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Speaker 1: You know, Jorge, sometimes I wish that particle physics was

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Speaker 1: more useful, more useful than creating black holes and particle

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Speaker 1: colliders to threaten the Earth. Yeah, sometimes I wish that

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Speaker 1: we could unlock the power of physics to do something

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Speaker 1: good for humanity. He could work on like renewal energies

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Actually, I do have some crazy

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Speaker 1: ideas about that. Yeah, how crazy are we talking about?

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Speaker 1: Very crazy? Maybe infinitely crazy? Well, I'm infinitely interested in

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Speaker 1: infinite energy. Fortunately, we only have a finite time on

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Speaker 1: today's podcast. I am or Hamming, cartoonists and the creator

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Speaker 1: of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle of physicist,

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Speaker 1: and I'm technically made of an infinite number of particles.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean there's an infinite amount of you?

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Speaker 1: How much did you have over Thanksgiving dinner? Is that

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Speaker 1: too much, Daniel for you to take? That's an infinity

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Speaker 1: too much for anyone. No, in this sense that we're

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Speaker 1: all made out of potentially infinite number of fluctuating particles

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Speaker 1: popping in and out of the vacuum. We're mathematically infinite.

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Speaker 1: The vacuum of space always full of surprises. I feel

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Speaker 1: like Yeah, like you never know what it's gonna pop

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Speaker 1: out or give you or hand you for Christmas. It's

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Speaker 1: infinitely surprising. So welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge

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Speaker 1: Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio, in

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Speaker 1: which we examine the infinite with a cold eye. We

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Speaker 1: don't look away. We try to understand it. We think

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Speaker 1: about the infinity of space, we think about the infinities

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Speaker 1: in space, We think about everything there is out there

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Speaker 1: in the universe, and we talk about it in a

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Speaker 1: way that we hope makes sense to you. That's right.

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Speaker 1: We stare down the universe until it tells us what

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Speaker 1: infinite secrets it has hiding inside of its very own fabric.

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Speaker 1: That's right because there is an infinite amount of joy

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Speaker 1: in revealing the truth of the universe. Science is an

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Speaker 1: amazing project. We just find ourselves, as conscious beings in

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Speaker 1: this universe trying slowly to chip away at the truth

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Speaker 1: and figure out how does it all work? What does

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Speaker 1: it all mean? Doesn't make sense? Is it possible for

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Speaker 1: humans to make sense of it? Yeah? Because it is

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Speaker 1: a big universe and it is full of strange phenomena

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Speaker 1: phenomenon that feels really strange to our everyday experience, like,

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Speaker 1: for example, the idea of infinite things. We're not used

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Speaker 1: to infinite things on Earth were used to finite things,

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Speaker 1: things with a limit, at least that's what our parents

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Speaker 1: tell us. That's right. I still have not yet eaten

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Speaker 1: an infinite number of cookies, though it's an ongoing project.

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Speaker 1: That's right. You can't say you haven't or you won't.

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Speaker 1: That's right, give me enough time, But you're right. Infinity

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Speaker 1: is a hard thing to grapple with. It's both like

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Speaker 1: impossible to hold in your head and also like every

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Speaker 1: day it's weird to think about the universe being infinite

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Speaker 1: in extent, but it's not weird to realize that there

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Speaker 1: are an infinite number of numbers between zero and one,

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Speaker 1: for example. So it's a pretty weird thing. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: not only could the universe be infinite, you could have

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Speaker 1: infinities inside of it. There might be an infinity of infinities, right.

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Speaker 1: It might be that everywhere around us there are infinite

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Speaker 1: particles popping in and out of the vacuum. And when

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Speaker 1: you dig down deeper into what that means about space,

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Speaker 1: it might tell you something very strange. So to be

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Speaker 1: on the podcast will be asking the question, is space

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Speaker 1: filled with infinite energy? And can I use that to

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Speaker 1: charge my iPhone? That would be pretty useful, Like a

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Speaker 1: phone that just charges if you just hold it up

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Speaker 1: in the air, that would be useful. Daniel, stop writing

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Speaker 1: papers about the fabric of reality and just get us

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Speaker 1: that air charger. All right, I'm to move from papers

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Speaker 1: to patents. That's my plan for the week. Yeah. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know Apple has like the iPod air or iMac air.

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Speaker 1: It just makes like the the air, the iMac vacuum

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Speaker 1: you go. But I think this touches on something which

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Speaker 1: is really at the heart of what we're doing with

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Speaker 1: the whole physics project, which is trying to make sense

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Speaker 1: of the universe and then wondering is our understanding real

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Speaker 1: Like we talk about space being filled with the vacuum,

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Speaker 1: which is filled with these quantum frothing particles, But are

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Speaker 1: they really there or is that just something in our minds?

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Speaker 1: Could we do experiments to figure out if they really

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Speaker 1: are there or if these are just calculations we're doing

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Speaker 1: in our head. Yeah. So the idea is that there's

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Speaker 1: a there's a concept right in physics that the universe

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Speaker 1: is not empty it's filled with fields like quantum fields,

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Speaker 1: and these fields are not just sitting there or they're

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Speaker 1: not empty of energy. Yeah, exactly. Because these fields are quantum,

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Speaker 1: they have a special property that they can never actually

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Speaker 1: have zero energy in them. And so according to quantum physics,

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Speaker 1: all of space should be filled with an infinite number

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Speaker 1: of particles, which should correspond to a real energy, which

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Speaker 1: technically means an infinite amount of energy in every piece

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Speaker 1: of space. Yeah, and like they can't just chill, like

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Speaker 1: they can't just bottom out. They always have to have

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Speaker 1: like a little bit of like a buzz to them, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of the idea, and that's sort of hard

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Speaker 1: to grapple with. But it turns out this a really

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Speaker 1: interesting experiment that studies something called the Cassimir effect, which

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Speaker 1: might be sensitive to whether these particles really are out there.

