WEBVTT - What is a particle? 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.440 What is everything made out of? That seems like a 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.879 simple question, and it also seems like a reasonable question. 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.040 I'd like to know what I'm made out of, what 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.400 my food is made out of, what kittens are made 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.880 out of, what lava is made out of. It's also 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.120 an ancient question, I think, one that people have been 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.360 asking since people have been asking any questions. The Greeks, 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.040 famous for asking questions in their sexy robes, thought that 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.920 everything was made of earth, air, water, and fire. And 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:36.440 modern science, of course, has made a lot of progress 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.960 here and uncovered some pretty weird and kind of shocking 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.320 news about what everything is made out of. What seems 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.120 like smooth and continuous matter is actually made up of 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.200 tiny little bits that are woven together into some extremely 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.280 fine mesh. And we are all made of the same 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.800 basic bits, some together to make me or you, or 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.959 kittens or lava. The world is of particles. But our 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.840 curiosity doesn't just end because we have that answer. We 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.520 want to know what are these basic bits? How do 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.160 we think about them? What mental pictures should we have 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.880 in our mind? Are they tiny dots of stuff or 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.240 rippling waves or some other concept that's too alien to 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.880 even imagine. And what does it tell us about the 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.080 universe that these are its basic building blocks? 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.039 Or are they? So? 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:29.280 Today, on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, we'll be tackling 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.759 the basic yet confusing, the simple yet deep, the important 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.200 but impossible question what is a particle? 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.919 Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. I'm Kelly Wiener Smith. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:59.560 I'm a parasitologist and I'm particularly excited to be here today. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:01.360 But it might have been really cute if I had 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:03.800 been able to pull it off, but I didn't. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:05.480 Hi, I'm Daniel. 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.680 I'm a particle physicist, which means I probably should know 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:10.280 what a particle is. 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:12.880 Well, we've got the right expert on the show today. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.000 So Daniel, here's what I'm wondering. So you've told me 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.320 that you go to CERN in Switzerland to do your research. 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.240 Why doesn't the United States have the biggest particle collider? 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.760 Oh my gosh. Why you are putting your foot in 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.880 a sensitive spot right there. You know, for many years 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.160 it was a race between the Europeans and the Americans. 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.360 So before CERN had the most powerful collider. 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:36.720 We had one. 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.400 It was outside of Chicago at Fermi Lab. It's called 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.440 the Tevatron. I did my PhD there. I had one 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.440 child born near that collider, and then my next child 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.600 born near Cerns. You know, not a kid at each collider. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.000 Basically, wait, one of your kids was born abroad? 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.440 Yeah, my daughter Hazel was born in Switzerland, very close 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:55.720 to cern That's cool. 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.120 Did you have to not pay because you were in 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.840 Europe and they just do healthcare there or what was 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:01.200 that like? 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:01.640 No? 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.400 Actually they told us that when we showed up for 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.800 the delivery, we had to bring fifty thousand Swiss fronc 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.200 in cash if we didn't have local insurance. 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:11.320 WHOA. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.040 So yeah, that was going to be an issue. 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.000 But then we discovered this a law in Switzerland that 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.520 if you're working there, which my wife was, they have 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.960 to insure you. So even though she had all sorts 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.480 of crazy pre existing conditions, we could buy insurance for 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.679 like one hundred franc and then we didn't have to 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.040 pay for anything. So it was amazing. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.399 Actually nice, Okay, that's good. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.680 And the insurance company even offered to retroactively cover a 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.480 bunch of appointments to where we hadn't yet had insurance. 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.320 It was very different experience than American insurance. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.680 Yeah, that's incredible. I'm going to get depressed if we 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.360 stay on this topic too long. Let's go back to 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.320 particle colliders. Okay, so you have had each of your 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.000 children near very large particle colliders. Why isn't the biggest 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:50.560 one in the US. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:52.680 Well, they planned to build the biggest one in the US, 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.840 the Superconducting super Collider in Waxahachie, Texas, and they started 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.880 building it, and they spend billions of dollars digging a hole. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.240 But then the director of CERN. 