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Speaker 1: Happy holidays friends. This year, December twenty fifth marks both

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Speaker 1: the start of Hanukkah and Christmas Day. Feeling in the

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Speaker 1: festive spirit, Daniel and I decided to dig into some

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Speaker 1: of the science behind these holiday stories. To the parents

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Speaker 1: with kids who will be staying up late waiting for

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Speaker 1: Santa this year, you may want to consider whether your

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Speaker 1: children's holiday experience would be enhanced or diminished by putting

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Speaker 1: these magical stories under a scientific lens. So today we'll

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Speaker 1: be asking ourselves questions like how does Santa manage to

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Speaker 1: go fast enough to deliver toys to all the Christian

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Speaker 1: kids in the world in just one night? And how

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Speaker 1: does Rudolph produce that light to guide the way? Does

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Speaker 1: he have a bad bacterial infection? And how does time

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Speaker 1: dilation perhaps account for the Hanukkah oil burning for eight

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Speaker 1: long days and nights. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily

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Speaker 1: festive universe.

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

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Speaker 2: we don't have enough science holidays.

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Speaker 1: Ooh, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites, and yeah, I'll

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Speaker 1: back that up. My people. The ecologists are pretty excited

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Speaker 1: about birthday. But you know, we could always use more holidays.

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Speaker 1: What holiday would you.

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Speaker 2: Start Universe Day?

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Speaker 1: Nice? Yeah, I guess Earth Day would be a subset

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Speaker 1: of Universe Day.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, it encompasses everything. Why isn't everyday Universe Day?

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Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to those ads already.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Well, how would you celebrate Universe Day?

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Speaker 2: That's a good question. You'd need a really dark chocolate cake,

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Speaker 2: I guess, to represent the absolute mysteries of the universe

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Speaker 2: and the impenetrable darkness of space.

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Speaker 1: I think if someone told me they were giving me

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Speaker 1: a cake that represented the mysteries of the universe, I

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Speaker 1: would be really worrying about what was inside that cake. Like,

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Speaker 1: here's a razor blade. I don't know that I'd be

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Speaker 1: excited about that cake.

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Speaker 2: I'm only putting razor blades and cakes I send to

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Speaker 2: my friends in prison. Kelly, You're not in prison.

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Speaker 1: Not yet. No. I think we've established that the worst

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Speaker 1: I've ever done is like jaywalked.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Oh, no, we both committed dairy related crimes.

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Speaker 2: Mmmm yes, international cheese smuggling and butter smuggling.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, man, we're rebels.

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Speaker 2: Maybe not a great idea, to admit to that on air.

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Speaker 1: There's a show I listened to and their slogan is like,

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Speaker 1: don't instagram your crimes, and we're podcasting are crimes anyway,

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Speaker 1: We're not the smartest criminals.

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Speaker 2: No. And the cheese was delicious, so probably worth it anyway.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the butter was delicious also.

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Speaker 2: And food is asential element for how people celebrate their holidays.

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Speaker 2: That's why I think it should be the center of

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Speaker 2: Universe Day, which I'm totally going to launch next year.

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Speaker 2: But today on the podcast, we're not talking about fictitious

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Speaker 2: holidays that we are starting to poke fun at real holidays.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about the science of your holidays.

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Speaker 1: And I am so excited. You know. We are, of

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Speaker 1: course recording this a bit in advance of December twenty fifth,

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Speaker 1: and my family's putting up our Christmas tree this weekend

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Speaker 1: and I am so excited. I love doing that with

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Speaker 1: my daughter. She's always like super excited about it.

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Speaker 2: So does that mean that you observe the Christmas tree

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Speaker 2: before Thanksgiving tradition?

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Speaker 1: We observe no traditions in particular. It's just whenever we

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Speaker 1: remember like, oh we can do that now, And this

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Speaker 1: just happens to be when we're all going to have time.

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Speaker 1: So we're probably gonna do it on Thanksgiving Day, just

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Speaker 1: because it's a time when we're all together.

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Speaker 2: And do you guys follow your childhood Christmas traditions because

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Speaker 2: Zach grew up in a Jewish family.

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Speaker 1: No, We've created our own traditions that mesh together Honkkah

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Speaker 1: and Christmas and work for our family. What about you?

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Speaker 1: Are you doing what your family did? Is Katrina's family

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Speaker 1: also did they celebrate Hankah.

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Speaker 2: Katrina's family is Danish, so they celebrated a very secular

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Speaker 2: kind of Christmas, but with particular traditions involving like harrying

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Speaker 2: and very thick bread and dinners that are called lunches

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Speaker 2: and lots of schnaps and stuff like that, which is

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Speaker 2: a lot of fun. And over the years we've invited

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Speaker 2: like eighty people over to serve them this traditional Danish

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Speaker 2: dinner which they call Christmas lunch, which is a lot

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Speaker 2: of fun. But I didn't grow up with any Christmas

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Speaker 2: traditions because my family is Jewish, so our Christmas traditions

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Speaker 2: are Katrina's Christmas traditions. Plus Hazel's social media desires from

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Speaker 2: what she's seen on other people's TikTok. She's like, I

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Speaker 2: want Christmas like that, so we, for example, all wear

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Speaker 2: matching pajamas on Christmas morning.

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Speaker 1: I have tried to get Zach to do that, and

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Speaker 1: he absolutely refuses, but I think it would be so cute.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's great.

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Speaker 2: This year even the dog is getting magic pajamas.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. Do you send out like holiday cards

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Speaker 1: afterwards or like New Year cards? Mostly? I just have

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Speaker 1: to see this, all right, I'll put up a picture. Okay, awesome,

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Speaker 1: I can't wait. That sounds adorable, And maybe I could

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Speaker 1: use that to convince Zach that we should all dress up.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to work, but it could

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Speaker 1: be worth it.

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Speaker 2: Look what the Californians are doing. We should follow a suit.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how to work on him.

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Speaker 1: No, well that's not going to work. That's gonna anti work.

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Speaker 2: All right, never mind, And we hope that you're all

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Speaker 2: out there having a wonderful holiday. Whatever version or variety

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Speaker 2: or tradition you are following. We hope it means one

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Speaker 2: full time with your family, and we also hope that

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Speaker 2: it gives you another way to think about science. That's

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Speaker 2: why on today's epide That's why on today's episode we're

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Speaker 2: going to be breaking down the science of holiday traditions.

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Speaker 1: I think we should start calling them epipodes, and we

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Speaker 1: should get like toad related facts incorporated into every episode episode.

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Speaker 2: I think you hopped to that idea little quick.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, I love funs. That's so great. It's too

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Speaker 1: bad we can't hear the audience groaning though, But.

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Speaker 2: You know they are, you know they are.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: So it's our first holiday tradition that we're going to

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Speaker 2: interpret in the name of science.

