 1: store and they say, pick one scoop of ice cream,

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Speaker 1: do you try to order everything? Also? Yeah, I do.

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Speaker 1: I try to convince them of my unifying theory of

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Speaker 1: ice cream, you know that unifying your veins to right,

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Speaker 1: and do my best to bring it all together. Well,

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Speaker 1: at least it's insightful and delicious. Hi am Jorge. I'm

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Speaker 1: made cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics. Hi I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and I eat a lot less

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Speaker 1: ice cream than I thought I would when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid. What do you mean you had a projection

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Speaker 1: as a kid and you're not meeting the expectations. No,

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Speaker 1: when you're a kid and you think, Wow, when I

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Speaker 1: grow up and I get to decide what I eat,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna eat ice cream all day. But turns

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Speaker 1: out that's not really what I want. Really, what happened?

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Speaker 1: You change your mind? You haven't found your perfect ice

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Speaker 1: cream flavor yet. Maybe I just ate too much ice

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Speaker 1: cream in college and I'm just done. Oh so you did,

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Speaker 1: I accomplish your goal. It's just that you know, you

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Speaker 1: found out that once you achieve your goals, then you

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Speaker 1: know life goes on. Yeah, maybe I blew through that

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Speaker 1: one a little too quick, and I gotta move on

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Speaker 1: to something else. I maybe it's the opposite. Life stops

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Speaker 1: going on, and you eat too much ice cream and

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Speaker 1: you realize that maybe that's it. Maybe life should be

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Speaker 1: measured in scoops of ice cream. Maybe everybody lives the

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Speaker 1: same number of scoops of ice cream and you blew

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Speaker 1: it all in your twenties. But welcome to our podcast.

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio in which we try to take a big

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Speaker 1: scoop out of the universe. We serve you up a

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Speaker 1: delicious ball of sweet sweet understanding of the mysteries of

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Speaker 1: the universe. We talk about everything that's out there in space,

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Speaker 1: the crazy stuff colliding and producing gold, the weird stuff

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Speaker 1: in tiny little particles. We think about where it all

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Speaker 1: came from, where it's all going, and what it's all

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Speaker 1: gonna do, and we try to make sure all of

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Speaker 1: it makes sense to you with a cherry on top

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Speaker 1: and some sprint. Because even ice cream is made out

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Speaker 1: of physics, right, The ice cream is made out of particles,

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Speaker 1: which are made out of subparticles, which are made out

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Speaker 1: of sub subparticles. Try the same particles that everything else

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Speaker 1: in the universe is made out of. Stars, planets, moons, asteroids.

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Speaker 1: It's all sort of one big, continuous, giant, delicious, mostly

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Speaker 1: frozen universe with sprinkles on top. Absolutely, it's amazing, Yes,

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Speaker 1: But this picture that we can take the universe and

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Speaker 1: like reduce it to tiny particles so far seems to work.

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Speaker 1: All the crazy stuff that's out there, it seems so different,

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Speaker 1: but we can explain most of it by boiling it

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Speaker 1: down to a few little bits and how those bits

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Speaker 1: fit together. And you know why, I don't know why

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Speaker 1: we live in the universe like that. It could have

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Speaker 1: been that we lived in a different kind of universe,

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Speaker 1: one where every kind of thing has its own particle.

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Speaker 1: And you don't really get any simplification when you try

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Speaker 1: to take it down to the lower level. But fortunately

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Speaker 1: we do live in a sort of lego universe where

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Speaker 1: there are a few basic building blocks and everything comes

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Speaker 1: out of the arrangements of those. Yeah, it is pretty

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Speaker 1: odd to think about, right, Like, even frogs are made

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Speaker 1: of the same thing as you know, quasars and giant

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Speaker 1: asteroids floating in space. It's all sort of made out

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Speaker 1: of the same little bits and pieces. And it's not

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Speaker 1: just like the same types of bits. It's actually the

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Speaker 1: same bits and a basically the same proportions. You have

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Speaker 1: the same ratio of protons, neutrons, and electrons and basically

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Speaker 1: every element and every element it makes everything. And that

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Speaker 1: means that basically everything you've ever eaten is just a

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Speaker 1: different arrangements of the same number of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it seems like there aren't that many of those particles,

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Speaker 1: right Like, as far as we know, the standard theory

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Speaker 1: of physics says that right now, we think there are

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Speaker 1: about only what is it, twelve particles in the entire universe. Well,

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Speaker 1: it sort of depends on how you ask, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: most of the stuff we see out there in the

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Speaker 1: universe is made out of only three of them of

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Speaker 1: quirks down corks, which give you protons and neutrons, and

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Speaker 1: then electrons. You only need those three to make most

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Speaker 1: of the stuff. But then we have found other particles,

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Speaker 1: and you're right, we're up to twelve now matter particles.

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Speaker 1: But we don't know if those twelve particles are actually fundamental,

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Speaker 1: if they're made of something smaller, or if there are

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Speaker 1: more particles out there. There could be like twelve million particles.

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Speaker 1: We just haven't found most of them yet. I guess

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like how we, you know, discovered the

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Speaker 1: periodic table of the elements at some point, and we

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Speaker 1: thought we had everything figured out, and then it turned

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Speaker 1: out that each of those elements is actually like a

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Speaker 1: copy or a repeat of the same sort of smaller

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Speaker 1: particles electrons, protons, and neutrons, And even though it turned

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Speaker 1: out to be made out of other particles. And another

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Speaker 1: flabbergasting and amazing fact of the philosophy of science is

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Speaker 1: that we seem to be able to understand the universe

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Speaker 1: differently but effectively. All of these different levels like chemistry

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Speaker 1: kind of makes sense, right. You don't need to know

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Speaker 1: all the details of the particles for that to work,

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Speaker 1: and then you drill down into the atomic physics and

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Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense, and nuclear physics makes sense,

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Speaker 1: and then you get down to like the tiny, tiny

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Speaker 1: particle physics, and there's all these sort of layers at

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Speaker 1: which you can think about the universe made of pieces,

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Speaker 1: and the rules of those pieces are understandable. But we

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Speaker 1: can also drill down and find even smaller pieces. So

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Speaker 1: it's incredible to me that there are these layers of understanding.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to go all the way to the

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Speaker 1: tiniest bits in order to make sense of the universe

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Speaker 1: around you. And just like how you use the word flabbergasting,

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Speaker 1: I am flabbergasted. I am grateful and amazed that the

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Speaker 1: univers is sensible. You know, sometimes listeners right to me

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Speaker 1: and they ask, like, do you think it's possible for

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Speaker 1: us to understand the universe? That one day far in

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Speaker 1: the future humans will understand everything? And you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know the answer to that. Obviously we can't know,

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Speaker 1: But you know, I don't think dogs will understand the universe.

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Speaker 1: We're a little smarter than dogs, but I don't think

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Speaker 1: we're maximally smart. So there's certainly a chance that we won't,

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Speaker 1: so I'm just kind of grateful and flabbergasted that we

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Speaker 1: figured anything out right. I think maybe dogs understand the

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Speaker 1: universe to the extent that it serves them, you know,

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Speaker 1: like most dogs probably feel like they have a pretty

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Speaker 1: good sense of the universe around them and they are uncomfortable.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's it's our future, you know. We'll just understand

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Speaker 1: it as far as getting our treats and our rubs

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Speaker 1: and the tummy go, and then maybe we'll stop. Well.

