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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I have a question for you, very important.

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Speaker 1: All right, what is it? How close are we to

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Speaker 1: having real life lightsabers? You're asking a physicist that question.

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Speaker 1: I would ask the same question to my favorite engineer. Wait,

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Speaker 1: do you think it's an engineering solution? Do we need

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Speaker 1: like some kind of breakthrough in theoretical physics first? No,

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Speaker 1: I mean the science fiction authors have done their job

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Speaker 1: already and they passed it on to the physicists. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the physicists I figured out how to do it. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've been smashing photons together to see what happens,

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Speaker 1: and how does that do as a lightsaber? Well, so

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Speaker 1: far it makes a really awesome sound, like but kind

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Speaker 1: of cut through swords and deflect like guns. That's the

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Speaker 1: engineering problem. Hi am or handy cartoonists and the creator

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

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Speaker 1: and a professor at UC Irvine, and until a moment ago,

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Speaker 1: I had never made a lightsaber sound with my mouth. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we could tell that was terrible, Daniel. All right, let's

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Speaker 1: hear your lightsabers sound. Right, sounds a lot more accurate. Well,

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Speaker 1: we'll let the listeners vote I think the coolest sound though,

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Speaker 1: is when they clash, you know, because they're like woman,

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Speaker 1: it's or something. When they hit that's even worse, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: everyone knows it's oh, that was much better. All right,

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Speaker 1: You're right, that's definitely better. And those movies are ingrained,

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Speaker 1: are burned into my brain, for better or for worse,

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Speaker 1: like somebody inscribed them with a lightsaber, like somebody was

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Speaker 1: their hand and said I would only remember these movies

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Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. It would be pretty

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Speaker 1: awesome if the movies themselves were a Jedi mind trick,

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Speaker 1: but I think they were. They certainly got a lot

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Speaker 1: of my money out of my pocket. These are the

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Speaker 1: movies you want to pay for. But anyways, welcome to

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Speaker 1: our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explain the university production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, in which we pull off the physics

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Speaker 1: mind trick of attempting to understand the universe. We convince

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Speaker 1: ourselves and hopefully convince you, that the crazy cosmic mysteries,

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Speaker 1: the grandest questions of the existence of humanity, the things

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Speaker 1: that philosophers have been wondering about for thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: the very nature of our reality and its meaning, can

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Speaker 1: be understood by tiny little squishy brains living on a

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Speaker 1: little rock orbiting a very normal star. We talk about

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Speaker 1: all of these questions and we explain all the answers

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Speaker 1: to you. That's right. We used the force to understand

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Speaker 1: the forces of the universe and to look out to

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Speaker 1: galaxies far far away and actually also a long long

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Speaker 1: time ago to understand how it's all put together and

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Speaker 1: why it's all hanging there the way it is. Because

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Speaker 1: everything around us presents mysteries. How do these things work?

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Speaker 1: What happens when they bump into each other? And as

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Speaker 1: a particle physicist, my favorite way to understand how things

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Speaker 1: work is to do exactly that. Smash them into each other,

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Speaker 1: or collide them into each other, or blow them up,

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Speaker 1: whatever you prefer. Yeah, because the universe has a dark

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Speaker 1: side and also a light side, and it seems to

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Speaker 1: be in constant struggle with itself, bumping into each other,

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Speaker 1: colliding fields, interacting with each other, all of it to

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Speaker 1: create this amazing spectacle that we can see just by

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Speaker 1: looking out into the night sky. And we've made remarkable

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Speaker 1: progress in understanding the very nature of the universe by

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Speaker 1: describing space itself and everything out there in terms of

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Speaker 1: oscillating quantum fields, these things which fill the whole universe

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Speaker 1: with their energy and slide and smush against each other

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Speaker 1: to come together to describe the reality that you and

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Speaker 1: I experience. Wait, Daniel, you mean it's not all made

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Speaker 1: out of medic clorians, little tiny beings that you know,

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Speaker 1: bind everything together. The medic Clorians were biological, not quantum mechanical.

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Speaker 1: They never described it in Star Wars. Maybe they are

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanical. Maybe they are quantum biology. Yeah, maybe right, Well,

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Speaker 1: it seems almost the same. I mean, you're saying that

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Speaker 1: the universe made of these fields that are bound together

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Speaker 1: with these little tiny things that bump around each other

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Speaker 1: and somehow direct the cosmos. That's kind of what George

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Speaker 1: Lucas was saying. That's kind of what everybody was saying.

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Speaker 1: If you're going to say kind of and be really

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Speaker 1: generous about it, you know, yeah, kind of. But I

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Speaker 1: love this picture of the universe as all these different

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Speaker 1: quantum fields. You have like a field for the photon,

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Speaker 1: you have a field for the electron, you have a

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Speaker 1: field for the corks and you know those fields we

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Speaker 1: can think about is having particles in them would slide

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Speaker 1: around and keep a little discrete blob of energy. And

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Speaker 1: we've talked to the podcast about how particles are these

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Speaker 1: little ripples in the quantum fields. But one of the

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Speaker 1: most interesting things that these fields can do is talk

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Speaker 1: to each other. The photon field in the electron field

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Speaker 1: don't just fill the space of the universe and ignore

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Speaker 1: each other. They interact, They touch, they bind together, they

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Speaker 1: transfer energy back and forth. Yeah, and thankfully, I guess right,

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Speaker 1: because if all the fields ignored each other, like nothing

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Speaker 1: would ever happen. We wouldn't be here. We're here because

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Speaker 1: of those interactions. In a way, every interaction between two

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Speaker 1: different kinds of particles, the way the electron is bound

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Speaker 1: to the nucleus of the atom, the way chemical bonds form.

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Speaker 1: The reason you don't fall through your chair is all

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Speaker 1: because those quantum fields don't ignore each other. It's because

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Speaker 1: they interact with each other, because they pass energy back

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Speaker 1: and forth. In some sense, it's a bit of an

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Speaker 1: artificial distinction to say we have two different fields. Might

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Speaker 1: want to think of them holistically, is one bundle of fields,

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Speaker 1: one force with the dark side and the light side, right,

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Speaker 1: I think you're kind of saying the same thing, one

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Speaker 1: force to rule them all. Now I'm mixing our mythologies.

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Speaker 1: We need to have like a Lord of the Rings

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Speaker 1: Star Wars crossover event. Who would win? Oh my goodness,

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Speaker 1: fan fiction writers get on it? Are those owned by

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Speaker 1: like different corporate conglomerates, in which case will never happen.

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Speaker 1: Not on the internet. Anything can happened on the Internet.

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Speaker 1: That's true until Disney's lawyers come after, you know, Disney

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Speaker 1: buys Lord of the Rings. Then we might get like

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Speaker 1: a Marvel Star Wars Lord of the Rings for a

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Speaker 1: crossover right, Oh my goodness, would throw iron Men in there,

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Speaker 1: And I'm all in Gandolf versus iron Man. Well, who

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Speaker 1: would win? Doctor Strange or Gandalf or the Wizards. I

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Speaker 1: don't know who's got a better grasp on the quantum fields,

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Speaker 1: but it is interesting and things like Star Wars they

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Speaker 1: use lasers, right, laser guns to shoot at each other,

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Speaker 1: and also lightsabers to cut through appendages, and also doors

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Speaker 1: and walls. And it's interesting to think that light can

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Speaker 1: interact with matter, Like if you shoot a laser, it's

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Speaker 1: gonna burn a hole through your wall, right, And you

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Speaker 1: can even use light to push a solar sale, to

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Speaker 1: push a spaceship off of the solar system. Exactly. Light

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Speaker 1: is really weird. It has energy, it has a momentum,

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Speaker 1: but it doesn't have any mass, and yet of course

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Speaker 1: it can influence our world because of that energy. In

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Speaker 1: that momentum, A laser will deposit a lot of energy

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Speaker 1: in a very small spot and burn right through it.

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Speaker 1: And that exactly happens because those photons can interact with

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Speaker 1: charged particles. The quantum field of photon and the quantum

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Speaker 1: field of those electrons or muns or quarks can interact

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Speaker 1: and pass energy back and forth. I always wondered when

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Speaker 1: I watched those lightsaber battles. I thought, how does that work?

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Speaker 1: How do two lightsabers, two beams of light hit each other? Well,

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Speaker 1: this is getting a little philosophical, Daniel. Our lightsabers beams

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Speaker 1: of light actual like light that just stands there and

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Speaker 1: sits there. Or are they like some kind of material, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, like a plasma beam. Wouldn't they be called

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Speaker 1: plasma sabers? Then? I mean they are called lightsabers, and

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Speaker 1: I imagine George Lucas knows his quantum mechanics. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: maybe they're called lightsabers because they give off light. I

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Speaker 1: guess that's a good point. You know, light bulbs are

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Speaker 1: not made of light. As we're getting deep here, this

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Speaker 1: is very stimulating, illuminating conversation here, well too, bright minds.