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Speaker 1: All right. The first holiday tradition we're tackling today is

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Speaker 1: how the heck does Santa manage to visit about three

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Speaker 1: hundred million children in the world that are distributed in

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Speaker 1: about eighty five million different homes. How does he do

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Speaker 1: that in just one night?

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Speaker 2: Does Santa have to follow the laws of physics? Is

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Speaker 2: it possible physically for Santa to accomplish this feat? We

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Speaker 2: thought about some of the numbers, especially in light of

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Speaker 2: our recent episode about flight and the physics of it,

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Speaker 2: the mysterious science behind how things stay in the air.

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Speaker 2: And so you're right, Kelly, by my calculations, there are

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Speaker 2: approximately three hundred million children in the world who are

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Speaker 2: expecting Santa to visit, which means eighty five to one

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Speaker 2: hundred million different homes on Christmas Eve. That's a lot.

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Speaker 2: And if you think about what he's carrying with him, like,

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Speaker 2: that's a lot of presents. If each kid gets a

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Speaker 2: pretty small present. I was thinking, like, you know, an iPod, nano,

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Speaker 2: something really tiny, then he has a pretty big load

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Speaker 2: to carry. It's something like one hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 2: tons of presents. And that's got to be a low

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Speaker 2: estimate because some kids are getting you know, air rifles

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Speaker 2: or big Tanka trucks or bicycles.

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Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Oh, what was the rifle in the Christmas story?

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Speaker 2: You're going to shoot your eye out with a daisy

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Speaker 2: air rifle?

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Speaker 1: Yet, there you go, you'll shoot your own kid. Oh

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Speaker 1: that was a classic. My daughter was not crusted with

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Speaker 1: that movie anyway. I haven't like looked at a map

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Speaker 1: and thought about this, but are Christian homes distributed all

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Speaker 1: around the earth or are there regions of the earth

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Speaker 1: that you can skip?

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Speaker 2: Well, Christians are definitely not equally distributed across the whole

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Speaker 2: earth because there aren't that many for example, living in

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Speaker 2: the Pacific, so you know, the land mass helps you concentrate,

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Speaker 2: so that shrinks where Santa has to go. And also

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Speaker 2: people are not evenly distributed across land, right, so you

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Speaker 2: get like a lot of children you can take care

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Speaker 2: of in Manhattan, for example. And of course not every

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Speaker 2: country has an equal number of Santa expecting children, right.

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Speaker 2: There are more proportion in the Americas than there are

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Speaker 2: in Africa or in Asia for example, though of course

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Speaker 2: there are all across the world, and in every country

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Speaker 2: you have children who are expecting Santa. So it's actually

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Speaker 2: interesting problem, and it relates to the traveling salesman problem,

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Speaker 2: which is a famous problem in computer science, which is

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Speaker 2: to find the shortest path among a bunch of cities.

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Speaker 2: And even with like ten or twelve cities, there is

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Speaker 2: a huge number of combinations that the traveling salesman would

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Speaker 2: have to consider to find the shortest path. And it's

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Speaker 2: not a problem we have a fixed solution to. Like, basically,

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Speaker 2: the only way to find the shortest path is to

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Speaker 2: try every possible combination and calculate them and then take

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Speaker 2: the one with the shortest path. But because there's so

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Speaker 2: many combinations, it's almost impossible to even do that. So

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Speaker 2: now have eighty five million homes that you have to

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Speaker 2: go to and you try to minimize the flight time

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Speaker 2: between them. Basically, Sant has got to have an enormous

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Speaker 2: quantum computer if he wants to solve this problem.

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Speaker 1: I guess I was wondering if maybe this is what

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Speaker 1: Santa does in the off time, you know, like while

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Speaker 1: the elves are making the toys, but you know those

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Speaker 1: Christian families are moving.

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Speaker 2: Around, yeah, and having babies and.

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Speaker 1: Having babies and just yeah, it's complicated. So maybe he

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Speaker 1: has solved this already, and like we should be asking

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Speaker 1: him what the solution is. Maybe he's a mathematician.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmm, Yeah, maybe he's solved whether P equals NP.

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Speaker 2: Remember we had Scott Aronson on the podcast talking about

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Speaker 2: really hard to solve problems. This is one of the

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Speaker 2: hardest to solve problems, and Santa clearly has figured it out.

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Speaker 2: Because even on the fastest computer, if you ran this

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Speaker 2: problem how to very quickly go from home to home

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Speaker 2: for eighty five million homes, it would take you at

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Speaker 2: least a year on the world supercomputers. So I think

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Speaker 2: that proves that Santa must have mastered quantum computing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt. We should send Scott Aronson up there

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Speaker 1: to visit and make a chat about it, or.

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Speaker 2: At least we should have the next big quantum computer

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Speaker 2: named something Santa related.

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Speaker 1: I do like that idea. That's ter cool. Right, that's huge.

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Speaker 1: I like it.

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Speaker 2: Wait, maybe P equals NP. Maybe NP stands for a

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Speaker 2: north pole. It's been the secret the whole time. It's

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Speaker 2: right in front of the gosh.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing. Wait, you and I should have a spinoff

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Speaker 1: podcast on conspiracy theories. I'm in.

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Speaker 2: Santa sasquatch quantum computing, invest in my crypto startup.

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Speaker 1: Boom right, all the right words right there, Daniel. Yes,

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Speaker 1: we've already got an advertisement for the show done.

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Speaker 2: But even if Santa does have a huge quantum computer

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Speaker 2: and has figured out the fastest way to get from

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Speaker 2: place to place, he's still got a lot of problems

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Speaker 2: to solve if he's going to figure it out within

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Speaker 2: the laws of physics.

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Speaker 1: That's right. So you said we've got about one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty thousand tons of presents. He's got to distribute

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Speaker 1: those presents at about seven hundred and sixty eight visits

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Speaker 1: per second. Per second that's fast exactly.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot. And that's assuming that he has like

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Speaker 2: around thirty hours to do it, because you know, as

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Speaker 2: the earth spins and you have time zones, is like

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Speaker 2: a little bit more than a twenty four hour window

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Speaker 2: where people could still technically call it Christmas. This is

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Speaker 2: being pretty generous. I mean, I think most people want

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Speaker 2: their presence like by four am in case their kid

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Speaker 2: gets up early. But if you're generous, you know midnight

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Speaker 2: to seven am or whatever, then you get about thirty

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Speaker 2: one hours. And that's still a lot of visits and

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Speaker 2: not a lot of time. It means, for example, one

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Speaker 2: to one thousands of a second for each house, you

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Speaker 2: got to land, you got to get down the chimney,

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Speaker 2: you got to eat the cookies, you got to put

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Speaker 2: the present, You've got to get back up the chimney,

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Speaker 2: you got to get back on this leg, and you

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Speaker 2: have to take off. All of these things have to

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Speaker 2: happen within a thousands of a second per house.