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Speaker 1: And this experiment tells us something amazing. Yeah, the Cassimir

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Speaker 1: effect is a really interesting well just the name, and

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Speaker 1: I have to say, at first, I thought it was

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Speaker 1: sort of a reference to the reins of Castimir, and

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Speaker 1: I thought, oh, that's not going to end well for

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Are We're gonna end up at the red

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Speaker 1: wedding at the end of this, I hope not be

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Speaker 1: gonna be good from Game of Thrones, but not everything

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Speaker 1: it turns out is a Game of Thrones reference. This

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Speaker 1: is actually a physics effect for dicted a long time

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Speaker 1: ago and recently observed. Yeah, it's an idea that's been

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Speaker 1: around for a long time, like over a fifty years,

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Speaker 1: seventy years, the Casimir effect. Yeah, and these are beautiful ideas,

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Speaker 1: the idea to test a crazy theory of physics by

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Speaker 1: coming up with an experiment that could actually pin it down,

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Speaker 1: that could corner nature and force it to reveal to

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Speaker 1: us what's really going on out there in space. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this effect is a little obscure, I think, but

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Speaker 1: it might sort of reveal that the universe is or

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Speaker 1: is not filled with infinite energy. So, as usually'll be,

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Speaker 1: were wondering how many people had even heard of this

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Speaker 1: experiment or effect, and so Daniel went out there into

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Speaker 1: the wild to the internet to ask people what is

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Speaker 1: the Casimir effect? So thanks to everybody who participated with

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Speaker 1: so much evident joy and enthusiasm. If you would like

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Speaker 1: to speculate baselessly and without reference materials on future questions

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Speaker 1: for the podcast, please write to us two questions at

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge dot com. So before you listen to

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Speaker 1: these answers, think about it for a second. If so,

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Speaker 1: gonna ask you, what is the Casimir effect? Not the

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Speaker 1: range of Casimir? What would you say? Here's what people

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Speaker 1: had to say. It makes me think of something to

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Speaker 1: do with sons. So maybe sun flairs or something of

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Speaker 1: the sort. I have no idea what that could be.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to guess that Kasimir was a scientist and

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Speaker 1: he was either casually or actively observing something and noticed

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Speaker 1: an effect that perhaps had not been noticed before. To

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Speaker 1: see the customer effect, you put two metallic plates close together.

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Speaker 1: Then they move even closer together because the number of

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Speaker 1: particle anti particle or virtual particle antiparticle pairs outside the

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Speaker 1: place as greater than those between the plates. So the

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Speaker 1: particles outside exert a non zero net force on the plates,

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Speaker 1: and they moved closer together. Most named after a guy

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Speaker 1: named Kasimir. Well, do you think that means we have

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Speaker 1: no Game of Thrones fans because nobody else thought this

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Speaker 1: was the reigns of Kastimir. Maybe are fantasy fan and

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Speaker 1: physics loving audience doesn't overlap. But there were some pretty

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Speaker 1: good guesses here. I like the it was named after

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Speaker 1: a guy named Casimir. Interesting that would be normally a

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Speaker 1: good guess in physics. Yeah exactly. But also a lot

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Speaker 1: of people just didn't know what it is or had

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Speaker 1: heard of it before. It doesn't seem to have good

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Speaker 1: PR Yeah exactly. I think Cassimir and his PR team

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Speaker 1: definitely needs some like social media tips well step us

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Speaker 1: through this, Daniel. First of all, Yeah, what is this

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Speaker 1: idea that space is filled with energy? It's a really

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Speaker 1: sort of bonkers idea, but it's also totally realistic, which

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Speaker 1: is my favorite thing about physics. And to get into this,

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Speaker 1: you have to really understand how quantum physics looks at space,

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Speaker 1: like what is space? And if you're the kind of

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Speaker 1: person that thinks, well, space is nothing right, spaces, emptiness, spaces,

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Speaker 1: the gap between stuff, then remember that modern physics is

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Speaker 1: a different view of space. There's this sort of general

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Speaker 1: relativity view of space that tells us how space can

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Speaker 1: bend and twist and ripple. That's awesome, but we're gonna

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Speaker 1: put that aside today and we're gonna look at the

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Speaker 1: quantum physics view of space. The quantum physics view of

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Speaker 1: space says that space is not emptiness. Space is like

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Speaker 1: a parking lot. It has all these fields in it

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Speaker 1: which can be filled with particles or they can be empty.

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Speaker 1: So you can imagine, for example, all of the universe

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Speaker 1: being filled with an electron field, and where there are electrons,

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Speaker 1: that just means that field has a little bit of

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Speaker 1: energy in it. It's vibrating, and that corresponds to an electron.

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Speaker 1: Where there aren't electrons, than those fields are empty, they're

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Speaker 1: not vibrating as much. Yeah, this idea of space is

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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit closer to what most people think

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Speaker 1: of space before they learn about relativity. It is sort

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Speaker 1: of like a big empty warehouse, like a big empty space,

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Speaker 1: but it's filled with something. Yeah, exactly. And I think

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Speaker 1: the mental shift you need to make to understand it

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Speaker 1: from the field point of view is that you don't have,

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Speaker 1: for example, an electron moving through empty space as a particle,

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Speaker 1: just like floating through nothing. Instead, you can think of

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Speaker 1: that electron moving through space is like a wiggle on

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Speaker 1: a string. That wiggle moves along the string, but it's

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Speaker 1: really the string that's doing the wiggling. So in this case,

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Speaker 1: an electron moving through space is a vibration in the

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Speaker 1: electron field, and that vibration is passing through the field.

