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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you believe in ghosts?

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Speaker 2: You know, I do. Always say that there's plenty we

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Speaker 2: don't understand about the universe.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean that it's supernatural?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, if we can describe it with physics,

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Speaker 2: then it's just part of nature. It's just natural.

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Speaker 1: What could there be physics that exists out there but

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Speaker 1: that we can't describe?

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Speaker 2: Hmmm, like some kind of superphysics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, does that make you a superphysicist?

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Speaker 2: I'd gladly take a promotion to a super physicist with

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Speaker 2: a super salary.

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Speaker 1: Wait, would that mean that you sort of take off

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Speaker 1: your glasses and open up your shirt and you're actually

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Speaker 1: a superhero.

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Speaker 2: Super Daniel doing superphysics sounds super awesome.

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Speaker 1: Hi'm Hora mccartoonist and the author of Oliver's Great Big Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor

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Speaker 2: at UC Irvine. But I'm not doing it for the money.

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Speaker 1: Wait what but you aren't getting paid though to be

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Speaker 1: a physicist, right?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean I'm not like turning down the checks

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Speaker 2: out of principle or something crazy.

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Speaker 1: So you are doing it for money, just not for

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Speaker 1: the money.

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Speaker 2: I am getting paid do not worry. But all of

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Speaker 2: my students who graduate with physics PhDs and go off

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Speaker 2: to work for Google and their competitors are getting paid

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Speaker 2: a lot more than I am.

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Speaker 1: But you're still getting a pretty super salary, right though, Right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I know what you see professors make. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty super money. And it's just not the money. It's

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Speaker 1: more of a generic money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more like a money than the money. But

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Speaker 2: you're right. I've got no complaints. I got a pretty

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Speaker 2: sweet gig over here, a super gig apparently.

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Speaker 1: But anyways, Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain

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Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio in.

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Speaker 2: Which we cash in on our passion and your paswer

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Speaker 2: for understanding the universe. We hope that the whole universe

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Speaker 2: can be described in terms of crazy mathematical models that

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Speaker 2: predict everything that could happen in this universe, and our

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Speaker 2: job on the podcast is to take those mysterious mathematical

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Speaker 2: models and explain all of them to you.

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Speaker 1: Yes, because it is a pretty mysterious and eerie universe

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Speaker 1: that sometimes seems supernatural, but that somehow a science has

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Speaker 1: been able to describe so far with models and data

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Speaker 1: and experiments.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a fascinating transition where originally we just

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Speaker 2: have sort of like mythological stories to describe the things

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Speaker 2: that we see, you know, like lightning and weather, and

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Speaker 2: later on we find explanations for those things. We can

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Speaker 2: make sense of them in sort of mechanistic or even

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Speaker 2: random quantum mechanical processes that describe them to show us

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Speaker 2: that they're following rules and laws and not just like

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Speaker 2: the whims of deities. But there's plenty of other stuff

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Speaker 2: out there in the universe we haven't yet explained, and

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Speaker 2: so one can wonder will science ever explain them or not?

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Speaker 1: Wait, are you saying that things like dark matter and

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Speaker 1: dark energy or our modern mythology, is there a god

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Speaker 1: of dark matter or god?

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Speaker 2: Is I really hope that there's physics of dark matter

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Speaker 2: instead of gods and goddesses of dark matter, because that

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Speaker 2: would be pretty hard to understand. But so far we

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Speaker 2: don't have an explanation for these things, right, and so

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Speaker 2: we just have to like hope that science will one

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Speaker 2: day figure it out, because we're projecting from all those

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Speaker 2: times that science has figured things out. But you know,

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Speaker 2: that's not exactly a guarantee that doesn't mean that science

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Speaker 2: will always figure things out philosophically. We don't have a

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Speaker 2: promise that the universe can always be described by our

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Speaker 2: mathematical stories.

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Speaker 1: I guess there's a fine line between mythology and methodology.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I think this is a pretty bright

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Speaker 2: line between those two things, even though they do sound

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Speaker 2: very similar.

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Speaker 1: What if you do mythology very methodologically, very carefully.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. That sounds like doing astronomy very astrologically.

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Speaker 2: It sounds similar, but it's not really the same thing.

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Speaker 1: Well, maybe you make more money if you were an astrologer.

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Speaker 2: Oh almost absolutely, that's true.

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Speaker 1: I hear. They have good benefits.

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Speaker 2: They just don't have big telescopes. It's the problem.

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Speaker 1: But anyways, it is a pretty interesting and mysterious universe,

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Speaker 1: and we still have a lot of questions about it.

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Speaker 1: It's not just physicists and scientists who ask these questions

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Speaker 1: about how things are and why things are the way

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Speaker 1: they are, but it's also every day people going about

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Speaker 1: their everyday lives asking all the big questions.

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Speaker 2: That's right. It's not just the job of scientists to

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Speaker 2: figure out how the universe works. To think about the

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Speaker 2: ways that science can describe tiny little crawling creatures and

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Speaker 2: swarming quantum particles or huge swirling black holes. It's the

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Speaker 2: job of everybody out there to think about how this works,

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Speaker 2: to apply our human curiosity to the greatest puzzle of

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Speaker 2: all time.

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Speaker 1: Wait, did you have to get paid for something to

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Speaker 1: count as a job? My son makes that distinction all

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Speaker 1: the time. I like, it's your job to take out

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Speaker 1: the dishes from the dishwasher, he said, Well, technically, am

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Speaker 1: I getting paid?

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Speaker 2: M I think of it more like our role. You know,

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Speaker 2: some of us do get paid because it's our livelihood.

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Speaker 2: But for everybody else, your job is to support the

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Speaker 2: larger endeavor of science just by being curious, just by

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Speaker 2: wondering how things work and wanting to know the answer.

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Speaker 2: You know, the institution of science is quite literally powered

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Speaker 2: by your curiosity. Because you're a curious person and you

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Speaker 2: think this is a good idea, you elect politicians who

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Speaker 2: vote to use your taxes to support the institution of science.

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Speaker 1: That's right, it's your curiosity and also your taxes, some

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Speaker 1: of your taxes, or a very small fraction of your taxes.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, that's right, your taxes and our facts. Is I suppose.

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Speaker 1: It's taxtual and factual, and they're vote right, Like how

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Speaker 1: you vote makes a big difference about how what society

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Speaker 1: prioritizes and what kind of science and if science gets funded.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right, Which is one reason why this

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Speaker 2: podcast's mission is to fan the flames of curiosity, to

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Speaker 2: share our personal joy and wonder the incredible nature of

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Speaker 2: the universe and this incredible mystery we all share of

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Speaker 2: figuring it all out. Yep.

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Speaker 1: And people are curious and they have questions, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: on this podcast we like to answer those questions.

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Speaker 2: We do love to answer your questions. This is not

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Speaker 2: just a one way medium where you're listening to us talk.

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Speaker 2: We want to hear from you. We say it all

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Speaker 2: the time on the podcast, but we mean it. Please

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Speaker 2: write to us with your questions to questions at Danielandjorge

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Speaker 2: dot com. We answer all of them because we think

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Speaker 2: it's important that you have somebody to ask questions of,

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Speaker 2: somebody you can talk to about your curiosity about the universe.

