WEBVTT - Interview Interlude Playlist, Part 2: Brian Greene, Max Tegmark and Barbara J. King 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.239 Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.400 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.040 McCormick and Robert. I hear that you went to New 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.520 York and came back with some audio goodies for us. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.360 That's right. I went up to the two thousand and 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.480 eighteen World Science Festival in New York City. Uh, it's 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.920 a it's a festival that I go to a lot. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.000 I don't get to go every year, but I've been, 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.440 uh several times since I believe two thousand and eleven, 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.320 and this time, I yeah, I brought back three many 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.160 interviews that I wanted to share with everybody. Uh, these 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.800 are gonna definitely state that these are essentially field recordings. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.159 These are these are green room interviews, so they're not 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.640 gonna have the fidelity of an in studio interview or 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.160 even one of our phone interviews. Necessarily, it's going to 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.040 be a slightly new beast for long time listeners to 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.880 the show. So maybe girds your ears. But you think 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.240 we got some good stuff in there that will make 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.560 it worth the audio? Yes, I believe so, because we're 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.119 gonna you're gonna hear me chatting with physicist Brian Green, uh, 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.880 as well as physicist Max Tegmark, as well as anthropologist 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.240 Barbara ja King. Now, each one of these people you 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.840 talked to, h. Of course, Brian Green is one of 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.200 the founders of the festival, right, but each of these 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.960 people you talked to were involved with panels that took 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.920 place at the festival this year, right, correct, Yes, Green, 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.679 of course, being with the founder, he moderated uh, different 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.119 panels as well. All right, we'll give us a little 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.240 background on the World Science Festival and then maybe we 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.479 can set up one of these interviews here. Alright. So, 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.920 founded in two thousand and eight, World Science Festival has 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.920 a stated mission to cultivate a general public informed by science, 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.360 inspired by its wonder and uh, convinced of its value 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.040 and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.160 And it was indeed co founded by Clem be a 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.080 University physics and mathematics professor, string theorist, author and just 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.720 overall science communicator, Brian Green, along with his wife Tracy Day. 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.960 The World Science Festival is a it's a production technically 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.320 of the World Science Foundation, which is a five oh 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:18.960 one nonprofit organization headquartered in New York City, and so 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.560 each year, uh they host a week long slate of 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.520 science panels, salons, performances, and even a street fair. So 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.720 it's it's the kind of thing that that really reaches 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.560 out to all levels of of science enthusiasts. You see 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.200 academics there, you see graduate students, you see younger students, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.720 you see science communicators, children, old people. Um, the whole 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.040 nine yards. What's the street fair? Do they have funnel cake? 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.440 It's a lot of stuff for for kids, uh, as 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:51.480 well as adults. So just a lot of tents set up, 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:56.280 a lot of like cool science activities, robots, science experiments, 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.600 that sort of thing. Did you take your son? I 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.079 haven't brought him yet. So my on is just now 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.120 six years old, and I think we're at the level 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.359 now where he is he is perhaps ready to travel 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.400 to New York City and do all of the walking 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.760 that that entails. But I am looking forward to bringing 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.600 bringing him at some point because uh, my again, I've 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.919 been several times, and I've been there with my wife, 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.040 but I haven't been able to really engage in all 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.839 of the kids stuff. That is also an important part 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.240 of the festival. All right, Well, to get to your 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.799 first interview, this was with festival founder and physicist Brian Green, right, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.519 that's right. Yeah, I got to sit down with Brian Green. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.640 This was after he had moderated one of the opening 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.160 discussions of the festival, Darkness Visible, shedding new light on 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.640 black holes. Black Holes are fascinating and there's something that 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.320 I've wanted to go into more depth on on the 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.120 podcast before, because not only are they one of the 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.400 most strange and interesting things in the physical universe, I 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.360 think the story of how we came to know about 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.600 them and how we arrived at the modern consciousness of 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.360 black holes not just sort of as some thought experiment, 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.880 but as like a real physical reality is really interesting too. Yeah. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.080 I I really enjoyed this particular talk, and this is 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.440 one of the talks that that was filmed and is 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.880 actually already available for everyone else to view on YouTube 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.000 for free. I'll include a link to that on the 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:15.840 landing page for this episode at stuff to Blow your 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.840 Mind dot com. But yeah, I I greatly enjoyed it. 