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Speaker 1: I always kind of think about it as like having

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Speaker 1: a giant room and then like having a giant blanket

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Speaker 1: over that would be the quantum field, and the electron

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Speaker 1: is like a little bump in the blanket that you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of moves around. That sounds pretty cozy. Your theory

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Speaker 1: of the universe doesn't sound like cold and empty. It

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Speaker 1: sounds like snuggly and a cold, rainy day. It's called

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Speaker 1: a cozy effect exactly, the quantum cozy effect, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so you can imagine that blanket, you know, gets

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Speaker 1: pushed up when you have a particle under it. And

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Speaker 1: the cool thing about this way to think about it

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Speaker 1: is that it's very easy to then have two particles,

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Speaker 1: because then your quantum field in that spot is now

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Speaker 1: excited a little bit more, and three particles is just

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Speaker 1: another excitation in the field. So this actually technically is

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Speaker 1: very powerful because it allows you to think about the

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Speaker 1: creation and destruction of individual quantum particles. Whereas the earlier

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Speaker 1: the old school quantum mechanics followed the path of an

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Speaker 1: individual particle, and so it was very difficult to calculate

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Speaker 1: like what happened when it was destroyed, or how do

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Speaker 1: you follow two or three particles. So the quantum field

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Speaker 1: approach is the more modern approach, partially because it's just

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Speaker 1: technically easier to like actually calculate things. Yeah, and there's

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Speaker 1: not just one field. There's like a bunch of fields

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Speaker 1: in the universe, right, Like it's not just one blanket

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Speaker 1: covering my warehouse. It's like a whole bunch of blankets

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Speaker 1: tacked together. Yeah, every place in space has a field

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Speaker 1: for every possible particle. So every point in space has

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Speaker 1: an electron field, and muan field, a cork field, you know,

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic fields for the photons. All of these different fields

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Speaker 1: in the same place. And sometimes these fields don't interact

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Speaker 1: with each other at all. Right, some of these particles

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Speaker 1: don't interact with each other, and so these fields don't

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Speaker 1: interact with each other, but sometimes they do. For example,

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Speaker 1: the electron and the photon do interact with each other, right,

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Speaker 1: electrons give off photons, So those fields are coupled together.

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Speaker 1: So it's a bunch of different fields, but some of

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Speaker 1: them interact with each other. They're tied together by these forces.

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Speaker 1: Some blankets are to sown a little bit with other blankets. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: If you make a wiggle in one, it will spread

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Speaker 1: that energy out into others, and some of them slash

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Speaker 1: back and forth. It's pretty cool. And you know, one

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Speaker 1: of the projects of particle physics is to take this

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Speaker 1: big stack of nineteen blankets we have and understand them

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Speaker 1: all is like part of one big blanket that's just

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Speaker 1: sort of like wiggling together according to one set of rules.

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Speaker 1: We're trying to unify the whole system of these different

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Speaker 1: fields and understand them in the context of like one

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Speaker 1: field that unifies them all. But that's the subject for

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Speaker 1: a whole different podcast. For today, the thing we need

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Speaker 1: to think about is what it means when these fields

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Speaker 1: are emptiest m Yeah. Now, I guess the question is

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Speaker 1: do quantum physicists think of space is separate from these fields?

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Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean, like it's space the

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Speaker 1: empty warehouse and then you put fields in it. Or

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Speaker 1: do you think of it that you can't have space

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Speaker 1: without quantum fields. You can't have space without quantum fields. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: These fields fill the whole universe. There's no place in

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Speaker 1: space where you don't have these fields. And you could

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Speaker 1: ask like does that mean that that's what space is.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I mean quantum mechanics usually consider space

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Speaker 1: to be sort of like firm and absolute. It prefers

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Speaker 1: to deal with sort of flat space rather than like

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Speaker 1: the curved space or weirdly connected space of general relativity.

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Speaker 1: It is possible in some context to connect the two,

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Speaker 1: but we've never achieved like a full connection to understand

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanics and curved space altogether in all sorts of context,

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Speaker 1: that would be quantum gravity. So quantum mechanics views space

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Speaker 1: is sort of like flat and absolute, and then you

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Speaker 1: have the fields in space. But you can't have any

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Speaker 1: part of space without those fields, right, right, But you

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Speaker 1: can't have places where the field is not excited as usual, right,

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Speaker 1: that's what you call it, like empty or vacuum. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can have a vacuum, and vacuum sort of calls

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Speaker 1: to mind the idea of emptiness of nothingness, right, or

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Speaker 1: maybe lowest energy state. And in classical physics, like before

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanics, that meant zero. Like if you had an

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic field classically, like a hundred and fifty years ago,

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Speaker 1: back when Maxwell was doing this stuff, you could turn

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Speaker 1: it on and you could turn it off, and when

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Speaker 1: it was off, it was at zero. Quantum fields can't

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Speaker 1: actually do that. Quantum fields can't settle down to zero energy. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's weird. What does that mean? Like, even though nothing

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Speaker 1: is there or exciting it or you know, happening there,

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Speaker 1: it still has some kind of potential or some kind

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Speaker 1: of like motion. What does that mean that it doesn't

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Speaker 1: have zero energy? That's really the heart of the question.

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Speaker 1: What does it mean? And you said, for example, nothing

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Speaker 1: is there? We don't really know if nothing is there,

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Speaker 1: what it means is that quantum fields in their lowest

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Speaker 1: possible state are in a state with non zero energy.

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Speaker 1: This is called the zero point energy. And if you

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Speaker 1: solve the math for how quantum systems work, they always

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Speaker 1: have a minimum non zero energy. It's just not possible

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Speaker 1: to get the quantum field down to zero energy. And

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Speaker 1: so we don't know what that means. That's the heart

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Speaker 1: of the question. Doesn't mean that there are like little

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Speaker 1: virtual particles actually there with real energy. Is it a

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Speaker 1: weird mathematical artifact that we're just not understanding as it

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Speaker 1: acclude into something else, like what does this actually mean?

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Speaker 1: Is the heart of the question. I guess what what

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Speaker 1: do you mean it can't have zero energy? Like it

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Speaker 1: it's not likely or it's just like theoretically possible, it

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Speaker 1: would break some kind of math equation, And what does

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Speaker 1: it mean? Like, how do you know it can't have

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Speaker 1: zero energy? Like couldn't it fluctuate and sometimes dip below zero?