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Speaker 1: Well, and it's some of the families. You have to

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Speaker 1: grab the carrots that people left for the reindeer and

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Speaker 1: feed those to the reindeer. And that was something my

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Speaker 1: family did. So that's another step you can't miss.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and then you have to factor in the

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Speaker 2: travel time between houses also, right, So assuming again that

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Speaker 2: sand has somehow minimized this, I estimated that the total

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Speaker 2: travel time of his trip is going to be around

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Speaker 2: seventy five million miles. That's making some simplifying assumptions about

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Speaker 2: how far apart the houses are around the world. That's

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Speaker 2: a long way to go in thirty one hours. And

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Speaker 2: I hid in the back of my mind this question

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Speaker 2: is like, is Sana going to have to break the

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Speaker 2: speed of light limit? Santa FTL is not only is

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Speaker 2: he quantum Santa? Is he also like Einstein was wrong?

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Speaker 2: Santa is he?

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Speaker 1: No, he's not right because he's under that he's not.

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Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, it turns out he only has to travel

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Speaker 2: about seven hundred miles per second, which is pretty fast.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's like thirty four hundred times the speed

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Speaker 2: of sound. But it's nowhere near the speed of light.

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Speaker 2: So the speed of light does not interfere with Christmas.

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Speaker 1: So how much do you think Jeff Bezos has offered

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Speaker 1: Santa for this technology that allows you to deliver packages

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Speaker 1: this quickly?

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Speaker 2: Who's the logistics master? Right? That's right? Right? Santa should

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Speaker 2: really branch out and compete with Amazon. If he did

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Speaker 2: more than just Christmas, right, if Santa could deliver anything

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Speaker 2: to you right now, like faster than Amazon, Wow, Santa

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Speaker 2: could be rich.

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Speaker 1: You know what makes me a little nervous though, is

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Speaker 1: last year it was noted that some of the bags

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Speaker 1: the toys came in looked like the same bags Amazon

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Speaker 1: uses when you deliver a gift, So at your house,

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Speaker 1: at my house, there might be a little bit of

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Speaker 1: collaborating going on, so maybe they're sharing secrets. Amazon packages

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Speaker 1: get there like the next day sometimes that's pretty fast.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty fast, And I definitely don't want Jeff Bezos

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Speaker 2: like learning to fly drones down chimneys just to deliver

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Speaker 2: packages faster like that would be creepy.

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Speaker 1: Would be creepy, all right, So never mind, Let's hope

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Speaker 1: they're not talking to each other. Could he travel that fast? So, like,

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Speaker 1: at those speeds, is it gonna heat up? Or is

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Speaker 1: he maybe traveling he goes up to space to avoid

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Speaker 1: air friction, that comes back down again real fast.

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Speaker 2: You can't really avoid the resistance the atmosphere though, because

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Speaker 2: if you come back in you have the re entry

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Speaker 2: He's moving pretty fast. I mean, mock thirty four hundred

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Speaker 2: is very fast to move through the atmosphere. Like I

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Speaker 2: don't hear it, but if Santa really is traveling that

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Speaker 2: fast on Christmas Eve, then there's gonna be some serious

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Speaker 2: sonic booms. And not to mention that, Remember we're talking

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Speaker 2: about a huge amount of cargo. Like we set one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand tons of presents. That's about the

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Speaker 2: same mass as two fully equipped loaded aircraft carriers. So

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Speaker 2: now imagine two aircraft carriers traveling through the atmosphere at

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Speaker 2: mock thirty four hundred. This sounds like the plot of

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Speaker 2: the Avengers, right. Those things are definitely going to burn up.

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Speaker 2: They're going to pressurize the atmosphere in front of them.

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Speaker 2: It's going to turn into plasma. They're going to melt

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Speaker 2: the front of it. He's going to have some really

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Speaker 2: intense heat shielding. Yeah, but what does he have in front?

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Speaker 2: He's got reindeer. So somehow maybe those reindeer noses are

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Speaker 2: working as heat shields. I don't really understand how that's possible.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that we have that as an example

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Speaker 1: in the Animal Kingdom yet. That would be pretty incredible

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Speaker 1: I guess maybe he has figured out some invisible heat

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Speaker 1: shielding that can be used. Maybe that's how we explain this.

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. That seems like a copa because then

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Speaker 2: you can do invisible anything. Right, Yeah, he's got an

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Speaker 2: invisible warp drive.

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Speaker 1: That's where the magic happens. Then I guess, so you

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Speaker 1: mentioned those reindeer flying, and let's take a break and

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Speaker 1: talk about how that might have evolved. Okay, and we're back.

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Speaker 1: So Santa has reindeer that fly and bring him around

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Speaker 1: the world somehow without burning up to deliver gifts to

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Speaker 1: all the boys and girls. How do those reindeer fly?

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Speaker 1: So there's a whole field studying the evolution of flights.

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Speaker 1: We have three vertebrate examples where these animals evolved the

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Speaker 1: ability to fly. So we've got bats, birds, and pterosaurs.

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Speaker 1: That's right, we're going back in time.

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Speaker 2: Wow, So what you're saying, in the entire history of Earth,

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Speaker 2: only three vertebrates have learned to fly. We got to

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Speaker 2: dig back to dinosaurs to have our third example.

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Speaker 1: According to the cow Museum website, I was looking at Yes,

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Speaker 1: those are the three examples I saw. The website didn't

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Speaker 1: look super modern. So maybe it was a little bit,

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Speaker 1: but as far as I know, yeah, we've got birds, bats,

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Speaker 1: and pterosaurs.

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Speaker 2: And what about the evolutionary history there, because I know

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Speaker 2: that people tell us that, like, oh, birds are basically

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Speaker 2: descended from dinosaurs. Does that mean that birds are modern

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Speaker 2: day pterosaurs? Do they come from the same origin? Did

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Speaker 2: that flight involve twice or once?

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Speaker 1: I think that terosaurs are not dinosaurs.

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Speaker 2: What pterodactyls are not dinosaurs? Calvin and Hobbes taught me wrong.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Paradactyls are not dinosaurs. I mean, I hate

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Speaker 1: to ever say anything negative about Calvin and Hobbes and

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Speaker 1: Bill Waterston. Yeah, but you know children are allowed to

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Speaker 1: dream and that is a fictional account of things. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: pterosaurs are not dinosaurs.

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Speaker 2: So wait, what makes something a dinosaur? All giant reptiles

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Speaker 2: living with the dinosaurs or not dinosaurs?

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's right. Not everything that lived in the

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Speaker 1: time of the dinosaurs were dinosaurs. And we have now

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Speaker 1: maxed out by paleontology knowledge. When I was like eight,

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Speaker 1: could ask me any of this and I could have

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Speaker 1: rattled off the answers.