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Speaker 1: So to the on the podcast will be tackling listener

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Speaker 1: questions number forty two, the Answer to life, Liberty and

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Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness, Right.

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Speaker 2: Life, the universe and everything, including maybe the Supernatural.

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Speaker 1: Whoa a teaser spoiler alert.

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Speaker 2: I'm just trying to cash in on all those podcasts

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Speaker 2: that are higher ranked than us and just deal with

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Speaker 2: like Sasquatch, Bigfoot, and like ancient aliens.

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Speaker 1: Oh, why haven't we done that the science of Sasquatch.

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Speaker 2: That would be a very short episode or.

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Speaker 1: Is that more of an episode because's biology.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that's a good idea.

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Speaker 1: But we have some amazing questions here today about the Supernatural,

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Speaker 1: about neutrinos and neutron stars, and also about how to

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Speaker 1: make space. This is also life Organization podcast premit, like

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Speaker 1: how to get yourself organized.

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Speaker 2: That's right, you can make space in your house by

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Speaker 2: using neutrino beams that also capture ghosts. We're going to

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Speaker 2: tie it all.

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Speaker 1: Together so you only do experiments that really bring you joy.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't bring joy than you get them out of the left.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, we do a lot less science in that case.

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Speaker 1: So let's jump right in. And so a first question

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Speaker 1: comes from Brendan.

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Speaker 3: We've all heard stories about ghosts, telekinesis, remote viewing and

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Speaker 3: things like that, and I was wondering if we can

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Speaker 3: just assume that those are real for a second. How

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Speaker 3: could they work? I think it'd be really awesome to

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Speaker 3: hear your opinions.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Interesting question. Brandon seems to be asking, like,

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Speaker 1: if all these stories about ghosts and esp and being

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Speaker 1: able to move things with your mind, if they were real,

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Speaker 1: how would they work from a physics perspective?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I love this question because he's not like doubting

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Speaker 2: these observations. He's doing the science of it. He's like,

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Speaker 2: all right, let's see if we can construct an explanation,

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Speaker 2: not some metaphysical supernatural story that violates physics, but let's

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Speaker 2: see if we can bring it into the fold of science. Right,

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Speaker 2: Let's see, let's see if we can come up with

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Speaker 2: a way to explain this stuff without breaking physics.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like, if maybe you do see a go someday

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Speaker 1: it could it be that you're crazy? Or is there

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Speaker 1: an actual explanation that someone could come up with.

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Speaker 2: That's right and usual disclaimer we are not offering psychological

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Speaker 2: advice on this podcast. Do not follow our health advice

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Speaker 2: in any.

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Speaker 1: Regards, or financial or career advice apparently, or legal or

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Speaker 1: any kind of advice. I guess we're just talking science here,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, let's maybe start with some of the situations

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Speaker 1: that he mentioned, for example, remote viewing, like if you

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Speaker 1: could see into the future maybe, or you can see

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Speaker 1: what's happening on the other side of the world with

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Speaker 1: your mind, how would that maybe work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is pretty awesome. I mean remote viewing.

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Speaker 2: I had to look this up to see exactly what

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Speaker 2: it meant. And it's the practice of seeking impressions about

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Speaker 2: a distant or unseen subject. So imagine, for example, you're

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Speaker 2: in your house in California and you want to know,

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Speaker 2: like what's going on in the oval office right now,

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Speaker 2: You like close your eyes and you concentrate and you

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Speaker 2: get a vision for what's happening there. Or you want

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Speaker 2: to know, like what's happening on the surface of the moon,

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Speaker 2: for example. So remote viewing would allow you to see

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Speaker 2: something really far away.

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Speaker 1: Like FaceTime without the iPhone exactly.

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Speaker 2: And something that's really fascinating about this one idea is

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Speaker 2: that it's pre technology, right. People have had this idea

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Speaker 2: of remote viewing for thousands of years, but now because

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Speaker 2: of technology, it's not really even that special. Like, as

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Speaker 2: you say, everybody has a device their pocket that you

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Speaker 2: could use to see what's going on on the other

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Speaker 2: side of the world. It's not really that complicated. We

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Speaker 2: have used physics to basically create this ability for almost everybody.

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Speaker 1: Well, do you think Brendan meant like, right, you can

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Speaker 1: see things happening right now somewhere else or maybe in

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Speaker 1: the past, or maybe in the future.

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Speaker 2: I think Brendan is probably talking about without iPhones, like

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Speaker 2: just using your mind. Somehow you can gather this information

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Speaker 2: using something other than the Internet. I think probably that's

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Speaker 2: what Brendan is imagining, not just facetiming your grandma.

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Speaker 1: Hmm, Well, I guess you can always use letters, but

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Speaker 1: they still.

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Speaker 2: Have mail, right, they do still have mail.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, your grandma would probably prefer that.

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Speaker 2: And so physics has some things to say about this, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: first of all, it would be very hard for it

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Speaker 2: to be instantaneous, you know, for you to see what's

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Speaker 2: happening on the other side of the planet, like literally

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Speaker 2: right now with zero time delay, would require information to

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Speaker 2: get from there to here with no time gap, and

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Speaker 2: that would violate relativity. Of course, used one of the

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Speaker 2: loopholes like warp drives or wormholes.

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Speaker 1: You mean, like you could open maybe a wormhole between

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Speaker 1: here and the other side of the world, and then

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Speaker 1: the information would flow from there to hear faster than

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Speaker 1: lightwood in regular space.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, if you opened a wormhole between here and China,

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Speaker 2: then you could pass information between here and there faster

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Speaker 2: than an email would get from here to China. And

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Speaker 2: email travels essentially at the speed of light minus of course,

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Speaker 2: all the time for switching in computation.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying it is possible to see things with

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Speaker 1: your mind that are happening somewhere else, or that happen

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Speaker 1: a few milliseconds before somewhere else.

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Speaker 2: Physics doesn't rule that out. You know, you'd have to

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Speaker 2: create a wormhole, which we don't know how to do,

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Speaker 2: and we don't know if wormholes are real, and then

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Speaker 2: that wormhole would have to be stable enough for you

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Speaker 2: to see that stuff. And to keep wormholes open, you

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Speaker 2: need some sort of like exotic, negatively charged matter that

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Speaker 2: we don't know if it exists, and you'd have to

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Speaker 2: do that somehow, like inside your brain, without also like

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Speaker 2: liquefying your brain, which seems pretty challenging.

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Speaker 1: Like somehow your brain, the cells and your brain would

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Speaker 1: have to be capable of like absorbing these signals and

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Speaker 1: interpreting them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly creating that wormhole, understanding it, and surviving it.

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Speaker 2: That all seems pretty challenging, but I can't tell you that.

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Speaker 2: Physics says it's impossible.

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Speaker 1: All right, So that's a check for the supernatural here.

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Speaker 1: What about telekinesis, the idea of moving things with your

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Speaker 1: mind that are far away or maybe not so far away,

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Speaker 1: but that are not connected to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, telekinesis is also really fascinatingly connected to ideas in physics.