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Speaker 1: So that's a great question. Remember, the quantum mechanics gives

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Speaker 1: us probability, so it allows fluctuations, but it allows fluctuations

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Speaker 1: between physically possible solutions, like you might solve an equation

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Speaker 1: that says, here's nine different things in electron and can

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Speaker 1: do I don't know exactly which one it's going to

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Speaker 1: do when I can tell you the probabilities of various ones,

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Speaker 1: and it might fluctuate between them, but it has to

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Speaker 1: do one of these things. Doesn't mean the rules are

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Speaker 1: off and anything can happen. I mean you solve the

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanics of a system in empty space, these fields

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Speaker 1: in empty space, you get a bunch of solutions, and

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Speaker 1: those solutions are quantized, and the solutions are like one particle,

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Speaker 1: two particles, three particles, four particles. But the zero particle

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Speaker 1: solution doesn't have zero energy. It has a minimum amount

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Speaker 1: of energy. When you solve the mathematics, you get a

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Speaker 1: state with no particles but with energy, right, So, and

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Speaker 1: somehow this kind of leads to the idea that space

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Speaker 1: has infinite energy. So let's get into connecting those dots

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Speaker 1: and let's talk about this interesting Casimir effect. But first

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Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. All right, we're asking the question, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: does space have an infinite amount of energy? And I

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Speaker 1: feel like you're telling me the answer is yes. The

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Speaker 1: math suggests the answer is yes, And if you think

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Speaker 1: about the quantum mechanics of it, it sort of makes sense.

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Speaker 1: Like we know that quantum mechanically, things are always wiggle

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Speaker 1: in and struggle in and can never really be pinned down.

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Speaker 1: And so if you take a quantum field, it makes

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Speaker 1: some sense for it to always have some uncertainty. And

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Speaker 1: if you had it have exactly zero energy, then you'd

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Speaker 1: know exactly the value of the quantum field, and that

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Speaker 1: seems sort of unquantum, you know, just the same way

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Speaker 1: like you can't have a particle exactly zero energy. You

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Speaker 1: can't have anything at absolute zero and quantum mechanics, because

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Speaker 1: then you would know its location and its position. So

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanics says absolute zero is impossible to reach. And

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Speaker 1: this is sort of the same idea that there's a

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Speaker 1: minimum amount of energy that everything has to have, and

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Speaker 1: so space is filled with fields, then those fields have

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Speaker 1: to have some energy. It's kind of related. You're telling

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Speaker 1: me to the idea that the electron can't fall into

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Speaker 1: the nucleus for example, like it it can't just collapse

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Speaker 1: into into that center. Yeah, if you solve the quantum

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Speaker 1: mechanics of the hydrogen atom, you have a proton and

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Speaker 1: around it is an electron. You get a bunch of solutions,

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Speaker 1: you get energy levels for the electron, and the minimum

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Speaker 1: energy level is not at zero. It's not oh, the

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Speaker 1: electron falls into the nucleus and is captured. Now, that

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Speaker 1: can actually happen in some other weird states, for example

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Speaker 1: in the center of a neutron star, or the electron

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Speaker 1: can be forced into the nucleus and then it turns

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Speaker 1: the proton into a neutron. But for a normal hydrogen atom,

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Speaker 1: the electrons lowest energy level is not at zero, and

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Speaker 1: it's for the same reason, right, it can't collapse into

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Speaker 1: the nucleus because of the uncertainty principle, because of this

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Speaker 1: zero point energy in its field. Right, So space is

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Speaker 1: filled with quantum fields, and quantum fields when they don't

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Speaker 1: have particles are in a vacuum, and you're telling me

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Speaker 1: that that vacuum has to have a little bit of energy.

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Speaker 1: So then how do we connect from that to space

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Speaker 1: having infinite energy? So the amazing thing is just take

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Speaker 1: one field. For example, take the photon field, the electromagnetic field.

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Speaker 1: This can have photons of all different frequency right, frequency,

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Speaker 1: and the visible spectrum frequency, and the X ray spectrum frequency,

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Speaker 1: and the infrared spectrum. It can do all sorts of oscillations. Well,

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Speaker 1: the calculation tells us that the minimum energy in this

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Speaker 1: field is planks constant times of frequency over two h

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Speaker 1: omega over two. That's the amount of energy for electromagnetic

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Speaker 1: field of that frequency. So that's a certain amount of energy.

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Speaker 1: But there's an infinite number of these frequencies, and so

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Speaker 1: you can have h omega over two for every value

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Speaker 1: of omega from zero all the way up to infinity.

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Speaker 1: So you add up all these little zero point energies

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Speaker 1: and you get an infinite amount of energy. Not an

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Speaker 1: infinite amount of energy in the whole universe, an infinite

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Speaker 1: amount of energy in every piece of space. I see

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Speaker 1: you tell me, like, any little piece of space has

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Speaker 1: a minimum amount of of photon energy at one killer herds,

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Speaker 1: and it has a little bit of a photon energy

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Speaker 1: at one point one killer herds, and it has a

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Speaker 1: little bit of energy at one point three killer herds.

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Speaker 1: So if you add it all up, you're saying that

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Speaker 1: a little bit of space has an infinite amount of energy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because there's an infinite number of frequencies and each one

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Speaker 1: has finite energy, and so an infinite some over finite

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Speaker 1: numbers is infinity. Yeah. All right, Well this sounds almost

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Speaker 1: too good to be true. I feel like there's some

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Speaker 1: sort of quantum uncertainty, virtual particle kind of fakery going

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Speaker 1: on here. Well, i'll tell you what physicists usually do

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Speaker 1: is they go, hmm, that's weird. Let's just subtract infinity

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Speaker 1: from everything and ignore it. We've got an infinity, let's

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Speaker 1: tamp it down. Yeah, because for most purposes, you're only

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Speaker 1: really interested in relative energy. You're like, can we go

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Speaker 1: up an energy level and absorb a photon? Can we

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Speaker 1: go down energy level and give off a photon? Most

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Speaker 1: of physics only cares about relative energy. About gaining energy,

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Speaker 1: losing energy, transferring energy. We don't usually care about the

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Speaker 1: actual absolute value of the energy, So in practice we

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Speaker 1: can mostly just ignore this. We can ignore an infinite

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Speaker 1: amount of energy in every little bit of space. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you can convince yourself like, well, maybe it's some

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Speaker 1: weird quantum thing and we can mostly ignore it and

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Speaker 1: not worry about it. But you know, if you're looking

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Speaker 1: to do something useful with physics and you want to

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Speaker 1: understand the universe that is deepest level, then you can't

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Speaker 1: just ignore it. You gotta dig into it. You gotta

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Speaker 1: ask yourself, is there a way we could detect this

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Speaker 1: if it were real? Could we do an experiment to

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Speaker 1: figure out if those infinite number of photons are actually there?