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.360 At the time came and testified before Congress saying it 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.920 was a big waste of money because CERN was building 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.440 one that was going to be bigger and better and 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.080 they should just cancel it. And Congress, for all sorts 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.520 of complicated political reasons, listen to him and canceled the 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.080 American Superconnecting super Collider. And since then the lead has 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.640 been in Europe and probably will for a while. And 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.919 the US particle physics communities mostly focused on things like 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.600 neutrinos and stuff like that. So these days, if you 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.600 want to do cutting edge, high energy particle physics at colliders, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:34.839 you got to go to Switzerland, which, hey, it's not 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:35.200 too bad. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:36.800 The chocolate's amazing, no doubt. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.719 You know what. Actually, I'm gonna go out on a 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:40.880 limb here and say I'm not a huge fantas with chocolate. 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:43.760 Yeah, I know you prefer Belgian I do. 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.040 Yeah, there I said it. So every once in a 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.360 while I'll hear about like astronomy students who want to 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:51.640 get time on a telescope, but the telescope's all booked 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.920 up and it takes forever. Does cern have enough time 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:56.839 for everyone? So like, when that guy came to the 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.360 US and tanked our program, did he know he was 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.200 going to have enough time time for all of our 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:02.880 scientists to come over and do their work. 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.680 Yeah, that's a great question, And people often ask me 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:07.160 about that, like what's it like to set up your 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.000 experiment at the collider? But the reality is very different. 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.760 Telescopes and colliders don't work the same way. A telescope 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:14.200 you have to point at the thing you want to 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.120 look at. So you write a proposal to say, let's 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.640 point our amazing telescope at this one star I want 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.239 to study, and then it's not pointing at any other stars. 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.159 But a particle collider is very general. 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.760 It always just does the same thing smashes the particles 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.159 together and you take pictures of it, and then afterwards 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.279 you analyze it. So everybody who uses the collider uses 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.400 the same data. They're just looking for different kinds of particles. 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.719 We don't have to point the collider at certain things. 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.479 We don't swap out what we're using to take pictures. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.240 Every few years we turn the thing off, revamp it, 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.640 build a new detector that's better, faster, higher resolution or whatever, 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:50.640 and then we make it as general as possible so 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:52.440 everybody can use it so you don't have to swap 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.479 it out every day or every experiment. Everybody uses the 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.000 same data set, which makes it kind of crazy because 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.920 everybody's looking for discoveries in the set SA data set 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.520 at the same time, So you could get scooped by 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.040 any of your thousands of colleagues Yanks. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.520 So do you actually need to be there in person 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.360 or if it's just data, they can make that available 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:13.039 anywhere right. 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.200 CERN has long been at the forefront of the Internet. 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.000 We invented the web at CERN, for example, and we 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.760 have excellent cloud computing and so we transfer that data 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.960 all around the world. We've collaborated from Japan to Singapore 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.000 to South Africa, to the northern tip of Canada, all 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.719 over the world. People analyze this data. Absolutely, you don't 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.120 have to go. I go frequently because I have students 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.839 there and postdocs are like on site building stuff and 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.680 helping keep it run. But technically you don't have to 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:39.760 to look at the data. 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:41.760 Cool. I mean, that's good and bad. I feel like 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.320 ecologists like we want to study exotic animals, but partly 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.839 because we want to go there, And I imagine it's 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:48.680 sort of the same with cern, like it'd be nice 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:50.360 to go to Switzerland. But I guess the more important 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:51.359 thing is answering the question. 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.560 It is nice to go to Switzerland, but then again, 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.000 it's also nice to be able to do science without 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.240 having thousands of dollars to go to Switzerland, which means 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.560 smaller groups and not such institutions, for example, could also participate. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:04.839 So it makes it a little bit more democratic, you know. 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.320 Nice. That's awesome. Okay, So the whole point of having 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.520 a large particle collider is so that you can figure 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.800 out what those particles are made of, Is that right? 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:15.800 The whole point of having a particle collider is that 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.080 you can say you're smashing particles together and nearly the 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.800 speed of light, which sounds pretty awesome at parties. 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.080 It does, yeah, kind of like jousting for particles. 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:25.080 Yeah. 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.400 Well, particle colliders, I think, sort of have two different purposes. 