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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I got a tough question for you. Oh goody,

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Speaker 1: that's what I live for. All right. Well you might

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Speaker 1: regret that, but here it is. Is physics real or pretend? Boom?

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Wow. I don't even know how to

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Speaker 1: begin to answer that. What you don't have an answer?

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Speaker 1: You mean it could all just be made up? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, physics tries to describe the universe, but it

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Speaker 1: might all just be like a convenient mathematical story in

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Speaker 1: our head. Yes, math is pretty convenient, I think. I

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Speaker 1: guess my next question is then our physicists real or

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Speaker 1: are you also made up? I'm not sure. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm definitely making it up as I go. Well, at

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Speaker 1: least you're keeping it real or pretending to Yah, hi

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Speaker 1: am or Hey, I'm a cartoonist and the co author

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Speaker 1: of Frequently Ask Questions about the Universe. Hi, I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and a professor at U c Irvine,

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Speaker 1: or at least I pretend to be. Do you have

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Speaker 1: to dress up also like Halloween? Do you have a

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Speaker 1: professor costume you put on every morning? Yeah? I'm wearing

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Speaker 1: my professor costume right now. Sure, jeans and sandals right right.

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Speaker 1: I guess socks are not part of the costume. Ever. No,

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Speaker 1: I believe strongly in the toe liberation movement. Toes should

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Speaker 1: be able to breathe. You're a big t LM fan activist.

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Speaker 1: I'm m sure how we got started talking about my

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Speaker 1: toes already on the podcast. Well, to stands for a

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Speaker 1: theory of everything, right exactly, And you want to let

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Speaker 1: your theories breathe. Hopefully that's so they don't smell, you know,

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Speaker 1: if nobody wants a stinky theory, Hey, I'll take any

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Speaker 1: working theory. I don't care what it smells like. Oh really,

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Speaker 1: you might regret saying that. Also, Welcome to the stinky

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Speaker 1: cheese theory of the universe. We are pretty cheesy, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: But anyways, Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain

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

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Speaker 1: we explore the real universe that may actually be out there.

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Speaker 1: All those crazy quantum particles frothing and bubbling and waving

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Speaker 1: and interfering and weaving together to make an incredible experience

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Speaker 1: for me and for you, one chock full of bizarre

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Speaker 1: effects and strange mysteries. Mysteries that we hope to be

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Speaker 1: able to unravel with the little brain made up of

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Speaker 1: its own quantum particles, the universe trying to understand itself.

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Speaker 1: And here we are, a tiny little part of the

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Speaker 1: universe trying to explain the rest of it to you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is a mystery is universe. It's huge, It's full

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Speaker 1: of incredible and sometimes unbelievable things where you go, what

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Speaker 1: is that for real? Or is that just made up

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Speaker 1: by physicists and physics is just sort of like a

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Speaker 1: never ending stream of moments like that where we're like,

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Speaker 1: how could that be possible? How could it be that

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Speaker 1: the universe is actually this way? Think about when people

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Speaker 1: discovered the Wow, the universe might be describable by physical laws,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's all like clockwork, like deterministic. That must have

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Speaker 1: been an incredible moment to feel like our brains could

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Speaker 1: describe the universe in a way that predicts its future.

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Speaker 1: And then the rug was pulled out from under that

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Speaker 1: big idea when we discovered the universe maybe not predictable,

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Speaker 1: maybe not deterministic, and even crazier more bonkers realization. It

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Speaker 1: kind of says to me, Daniel, like this is keep

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Speaker 1: getting it wrong, Like if you got it right the

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Speaker 1: first time, you don't need to have your mind blown

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Speaker 1: so many times, but just keep a striking out. It

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Speaker 1: seems physically is definitely wrong. The goal is to make

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Speaker 1: it less and less wrong over time, right, is to

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Speaker 1: make it writer and writer as we go. We hope

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Speaker 1: to be asymptotically approaching the truth. But you know, we

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Speaker 1: may never get there. We may never find a theory

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Speaker 1: that we say, this is it. It works, it's satisfying,

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Speaker 1: it's simple, We're done. Sounds like a great model for

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Speaker 1: your department. Just trying to get it less wrong. I

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Speaker 1: think that's a pretty good goal, right, to be the

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Speaker 1: least wrong. We're trying to be humble also, right there.

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Speaker 1: Some humility is important in academia, right right, because it's

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Speaker 1: so rare, right, but like it never happens, it's pretend well.

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Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite qualities actually, in my collaborators.