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Speaker 1: I think dogs would definitely be better off if they

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Speaker 1: were smarter. Like my dog thinks that every time the

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Speaker 1: refrigerator opens, it's getting a treat, but that's definitely not true.

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Speaker 1: And if it understood, like you know, how to open

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Speaker 1: the fridge on its own, or what time of day

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Speaker 1: typically gets a treat, or what it should do to

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Speaker 1: encourage us to give it a treat, I think we'd

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Speaker 1: get more treats and waste less time. Yeah, but then

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Speaker 1: you just eat ice cream all day, Daniel. Maybe dogs

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Speaker 1: are smarter than you think. I'm pretty sure a dog

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Speaker 1: would eat ice cream all day. Have the chance, let's

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Speaker 1: do that experiment. Let's put some ice cream in front

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Speaker 1: of a dog and see what happens. Maybe the key

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Speaker 1: to happiness, Daniel, is not getting what you want, to

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Speaker 1: be optimistic about getting what you want. Maybe dogs are

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Speaker 1: one with the universe more than we are. Well, maybe

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Speaker 1: this is turning into a dog psychology podcast. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: the dog whispering philosophizing Daniel and Jorge explain your pets

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Speaker 1: to you. Oh my god, that is a winning podcast idea.

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Speaker 1: Let's pive it here, Daniel, your cat is really just

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Speaker 1: not that into you. Yeah, and now tell me about

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Speaker 1: your rats. Do they get flabbergasted as well? Our rats

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Speaker 1: have unfortunately passed away because rats only live a couple

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Speaker 1: of years. They're wonderful pets. They're smart, they're intelligent, they're responsive,

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Speaker 1: they're actually affectionate, but they are sort of short lived.

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Speaker 1: It was a bit sad. That's why we now have

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Speaker 1: a dog. I'm sorry. I guess they went back to

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Speaker 1: being particles. They live on. Their particles live on through

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Speaker 1: the universe. It seems like it's all connected. Everything's made

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Speaker 1: out of the same basic particles, which I think makes

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Speaker 1: physicists wonder if you can go further and break things

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Speaker 1: out even more and maybe get down to one particle

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Speaker 1: or one type of particle that ties the entire universe

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Speaker 1: together into one theory. We would love to do that.

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Speaker 1: To explain everything in terms of one equation, we could

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Speaker 1: just write on a T shirt, hopefully not a big

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Speaker 1: T shirt, on a onesie or maybe like one with

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Speaker 1: extra long coattails. That would be a new fashion statement,

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Speaker 1: or in super duper tiny font that you need reading

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Speaker 1: glasses to read. Now, we want a simple theory. We

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Speaker 1: want to reveal the fundamental nature of the universe. A

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Speaker 1: goal of physics is not just to optimize our ice

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Speaker 1: cream intake, but to sort of understand, to have that

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Speaker 1: moment where we're like we get it, We're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's how the universe works. And to do that, we

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Speaker 1: want one simple idea that tells us what rules are. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a big goal in physics. It's the ultimate dream,

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Speaker 1: perhaps of a physicist to discover it. And so today

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be asking the question, what's the

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Speaker 1: most promising theory of everything? Everything, everything, everything, like everything right,

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Speaker 1: like all of it. Yeah. I guess you could also

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Speaker 1: call it the most promising theory of the universe. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: except that these days we've gone beyond the universe. We

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Speaker 1: have the multiverse, and so you know, maybe you should

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Speaker 1: call it the every verse or the olive verse or something.

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Speaker 1: Everything's most promising theory of Everything's you can't have Everything's.

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Speaker 1: That could be the sequel through the Theory of everything

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Speaker 1: in the movie The Theory of Everything's the theory of

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Speaker 1: the theory of everything. Yeah, so it's a goal in

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Speaker 1: physics to come up with one, I guess, one equation, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: what do you think this theory will look like? One equation? One? Hey? Well, one,

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Speaker 1: you know, fortune cookie, piece of paper will What will

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Speaker 1: this theory look like? What will this theory look like? Wow?

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Speaker 1: I wish I knew. You know, Currently we use math

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Speaker 1: as the way we express our ideas. Matter and forces

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Speaker 1: are both described by fields, which are expressed as quantum

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Speaker 1: field theories, and so one hope is that we could

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Speaker 1: generalize quantum field theory and use it to describe things

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Speaker 1: at the smallest level. But you know, we've explored a

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Speaker 1: tiny little fraction of the universe. As you say, the

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Speaker 1: universe is mostly cold and things are moving slowly, and

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Speaker 1: it could be that what we've learned is not representative,

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Speaker 1: and it's always dangerous to extrapolate from like a tiny

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Speaker 1: little corner or the universe to the rest of it.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't say you understand elephants if you've only ever

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Speaker 1: looked at one elephant's tale, for example. And so I'd

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Speaker 1: love if quantum field theory was the path forward. But

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Speaker 1: I suspect we need some sort of completely new kind

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Speaker 1: of mathematics in order to make progress towards this final theory.

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Speaker 1: And you have to discover new math before you can

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Speaker 1: discover a new physics. Absolutely, we're constantly inventing or discovering

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Speaker 1: new math to make progress. It's this fantastic sort of

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Speaker 1: duet between math and physics. Mathematicians invent some new tool,

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Speaker 1: they're like, hey, this is useless but fun, and the

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Speaker 1: physicists are like, wait, I can use that for something.

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Speaker 1: Bring that over here. I'm gonna build that into my theory.

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Speaker 1: And I'm never actually sure whether mathematicians are like delighted

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Speaker 1: to have their tools find use or a little disappointed

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Speaker 1: that they've been like sullied by brought into the physical world.

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Speaker 1: Do you think they see you as a duet partner

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Speaker 1: or as like a backup singer. Oh, I definitely think

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Speaker 1: that mathematicians think of physicists as sort of like unnecessary

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Speaker 1: frosting on the cake, you know. I think mathematicians see

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Speaker 1: themselves as more primary and fundamental than physicists, the way

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of physicists think about chemistry and biology,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of these like layers of the onion.

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Speaker 1: I heard one mathematician described his department as the halls

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Speaker 1: of truth without irony, the halls of snobbery, which trickles down,

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Speaker 1: is what you're saying, is a trickle down effect for

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Speaker 1: snobbery in the sciences. There's a whole hierarchy of snobbery. Absolutely. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: everyone uses their phones and computers which are made for

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Speaker 1: by engineers to do their science exactly, and it's not

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Speaker 1: just limited to science. Snobberries everywhere. But anyways, this is

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Speaker 1: a big question, a lofty goal, and we were wondering,

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Speaker 1: as usual, if people out there on the Internet had

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Speaker 1: ideas about everything, which sounds like a redundant question. As usual,

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Speaker 1: Daniel went out there and asked people if they knew

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Speaker 1: what the most promising theory of everything is. And so

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Speaker 1: thank you to everybody who have volunteered, and especially to

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Speaker 1: our recurring superstar Lucien who has volunteered. I think consecutively

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Speaker 1: for every single one of the last forty episodes. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to participate, please don't be shy. Right to me.

