WEBVTT - Can we really break physics? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.680 From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.080 riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.119 learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:13.880 production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.440 Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.400 Our colleague Noel is on a big adventure, but will 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:31.440 be returning shortly. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.000 They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:39.440 super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.720 are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.360 they don't want you to know. Let's get physical physical 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.000 Remember that song I do? 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:50.680 Unfortunately I remember this song. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:57.000 Yes, it's not exactly you know, Politzer or Nobel Prize material. 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.120 But Matt, this evening, you and Dylan and I are 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:06.479 getting into physical ideas in a literal and oddly enough 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.920 abstract sense. This is going to be a kind of 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.360 loose exploration and conversation with us and with our fellow listeners, 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:18.880 because we're going to the very first science, a subject 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:23.200 that has thoroughly baffled humanity since antiquity, the study of 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.960 what we call physics. Did did you take many physics 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.520 classes in your school days? 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.679 It took me a couple physics. Yeah, I did that 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.760 mostly in the college sphere, but you know a little 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.760 bit in high school. Physics are very interesting because it's 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:45.200 really one of the most basic sciences, yet it seems 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.840 to or it feels as though, at least from my perspective, 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.520 to be one of the most difficult to fully grasp. 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.520 Yeah, agreed. Right, we're coming to you as a collection 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.360 of nerds from the alma matter how stuff works. 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.840 So in Georgia State University just stayed. 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.240 And Georgia Tech and all the hits, Georgia. 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.800 Tech's a little different. That's probably a little better in 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:08.640 a physics course. No offense Georgia State. 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.480 Oh man, I don't know the professors at Georgia Tech. 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.600 You know this, and we know some of those professors. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:21.040 They pride themselves on being pretty brutal, especially for those 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.320 poor first year students in STEM. They are you know, 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.680 I didn't go there for STEM. I went there for 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:31.840 International Affairs, but they they pride themselves on like failing 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.760 a certain number of students per course. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.440 Oh yeah, I have several friends who were so excited 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:40.400 to be at Georgia Tech. They're like, oh man, we 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.320 made it, got those good grades. Got into Georgia Tech. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:45.560 Holy crap this first year. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:53.520 Yeah, it's sad like the second year students in engineering, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.680 mathematics and physics. They look like they've been in a war. 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.880 They've got that seven league stare, you know, the haunted 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:07.760 sunken eyes and yeah, anyway, shout out to Walkee Mount Pizza. 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.520 Yeah, well, strap in everybody, because you've got over in 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.320 this corner. A fine arts degree in video and film 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:22.639 production slash journalism and in international affairs student and oh 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.760 even Tennessee Palell. He says physics classes were the bulk 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.720 of his fine arts degree. 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.240 Yes, good to know. We are we are as always 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.080 unlike the nature of reality. We seek to be transparent 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:41.480 and understandable, like the snark there. So we're going to 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:46.760 go in several directions in tonight's exploration at varying velocities. 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.960 We by no means as you can tell, folks are 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.240 physics professors. But even you know, Matt, even from a 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:59.000 lay perspective, it's astonishing to note just how much strange 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:04.120 stuff is come from this ancient discipline recently. So Tonight's 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.839 question that we were talking about at length off air 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.920 over the past few months could civilization be close to 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:17.960 breaking physics, as in, will new discoveries soon fundamentally rock 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.839 our understanding of this crucial science? 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.480 Yeah? What happens if the math doesn't work out for 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.760 some reason? We base everything and whether or not the 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:34.240 math works right with the equation? Okay, is that? Does 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.159 it function in that way? What if that part doesn't matter? 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:38.359 Right? 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:38.680 Right? 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:39.400 Right? 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:45.159 Why is there so much emphasis put on the observable 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.400 part of observable universe? And what happens when we start 0:04:49.440 --> 0:05:01.920 observing things we simply could not observe previously? Here are 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:07.320 the facts all right? Well, as we always do, we 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.760 decided that it is important to understand what physics is 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.080 for all of our fellow non physics professors in the crowd. 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.599 We got to answer that question before we get into 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:27.760 the nerdy controversies and conspiracies surrounding physics today. I mean, look, 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.840 the basic story of physics is amazing, dude. How it 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.400 is a discipline today, a field of study, What it is? 