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Speaker 1: I work with some of the smartest people on the planet,

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Speaker 1: but the ones who are most fun to work with

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Speaker 1: all the ones that still have some humility, that know

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Speaker 1: that anybody can make mistakes. Nice, and it is an

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Speaker 1: interesting universe in which to guess how it might all

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Speaker 1: be working and the way we do that is by

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Speaker 1: asking questions about the universe. We wonder how it all works,

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Speaker 1: why things are the way they are, and how did

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Speaker 1: it all come to be. Yeah. An important part of

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Speaker 1: figuring out how the universe works is asking why is

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Speaker 1: it this way and not some other way? Why does

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Speaker 1: the universe follow this law? Why doesn't it follow this

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Speaker 1: other law which would seem to make much more sense

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Speaker 1: to us. It's a deep part of being human to

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Speaker 1: ask these questions about the universe, to try to understand

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Speaker 1: what the rules are and what our place is in

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Speaker 1: those rules. Yeah, because we are all part of the universe,

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Speaker 1: and as humans we seem to be born I asked,

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Speaker 1: But the question asking gene do you think it's embedded

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Speaker 1: in our genetic instructions? Daniel, This sort of propensity, this

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Speaker 1: tendency to ask questions about the universe, about the things

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Speaker 1: around this, I don't know. It makes me wonder about

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Speaker 1: the nature of intelligence and whether asking questions and curiosity

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Speaker 1: is all tied up with intelligence, whether it's an evolutionary trait,

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Speaker 1: you know, whether curiosity didn't kill the cat. It fed

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Speaker 1: the cat because the cat was wondering, like, is that

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Speaker 1: thing tasty? And crunched on it. And sometimes the answer

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Speaker 1: is yes, maybe it killed the curious cats, but then

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Speaker 1: it's saved like the curious monkeys. You know, maybe it's

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Speaker 1: a double edged sword. Curiosity save some species, but uh,

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Speaker 1: it's some of them that didn't quite make it right

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Speaker 1: because we don't have intelligent cats running around. Cats are

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Speaker 1: pretty intelligent, you know, not as intelligent as dogs, but

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Speaker 1: you can definitely identify curiosity in other species, right. You

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Speaker 1: can tell when your dog is curious about something, or

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Speaker 1: even a rat can sniffing around trying to understand what

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Speaker 1: something is. Of course, we'll never know what it's like

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Speaker 1: to be a rat or a cat or a bat,

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Speaker 1: just like we'll never know what it's to be another person,

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Speaker 1: but it does feel like being curious is part of

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Speaker 1: being alive. We might not be able to answer that

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Speaker 1: question until we meet aliens and discover whether or not

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Speaker 1: they are also curious about the universe, right, and whether

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Speaker 1: they have alien cats who who don't ask questions? And also, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: did you just say cats are dumber than dogs? Cats

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Speaker 1: definitely dumber than dogs. Absolutely, that's lost half of our

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Speaker 1: audience right now. Cat lowers are are pretty fierce. I

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Speaker 1: love cats. Cats are wonderful, they're great pets. Let me

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Speaker 1: ask you this, Can cats learn? Can cats be trained?

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Speaker 1: Pretty sure that you can, right, It's certainly possible to

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Speaker 1: teach your cats stuff. I think dogs definitely show a

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Speaker 1: larger capacity for learning, so I think they're more intelligent.

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Speaker 1: I'm not expert in this stuff, so if you feel

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Speaker 1: strongly about cats being intelligent, please write to Jorge and

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Speaker 1: tell him all about it. Yes, my email is Daniel

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Speaker 1: at Daniel and horrhe dot com. And well, regardless of

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Speaker 1: whether cats are smarter or dumber than dogs, humans definitely

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Speaker 1: are pretty smart. And we've been asking questions about the

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Speaker 1: universe since we were cave men and women and cave children.

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Speaker 1: Because we have questions about the universe, right, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of a fascinating thing that we all wonder about. How

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Speaker 1: does it all work? Yeah, And that's all that science is.

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Speaker 1: It's just a bunch of folks asking questions. It's people

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Speaker 1: for whom the questions were the most important thing in life.

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Speaker 1: And every little piece of science that comes out every

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Speaker 1: time you read a news article about like the life

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Speaker 1: cycle of newts, or how plants grow, or why rocks

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Speaker 1: look a certain color, that's because one person decided that

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Speaker 1: was the most important question in the universe when they

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Speaker 1: had to devote years of their life to understanding. Though,

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Speaker 1: these questions really do drive knowledge forward, and it sounds

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Speaker 1: like somebody needs to read that article Are Cats Smarter

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Speaker 1: than Dogs? Sounds like great clickbait. But it's not just

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Speaker 1: scientists that ask questions. It's everyday people, people like you.

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Speaker 1: They are listening to this podcast, and sometimes our listeners

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Speaker 1: send us their questions and sometimes we even answer it

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Speaker 1: on the podcast. That's right. We want to hear about

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Speaker 1: your questions about the universe. Maybe something we said on

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Speaker 1: the podcast that you didn't understand, or follow up question

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Speaker 1: to something we discuss, or something you read about in

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Speaker 1: the news, or just something you've been thinking about as

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Speaker 1: you stare up at the night sky. You have questions

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Speaker 1: about the universe, we have answers. Please write to us

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Speaker 1: two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. We answer

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Speaker 1: every message and we will answer yours. So today on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we'll be tackling listener questions Number twenty nine.

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Speaker 1: Is it real or pretend edition? Is that the real

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Speaker 1: title or is that just the pretend title. Well, if

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Speaker 1: you're a cat. Then that's the real title of your dog.

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Speaker 1: Then you know, you can make up whatever you're like.

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Speaker 1: Oh now you're giving dogs extra rights. Oh man, you're

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Speaker 1: you're a real catterpressor here. You know. I used to

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Speaker 1: be a cat person because we had cats for many,

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Speaker 1: many years. Then I had kids and my kids are

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Speaker 1: allergic to cats, and the kids wanted to get a dog.