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.520 One is like, hey, let's take stuff and see what's 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.240 inside it. Let's start with something familiar, you know, like 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.880 the proton, and smash it open and see what it's 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:38.960 made out of. And that's a continuation of like a 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.920 long glorious tradition of taking the stuff around us a 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:43.720 part to understand what it's made out of. You know, 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.600 I'm made of molecules, which are made of atoms which 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.320 have a nucleus and electron, and the nucleus is made 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:53.520 of protons. Let's go inside the proton. So that's definitely worthwhile. 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:53.680 And we do that. 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.640 But colliders can actually do something else, even more powerful, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.360 which kind of sounds like magic, which is that they 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.880 can convert the mass of those protons into energy and 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.080 then back into mass, and so what can come out 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.880 of the collision is not just a rearrangement of what 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.800 went in. It's not like chemistry where you're like this 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.360 hydrogen moved from this atom to over there, and now 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.240 you have a different kind of compound. You can annihilate 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.600 these things, and then you basically have like a budget 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.440 to make anything. And the stuff that comes out of 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.440 the collision doesn't just have to be like a refashioned, 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.400 rearranged version of what went in. You can have entirely 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.680 new matter. It really is alchemy. So like protons go in, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.400 you have this intermediate state of frothing energy, and then 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.240 you can make whatever the universe can make, dark matter, muons, 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.680 all sorts of other stuff. You're not just rearranging the protons. 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.880 There's got to be some rules right for what you 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:47.600 can make. 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.800 Yes, exactly, that's the whole premise of particle physics. There 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.040 are rules, there are patterns. Quantum mechanics tells us what's 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.000 likely to happen in certain collisions. We look at those patterns, 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.920 we notice, oh, this typically happens, typically shoots out at 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:01.560 those angles. 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:03.520 What are the rules that control this? 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.600 Absolutely there are rules, but fundamentally it's random. Right, Like 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.840 you do the same collision twice, you get two different answers. 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:15.000 Because it's quantum mechanical, it's not determined by the initial conditions. 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.280 So it's really a very powerful way to explore the 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.920 universe because you don't have to know what's out there 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.320 in order to discover it. You smash protons together often enough, 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.280 eventually everything the universe can do, it will do, and 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:29.520 you get to take pictures of it. 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:30.199 Wow. 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.880 It's like, imagine if you could build a box and 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.240 every kind of creature that could exist on Earth would 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.960 randomly cycle through that box. You could just sit there 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:40.480 and watch and be like, oh, wow, I didn't know 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.480 that existed. Oh look at those things. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.040 What are those? You know? 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:46.280 That would be pretty powerful. That's basically what we can 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:47.480 do with particle physics. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:49.920 Now you have my attention. Although that box, I guess, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.520 could mostly be showing me like different species of bacteria, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:54.559 which would be a bomber. You could show me different 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:55.840 speceis of bugs, that would be great. 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.120 Yeah, it'd be mostly beetles. You're like, wow, it's basically 0:09:58.160 --> 0:09:58.839 a beetle box. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:09:59.079 Right. 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.199 So there is that famous saying that like God is 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:06.199 inordinately fond of beetles, because there's this thought that beetles 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.680 are the most common species group on the planet, but 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.800 actually quite often those beetles are infected by more than 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.559 one species of hymenopter and wasp, and so we think 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.559 there might actually be more wasp species on the planet 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.679 than there are beetles based on that observation. 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.600 And probably those wasps are infected by viruses, so they're 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.800 more viruses than wasps. Yes, and those viruses are made 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.040 of particles, and boom a boom, we're back to the 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:34.000 topic of the episode. 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.680 Well, what makes up a particle, Daniel exactly? 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.640 So we smash particles together, we look at what's inside them, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.360 we annihilate them to make new kinds of particles. We 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.280 have this idea that particles are what everything is made 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.760 out of. But I struggle, still after decades in this field, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.559 to understand this basic question what is a particle? 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:55.439 So I really want to explain to. 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:57.440 People what we do know and what we still don't 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.480 know about this very basic concept that everybody talks about 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:01.199 all the time. 