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Speaker 1: Two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Think about

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Speaker 1: it for a second. What do you think is the

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Speaker 1: most promising theory of everything? Here's what Lucian and a

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Speaker 1: lot of other people had to say. Um, I don't

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Speaker 1: know much about theories of everything. You only want to

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Speaker 1: know of it about is string theories as the one

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Speaker 1: I think is maybe string theory, which I've also heard

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Speaker 1: referred to as brain theory, has that it evolved a

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Speaker 1: little bit instead of just strings. Now they're saying maybe

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Speaker 1: it's membranes. I didn't know there was more than one

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Speaker 1: theory of everything. That's pretty cool. Something to do with

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Speaker 1: the theory that unifies general relativity and quantum theory. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it makes me think of social media. If you go there,

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Speaker 1: you help. You'll have people having theories about everything. But

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Speaker 1: the most promising one it's the superstring theory a guess

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Speaker 1: um um um ones that Brian Green and and others

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Speaker 1: are walking working on it. I'd say the most promising

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Speaker 1: theory of everything is the Big Bang theory. Uh. It

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Speaker 1: encompasses all of the sciences anties them together neatly into

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Speaker 1: a theory for cosmology and you know, especially for chemistry, physics,

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Speaker 1: all of it. It just seems to go together. Well.

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Speaker 1: I like string theory, but I'd say the Big Bang

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Speaker 1: theory is about her. Dr Michio Kaku speaks of an elusive,

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Speaker 1: elegant equation, perhaps an inch or so long, that operates

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Speaker 1: in both the quantum and relativistic realms. I would have

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Speaker 1: to side with Professor Cocku and nominate string theory as

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Speaker 1: the most promising, but I think that squeezing all that

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Speaker 1: math down to an inch will be a bit of

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Speaker 1: a stretch. I will vote for string total Well. I

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Speaker 1: happen to think Luke quantum gravity is on the right track,

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Speaker 1: but that's not actually a theory of everything. String theory

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Speaker 1: seems to be losing favor, as I think is also

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Speaker 1: M theory, the many worlds explanation of things. It's always

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Speaker 1: right because there's always a place where it's right. I

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Speaker 1: don't really know the answer. I think the most promising

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Speaker 1: theory of everything is the M theory that can only

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Speaker 1: be done by that one guy whose name I can't remember,

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Speaker 1: and nobody else seems to understand it all right, I

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Speaker 1: think I just realized something, Daniel, What's the acronym for

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Speaker 1: a theory of everything is t o e toe? So

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Speaker 1: really you're looking for the big toe of the universe. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That's sort of tough to reconcile with the snobbery of

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Speaker 1: particle physics, isn't it. What do you mean? Are you

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Speaker 1: saying toes aren't ignoble somehow or not worthy the highest regard?

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Speaker 1: Definitely exactly. Toes make me think of, you know, toe cheese.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of smelly. You can stub your toe, you know.

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Speaker 1: Toes not like poetry written about people's toes very often?

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Speaker 1: Haven't there been love songs devoted to toes? Are some

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Speaker 1: people into toes? I'm into theories of everything, so maybe

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Speaker 1: put me in that kind gregory of being into your

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Speaker 1: toe theory finishist, But our listeners have definitely thought about

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Speaker 1: the theory of everything. There were some good answers here,

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Speaker 1: A lot of people engine string theory. I feel like

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Speaker 1: people are maybe familiar with that idea that maybe it

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Speaker 1: could be a theory of everything. Yeah, and thank you

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Speaker 1: to all those listeners. And I want to make a

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Speaker 1: shout out to one of our youngest listeners, two and

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Speaker 1: a half year old Hannah from Australia. Her dad wrote

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Speaker 1: to me and said that she was home from childcare

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Speaker 1: was sick, and she asked him can we listen to

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge. So thanks Hannah for listening to our podcast.

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Speaker 1: And you said, obviously the answer is no, right. I'm

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Speaker 1: not her dad. We're not qualified to take care of children, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: especially not other people's children. I think Hannah should get

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Speaker 1: some more ice cream. What do you think, Joey. I

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Speaker 1: think she should maybe be listening to some math podcasts instead.

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Speaker 1: But I said, a lot of ideas out there about

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Speaker 1: the theory of everything, So let's break it down for people,

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Speaker 1: and so real quick, Daniel, what would you say is

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Speaker 1: theory of everything? How would you define it? Well? Everything

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Speaker 1: for physicists means like all the experiments. We want to

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Speaker 1: explain basically anything that you can do. We want to

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Speaker 1: be able to predict what happens. We don't want any surprises.

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Speaker 1: We want to be able to say, if you smash

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Speaker 1: these two particles together, here's what's gonna happen. If you

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Speaker 1: drop a feather on the moon, here's what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen if you bring all this matter together. Here's how

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Speaker 1: a black hole forms. We want to be able to

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Speaker 1: predict what happens. We want to know what the rules are,

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Speaker 1: and so at the most fundamental level, that means explaining

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Speaker 1: all the kinds of bits of stuff there are out there,

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Speaker 1: all the matter, and then all the rules about how

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Speaker 1: those bits talk to each other, so like all the forces.

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Speaker 1: So put simply, we want a single description, a single idea,

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Speaker 1: a single mathematical equation that explains all the matter and

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Speaker 1: all the forces in the universe, like one theory, one framework,

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Speaker 1: or one equation that can tell you what's gonna happen,

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Speaker 1: or maybe not what's gonna happen, but what's likely to happen. Right, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Our universe is quantum mechanical, which means we can't say

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Speaker 1: exactly what will happen, but it's still deterministic because we

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Speaker 1: can say what's likely to happen. We can say, if

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Speaker 1: you shoot an electron at a proton at this angle,

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Speaker 1: here's exactly the distribution of possible outcomes, And so the

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Speaker 1: wave function is still deterministic, even if how it collapses

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Speaker 1: is not right or more accurately, Like if I smashed

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Speaker 1: these two particles together a hundred million times, that you

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Speaker 1: should get, you know, approximately ex proportion of this happening

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Speaker 1: or exproportion of that happening. Yeah. If you're a frequentist

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Speaker 1: and that's how you interpret probability, then yeah, exactly, in

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Speaker 1: a hundred millions similar experiments, you would get this distribution

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Speaker 1: of outcome. If you're a basy and then you say, well,

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Speaker 1: there's a probability of various outcomes. Did you just call

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Speaker 1: me a frequentist. Yeah, you just outed yourself as a frequentist.

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Speaker 1: And I know whether I should be offended or flattered.

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Speaker 1: I guess it depends on your posterior. I guess I

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Speaker 1: feel flattered, you know, fifty of the time, offended another

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of the time. No, don't, I'm a frequentist.

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Speaker 1: I think it makes a lot more sense. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's get into some of the details. Who have what

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Speaker 1: a theory of everything would apply to and what are

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Speaker 1: some of the leading candidates right now? But first let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick break. All right, we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: big toe of the universe, the big theory of everything

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Speaker 1: that could maybe one day explain everything that happens and

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Speaker 1: predict exactly how it's all gonna turn out, every little

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Speaker 1: nook and corner of the universe. Right, I know, that's

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Speaker 1: what a theory of everything promises. That's what a theory

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Speaker 1: of everything promises. Yeah, it's to explain everything in terms

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Speaker 1: of one idea. And you know, the history of physics

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Speaker 1: is that we saw a lot of weird stuff and

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Speaker 1: we try to explain sort of each bit, and then

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Speaker 1: we look for patterns and we try to like organize

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Speaker 1: the stuff into groups. We said, well, you know what,

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Speaker 1: maybe lightning and static electricity are actually the same thing.