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.240 It really Uh, it opened opened my mind up to 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.719 some of the certainly some of the details about about 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.680 black holes and our our sort of journey towards our 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.279 understanding black black holes, as well as just an update 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.560 on just where we are, you know, at the bleeding 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.640 edge of understanding them. Well, what's the scoop? I mean, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.120 the basic scoop is that we have we have gone 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.039 on this journey from a black hole is just this 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:47.800 mathematical possibility, this thought experiment in math, and we are 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.000 at the point where they are. They are a reality. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.919 Like experts tend to agree that, yes, there's without a 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.560 doubt there are black holes. We have black holes as 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.960 the result of of dead stars. We have massive, super 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.040 massive black holes at the center of galaxies, including our 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.800 own Milky Way galaxy, and we're on the cusp of 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.000 being able to uh to to to really learn a 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.599 great deal more about them, and in doing so, uh 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.400 we really find out what we truly know about the 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.520 fabric of the universe. So on that note, let's go 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.560 ahead and dip into the interview here, and then afterwards 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:23.520 Joe and I will discuss some of the concepts that 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:29.960 are discussed. Which world science best will offering. Are you 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.960 most excited about this year? Well, I'm biased because I'm 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.680 in a few of them, so that's probably uh, not 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.479 the completely objective answer that I might give. But we 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:46.000 have a program on a conversation between religion and science, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.880 and oftentimes that conversation out there in the world is 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.680 a contentious one, with each side basically trying to say 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.040 that the other is wrong or that their approach is 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.159 the only way forward. And we're not going anywhere near 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.279 that because that's just not a productive way to have 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.200 a melding between these two ways of looking at the world. Instead, 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.760 we're looking at whether science can give us insight into 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.800 whether the behavior that we have evidence for tens of 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.800 thousands of years, which is looking for some larger stores, 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.680 some larger narratives, some bigger picture into which we could 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.200 fit Could that have had adaptive value? Could the brain 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.320 have evolved in such a way that we have a 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.720 predilection for that way of thinking about the world in 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.760 some sense? Could that perspective in the world be imprinted 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.000 in our d n A And if signs can illuminate 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.200 some key aspect of human behavior, how exciting is that? 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.760 And that's really what the focus of this conversation is 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.400 going to be. It's called the believing brain. Excellent. I'm 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.440 looking forward to that great one and I tend to 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.120 be a black hole. Oh you did great. What do 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.960 you think when you have a topic like that? You 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.720 I really admired the legwork that you kind of had 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.279 to do to bring everyone in the audience up to 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.400 speed on it, because obviously you have uh you have 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.200 academics and students and graduate students in the audience, but 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:09.720 then also just regular people children, even uh, yeah, yeah, 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.480 you're right. I mean, the goal really is to be 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.239 broadly accessible but still take people up to the cutting 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.800 edge all, you know, in that case, in the space 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.400 of two hours. Usually our programs are ninety minutes, but 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.320 I decided that one deserve the full two hours. And yeah, 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.480 talking about the observational side of black holes, talking about 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:30.080 the new ways of examining them with gravitational ways, gravitational radiation, 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.360 and then if you're theoretical frontiers, were really describing the 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.160 quantum nature space and time and how information could be 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:39.440 encoded on the surface of a black hole. It's pretty 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.200 amazing time to be thinking about these objects that now 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.560 we know with a high degree of certainty are really 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.800 out there in the universe. Now. In in the past 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.520 of various talks of incorporating some level of performance or 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.880 performance art. Do you have anything like that lined up 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.360 for this year's after Well, we do have works that 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.840 our performance oriented's. We kicked off the festival with the 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.480 Celebration of Women in Science. You may be familiar with 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:09.680 that program where we had Broadway stars and wonderful performers 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.600 who were telling the audience through narrative and song about 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.000 some of the greatest women scientists of the last two 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.880 hundred years. So that certainly was a melding of the two. 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.360 We also have some theater pieces that are part of 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.760 the festival this year, some film as well, and that's 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.360 the majority of the footprint that's in the art space. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.160 We are next year going to have some original new 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.320 works that put art and science together in some pretty 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.959 compelling ways. But I'll just dangle that out there so 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.280 you'll be compelled to join us again next year. Now, 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.400 on the topic of black holes and I guess other 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.240 scientific topics that are kind of in that that same realm, 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.559 do you think mainstream media, mainstream science fiction in particular, 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:01.120 could be doing more to sort of prepare general audiences 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:05.000 for these concepts, for instance, with black holes. Uh, even 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.360 even though I come back to the topic time and 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.880 time again as a podcaster and writer, I still can't 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.800 shake the old Disney movie vision of it and all 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.000 its absurdities out of my head. What was that the 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.640 black hole or vent arizing? What was it called something 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:22.600 like that? Or there wasn't there was a rising, but 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.640 the Disney black hole where it was just um it 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.520 was it was? It was certainly not two thousand and 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.959 one right right, or even Interstellar. I mean, now, if 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.079 you want to see what a real black hole looks like, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.040 just go to Interstellar. I mean the visuals they were 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.440 driven by the mathematical equations, so this is actually a 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.640 very precise rendition of what it would look like to 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.480 be in the vicinity of a black hole. But yes, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.040 you know, I'm My view, which I think is widely shared, 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:55.320 is the culture needs to integrate with science in an 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.080 organic way. So that's not as a scientist some separate 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.360 subject that's out there that you take in school. Rather, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.360 you really need to be the case that we use 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.240 all the tools and all the things that matter to 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.040 people from film and theater and science and science fiction 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.240 in order that the ideas are in the air and 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:20.280 the imagery is front and center when relevant and to 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.280 do it correctly. Sometimes it's more work, maybe even a 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.320 little more expensive. But if you get the real picture 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.800 of a black hole into people's minds through some wonderful story, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.160 how great is that so that we as a culture 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.920 really being to embrace these ideas far more fully and 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.280 far more accurately. In your opinion, what's the single most 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.960 exciting research frontier in physics right now and wine, Well, 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.679 it's a tough question. Certainly one is gravitational waves, because 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.880 whenever you open up a whole new way of engaging 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.720 and observing and interacting with the universe, you're bound to 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.480 find surprises. You know, so far there have been some surprises, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.360 but for the most part, we've been seeing the kinds 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.360 of things that we anticipated, seeing the kinds of things 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.319 that computer simulations had already given us some insight into. 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.559 And now the observations are agreeing with the computer simulations, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.520 which is wonderful. Yeah, there are still some surprises there 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.760 as well with neutrust our collisions, But the real wondrous 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.400 moments gonna be when we get some data from the 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.080 gravitation way of observatory that fits no template, that's no 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.440 previous computer simulation and forces us to go back and 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.199 figure out what kind of exotic new structure out there 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.640 in the universe is giving rise to these very peculiar 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.400 ripples in the fabric of space and time. That's gonna 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.040 be an astounding moments. That's certainly one area. The other 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.880 area in physics, at least if I focus on that, 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.520 is trying to really understand quantum mechanics as it relates 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.600 to space and time. And there are hints that we 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.000 may be finally putting our finger on the fundamental entities, 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.640 the ingredients that may stitch together the very fabric of 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.160 space and time itself. And if that work bears fruit 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.680 and turns out to be correct, that's going to be 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:09.000 a real watershed moment in human kinds understanding of the universe. 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:12.360 So it's kind of a follow up here. If you 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.720 had limitless resources to dedicate to one future experimental physics 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.240 or cosmology project, what would it be and what would 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.600 be we'd be seeking to learn from it? Limitless resources? Wow, Well, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.560 I think certainly one one major undertaking would be to 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:35.640 build a fantastically powerful accelerator. So we have been examining 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.959 the universe on scales roughly a thousand to ten thousand 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.239 times the massive a proteon. Those are the energy scales involved. 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.319 But we know that there's got to be something wondrous 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.600 happening between there and the plank scale, which is ten 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.520 to the nineteen times the mass of a proteon. So 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.840 there's fifteen orders of magnitude in there to examine. And 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.360 it's an expensive thing to build ever bigger machines to 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.199 floor ever higher energies, ever smaller distances. But I've had 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.240 unlimited resources, truly unlimited resources. Let's try to build a 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.080 plank scale accelerator and really see whether we can see 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.360 the effects of quantum gravity in this futuristic laboratory. That 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.880 would be a spectacor the thing to do excellent. So 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.560 one last question, and I apoloticiste little wenk think. But so, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.600 as as discussed last night, black holes started out as 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.120 more more in the real thought experiment and math curiosity, 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.840 but but now we largely accept in the physical reality. 