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Speaker 1: You know, let's see what we can do. I guess

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Speaker 1: we were talking about interacting things interacting, and you know,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting that electrons can definitely interact with

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Speaker 1: other electrons, right, like an electron will repel another electron,

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Speaker 1: and like a proton will repel no, the proton like

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Speaker 1: things seem to be able to interact with it themselves,

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Speaker 1: but not directly. Actually, electrons do not interact directly with

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Speaker 1: other electrons. Electrons interact with photons, and photons interact with electrons,

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Speaker 1: sort of like having an interpreter, and you can talk

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Speaker 1: to the photon and the photon can talk to the

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Speaker 1: other electron. But electrons don't interact with each other directly.

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Speaker 1: I see, you gotta go through their agents, like talk

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Speaker 1: to my people exactly. It's like electrons are celebrities. They

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Speaker 1: don't just email you there people email your people. But

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Speaker 1: I guess this brings up the an interesting question, which

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Speaker 1: is what do photons interact with specifically? Yeah, exactly when

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Speaker 1: these two lightsabers are about to cross, and to make

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Speaker 1: that sound that I can't make what exactly is going

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Speaker 1: on at the microscopic level in George Lucas's mind. Yea,

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Speaker 1: so it's the On the podcast, we'll be asking the

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Speaker 1: question do photons bump into each other? And Daniel this

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Speaker 1: seemed a little risk a like, what do you mean

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Speaker 1: bumping to each other? Like they bump and grind like casually,

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Speaker 1: like oops, sorry, bumping to each other? Yeah. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: photons can do all sorts of things. They can be

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Speaker 1: circularly polarized, so I guess they can do like spins

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Speaker 1: on the dance floor. And you know, I'm not one

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Speaker 1: to tell you what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. Talk

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Speaker 1: to your parents about that. But this is more of

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Speaker 1: a physics question. You know what happens when two beams

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Speaker 1: of light cross each other? Do the photons ignore each other?

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Speaker 1: Do they hit each other? Two photons push against each other?

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Speaker 1: You know what happens when you cross the streams. Oh,

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Speaker 1: and now we're getting to another mythology. Ghostbusters do not

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Speaker 1: cross the streams exactly. I want to see bankman versus

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Speaker 1: Gandolf versus a jedi. Now, oh, obviously Agreman would win.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the smart engineer always wins. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I Bankman is quite the smart professor. Yeah, because I

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Speaker 1: think this is something that I wondered about as a kid.

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Speaker 1: Like if you take a flashlight and you take another

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Speaker 1: flashlight and you point them not even at each other,

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Speaker 1: but just like pointing them in the same direction, or

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Speaker 1: cross their beams, Like, what's happening there? Like, what's happening

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Speaker 1: to the Do the light beams ignore each other or

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Speaker 1: do they kind of interfere or somehow scatter each other.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying you wanted to understand light and so

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Speaker 1: you make light collisions? Well, I don't know. Is it

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Speaker 1: possible for light to collide? That's the question of today's episode.

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Speaker 1: Can create a collite, a photon collider? So that's the

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Speaker 1: big question we're asking today is can light bump into

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Speaker 1: each other? Does light interact with itself? Because not every

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Speaker 1: particle interact with other particles. Neutrinos, for example, ignore most

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Speaker 1: of the matter in the universe, sliding right by as

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Speaker 1: if it wasn't even there. Each particle, each ribble in

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Speaker 1: the quantum field, can either see other fields or ignore

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Speaker 1: the other fields. It's not like an option, it's not

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Speaker 1: like it depends on its mood. Some of these fields

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Speaker 1: couple with each other, and other fields just don't couple

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Speaker 1: with each other at all. Well, it's kind of interesting

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Speaker 1: because I know we've talked about this a lot before.

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Speaker 1: How there are two kinds of particles. There are matter particles,

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Speaker 1: like the stuff that we think of the stuff, and

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Speaker 1: then there are force particles. And so a photon is

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Speaker 1: a force particle. And so the question, I guess maybe

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Speaker 1: a larger question is to force particles interact with themselves.

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Speaker 1: It is a really interesting and deep question. Some of

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Speaker 1: the force particles can actually interact directly with themselves, and

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Speaker 1: others interact indirectly with themselves. But as we'll learn today,

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Speaker 1: there's several layers of nuance to the answer. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll get right on it. But as usual, we were

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Speaker 1: wondering how many people have thought about this like question,

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Speaker 1: this question of whether light can interact with itself? And

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Speaker 1: so as usual, Daniel went out there into the internet, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: or to your campus. These are questions from our cadre

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Speaker 1: of Internet volunteers. So thanks very much for everybody who

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Speaker 1: continues to participate and fill my inbox with these really

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Speaker 1: fun answers. I greatly appreciate it, and if you'd like

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Speaker 1: to hear your voice on the podcast, please don't be

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Speaker 1: shy right to us. Two questions at Daniel and Jorge

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Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah, so we ask folks, do you think

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Speaker 1: that photons bounce off of each other? Here's what people

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Speaker 1: had to say. Since photons do not have electric charge

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Speaker 1: and mass, I think they do not bounce off each other.

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Speaker 1: I think that photons should bounce off each other because

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Speaker 1: in physics we learned that photons are particles that act

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Speaker 1: as waves because they have a particle wave kind of

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Speaker 1: duality to them. So if their particles, they should be

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Speaker 1: able to bounce off each other. But also at the

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Speaker 1: same time, they're very small, so the rate that they

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Speaker 1: do bounce off each other so small because it's very

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Speaker 1: hard to hit two very small particles together. I would

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Speaker 1: think not. I think they pass right on by each other. Yes, yes, yes, yes?

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Speaker 1: Why or how? Wait? Pick up? Oh? Maybe they don't

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Speaker 1: wait protons? Maybe they need neutrons. Do you know what

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Speaker 1: a photon is? A photon? What's a photon? Way? A

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Speaker 1: photon will need to stick to a proton what is

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Speaker 1: a photon? Wait? Is it too protons? I would say

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Speaker 1: the photons can bounce off each other, because I know

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Speaker 1: my understanding is the photons don't have mass. But I

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Speaker 1: know the idea of a light sale requires bouncing photons

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Speaker 1: off of them. So it's something about the momentum or

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Speaker 1: energy of a photon can actually impart some momentum into

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Speaker 1: an object. So I would say because of that, photons

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Speaker 1: probably can bounce off each other if shot at each other,

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Speaker 1: just right, if I remember rightly, you've said on some

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Speaker 1: prior episode that photons do not bounce off each other,

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Speaker 1: but just pass right through. One might think they would

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Speaker 1: bounce off because of their particle nature, but they also

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Speaker 1: have wave nature, and I guess that's what lets them

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Speaker 1: pass right through each other. I don't believe photons can

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Speaker 1: directly interact with each other, being waves as well as particles.

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Speaker 1: They just passed through, uh, interfering or not on their

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Speaker 1: way through, but then continuing on their happy ways. I

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Speaker 1: really don't know. I suppose they could. I know, if

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Speaker 1: they hit hard enough, they'll break into other things, all right.

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Speaker 1: I like that kid's answer. That was pretty funny. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: of course, Wait what I love hearing people think about

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Speaker 1: it on the fly, their initial reaction and then their

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Speaker 1: physics brain engages and they're like, hold on a second,

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Speaker 1: is that really the way this works? Really? They have

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Speaker 1: two brains. I have lots of small brains all wrapped

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Speaker 1: up together. To my, oh boy, that's a weird picture.

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Speaker 1: Like if we open your skull, we wouldn't find a brain,

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Speaker 1: We just find a whole bunch of little brains. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm like nineteen little brains in a trench coat, not

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Speaker 1: actually a full person. Boy, that's a bit disturbing. I

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Speaker 1: guess you know, you've got different parts of your life

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Speaker 1: and so you gotta engage like, oh I need dad brain,

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Speaker 1: or I need husband brain, or it's physics brain time.

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Speaker 1: I find having split personalities is a bit of a problem.

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Speaker 1: I see. So everybody's always just getting the same cartoon

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Speaker 1: is braining all the time. Everyone's just getting the whole brain.