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Speaker 1: I guess maybe my question is is it real or

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Speaker 1: is it one of these things where there's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of energy at one killer hurts here, But the

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Speaker 1: probability of it is, you know, one over infinity or

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Speaker 1: something like that, and so it all sort of cancels

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Speaker 1: out to some finite number. You're looking to divide infinity

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Speaker 1: by infinity to make it reasonable. Yeah, it sounds better

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Speaker 1: than putting my thumb over It's the same thing mathematically,

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Speaker 1: but no, each of these frequencies should be there, like,

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Speaker 1: at minimum, each of these photon frequencies should exist at

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Speaker 1: h omega over two, and so that's the minimum, right, right,

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Speaker 1: But what's the probability that they're actually like a real

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Speaker 1: photon will pop out at that frequency? The field has

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Speaker 1: that energy according to quantum mechanics, it's there, that's the minimum.

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Speaker 1: So the probability for it to have at least that

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Speaker 1: energy is because that's the minimum energy. But nobody knows

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Speaker 1: is that real. And we have, on one hand, a

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Speaker 1: fascinating experiment that suggests it might be real, and on

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Speaker 1: the other hand calculations that suggest that's totally impossible for

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Speaker 1: it to be real. So it's a real deep controversy

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Speaker 1: in physics right now. Right. So that's what this Casimir

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Speaker 1: effect is. It's an experiment that tests this idea that

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Speaker 1: this is too good to be true, infinite energy everywhere idea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was an idea that was bubbling up after quantum

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Speaker 1: mechanics was invented and developed and people were grappling with

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Speaker 1: the consequences of it, and people first had these kinds

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Speaker 1: of questions like, hold on a second, are you suggesting

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Speaker 1: the universe is build with infinite energy. That can't be true,

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Speaker 1: and so Cassimir thought, well, let's try to figure it out.

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Speaker 1: Could I conduct an experiment? Could I devise a way

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Speaker 1: a physical system which would reveal if those photons were

430
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 1: actually there? So he came up with a really clever

431
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 1: idea for a crazy effect, which he called the Cassimir

432
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: effect weight. So it is a real person. Cassimir is

433
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 1: a real person. It should have sounded like a Greek

434
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 1: deity or something, you know, or like a Greek nymph

435
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 1: may also be but no, a real physicist. But I

436
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: like that you have in your mind. You know, physicists,

437
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,920
Speaker 1: nymph It's basically the same category of people. Yeah, they're

438
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: all uh, magical beings. Alright. So Cassimir proposed the Casimir effect,

439
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: And how do I build one of these things? It's

440
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 1: really hard to build, which is why it was predicted

441
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: in and then not actually observed for fifty years. But

442
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 1: the basic idea is to take two mirrors and have

443
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: them really really close to each other. You know, we're

444
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,199
Speaker 1: talking like micron distances, And why does it need to

445
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: be microns? It needs to be micron distances because what

446
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: you're trying to do is build a resonant cavity that

447
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: blocks out most of the photons from the vacuum. So

448
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: the idea is two mirrors back to back will build

449
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: something which will enhance photons that have a wavelength that

450
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,199
Speaker 1: fits right between those mirrors. It's just the way. It's

451
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: sort of like a laser works or any other sort

452
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 1: of resonant cavity. Photons are a wave and they like

453
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 1: to bounce back and forth between these mirrors, and so

454
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: photons that fit very nicely between these mirrors, they'll be

455
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,880
Speaker 1: enhanced between these mirrors. And every other kind of photon,

456
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: the ones that don't fit nicely between the mirrors, so

457
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 1: like the gap between the mirrors is like one and

458
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: a half or one point seven wavelengths, they will be suppressed.

459
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: So that's what a resonant cavity does. And the idea

460
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 1: here is if those photons in the vacuum are real,

461
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 1: then what you'll do is you'll enhance a specific set

462
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: of frequencies, you know, key to this really small distance,

463
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: and you'll suppress every anything else. I see. It's like

464
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: a resonant cavity. Right, like if there was sound and

465
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: noise everywhere, and you stuck a little like flute in

466
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: the middle. It would sort of make a particular sound

467
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: more prominent exactly, and it will exclude the others. That's

468
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: the key. He was trying to suppress some of these

469
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: vacuum modes. He was trying to make a situation where

470
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: those vacuum modes would disappear. Because what we talked about earlier,

471
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: the minimum energy of the vacuum being h and mego

472
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 1: over two. That's if you have like nothing around you,

473
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: that's the vacuum solution. But as soon as you put

474
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 1: material in space and you get different solutions, and this

475
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: actually suppresses a lot of those modes. So they can't

476
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: exist between these mirrors. So what you get is some

477
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: energy between the mirrors, but more energy outside the mirrors.

478
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: And the difference in that energy, like the fact that

479
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: you have more photons and more frequencies outside the mirrors

480
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: than between the mirrors, creates effectively a pressure pushing these

481
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: mirrors together. I see, you created like a little spot

482
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: in space that only like one kind of frequency, and

483
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: push this out all the other frequencies, which then kind

484
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: of creates pressure inwards, like it wants to collapse. Yeah, exactly.

485
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 1: And so that's the idea. You could build these two mirrors,

486
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: and if the vacuum was real, you're creating a situation

487
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,239
Speaker 1: where it would actually have a physical effect that you

488
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 1: could measure, Like you could put two mirrors near each other,

489
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: and you could actually measure the force between them. You

490
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 1: could see them getting pulled together. It's almost like you

491
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: have a lake and you like try to separate some

492
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 1: water out, like carva space in the lake by separating

493
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: out the water. But then now you have all this

494
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: water trying to come in, which creates pressure on the

495
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: walls of your little chamber. Yeah, only if there really

496
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: is water in the lake, right, if you're trying to

497
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: tell whether there's like invisible water in the lake, this

498
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: is the way to do it. Right, figure out some

499
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: way to keep the invisible water out of some portion

500
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,160
Speaker 1: of lake, and measure is their force now on my chamber.