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.280 Do you think there are ideas like that out there 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.400 in physics today, Things that we are current that are 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.160 currently only a cetical math entities, etcetera, but that will 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.160 want will someday will accept a real physical objects in 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.240 the universe. Well, I certainly hope so, because otherwise I've 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.680 been barking up the wrong tree for a very long time. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.440 So the work that I've been focused on in my 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.679 colleagues as well, coming Bathroom from last Night program to 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.520 is string theory, and it's ring theory does posit the 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.920 existence of new physical entities, really small entities down at 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.760 the playing scale tents of the mind is thirty three 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.200 centimeters and that's fantastic smallest hard to even think about 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.120 how tiny that is. And right now it is just mathematics. 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.760 It is just in the exact same template as black 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.720 Holes where it say, back in the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties. 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.160 So the hope is that we will follow the same 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.840 trajectory and that one day we'll be sitting here having 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.280 a conversation and you'll say to me, now that strings 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.520 are accepted as real physical entities. It wasn't it, And 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.400 and that's that's where we hope that things will go 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.960 all right. So that was that was my mini interview 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.840 with Brian Green, and I appreciate him taking time out 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.240 of his state chat with me. Uh, We're definitely going 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.760 to come back to black holes on stuff to blow 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.040 your mind. It's the kind of topic that it's probably 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.200 gonna take it at least two episodes to really give 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:55.600 it full coverage. But I do want to touch on 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.240 some of the things that the Green is talking about here. 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.600 So the key thing that Green is describing is how 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.920 black holes began again as a mere thought experiment on 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.320 the for on the on you know, first the nature 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.600 of gravity. So we have this idea of dark stars 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.280 and the Newtonian concept of a of a star that 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.640 becomes too massive for light to escape from it, but 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.520 mostly as a byproduct of crunching spacetime in Einstein's general 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:24.200 theory of relativity and the calculations of German astronomer Karl 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.880 Schwartschild who died in War One. Yeah, and it's amazing 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.080 to think back that there was a time where you 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.960 could have explored black holes as a sort of thought experiment, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.640 playing around with gravity. But a lot of people might 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.240 have laughed at you if you proposed that there were 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.600 actually black holes out there in the universe. Yeah, they 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:44.640 were not things that we observed. Rather, there are the 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.440 things that we expected to be there based on the math. 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.080 So for decades they were pure, purely theoretical, but now 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.360 we've reached the point where experts are pretty certain. We 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.880 know for certain that stars collapse into black holes when 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.080 they die, and the supermassive black holes lurk at the 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.640 center of the gut of our galaxies, again, including our own. 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.120 We have twenty five years of supermassive black hole studies 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.240 under our belt, and they've revealed quite a lot. So 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:11.680 one of the issues here is that, you know, we 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.920 create these templates for what we observe based on the map, 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.080 and then we see how the template matches up to 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.200 our observation. That's kind of how a lot of things 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.160 work in science. You know, you're you're creating expectations based 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.040 on the data you have, and then you see what 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.000 occurs when you bring that template to nature. It's a 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.280 model testing. You make a model and see is the 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.760 model right to match the data. And this is all 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.520 actually going down as we speak, as we record this, 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.840 even because we have the Event Horizon Telescope project, which 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:44.640 is a global network of radio telescopes that essentially turns 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.240 the Earth into a telescope large enough to observe and 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.640 measure the environment surrounding the Milky Way. Supermassive black hole 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.560 uh Sagittarius A. And in doing it, we're not only 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.120 verifying the existence of black holes, but as Green astrophysicist 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:03.800 Andrea Guez and astronomer Sheep Doleman pointed out, we're actually 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.840 putting Einstein's general theory of relativity to the test, and 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.320 we may be forced to move beyond it in our 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.119 understanding of the universe. That's weird because we generally think 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.719 no pun intended. We generally think of general relativity as 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.240 something that's sort of beyond dispute at this point, right, Yeah, Well, 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.800 but as they point out in this talk, it's you 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.840 have kind of a trust but verify situation with it, 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.280 Like we have to trust it because we've built so 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.520 much of how we view the universe is built upon it. 