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:03.760 Well, first, let's hear what our listeners think. And if 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.199 you would like to be a listener who tells us 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.040 what you think, send us an email at questions at 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.160 Daniel and Kelly dot org and we will get you 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.040 in the loop and send you a question from time 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.000 to time and you can send us your answers. So 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.160 let's see hear how folks answer the question what is 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:19.760 a particle? 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.520 A particle is a thing that interacts with other things. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.680 A particle is really just an excitation in a field. 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:35.160 A particle is a defined portion of something, something that 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.480 is infinitesanly small to us. 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.040 It's the smallest unit of energy or mass. 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.840 I think that particles are the excitement of different friends, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:48.920 spatial spots, and interaction. 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.840 A particle could be very small vibrating field. A mass 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:54.400 or non mess object. 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.800 Exists within what we would perceive as matter. 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:05.280 A particle is a sub microscopic kernel of energy and 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:09.280 or matter. A particle is an excitation of a field. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.360 I do know that particles aren't just tiny bits of matter. 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:21.040 I've heard that there fields, or strings, or some other 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.640 impossible to understand little bits of the universe. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:33.480 Particle is a ripple and a quantum field. Particle is 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.240 the name we give to the smallest discrete, quantum little 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.800 bits that we know of and haven't been able to 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:41.240 break up. 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:46.800 Further yet, an expression of a field where the chances 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.199 of that occurrence happening is the greatest. There. The more 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.360 think about, the bigger this rabbit warren is going. 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.320 I think these answers perfectly encapsulate this episode. I mean, really, 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.440 it's an excellent snapshot because a lot of what people 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.360 have said in here is correct. But also there's a 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.920 huge list of conflicting answers, right, you know, is it 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:08.920 the smallest bit of stuff? Is it just something in 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.760 space time? Is it actually an excitation of a field? 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.920 You know, there's so many conflicting concepts for what a particle. 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.960 Is, and is this one of those topics where at 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.760 the end the answer is going to be we really 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.080 have no idea, could be all of these things? Or 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.400 is this a topic we're at the end. We're going 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:26.240 to have a pretty clear answer. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:28.000 At the end. 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:29.480 We're going to have a pretty clear answer, but not 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.800 at the end of this episode, at the end of 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.360 this journey, which might be in ten or one hundred 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.079 years unfortunately. Okay, I mean we're going to get somewhere. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.160 Today we have a pretty crisp clear view of what 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.400 a particle is mathematically, but we also know why that's 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.360 not really satisfactory, and there's lots of big open questions 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.200 about what that really means. So it's not like all 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.080 particle physics is a scam because we don't know what 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.440 a particle is. We have a working definition, but we 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.280 also know that it's incomplete, just like most of science. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.640 Right, Oh yeah, amen, All right, well, so let's start 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.280 with the historical perspective. Bring me back to the beginning. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:04.200 When did we start thinking about this question? 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.640 Yeah, I think it's important to trace the origin of 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.360 this historically because it still shapes how we think about 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.800 the universe. And you know, whenever you ask a big 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:14.880 question about science, you got to think about like what 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:16.680 kind of answer you're looking for. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.000 And in science, even though. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.280 We try to be like mathematical and open minded and 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.880 let the data tell us what the universe is saying, 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.080 we still need to understand that data. We still need 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.560 to interpret it. We still need to cogitate on it 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.920 in a way that makes sense to us. And we're 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.600 sort of limited in our mental intuitive language. We can't 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.040 really grapple with things that we've never experienced, that are 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:44.000 completely alien to us. We tend to translate the unfamiliar 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:45.640 into the familiar. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:46.240 You know. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.640 My favorite example of this is like what happens when 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.200 you drink a wine or you taste a new fruit 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:52.720 and you're like, oh, this fruit tastes kind of like 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:54.440 a cherry and kind of like an apricot and whatever, 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.200 and a little bit like a kiwi. You're explaining something 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.600 new in terms of something you already know, and that 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.720 makes a lot of sense also what we do in science, 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:04.840 and so it's important like dig into like what are 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.520 the sort of basic mental building blocks we're using to 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:08.440 understand this stuff. 