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Speaker 1: There's no menu option. You get what you get and

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Speaker 1: you don't get upset. But yeah, pretty interesting answers here

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Speaker 1: from people. Some people think they yes, definitely they do,

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Speaker 1: and some people think they definitely don't. And here's an

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Speaker 1: interesting answer. Because they're waves. Can two waves interact with

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Speaker 1: each other, yes, right, no reason why not. Like, two

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Speaker 1: waves definitely can interact with each other. If you've seen

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Speaker 1: waves in the ocean, you know they can add up together,

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Speaker 1: they can even cancel each other out. So waves can

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Speaker 1: definitely interact with each other. And photons can do that

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Speaker 1: as well. You know, we've seen like the double slit experiment,

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Speaker 1: is interference between photons, and so waves can definitely interact

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Speaker 1: with each other. That's not an issue. But I guess

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Speaker 1: in water in the ocean, if you get like one

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Speaker 1: wave going one way and another way of going the

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Speaker 1: other way, they do sort of mix in the middle,

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Speaker 1: but afterwards they just keep going as if they hadn't interacted, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The effect that you see is a superposition of the

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Speaker 1: two waves, and so there isn't necessarily direct coupling between

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Speaker 1: the waves, but what you see is the addition of

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Speaker 1: the two waves. In that sense, you experience the combination

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Speaker 1: of them. But the individual waves can still be thought

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Speaker 1: of as individual waves. Yeah, but then they keep going

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Speaker 1: as if they hadn't interacted, right, Yeah. No, that's a

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Speaker 1: good point. They don't interact with each other the way

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Speaker 1: they would interact with for example, a boundary or a

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Speaker 1: wall where they really would reflect. Yeah, they just sort

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Speaker 1: of ignore each other. I mean in the moment, if

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Speaker 1: you're setting in the middle, you would experience both waves

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Speaker 1: and they would add or substract, but they eventually the

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Speaker 1: waves keep going right. Yeah, that's true. And so the

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Speaker 1: question is does the same happen to photons? That is

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Speaker 1: indeed the question of the episode, And what happens when

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Speaker 1: two photons getting near each other? Do they ignore each

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Speaker 1: other or do they bounce off each other? Or do

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Speaker 1: they do something else? All right, well, let's diget into it, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: I guess, first of all, what does bouncing off actually mean? Like,

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Speaker 1: what does it mean for one particle to bump into

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Speaker 1: another particle? Do they actually bump? Yeah, so the microscopic

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Speaker 1: view of bumping into things on the dance floor or

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Speaker 1: sitting in your chair or whatever is sort of the

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Speaker 1: conceptual view that you might have. You know, you probably

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Speaker 1: imagine that the reason that you don't pass through a

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Speaker 1: wall is that like the surface of your body is

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Speaker 1: touching the surface of the wall and it's pushing back. Right,

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Speaker 1: But what do we really mean by touching? Like microscopically?

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Speaker 1: Zoom in? What's happening. Well, you know, the surface of

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Speaker 1: your body is a bunch of atoms, and those have

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Speaker 1: electrons around them. So really the tip of your finger,

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Speaker 1: for example, is a bunch of electrons, and the edge

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Speaker 1: of the wall, the surface of the wall, is also

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Speaker 1: a bunch of electrons. And what happens when you push

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Speaker 1: one against the other. The electrons themselves don't have to touch, right,

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Speaker 1: They can repel each other without actually touching. So this

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Speaker 1: microscopic view of the world from a physics point of view,

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Speaker 1: there's no actual contact between these particles. It all happens

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Speaker 1: via the fields between them, or equivalently, the particles that

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Speaker 1: they're passing between each other. So when your finger pushes

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Speaker 1: against the wall, it's ripples in the electromagnetic field or equivalently,

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Speaker 1: photons that are transmitting that information that are pushing back

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Speaker 1: back on you. Yeah, but you know, I think we

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Speaker 1: have everyone has this intuitive feeling that things touch each

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Speaker 1: other because like, my finger has a volume and the

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Speaker 1: table has a volume, and that two objects can't sort

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Speaker 1: of occupy the same space at the same time. And

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Speaker 1: so if I press my finger against the table, like

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Speaker 1: somehow the universe is resisting my finger being in the

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Speaker 1: same place as the table, But two things can occupy

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Speaker 1: the same place at the same time. Your body is

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Speaker 1: full of neutrinos right now as well, and they're passing

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Speaker 1: right through you and ignoring you. They are taking up

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Speaker 1: your volume. The only reason you perceive a volume, the

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Speaker 1: reason you think there's a boundary between your particles and

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Speaker 1: the other particles is when there's a force between them.

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Speaker 1: Neutrinos don't feel force, so they're just trapes right through

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Speaker 1: the edge of Jorge and then out the other side,

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Speaker 1: No big deal. The reason the table and the chair

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Speaker 1: doesn't is because there's a force that prevents them. So

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Speaker 1: it's really all about the force you can imagine things

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Speaker 1: is sort of like with virtual springs between them, preventing

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Speaker 1: them from getting too close, but there's no actual contact.

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Speaker 1: Contact doesn't really mean anything. All there is is forced

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Speaker 1: between particles, right. I think that's what you're saying, is

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Speaker 1: that this idea that my finger can't occupy the same

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Speaker 1: space as the table is really just kind of an illusion, right,

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Speaker 1: because they could, I guess. But something is I'm not

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Speaker 1: preventing my cluster of atoms in my finger from somehow

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Speaker 1: being or you know, penetrating or infringing upon the volume

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Speaker 1: of the atoms cluster together on the table. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't say the volume is an illusion. You know,

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Speaker 1: people talk about like atoms being mostly empty space, and

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Speaker 1: I think that's cool to give you the sense that

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Speaker 1: like it's made of tiny particles, But it's also a

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Speaker 1: little bit misleading that space isn't empty. It's filled with

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Speaker 1: fields or with virtual photons that are zooming around and

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Speaker 1: keeping everything in its position. You can define what your

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Speaker 1: volume is, but that volume, the edge of it, is

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Speaker 1: not defined by like the stuff that you're made out of,

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Speaker 1: but the fields from that stuff, the forces of that stuff,

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Speaker 1: And the volume also depends on what you're touching. Right,

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Speaker 1: you want to touch a blob of neutrinos, then your

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Speaker 1: volume is different. Then you want to touch something like

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Speaker 1: a table or a chair. Right, So, because the volume

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Speaker 1: depends on the fields, and not everything feels those fields,

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Speaker 1: then the volume is a little bit dependent on what

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Speaker 1: you're touching. Right. I think you're saying that, you know,

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Speaker 1: instead of thinking of our fingers or at the table

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Speaker 1: as collections of stuffy particles, maybe it's better to think

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Speaker 1: of them as like clusters of ripples in the fields

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Speaker 1: of the universe, Like my finger is not really a finger,

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Speaker 1: is just a whole bunch of ripples kind of tightly

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Speaker 1: cluster together. And so this whole bunch of ripples doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to just um go through the bunch of ripples

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Speaker 1: of the table. There's are forces that push my group

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Speaker 1: of ripples against the tables group of ripples. That's right,

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Speaker 1: And I like the sound of the word ripples, And yeah,

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Speaker 1: you are made of little matter ripples, right, your particles,

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Speaker 1: And you can think of as like little ripples in

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Speaker 1: quantum fields of matter. And the way those things stay

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Speaker 1: apart again is not that they are physically touching each

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Speaker 1: each other, but that they exchange other kinds of ripples,

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Speaker 1: these force ripples between them. So you can think of

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Speaker 1: yourself as like a cloud of these little matter ripples

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Speaker 1: that are maintaining their distance from each other by passing

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Speaker 1: back and forth these other little ripples, and also maintaining

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Speaker 1: their distance from other things. But there's no microscopic equivalent

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Speaker 1: of touching. The surfaces are not like actually coming into contact, right,

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Speaker 1: but in a way sort of like my ripples, like

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Speaker 1: my way functions of my ripples are touching the way

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Speaker 1: functions of the other ripples, and so that's that's kind

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Speaker 1: of like touching, right, They're getting into each other's business.

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Speaker 1: Another way to say, instead of saying there is no

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Speaker 1: touching is to say, that's exactly what touching is. That's

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Speaker 1: how touching works. Your experience of touching means these particles

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Speaker 1: are communicating with the other particles, but they don't have

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Speaker 1: to be on top of each other. And this is

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Speaker 1: something that physicists struggle to understand for a long time.

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Speaker 1: They call this spooky action at a distance, because we

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Speaker 1: like to think of physics as local, that you only

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Speaker 1: affect things that are right next to you. You can't like,

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Speaker 1: do something here and instantly affects things in andromeda. We

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Speaker 1: like to think of physics is only happening in like

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Speaker 1: a very close vicinity to an object. And so this

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Speaker 1: idea that like an electron could push another electron without

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Speaker 1: actually touching it was a little bit weird for physicists

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Speaker 1: for a while. And then they invented this concept of

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Speaker 1: a field that the electron creates this field around it,

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Speaker 1: which then pushes on other electrons. Right, And like you said,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of all depends on which fields you're talking about.