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Speaker 2: Telekinesis is essentially moving something with your brain, as you said,

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Speaker 2: And you know, for a long time there was a

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Speaker 2: puzzle in physics, something called action at a distance, like

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Speaker 2: if two electrons are separated in space, they can still

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Speaker 2: push on each other. How does that happen? It was

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Speaker 2: a big puzzle for a long time, you know, without

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Speaker 2: actually touching, how do two things push on each other?

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Speaker 2: And now, of course we have a solution to that.

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Speaker 2: We know that electrons push on each other using fields

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Speaker 2: that they create. So around each electron on is a

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Speaker 2: field and when electron feels the field of the other electron,

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Speaker 2: or alternatively, you can think about it as them exchanging

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Speaker 2: virtual photons, which is fundamentally the same so physics has

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Speaker 2: a way for two things to push and pull on

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Speaker 2: each other even when they're not touching.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think in physics, basically everything pulls and pushes

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Speaker 1: on each other without touching, because nothing really touches in physics, right,

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Speaker 1: everything is a point particle, which means that they never

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Speaker 1: really touch.

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Speaker 2: Well, you can either say nothing really touches, or you

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Speaker 2: can say that's what touching is. And so you kind

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Speaker 2: of are touching at a distance because you know nothing

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Speaker 2: really has these surfaces, I think is what you're trying

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Speaker 2: to get at when you say they're point particles. There

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Speaker 2: aren't these like surfaces that touch in there some sort

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Speaker 2: of like deep tactile force and the end is just

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Speaker 2: the four fundamental forces and they all operate this way.

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Speaker 2: So that's sort of what touching is. And my point

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Speaker 2: is you can do it at a distance, right. You

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Speaker 2: can pull on something from far away if you can

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Speaker 2: create the right kinds of fields. So you want to

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Speaker 2: levitate your coffee from across the room to you, if

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Speaker 2: you could somehow create the right electromagnetic fields, you could

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Speaker 2: do that because your coffee is made of charged particles.

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Speaker 1: Right, Because I guess everything as we don't understanding. In physics,

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Speaker 1: everything acts at a distance.

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Speaker 2: Right, Everything acts at a distance?

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Speaker 1: Yes, so everything is telikinesis. Right, there's no non there's

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Speaker 1: no regular kinesis in physics. There's only telekinesis.

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Speaker 2: That makes it sound like everything is just like brains

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Speaker 2: thinking about stuff. But yes, everything is action at a distance.

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Speaker 2: In physics, everything is at a distance.

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Speaker 1: But I guess it would be hard. I wonder to

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Speaker 1: lift the coffee mug using the electromagnetic force, because the

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Speaker 1: coffee mug is sort of electrically neutral, right, unless you say,

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Speaker 1: unless you like supercharge your coffee mug.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the coffee mug is typically neutral and you don't

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Speaker 2: want to have to, like, you know, rub static electricity

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Speaker 2: on it to move it across the room. But it

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Speaker 2: is made out of charged particles, and so if you

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Speaker 2: wove your electromagnetic fields in just the right way, then

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Speaker 2: I think you could transfer momentum to it.

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Speaker 1: I guess if maybe, like the coffee mug was a

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Speaker 1: giant magnet for example, or are you thinking it could

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Speaker 1: be done in a regular mug.

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Speaker 2: If we're being crazy here and there's no limit to

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Speaker 2: your technology, if you could craft the electromagnetic fields in

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Speaker 2: a way that you like, push the positive particles one

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Speaker 2: way with one field and push the negative particles with

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Speaker 2: another field. Then you could move them together across the room.

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Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean, like have two kinds of

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Speaker 1: electromic getty forces?

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Speaker 2: Positive particles and negative particles are not literally on top

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Speaker 2: of each other. So if you created an electromagnetic field

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Speaker 2: that was highly variable in distance, it was like sculpted

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Speaker 2: to perfectly match the shape of your mug and the

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Speaker 2: location of all the positive negative they charged particles, then

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Speaker 2: you could give it a coherent push in the direction

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Speaker 2: that you wanted.

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Speaker 1: Whoa Like you could single out the electrons in a

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Speaker 1: coffee mug and single out the positive charges separately and

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Speaker 1: somehow shoot a force at each one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that. We're talking about telekinesis, and your

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Speaker 2: tone is like, Daniel, you're being unrealistic.

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Speaker 1: Well, we're trying to go on with a real answer, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's theoretically possible. I guess you could single

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Speaker 1: out the trillions of electrons the mug. But but to

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Speaker 1: do it with your mind, I wonder if that would

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Speaker 1: maybe exceed the computational processing of your brain.

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Speaker 2: Almost certainly, I'm not saying that would be easy. But

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Speaker 2: I'm just reaching for a way to move your mug

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Speaker 2: across the room, and I'm thinking technically, theoretically that might

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Speaker 2: be possible.

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Speaker 1: It sounds easier to just ask your sug to bring it.

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Speaker 2: And pay them for it, I hope. But there's another

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Speaker 2: issue there with your brain, which is if physics says

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Speaker 2: momentum is conserved, so if you push on an object,

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Speaker 2: there's an equal and opposite force that pushes back. You know,

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Speaker 2: like if you fire a rifle, there's a recoil. So

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Speaker 2: if you're transferring momentum using your brain to the mug,

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Speaker 2: then this can be some momentum also on your brain. Right,

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Speaker 2: so your brain pushes on an object, basically that object

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Speaker 2: is also pushing on your brain, and that could be

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Speaker 2: quite uncomfortable.

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Speaker 1: I guess yeah, Like if you want to throw the

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Speaker 1: mug across the room, then you kind of need you

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Speaker 1: would feel that forcing with your head. But if I guess,

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Speaker 1: if you're just moving it like within arm reach on

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Speaker 1: top of a table, you probably wouldn't feel a huge

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Speaker 1: amount of force on your brain, would you. I mean,

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Speaker 1: your brain is pretty heavy too.

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Speaker 2: But if you're like magneto and you're lifting like a

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Speaker 2: steam engine or something that's going to liquify your brain.

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Speaker 1: Also, that is pretty mind blowing if agnito exists. So

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Speaker 1: that's a rule. Well, okay, now let's get to the

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Speaker 1: juicy one. What about ghosts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I thought about this for a while,

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Speaker 2: and I guess it depends on what you mean by ghosts.

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Speaker 2: If ghosts are just like apparitions that appear human like

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Speaker 2: and make human like noises, then sure than anything could

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Speaker 2: appear to be human. But if you're talking about like

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Speaker 2: actual spirits of dead people, like the continuing thought processes

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Speaker 2: of their brains after their bodies have ceased to live

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Speaker 2: and maybe even decomposed, it's hard for me to understand

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Speaker 2: how that's possible. I mean, there is quantum information, and

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Speaker 2: quantum information is not destroyed, and so technically the quantum

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Speaker 2: information of those people lives on in the universe. But

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Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that it's coherent in a way that

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Speaker 2: could like speak to you and answer questions. Wait, wait,

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Speaker 2: I feel like there's two things here going on. First

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Speaker 2: of all, it's like, can things be ghostly like, can

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Speaker 2: things kind of be in this world but not really

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Speaker 2: be in this world? Or can things, you know, sort

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Speaker 2: of appear to you and go through walls and things

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Speaker 2: like that. And second is can your spirit or your

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Speaker 2: consciousness or what makes you somehow live on after you

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Speaker 2: die or be transformed into something that is ghostly? Oh,

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Speaker 2: I see, well, things being ghostly. Yeah, that's easy because

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Speaker 2: we basically live in a ghostly world. I mean, surrounding

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Speaker 2: us are all sorts of particles that are transparent to us,

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Speaker 2: and we're transparent to them, neutrinos, dark matter, other stuff

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Speaker 2: we haven't even detected. So there's lots of stuff facing

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Speaker 2: through our walls and through us and through our lives

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Speaker 2: all the time that we don't detect. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there's the idea out there that maybe dark

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Speaker 1: matter is complicated and could be forming structures and maybe

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Speaker 1: you know, biological things, and maybe even sort of like

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Speaker 1: sentient dark matter beings kind of living in our universe

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Speaker 1: but us never knowing they're there.