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Speaker 1: Now I find myself a dog person, so still love cats,

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Speaker 1: but presently have a dog in the family. I see,

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Speaker 1: you have to pick a side, you know, your kids

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Speaker 1: or cats. You chose their kids. I think that was

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Speaker 1: the right choice. I mean, also in parenting. I'm just

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Speaker 1: trying to get it less and less wrong every year. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: am high. But we do have some awesome questions here today.

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Speaker 1: And there does seem to be a sort of theme

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Speaker 1: about things being real or pretend. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: sort of if scenarios here, like what happens if this happens,

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Speaker 1: And that's an important part of doing science, you know,

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Speaker 1: considering hypotheticals, testing your ideas by considering what might happen

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Speaker 1: in this scenario, what might happen in that scenario. It's

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Speaker 1: a great way to do physics. You know, somebody tells

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Speaker 1: you about how something works, don't just digest it and

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Speaker 1: think about the consequences. What about this scenario, How does

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Speaker 1: that fit with this other idea? I learned that's the

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Speaker 1: way you can weave all these ideas together into a

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Speaker 1: complete and holistic understanding of the universe, which, of course

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Speaker 1: is the goal of physics. Yeah, because that's kind of

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Speaker 1: what science is. Right. It's like you never stop asking questions.

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Speaker 1: Even if you find an answer, you can get a

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Speaker 1: look for the other question. It's a very annoying habbit. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it means you always have something to do. And

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Speaker 1: even if you think you understand something in one circumstance,

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Speaker 1: like you think you know what your dog will do

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Speaker 1: if you feed it a treat, you might wonder what

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Speaker 1: will my dog do if the treat is inside a

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Speaker 1: box where he can't smell it, but he can see

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Speaker 1: the treat. These questions help you understand more deeply what's

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Speaker 1: going on inside your dog's head. Yeah, I guess are

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Speaker 1: you saying dogs or physicists also? Or physicist dogs? Where

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Speaker 1: is this analogy going? Launching a whole new podcast called

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Speaker 1: The Physics of Dogs. Oh man, you give me the

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Speaker 1: dog physicist coming to the Discovery Channel next season, We're

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Speaker 1: going to take a bite out of black holes, give

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Speaker 1: me a real treat. All right, Well, we have some

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Speaker 1: awesome questions through today, some of them about aliens, some

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Speaker 1: of them about black holes going too fast, and also

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Speaker 1: some about giant space collisions that are maybe mind blowing

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Speaker 1: or hard to imagine. So our first question comes from Avanni,

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Speaker 1: who is six years old. Hello, my name's Avanni. Anni

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Speaker 1: said to my question is a re a ling lot Bretton.

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Speaker 1: All right, Sorry if Annie I said you were six,

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Speaker 1: but you're nearly six, which is even more impressive than

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Speaker 1: you're asking these questions. It's a great question. I love

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Speaker 1: this question, such a basic question but also such a

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Speaker 1: deep philosophical question. Yeah, Annie wants to know our aliens

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Speaker 1: real or pretend? Boy, I feel like we could have

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Speaker 1: a whole podcast series just on that question. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's so many wrinkles. They're like, is anything real? Is

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Speaker 1: it all just pretend? What does it mean to pretend?

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Speaker 1: What does it mean to be an alien? You can

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Speaker 1: go down a real rabbit hole here. Yeah. A big

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Speaker 1: part of doing physics is coming up with pretend scenarios

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Speaker 1: and asking like, well, could that be real? How do

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Speaker 1: we know? Often before we see things out there, we

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Speaker 1: do come up with the idea for what might be

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Speaker 1: out there. So, you know, before the Higgs particle was observed,

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Speaker 1: was it real or was it pretended? Was just an

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Speaker 1: idea in our minds until we found it? And have

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Speaker 1: you figured that out yet? We pretend to. Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: But you know, actually, my daughter, I think when she

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Speaker 1: was around five or six, she asked me this almost

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Speaker 1: the same question, like the aliens were real or not?

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Speaker 1: I guess when you're that age, you get a lot

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Speaker 1: of like stories about aliens or movies about aliens or

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Speaker 1: shows about aliens, and you're like, and you're probably in

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Speaker 1: your little brain you're thinking, is this for real? Or

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Speaker 1: is this just like you know, dragons and unicorns? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I think it comes from seeing fictionalized portrayals of stuff.

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Speaker 1: But you know, you might ask, like, well, why are

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Speaker 1: aliens in fiction? Why do we tell stories about aliens?

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Speaker 1: Why are they in the movies? Why are they on

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Speaker 1: the brains? Right? They're on the brains because we wonder

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Speaker 1: if they are real, because we think about them as

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Speaker 1: a way to explore this question of are we alone

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Speaker 1: in the universe? Right, So it's an important part of

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Speaker 1: doing science is coming up with these pretend scenarios. Oh boy,

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Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say it's because they're real,

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Speaker 1: Like if there's some kind of conspiracy going on here,

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Speaker 1: I want them to be real obviously, Like I would

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Speaker 1: love to talk to aliens about physics and learn all

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Speaker 1: sorts of things about how to look at the universe

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Speaker 1: from a different perspective. But of course we don't know

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Speaker 1: if they're real. I guess is that the basic answer

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Speaker 1: that you would give a body is that we don't

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Speaker 1: know if aliens are real or pretend. Yeah, we don't

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Speaker 1: know currently they are just pretend. But why do we pretend?