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.360 I think one of my favorite examples of that is 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.160 the brain being compared to whatever technology is hot and 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:14.920 new at the time. You know, like your brain is 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.440 like a clock, your brain is like a computer. And 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.080 some of those analogies work in some ways, but you know, 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.440 having an analogy like that sometimes limits the way you 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:23.720 actually attack a problem. 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.480 Yeah, but it also is what allows you to understand it, right, 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.600 So in the end, it's sort of how we understand everything. Yeah, 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.920 And that's why it's useful to go back to like 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:37.040 fifth century BC and talk about Democratus and his buddy Lucepis, 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.800 because these folks were thinking about, hey, what is the 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.800 universe made out of? And they came up with this concept, 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.320 or they're credited with this concept of what seems like 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.400 smooth and continuous matter, you know, water, seems smooth and continuous. 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.960 Air seems smooth is actually made of tiny little bits 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.960 of stuff. This is a big idea, right, This is 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.520 a huge concept. It is like pulling back the veil 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.960 on the world and saying the world isn't the way 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.040 that it seems. It's actually quite different. You know, it 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.880 has like a resolution. These days, we're kind of familiar 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.680 with this because you're used to things like, Hey, I 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:11.920 look at my TV screen. It looks like I'm just 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:13.960 looking at a picture, but I know that if I 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.640 put my eyeball closed to the screen, I'll see pixels. 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.920 This is basically saying the whole world, all matter is 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.000 actually pixelated. It's built out of little bits instead of 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:24.120 smooth and continuous. 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.720 Did they have any thoughts about what the little bits 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.880 were like, like do you get different bits in the 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.440 sand and different bits in your skin? Or how fine 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:35.520 grained was this idea? 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:36.160 Oh my god? 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.960 They had hilarious ideas about what the little bits were. 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:41.440 They thought that everything was made up a little bit 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.920 of stuff, but that stuff had different shapes, and you know, 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.120 they were right on the spirit of it that they thought, 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.280 like the properties of the shape determined how we experienced 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:52.760 it and its property. But for example, they thought that 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.280 something's tasted sour because it was made of little sharp 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.400 needle shaped atoms that like stabbed your tongue when you 0:16:59.560 --> 0:16:59.800 ate it. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.280 This is going to be so condescending, but that's such 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:03.720 a cute idea. 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.280 It is so cute, I know. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.560 And they thought that things that were white were white 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.000 because they were made of very smooth atoms. And they 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.000 thought that your soul was made of atoms, and that 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.760 those atoms were particularly fine grained. They were right in 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.240 the spirit in that the behavior and the structure of 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:24.040 the atom really does determine, like hey, what is shiny 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.280 and what conducts electricity and what's liquid at room temperature. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:30.120 That's all true. They were just wrong on the details. 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.880 But you know, they couldn't see atoms. They were just imagining. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.879 And I'm really impressed by this. I'm impressed by the 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.720 courage to imagine that the universe is so fundamentally different 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.280 from the way it seems, because that's really the scientific spirit, right, Yeah, totally. 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:48.240 Okay, So we've got Democritus and his buddy what was 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:49.040 the buddy's. 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:53.199 Name mispronounced as Lacoupiskopis, But I don't know the correct pronunciation. 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.520 I hadn't heard of that person before. So you got 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.639 the two of them, and they're proposing that everything is 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.320 made of small bits of stuff. How long before we 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.520 get some clarity on the fact that sour isn't just 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:05.800 sharp little bits of stuff. 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.000 Yeah, so they're credited with this idea, probably came up 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.840 earlier because remember, we give people credit because we have 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:14.680 a written. 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:14.959 Record of it. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.359 We have like a tiny fraction of everything the Greeks wrote, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.679 though very excitingly, they're now scanning burnt scrolls from an 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.280 ancient Greek library. We're going to like double the amount 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:25.280 of Greek writing. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:26.000 We have very soon. 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.119 But also, you know, we just don't have writing from 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.960 other civilizations. What do the Etruscans think ancient Chinese writing? So, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:33.680 you know, people give the Greeks a lot of credit, 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:35.600 but we should remember like other people thought about this 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:36.080