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Speaker 2: That's certainly possible. Would you be able to see them

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Speaker 2: and detect them as ghosts? That's harder for me to

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Speaker 2: understand the reason these things are ghost it's because they

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Speaker 2: almost never interact with us, and they do, it wouldn't

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Speaker 2: be in some sort of coherent way, you'd see like

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Speaker 2: one particle here in one particle there.

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Speaker 1: But they do affect our world in some ways, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: for example, dark matter affects us gravitationally, and neutrinos affects

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Speaker 1: us through the weak force.

404
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:20,119
Speaker 2: Right, dark matter does affect us gravitationally, but only on

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Speaker 2: really big scales, Like we can't even detect the effect

406
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Speaker 2: of dark matter on our solar system. We have super

407
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Speaker 2: high precision measurements of like the orbit of Jupiter, and

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Speaker 2: we can totally ignore dark matter when we do those

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Speaker 2: calculations because it's spread so thin and it's so dilute

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Speaker 2: that it has basically no impact on anything local. So

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Speaker 2: you're not going to see like a dark matter ghost.

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Speaker 1: Well sort of, maybe I wonder this is recording nuts here?

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Speaker 1: Could it dark matter being somehow use their brain to

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Speaker 1: focus gravitational force onto like particular molecules or atoms or particles,

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Speaker 1: just like we were moving the mug earlier. Could they

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Speaker 1: do telekinesis using gravity on us?

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Speaker 2: Perhaps they could remember the so that gravity is the

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Speaker 2: weakest force in the universe by a lot. So to

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Speaker 2: have any sort of gravitational effect on something, you need

420
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Speaker 2: a very very large mass and there just isn't that

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Speaker 2: much dark matter around. Like in the volume of the

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Speaker 2: Earth is about one squirrel's worth of dark matter, So

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Speaker 2: one squirrel's worth of gravity is about the biggest impact

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Speaker 2: dark matter could have on Earth.

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Speaker 1: So I think you're saying there is ghostly matter in

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Speaker 1: the universe, matter that exists out there that could be

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Speaker 1: organized into things. But then if it does exist, it'd

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Speaker 1: be hard for it to interact with us, and so

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Speaker 1: it'd be hard for us to ever see it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And you certainly wouldn't see it as your

431
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Speaker 2: grumpy uncle come back to life to haunt your living room.

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Speaker 1: But what if I take my grumpy uncle and he's

433
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Speaker 1: a billionaire and he puts all his money into downloading

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Speaker 1: his consciousness or scanning his brain, or creating an AI

435
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 1: that replicates his consciousness, that he uses his money further

436
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Speaker 1: to create a neutrino or dark matter version of himself.

437
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Speaker 2: Wow, your family's pretty crazy, That's what I gotta say

438
00:21:02,520 --> 00:21:05,800
Speaker 2: about that. It's certainly technically possible to do a quantum

439
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Speaker 2: copy of your information into some storage medium, and so

440
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,480
Speaker 2: in principle, perhaps in the future one could upload yourself

441
00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 2: into the cloud. I don't know, about creating a neutrino

442
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:19,640
Speaker 2: version of yourself, though again neutrino is almost impossible to.

443
00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 1: Interact with, or maybe like a dark matter version of yourself, but.

444
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,280
Speaker 2: We don't even know what dark matter is. If it's

445
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:27,560
Speaker 2: made of particles, how to interact with it? If you

446
00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:30,560
Speaker 2: could do anything but gravity. I suppose the computer version

447
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:32,760
Speaker 2: of your grumpy uncle could be hooked up to like

448
00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:36,280
Speaker 2: a projector which creates, you know, a holographic image of

449
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:38,639
Speaker 2: your uncle, and in that way could be sort of

450
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:39,400
Speaker 2: like a ghost.

451
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:44,639
Speaker 1: Oh, there you go, a dark matter projector using a

452
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: quantum copy of your uncle.

453
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:48,439
Speaker 2: It doesn't even have to be dark matter, just like

454
00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:51,159
Speaker 2: a normal matter projector making a hologram.

455
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:53,639
Speaker 1: Right, Oh, yeah, there you go. You don't even need

456
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:54,120
Speaker 1: dark matter.

457
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I suppose in that way a ghost could exist,

458
00:21:57,680 --> 00:21:58,480
Speaker 2: a physics ghost.

459
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 1: All right, Well, hopefully I can convin my uncle to

460
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: leave the money to me rather than to create a

461
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 1: holograms of himself.

462
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:08,359
Speaker 2: Just send your son over there to do a bunch

463
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 2: of chores and then send them a bill.

464
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:12,719
Speaker 1: There you go. There's always a way in physics. All right,

465
00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:15,200
Speaker 1: Let's get into our other questions. We have awesome questions

466
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 1: about neutrinos and neutron stars, and about the nature and

467
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 1: origin of space itself. So we'll dig into those, but

468
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:38,800
Speaker 1: first let's take our quick break. We're answering listening questions

469
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: here today, and there is our forty second episode where

470
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,240
Speaker 1: we do that forty two is a pretty significant number,

471
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 1: isn't it?

472
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 2: Forty two is a big deal. It's a running joke

473
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 2: in my family since we've read it a Hitchhiker's Guide

474
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:49,400
Speaker 2: in the Galaxy several years ago.

475
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:50,640
Speaker 1: What's the running joke?

476
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 2: I guess we just take special joy in seeing the

477
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:54,879
Speaker 2: number forty two appear all over the place.

478
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: It is sort of an interesting number, right, It's six

479
00:22:57,800 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: times seven.

480
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:00,159
Speaker 2: What's interesting about that?

481
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's take an odd number of times

482
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 1: an even number. I don't know.

483
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:05,640
Speaker 2: I do wonder sometimes what made Douglas Addas choose that

484
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 2: number and not, you know, thirty nine or one hundred

485
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 2: and forty one or something else.

486
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 1: Maybe because it's six ninety seven, as.

487
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,080
Speaker 2: If that's an answer somehow, like the way you say that,

488
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 2: as if it answers the question.

489
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:21,080
Speaker 1: Isn't it Jackie Robinson's number two?

490
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:21,480
Speaker 4: Yeah?

491
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 2: Could be, I don't know.

492
00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 1: Anyways, we're answering questions from listeners because everyone has questions

493
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: and we'd like to answer them here on the podcast sometimes.