501
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: And so that's the idea behind the castome effect, Like

502
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: block the vacuum photons from this little sliver of the

503
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: universe and see if all the other photons out there

504
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: try to squeeze it back. All right, So you build

505
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: these two mirrors, you put them in front of each other,

506
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: and then you would you measure the forces on them.

507
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: You measure the forces on them, and this is obviously

508
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:16,120
Speaker 1: a very difficult experiment, Like first of all, making two

509
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: mirrors that are super duper flat so you can bring

510
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: them in parallel to each other with very very small distances.

511
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: Even that it's hard. Then you have to isolate it

512
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: to make sure there are no like residual electrostatic charges,

513
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: because the force of those charges would overwhelm the force

514
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,719
Speaker 1: of the castomere effect or gravity or anything else. Right,

515
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: So you have to do a lot of really just

516
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: careful experimental work. So people try for a long time

517
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: to build this and make it work, and nobody could

518
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: get it to work, Like it's just too difficult to

519
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: see this force. It's expected to be very very small effect. Yeah,

520
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: like what kind of forces already talking about, like Pico Newton's. Yeah,

521
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: if you had two mirrors with the area of a

522
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: centimeter squared, and you brought them within a micron of

523
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: each other, the prediction is that it would have an

524
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 1: attractive castomer for so it pulled together like tend the

525
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: minus seven Newton's which is about the weight of a

526
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: water droplet. That's you know, like half a millimeter in diameter,

527
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: So it's a very small effect. It sounds small, but

528
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: it sounds dual for you. This does, man, I mean

529
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 1: you have measured crazy small you know, differences and gravitational waves.

530
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 1: You've taken a picture of a black hole really far away.

531
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: What makes this especially hard it's keeping those two plates parallel.

532
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,119
Speaker 1: Because as soon as they're not parallel anymore, it's not

533
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: a great resident cavity. And so people actually tried there

534
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: for a while and didn't work. And then there was

535
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: an innovation. Some guy at Los Almos, Steve Lamereaux, came

536
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: up with this idea. He said, let's not try it

537
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: with two plates. That's use one plate and a sphere.

538
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,000
Speaker 1: And it turns out that a plate and a sphere

539
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: also has a Casimer effect. The calculation is a little

540
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: bit different, but it still is dependent on the sort

541
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: of the gap between the sphere and the plate. But

542
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: a sphere and then a plate aren't just much easier

543
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: to control. You can like bring this little sphere very

544
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: very close to a very flat surface much more easily

545
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: than you can keep two plates exactly parallel. I see,

546
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: you can build a sphere out of something and then

547
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: you hold it close to a mirror again or these

548
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,479
Speaker 1: mirrors to these are mirrors, so you have like a

549
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: mirrored sphere, it's a nano sphere, and you bring it

550
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: really close to a surface. And this guy was able

551
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: to get it within like ten nanometers. That's like, you know,

552
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: a hundred times the width of a hydrogen atom. So

553
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: this is pretty close. And he had this technique where

554
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: he had it sort of on the end of a

555
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: stick and then he's showing a laser on the back

556
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: of the mirror, and then he could see very small

557
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: changes in the location of the sphere based on how

558
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: the laser bounced off of it. So if the sphere

559
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: moves a little bit, the laser bounces off at a

560
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: different angle. Wow, sounds pretty tough, but I guess my

561
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: question is how do you know it worked or didn't work?

562
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: Like if I was trying to build something and measure

563
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 1: some invisible water somewhere that I thought was everywhere, how

564
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: would I know I measured it or didn't measure it.

565
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: It's a difficult experiment and you have to do a

566
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: lot of work to sort of rule out alternative explanations. Right,

567
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: you have to rule out is this just an effect

568
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: of gravity, and so you can calculate, like how big

569
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: would the gravitational effect be? And see, well, we see

570
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: something which can't be explained by gravity because the dependence

571
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: on the distance is different and the overall strength of

572
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: it is different. And you ensure that it's isolated from electrostatics,

573
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: and you have all sorts of controls to verify that.

574
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: So you rule out all other explanations and essentially what

575
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: you're seeing is a force that you don't have another

576
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: explanation for. And you can do calculations that say how

577
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: strong should this force be? How strong should the Casimir

578
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: effect be? And when you do those calculations, you predict

579
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: a force exactly of the strength that these guys measured. Wait,

580
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: so this has actually been done and they have measured

581
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: this effect. This has been done, and in seven they

582
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: measured the Casimir effect. It is real. Well, they did

583
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: measure this invisible water trying to push in. Yes, exactly,

584
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: so your faith and physicists was well founded. They figured

585
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: this out. Only took fifty years, but he did it.

586
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: And this guy measured this thing, and he's gone on

587
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: to do all sorts of elaborate extensions on it. Making

588
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: it smaller and closer. It's really pretty impressive. It's just

589
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: like really cool experimental virtuosity. All right, So that means

590
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 1: a Cassimer effect is real. You can measure it, which

591
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: would imply that space is filled with infinite energy. But

592
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: there is a hitch that makes absolutely no sense that. Alright,

593
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: let's get into whether or not that that makes sense

594
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: and whether or not it is infinitely possible to have

595
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: infinite energy in space. But first let's take a quick break. Alright,

596
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Casimer effect and whether space has

597
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: an infinite amount of energy, which experiments say that it should.

598
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: That everywhere you look, everywhere you are, there is an

599
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: infinite amount of energy right there underneath the surface. They're

600
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: just boiling their bubbling there. But there's another big theory

601
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: in physics that says this is impossible. That's right, And

602
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: this is one of my favorite parts of physics. When

603
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: you find something in the mathematics that's weird, that seems nonsensical,

604
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: when you're like, well, that just can't be true, and

605
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: then experimental physicists go out and say, actually, that's exactly

606
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: what happens, and so you got to revise your sense

607
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: of like, what can make sense? What could be true

608
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: about the universe? I love when, like the experiments tell

609
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: us that the universe is just different from the way

610
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,239
Speaker 1: we could possibly hold in our heads. That's like an

611
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: invitation to revise your whole context for how the universe works.