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Speaker 1: Like some fields do interact with each other and some don't,

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Speaker 1: Like there could be a whole house made of neutrinos

427
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 1: falling on top of me right now, but it'll just

428
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,199
Speaker 1: keep going and won't touch or interact with any of

429
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 1: my ribbles. Exactly in, each particle that's out there has

430
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:38,080
Speaker 1: a different set of ways to interact. Like the electron

431
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: can interact via photons. It can also interact with the

432
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: weak force, so you can interact using ws and interact

433
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:46,680
Speaker 1: using zs for example. So it's got like two ways

434
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:50,120
Speaker 1: to talk to other particles. You can speak two different languages,

435
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 1: whereas the corks they can speak a third language. Right,

436
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 1: they can interact via gluons because they feel the strong force,

437
00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: and the neutrino only speaks one language, just the weak force.

438
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:01,720
Speaker 1: So depending on which kind of particle you are, you

439
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,959
Speaker 1: see the universe very differently. Right. Either it's filled with

440
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: stuff that wants to talk to you, or it's filled

441
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: with people speaking gobbledygook that you can't understand and mostly

442
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 1: just ignore. All right, well, let's touch on this a

443
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:14,919
Speaker 1: little bit more and we'll speak to what some of

444
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 1: these forces are up to. But first let's take a

445
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 1: quick break all right, we're talking about the question of

446
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: what's going on in Star Wars when a lightsaber hits

447
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:40,400
Speaker 1: another lightsaber, Daniel, is the light actually touching it itself?

448
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: Is is it colliding? Or is that actually something that's

449
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 1: impossible in the universe. Did George Lucas make all that

450
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: stuff up? Then? You know, he has a huge budget,

451
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:51,359
Speaker 1: so I'm sure he did all the R and D

452
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 1: necessary to make sure that Star Wars is realistic. But actually,

453
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: didn't Star Wars happen a long time ago? So in

454
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: principle all this stuff has already and developed. Yeah, well,

455
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: it depends on who the movies for, you know, like

456
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: that the movie could be for aliens who are really

457
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: far away, in which case it will have happened a

458
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: long time ago from them. I see. Wow. I wonder

459
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,479
Speaker 1: if he wrote that into his contracts, you know, future

460
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: kinds of revenue from alien galaxies. He was pretty savvy,

461
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,199
Speaker 1: I heard. I'm sure those contracts say everywhere in the

462
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: known universe, and some lawyer out there is like, oh,

463
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,880
Speaker 1: what if we discover a new universe? Does this contract

464
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:30,840
Speaker 1: extend to merchandise sold in the multiverse? Yeah, although actually

465
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: George look has sold everything Star wars did Disney try?

466
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: So Disney owns the universe, that's right. Yeah, Well, we're

467
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: talking about whether photons interact with photons, whether light can

468
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: hit light, I guess, or interact with itself. And so

469
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,199
Speaker 1: we talked about what it actually means for particles to

470
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:48,719
Speaker 1: interact with each other, and it sort of all depends

471
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: on what fields are in and how they interact with

472
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: each other. One thing I think that's interesting that you

473
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 1: said is that sometimes particles don't actually interact with each other,

474
00:24:56,520 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: but they have sort of intermediary feels they talk through.

475
00:25:01,359 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: Like an electron doesn't actually interact with another electron exactly.

476
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 1: Electrons can interact with a very small number of particles directly.

477
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 1: They can interact with photons, ws and zs, and that's it.

478
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: Like electrons can only interact with force particles. They can't

479
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: interact with other matter particles, not directly. Like if you

480
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: look at the equations of the standard model, we have

481
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: all of these fields and we say very specifically which

482
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: fields can talk to the other fields, and the electron

483
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: can only talk to the photon field, the W field,

484
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 1: the Z field, and actually also the Higgs field. Wait

485
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: are you saying that like an electron can actually be

486
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: on top of another electron, is in there some sort

487
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 1: of like universe rule that says no to electrons can

488
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: be in the same place. This certainly is that rule,

489
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: and so quantum mechanics prevents that from happening. But that

490
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: would never happen anyway, because electrons, though they can't talk

491
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: to each other directly, they can talk to each other

492
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: via the photon. And so the way we build up

493
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: our description of the universe is we have these little

494
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 1: basic building blocks, like what are the simplest things that

495
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,719
Speaker 1: can happen, and then from that you can build up

496
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,239
Speaker 1: more complex things. You can say, well, an electron can

497
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 1: only talk to a photon, but that means a photon

498
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: conduct an electron. So then you put together this two

499
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: step process when electron talks to a photon, which passes

500
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: the information to another electron, sort of like when the

501
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: parents are arguing and the interact via the kids. You know,

502
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: tell your mother that dinner will be ready at six pm.

503
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about, Daniel, what sort

504
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 1: of house are you running there? I mean, I've just

505
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: seen that in the movies. I've never had an argument. Right, Well,

506
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: we'll tell our agent that I don't agree with them,

507
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: all right, Remember that this is like our description of

508
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 1: the universe. We try to boil it down to the

509
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: simplest set of interactions, and then we can use those

510
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: to try to describe all the complex phenomena that we

511
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: see out there, some of which can be described with

512
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:46,760
Speaker 1: just the basic pieces, and some of which requires us

513
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:48,919
Speaker 1: to put two or three of these pieces together to

514
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: describe everything that happens. But it's kind of weird to

515
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: think that if there wasn't a photon field, then you

516
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: could have electrons kind of running into each other, kind

517
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: of right occupying the same field in the same spot.

518
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 1: It's pretty hard to think about a universe without a

519
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: photon field because it would break a lot of our laws.

520
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 1: Remember we have this episode about gauge invariants actually need

521
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: photons around for electrons to behave properly to like conserve

522
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: electric charge and all that stuff. Member forces aren't everything

523
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,199
Speaker 1: in physics. They're also just rules of quantum mechanics. Electrons

524
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: can't be in the same state as another electron, and

525
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: that's not like due to a force, it's just something

526
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: electrons don't do. Alright, So then all electrons have to

527
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: go through the photon field to talk to each other. Um,

528
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: what about things like courts, So quirks can do the

529
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: same thing. Quarks interact with all the same particles that

530
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:42,120
Speaker 1: electrons do, plus gluons. So if two quirks are approaching

531
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 1: each other, they have a lot of different ways to

532
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: talk to each other. They can exchange ws, they can

533
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 1: exchange zs, they can exchange photons, or they can exchange

534
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 1: those crazy particles, the gluons, and so again. Corks don't

535
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: talk to each other directly. Right. Matter particles never interact

536
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: directly with matter particles. What they do is they interact

537
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 1: via the fields they create, which is equivalent to saying

538
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: that they interact via these force particles. Right again, just

539
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: to be totally clear, you can imagine like the electromagnetic

540
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: field that a cork generates because cork has electric charge

541
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: like two thirds or minus one third, and another cork

542
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: is flying through that field and fields of force. That's

543
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: what the field is. Right. Another equivalent way of thinking

544
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: about it is thinking of that field is a bunch

545
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: of virtual particles being created by the first cork. There

546
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 1: are two equivalent ways of thinking about particles interacting either

547
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: via fields or via virtual particles. But I guess maybe

548
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: like a philosophical question is, could you have a universe

549
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: without a photon field or a gluon field and still

550
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: like makes sense mathematically, like is it just coincidence that

551
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: somehow course can talk to each other via the glue

552
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: on field or is it not even possible for courts

553
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: exist without gluons. I mean philosophically, you can put together

554
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: all different kinds of universes. You can put together universes

555
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: with just quirks in them, or just electrons and them.

556
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: Of course you wouldn't get any interesting complex structure. Like

557
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: everything that we know and love about the universe comes

558
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: from the fact that these particles do interact and make

559
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: protons and neutrons and atoms and chemistry and ice cream

560
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: and all that good stuff. So you wouldn't get anything interesting.

561
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: And if you have these fields and they couldn't talk

562
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: to each other, you couldn't form really any kind of

563
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: complex structure. Also without these forces. Remember, these forces exist

564
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: to preserve symmetries that we observe in nature between these particles.

565
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: So there are symmetries among the corks and symmetries among

566
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: the electron and the other particles that are preserved by

567
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: these forces. Check on our episode Engage Symmetry to explain

568
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: a little bit more what I mean. You have to

569
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: have these forces if the universe has these symmetries, though

570
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: we don't know why the universe has these symmetries. So

571
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: you could in theory create other universes without these symmetries

572
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: and without the forces, but they would be pretty boring. Yeah,

573
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: there would be there would be any sequels probably, well,

574
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: I guess it's sort of It's sort of an interesting

575
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: philosophical thing to think about. Like, you know, there are

576
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: matter particles, and those matter because that's what they make

577
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: stuff out of. But the force particles, you know, they

578
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: seem to only be there so that the matter particles

579
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: can talk to each other, and so like are they

580
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: there just to make the other ones interact? Or are

581
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: they they because they have to be there, or are

582
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: they're there by coincidence? It is an interesting philosophical question.