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.120 How it came to be? I think we got really 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.920 close right there at the top, But let's just spell 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.039 it out for everybody. What is physics? 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:52.240 Okay? So you are a form of consciousness hearing this. 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:58.000 You're inside what we call a body, probably hopefully, and 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.719 that body interacts with stuff that's outside of the body 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.720 and everything that you can interact with, and everything your 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.640 body is, and all like, all the way up to 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.719 the largest things, all the way down to the tiniest components. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.159 Physics is the study of how all of that stuff 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:22.120 works together to give you this experience that we call consciousness. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:24.040 Is that a way to put it in? 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.120 I like that. I think you've got some poetry to 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.480 that one, Matt, because it's a We call it the 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.200 first science, and that is also quetic, but it is 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.359 not hyperbole. It's just what you described there, the structure 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:44.279 of matter, the interactions between the fundamental components of again 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.240 the observable universe. So as you were saying, everything from 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.960 the mighty macrocosmic movements of galaxies and the heavens to 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:57.159 the activity at the tiny, tiny, tiny sub microscopic levels 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:02.320 all the way down to quarks itself. For etymology, Fans 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.240 in the crowd comes from Latin physica, which just means 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.720 study of nature, simple enough. That comes from a Greek 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:14.679 word thusik natural science, and that comes from another Greek word, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:20.800 theusis meaning origin, nature, property. In this sense, physics is 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:27.520 the grand attempt to learn how everything called reality works 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.720 and what can be observed from it. So, no, biggie, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.920 you know, it's like, what are you doing this weekend? 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:34.480 Just figure out physics. 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.280 It really is the great work. I mean, there are 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.160 different versions of the great work, but the great work 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.440 is just figuring out what in the hell is going on? 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:48.640 What is this stuff that we're moving through? And within 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.160 physics you get studies of time, because ultimately that is 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.040 how does this stuff, all these components, how do they 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.240 work together from this moment to this moment to that 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.280 moment to you know, to two hundred million years ago 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:04.840 to a billion years from now. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.760 Yeah, exactly. And what happens when linear time, one of 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:16.400 our foundational assumptions or axioms, no longer seems the whole true? 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.200 This gets nuts so quickly, all right. The goal of 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.640 physics has always been to create a streamlined, consistent collection 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:30.560 of just a few principles that apply to everything, explain 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:36.840 all the apparent contradictions between different interactions and processes, and 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:42.040 also to explain how those things work together to create 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:48.560 this culmination of mechanics right that we call the universe 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.440 and indeed consciousness. And to get a little ridiculous historian 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.800 about this, Yeah, it's the oldest, most fundamental branch of 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:01.040 modern science, and its origin story as a result of 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.960 being so important and so baffling, the origin story is 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:11.880 inspiring and super frustrating, mainly because civilization learns one thing 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:18.120 and says, Okay, we got it right, thermodynamics super solid. Good, 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.360 that great job, team, that's lunch. But the more new 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:27.280 stuff we seem to learn, the more challenges arise to 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:32.400 things that we thought were conclusively solved. I mean, you know, 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:37.080 this reminds me of our series on Weirdly enough astronomy 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.679 or astrology, I should say, and governmental figures, right, because 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:48.800 modern physics comes about because people started practicing astrology. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.480 Oh yeah, well, and it pops up independently. I'm not 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.000 kidding when I'm not trying to be weird when I 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.240 say you are a point of consciousness, and everything we 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.840 observe from that point of consciousness is reality. I just 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.920 mean that's what every human being has experienced that is 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.960 born and then can see and can hear and is 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:14.400 just looking out and I'm looking around and you see 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.840 the stuff, right, and you can figure out that that's 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.959 a tree because somebody hopefully tells you it's a tree, 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.320 or you named it a tree, or in whatever language 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.400 you speak, right, But every one of those people also 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.400 was able to look up at those times, wherever they were, 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:36.560 whenever they were, and see the heavens and that thing, 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.720 that moment of being able to observe something that is 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.080 so far away or just all you can do is 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.120 see it. You can't ever touch it, you can't ever 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.560 smell it or use your other senses on it. You 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.080 can just see it and you know it's there. I 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.880 think all of humanity across the world, when they look up, 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.120 they go, what is that? Why is that? And what 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:58.840 does that mean? Right? 