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Speaker 1: We pretend because we hope that they are real, and

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Speaker 1: to discover them, we need to pretend that they are real.

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Speaker 1: We need to think about what they might be like

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Speaker 1: in order to know how to look for them. We

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Speaker 1: need to imagine different scenarios for how they might communicate,

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Speaker 1: how they might live, how they might think, so that

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Speaker 1: we are prepared to discover them, so we know where

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Speaker 1: to look and how to look for them. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that I guess, or pretend, Like the things you see

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Speaker 1: on TV right now, everything you see about aliens is

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Speaker 1: pretend somebody just made that up, but we actually don't

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Speaker 1: know if they are real or not, meaning that they

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Speaker 1: could be real. Yeah, they could be real. Aliens are

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Speaker 1: pretend the same way string theory is pretend like it's

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Speaker 1: a hypothetical, it's a possible scenario. We don't know if

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Speaker 1: it describes our actual universe. We play around with it

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Speaker 1: to see like does this make sense? Could it be real?

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Speaker 1: Sort of two steps in the question, they're right, like

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Speaker 1: could this be real? Is it allowed by the laws

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Speaker 1: of the universe as it explained the kind of things

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Speaker 1: we see, So we can ask questions like how could

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Speaker 1: else could you make life? And could life evolve in

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Speaker 1: other places in the universe? Is that consistent with our understanding?

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Speaker 1: And then, of course there's the second, totally severate question,

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Speaker 1: which is are they actually real. We might live in

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Speaker 1: the universe where aliens are possible but don't exist. Could

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Speaker 1: be that the universe allows for life to start at

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Speaker 1: other places, but that it just didn't. Well maybe for

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Speaker 1: somebody like Vanni. You can step us through, like why

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Speaker 1: do we think that aliens could be real? We've only

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Speaker 1: been to one planet Earth with life in it. What

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Speaker 1: makes us think that there could be other planets with

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Speaker 1: aliens in them. It's a great question, and I think

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Speaker 1: an important thing to remember is that something we've been

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Speaker 1: learning over the last few hundred years is that where

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Speaker 1: we are in the universe doesn't seem to be very special.

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Speaker 1: Like we're just in one little spot in one galaxy,

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Speaker 1: among billions and billions, maybe trillions, maybe an infinite number

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Speaker 1: of galaxies. So there's a huge wage universe out there,

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Speaker 1: and nothing about where we are seems to be very

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Speaker 1: special so far, Like the kind of star we have

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Speaker 1: is not that unusual star, and there's billions of stars.

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Speaker 1: The kind of planet we have, we've recently discovered that

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Speaker 1: there are lots of these kinds of planets, planets made

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Speaker 1: out of rock, not too far and not too close

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Speaker 1: to the Sun. That water is everywhere in the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's not too complicated, and so we can imagine ways

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Speaker 1: for life to have started on other planets. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it seems like there may have been many, many opportunities

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Speaker 1: for this to happen. We don't think that the chemicals

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Speaker 1: that we find here on Earth are unique or special,

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Speaker 1: and so it's not that hard to imagine life starting

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Speaker 1: in other places or maybe even many many other places

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Speaker 1: in the universe, right, I think the ideas that there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of planets out there, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of planets out there are sort of like the Earth.

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Speaker 1: They sort of maybe even look a lot like the

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Speaker 1: Earth with water and like a nice atmosphere, nice clouds

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Speaker 1: in the sky. And so those are the kinds of

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Speaker 1: planets that least what we know about of life. There

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Speaker 1: could be other living things in those planets. There could be,

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Speaker 1: and here we're just talking about life as we know it.

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Speaker 1: You conditions similar to Earth that might make life in

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Speaker 1: a way that's similar on Earth. And you know, an

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Speaker 1: important part to pretend though, is thinking about different aliens.

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Speaker 1: Rarely in movies do you see aliens looking exactly like humans,

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Speaker 1: Because we think that probably some aspects of life here

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Speaker 1: on Earth are basically random, that just evolution happened to

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Speaker 1: follow this path, and it could have followed another path.

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Speaker 1: We don't really know, like what are the spectrum of

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Speaker 1: possible options. What else could have evolved and have been intelligent.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to think outside of this box because we're

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Speaker 1: just so used to life on Earth, and it's possible

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Speaker 1: that life on other planets looks a little bit different

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Speaker 1: from life on our planet, or could be fundamentally radically

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Speaker 1: mind blowing lee different in ways that are hard for

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Speaker 1: us to even imagine. Right, But I guess even though

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of planets out there, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of them that looked like the Earth, we sort

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Speaker 1: of don't know if what makes you know living things

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Speaker 1: happened in a planet like that is special or whether

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Speaker 1: that's common too, Like there might be a Brazilian planet

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Speaker 1: like the Earth out there, but maybe like our planet

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Speaker 1: is the only one where things just happened to come alive.