494
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: And so our second question here today is about neutrinos

495
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: and neutron stars.

496
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 4: You've mentioned that a neutrino can penetrate a light year

497
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 4: of lead, but how much neutron star matter can a

498
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 4: neutrino penetrate? Could we study a neutron star that is

499
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:50,360
Speaker 4: paired with a main sequence star using the neutrinos from

500
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 4: the main sequence star.

501
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 1: Right, an interesting question here about neutrinos and neutron stars.

502
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack here, but basically, neutrinos are ghostly,

503
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:01,719
Speaker 1: as we just talked about earlier, and neutron stars are

504
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: super dense, and so I think they're asking what happens

505
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: if you put them together.

506
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really great question, not just because it

507
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 2: seeks to understand, like neutrino's a deeper level, but it's

508
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 2: got an idea in it, right, an idea to help

509
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 2: us probe the interior of neutron stars. We'd love to

510
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 2: know what's going on in these crazy, super dense regions

511
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 2: of space, these hot squeezed relics. At the end of stars,

512
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 2: and so it's a cool idea to imagine like shooting

513
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 2: a beam of neutrinos through it and seeing what happens.

514
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: So we talked about what a neutrino is. There are

515
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: particles that exist out there in the universe. They get

516
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 1: made by the sound. There's a whole bunch of them

517
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: going through us right now. But they don't interact with

518
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: things using the electromagnetic force. They seem to only interact

519
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 1: using the weak force, right.

520
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:48,640
Speaker 2: That's right. Neutrinos have no electric charge, and so they

521
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 2: don't interact with photons, and they don't interact at all

522
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 2: using electromagnetism, which is really the strongest force that people

523
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,120
Speaker 2: feel in their everyday lives, you know, lightning and magnetism

524
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 2: and the chemical bonds that hold things together. That's all electromagnetism.

525
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 2: Neutrinos only feel the weak force, which is much much

526
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,880
Speaker 2: weaker than electromagnetism. And so that's why we often say

527
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,920
Speaker 2: that neutrinos can pass through like a wall of lead

528
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 2: that's a light year thick without interacting. And it's not

529
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: because they're like wiggling around those lead particles. It's not

530
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 2: because they're super duper small. It's because they just don't

531
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 2: interact very often. Every time a neutrino comes near an

532
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 2: atom like rolls to die. But that die is like

533
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,199
Speaker 2: a billion sided dye, and only if it comes up

534
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 2: one number, one specific number does the neutrino interact.

535
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 1: And so I guess the idea is to pair that

536
00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:40,919
Speaker 1: idea with the idea of a neutron star. So, now, Daniel,

537
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: what is a neutron star.

538
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,680
Speaker 2: A neutron star is the endpoint of a big star

539
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 2: that's burned and burned and burned. Remember, most stars start

540
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 2: out as overwhelmingly hydrogen, but gravity squeezes them down and

541
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 2: ignites fusion at their core, which makes heavier and heavier elements.

542
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 2: You take hydrogen mechelium, you squeeze the helium together, you

543
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 2: can make carbon. You can heavier stuff all the way

544
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 2: up to iron if you have a really big, hot star.

545
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:06,000
Speaker 2: But at the end of its life, a star will

546
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 2: implode or explode, depending exactly on the mass that it has,

547
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 2: and usually leave behind a very hot, dense relic the

548
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 2: leftover bits of the fusion that it couldn't burn. And

549
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 2: so a neutron star is an extraordinarily dense object. They

550
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 2: usually have something like the mass of the Sun but

551
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 2: a radius of like ten kilometers. So you're talking about

552
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 2: like taking the Sun and squeezing it down to the

553
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 2: size of Manhattan after putting it in a blender, and

554
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 2: that's a crazy dense object.

555
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've talked about how it's basically like the bestest

556
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: thing you can get in the universe, almost before you

557
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 1: get a black hole.

558
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, gravity is trying to squeeze it down even further,

559
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 2: but there's this degeneracy pressure. The quantum effects inside the

560
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 2: neutron star are still able to resist gravity. If you

561
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 2: add a little bit more mass, then the thing will

562
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 2: collapse into a black hole, but it's still resistant. So

563
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 2: it's like the last stronghold against gravity's ultimate victory.

564
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,239
Speaker 1: And I think part of the reason is that it

565
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 1: is made out of neutrons, right, so they don't repel

566
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: each other electromagnetically. They have no almost no reason not

567
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,119
Speaker 1: to just fall into themselves, not to get crushed together.

568
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 2: Except that neutrons are fermions. They're spin one half particles,

569
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 2: which means that like electrons, they can't overlap too much.

570
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 2: They can't be in the same quantum state, so they

571
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 2: resist being pushed together. So that's one way in which

572
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: a neutron star is preventing itself from collapsing into a

573
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 2: black hole. There's this degeneracy pressure. The neutrons don't want

574
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 2: to be in the same quantum state.

575
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: Right, right, But I think what I meant was, like,

576
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 1: the reason I don't fall to the enter of the

577
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: Earth is because my electrons are being repelled by the

578
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 1: electrons of the floor.

579
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and that's not happening inside neutron.

580
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 1: Stars because it's all neutral.

581
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 2: It's all neutral electromagnetically. But you know, we also don't

582
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 2: think that it's really still neutrons at the core of

583
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 2: neutron stars. We think that the strong force is probably

584
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 2: doing something crazy, something else that you know, the distinction

585
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 2: between the neutrons is blurring, and all the quarks inside

586
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: them are really interacting with each other. Episode about what's

587
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,719
Speaker 2: going on the heart of neutron stars, But the bottom

588
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 2: line is that we don't know, and it's probably something

589
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: super fascinating that would tell us something new about the

590
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 2: way the strong force works and the way that it

591
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 2: competes with gravity. So super interesting, almost like learning about

592
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 2: what's inside a black hole.

593
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: Okay, so now the question is we have the the

594
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 1: desest thing in the universe before a black hole, and

595
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: we have something that doesn't really like to interact with anything.

596
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: What happens if you shoot a nutrino into a neutron star.

597
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is really a question about transparency. We

598
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 2: recently did an episode all about transparency and photons, and

599
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 2: the short version of that is that it depends on

600
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 2: the interaction. You have to think about it from a

601
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 2: particle physics point of view. Shoot the particle through, is

602
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 2: it going to interact with the stuff? And when you're

603
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 2: talking about transparency for normal materials, like why can light

604
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 2: go through air and why can it go through glass

605
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 2: but it can't go through steel or can't go through

606
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 2: your hand, then again it's depending on those interactions. You're

607
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 2: thinking about whether the photon can be absorbed by the

608
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 2: electrons in your body. Sometimes those electrons can absorb that

609
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 2: photon because there's an energy level available for them to

610
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 2: get to, and sometimes they can't, so the photon just

611
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 2: flies through and ignores the material. So that's why photons

612
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: can go through matter. Sometimes if the energy states aren't

613
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 2: arranged in a way that the photon can absorb it.

614
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 2: So now when we think about a neutrino going through

615
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 2: a neutron star, we have to ask similar questions like

616
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 2: how can the neutrino interact with that material and is

617
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: there sort of a valid particle physics process that would

618
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 2: allow that to happen.