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Speaker 2: But you know, oh man, we should have eight year

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Speaker 2: old Kelly on the podcast. That sounds great.

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Speaker 1: She was a lot more fun.

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Speaker 2: When I build a time machine, that's the first thing

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Speaker 2: I'll do. So I'll go back in time and ask

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Speaker 2: eight year old you dinosaur questions.

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Speaker 1: Awesome, sounds good. I hope she's as clever as I

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Speaker 1: seem to remember her being. But I guess we'll find out,

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Speaker 1: all right.

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Speaker 2: But we were talking about reindeer flight, and you were

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Speaker 2: giving us the context of the evolutionary history of flight pterosaurs, bats,

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Speaker 2: and birds. So it's possible for vertebrates things with bones

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Speaker 2: in them, to learn to take to the air. How

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Speaker 2: does that happen? What are the evolutionary pressures that are needed,

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Speaker 2: and could they possibly apply to a reindeer.

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Speaker 1: So for a lot of this stuff, you know, we

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Speaker 1: can't go back in time, we can't see it ourselves,

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Speaker 1: but we can look at evolutionary trees and try to

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Speaker 1: see what closely related ancestors were doing and then try

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Speaker 1: to get a sense for what happened over time. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, it looks like the pterosaurs, they evolved the

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Speaker 1: ability to fly from ground dwelling ancestor, so it looks

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Speaker 1: like they were sort of leaping up into the air

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Speaker 1: and having wings maybe helped them soar or glide for

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Speaker 1: a little while and then but birds seem to have

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Speaker 1: evolved from animals that were up in the trees, and

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Speaker 1: so they jumped out of the trees and then they

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Speaker 1: would glide. So you've got, you know, bottom up and

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Speaker 1: top down abilities to learn how to fly.

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Speaker 2: But in both cases there had to be some evolutionary pressure.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you're giving us examples of like how there

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Speaker 2: was proto flight, which somehow got selected for and encouraged.

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Speaker 2: What was the pressure that made these tree jumpers want

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Speaker 2: to fly or these ground leapers want to fly.

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Speaker 1: There are a couple different hypotheses for what the pressures were.

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Speaker 1: I think the most convincing, or at least the most

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Speaker 1: commonly stated one is that it had something to do

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Speaker 1: with like escaping predators. So if a predator is coming

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Speaker 1: for you and you can jump out of the tree

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Speaker 1: and then glide away, for example, then that helps you

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Speaker 1: get away. And then over time there were all these

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Speaker 1: additional benefits. So, like gliding is nice, but if you're

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Speaker 1: able to stay in the air for longer and maybe

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Speaker 1: flap your wings, you can get from place to place.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you can find a spot where there's better food.

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Speaker 1: But every step along the way has to have some

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Speaker 1: benefit in order for you know, evolution to continue building

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Speaker 1: on that trait.

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Speaker 2: And something I don't often hear enough about when it

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Speaker 2: comes to these stories of evolution are the costs. Because

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Speaker 2: I could tell a story about how it would be

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Speaker 2: awesome if I had wings, Like I could escape predators,

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Speaker 2: I could escape traffic, I could hunt better, like I

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Speaker 2: could do all sorts of things. I would love to

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Speaker 2: have wings, Like, obviously there are benefits. Why don't everybody

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Speaker 2: have wings? And I guess the answer must be that

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Speaker 2: there are costs to having wings which don't pay off

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Speaker 2: for everybody, right, So, like why don't humans have wings?

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, sometimes evolution is a cruel mistress. I mean,

402
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Speaker 1: so wings are often like the bones in your arms

403
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Speaker 1: get sort of repurposed and you end up with like

404
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Speaker 1: webbing in between. And so you know, bats, if you

405
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Speaker 1: look at it, it's like the fingerbones have like extended

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Speaker 1: and now there's webbing in between. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: we really benefit from our ability to use our hands, right,

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Speaker 1: so if we could fly, we might you know, lose

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Speaker 1: some of that, and so yeah, there's trade offs or

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Speaker 1: just about anything.

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Speaker 2: You know, if you asked me like wings or hands,

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Speaker 2: that would be a tough call because wings would be awesome.

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Speaker 2: But boy, who's going to like scratched at my nose

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Speaker 2: if I don't have hands?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I mean you can rug your nose on

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Speaker 1: a tree or something.

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Speaker 2: That doesn't seem very dignified.

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Speaker 1: Well, humans do tons of undignified things. We could Acclabate's true.

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Speaker 1: But you know one thing you might have noticed is

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Speaker 1: that reindeer don't have wings at all. That's right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so what's going on with that? I can't think of

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Speaker 1: any example of an animal that can fly with no wing.

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Speaker 2: All right, So let's talk a little bit about the

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Speaker 2: physics of reindeer flight. How is it possible to get

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Speaker 2: in the air. All the examples you're giving us for

426
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Speaker 2: how to get in the air involved having like really

427
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Speaker 2: low density like birds we know have like hollow bones

428
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Speaker 2: and bats really have minimal bones because you want to

429
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Speaker 2: minimize the amount of mass you need to get in

430
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Speaker 2: the air, and then some huge surface areas that you

431
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Speaker 2: get lift. And we had a whole episode about how

432
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Speaker 2: lift works. And you need either some angle of attack,

433
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Speaker 2: so the Newtonian force pushes you up as the air

434
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Speaker 2: particles put down, or you need some airfoil to create

435
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Speaker 2: pressure difference in velocity difference, or you need both. So

436
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:08,680
Speaker 2: the physics of flight is quite complicated, but it always

437
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:12,640
Speaker 2: involves wings, right. Even insects have wings, even though their

438
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:16,960
Speaker 2: flight mechanics are completely different. So it's hard to imagine

439
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:20,439
Speaker 2: how a reindeer without any wings at all are going

440
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:24,119
Speaker 2: to get up in the air, right, Like, physics problem

441
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:26,560
Speaker 2: number one is, I don't think their bones are hollow.

442
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:29,680
Speaker 2: You know, they are made for like holding a lot

443
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:33,959
Speaker 2: of meat and running pretty fast on the ground. Reindeer

444
00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:36,560
Speaker 2: running like thirty five miles per hour, you need some

445
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:38,640
Speaker 2: pretty strong bones for that. I have to hold the muscles.

446
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:42,920
Speaker 2: I did learn, however, that reindeer hair is hollow. So

447
00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:47,240
Speaker 2: they're living cold places and for insulation, it's nice to have,

448
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:51,359
Speaker 2: you know, fluffy hair, and their hair is like little tubes,

449
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 2: so it's very low density.

450
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:55,639
Speaker 1: That's great.