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Speaker 1: That's a possibility, right, That's definitely a possibility because there's

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Speaker 1: a gap in our understanding. I said earlier that we

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Speaker 1: think the chemistry of Earth is probably not unique. But

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Speaker 1: what we don't understand is how you get from the

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Speaker 1: chemistry of Earth to life on Earth. How do you

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Speaker 1: go from a primordial soup of like building blocks of

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Speaker 1: life to actual life, self reproducing objects that can build complexity.

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Speaker 1: We do not understand that step, like we don't understand

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Speaker 1: how it happened here precisely, which means that we can't

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Speaker 1: say how likely it is to happen somewhere else, and

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Speaker 1: our ignorant ranges from like, oh, it can be pretty common.

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Speaker 1: You get it like half the time. If you have

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Speaker 1: a primordial soup and it sits around for a few

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Speaker 1: million years slashing on alien shores, that fifty percent of

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Speaker 1: the time you get life. You know. Arguments in favor

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Speaker 1: of that are that it didn't take that long on

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Speaker 1: Earth for life to start. We think, you know, less

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Speaker 1: than a billion years after the Earth began. We think

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Speaker 1: there might have been like a little micro On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, it could be super duper rare. It could

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Speaker 1: be that it takes trillions and trillions of planets for

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Speaker 1: it to happen. One time. We could be the only

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Speaker 1: life in the entire universe because it's just so rare.

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Speaker 1: We just don't understand the mechanism for that. So we

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Speaker 1: don't have any idea how rare or how common that

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Speaker 1: crucial step is. Right, And I guess if I'm a

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Speaker 1: six year old or nearly six year old like Evanni,

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Speaker 1: I might be wondering right now, like how can we

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Speaker 1: not know if there are aliens out there? Like can't

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Speaker 1: we just look at them or good to them or

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Speaker 1: see them from Earth? Yeah, we do know something, right,

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Speaker 1: if there were aliens everywhere. If there were aliens on

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Speaker 1: Mars and on Venus and building civilizations around Jupiter, then

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Speaker 1: we would have seen them. So we know the universe

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Speaker 1: is not like overwhelmed with life. It's not like brimming

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Speaker 1: with life. Even if they were like really fancy aliens

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Speaker 1: and one star over, we might have seen messages from them.

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Speaker 1: We might have heard from them already. So in our

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Speaker 1: little vicinity, it seems like, you know, there isn't any

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Speaker 1: other life that we have found yet. There are still

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Speaker 1: some places in the Solar System we haven't looked, and

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Speaker 1: there are lots of ways for alien life to be

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Speaker 1: like kind of nearby but not that close, and us

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Speaker 1: to not have seen it. But so far our neighborhood

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Speaker 1: seems sort of abandoned except for us, right at least

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Speaker 1: for now, right Like, it could also be that there

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Speaker 1: were aliens here or around a long time ago, but

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Speaker 1: they're not anymore. Or it could be that there will

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Speaker 1: be aliens in our neighborhood in the future, just not

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Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, the universe is a very long trajectory.

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Speaker 1: Our life cycles and the whole history of humanity on

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Speaker 1: Earth is just a blip in the cosmic history. So

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Speaker 1: it might be that aliens lived around a nearby star

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Speaker 1: for a billion years and then died out and we

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Speaker 1: just missed them. Or they might arise in two billion

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Speaker 1: years and last for a trillion years. But we're just

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Speaker 1: a little bit too early. There's lots of ways for

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Speaker 1: us to not see aliens. All right, Well, then, I

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Speaker 1: think the answer for Evanni is that the universe is

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Speaker 1: so big that aliens are probably real, but so far

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Speaker 1: we just have to pretend that their pretend because we

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Speaker 1: haven't seen any or talked to any yet so far,

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Speaker 1: and that pretending about aliens is an important way of

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Speaker 1: actually discovering them, thinking about what they might be like. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's part of using your imagination, which is a big

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Speaker 1: part of using your curiosity, which is a big part

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Speaker 1: of signs. And maybe, Vonnie, you'll grow up and be

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Speaker 1: the one to discover aliens. All right, Well, let's get

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Speaker 1: it to our other questions here about fast moving black

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Speaker 1: holes and also white hole coalitions. But first let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. All right, we are answering listener questions

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Speaker 1: here today, and Daniel, are we for real answering them

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Speaker 1: or just pretending to answer them? I'm not sure. I

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Speaker 1: know the difference anymore. Your life is a blur. You're

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Speaker 1: doing fiction, you're doing physics. What is real? Man? I'm

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Speaker 1: really pretending to do my best. All right, Well, we

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Speaker 1: have our second question here of the day, and this

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Speaker 1: one comes from Jeff, and he's wondering what happens when

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Speaker 1: heavy things go really fast? Hi, Daniel and horror. Hey,

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Speaker 1: my name is Jeff, and I've got a question for

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Speaker 1: you about high energy photons, black holes, and relativity. I've

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Speaker 1: heard that if you can get enough energy in a

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Speaker 1: small enough volume, a black hole conform. Right, if you

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Speaker 1: had a laser that could shoot ultra high energy photons,

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Speaker 1: those photons could become black holes. But what would an

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Speaker 1: observer are moving close to the speed of light relative

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Speaker 1: to that laser c bec as those photons and that

429
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:27,640
Speaker 1: reference frame would have less energy. They shouldn't observe these

430
00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 1: photons becoming black holes. It sounds kind of paradoxical. I'm

431
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:32,920
Speaker 1: sure I'm missing a subtle point somewhere. But if you

432
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,160
Speaker 1: could help shine a light on it, that would be appreciated.