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.800 But as we learn more, we're inevitably reaching the point 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.680 where that too is a template that must be put 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.600 to tests, that we must hold up to nature as 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.200 we develop better and better ways of observing it. Well, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:47.800 I mean, there are some ways in which we know 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.600 that it is at least partially right. But yeah, that's 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.120 the question of like, at the margins of our understanding, 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.320 are are there ways we need to sort of updated, 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.280 I guess right now. Another topic that Green touched on 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.320 here is quantum mechanics, and of course we recently did 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.600 a fairly deep dive into some of the properties of 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.120 quantum mechanics and our quantum immortality episode, so I don't 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:09.800 know that we really need to refresh a lot there. 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:11.680 We just say if you if you have questions about 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.320 what this whole quantum mechanics thing is about, do check 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.560 out our recent episode on quantum immortality, or again check 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.480 out this talk in full from the World Science Festival. 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.159 But I know one of the things in that arena 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.600 that Green is interested in is the idea of discovering 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.720 quantum gravity, right, like, what is what? How does gravity 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.640 apply at the quantum scale? Yeah, and a Green touches 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.680 on towards the very end of this interview. Uh, there 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.119 is of course the realm of superstring theory, and this 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.080 is certainly one of Green's core areas of studies and 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.280 core area of contribution. This is the idea that miniscule 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.720 strands of energy vibrating across multiple dimensions create every particle 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:56.720 enforce in the universe. So particle physicists define elementary particles 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.520 or fundamental particles as the smallest building block in the universe. 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.879 In other words, particles such as leptons and courts have 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.960 no substructure there as small as it gets. Ultimately, string 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.440 theorists are aiming to fulfill Einstein's unrealized goal of unifying 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.040 general relativity with quantum theory. And one of the interesting 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.120 points brought up in the in the talk and black 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.040 holes is that string theory actually helps us make sense 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.800 of the entropy problem with black holes. Now, what is 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.480 that problem? Okay, so the basic idea here and ultimately 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.080 Green presents us a lot better in in in the 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.119 actual world Science Festival talk, but they give us the 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.480 bad version. That the bad version, if you will, or 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:39.160 the rough version, is how can a black hole be 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:44.280 in a high entropy state if everything inside is super 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.800 crunched down to a state of less entropy than normal matter? 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.760 Where is the missing entropy? So, according to string theory, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.040 you find that missing entropy and the six microscopic spatial 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.200 dimensions that exist in addition to the three spatial dimensions 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.240 that we can observe earve And the example Green often 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.840 uses to explain like low versus high entropy, is that 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.840 it's essentially you're talking about a high ordered state and 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.720 a low ordered state. In his frequent example is if 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.199 you do you have a book of pages without a 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.280 binding and they're in order, high order, right, throw that 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.720 in the air and then all the pages, uh fall 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.879 to the ground and now they're in disorder. Loss of 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:27.600 information organization. So speaking of black holes, when you talked 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.920 to Brian Green, was we're all trying to talk about 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.399 Event Horizon. The Event Horizon. Was that like sort of 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.879 coming to the surface? It did kind of, yeah, because 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.760 I brought up Disney's The black Hole, and I'm not 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:41.520 not sure he was familiar with or had a you 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:45.120 know that's necessarily remembered that film, which of course gives 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.359 us a very ridiculous notion of what a black hole 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.360 would be. It's basically just a big, you know, glowing 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.399 vortex in in in the least realistic space you could 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.840 possibly imagine. And he thought you were talking about what's 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.240 name Sam Neil, And oh, yeah, an Event Horizon, which 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.720 is a film that I really enjoyed, and now we 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.880 know Brian Green's seen it. I I can't even imagine 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.800 Brian Brian Green responding to the science of event Horizon, 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:16.760 which of course is a is a horror movie, a 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:22.080 haunted house movie set in space, with some black holy 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.639 science thrown in there, but basically the idea being that 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.520 a black hole takes you to Hell and and does 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:29.760 Hell raise your things to you. I want to hear 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.600 Brian Green's thoughts on the the scientific accuracy of Mortal 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.879 Kombat Annihilation. Well, you know, but I do love that 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.480 he brought up Interstellar though it's a film in which 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:44.200 the mathematics is is very sound. Uh. That definitely makes 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.280 me want to sit down and watch Interstellar again, which 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.919 I enjoyed the first time. But but but I do 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.680 feel like I need to give it a review. Well, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:54.919