619
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: Well, as far as we know, neutrinos are neutral, so

620
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: they don't feel the electromagnetic force, but they do feel

621
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: the weak force. Right, do they feel the strong force

622
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: as well or only the weak force?

623
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 2: If they have mass, then they feel gravity, and we

624
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 2: do think that they have masks, though we can't measure

625
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 2: it very precisely, but their mass, if they have any,

626
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 2: is very very small, and so gravity is probably almost

627
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 2: irrelevant for neutrinos. So really it just comes down to

628
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 2: the weak force. So if you're a neutrino and you're

629
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 2: approaching a neutron star it's filled with neutrons, then what

630
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 2: you can do is interact with one of the quarks

631
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 2: inside the neutron. For example, you can take a down

632
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 2: quark and you can convert it to an upquark, interacting

633
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 2: with it because those quarks also feel the weak force.

634
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 2: This is called reverse beta decay. Sentially, a neutrino hits

635
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 2: a neutron, turns it into a proton, and then you

636
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 2: can an electron out the other side.

637
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: So there is a process for a nutrina to interact

638
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: with a quark, is what you're saying exactly.

639
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 2: You can either do this convert a nucleon from a

640
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 2: neutron to a proton, or it could just kick one

641
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 2: of the nucleons. The reason it's got two options is

642
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 2: because there's sort of two versions of the photon for

643
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 2: the weak force. Electromagnetism just has the photon, but the

644
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 2: weak force has the W and the Z, and the

645
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 2: neutrino can use either one. You can either use a

646
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 2: Z to sort of give a kick to one of

647
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 2: the nucleons, or it can use the W to convert

648
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 2: one of the nucleons from a neutron to a proton.

649
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I follow all the mechanics, but I

650
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: think what I'm saying is if I shoot a nutrino

651
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: into a neutron, start it iss for it to interact

652
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: with a quark, in which case it would get stopped

653
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: by the quark. Basically right, it'd be like hitting the cork.

654
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 2: It wouldn't necessarily get stopped, but it might get scattered

655
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: amount like change direction, or it might even be absorbed

656
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,239
Speaker 2: and get converted into an electron.

657
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't go through as the main point.

658
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 2: It might go through. There's a possibility for a neutrino

659
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 2: to interact with these things, but the probability of it

660
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 2: happening depends on a lot of different factors. It still

661
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 2: has to roll that big die and come up with

662
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: the right number, but sort of the number of sizes

663
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 2: of that dye depends on a few things. One of

664
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 2: the things that depends on is the energy of the neutrino.

665
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 2: If the neutrino is higher energy, if it's moving faster,

666
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 2: then it has a higher probability to interact with the material.

667
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 2: So a faster moving neutrino is more likely to bump

668
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 2: into one of these nucleons, and a slower moving neutrino

669
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 2: is less likely.

670
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: But if it does interact, then it's sort of like

671
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: it's it wouldn't count as going through unscathed, right.

672
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 2: That's right. Any interaction doesn't count as going through unscathed.

673
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: So it depends on two things. It depends on the

674
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 2: neutrino's energy, and that's actually interesting. It's because of relativity.

675
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 2: If you're moving really really fast, then space in front

676
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 2: of you is looking contracted, which means that you're squeezing

677
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 2: this already very dense neutron star. You're squeezing it down

678
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 2: even further so it looks even denser. So you like

679
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 2: length contract the neutron star into something even smaller, which

680
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 2: makes you have a higher probability of interacting with it.

681
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 2: So higher energy neutrinos, faster neutrinos, have a bigger probability

682
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 2: of being absorbed by the neutron star or being bent

683
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 2: by it.

684
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: So the neutron star is super dense. That means that

685
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: it basically, as a neutrino's trying to go through it,

686
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: there are a lot of possibilities or it's very likely

687
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: for it to interact with a quirk, which means it

688
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: wouldn't go through necessarily. Have you done the math like

689
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: how far can a neutrino penetrate?

690
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 2: So it did sit down to do this calculation, and

691
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 2: it turns out it also really depends very strongly on

692
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 2: the temperature of the neutron star. So neutron stars, remember

693
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 2: there are these degenerate states, which means that like all

694
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 2: the quantum states are filled up, so cold neutron star

695
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 2: has all those neutrons filling up the lowest energy states,

696
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 2: and that's a problem for interaction because if you're coming

697
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 2: through in your neutrino and you're trying to bump into

698
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 2: one of those neutrons, there's sort of no available state

699
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 2: for it to get to. Like the ladder above, it

700
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 2: is all filled, so it can't interact with the neutrino

701
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 2: because there's nowhere for it to go. On a hotter

702
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 2: neutron star, some of those states are not totally filled

703
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 2: because the neutrons are moving around they have higher energy,

704
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 2: so there's open spots in the ladder, and if a

705
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 2: neutrino comes by, it can interact with that neutron because

706
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 2: there's a spot for the neutron to jump up to.

707
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 2: So for hotter neutron stars, they're more likely to interact.

708
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 2: So you have a high energy neutrino hitting a very

709
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 2: hot neutron star than it can interact.

710
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: Which means it wouldn't penetrate very.

711
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 2: Much exactly, which is sort of cool because it means

712
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 2: that neutron stars start out opaque to neutrinos and as

713
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 2: they cool, they become transparent, and there's this threshold it

714
00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: like ten to the ten degrees kelvin, that's like ten

715
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 2: billion kelvin that neutron stars essentially become completely transparent to neutrinos.

716
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,240
Speaker 1: Do neutron stars cool?

717
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 2: Neutron stars do cool absolutely, very slowly over time. They're

718
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 2: still radiating out heat. They're not fusing, right, They're not

719
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 2: creating more energy at their cores, but there's still hot

720
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 2: lumps of matter, and hot lumps of matter do radiate

721
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 2: out photons.

722
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: I guess maybe another question is, if they are really

723
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: close to being black holes, wouldn't they also bend the

724
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: space around them and somehow trap neutrinos that way, or

725
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: at least bend their path.

726
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. Neutron stars are definitely dense

727
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:38,439
Speaker 2: enough to have very strong gravitational effects, you know. That's

728
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 2: why they're almost perfectly spherical. Like you try to make

729
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 2: a mountain on the surface of a neutron star, it

730
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 2: will get flattened. The tallest mountain on the surface of

731
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,839
Speaker 2: a neutron star is like a millimeter high, so it's

732
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 2: very intense gravity, but there's no event horizon, right, that's

733
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 2: the difference between something that's a black hole and something

734
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,760
Speaker 2: that's not so. In principle, photons and even neutrinos created

735
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 2: at the heart of a neutron star can and still

736
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,360
Speaker 2: escape because there's no event horizon. But you're right, it

737
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,320
Speaker 2: will get distorted, like bent around in lots of different directions.

738
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: Right. So, I guess if you shoot neutrino's at entron star,

739
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: it would only maybe go through on scathe if you

740
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: shoot it at the exact center of the neutron star,

741
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: I wonder. And also if it has, as you said,

742
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: the right energy to it, and the neutron star is

743
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: cool enough, then it will go through. But otherwise it

744
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: might get deflected or it might hit one of the

745
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: quarks in the star exactly.