433
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,199
Speaker 1: All Right, that is a pretty mind blown question. I'm

434
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: gonna pretend that I understood it, but I think what

435
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,919
Speaker 1: he's asking, Jeff is asking, is that black holes form?

436
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:47,919
Speaker 1: Because when you have enough energy in one spot, And

437
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:49,600
Speaker 1: so if you take a little rock and you get

438
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:51,879
Speaker 1: it going really fast, doesn't it get a lot of

439
00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 1: kinetic energy? And if it has enough kinetic energy, doesn't

440
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,399
Speaker 1: it at some point become a black hole because of

441
00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,240
Speaker 1: its kinetic energy. Yes, it's a really good question gen

442
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,679
Speaker 1: about like whether observers in different frames, moving at different

443
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: speeds all see a black hole made at the same time.

444
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 1: Do they agree about whether something is a black hole

445
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 1: or not? And it's a great question because energy is relative, right,

446
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:18,640
Speaker 1: Like if I'm holding a rock, I see it having

447
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: no velocity, so it has no kinetic energy. Whereas if

448
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 1: you're running by at se the speed of light because

449
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: you're really fast, you measured that rock to have a

450
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 1: lot of velocity relative to you, and so a lot

451
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,720
Speaker 1: of energy relative to you. So you see that rock

452
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 1: is having more energy. So in principle, you could say, oh,

453
00:22:35,119 --> 00:22:37,320
Speaker 1: that rock has enough energy to form a black hole,

454
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 1: and I could say no, it doesn't have enough energy

455
00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: to form a black hole. But you know, one of

456
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 1: us would have to be right, because either it's the

457
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 1: black hole or it's not right. Because velocity is relative, right,

458
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 1: it depends on how you measure it. And so does

459
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 1: that mean then that kinetic energy is also relative, Like

460
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't really exist. Kinetic energy is definitely relative. And

461
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: there's an important difference between things being conserved and things

462
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: being invariant, right, Like something's invariant if everybody measures it

463
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 1: and gets the same answer. Like everybody measures the speed

464
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:06,879
Speaker 1: of light to be the speed of light, no matter

465
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: what frame you're in, how fast you're going, etcetera. Not

466
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: everybody measures velocity to be the same number. If you're

467
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 1: moving relative to me, then you have a different measurement

468
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,640
Speaker 1: of my velocity, and so a different measurement of my energy.

469
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: Right now, in your frame, energy is conserved and in

470
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 1: my frame energy is conserved. But we actually measure different

471
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 1: amounts of energy. So energy is conserved that is in

472
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: flat space, right, But it's not invariant, So different people

473
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 1: measure different amounts of energy. Yes, it's relative. So I

474
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 1: think that's the paradox that Jeff pointed to, is that

475
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: you're they're holding a rock to you. The rock has

476
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: no energy, right, it's just sitting there in your the

477
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 1: palm of your hand. But for me, that I'm going

478
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 1: at seventy the speed of light zooming past you. I'm

479
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:49,880
Speaker 1: seeing you from my point of view. I'm seeing you

480
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,680
Speaker 1: and the rock have a ton of energy, right because

481
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: you have fast and you're moving really fast relative to me.

482
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, there's so much energy there. Well,

483
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: first of all, I can't believe Daniels wiming fast, but

484
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: there's so much energy there. The black hole should be

485
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 1: forming there. I mean, it would be a really short moment.

486
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:09,679
Speaker 1: There would be like, well, oh, aready gone. I wouldn't

487
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: wonder about it too long. It's a really fun question,

488
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 1: and it gives us an opportunity to understand a little

489
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: bit more about general relativity. The short answer is that, remember,

490
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 1: a black hole is curvature of space, and that it

491
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,880
Speaker 1: forms when you have enough energy density in a certain location.

492
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: But it's not that simple exactly. It's not just like

493
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 1: more energy density means more curvature and eventually you hit

494
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: a threshold and you get a black hole. It's more

495
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 1: complicated than just like a certain amount of energy density.

496
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: It's not just like one number that controls the solution

497
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: to Einstein's equations. Einstein's equations are a big, complicated nightmare,

498
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: and different pieces of it feed in slightly differently. It's

499
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: not just like you measure the energy density. This is

500
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: this thing called the stress energy tensor. And kinetic energy

501
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,640
Speaker 1: feeds in differently from potential energy, which feeds in differently

502
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: from other kinds of energy. So it all sort of

503
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: dances together and to get a solution, Well, I guess

504
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: maybe the basic question is does kinetic energy bend space? Also?

505
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 1: Like I have a rock moving really fast, is that

506
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: kinetic energy bending the space around the rock as it's moving?