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.160 What does it all mean? Yeah, to quote Philharmonic, what's 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.640 it all mean? I used to say, and you remember this, 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:11.240 I used to often in more nihilistic days, just note 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:16.680 that everything, including humans, were simply objects in space. But 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:21.239 I think it's more appropriate to say, from the standpoint 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.240 of physics, it's more appropriate to say, everything and every 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:31.200 consciousness is a series of processes existing in space. Right. 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.600 You are kind of a song that you sing to yourself. Right. 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.240 That gets us to the other things like we said, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:38.880 this is going to be loose. But that gets us 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:43.200 to the idea of duplicating consciousness through electronic means. Could 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.680 you simply emulate a pattern? If so, does that mean 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.200 you could zeros a soul? Or what passes for a soul? 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.719 These are deep questions, But these are also the kind 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:59.160 of deep questions, surprisingly, that physicists will deal with because 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:06.000 their roots come their roots arive from astrology, a natural philosophy. 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.120 You know, in those early evenings that you just described, 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:15.040 met science and spirituality were inseparable, and these were smart people. 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:20.079 Early scholars could say, predict eclipses, the passage of the seasons. 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.920 They would know about changes in the weather up there 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:28.400 with a lot of modern meteorologists. But the difference was 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.679 they were much more likely to assign divine or spiritual 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:39.320 agency to those observations. So now it's not it's not 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:44.760 necessarily a lunar eclipse or a solar eclipse because of 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:50.480 the passage of Earth in a heliocentric system. Instead, God 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.560 is angry, right, and God told you God was going 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:53.839 to be. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.959 Angry later certainly, absolutely all right. 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:02.000 This whole spirituality science, it begins to change back in 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:06.280 the sixth century BCE, as we call it now. This 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:11.080 is where scientific thought emerges in ancient Greece, and this 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.640 is where we introduce our first hero of the story. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:19.280 You can hear him coming, a guy named Tales of Militis, 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:24.000 who is often cited as the first physicist ever. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:29.920 Oh yeah, this dude's awesome. This dude's super awesome. He 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:34.360 thought that water was the basis of all matter, but 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.120 I would argue he wasn't that far off. It just 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:44.199 would be the basis of all known life. Water is certainly, yeah, 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:49.800 the basis of all known life, but not matter. There's 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:51.000 other stuff going on. 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.000 Right, Yeah, and this guy, you know it is defense. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.800 He had have a microscope, right, He didn't have a 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.640 particle accelerator or any of the cool new toys we 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.600 have in modern evenings. But he did spend a lot 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.800 of time in deep thought. And you could argue then, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.880 with that ability, he had a distinct advantage over a 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.360 lot of modern society today, which does not really prize 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.000 deep thought. So he gets that part wrong, But I 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.560 agree with you, man, he was onto something. Another thing 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.240 he and his contemporaries did. This is their real sleeper hit. 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.640 They said, we're going to attempt to explain the world 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:37.320 around us without resorting to mythology or spirituality. Sure, Zeus 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:44.040 is the god who commands lightning, right, but what if 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.880 you know, what if we could explain it without Zeus? 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:49.400 Is he was gonna get mad? Or can we just 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.160 figure out what's going on? Well? 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.440 Yeah, even if it is still Zeus making the lightning, 0:14:54.920 --> 0:15:00.440 how does Zeus's lightning work? What happens here physically? An 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.400 hour plane? When Zeus decides to throw some lightning, that's 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:05.320 pretty cool. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.880 Right, because there has to be some process, right, there 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:16.280 has to be some sort of method to the madness. 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.800 In their pursuit to do this, they create a philosophical 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.640 basis for rational inquiry, and the roots of this are 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.720 still very much the formative basis of modern science today. 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.480 They called this natural philosophy, meaning let's think about natural 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:39.600 processes without leaning on gods and spirits as a crutch. 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.960 Now this sounds very obvious, of course, in a secular 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.880 modern world. But this was like a banger. This was 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.480 a banger dangerous idea when it happened. And then you 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.880 got folks like Pythagoras, a favorite of both of ours. 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:58.480 Pythagoras supertomath, and he said, look, everything you see or 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:06.360 encounter can be explained, discovered, understood via the beautiful art 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.840 and science of mathematics. And then you got folks like Democritis, 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.560 who speculated. He walked up. This is brilliant. This is 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.760 so weird. This guy thousands of years ago walked up 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.640 one day and said, you know what, I've been working 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.720 with one of my teachers, and we think all matter 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:29.000 is not necessarily made of water, no shade on a thalais. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.360 But we think all matter is composed of tiny, tiny 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.560 little things. They're called atoms. They're the smallest thing. They're 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.360 so small you can't see them, you can't divide them. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.800 He was wrong about that. History would show and people said, oh, 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.240 ty dude, do you have any evidence for this? And 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.040 he went, ah, I just I got a hunch, I 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.280 got a feeling, I got a spidy sense. And people said, okay, yeah, 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.800 that's interesting. We're going to put your ideas right here 0:16:58.840 --> 0:16:59.440 on the fridge. 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.760 Uh yeah, it was no fridge. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:07.600 There was no fridge. Two thousand years later, though, atomic 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:12.800 theory proves the the broad strokes of his philosophy to 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.959 be correct, and there there are plenty of missteps along 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:16.320 the way. 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:16.760 Uh. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.920 A lot of the scientific shibbylists have informed Western thought 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.240 for centuries and centuries, like the you know, we've all 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.520 heard of this, the idea that, uh, the universe can 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:34.280 be described as four elements earth, air, fire, water. Later 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:39.600 someone says quintessence, right, is is a fifth state of matter, 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.919 and that is the uh that is the great bull 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.520 or sphere of the heavens. Uh. 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.359 That's cool. That's a cool thought. It's a really cool thought. 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:49.920 Uh. 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:54.399 The just the Adams thing. We're already breaking things down 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.480 as far as they can go, even though there's no microscopes, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.840 as you said, humanity is attempting to go as deep 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:04.639 as we can, right, and we are also in this 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.199 time building pieces of glass that can see further and 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.280 further into space, therefore larger and larger things at the 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:12.879 same time. 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:14.240 So it is just. 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:19.239 Really it's cool to think that humanity is exploring the 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:24.280 concepts of above end below simultaneously, and those two different 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.040 disciplines or those two different pursuits are increasing on this 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.360 line that we can kind of follow. We can look 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.480 at this graph as like man's ability to break down 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:39.360 things and get deeper is not exactly simultaneously, but increasing 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.040 in the same way. That is, to see larger, deeper, older. 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:48.600 Things, absolutely expanding concurrently toward both ends of an observable spectrum, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.480 and then getting to the edge of that spectrum and 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.720 asking what else is out there in that horizon or indeed, 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:57.440 that chasm. 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.800 And then the next piece of technology comes along and 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.080 you do get to go a little bit further right, 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.280 just a little bit, just a little. 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:08.960 And then you look back and you realize, oh, crap, yep, 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.400 the other stuff was wrong. So you know, we got 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.879 to shout out so many people. We're not going to 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.480 get to the mall, but let's shout out Aristotle. He's 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.400 kind of the Lebron or the Michael Jordan of physics 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.160 during his time. So this guy sits down, hey, looks 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.800 at everybody else's ideas. They're all the ones that he 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.680 can access, right, all the stuff he's read, and he's 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.600 very well read for his time, and he says, let 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:37.119 me bring all these things together. Let's make one sort 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:41.600 of posse mixtape theory about the way the universe and 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:49.080 reality works. He also is imperfect. He popularizes the cartoonishly 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.879 incorrect idea of a geocentric heavenly system, meaning Earth is 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:59.480 in the middle. But hey, even Michael Jordan didn't make 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:03.560 every li up. The thing is, people respected Aristotle so 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.560 so much that he got just enough right for both 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:13.280 his correct ideas and his incorrect ideas to dominate European 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:18.359 science and Islamic science for thousands of years after his death. 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.640 At that point, the modern world does owe a lot 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:27.840 of debt to the Islamic Golden Age, wherein Muslim scholars 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:34.119 preserved and elaborated on Greek thought, as Europe largely languished, 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:36.400 you know, and a lot of people have a problem 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:41.320 with describing that era as the Dark Ages. But Europe was, 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.400 you know, fallen. I was going to say falling off 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.520 the horse. I don't know if that's an idiom in English. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.320 Europe has fallen behind, and some of this knowledge could 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.360 have been lost to antiquity had it not been for 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:00.520 the brilliant Muslim scholars of the Islamic Golden Age. And 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:06.479 now we see. Physics therefore becomes this intergenerational global historic epic. 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.600 It spans all races, all creeds, all cultures, all religions. 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.639 There are too many luminaries for Matt and I to 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.000 shout out here. I mean, just think of the scientific 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.840 revolution alone, right, But we could argue this is a 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.200 good thing, because it turns out it takes a lot 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.360 of people working together over time to understand what we 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.320 call the universe, or even to define the universe. 