451
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's sort of like having the frosting

452
00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:01,080
Speaker 2: without the cake because you got a much bigger problem

453
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:03,479
Speaker 2: to solve just getting the thing off the ground. And

454
00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:06,159
Speaker 2: then there's the big question of the antlers, right, Like,

455
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:08,199
Speaker 2: you don't see a whole lot of flying things with

456
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 2: heavy duty antlers. And there's a reason, right, Like what

457
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:16,200
Speaker 2: about the pterosaurs? Do they have like really big heads

458
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:17,440
Speaker 2: and pokey bones.

459
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 1: I think they had like projections on their heads. I

460
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 1: don't know what the point of those was. But they

461
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 1: also had like giant weights, perhaps to offset stuff like that.

462
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:30,720
Speaker 2: So I was thinking, if I had to get a

463
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,360
Speaker 2: bunch of reindeer off the ground, how would I do it?

464
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, maybe we're looking in the wrong place.

465
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,400
Speaker 2: Maybe the physics of reindeer flying is actually about the sleigh,

466
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 2: because you never see the reindeer flying by themselves. There's

467
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 2: always reindeer plus sleigh. So I thought, maybe it's like

468
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 2: asking how does a jet engine fly. It doesn't fly

469
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 2: by itself, it flies with a wing. So I thought

470
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 2: maybe we should take a more careful look at Santa's

471
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: sleigh because potentially that could be like an airfoil. Think

472
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 2: off Santa Slay as the wind and the reindeer as

473
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 2: the engine. So they're running along the ground and maybe

474
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 2: providing enough thrust so you get lyft off Santa's sleigh

475
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 2: and then you can take off.

476
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 1: What is that going to get you across the ocean

477
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 1: like that might get you off the ground, but then

478
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 1: those hooves become helpless.

479
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the physics doesn't really hold together. That

480
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,199
Speaker 2: was just like, can I even make a first step

481
00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 2: here towards somehow getting this thing in the air. There's

482
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 2: some obvious problems there, Like number one, you're saying, how

483
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,200
Speaker 2: do you stay afloat? Right? Like reindeer they can run

484
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,120
Speaker 2: pretty fast, but then what do they do once they

485
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 2: get into the air. Because they don't have wings, they

486
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 2: can't paddle through the air. Though when you see a

487
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,639
Speaker 2: typical depiction, they're somehow still running through the air, Like,

488
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 2: I don't know what they're supposed to be working on.

489
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: Another big problem even with this idea is they got

490
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 2: to be able to take off from a rooftop right,

491
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 2: basically from a standstill. Yeah, and reindeer can run it

492
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 2: like thirty five miles per hour, But they don't go

493
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 2: from zero to thirty five miles per hour instantly, right,

494
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 2: They take some time aim to accelerate. Even a reindeer

495
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 2: can't survive like more than a few g or their

496
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 2: insides will liquefy the same way humans would. And reindeer

497
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 2: speeds are thirty five miles per hour. That's pretty fast,

498
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 2: But jets need like one hundred and twenty one hundred

499
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 2: and fifty miles per hour going over those airfoils or

500
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 2: hitting the angle of attack to take off. So reindeer,

501
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 2: I can't see how they could get up to high

502
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,879
Speaker 2: speeds or accelerate from the rooftop to get fast enough.

503
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 2: The only thing that's left is, like, reindeer have kind

504
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:33,679
Speaker 2: of big ears. You know, maybe those ears could flap somehow.

505
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 2: Maybe we're just like looking in the wrong place and

506
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 2: all the magic is in the ears. So I did

507
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 2: a little calculation to think if you treat the ears

508
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 2: like wings, how fast would they have to flap to

509
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 2: provide enough thrust? And the number I got, which I'm

510
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:48,640
Speaker 2: sure has a lot of uncertainty, is about thirty five

511
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 2: thousand times per minute.

512
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I mean, does that take into account

513
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 1: all the weight that they're pulling and the fact that

514
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: they're teeny tiny with low surface area. No, okay, no, just.

515
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 2: To take off the reindeer the I'm thinking like the

516
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 2: reindeer version of a hummingbird here, like like it would

517
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 2: be insane, and I think you would notice that happening.

518
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 2: I don't see that in the depictions. So I did

519
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 2: the best I could, but I couldn't get these reindeer

520
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 2: off the rooftop no matter what I did. I just

521
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 2: think the physics is not there.

522
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it wouldn't be a dKu episode if we

523
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,920
Speaker 1: didn't talk about aliens once or cannibalism, which we've somehow

524
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: managed to miss. Do you think maybe Santa has access

525
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: to some alien levitation technology or maybe this is where

526
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: the magic comes in.

527
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 2: It's certainly possible if you give yourself access to any

528
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 2: sort of potential future human technology or alien technology across

529
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 2: the galaxy, you might imagine that Santa is using anti

530
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 2: gravity technology. I mean, fundamentally, we do not understand what

531
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 2: gravity is or how it works. We have this wonderful

532
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 2: theory of gravity general relativity that tells us that mass

533
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 2: bends space and space tells mass how to move, and

534
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 2: that this weird bending can cause things that look like

535
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 2: forces to appear, which is what we call the force

536
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 2: of gravity. So the space is bent near the Earth,

537
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 2: which is why everything falls towards the center of the Earth.

538
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 2: And in order to avoid falling towards the center of

539
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 2: the Earth, you need to be accelerated up or outwards

540
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 2: away from the center, which is what the surface of

541
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 2: the Earth is doing. That's why it appears that things

542
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 2: are moving under gravity when you're standing on the surface

543
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 2: of the Earth. What's actually happening is you're accelerating against

544
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 2: the natural force of gravity. That's a long way to

545
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 2: say that maybe Santa has some technology that bends space

546
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 2: itself so that he can create some pseudo force, basically

547
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 2: anti gravity. And if you imagine, like the gravitation a

548
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 2: well of the Earth, things would naturally be falling towards it.

549
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 2: But a Santa can counteract the bending of space only

550
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 2: in his local environment, so that he's not falling towards

551
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 2: the center of the Earth. It would look like he's flying.

552
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,479
Speaker 2: You would look like there's some great force there. So

553
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:56,880
Speaker 2: potentially super advanced aliens or time traveling future humans might

554
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 2: have access to space bending technology that to us would

555
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 2: look like anti gravity basically levitation. So if we're gonna

556
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 2: go for aliens, then that's my solution, Santa, the anti

557
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 2: gravity alien.

558
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: I feel like there's all kinds of things that we

559
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:12,880
Speaker 1: could learn from Santa if he would only come hang

560
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: out with the rest of us a little bit more.

561
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: Maybe our scientists holiday should just be when Santa visits

562
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: and reveals all these secrets to us.

563
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 2: I know he's mastered quantum computing, he's mastered anti gravity.