507
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: Or even if I just have a like a photon

508
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 1: which has sort of momentum, right, kinetic energy, is that

509
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: photon bending space also? It can? Right? It does contribute, right,

510
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: It's not like the universe just ignores kinetic energy. It

511
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: does contribute to the effects on space, right. But it's

512
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: not trivial. It's not like you can just add up

513
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: all the energy and say here you have enough to

514
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: have a black hole. Ein sense equations, remember, are very complicated,

515
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 1: so it's not easy to say, here's this configuration. Now

516
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 1: we know exactly what happens. And in fact, it's really

517
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 1: a nightmare to solve E sense equations For anything with

518
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: kinetic energy. I mean, it's a nightmare to solve it

519
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: in almost any circumstances. We've only ever solved Einsteins equations

520
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 1: under a few very specific, very simple situations, like a

521
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 1: huge amount of mass at rest or the universe filled

522
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: comogeneous le wouldn't matter. We haven't even solved different simple

523
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: things like two objects orbiting each other. Right, that's too

524
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 1: complicated for us to figure out. And so to solve

525
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: these problems, what we typically do is we use a trick.

526
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: We say, well, this problem is too hard to solve.

527
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:16,199
Speaker 1: We don't know how to solve the problem of I

528
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: have a rock moving past me with a lot of

529
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,959
Speaker 1: kinetic energy. I can't solve that one. But can I

530
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: solve a different problem that I know has the same answer.

531
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,719
Speaker 1: So one thing we know about general relativity is that

532
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: it is invariant. Everybody should agree about what happens. But

533
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 1: whether there's a black hole, regardless of your coordinates, how

534
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: you choose your reference frame, how you organize spacetime, right

535
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: where you put your axes shouldn't matter. Everybody should agree

536
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: about whether or not there is a black hole. So

537
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: that's a short answer. Jorge and I can't disagree about

538
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: whether the rock forms into a black hole. It's not

539
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: like he could see a form of black hole and

540
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 1: I don't. We have to agree. We know that the

541
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,679
Speaker 1: equations of general relativity are invariant, so we say, well,

542
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: let's solve the problem in the easier case where I'm

543
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 1: just holding the rock and I can ask the question,

544
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 1: doesn't have enough mass to form a black hole? Yes

545
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: or no? And then we say, well, Jorge must see

546
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: the same answer. We don't know how to solve the

547
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 1: equations for Jorge, but we know what the answer has

548
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: to be, meaning that because you don't see a black

549
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: hole in the ruck in your the palm of your hand,

550
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: then I shouldn't see a black hole when I'm moving

551
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: past you se of the speed of light. You're saying,

552
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: we should all come out with the same observation exactly.

553
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: And if we were better at math and we knew

554
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: how to solve that problem in the case of an

555
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: object moving really really fast, then we would get the

556
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: same answer. We know that that's true because we know

557
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: that general relativity is invariant, that no matter what frame

558
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 1: you solve it and you do get the same answer.

559
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: We just can't work through the details of that math

560
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: right now, because we don't know how to solve these

561
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: equations in every possible scenario. Though typically we just say, well,

562
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 1: let's solve it an easier case and then argue that

563
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: the answer must be the same in this other case.

564
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: It sounds like a pretend argument. But I guess is,

565
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: why do you why does it have to be that way?

566
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: You know, like, why couldn't do you see no black hole?

567
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:03,239
Speaker 1: But to me it looks like you are holding a

568
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: black hole, you know, like it maybe somehow it sort

569
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: of looks like it nothing can escape there. But to you,

570
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 1: it does seem like something can escape from your the

571
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:13,360
Speaker 1: palm of your hand. Why couldn't that be true? Well,

572
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: remember what the condition for a black hole is. We're

573
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: talking about an event horizon, talking about our region in

574
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: space where nothing can ever leave. So it would be

575
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: a paradox, right, if you see an event horizon, but

576
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: I don't. Right, that means that I could see a

577
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: photon leave this rock and strike you. But you're saying

578
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: that no photon could ever leave that rock and strike you. Right,

579
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: Those two things are in contradiction with each other. And

580
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: remember that there's lots of relativity. In relativity, right, people

581
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: can disagree about the order of events, for example, but

582
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: you know whether two things strike each other, for example,

583
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: whether that photon reaches Jorge or not are things that

584
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: all observers do have to agree on, all right, So

585
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: then what's kind of the answer here? If we both

586
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 1: have to see a black hole not forming in the

587
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: palm of your hand, then does that mean that my

588
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: velac city is irrelevant, like kinetic energy doesn't go into

589
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: really the formation of a black hole. Because I feel

590
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: like that's kind of what you're saying, is that me

591
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: moving fast is irrelevant, and therefore it can't affect whether

592
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 1: or not a black hole forms or not. That's right,

593
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: and that sort of makes sense. You know, if I'm

594
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: sitting here holding a rock and you're running by me

595
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: a mile away, how could you're running by me make

596
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: my rock implode into a black hole? Right? It doesn't

597
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: even make sense. And then whether or not a black

598
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: hole existed would depend on like everybody else's speed in

599
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: the universe. It shouldn't make sense, right, Your intuition tells

600
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: you that it's either a black hole or it's not.