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:36.000 And with all of that, years and years pass, at 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.119 least as we experience them, and human beings are born 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.000 and die, and born and die, born and die, and 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.760 finally we arrive at the modern day, where there are 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:52.080 scientists across the globe attempting to search for things we 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.240 have yet to fully grasp, and even the things that 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.719 we think we grasp, there are scientists attempting to break 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.000 those systems and those thoughts so that we can move 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:05.280 forward in maybe a different way, because just like back then, 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.719 as we described in Europe, maybe our thinking is stuck 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.359 in some ways or you know, went back the wrong 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:14.840 way and we just haven't realized it yet. And that 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:16.840 is super freaking cool. 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.399 Yeah, Yeah, I think physics is best understood as a 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:27.440 conversation rather than a set of tablets and directives, almost 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.000 a philosophy stone. Yes, very much so. Yeah, especially when 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:32.920 you get to the edges, which we'll talk about. You 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:38.000 know any as any hapless undergrad student can assure you 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:40.960 and shout out, by the way to all the up 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.320 and coming college students who just got their acceptance letters, 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:50.080 congratulations and good luck. But if you are a hapless 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:55.199 undergrad student, then you know well that physics is deceptively 0:22:55.400 --> 0:23:00.359 deep water. It starts out simple enough, right, Thermodynamics, I 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:04.520 get it, the creation, destruction, et cetera, transformation matter, I 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:07.000 get it. But then you turn to the next page, 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:11.040 and this quickly becomes so complicated and like you were saying, 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:16.240 if you go far enough into the outskirts of accepted thought, 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:18.359 if you go out there to the bleeding edge, the 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.120 ink of science that has yet to be determined, you'll 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.960 hit a conceptual landscape that feels a lot less like 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:32.240 stem and a lot more like philosophy or metaphysics. They'll 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:36.560 readily admit this the world's greatest physicist, especially with the 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:43.040 crazy questions they're essentially guessing. They're leveraging thousands of years 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:49.760 of knowledge beforehand, their own deep acumen, theoretical analysis and experiments. 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:53.680 But these guys literally make bets with each other about 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:57.840 a possibility or a theory, and it's almost never a 0:23:57.920 --> 0:24:00.720 huge amount of money. It's like, I bet you a 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.800 dollar that this is the thing about black holes, and 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:07.719 the other guy says, all right, tally hope you know. 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:13.359 And then nobody gets paid ever, because when will we 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.119 find out about black holes? One day? 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.840 Maybe? Oh gosh, hopefully in time. So this is inspiring, 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:24.440 frustrating stuff. And here we are twenty twenty five. That's 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:26.840 just a brief look at the origin of physics. There 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:30.000 seems to be something new ever on the horizon, and 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:32.080 I think a big part of that is due to 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:36.760 technological breakthroughs that have made it possible to prove some 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:41.679 of these guesses, models or theories. The question is, could 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:47.160 these end up breaking the concept of traditional physics as 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:47.680 we know it? 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:54.600 Yes, yes, and we'll tell you about those in just 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:55.040 a moment. 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:04.680 Here's where it gets crazy, all right, So, as we know, 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:10.679 like actually yes, so bizarre, how bizarre? How bizarre? There 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:13.520 are different branches of study in physics. We all know 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:17.480 that classical physics is concerned with the stuff you see 0:25:17.640 --> 0:25:21.200 every day. I pick up a I pick up a wallet, 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:27.080 I drop the wallet. Gravity, right, and you can always 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:32.119 encounter gravity on the planet in your day to day activities. 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:36.000 It's kind of a Goldilocks zone of phenomenon, right, So 0:25:36.040 --> 0:25:39.520 we're dealing with speeds that are always much lower than 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:43.680 the speed of light. We're dealing with sizes to your point, 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:46.840 matt that are much larger than atoms, but there's still 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.920 like in astronomical terms, they're T T and T tiny, 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:55.679 and really human civilization is pretty good at understanding stuff 0:25:55.680 --> 0:25:58.639 on this level. The problem is, as you alluded to, 0:25:59.119 --> 0:26:02.560 once we get the very extreme ends of the spectrum, 0:26:02.760 --> 0:26:05.920 the very very tidy stuff, the very very big stuff, 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:09.760 those rules are less sacro sanct They get fuzzy, they 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:11.160 start to erode. 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:16.520 Yeah, that's where you get, you know, miles and miles 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:20.040 of a tube that's filled with magnets, and then we 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:24.679 throw at single atoms around and accelerate them until they 0:26:24.720 --> 0:26:27.560 get crazy fast, almost the speed of light, and then 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:30.640 smash them together and see what happens after. And then 0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:33.560 you find new particles that you didn't know existing, or 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:37.080 sub atomic particles and stuff that goes even deeper than that. 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:40.560