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Speaker 1: Then we developed like a coherent explanation for electricity, and

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Speaker 1: so the basic step forward there is not to say

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Speaker 1: lightning is static electricity. Obviously they're related, but they're different.

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Speaker 1: You try to fit them together into a common idea,

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Speaker 1: right to say these two things are part of the

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Speaker 1: same larger concept. They both come from the same effect

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Speaker 1: or the same I don't know, equality in the universe

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Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, and you can generalize that a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Like we've made further progress by noticing that there's a

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Speaker 1: deep relationship between electricity and magnetism, right that, like particles

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Speaker 1: that have charges on them, for example, are affected by magnets,

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Speaker 1: and particles that move can make magnets. So this is

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Speaker 1: deep connection between electricity and magnetism, and we unify that

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Speaker 1: into electromagnetism. Again, that doesn't say, oh, electric charges are

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Speaker 1: the same as magnets. It's not saying that they're identical.

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Speaker 1: It's just saying that it makes more sense to fit

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Speaker 1: them together, that there are two sides of the same coin,

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Speaker 1: and mathematically they sort of clicked together like pieces of

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Speaker 1: a puzzle, like they can be predicted by the same equation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a symmetry in the equations. In fact, if you

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Speaker 1: look at the equation of electromagnetism, you notice that the

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Speaker 1: electric field and the magnetic field have exactly the same

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Speaker 1: and opposite rules. So there's four of those equations, and

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Speaker 1: if you swap the electric field, the magnetic field and

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Speaker 1: all of them, you get the same equations. So that's

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Speaker 1: kind of cool. I guess you know. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: to the universe. There's a lot in the word everything,

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Speaker 1: and so would discover everything like matter, forces, base time.

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Speaker 1: Are you trying to wrap that all up into one equation? Yes, exactly,

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Speaker 1: I want all of it you know, put all those

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Speaker 1: scoops under one big cone. Um. We definitely want to

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Speaker 1: explain matter. Like we were talking about before, we would

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Speaker 1: love to understand what is the most basic element of

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Speaker 1: the universe. First of all, how many basic elements are

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Speaker 1: there in the universe. And by elements, I don't mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, like lead or iron, I mean the most

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Speaker 1: fundamental thing in the universe, the basic ingredient, the smallest

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Speaker 1: piece out of which everything is made. We'd love to

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Speaker 1: understand what that is. You know, we don't think that

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Speaker 1: the current list of particles we have are fundament We

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Speaker 1: don't think that those are the answer, right. They might

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Speaker 1: be reducible too, simpler bits and pieces exactly because when

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Speaker 1: we look at these particles, we notice weird patterns, patterns

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Speaker 1: that don't make any sense, patterns that don't have any explanations.

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Speaker 1: And those patterns are typically historically very valuable clues that

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Speaker 1: lead you to figuring out how to sort of assemble

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Speaker 1: the current list of fundamental particles out of something smaller,

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Speaker 1: to figure out how they might be made out of

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Speaker 1: different combinations of smaller bits. And it would also have

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Speaker 1: to cover the forces, right or or do you count

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Speaker 1: those as particles because forces have particles too, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we would love to explain the forces, and we can

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Speaker 1: explain the forces in terms of fields and then ripples

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Speaker 1: in those fields and being interpreted as particles. Absolutely, So

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Speaker 1: you can think about the universe is made of fields

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Speaker 1: or made of particles either way, So forces you can

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Speaker 1: think about as fields or as particles. But we definitely

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Speaker 1: like to unify these forces and to understand them together.

426
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: Where we're talking about a minute ago was sort of

427
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: the unification of electricity and magnism, and we've made a

428
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:05,439
Speaker 1: lot of progress there. We've even unified electromagnetism with the

429
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 1: weak nuclear force, this force that's responsible for beta decay,

430
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: radioactive decay, and other sorts of radioactive processes. We understand

431
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 1: them now to be like part of one larger mathematical construct,

432
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,919
Speaker 1: the electro weak force, and we're sure that's correct. We

433
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:23,400
Speaker 1: know that that's true, that it reveals something deep about

434
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 1: the universe because realizing how those two things clicked together

435
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 1: is what allowed us to predict the existence of the

436
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 1: Higgs boson, which was a pretty big step in unifying everything.

437
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,439
Speaker 1: So what this include then also gravity as well? Do

438
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:41,960
Speaker 1: you hope to sort of explain gravity in one quantum framework. Yeah, absolutely,

439
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: we would love to explain all of the forces together.

440
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: Now we have some forces for which we have a

441
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:51,199
Speaker 1: quantum mechanical description, like electromagnetism and the weak force and

442
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: the strong force. We haven't yet managed to merge all

443
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: those quantum mechanical forces together. These are the forces that

444
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: you can describe in terms of a quantum field or

445
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 1: part goals passing back and forth. And we have not

446
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:05,000
Speaker 1: yet unified the strong force with those other ones, so

447
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 1: that's left to be done. We would also like to understand,

448
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: like is gravity even a force doesn't belong on this list,

449
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier, We want to unify all the stuff,

450
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: all the forces, and then space and time, well, our

451
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 1: space and time really their own separate thing. Are they

452
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:25,360
Speaker 1: just manifestations of some quantum gravitational quantum mechanical force. Are

453
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,160
Speaker 1: there really something different? We don't understand that at all.

454
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: So yes, we would like one clear understanding where all

455
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: the pieces fit together, and all the pieces have to

456
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 1: be there, like it's a complete puzzle, not just a

457
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 1: few pieces that stick together, Like you don't want to

458
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: have any bits left over where you're like, what is

459
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: this for or how does this fit in? I don't know,

460
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:45,919
Speaker 1: just you know, keep it there on the side. Now,

461
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: you want, like the equation is to tell you why

462
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 1: that thing is there or why it's not there exactly,

463
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: and we want the math to lead us there. We

464
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:55,959
Speaker 1: want to find like symmetries that say this is the

465
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: only way these equations work because they have to follow

466
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: this rule, you know, Like we have symmetries that's say,

467
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: for example, every inertial frame of reference follows the same

468
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: law of physics, and that really limits the kinds of

469
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: laws of physics that you can write. You can only

470
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: write ones that follow those rules. And we think that

471
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: that's the symmetry of the universe. So we'd like to

472
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: sort of find symmetries that tell us how to write

473
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: the laws of physics. And it would be great if

474
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,199
Speaker 1: there was only one possibility, if we're like, you know what,

475
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 1: this is the only one that sort of works. It

476
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 1: hangs together, it has all the pieces we need, doesn't

477
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: have any extra bits that don't correspond to things we see,

478
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: and so that would be really beautiful. And then we

479
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 1: could look at that and say, Okay, what does this

480
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: tell us about the universe? What is this reveal about

481
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: the source code of the universe vanilla? So it's trying

482
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: to tell us, Daniel, it's the writing on the sweetness

483
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: wall there. No, I would guess the universe is probably

484
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: raspberry flavored. You know, there's these huge gas clouds of

485
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: Ethel's in the center of the galaxy, and you know

486
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 1: is responsible for the smell of raspberries. Are you saying

487
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: God has a favorite flavor or scent. I'm saying the

488
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: universe has a smell and it's not vanilla. And it

489
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like nothing. It smells like everything. Yeah, exactly

490
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: smells like barbecue. All right, Well, this is a pretty

491
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 1: lofty goal. I guess what makes is this? Just think

492
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: it's even possible? Like, why should the universe be reducible

493
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: to a few simple equations or laws or rules. Why

494
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: couldn't the universe just be kind of crazy and random? Yeah?