612
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: Those are the best moments when you're wrong. There's what

613
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: you're saying. Yes, that's when you learn things when you're wrong.

614
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: And then the experimentalists come back with this idea and

615
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: other theorists, the gravitational folks are like, hold on a second.

616
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: You should have checked with us, because we could have

617
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: told you before you discovered this thing that it was impossible.

618
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 1: You should not have look for it because now that

619
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: our theories are wrong. Yeah, and here's the problem. We've

620
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: been talking about space from the quantum mechanical point of view, right,

621
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: these fields fluctuating and how much energy they have. But

622
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, there's another view of space,

623
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: and that comes from gravity and Einstein's theory of general relativity.

624
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: This beautiful, elegant theory that tells us that gravity is

625
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: not an attractive force between particles, but instead an effect

626
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: of motion through curved space. Is this beautiful theory because

627
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: it tells us that space is not just a flat backdrop.

628
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: There's a dance between energy and space, that the stuff

629
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: in space tells space how to curve, and that curvature

630
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: space tells stuff how to move. So it's this awesome,

631
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: wonderful theory. But that's the key bit. The key bit

632
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: is that stuff in space, energy or mass, tells space

633
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: how to curve. Just like if you have a really

634
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: dense collection of stuff, like the Sun, it will bend

635
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: the space around it, changing the path of things that

636
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: move near it, such as the Earth. So a lot

637
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: of energy will bend space, right, It's kind of like,

638
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: you know, if energy is the same as mass and

639
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: mass and energy create gravity or distored space, or you know,

640
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 1: pull other masses and other energies, then that means that

641
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: if there's infinite energy everywhere, it should just be I'll

642
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: be pulling, you know, squeezing space everywhere an infinite amount. Yeah, exactly.

643
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: There's a problem with having infinite energy into all of

644
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: space is that it should make everything be basically a singularity. Right,

645
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:40,959
Speaker 1: you just have infinite curvature everywhere in space. The whole

646
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: universe is basically a singularity inside a black hole, and

647
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: that's not what we see, right. We don't see space

648
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: being infinitely curved. It doesn't really make any sense. One guy,

649
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 1: just after the Customer effect came out, sat down to

650
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: do this calculation and say, is it possible. Is there

651
00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: a way to like actually solve general relativity and have

652
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 1: an infinite amount of energy? You know, maybe everything is

653
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 1: just like tightly balanced. But he did the calculation and

654
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: he found that if this were true, if there was

655
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: this much energy, then the whole universe would be so

656
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: curled up it would be smaller than the moon. Well,

657
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: isn't that a theory also that we are sort of

658
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: living in a singularity inside of a black hole, that

659
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,959
Speaker 1: maybe our universe is inside some other universe is black hole,

660
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: And then like a plausible thing, there are some theories that,

661
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps our universe is a connection to other

662
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: universes and that at the core of black holes there

663
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: are singularities which can connect us to them, or perhaps

664
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 1: even our entire universe is inside another universe. But you know,

665
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: we don't see locally crazy infinite curvature. If that were true,

666
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: if we were inside a singularity itself, not just like

667
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: inside the event horizon. Of a huge black hole. If

668
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 1: we were actually inside a singularity, space would have infinite curvature,

669
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 1: and that would have real consequences for how things moved. Right,

670
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: we can measure their local curvature or space because we

671
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 1: see how things move and curve and we do not

672
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,879
Speaker 1: see infinite curvature. So we're pretty confident that we're not

673
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,320
Speaker 1: living in a singularity. Right. But you know, I feel

674
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: like this tells you that there's infinite energy in an

675
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: infinite amount of places everywhere. So wouldn't all those effects

676
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 1: kind of cancel out, you know, like everywhere is a singularity.

677
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that flatten out in a way? Yeah? And it's

678
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: a little bit more complicated because the way that general

679
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: relativity works is it's not just like mass curve space,

680
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 1: and it's not exactly just that like any energy density

681
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 1: curves space, including mass. There's this thing called the stress

682
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: energy tensor which tells space how to curve, and it's

683
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: so it's sensitive not just to the amount of energy

684
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: and the amount of mass, but sort of like the

685
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: arrangement of it. So you can have, for example, angular

686
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: momentum contributes to it, and and all sorts of complicated effects.

687
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:48,399
Speaker 1: And we don't need to go through the calculation here,

688
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: but it does lead to infinite curvature rather than equal

689
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: balance all through space. There is a difference. It's not

690
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: just relative energy. The absolute energy is actually important for

691
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 1: general relativity. Alright. So it seems that we have a

692
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 1: kind of a big problem because a real experiment, like

693
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 1: an actual thing we can measure, tells us or suggests

694
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: that there is infinite energy everywhere, but our theory of

695
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 1: the universe says that's not possible. So, like, who do

696
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: you believe what you can see with your eyes or

697
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: what your the theory tells you? We just really don't know.

698
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 1: This is like a big open question in physics, you know,

699
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: and remember that quantum mechanics and general relativity are sort

700
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: of the two pillars of physics and don't really agree

701
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: on a lot of stuff. You know, they don't agree

702
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,439
Speaker 1: about what does the singularity look like inside a black hole?

703
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,879
Speaker 1: But most of the places they disagree are really hard

704
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: to get to, really hard to explore, like the heart

705
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: of a black hole. So this is an opportunity to

706
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 1: help try to resolve this question. Is quantum mechanics view

707
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: of the universe correct? Or is general relativity correct. It's

708
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,919
Speaker 1: an opportunity to resolve this question in a place where

709
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 1: we can actually do experiments. In our lab. We can

710
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: see these two things conflict. Quantum mechanics says, no, the

711
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: universe is filled with energy in every space, and look,

712
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: I'm right, here's an experiment that proves it. General relativity

713
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: says that's nuts and it can't possibly be right. Otherwise

714
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: things would be crazy. And so what do we do.