583
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: You know, we observe these things in the universe. That

584
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: doesn't answer the question of why they are there. What

585
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: we can do is think about, like what other possible

586
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: universes could you put together, and then think about why

587
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: we have this one, and we do see these amazing

588
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: mathematical symmetries that tell us that the force particles really

589
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: do complement the matter particles in this way, that they

590
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: preserve these internal mathematical symmetries. But you know, you can

591
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: also have other kinds of universe, So we can imagine

592
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: other kinds of universes that do follow their own self

593
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: consistent laws, you know, like universes with just photons in them,

594
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: universes with just luons in them. Right, you can imagine

595
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: those universes. They could exist. You can write down the

596
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: equations for them on paper, you can think about them

597
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: in your mind. You can do computer simulations. That doesn't

598
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: tell you why we have quirks. So much of what

599
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: we do in particle physics is just observation. We see

600
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: this out here in the universe. We try to describe

601
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: it mathematically. We don't know why this universe and not

602
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: another universe. We just don't know. Just describing what you see,

603
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: we are we describing what we see. We're trying to

604
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: boil it down to as few rules as possible to

605
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: describe all the complexity, and then we're trying to look

606
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: at those rules and say, hey, does this make sense?

607
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: Could have been different? Why is it this way not

608
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: another way? Mostly we're still pretty clueless about the answers

609
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: to those questions. So many things about the particles that

610
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: just don't make any sense and don't seem to have

611
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: any reason at all. You know, why are there three

612
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 1: kinds of electrons? We have no idea, all sorts of

613
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: interesting questions, all right, Well that what seems to be

614
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: observed is that matter particles don't interact with each other.

615
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: They do it through force particles. And so the question

616
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:53,959
Speaker 1: is what the force particles interact with? Can they interact

617
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: with themselves like the photon? Can the photon interact with itself?

618
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 1: So again not directly, right, A photon only interact with

619
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: particles that have electric charge. So the photon can interact

620
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 1: with the electron, or the muon or any of the quarks.

621
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: It can also interact with the w boson, which is

622
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: not a matter particle. The rule for the photon is

623
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: that it only interacts directly with particles that have electric charge.

624
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: Particles like the z and the neutrino it cannot see,

625
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: it cannot interact with them. And interestingly, the photon itself

626
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: doesn't have electric charge. It's neutral, so the photon cannot

627
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: directly bump into another photon. Well, okay, so you're saying

628
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: that a photon can't interact with it itself. Can any particle,

629
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: Can any force particle interact with itself? Or can any

630
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: particle in general interact with itself? Actually, yes, some of

631
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: them can. Like a gluon interacts only with particles that

632
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: have strong charge color, right, like the quarks, for example,

633
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: and not the electrons. But the gluons themselves have color,

634
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: so gluons can interact with themselves. Two gluons who find

635
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: each other in the universe can bounce directly off each

636
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: other without using some other intermediate particle. Wait, they can,

637
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: like they can bounce off, but they don't use an

638
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: intermediary to bounce off. They can just bounce off. Gluons

639
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: can talk directly to each other. And that's one of

640
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: the reasons why the strong force is so strong and

641
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: so weird and so much of a pain in the

642
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: butt to do any calculations with, because gluons just can't

643
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: stop talking to each other. You know, quirks are constantly

644
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: generating gluons, and those gluons talk to each other and

645
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: the other quirks, and it's a huge tangled mess. Photons

646
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: are much easier because once you make them, they don't

647
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: talk to each other. They can fly along inside each

648
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: other and hardly interfere with each other. So gluons are

649
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: very chatty and that's kind of a pain. Are you

650
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: saying they're very sticky and that's the problem. They are

651
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: indeed very sticky. Absolutely, Are you sure there's no like

652
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: hidden particle that they're using to intert react with it themselves,

653
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 1: Like isn't that weird that? Like electrons can interact with electrons,

654
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: but gluons can interact with glue ups. It is weird,

655
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: And the mathematics you need to describe gluons becomes very

656
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 1: different from the mathematics you need to describe photons. And

657
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: W's disease. And that's another thing that makes a strong

658
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: force so weird and so powerful. It's very different kind

659
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: of particle. Another example is the Higgs boson. The Higgs

660
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: boson can also interact directly with itself, like Higgs boson

661
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,959
Speaker 1: flying through space can bounce into another Higgs boson, or

662
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: it can radiate the Higgs boson. It can like pop

663
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: off one of itself. WHOA. But then, so what's the

664
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: difference between the higgs boson and like the electron or

665
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: the photon that ignores itself. Well, the rule is the

666
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 1: photon can only interact with particles that have electric charge,

667
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: because that's the photon's job is to preserve electric charge

668
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: in the universe. Higgs boson interacts with anything that feels

669
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: the weak force, and that includes the higgs boson itself.

670
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 1: The Higgs boson has this weird ability to talk to itself,

671
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: and again this is not something where we understand why

672
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: it is this way. But if it wasn't this way,

673
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: the higgs boson couldn't do its job. We talked to

674
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 1: the podcast about the higgs boson and its relationship to

675
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: Mexican hats. How it has this weird vacuum energy that

676
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: gives it the power to apply mass two particles, and

677
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: that comes partially from its interaction with itself. That's what

678
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 1: makes the higgs boson weird, and just the right way

679
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: then it can give mass to these particles. So it's

680
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,399
Speaker 1: again not something we totally understand. So I guess you're saying,

681
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 1: as far as we know, the photon can't interact with itself,

682
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: at least directly, and so that kind of answers the

683
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: question of the episode, right, like, can't interact with itself directly? Yeah, directly,

684
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: Although you know, how we organize these things in our

685
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 1: minds doesn't necessarily determine what happens out there in the universe.

686
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: We have this strategy of let's make the simplest possible

687
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: basic ideas and then build everything out of it, like

688
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: the way you might describe the universe in terms of

689
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: legos and say I only need these lego pieces to

690
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: describe anything I can build out of legos. That doesn't

691
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: necessarily limit what you can make out of legos, and

692
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: it would be like artificial to say, what can I

693
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: make out of only these pieces nobody really cares right

694
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: with out there in the universe is all sorts of

695
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 1: crazy combinations of those pieces. So while it's true that

696
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: in our model to photons can't bump against each other

697
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: directly or definitely ways for photons to interact indirectly, and

698
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: we see that in the universe, but I guess, just

699
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: to be clear, like if I take a flashlight and

700
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,280
Speaker 1: I crossed the beam with another flashlights beam, like nothing

701
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: happens zero. Well, two photons don't touch each other directly,

702
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: but they do have ways passing information against each other,

703
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: so effectively photons can interact. Again, not directly. They have

704
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: to like use an intermediary like other electrons or other particles.

705
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 1: But in the same way that my electrons can't interact

706
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: with your electrons directly, they do it via photons. My

707
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: photons can't interact with your photons directly. We have to

708
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 1: do it via electrons. But does that mean that I

709
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: can just pile photons on top of each other? Can

710
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: photons just be like in the two photons, Can they

711
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: be in the same place at the same time? Photons

712
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: actually can because they don't follow the same rules as electrons.

713
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: They have different spin. They're integer spin, which means they

714
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: are bosons, and quantum mechanics says that matter particles for

715
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: meons cannot be in the same state at the same time.

716
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: But no rules like that ex us for bosons. So

717
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: you can pile as many bosons as you want on

718
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 1: top of each other. And that's why, for example, we've

719
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 1: been able to do things like make Bose Einstein condensates,

720
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 1: which is a bunch of bosons on top of each other,

721
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: have the same wave function macroscopically act like a quantum object.

722
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,320
Speaker 1: You can do the same thing with photons. Can have

723
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: as many photons as you want in the same state.

724
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 1: That's why I like lasers work. For example, m M yeah,

725
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: I hear. You can stick a bunch of bozons two

726
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: in a small cart. They do that in some particle collider.

727
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: The circuses particle collider does feel like a circus subtimes.

728
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: It is a ring, right, it's a ring. It's a

729
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: three ring circus out there in Tineva. We do our

730
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: best to keep the energy high. So you're saying that

731
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: photons cannot interact with themselves directly. What does that mean?