495
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: I think simply the answer is hope. We hope that

496
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: it's possible. We would love for it to be possible,

497
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: and like many human projects, it's just driven by hope,

498
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: not faith, you know, just hope. We would love to

499
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: have an explanation for the universe that is simple and complete.

500
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: We don't know why any explanation for the universe holds,

501
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: Like why do science even work? Why can you do

502
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: an experiment today and then tomorrow the same laws of

503
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,360
Speaker 1: physics still work. We don't even know why that's true. Right,

504
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: So we're, you know, on sort of shaky ground philosophically.

505
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,679
Speaker 1: But we've made a lot of progress, right. This hope

506
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: has fueled us towards a ever deeper understanding of the

507
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: nature of reality and an ever simpler description. Like as

508
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: we peel apart matter, we do find a smaller number

509
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: of simpler objects that explain complexity at a higher level.

510
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: You really only need about three particles to explain hurricanes

511
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,400
Speaker 1: and hamsters and lamas and all that stuff. So so

512
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: far it seems to work. We've made pretty good progress.

513
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: But then, Daniel, the problem is you also have to ask,

514
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 1: is there a theory of hope? Can you explain hope

515
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: for the theory? And then your brain explodes. It's a

516
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 1: theory of inception and it's not just hope. Right, We've

517
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: made some good progress, and also we have some good tips,

518
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: Like we look at some numbers, and we look at

519
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: some trends, and things seem to be going in the

520
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: right direction. What do you mean. Well, for example, we

521
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 1: would love to explain how all of the forces are

522
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: really the same thing, you know, not that they're exactly identical,

523
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: but that they're like four parts of the same thing,

524
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: the way like the power rangers come together into one

525
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 1: big ranger or whatever you call that. So we'd love

526
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 1: to do that, and one obstacle to doing that is

527
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: understanding why they're all such different strengths. Like the weak

528
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 1: force is pretty weak, and the strong force is pretty strong,

529
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: and gravity is like a crazy week. It's hard to

530
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,199
Speaker 1: understand how you have these four bits and fit them

531
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: together if they're all such different strengths. Well, it turns out,

532
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: and we talked about this on the podcast one time,

533
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: that the strength of the forces depends on the energy

534
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 1: of the experiment you use to probe them. Like the

535
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: charge of the electron depends on how closely you look,

536
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: how far you penetrate into this like cloud of virtual

537
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: particles that surround the electron. Well, all of the forces

538
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: are like that. It's called the running couplings. The value

539
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: that dictates how powerful the forces depends on energy. The

540
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: amazing things that as you go up in energy, all

541
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: these numbers are pointing together. It seems like they're coming

542
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: together to one common value. There are a lot of

543
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: hints that maybe it is possible to unify everything together

544
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 1: because things sort of leaned that way. Yeah, things are

545
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: leaning that way. We think that if the universe was

546
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: really hot and dense and there was a lot of energy,

547
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: that all the forces would be similarly powerful the way.

548
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: For example, magnetism seems weaker than electricity, right, Well, it

549
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: turns out that if you're going at the speed of light,

550
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: the two things have equal strength, which is why photons

551
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: can exist, because they're just electricity and magnetism like slashing

552
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: back and forth in perfect balance. So at the speed

553
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: of light, those two forces are the same. And we

554
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: think that in the very early universe, or at very

555
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: hot dense environments, the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism,

556
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: and maybe even gravity all have the same strength, which

557
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: would help us fit them together into sort of like

558
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: one big idea. All right, interesting, Well, I guess maybe

559
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: let's go into now what are some of the leading

560
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: candidates for this theory of everything. I know that there

561
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: are a couple of ideas out there. Some are fringe,

562
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: some are more mainstream and a lot of people seem

563
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: to know about. So what are some of these leading

564
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: candidates for the universe's total Well, there's definitely one that's

565
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: far out ahead of everybody else in terms of like

566
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,239
Speaker 1: a number of people who were investing their careers in

567
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: it and believing like it might actually lead to a

568
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: theory of everything. And that's definitely string theory. Yeah, that's

569
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: the one with the best PR department too. It seems

570
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: like a lot of people had heard of the string

571
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: theory exactly. A lot of people have written really beautiful

572
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: popular science books on it, and there's lots of specials

573
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: about it, and people talk about it. It's also sort

574
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: of cool and it's easy to sort of visualize because

575
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: it tells you that the universe it's not made out

576
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: of these weird tiny dots that are hard to get

577
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: your mind around, but instead that it's made out of

578
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: these little vibrating strings. And now these little strings, are

579
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: they like part of a field? Are they just like

580
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: strings floating in space? Are they part of a giant

581
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: like universe? You know, guitar or what? Are these strings?

582
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: So there are quantum objects, right, So in that sense,

583
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: you can think of this as a quantum field theory, right,

584
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: and these little strings instead of saying, like, you know,

585
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: a little energy located in a point in a field

586
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: instead of matter, gin like a one dimensional version of

587
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: a particle instead of a zero dimensional version. Imagined a

588
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: one dimensional version of a particle. That would be a line,

589
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: And then this thing can vibrate. You can have different

590
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: kinds of energy. And the cool thing is that if

591
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: you look at these strings from really really far away,

592
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: they look like particles because you can't sort of like

593
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: see how wide they are. But if you zoom in,

594
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: you would discover that all the things we call different

595
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: particles are just the same string vibrating different ways, like

596
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: vibrates this way you get an electron, vibrates that way

597
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: you get a graviton. So you're saying, like all quantum

598
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: particles like a cork or an electron. If you zoom

599
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: in enough at the core of it instead of a

600
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: point particle, you'll see like a little what vibrating though,

601
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: And how can it be one dimensional if the electron

602
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: and the cork are multi dimensional? Well, in our current theory, right,

603
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: electrons and quirks are zero dimensional. They're just point particles

604
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: that have no length, no width, no height, and so

605
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: that's kind of bonkers. It doesn't make any sense. You know,

606
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: how can you have mass with no volume? It would

607
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: have infinite density and you know, turn into a black

608
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: hole and all that stuff. We dug into that whole

609
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 1: thing in another podcast episode. So this just takes it

610
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: and stretches it out and makes it one dimensional. Says

611
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: it has length but no width and no height, and

612
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: then it can vibrate because that string can move because

613
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: the quantum field itself can oscillate. Right, but is it

614
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: vibrating in any particular dimension or direction or is this

615
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: in like another dimension it's vibrating. Yeah, So the mathematics

616
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: that string theory are complicated, but it turns out that

617
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: they work best if space has more dimensions than just

618
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: the three that we're familiar with. If it has like

619
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: eleven dimensions and these other extra spatial dimensions would be

620
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: sort of very hard for us to see. That would

621
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: be very very small. So it's kind of difficult to

622
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: have visualize. But imagine like every location in space, right, X, Y,

623
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: and Z those are the three dimensions. Now at every location,

624
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: you can also like go around, or you can like

625
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: turn or there's like another direction, another dimension of your location,

626
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: another value you need to specify to say exactly where

627
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: you are. Interesting. So it's reducing quantum theory to like

628
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: little string theory. Yeah, exactly, and then these strings oscillate

629
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: often in these other hidden dimensions. Now, there are some

630
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: theories of extra dimensions of space and time in which

631
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: those dimensions are very simple. They're just like little loops,

632
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: and those are fun. We've talked about them on the podcast.