564
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 2: Maybe he's figured out quantum gravity. Right, maybe Santa is

565
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 2: a string theorist. Oh my gosh, Santa, please come on

566
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 2: the podcast and explain physics to us.

567
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: That would be great.

568
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 2: You know, I was gonna say if anybody out there

569
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: has a connection to Santa, but then I realized anybody

570
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 2: can just write to Santa. So let's send a message

571
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 2: to Santa and say what we want for Christmas is

572
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 2: for him to come on the podcast and explain the

573
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 2: universe to us.

574
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: That sounds great. All right, Well, Santa, please get in

575
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: touch with us. That's my only wish for Christmas. And

576
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: let's take a break, and when we come back, let's

577
00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 1: talk about Rudolph's shiny nose. All right, and we're back.

578
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: So our next task is to try to figure out

579
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: how Rudolph's shiny nose shines. We've got a couple ideas here.

580
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: So we discovered what we didn't personally discover. We discovered

581
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: by doing a tiny bit of research that actually a

582
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 1: lot of mammals are fluorescent, which means that when you

583
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 1: shine black light on them, they sort of reflect that

584
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: light back in a variety of different colors. So mammals

585
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: are fluorescent. So Rudolph could maybe be fluorescent, but that's

586
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: just reflecting light back and it's not producing light the

587
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: way it feels like Rudolf's nose is supposed to be doing,

588
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: so I think he's not fluorescent.

589
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 2: The fluorescence is really interesting from a physics point of view.

590
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 2: I mean, what's happening there is a little bit more

591
00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 2: complex than just reflection. You're absorbing that light, converting into energy,

592
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 2: and then emitting light at a different wavelength, right, because

593
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 2: you're absorbing ultraviolet light or something else and then emitting

594
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 2: at a different wavelength. So it is fascinating, right, Fluorescence

595
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 2: is not just reflection. It's amazing that it exists in

596
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 2: so many animals and there's so many biological applications for it.

597
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 2: Why do you think animals would have evolved this? Why

598
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 2: is fluorescence a thing in an animal kingdom? Yeah?

599
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: I don't think we have a great handle on this yet.

600
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: I think in some cases it seems like it's to

601
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: attract prey, and other cases it's to attract mates. I

602
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: think there's probably also a subset of instances where the

603
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: fluorescence doesn't really have any purpose. It's just kind of

604
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: an accident. Like the pigment is, you know, I don't know,

605
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: it's like red or something, and it's meant to signal

606
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: other animals. But that red pigment also happens to fluoresce

607
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: if it's hit with the right wavelength of light. And

608
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: maybe that doesn't really happen in nature, but it happens

609
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: in the lab. And so you know, in nature, maybe

610
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: that fluorescence doesn't do anything because it just kind of

611
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: doesn't come up that often. But I don't think we

612
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: know why a lot of mammals are fluorescent, because I

613
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: think we didn't realize it was until recently.

614
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 2: I was looking at a picture of a bat under

615
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 2: a black light and it's like fabulously blue. It's like, wow,

616
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 2: maybe bats are like having a party this whole time,

617
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 2: and they looked like they were colored in a boring

618
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 2: way to us, But the reality is that they're spectacular.

619
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: Bat ravees every night, I'm it.

620
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 2: I also remember talking to a friend of mine here

621
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 2: at U c Irvine who studies birds and vision and

622
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 2: she discovered that a certain kind of bird called the

623
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 2: blue tit, is actually emitting in the ultraviolet, and that

624
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 2: the birds themselves can see the ultraviolet. And they only

625
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: discovered this because they smeared some of these blue tits

626
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 2: with vasiline, which blocks the ultraviolet, and when you do that,

627
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 2: the otherwise very sexually successful tits were now totally ignored

628
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 2: by all the females.

629
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: Wow.

630
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 2: So that means that the females were selecting the fabulously

631
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 2: ultraviolet blue tits.

632
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: That is incredible.

633
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 2: Yeah.

634
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: There is an incredible chapter in Ed Young's book Immense World,

635
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: all about different kinds of visions, and he points out

636
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: that there's lots of animals that can see things that

637
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: we can't see. And I found that both like absolutely

638
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: amazing that there's so much as animal behaviorists that maybe

639
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: we're missing when we study animal behavior because we just

640
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: don't know what they're seeing, but also like a total

641
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: bummer that there are colors that I will never see. Okay,

642
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: so I think that these deer are not fluorescing, which

643
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Maybe they're fluorescing on top of it,

644
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: but Rudolph's knows. My best guess is that it's bioluminescence,

645
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: And so bioluminescence is a chemical reaction. So you get

646
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: this thing called luciferin, and when it combines with oxygen,

647
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: they produce something called oxyluciferin, and that reaction releases light.

648
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 2: And luciferin as in lucifer.

649
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: Luca is like a prefix that means something about light.

650
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 2: Oh I see, yeah, yeah.

651
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: So like fireflies, I believe that they've got like luciferin

652
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: and oxygen like in similar places in their like butts,

653
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: and then they release luciferase, and that's an enzyme that

654
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: speeds up the chemical reaction and so it increases the

655
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: amount of light that's visible. Some animals can do this,

656
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: like fireflies, but there's also bacteria that can do this.

657
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of animals that bioluminess not because

658
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: they're doing the reaction themselves, but because they harbor bacteria

659
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: in these specialized organs, and the bacteria produce the bioluminescns.

660
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 2: Oh that's very cool. Yeah, I love when you can't

661
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 2: do it yourself you outsource it to microbes.

662
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: Symbiosis. Pretty cool. How would this have evolved for Rudolph?

663
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: One possibility is for camouflage. So we see a lot

664
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: of bioluminescence happening in the ocean, and often it's being

665
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: used at night. So the deal is, if you're an

666
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: animal that's swimming around, you know, under the water surface

667
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: in the ocean, the light reflects off the moon and

668
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: into the water and it leaves little like trickles or

669
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: streams of light coming through. And so if you as

670
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: an animal moving around in the ocean, have to watch

671
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: out because if you cast a shadow, then predators underneath

672
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: you can see the shadow that you cast and then

673
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: know that they can go to eat you. And so

674
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot of animals that have either their own

675
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: bioluminescence or they store organisms that release light in ways

676
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: that mimics the way moonlight trickles down through the ocean.

677
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 2: So that's fascinating because your intuition is if you want

678
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 2: to hide, you should be dark. But if the background

679
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 2: is shimmery, you actually want to be shimmery to blend

680
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 2: in with the shimmery background, because otherwise your shadow makes

681
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 2: you obvious.