746
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 2: And here we've mostly focused on the hot mess that's

747
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 2: at the heart of the neutron star. The densest region,

748
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 2: the crust of the neutron star, like the surface of it,

749
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 2: is not nearly as dense.

750
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think that's the answer to the

751
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: question here. How much can neutrinos penetrate a neutron star.

752
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: It sounds like the answer is it depends on the

753
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: speed of the neutrino and also the temperature of the

754
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 1: neutron star. But it sounds like if it's the right conditions,

755
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: then it wouldn't penetrate very far, or at least it

756
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 1: would maybe get bent for sure, almost definitely by the

757
00:35:57,239 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: gravity of the neutron starm.

758
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 2: Which means something cool, means that Doug is right that

759
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 2: in principle, you could use a beam of neutrinos that's

760
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 2: going through a very hot neutron star to learn something

761
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: about what's inside that neutron star based on how those

762
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:13,720
Speaker 2: neutrinos are bent or stopped.

763
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: Mmm, like an X ray kind of like you could

764
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 1: shoot some neutrinos at intrustar have a detector in the

765
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: back of it, and you can kind of get an

766
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: X ray of the neutron star.

767
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:25,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, or if there's a bright star behind the neutron star,

768
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: it's already doing that for us, shooting the neutrinos at us.

769
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 2: So we just got to find those and use it

770
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 2: as a way to X ray that neutron star.

771
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: Maybe my rich uncle will pay for that detector. We'll see,

772
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: we'll see what we can convince him to do. All right,

773
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 1: let's get to our last question here, and it's about

774
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: space and how it gets made. So let's dig into that,

775
00:36:46,120 --> 00:37:01,399
Speaker 1: but first let's take another quick break. All right, we're

776
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 1: answering questions from listeners. We've answered awesome questions about ghosts, telekinesis,

777
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: the supernatural or I guess how we can make the

778
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: supernatural natural? And we've answered questions about Neutrino's and some

779
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,840
Speaker 1: of the densest objects in the universe. Now we have

780
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: our last question here today, and it comes from a

781
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: six year old named James.

782
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 3: Hi.

783
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 1: Daniel, Hi, my name is Change and I just turned six,

784
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: and how does space get made? Awesome question? Thank you James,

785
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 1: and happy birthday. Do you think he's getting paid to

786
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: be a physicist.

787
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 2: I think he's got a future career ahead.

788
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: Of him for sure, getting paid in cereal and ice cream.

789
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 2: I wonder if James's question is why does space exist,

790
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 2: like how did it get made in the beginning originally?

791
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 2: Or if he's asking about how space expands, how we

792
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 2: get more space?

793
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: What are the words he used?

794
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: He says, I'm wondering about how space gets made.

795
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 1: Well, let's see he used the words I wonder how

796
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: space gets made. So it sounds like it's in the

797
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: present tense right, like, how are space being made?

798
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:10,479
Speaker 3: Right now?

799
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 2: Yeah? I guess he's sort of asking for a recipe, like, Hey,

800
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 2: I want to make more space? What do I do?

801
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 1: Which I guess is maybe the same question as if

802
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 1: you put in the past ask, which is how did it? Space?

803
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 2: Can be like when you go to somebody's house and

804
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 2: they serve a really delicious dessert and you're like, wow,

805
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 2: how does that pie get made?

806
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:27,760
Speaker 1: That seems like a red question.

807
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 2: Oh, that's very polite. It's saying I want more of

808
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 2: that thing you made.

809
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,320
Speaker 1: Well, we could all use a little bit more space,

810
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: for sure, especially down here in southern California, where space

811
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: set a premium, And the question is a physical one,

812
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: I guess about physics, not just like how do you

813
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: make more room in your house?

814
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,839
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it's about the nature of space itself. Right,

815
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,720
Speaker 2: When you take everything out of the universe, you strip

816
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 2: it of all of its particles and its energy. We're

817
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:55,439
Speaker 2: talking about this stuff that everything is existing in. How

818
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 2: does that itself get made? Yeah?

819
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: Or maybe James has a sibling and he's wondering when

820
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: he has to stop sharing a room with that something,

821
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:04,760
Speaker 1: how can I get more space?

822
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 2: Well, we're spending a lot of time joking around about

823
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 2: the question and not answering it. And one reason is

824
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 2: that we really just don't have any good answers. You know,

825
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 2: one of the deepest mysteries in modern physics is even

826
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 2: like what is space anyway? We still don't even really understand.

827
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 2: We know that we need to move beyond sort of

828
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 2: ancient notions of space from like Newton that space is

829
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 2: absolute like a backdrop of the universe, but we don't

830
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: really have a great idea for what space actually is.

831
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like it's sort of been one of

832
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: the biggest mind blowing moments in humanity in the last

833
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: one hundred years to realize that the space is being

834
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: made right now, Like there's more space today than there

835
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:43,280
Speaker 1: was yesterday in the universe.

836
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, about one hundred years ago, people thought that the

837
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 2: universe was static. There was just a bunch of stars

838
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 2: hanging out in space, and it was that way, it

839
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 2: had always been that way. Then we learned that the

840
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 2: universe was expanding, and Einstein's general relativity actually accommodates that

841
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 2: very very nicely, even without later confusion about excit expansion

842
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 2: or decelerating expansion. Just the idea that the universe was

843
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 2: expanding at all meant that space itself was increasing, right,

844
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 2: not just stuff moving through space, but actual increase in

845
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 2: the amount of space.

846
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, space is being made right now, And I guess

847
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: the question is, like how do you make space or

848
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 1: like where does space come from?

849
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 2: We don't know the answer to that. We know that

850
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 2: it is happening, and we can describe it mathematically, and

851
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 2: we have some pretty good handles on like when space

852
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 2: will contract and when space will expand, but we don't

853
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 2: know what space is, so we don't have really any

854
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 2: insight into that process itself. We know that the universe

855
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 2: is doing it and a long way breaking some rules

856
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 2: we used to think were fundamental, like when the universe

857
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 2: makes space, it makes a new chunk of space that

858
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 2: comes with new quantum fields which have non zero energy

859
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 2: in them, which means, in principle, is increasing the total

860
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 2: energy of the universe. So making more space involves creating

861
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 2: energy from nothing, which is not something we know how

862
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:02,320
Speaker 2: to do. So yeah, we really don't have any idea

863
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 2: for how this works.

864
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: I think you're saying that, like, all we know right

865
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: now is that there is some space today there in

866
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,959
Speaker 1: between the stars that we can see and tomorrow there's

867
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,720
Speaker 1: more space, but there's going to be more space between

868
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,359
Speaker 1: those stars. That's kind of how we see it. That's

869
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: just what we can observe.

870
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 2: That's what we observe. And it's not like we're totally clueless, right,

871
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 2: General relativity gives us a mathematical description for that expansion.

872
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 2: We can describe it, we can even predict it that,

873
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 2: we can explain the history of it, but like the

874
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 2: deep underlying mechanism of that is not something that we

875
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 2: understand at all, because again, we don't even know what

876
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,399
Speaker 2: the thing itself is. We have this sort of high

877
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 2: level mathematical story from Einstein, but we don't understand the

878
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 2: microphysics of it, like how does space come together? What

879
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 2: are the essential bits of it? We don't even know

880
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 2: if space itself is fundamental, Like could you have a

881
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 2: universe without space or is space like a prerequisite a

882
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 2: minimum condition for even having a universe. We don't even

883
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 2: know the answer to that totally basic question about the

884
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 2: nature of space.