633
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 1: String theory requires these extra dimensions to be really complicated.

634
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,959
Speaker 1: Objects are called callaby Yaw manifolds. They would have very

635
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: very complicated geometries and anyway, the strings would like vibrate

636
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: in these crazy dimensions that would be invisible to us,

637
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: but based on their vibration in those dimensions, they would

638
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 1: appear different to us. So if it vibrates, you know,

639
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: this way all those other dimensions, then it would be

640
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: an electronic vibrates that way, it would be a muan,

641
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: and that would be pretty awesome to understand. Like, oh,

642
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: electrons and muans. They look like one is a copy

643
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: the other one. That's because one is like the reds

644
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: of the other one, or it's you know, a different

645
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: standing wave of this vibrating string in this other dimension.

646
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: It would help us unify those things and understand, like

647
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: the relationships we see in the particles are actually just

648
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: different modes of those strings. Is it kind of like

649
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: you know, how different sheets of paper look all the

650
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: same from the side, but maybe if you look at

651
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: them from another dimension, they could have different shapes and colors. Yeah. Absolutely.

652
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 1: Or if you're a two dimensional object in the three

653
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: dimensional world, the stuff that's happening that third dimension can

654
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,760
Speaker 1: definitely affect what you see and you just aren't privy

655
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: to it, and so you're seeing a little slice of

656
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: what's going on, and you can't understand the relationships between

657
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: those things because they exist in a dimension that you

658
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: can't move in or you can't see. But string theories

659
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: also it's just sort of beautiful mathematically, like it all

660
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: really fits together very nicely, and a lot of people

661
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: are really attracted to it because some certain things just

662
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: sort of like fall out of the theory. For example,

663
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: string theory is a very natural theory of quantum gravity.

664
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 1: You basically have to have grab in your theory. If

665
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 1: you have a string theory, interesting, it really pulls out

666
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: your heart strings. That's what you're saying. All right, let's

667
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 1: get into what some of the other leading candidates are

668
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 1: and let's talk about which one seems the most promising

669
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 1: out of these promising candidates. But first, let's take another

670
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're talking about the theory of everything,

671
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: or at least a couple of theories of Everything's and

672
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,439
Speaker 1: talked about string theory as one of the most popular ones.

673
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:40,800
Speaker 1: But there are a couple of other theories that are

674
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 1: up there, right. They're still in contention for everything, for

675
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: the hole shabangba exactly. So what are some of these theories.

676
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: One of my favorite is sort of a generalization of

677
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: string theory. String theories and idea that's been around for

678
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 1: decades and people were poking around making progress, and they

679
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: were like a few kinds of string theory that had

680
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: been developed, and they only described like a little bits

681
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: of the universe, or there was this kind of string

682
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: theory of those kind of strings and how they interacted.

683
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: The field was sort of fracturing to several different ideas.

684
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: Then in Ed Witten, is like one of the smartest

685
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 1: people ever, unified them all together. He showed that all

686
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: the different string theories that people have been working on.

687
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: We're really just like sort of limiting cases that were

688
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: like extreme versions of one grander theory. So we had

689
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 1: these like five different string theories and he brought them

690
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: together into one theory that he called M theory, like

691
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 1: the multi string guitar theory of string theory exactly. And

692
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: you know, nobody knows why it's called M theory. And

693
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: eventually somebody asked him like, hey, Ed, why did you

694
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: call this thing M theory? What does M stand for?

695
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: He said, well, actually he didn't know when he was

696
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: waiting for us to like really deeply understand it and

697
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: then we could figure out what M stood for. I

698
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: think he really just wanted to say my theory. It's

699
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 1: my theory, and like I'll just hide it as a

700
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: physics nomenclature maybe or since his last name starts with

701
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: a W, maybe like has a secret upside down W

702
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: in there. Uh. Interesting, Like the anti version of him

703
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: came up with this theory exactly right, And so M

704
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,240
Speaker 1: theory is sort of like a super version of string

705
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: theory and includes other things like supersymmetry, this idea that

706
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: every particle that's a fermion, like the matter particles have

707
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: relationship with all the bosons the fourth particles, and for

708
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,400
Speaker 1: every boson there should be a fermion. For every fermion

709
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: there should be a boson. So it brings that together

710
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: also into one larger theory. Instead of just thinking about

711
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: individual strings, this allows us to think about like two

712
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: dimensional versions that they call brains, which is short for membrane,

713
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: not like b our ai in your brain. Right, Like

714
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: maybe things aren't strings, but they're like little and nap

715
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 1: can cost, right, yeah, like little sheets or three or

716
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: four dimensional. And so they have these arbitrarily dimensional objects,

717
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 1: you know, one dimensional, two dimensional, three dimensional, and so

718
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: they call them about this rather ridiculous name P for

719
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: the number of dimensions, and then P brain the dump dump,

720
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: that's a P brain theory. Then it really is a

721
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 1: P brain theory. But you hear these like super smart

722
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: people really talking to each other about P brains, you know,

723
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: without any irony or giggles. It's good thing they didn't

724
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: call it the opposite brain P brain P theory. Well,

725
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of people out there

726
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 1: who don't think that string theory is the path towards

727
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: a theory of everything. They think it's ridiculous waste of

728
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: time and all just sort of mathematical conjecture. They're like

729
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: theory and everything that's a theory of nothing. Yeah, exactly. Well,

730
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: the real criticism of string theory is that it operates

731
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: at such a tiny level that we can't really test it. Like, sure,

732
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: you're telling us maybe what's happening at tend to the

733
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: minus thirty five meters, but how do we know. We

734
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 1: don't have a collider that can do experiments yet at

735
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: that small scale, and so it's just sort of like

736
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:51,800
Speaker 1: a story we're telling, but not something we can test. Really.

737
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: The only test of string theory so far has been

738
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: a search for these super symmetric particles, these extra fermions

739
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: and bosons that might be there to balance on the

740
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: ones we have in the standard model, and we were

741
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 1: supposed to find those at the Large Jhon Collider, but

742
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:11,319
Speaker 1: we didn't. We didn't see any supersymmetric particles. So that's

743
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 1: a bit of a blow for string theory. All right. Well, then,

744
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 1: if strings or little napkins or key brains are not

745
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: maybe the best way to go, what's an alternative? Then well,

746
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: some people are coming at it from a completely different

747
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: direction instead of taking quantum mechanics and trying to incorporate

748
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 1: gravity and making this big quantum mechanical string theory view

749
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 1: of the universe. They're starting from gravity, and they're saying,

750
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: instead of making gravity into a quantum theory, let's just

751
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: try to quantize space itself, like you were talking about

752
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,720
Speaker 1: earlier space and time or fundamental elements of the universe.

753
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: We don't really know if that's true, if these things

754
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 1: come out from something smaller. We don't understand what space is.

755
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:50,320
Speaker 1: So a lot of people are working on this theory

756
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: called loop quantum gravity, which tries to take space and

757
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:57,280
Speaker 1: describe it as these little bits of like a quantum foam,

758
00:39:57,600 --> 00:39:59,479
Speaker 1: and I have the whole universe sort of come out

759
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 1: of the quantum foam, like instead of having a like

760
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: a perfectly smooth universe and space and time on which

761
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: you have these quantum fields that are lumpy. Maybe space

762
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 1: itself is kind of crunchy and lumpy and not perfectly smooth. Yeah,

763
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: maybe there's like a minimum distance to the universe below

764
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: which it doesn't really make sense to talk about things

765
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: being closer together than that, because it's just not possible.