732
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 1: Does that mean they can interact indirectly? Yes, they can

733
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 1: interact indirectly. That the process is a little bit different

734
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 1: than electrons interacting. Like when electrons come by, one of

735
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: them can just radiate a photon which is absorbed by

736
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 1: the other electron and go on. It's b this, right,

737
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: doesn't cost anything but energy to radiate a photon. Now

738
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 1: imagine the case with photons. Two photons are approaching each other,

739
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: can one of them just radiate an electron which is

740
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: then absorbed by the other one. Can't actually do that

741
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: because that would violate conservation of electric charge. Photon can't

742
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: just create an electron out of nothing. In order to

743
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 1: interact without other electron has to do something slightly different.

744
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: It has to die yet. Wait, the light has to die. Yeah,

745
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 1: the light has to die in order for it to

746
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:29,959
Speaker 1: interact with the other photon. It has to convert into

747
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 1: an electron and a positron. So the photon doesn't just

748
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:35,800
Speaker 1: like emit an electron which is then absorbed by the

749
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: other photon. It converts into a new pair of particles,

750
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: an electron and oppositron, and then those guys can interact

751
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: with the second photon, can they or does the other

752
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: photon also have to turn into a pair of electron

753
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: and an anti electron, you know that electron oppositron pair.

754
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,879
Speaker 1: They can interact directly with a photon because photons can

755
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: interact with charged particles, and so if you have a

756
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,439
Speaker 1: photon coming in, it could convert into this pair, one

757
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: of which or both of which can interact then with

758
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,240
Speaker 1: that photon, and so you can deflect that other photon

759
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: with the first photon. But the first photon doesn't just

760
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: like emit something go on its way, it has to

761
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 1: kill itself as to transform into an E plus e

762
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: minus pair. Okay, so let me see if I'm understanding

763
00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: the picture. You have two photons heading towards each other, right,

764
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 1: Darth Vader is swinging his lightsaber. Luke Skywalker is you know,

765
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: moving to Perry and one of the photons turns into

766
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: an electron anti electron pair, and then those somehow deflect

767
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: the other photon that's still alive. Is that what you're saying,

768
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,320
Speaker 1: like it can actually bump it. That's exactly what happens,

769
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: because the electron impositron can interact with the photon. What

770
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,280
Speaker 1: they can absorb the photon, or they can deflect the photon.

771
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: All sorts of things can happen there. Now, this dependent

772
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,359
Speaker 1: on the first photon doing that split splitting off into

773
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: a pair of electron anti electron particles. Or is this

774
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: like a quantum mechanical thing where like a photon is

775
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: always kind of splitting into a pair of these particles

776
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:08,760
Speaker 1: all the time, but with a certain you know, probability. Yes, exactly.

777
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: A photon isn't just a little packet of energy in

778
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 1: the photon fields flying through space. It's constantly creating e

779
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 1: plus e minus pairs and then going back to being

780
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: a photon, and sometimes it creates e plus and minus pairs,

781
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: and those things really their own photons, which create more

782
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: e plus dem mondus pairs, which then collapse back. So

783
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:28,760
Speaker 1: it's just like buzzing swarm of particles all the time.

784
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: So what happens when two photons come near each other

785
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: is that sometimes they pass right through each other and

786
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: ignore each other. Sometimes one of the photons will interact

787
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: with one of these e plus e midus pairs that

788
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: briefly exists. So it's sort of probabilistic what happens when

789
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 1: two photons come near each other. But the way that

790
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: they can interact is through the creation of this matter

791
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: antimatter pair. Momentarily, wait, what like sometimes that photon will

792
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: bump into another photon and sometimes not, or does it

793
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: always happen, but just a little bit like is it

794
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:01,399
Speaker 1: quantum in that way? Or just want to photon feel

795
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 1: a little bit of force or does it only sometimes

796
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: feel a force? Well, there's an infinite number of possibilities,

797
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: because it's an infinite number of ways that a photon

798
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: can split into these pairs, which can then split into

799
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: the pairs. And so technically what happens when a photon

800
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: passes to another photon, It has an infinite number of possibilities,

801
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: and so then if you measure that photon, then you're

802
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:26,359
Speaker 1: gonna get one of those possibilities, and in principle, one

803
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: of those possibilities is zero deflection, though in practice actually

804
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 1: measuring zero deflection is probably impossible because you're measuring things

805
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: with physical systems, and so you're never going to get

806
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,359
Speaker 1: the photon at exactly the angle that it came in at.

807
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,359
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I see you're saying, there's always some sort

808
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: of interaction, but it's quantum mechanical, so there's sort of

809
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: a probability range of things that can happen, like if

810
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: I shoot a photon and another photon, it is going

811
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,320
Speaker 1: to bump into each other through these split of the

812
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 1: particle antiparticle pair um. But what actually happens is sort

813
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: of probabilistic, like it can be the did a little

814
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,760
Speaker 1: bit or a lot, or maybe not at all exactly,

815
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: and sometimes crazy things happen, like sometimes the two photons

816
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,359
Speaker 1: come together, they both create the E plus E minus pair.

817
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: To those that annihilate and like destroy each other and

818
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: you end up with just an E plus E minus

819
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 1: pair which comes out. So it's like two photons come

820
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: together and then an electron and positron come out, So

821
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: it's like light gets converted into matter. Wait what so

822
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: if I collide to photons, I'm going to get some

823
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: bits of matter out of it. Sometimes. Yeah, don't those

824
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 1: two things annihilate each other also instantaneously? Well, you know,

825
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: this possibility for lots of different things to happen. But

826
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: if they've come in opposing each other and then the

827
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: electron and positron fly out the other direction, that they're

828
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 1: not likely to then annihilate each other. But yeah, that's

829
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: also a possibility. WHOA. So, like, if I point my

830
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: flashlight at another flashlight, stuff is happening, Like stuff can happen.

831
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 1: The light is going to bump into the other light.

832
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 1: And also I could be creating matter out of my flashlights. Yeah,

833
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: you are creating matter and antimatter if you cross the stream,

834
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 1: So be careful out there, folks. Yeah, it sounds kind

835
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: of dangerous. Little did I know? I could have ended

836
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,720
Speaker 1: the universe as a kid crossing some flash lights together.

837
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: The other thing to understand is that you know, we

838
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,800
Speaker 1: build up this picture of how particles interact using these

839
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 1: basic like tinker toys. You know, this one can talk

840
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: to this one, and then you can change those things

841
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 1: together to make more complex interaction. The more pieces of

842
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: the chain you need to use, the less likely it

843
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: is for things to happen, because it's like two quantum

844
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: mechanical things have to happen, both of which are not

845
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:32,839
Speaker 1: that likely. So particles interacting directly is more likely than

846
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,720
Speaker 1: particles interacting indirectly. If you have to have multiple steps

847
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: in your chain, it's less and less likely. So light

848
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:42,879
Speaker 1: by light scattering, for example, is less likely than light

849
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: scattering off of electrons because that's more direct. All right,

850
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the answer is actually a little

851
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: bit complicated, like everything in particle physics, and so let's

852
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: get into how we have actually observed this in experiments

853
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 1: and seeing light bump into other kinds of lights. Get

854
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: into that, but first let's take another quick break. All right,

855
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,320
Speaker 1: we're talking about the question of whether photons can bump

856
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:21,400
Speaker 1: into each other. Like if I point a flashlight and

857
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,240
Speaker 1: across its being with another flash line, what's gonna happen?

858
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: Is it just gonna keep going, or is it gonna

859
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: bump into each other? And it sound like that, like

860
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: the answer is they're gonna bump into each other, like

861
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: not directly, like the photons can interact with the other photons,

862
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 1: but they kind of do through these other quantum mechanical possibilities. Exactly.

863
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: Everything in your body is a constant swarm of particles

864
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: turning into other particles, and so if you want to

865
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: interact with something else, you've got sort of lots of

866
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 1: options being presented simultaneously. So the fact that photons don't

867
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 1: interact directly with other photons is not really limitation, because

868
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: they can talk to each other via electrons or via

869
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: other charged particles. Yeah, I'm not feeling quite myself today.

870
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 1: Is it because of my qualty mechanical nature or maybe

871
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 1: just the fact that didn't sleep enough last night? Well

872
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:08,399
Speaker 1: I thought you said everybody always gets the same jorhe Yeah,

873
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: and sometimes that whorrie sleepy and sometimes less sleepy, but

874
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,320
Speaker 1: it's still the same whor Hey, maybe we need to

875
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:15,840
Speaker 1: put you in the particle beam and charge you up

876
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, it's my answer everything. That's what

877
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: I need a sun time bed. I feel like you're

878
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 1: telling me that if I take a flashlight and I

879
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: crossed its beam with another flashlight, they're going to interact

880
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 1: with each other. Like the light beam is going to

881
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,879
Speaker 1: hit the other light beam and mater can come out

882
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:34,239
Speaker 1: or light's gonna get scattered. But that's kind of not

883
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: my experience, you know. I feel like if you point

884
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 1: to flash at each other, like the beams just go

885
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: through each other. Yeah, mostly that's not your experience because

886
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: it's pretty rare because it has to have two steps

887
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: to happen. It's less likely than particles interacting directly. It's

888
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: also very strongly a function of the energy. The higher

889
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 1: energy the photons, the more likely this is to happen.