715
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:16,719
Speaker 1: We try to come up with another theory of theory

716
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:19,839
Speaker 1: that unifies these two, that explains what we see and

717
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: make sense of it. We don't have that theory today,

718
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: but this is like a great clue that tells us

719
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: if you're gonna build that theory, you have to somehow

720
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 1: explain the Casimer effect. You can't just subtract the way

721
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: that infinity and also you have to subtract away that

722
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: infinity so that you don't curve space too much. I see. So,

723
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: like you know, we measured this effect. It's real, it's real,

724
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: But it may not mean that space is filled with

725
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 1: infinite energy. It might be that our theory, which you know,

726
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,959
Speaker 1: ties that experiment to this idea of infinite energy, could

727
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: be wrong. Yeah, exactly now, It's interesting because the predictions

728
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,400
Speaker 1: for the Casimir effect, when you start from that quantum theory,

729
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 1: they predict the effect at a level that you see it,

730
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:05,360
Speaker 1: So that's pretty convincing. Now, there are some other attempts

731
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: to explain these Cassimir effect experiments without using quantum zero

732
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: point energy. For example, people say maybe it's just a

733
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: misunderstanding of the Vanderwall's force, and people have done some

734
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: calculations to suggest that, you know, relativistic corrections, small corrections

735
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 1: to the way we think about the Vanderwall's force might

736
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: account for the Cassimir effect. It's like an attempt to

737
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: describe it using other physics that doesn't break general relativity

738
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 1: so far. Those calculations, though they're cool, and they do

739
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,279
Speaker 1: suggest and effect is there, don't agree with what we've

740
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 1: measured so far, so they can't really explain the experiments.

741
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: That doesn't really solve the problem yet. But you know,

742
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: this is like active research. Is somebody out there right

743
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: now like improving those calculations trying to describe what we

744
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: see out there without including quantum infinite photons. I like,

745
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: what we measure may not be in effect of quantum physics,

746
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: but just something else. Yeah, it could be something else exactly,

747
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 1: And that's the struggle, Like do you come up with

748
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 1: another theory to explain this real experimental effect that doesn't

749
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,399
Speaker 1: break general relativity or you try to figure out like, hey,

750
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 1: maybe general relativity is wrong, and you know, we need

751
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: another theory that includes quantum effects and somehow doesn't bend

752
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: space in the universe. Right, Well, it seems to me

753
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 1: like the consequences of this question are huge, right, Like

754
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 1: this could determine whether quantum physics is right or relativity

755
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: is right, and it seems really important almost like you

756
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 1: know how we talk about the center of black holes

757
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: being really important because they would settle this question. But

758
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like physics is very focused on this

759
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: little effect here, you know. And I feel like there's

760
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: more attention paid to black holes and there is to

761
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: the Cassimere effect. Well, black holes are sexier than like

762
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 1: tiny microspheres next to tiny microplates, you know. But this

763
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,479
Speaker 1: is a really active area of research, and you're totally right,

764
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: is a huge opportunity. It's much more exciting than black

765
00:40:57,600 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 1: holes because it's real and we can test it and

766
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: we can explore it. But it's also very very difficult,

767
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 1: sort of in the way the black holes are. Like

768
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: these Casimir effect calculations, they are hard. We don't know

769
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 1: how to do them for lots of configurations. Like it's

770
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: an open question right now. If you build a mirror

771
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: that was a sphere and you had photons bouncing around

772
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: inside that sphere, would that have a Casimir effect? Would

773
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: implode the sphere or would explode the sphere? Like there

774
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: is du calculations that get different numbers. So it's a

775
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: really sort of technically very difficult area to make progress in,

776
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 1: both experimentally and theoretically. But I think inside physics it's

777
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: widely recognized as an amazing opportunity to maybe clear up

778
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: this question of quantum mechanics versus general relativity. Yeah, and

779
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 1: their press folks should definitely get on social media. Yeah,

780
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: because you know, as we heard from our listeners, almost

781
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: nobody had heard of it. Yeah. And you know what,

782
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: they should have gotten in touch with a Game of

783
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: Thrones folks and made it the reins of Casimir instead.

784
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: That would have been a great cross marketing opportunity. Yes,

785
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: you can picture it. Its wedding and relativity us in

786
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: thinking that, you know, it's a happy event and then

787
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics pulls a knife. No, I was thinking that

788
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 1: the Jester could do some trick with a Cassimir effect

789
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: and too thin plates or something, you know, after dinner entertainment.

790
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, go down that road if through

791
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:17,239
Speaker 1: its being slitcheder what it is, game of Thrones. I mean,

792
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 1: somebody has to meet their demise. It's either going to

793
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,359
Speaker 1: be general relativity or quantum mechanics. Somebody will perish. When

794
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:27,360
Speaker 1: you play the game of physics, you're either right or

795
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: you're wrong. Yeah, or you're quantum mechanicalized. All right, Well,

796
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: I hear the reigns of customer playing. I feel like

797
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 1: I think we are near the end the here of

798
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: our episode where we learned that the space might have

799
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: an infinite amount of energy and there's an experiment to

800
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: prove it absolutely. And this Casimir effect is super fascinating.

801
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 1: You could also, since it's real, help us build super

802
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 1: tiny electronics with actual moving little parts at the nanoscale.

803
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 1: Some people suggested that we might be able to use

804
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,399
Speaker 1: the Casimir effect and in a repulsive way to keep

805
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: worm holes open to keep them from collapsing if it's real.

806
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: So not only is it a fascinating question which might

807
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: reveal the ultimate nature of reality. It also could help

808
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: us travel the universe. Wow, that is definitely more interesting

809
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: than black hole and less deadly. All right, well, once

810
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: again we learned that there's more to the universe, and

811
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: we realized that there might be energy kind of in

812
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: the error in the space between us, between our particles.

813
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 1: And this might even be an infinite amount of energy,

814
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: which means there's potential for anything in this universe. That's right,

815
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 1: But don't let your iPhone batteries go to zero just yet.

816
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: We haven't perfected vacuum charging. Yeah, just wave it around

817
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: in the air and see if that works. Do your

818
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: own customer experiment at home. All right, Well, we hope

819
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, See you next time.

820
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained.

821
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: The Universe is a production of Heart Radio. For more

822
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio and visit the I Heart Radio,

823
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:08,720
Speaker 1: Apple Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.