885
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: You mean, like we don't know what space is in

886
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: the first place, right.

887
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we don't know if you have to

888
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 2: have it, right, maybe there's a place where space.

889
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: Isn't now maybe to answer then James's question, like how

890
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: does space get made? Like what does that process look like?

891
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: I wonder if maybe that's one of the questions he's

892
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: wondering about, Like is space being created smoothly sort of

893
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: like you know, like a balloon being inflated smoothly, or

894
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: does it get created in chunks or in steps?

895
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 2: What do you think another great question I would love

896
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 2: to have the answer to. It depends on whether space

897
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: is smooth and continuous or quantum mechanical, like in Einstein's

898
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:44,280
Speaker 2: description of general relativity, space is continuous. Between any two points,

899
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 2: there's an infinite number of steps, and you can continue

900
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 2: to divide those as long as you'd like. Quantum mechanical

901
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,879
Speaker 2: views of space say that's not true, that there must

902
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 2: be like space pixels, that everything is discrete. And if

903
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,720
Speaker 2: that's true, then as the universe expands, then you pop

904
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 2: out new countable numbers of space pixels, right, like one

905
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 2: more and then one another one. You can't have like

906
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 2: one and a half more space pixels. So whether it's

907
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 2: continuous or discrete depends on whether space is sort of

908
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 2: classical and smooth or quantum mechanical and discrete and we

909
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 2: don't know the answer to that either.

910
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: One of their other possibilities for like explaining what we

911
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,760
Speaker 1: see out there. Is it possible we're shrinking and space

912
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: is the same where we're just shrinking. Just seems like

913
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: space is getting bigger.

914
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:32,840
Speaker 2: That's absolutely possible. Remember the expansion of space absolutely yeah.

915
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 1: I was just pulling that out of out of my pocket. There.

916
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 2: The expansion of space is relative. It's a scale factor

917
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 2: we measure as space expands relative to its size in

918
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 2: the past, And it's mathematically equivalent to say space is

919
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:51,760
Speaker 2: expanding and stuff is staying the same size, or space

920
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 2: is staying the same size and everything is shrinking. You

921
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 2: can never tell the difference between those two things because

922
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:00,840
Speaker 2: they would only be different relative to some external ruler

923
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 2: which doesn't exist.

924
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: Wait, what does that even mean? Now? I was literally

925
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 1: just making up words, but it sounds like it's a

926
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: real possibility. What does that mean? Like we're getting smaller

927
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: relative to like, let's say, like us and our sun

928
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: here and there's another star in the sky, we're getting smaller.

929
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:21,280
Speaker 1: Would that necessarily make the space between us bigger?

930
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,760
Speaker 2: Imagine the expanding universe? Right, this is your usual picture

931
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 2: everything's staying the same size and getting further and further apart.

932
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 2: And we think that's probably infinite. But just imagine like

933
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 2: a chunk of it, and now, instead of allowing that

934
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 2: to get bigger and bigger, try holding it to be

935
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 2: the same size, so as time goes on, you don't

936
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 2: allow it to expand. In order to keep all the

937
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,240
Speaker 2: relationships the same. You can instead just squeeze everything down.

938
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 2: So like now you're holding that chunk of space and

939
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 2: you're watching it, and instead of it getting bigger, so

940
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,799
Speaker 2: things get further apart, everything just shrinks inside of it,

941
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 2: so it gets smaller and smaller. So then the beings

942
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 2: on those little planets, they measure the distances to be

943
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 2: larger because they're rulers are.

944
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: Shrinking, even the ruler between like here and there.

945
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 2: Yes, everything within it shrinks. And so if you don't

946
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 2: have an external metric, if you're not that alien outside,

947
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,240
Speaker 2: you know, running the simulation holding that chunk of space,

948
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 2: you can't tell the difference. If you're inside the universe,

949
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 2: you can't tell the difference between stuff shrinking and space

950
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 2: staying the same, or everything staying the same size and

951
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 2: space increasing.

952
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: And that would apply even to things like light. Right, Like,

953
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 1: as the universe expands, we see light being stretched DoD,

954
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 1: I mean the light itself. The photons are shrinking, or

955
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: the speed of light is shrinking.

956
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 2: Everything stays the same relative to that ruler. But those

957
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 2: rulers are shrinking. So yes, whoa.

958
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:39,879
Speaker 1: And it's time shrinking as well, or time stays the same.

959
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 2: Time stays the same in these pictures, it's space that's shrinking. Whoa.

960
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: So maybe space is not being made. They were just

961
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 1: getting you know, shorter with age.

962
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, if you're shrinking, doesn't that

963
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 2: make more space for you? I mean if you said, hey, Daniel,

964
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,280
Speaker 2: I want a bigger house, and then I like shrunk

965
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 2: you in your family down the half size, you'd be like, oh, awesome,

966
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 2: houses down twice as bien.

967
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: I think there's a movie with Matt Damon about that

968
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: that's been made already. But what's an important distinction, though,

969
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 1: isn't there? Like that means that space is not being made.

970
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 1: It's not sort of a thing that's being created. We're

971
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: just drinking.

972
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 2: If according to the people on those planets, they're measuring

973
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 2: greater distances between stuff, then I would say, yes, space

974
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 2: is still being made in both scenarios.

975
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: I see, you can make space by vacating it or

976
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: by making an addition to your hous is what you're saying.

977
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, by either increasing the distances or shrinking the rulers.

978
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:33,879
Speaker 2: It's the same thing.

979
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: So you're saying, as I get older and my house

980
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: is going to get bigger automatically, whereas for my kids

981
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: right now, the house is just getting smaller and smaller.

982
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 2: Physics says, yes.

983
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: It's a family affairs. What I'm saying, All right, So

984
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 1: I guess the answer for James is that, unfortunately, we

985
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: don't really know how space gets made. We just know

986
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: that it is being made out there in space, or

987
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: at least it seems like it's getting made.

988
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. We don't understand space. There's all these

989
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 2: fascinating mysteries. And it feels like the kind of thing

990
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 2: where in fifty years or one hundred years, people are

991
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:04,800
Speaker 2: going to look back and be like, oh, my gosh,

992
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 2: the answer was so obvious it was staring them in

993
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 2: the face, but they were so stuck in their old

994
00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 2: way of thinking they just couldn't see it.

995
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: Just sounds like maybe if James keeps asking questions there's

996
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: a lot of space for him to maybe find the

997
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 1: answer to these questions.

998
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,320
Speaker 2: There's plenty of space for everybody out there to contribute

999
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 2: knowledge at the forefront of human ignorance.

1000
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: And hopefully enough money out there to pay them also

1001
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: in the future. All right, well, thanks to everyone for

1002
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: sending in their questions. We enjoy answering questions. We hope

1003
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, see you next time.

1004
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

1005
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

1006
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 2: from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1007
00:47:57,880 --> 00:47:59,959
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite show.