682
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And so I think the most famous example

683
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: of this are bobtail squid, and the bobtail squid have

684
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: a compartment that stores these bioluminescing bacteria, and they feed

685
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: the bacteria things like sugars and stuff to make them

686
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: happy and keep them reproducing, and it casts enough light

687
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: that sort of cancels out the shadow that's made by

688
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: the squid. So this is like a famous symbiosis where

689
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: squid and bacteria live together nicely. So it could be

690
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: that maybe why so few of us see Santa's sleigh

691
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: at night is because there's some bioluminescent tricks canceling out

692
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: Santa's sleigh shadow. But I think maybe that's not what's happening,

693
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: because the light is facing in the wrong direction, right.

694
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 2: And also, we're talking about just one reindeer here, right,

695
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 2: Rudolph is the only one with the shiny news. So

696
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 2: not only do you have to explain how Rudolph evolved this,

697
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 2: but how you have like a subset of reindeer with

698
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 2: shiny noses and most of the population doesn't.

699
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: I have concluded that Rudolph is probably a separate species.

700
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 2: Oh, I see, all right, his.

701
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: Species evolved this, but he may be the last one

702
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: left of his species. Because no, this is tragic, I know,

703
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: because another purpose of bioluminescence is to attract mates, and

704
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: it just doesn't seem to be working for poor Rudolph.

705
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 2: That's right.

706
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: A final purpose for this bioluminescence is to attract prey.

707
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:59,239
Speaker 1: There's an interesting story with cookie cutter sharks where they've

708
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: got this like on their abdomen where it kind of

709
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: looks like the light sort of coming down through the ocean,

710
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 1: but then there's a blank patch, and the hypothesis is

711
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: that blank patch looks like a fish that's swimming above

712
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:15,879
Speaker 1: and is creating a shadow, but you're actually just looking

713
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: at the belly of a cookie cutter shark. And so

714
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: when a predator comes up, thinking it's gonna eat a fish,

715
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: the cookie cutter shark quickly spins around and they take

716
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: like a cookie cutter shaped chunk out of the animal

717
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: and then they swim away really quick. So maybe Rudolph

718
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: is predatory.

719
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 2: What he's not a grass munching vegetarian like the other reindeer.

720
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: It's unclear. It's unclear. So the question is, I guess,

721
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 1: you know, is Rudolph another species or does he maybe

722
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 1: just happen to have a weird bioluminescent bacterial infection in

723
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: his nose? And so maybe he is the same species,

724
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: it doesn't benefit him at all, and he just has

725
00:35:57,800 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: this infection he can't clear.

726
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 2: That could be certainly, It's amazing how these things happen, right, Like,

727
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 2: obviously none of this is designed or organized. It means

728
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 2: that sometime in history, like one of these squid or

729
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 2: one of these shark like developed some infection and it

730
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 2: turned out to be beneficial. Right that's crazy.

731
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, So an infection implies a negative outcome. So it

732
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: could have been that these bioluminescing bacteria ended up invading

733
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 1: some small part of the bobtail squid and they just

734
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: lived there and didn't hurt the bobtail squid. But the

735
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: ones who harbored the bacteria just did better, and over

736
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,239
Speaker 1: time it was better to have more bacteria, So some

737
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: of them, you know, ended up feeding them with sugars.

738
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. It doesn't have to start negatively, but

739
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: it could have, right.

740
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 2: No, I don't even think about microbes negatively. I think

741
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 2: I've just been propagandized by my wife who like helps

742
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 2: me appreciate like basically microbes are essential for everything we

743
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 2: do in every part of our lives. Like sterile humans

744
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 2: just could not survive, right, and so we're totally colonized

745
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 2: by all sorts of micros, bacteria and phages and all

746
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:02,720
Speaker 2: sorts of crazy stuff easing ecosystem that keeps us all going.

747
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 2: But it's crazy when that changes, when you get colonized

748
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 2: by new criter, which changes what you could accomplish. It

749
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 2: makes me wonder, like why humans never learn to glow? Right?

750
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 2: I can imagine some scenarios where all these stories you tell,

751
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 2: I can imagine some scenario where it could apply to

752
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 2: humans right, where we could attract prey, or we could

753
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,240
Speaker 2: camouflage better or something.

754
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:24,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I guess it's worth noting that most

755
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 1: of the examples of animals that bioluminous are living in

756
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: aquatic environments. It seems to be much more beneficial there. So, yes,

757
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,720
Speaker 1: we have fireflies, but they're pretty unique in their ability

758
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: to buy iluminess on land. So it might be that

759
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,839
Speaker 1: the benefits on Earth are just not that big, which

760
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: makes it even more surprising that Rudolph is able to

761
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: do it.

762
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, though, there are lots of land creators that fluoresce, right,

763
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 2: so like under a black light will glow cool colors

764
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 2: or something. But humans know you got to wear a

765
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 2: crazy T shirt for that at your next dance party.

766
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,919
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, Ah, the nineties were wild time.

767
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 2: But speaking of lighting, there's another holiday that happens right

768
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 2: around the same time of year. It's not just Christmas.

769
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 2: So let's talk about the science of Honkkah, the festival

770
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:06,760
Speaker 2: of lights.

771
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,879
Speaker 1: That was a beautiful transition. Yes, let's do that. Tell

772
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 1: me about the Honkah story. I did marry a Jewish man,

773
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 1: so I'm familiar with it. But in case other people aren't.

774
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 2: So the story of Honkkah, as most of the stories

775
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: from the Old Testament center around battles, those lots of

776
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 2: these battles, Jews were always getting involved in wars. And

777
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 2: this is a battle between the Jews and the Maccabees

778
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 2: over the temple. And it raged back and forth, and

779
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 2: the Jews lost the temple and then recovered it and

780
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 2: they won the battle. But in the end, when they

781
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 2: got back into the temple, they found that most of

782
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 2: the oil that they used to light the lamps. This

783
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 2: is ali of oil in the original temple, which of

784
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 2: course now destroyed, had been spoiled. And you know, this

785
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 2: is like the center of Judaism, and so you need

786
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 2: oil that's like pure and has been blessed in all

787
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,879
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. You can't use spoiled oil. And

788
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 2: they only had a little bit of oil left. They

789
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 2: had oil enough to keep the lamps going for one day,

790
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 2: and it's essential, so you keep the lamps burning. And

791
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 2: it takes about eight days to make more oil, to

792
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 2: press it and purify it and bless it and all

793
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 2: this stuff. So the pipeline is eight days long. It's

794
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 2: been interrupted. You have one day supply. So they're like, uh, oh,

795
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 2: we got to get these lamps going, but there's no

796
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 2: way they're going to last eight days. And so the

797
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 2: miracle of Honkkah is somehow a one day supply of

798
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 2: oil lasted for eight days. It lasted until they could

799
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 2: get a fresh supply, and so the lamp never went out.

800
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: Amazing. And just to be clear, and it's not being

801
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 1: used for cooking or for heating. It's being used for

802
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: religious purposes and lighting.