766
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: Like all of spaces like pixels on some universe screen

767
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: and so that's exciting and people have been working on

768
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: that the last few decades. There's been some advances and revolutions,

769
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: and it seems sort of like as an alternative to

770
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: string theory because it's a different way you might be

771
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: able to bring gravity and quantum mechanics together. It's a

772
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 1: completely different approach and it's made some progress. But the

773
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: problem is that it's sort of just brings gravity and

774
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics together. It doesn't actually unify all of the forces,

775
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 1: Like it can't explain why do we have electromagnetism, why

776
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: do we have the weak force? Why do we have

777
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: the strong force? But it's you know, progress in that direction, right,

778
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,760
Speaker 1: I guess you can if you you know, make space

779
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: itself quantum. Then that doesn't explain how what like particles

780
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: can interact with each other across the distances. Is that

781
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: kind of the limitation. It's not really a limitation, it's

782
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: just like they haven't gotten there yet. They're still building

783
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: the foundational building blocks. It's not clear necessarily how you

784
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: would get there. It's not ruled out, it's not impossible,

785
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 1: but so far the scope of loop quantum gravity is

786
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: not to describe all of it is just to make

787
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: this step of bringing gravity and quantum mechanics together. Once

788
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 1: you do that, you can collect your five note about prizes,

789
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: you know, take a day off, and then you can

790
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: start working on the other part of the theory. Right well,

791
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: so those are some of the respectable toes, you know,

792
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: that's the big toe, the middle toe of physics, his

793
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,839
Speaker 1: feet and feet. But there are also sort of like

794
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: these less respectable toes or you know, kind of the

795
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: pinky toes of the universe floating out there, the theories

796
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: that are not quite as popular or mainstream, but that

797
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 1: might be exciting. So Daniel real Quick tells, what are

798
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:00,080
Speaker 1: some of these fringe theory right well, theories of everything

799
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: are a popular target for people who are not in academia,

800
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: who think like maybe the physicists have just sort of

801
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: gotten it wrong, and what it needs is like a

802
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: fresh idea from somebody who's not entrenched in all of

803
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 1: these ideas and the history on the incremental progress, coming

804
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: in with a brand new idea and blow it all up.

805
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: And so, for example, Steve Wolfram came out last year

806
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 1: with the theory that he thought might be like the

807
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: foundations of a theory of everything. He's a smart guy.

808
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: He's a guy who developed mathematica, and he is a physicist,

809
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: has a degree in physics. And his basic idea, which

810
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: we dug into once on the podcast, is that maybe

811
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: the universe is made out of these cellular automata. He

812
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,919
Speaker 1: envisions that the universe is made out of one kind

813
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: or a small set of kinds, of tiny things with

814
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: very simple rules. And he studied this for a long

815
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: time and shown, and many other people have shown that

816
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: if you start from simple things with simple rules, you

817
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 1: can get complexity. And we know that already, like hurricanes

818
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 1: are not written into the laws of the universe. They

819
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:01,720
Speaker 1: arise from corks and electrons into being in really complicated ways.

820
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 1: So what he did was he showed that, you know,

821
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: you can sort of have like cellular automata that right

822
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: the rules of the universe. You start from a few

823
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: simple ideas and then a rule for how those ideas

824
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: can change. They can sort of like write the rules

825
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: of the universe. And he looked at what his cellular

826
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: automatic produced and they sort of looked physics ee, and

827
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 1: he was like, ah, look at this, maybe this is

828
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: how the universe was generated. All right. So that's one

829
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: kind of a fringe idea that you know, maybe you

830
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: can make a universe at a very simple building blocks cells.

831
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: What are some of the other fringe theories. Well, there

832
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: were a couple of engineers who took it upon themselves

833
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,280
Speaker 1: to write a theory of everything. This is a theory

834
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: that's called the Fragments of Energy theory by two guys

835
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 1: in North Carolina called Silverberg and Icean, And they were

836
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 1: thinking about energy and they're noticing that like energy seems

837
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:52,879
Speaker 1: to flow, doesn't ever just sort of like hang out.

838
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: And they thought, well, you know, maybe energy is the thing,

839
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 1: and like energy always flows through the universe, and you

840
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,800
Speaker 1: can think about it flowing through these lines, and maybe

841
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: you can quantize it and like break it up and

842
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,760
Speaker 1: need these little packets and think about how it flows together.

843
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,720
Speaker 1: So they wrote down some rules for how energy flows

844
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: and how to break it up and how these packets

845
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,319
Speaker 1: of energy would then interact, and they were able to

846
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: do some cool stuff with it, Like they twisted it

847
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: a little bit and added a few bits, and they

848
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:23,880
Speaker 1: were able to reproduce some predictions of general relativity. So

849
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: they thought that was pretty cool, and they put this

850
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 1: out there to quite a lot of fanfare. Actually it

851
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,800
Speaker 1: hasn't landed very convincingly, Like I think most of academic

852
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: physics was like, yeah, that was a paper review, review

853
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: or number one says maybe her number two days And

854
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: is that the most hurtful review you can get in physics,

855
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: Like not something dissecting your math or telling you why

856
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: your hypothesis is wrong. Is it's a difference you could

857
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: imagine revising general relativity or like reimagining it in some

858
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 1: different conceptual space and reproducing it. That's cool, But it's

859
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 1: not like a new theory of everything. So I haven't

860
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: really like made any progress. In fact, their theory doesn't

861
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: quite reproduce general relativity. They need to like add some

862
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: by hand numbers to squeeze it in there to get

863
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: things right, like you know, the procession of mercury and

864
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 1: the bending of light around the sun. Stuff Einstein got

865
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: right a hundred years ago without having to tweak or

866
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: tune his theory at all. They got to sort of

867
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 1: like put this in a little bit by hand. So

868
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: it's not really clear that it's progress. It's not like

869
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: a way forward. It's just like, here's another way of

870
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: looking at general relativity. That makes more sense to us,

871
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: and also doesn't quite work as well, so not necessarily

872
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 1: like really that exciting. It doesn't seem inevitable or a

873
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: shoe in right away, and it also doesn't necessarily tell

874
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: you what to do next. Like the exciting thing about

875
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: string theory is that the thing is to explore their

876
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: puzzles to solve. They're like, oh, we can try this

877
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,799
Speaker 1: different compactification of those other dimensions. We can try this one,

878
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 1: we can try that one. There's areas where you can

879
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 1: make progress here. It's just sort of like, oh, that's interesting.

880
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what to do next with this. What

881
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 1: are some other fringe theories? So another one that got

882
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: a lot of attention was going to buy a guy

883
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: named Eric Weinstein. He also has a PhD in physics,

884
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:06,399
Speaker 1: but now it works at a hedge fund, and he's

885
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: a you know, very well known guys on podcasts all

886
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: the time, and he has a theory called geometric unity

887
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,399
Speaker 1: that he came out with about ten years ago. And

888
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 1: he basically just takes all the theories that we have

889
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: now and sort of stacks them on top of each other,

890
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: sort of like an ice cream sandwich and says, I'm

891
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: just gonna stick them all into one container. What do

892
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: you mean, like quantum gravity, like quantum physics and general activity,

893
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: you can stack them. Well, he doesn't have quantum gravity

894
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 1: in there yet, and so he's just taken all the

895
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 1: quantum theories and stacked those together. And you know, like,

896
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure way you accomplished in doing that.