890
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: So photons in the visible spectrum don't actually have that

891
00:45:57,560 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: much energy, and so it's harder for them to create

892
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: eat these E plus e minus pairs because electrons have mass,

893
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: and so it's costs more of their energy to make

894
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:08,240
Speaker 1: the E plus e minus pairs, so it's less likely

895
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: for them to happen. So if you want to see

896
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 1: this happen, you need really high energy photons. That's where

897
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: it's more likely for photons to bounce off each other. Oh,

898
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: I see, so you're saying, when I crossed my flashlight beams,

899
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: they are mostly going through each other, mostly ignoring each other.

900
00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: But they are maybe in a very low scale, like

901
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: very improbable. There are little photons here and there that

902
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: are scattering with each other or creating matter and antimatter,

903
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: almost certainly, because they are a huge number with a photon.

904
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: So even if the probabilities are tiny, one or two

905
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: photons are probably doing something crazy in those beams. You

906
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 1: won't notice it because it's such a tiny fraction and

907
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 1: it's impossible, and they're drowned out by the other photons.

908
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: But almost certainly, some of those photons are dancing together.

909
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. I means I can make matter and antimatter,

910
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 1: like in my house. I just take two flashlights and

911
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: cross the beams. Yeah, and you're making positrons momentarily. And

912
00:46:58,000 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: you're saying, like, the higher the energy, So if I

913
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,479
Speaker 1: X ray flashlights than that would they would interact more? Yeah,

914
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: X rays would interact more. And this is something we

915
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 1: have actually done. We have studied this. We have created

916
00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: matter just from colliding light that in order to do it,

917
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: we need higher energy beams of light than even X

918
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 1: rays can provide. Yeah, these are like real experiments you've

919
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: done in colliders, So tell us about this. So, first

920
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,399
Speaker 1: of all, how do you make two light beams into matter?

921
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: So your first thought might be like, let's take two

922
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 1: lasers and shoot the match each other and see what happens, right,

923
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: or across them at least, Yeah, or two lightsabers, light sabers,

924
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 1: that would be even cooler. Yeah, that's the closest thing

925
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 1: we can do to lightsabers. Right. The issue is that

926
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: while lasers are really good at making coherent sources of

927
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 1: monochromatic light, you know, photons all with the same phase

928
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: and all with the same wavelength, they're not actually great

929
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: at making very high energy photons, like you can have

930
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: an intense beam. We got lots of photons per second

931
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: from lasers, but you can't make photons with a lot

932
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: of energy per photon. Because his limitations on the cavity

933
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 1: and how you can actually make lazing happen, which requires

934
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: reflections and residences. Even X ray lasers are hard to do.

935
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 1: We need things like well above X rays, well above

936
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:11,759
Speaker 1: gamma rays, like super high energy photons. So the way

937
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: we do that is not by creating light sources at all,

938
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: but by going to our colliders and using the photons

939
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: radiated from the other particles that were smashing together. So

940
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: and to make high energy light you use colliders. But

941
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: isn't it doesn't get scattered all over the place, Like

942
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: isn't it hard to like harness that or aim those

943
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: photons at another source of photons. It is tricky, and

944
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: we don't actually create photons and our colliders. You know,

945
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: if the l C, for example, we're colliding protons, right,

946
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: but protons have electric charge, which means that they're constantly

947
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 1: radiating photons, especially when they're flying really fast and bending.

948
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: So protons and the l A C for example, is

949
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: surrounded by a swarm of photons which have really high energy.

950
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: And to get even higher energy, which you need is

951
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: not a proton which just has one electric charge. You

952
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: need something with even more electric charge because it will

953
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: generate higher energy and higher number of photons. So for that,

954
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:12,280
Speaker 1: we don't collide protons. We collide gold or lead nuclei.

955
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: Like you take gold, you strip off all of the electrons.

956
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: So now you have something with like a very very

957
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: strong positive charge and you put that in the collider

958
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 1: instead of protons, and you swing those around and they

959
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: generate huge numbers of photons which can then smash into

960
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: each other, meaning they glow like the the ring glows.

961
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 1: But then how do you, like, how do you focus

962
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: these so that they, you know, collide with another set

963
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: of photons. Yes, you can't focus them at all. We

964
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,359
Speaker 1: do this anyway because we're interested in collisions of heavy

965
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: nuclei for other things like park gluon plasma, and we're

966
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: gonna do an episode about that soon. So we already

967
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:51,759
Speaker 1: have this program to put gold in the collider accelerated

968
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: and smash it into other gold particles, because that's really

969
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: cool and fun to do. But sometimes the gold particles

970
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 1: miss each other. So say, for example, you have the

971
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 1: gold particles swinging around the collider and they don't actually

972
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,239
Speaker 1: smash into each other. They miss. They call this an

973
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 1: ultra peripheral interaction. As they pass by each other because

974
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: both of them are surrounded by these glowing swarms of photons.

975
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 1: Then those photons smash into each other. So like two

976
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: gold atoms that do a near miss, then their photon

977
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: swarms will bang into each other. And that's how you

978
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 1: study photon photon collisions at very high energy mm you

979
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:31,799
Speaker 1: actually like miss the gold particles and you're hoping that

980
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 1: they're they're glow their relative respective glow then collides. Yeah, exactly.

981
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:38,760
Speaker 1: It's like you have two celebrities moving through a party

982
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: and their entourages smash into each other get into a fight. Yeah,

983
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 1: what always seems to happen, right, exactly. That makes the

984
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: most exciting videos the next day anyway, And so remember

985
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: we can't like aim these gold particles very precisely. It's

986
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:53,399
Speaker 1: just that sometimes we miss and then we don't get

987
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: a gold gold collision. But hey, we can look at

988
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: that and see if we saw a photon photon collision instead.

989
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: So it's like the accident the mess ups from the

990
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: gold gold physics gives us interesting photon photon physics, and

991
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:07,959
Speaker 1: you can tell that it was two photons crashing into

992
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,439
Speaker 1: each other. It's a big mess and it's really hard

993
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: to analyze, but sometimes they do. And in fact, they've

994
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:16,760
Speaker 1: seen electrons fly out, like they've seen these gold atoms

995
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 1: miss each other and then pairs of electrons and positrons

996
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: fly out, and they've analyzed it and they're convinced that

997
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: this is due to the photons smashing into each other

998
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: and creating matter. Wow. Cool, Yeah, because that's the only

999
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,760
Speaker 1: thing that could explain where these electron pair came from exactly.

1000
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: It also has to do with the angles, like sometimes

1001
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 1: you get electrons just flying out randomly, and so you

1002
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: could really convince yourself that this is due to the

1003
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: process that you think it is, Like you understand the

1004
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:46,400
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics of it. You calculate and say, what are

1005
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: the probabilities for the electrons to fly at at this

1006
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: angle or that angle, and you measure a bunch of

1007
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: them and you see them at the angles you expect,

1008
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: and then you can convince yourself that you haven't been fooled.

1009
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:57,719
Speaker 1: So this is an experiment. This is something we've just

1010
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: done last year in one the Star collaboration did this,

1011
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:04,839
Speaker 1: not the Large Hadron Collider but at Rick and Brookhaven.

1012
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,319
Speaker 1: Rick is r h i C. It stands for the

1013
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and they specialize in gold collisions

1014
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,839
Speaker 1: and all sorts of other crazy stuff. Now, I guess

1015
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:15,920
Speaker 1: the question is do they actually have to use gold

1016
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 1: or is this just how they roll? You don't have

1017
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:22,279
Speaker 1: to use gold. It's just sort of awesome. It's funny though.

1018
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,919
Speaker 1: At the led C on the European side, they tend

1019
00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:27,399
Speaker 1: to use lead, so it's gold in the American side

1020
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: and lead on the European side. And you know sometimes

1021
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:33,080
Speaker 1: you smash lead together and gold comes out. You can

1022
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: make gold from lead at the collider, though it's not economical.