803
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 2: Up the temple. Yeah, it's a ritual essentially, it's like

804
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 2: the eternal flame, right, Okay, got it. Got And so

805
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 2: even before we dig into like the miracle of Honkkah,

806
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 2: I've always been amazed at the technology of lamps like,

807
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 2: it's kind of incredible. You have this fuel you want

808
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 2: to burn, but you want to burn it a little

809
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,720
Speaker 2: bit at a time, so you have a low, consistent glow.

810
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 2: And there is this amazing bit of technology which it

811
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,240
Speaker 2: comes to us from the ancient world, which is the wick.

812
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 2: You don't want to just like set your oil ablaze

813
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 2: because just like all burn out and pollute the indoors

814
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 2: and you won't have a lighting for very long. So

815
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 2: they have this incredible technology of the wick, which essentially

816
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 2: pulls a little bit of fuel from your main supply

817
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 2: and burns only a little bit at a time, giving

818
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 2: you a constant glow. And it's so simple. It's basically

819
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 2: just you put a string in your fuel. It's one

820
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 2: of these genius bits of technology that must have been.

821
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: A huge improvement in quality of life when that was

822
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: figured out. Like being able to read all night by

823
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: the light of a lamp as opposed to just needing

824
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: to pick and choose, when you're going to be able

825
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,359
Speaker 1: to burn your big supply of oil all at once.

826
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 2: That sounds incredible, It is incredible, and it's something that

827
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 2: humans have been doing for thousands of years. We're telling

828
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 2: a story from the Old Testament, so it's a couple

829
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 2: thousand years old. But wick technology has been found by

830
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 2: archaeologists dating back at least three thousand BC. Right, so

831
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 2: the ancient Egyptians used wicks. This is something people figured

832
00:40:56,440 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 2: out a long long time ago, and probably independently. We

833
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 2: think that the Chinese used rice paper to create wicks

834
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 2: and made wax out of insects and seeds and all

835
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 2: sorts of stuff. So this is like kind of ingenious

836
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 2: but also fairly simple, and so people discovered a long

837
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 2: time ago.

838
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: We are a pretty clever species. So is one possibility

839
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: then that when they came back into the temple and

840
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 1: they noticed that a lot of the oil had gone bad,

841
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 1: they switched to using wicks and it used it more efficiently.

842
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: Or that's not the miracle.

843
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 2: No, they were using wicks the whole time. Yeah, absolutely,

844
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 2: wick technology was pretty well established at that point. I

845
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 2: also love the word wick because the word tells you

846
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 2: what it does. Right, Like everybody's familiar with like fancy

847
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 2: shirts that wick the sweat away from your body, right,

848
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 2: that's what wick means. It like slurps up the liquid.

849
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 2: It's wicking the liquid. Anyway, That's enough about the science

850
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 2: of wicks. They're sort of incredible. So then let's dig

851
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 2: into the miracle of it, right, how could you possibly

852
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: use science to make your lamp burn longer than you

853
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 2: have a fuel supply for? And the crucial thing is

854
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 2: you have to keep it burning the same brightness. You

855
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 2: can't just like turn it down and be like, oh,

856
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 2: I'm going to make it last for eight days by

857
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 2: having it be an eighth as bright. You got to

858
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 2: keep it as bright and somehow get more energy out

859
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 2: of it. Right, And so unless you're going to say like, oh,

860
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,280
Speaker 2: there was fusion happening or some other sort of energy

861
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 2: source to pull additional energy out of the fuel, seems

862
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 2: pretty implausible. The only thing I could think of, and

863
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 2: I'm basically going back to the same Santa miracle, is

864
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 2: somehow bending of space and time. Because we know that

865
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:36,959
Speaker 2: there is a way in physics to have time slow down. If,

866
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 2: for example, I sent Kelly in orbit near a black hole,

867
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 2: I will see her clocks running slow, and she'll see

868
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,720
Speaker 2: my clocks running more quickly. And so, for example, if

869
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 2: I could create a special bending of space in the

870
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 2: vicinity of these lamps, I could slow down time for

871
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 2: the lamps and then far away from the lamps, even

872
00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 2: a few meters, I would observe clocks running slowly. So

873
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,359
Speaker 2: essentially one day for the lamp would be like eight

874
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 2: days for me.

875
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: And during that time you were making new oil.

876
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 2: During that time, I was making new oil. And so

877
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 2: this requires you to like somehow know how to bend

878
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 2: space and time. But you know, if we're gonna give

879
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 2: Santa that power, then we can give the ancient Jews

880
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,840
Speaker 2: that power. Also. There are some wrinkles here though, because

881
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 2: if the clock is running slower, you would argue that

882
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 2: it's also producing photons less often, and so technically you'd

883
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: be getting photons at one eighth the rate. You know,

884
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:36,240
Speaker 2: It's sort of like if you're getting a video stream

885
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 2: from a spaceship going near the speed of light? Are

886
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: you getting those frames at the same rate that they're

887
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 2: being produced? Does it look slow motion to you? You

888
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 2: could go down a whole rabbit hole here the science

889
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,240
Speaker 2: of Hanukkah. Basically there's no way to really make it work.

890
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 2: But that's the best I could come up with.

891
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,399
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it was a noble attempt, I think, yeah.

892
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 2: And you know, though it's fun to use these as

893
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 2: a launching off place to talk about science and how

894
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 2: you accomplish these things. We all recognize the point of

895
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:05,959
Speaker 2: these stories is not to have a scientific explanation their

896
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 2: mythology and their nice stories to tell about our history

897
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 2: and to have traditions and to all gather together over

898
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 2: the holidays and enjoy time with our families. So we

899
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 2: don't mean to try to ruin these things for you

900
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:19,880
Speaker 2: by trying to turn them into science. We just mean

901
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 2: to use them as a fun place to have science

902
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 2: conversations on these topics.

903
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: That's right. The miraculous nature of these stories is what

904
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,359
Speaker 1: makes them so exciting to tell the kids.

905
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,919
Speaker 2: Exactly, and having stories in common is what makes us human.

906
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 2: And so everybody out there, hope you enjoyed this little

907
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 2: dose of science and then you enjoy your time with

908
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 2: your family on the holidays.

909
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: Happy holidays everyone. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced

910
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 1: by iHeart Reading. We would love to hear from them,

911
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: We really would.

912
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,319
Speaker 2: We want to know what questions you have about this

913
00:44:56,520 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe.

914
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 1: We want to know your thoughts on recent suggestions for

915
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: future shows. If you contact us, we will get back

916
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 1: to you.

917
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 2: We really mean it. We answer every message email us

918
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: at questions at Danielankelly dot org, or.

919
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: You can find us on social media. We have accounts

920
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:17,759
Speaker 1: on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on all of those platforms.

921
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,720
Speaker 1: You can find us at D and K Universe.

922
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:22,359
Speaker 2: Don't be shy right to us