897
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 1: It's just sort of like groups them. It doesn't necessarily

898
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 1: like show that they're part of one larger hole or

899
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: that they have a deep relationship. He likes the way

900
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: they've stuck together, but there's no simplification that's achieved there

901
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: in my understanding, I see, it's still pretty unsupported, I guess.

902
00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 1: And another issue with it is that he hasn't yet

903
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: written a paper about it. So it's been out there

904
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: for about ten years. And he was invited to give

905
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: a talk about it at Oxford, and he came and

906
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: he presented it. The problem is that like nobody invited

907
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 1: all the physicists at Oxford and so, and that hurt

908
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: your feelings. So now you're just down on the theory. No,

909
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: And in academia, you know, we need to see a paper,

910
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,239
Speaker 1: We need to like see all the detailed description so

911
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: we can think about it and play with it and

912
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: read about it and talk to each other about it.

913
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: And he's actually recently promised to put a paper out.

914
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 1: Maybe they asked him why why did those and he

915
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: write a paper and he just said, and you're like, oh,

916
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: you got us, you got us. And other mathematicians that

917
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:37,800
Speaker 1: have looked at what he said sort of digested what

918
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: he said a podcast and in his one presentation has

919
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: said that they found it mathematically inconsistent. You know, there

920
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: are reasons why we haven't stacked all these theories together.

921
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: They don't play nicely together. There are anomalies, there are

922
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: things that don't make sense. They're inconsistencies that happen if

923
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 1: you try to jam them together and you don't find

924
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: the right way to do it. It doesn't seem like

925
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 1: he solved those problems. But we'll just have to wait

926
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: to see what his paper says. All right, Well, those

927
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 1: are some pretty interesting and promising fringe theories, and we

928
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:07,279
Speaker 1: also have some core, more popular theories. I guess just

929
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: two sort of close us out here. Daniel, Let's talk

930
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: about really quick about whether or not you think it's

931
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: even possible to have a theory of everything, and even

932
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 1: if we find one, would it be useful at all

933
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 1: in helping us in our everyday lives. You know, it

934
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: might not have immediate engineering applications, right, even if you

935
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 1: understood the universe and its smallest scale and all its

936
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: littlest rules, that wouldn't help you understand when a hurricane

937
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: was coming, or you know how to get to the

938
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: neighboring galaxy necessarily. On the other hand, it might reveal

939
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: something deep and fundamental about the universe that would give

940
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: us immediate applications, if you like, uncovered a new force,

941
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: or let us tap into and control dark energy, the

942
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: biggest fraction of the energy budget of the universe, that

943
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: could very much really change our lives. We never know

944
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: what this understanding will reveal, I mean, their hand. It

945
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: could allow us to create terrible weapons, and then we

946
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 1: could wipe each other out, So you never know what

947
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 1: the future holds. Could be useful, It could destroy all

948
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: of humanity, you know, we don't. We don't really like

949
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: to think about those practical consequences. Yeah, exactly, from the

950
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 1: worst possible outcome to we are now masters of the universe. Basically,

951
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 1: that's the spectrum we're talking about here. Then you just

952
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 1: blame the engineers and politicians. Exactly. I was just eating

953
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 1: some ice cream. It wasn't my fault. How was just

954
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: sitting here snacking on ice cream and being flower gas

955
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: did and all of a sudden, we're all dead. And

956
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: if that worries you, you you know, there are people who

957
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 1: argue that maybe it's impossible. You know, there's this famous theorem,

958
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: this Godal's incompleteness theorem that says that all mathematical systems

959
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:42,839
Speaker 1: are either inconsistent or incomplete. You know that either they

960
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: contradict themselves or there are things that cannot be proven.

961
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,840
Speaker 1: What what is this theory based on? How can it

962
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: say that everything is wouldn't it also be inconsistent itself?

963
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:56,719
Speaker 1: Oh man, we need a whole another podcast episode to

964
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,319
Speaker 1: dig into goals in completeness theorem. So let's put a

965
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:02,439
Speaker 1: pin in that. But it's a formal theorem and mathematics,

966
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 1: which people think is right. You can argue about what

967
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: exactly it applies to and whether it applies to physical

968
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 1: theories or just two axiom based mathematical systems. But some

969
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 1: people use as an argument to say, like, maybe there's

970
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:18,440
Speaker 1: a limit to how well our mathematics can describe the universe.

971
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: You know. It doesn't say that the universe isn't physical

972
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: or doesn't make sense. But maybe, like our mathematical systems,

973
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 1: which are based on these axioms, are just not the

974
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: right language for exploring the universe. You know, it's not

975
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 1: guaranteed that the universe can be described by mathematics just

976
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: because that's the way we like to think about it currently.

977
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: So what would it be. I guess we can talk

978
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: about it at another time. But if not math, then

979
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 1: what I don't know. We'll have to meet those alien

980
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 1: physicists that have developed something else. What's the foundation, what's

981
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: the language of their physical theories? Maybe it's not mathematics, right,

982
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: just because we can't imagine it doesn't mean it's not reality,

983
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: all right, And like you said, it might not even

984
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: be possible to confirm these theories in the end, right,

985
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 1: because we're talking about scale for which we really don't

986
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: have a microscope to go and check that's right. Yeah,

987
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 1: until we build a solar system sized particle collider, you know,

988
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,880
Speaker 1: send in your checks, we can't really test these theories.

989
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: And it might be that it just keeps going on forever,

990
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 1: Like you might find what do you think is the

991
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: smallest theory, but it just keeps going down and down

992
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole exactly. It might be that there is

993
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 1: no smallest scale and that there's just like an infinite

994
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 1: layers to this onion. Hey, that's an idea onion ice cream.

995
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: Maybe that's the unifying theory of everything, Daniel the infinite

996
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:37,279
Speaker 1: onion flavored ice cream. Wow, I'm flabbergasted. And while it's

997
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 1: fun to think about the theories of physics, that sort

998
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: of physicists are thinking about a lot of people out

999
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 1: there thinking about theories of everything, and sometimes they email

1000
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: them to me. I got an email from one of

1001
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: our listeners who had a fun idea. He says, quote,

1002
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: maybe our observable universe is actually the nexus of two

1003
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: different overlapping universes, one for quantum mechanics and one for

1004
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:01,720
Speaker 1: general relativity, and that's why we can't unify them. So

1005
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Yeah, it's fun to think about, and it's

1006
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 1: sort of tantalizing because everybody knows this is a big

1007
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,239
Speaker 1: goal in physics and physicists that are struggling to get there,

1008
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: and it would be fun to sort of like have

1009
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 1: that moment of inspiration and see the truth of the universe,

1010
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:17,879
Speaker 1: and then you know, reveal it to everybody and eat

1011
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 1: to my scream while you win your Nobel prize. Then

1012
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:22,720
Speaker 1: you can be flavor gasted and live in the halls

1013
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: of truth. That's what we all aim for. I think

1014
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: that should be the name of our ice cream pop

1015
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:30,839
Speaker 1: up stand, flavor Gasted. Let's do it all right, Well,

1016
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll make some progress in the future. In the meantime,

1017
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: try not to stop your toes, Daniel, and don't eat

1018
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: too much ice cream. Well, we hope you enjoyed dad.

1019
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,

1020
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is

1021
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast For

1022
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1023
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,280
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.