1023
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 1: That sounds very American, like, you know, the Germans are like, no,

1024
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 1: let's use lead, of course, that's more practical, and Americans

1025
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: are like, whatever, it's use gold, you know. You know,

1026
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: I think Rick is on Long Island, and you know,

1027
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: maybe they like their glam. You know, they like their

1028
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:53,359
Speaker 1: blaying out there. What are you saying about Long Island

1029
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:55,920
Speaker 1: or I think I just said it. You know, they

1030
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: like things shiny, and hey, who doesn't. I'm all into

1031
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: shiny stuff. I think you're saying that's how Rick rolls.

1032
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 1: I think we all just got Rick rolled. I'm never

1033
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: gonna let you down. But anyway, at the l a C.

1034
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:10,880
Speaker 1: They do the same kinds of studies where instead they

1035
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 1: use lead ions and they see interesting things. They've seen

1036
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 1: light by light collisions where you get two photons coming

1037
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:19,719
Speaker 1: out at weird angles. So at Rick they've seen two

1038
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 1: photons turned into two electrons. And at Atlas, the experiment

1039
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: I work on at the l A C. They've seen

1040
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: photons bounce off each other, deflect each other, and go

1041
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: out at weird angles. WHOA, yeah, because I guess. So

1042
00:53:32,080 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 1: you had these lead particles miss each other and you

1043
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: saw light coming off and weird like strange angles. Yeah,

1044
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: I guess right. And but they didn't actually bump with

1045
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 1: each other. They turned into an electron anti electron pair,

1046
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:49,239
Speaker 1: and then those maybe bumped into each other and then

1047
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: created photons that sped off in weird directions exactly. And

1048
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:57,320
Speaker 1: we can only explain those weird directions using that description

1049
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: you just gave, which is photons interacting with each other

1050
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: via this weird box of electrons and positron. So that's

1051
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 1: pretty cool because it's a rare process. It's hard to reproduce.

1052
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: It's a really good test of like do we actually

1053
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:12,320
Speaker 1: understand the quantum mechanics, And it's something that was predicted,

1054
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: you know, decades and decades ago physicists like in the thirties,

1055
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 1: we're thinking about this, they're like, oh, is this possible?

1056
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: I think it might be possible. It would be really

1057
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 1: hard to do, and it's one of these like open

1058
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: questions that stood for decades is this really happening out

1059
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 1: there in nature? The amazing thing about the standard model

1060
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 1: is that it seems like an ugly clue sometimes, like

1061
00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: there's so many things we don't understand, and yet it

1062
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 1: works so well. Every time we go to check it

1063
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:39,319
Speaker 1: on the details, it's exactly right. It really nails it

1064
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 1: down to the decimal places, all right. So that means

1065
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:46,240
Speaker 1: that you've done that experiment. You've shown to light beams

1066
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 1: at each other, and you see that light does collide

1067
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: with itself. Right, Although we missed an amazing opportunity. We

1068
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: don't have microphones in the colliders, so we can't tell

1069
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: what sound it made when those two photons matched into

1070
00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:00,360
Speaker 1: each other. Was like or like a, I'm like, what

1071
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 1: sound do lightsabers really me? I can't know you're joking about?

1072
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 1: Would light actually makes sound? No, it all happens in

1073
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:10,839
Speaker 1: the vacuum, so it wouldn't make sound. But that would

1074
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 1: be awesome. Oh jeez, Daniel, that's the cardinal sin of

1075
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: Star Wars is the sound of explosions in space. You're

1076
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: trying to tell people that sounds happening at the large

1077
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: Fathroom collider Science disinformation right here on the podcast. But

1078
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:29,640
Speaker 1: you know, there could have been surprises. It could be

1079
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 1: that we didn't see it, or that the photons came

1080
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: out of even weirder angles, which would mean that maybe

1081
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:38,240
Speaker 1: the photons interact in different ways from the way we expect.

1082
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 1: You know, maybe there's some other particle that appears that

1083
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:44,240
Speaker 1: let's photons talk to each other, like the axion particle,

1084
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 1: or something else weird and new that we don't know

1085
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: if it's out there. That's one of these reasons that

1086
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 1: we do these really high precision cross checks of these

1087
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 1: little details of particle physics, because it could be in

1088
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:57,360
Speaker 1: one of those details we find something weird, and that

1089
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: unraveling that thread is exactly how we create a whole

1090
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:03,319
Speaker 1: new understanding of the universe. You know, That's how we

1091
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:07,440
Speaker 1: discovered quantum mechanics, understanding why the photo electric effect wasn't

1092
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 1: exactly as we expected it to. So we never know

1093
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: which little cross check is going to reveal the right

1094
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: thread to pull on, or the right light saber to

1095
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: turn on that makes just the right sound. I guess

1096
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:21,279
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to think now that photons can

1097
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:24,640
Speaker 1: interact with each other, although not directly, Does that mean

1098
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: the I have a question of whether all particles in

1099
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 1: Does that mean that all particles can interact with themselves

1100
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 1: just indirectly like it's everything is fair game in the universe. Yes,

1101
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,880
Speaker 1: everything is fair game in the universe. Photons can interact

1102
00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:41,800
Speaker 1: with themselves in directly, right, they can generate E plus

1103
00:56:41,800 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 1: e minus pairs, which can then interact back with them.

1104
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:49,279
Speaker 1: Good neutrinos, like neutrinos interact with regular electromagetic things through

1105
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,880
Speaker 1: these quantum transformations. Absolutely, neutrino feels the weak force, and

1106
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,520
Speaker 1: you can generate a W particle, right, and that W

1107
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,800
Speaker 1: particle can interact with electrons, and that's exactly how the

1108
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 1: neutrino feels the rest of the universe, And neutrino could

1109
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:05,800
Speaker 1: indirectly interact with corks in the same way or other stuff.

1110
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:08,799
Speaker 1: The only thing we don't know about is dark matter.

1111
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,479
Speaker 1: Is dark matter of particle which forces? Does it feel?

1112
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:14,920
Speaker 1: Does it feel any forces at all other than gravity?

1113
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: Dark matter might be out there totally inert, unable to

1114
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: interact with anything except for gravity. As far as we know,

1115
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: we don't know if it's fair game or not, but

1116
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 1: it could be. It could be just be super rare.

1117
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 1: Maybe it could just be super rare. There could be

1118
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: some other kind of force that dark matter can used

1119
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 1: to interact with itself, Like the whole universe could be

1120
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 1: split into different sectors. This whole group of particles that

1121
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 1: can talk to each other with forces, the ones we

1122
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:39,840
Speaker 1: know and love, and another separate sector that can only

1123
00:57:39,880 --> 00:57:42,600
Speaker 1: talk to each other and can't interact with us except

1124
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: through gravity. That's possible. What about menta chlorins? Can they

1125
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: interact with themselves only if they make sound? Right? Do

1126
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 1: they scream in space? Maybe that's me. That's the sounded

1127
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: light savers actually make when they crashing to each other.

1128
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:56,919
Speaker 1: It's it's a billion miny chlorians screaming at the same time.

1129
00:57:57,040 --> 00:57:59,240
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Now that I understand the true cost of

1130
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 1: using the force, I will be more careful about it. Yeah,

1131
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: it's pretty tragic. Actually, Why that put the whole different

1132
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 1: spin on Star Wars, isn't it? It really does? Yeah?

1133
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:12,439
Speaker 1: I wonder is any of this cannon anything? Yeah, because

1134
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: your physicist right right, Absolutely, this is all official now, folks. Yeah, yeah,

1135
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: But the question is can meta Glorian's feel not just

1136
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 1: forces but feelings. Well, we'll have to have one on

1137
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 1: the podcast as a guest and ask it yeah, or

1138
00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:29,120
Speaker 1: George Lucas move whichever one will come first. All right, George,

1139
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 1: give us a call. All right? Well again an interesting

1140
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: look into how the universe surprises you. You You know, sometimes

1141
00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 1: you think that two things can interact with each other,

1142
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 1: but through quantum mechanical magic, they sort of do. And

1143
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:43,960
Speaker 1: it's almost the same thing as if they were interacting

1144
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 1: with each other. Yeah, and the universe out there is

1145
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: a crazy, swarming, quantum mechanical and nightmare of complexity. But

1146
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: somehow we can pull together these beautiful, simple stories about

1147
00:58:54,880 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: particles interacting with each other and use those as lego

1148
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 1: bricks to describe all the amazing complex to be out there,

1149
00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 1: even gold gold near misses at very high energies. It's

1150
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:08,280
Speaker 1: incredible what physics has been able to do. So I

1151
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:09,880
Speaker 1: think this is the part where we thank people for

1152
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: joining us, and this is the part where we join

1153
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:17,600
Speaker 1: off our lightsabers. Thanks for joining us, See you next time.

1154
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained

1155
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 1: the universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

1156
00:59:31,320 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: more podcast for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

1157
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,920
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1158
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: favorite shows. YEA