601
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: And no matter how fast where he runs, he can't

602
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: turn my rock into a black hole. Well, I hate

603
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: to run, so that wouldn't happen anyways. I think what

604
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: you're saying is that you know, the formulas that say

605
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: what makes a black hole or what turns into a

606
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: black hole somehow sort of cancel out the effects of

607
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: kinetic energy. Because you said earlier that kinetic energy does

608
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: bend space, so you would think that it would help

609
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: form a black hole, but equations of the black hole

610
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: are such that it actually sort of ignores the kinetic energy. Yeah,

611
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: it all gets woven in a very complicated way that frankly,

612
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: we don't even really understand how to solve in an

613
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: exact way. We have like numerical solutions to this stuff,

614
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: but most of the solutions to general relativity are done

615
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: using these kind of assumptions like that everything is invariant,

616
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: that you get the same answer in every frame, so

617
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: let's find the one where it's easiest. And we do

618
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: this all the time in physics. You want to solve

619
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: a problem where like a ball is rolling down a plane,

620
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: then you choose axis that make that simple. You know

621
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: where your x axis is like aligned along the plane

622
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: rather than with the ground, because it makes the maths simpler.

623
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: So we're always doing this kind of thing where we

624
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: transform the problem to be a simpler one that has

625
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: the same answer. Cool. All right, Well, it sounds like

626
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: you're waving your hands with some math here a little bit.

627
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: But it sounds like the answer is that to answer

628
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: Jeff's question, is that fast moving objects do have extra

629
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: energy because of their kinetic energy, depending on who measures it,

630
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: But that kinetic energy can't affect the formation of whether

631
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: or not it forms a black hole exactly. And Jeff

632
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: actually asked his question in terms of photons, but the

633
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: same kind of principles apply. You know, you have enough

634
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: energy to form the black hole or you don't, and

635
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 1: it's the same in every frame. Well, we have one

636
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: more question here today, and it's about what happens when

637
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: white holes collide with black holes, and I'm guessing it's

638
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: not just that they form a gray hole. We'll get

639
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: into the real answer here and not to pretend one.

640
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break. All right, we

641
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: were answering listener questions and I feel like I've got

642
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: in my mind blown twice already. First of all, that

643
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: there's a nearly six kid thinking about aliens in the universe.

644
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's awesome. And also that black holes don't

645
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: depend on how fast you're moving. Yep, black holes are

646
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: mind blowing and they're really fun hypothetical questions to think

647
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: about to make sure that you want understand how they

648
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: work and what the rules are and how it all

649
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: comes together. It's really useful to think about crazy hypotheticals. Alright, well,

650
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: we have one more question here, and this one comes

651
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: from Carson Hi di Hore. Carson, here, I have a

652
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: question about black holes and white holes. Could you please

653
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:19,959
Speaker 1: explain what would happen if the two were to quiet?

654
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: And thanks for answering all my questions. Alright, awesome question, Carson.

655
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: That is a great question because I also wonder if

656
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,719
Speaker 1: I thought this myself. Carson's question is what happens if

657
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: I take a black hole and I make it crash

658
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: or collide with a white hole? It is a wonderful question.

659
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: I really love this. When I first got this question,

660
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: I thought, WHOA, I've never even thought about that. How

661
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: have I never considered what might happen in this scenario?

662
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: So I have to go off and think about a

663
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: little bit. And I also reached out to a quantum

664
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: gravity expert who will chime in a little bit later on.

665
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: You can just pretend that you came up with that information.

666
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: I can't pretend to be a quantum gravity expert as

667
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: hard as I try. Well, what happens when a white

668
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: hole collects with a black cool That's a great question,

669
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: and so let's step through this. What is exactly a

670
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: white hole? So a white hole is a really weird

671
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: theoretical object, and it's one of these things where it's

672
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: not even really well to find what it is. There's

673
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: sort of like a few white hole kind of ideas

674
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: out there that all sort of fall in this general category.

675
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: So the answer to the question depends a little bit

676
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: on what a white hole is. And it's sort of

677
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: like three different ideas that might be worth thinking about

678
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: for what a white hole is. I guess, first of all,

679
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: is this a real thing that physicists, a fuel that

680
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: really exists, or is this just like it's possible in

681
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: the equations but we don't really have sort of dug

682
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: into it to get the sense whe whether or not

683
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: it can't exist in the universe. Are you asking me

684
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: if white holes are real or pretend? Yeah, Well, I'm

685
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: asking if the theory is real or pretend. So white

686
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: holes do exist in the theory. We don't know if

687
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: white holes are real in our universe. And as you'll

688
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: hear about, some of the parts of the theory are

689
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: a little bit speculative and a little bit fuzzy, So

690
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: we're not sure whether white holes. Nobody's ever seen a

691
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: white hole, but there are parts of the theory that

692
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: suggests that they might be real. And if that sounds

693
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 1: pretty speculative, remember that until a few decades ago, black

694
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: holes were in the same category. They're in the kind

695
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: of thing that we're in the theory, and a lot

696
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: of people thought, well, that would never actually happen in reality.

697
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 1: And now we're pretty sure black holes are real, that

698
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,320
Speaker 1: they are out there. The white holes might be real,

699
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: or they might just be pretended. We're not sure. But

700
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:24,959
Speaker 1: that's where we are with white holes, is that we're

701
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: like three decades behind black holes, because I feel like

702
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: black holes, we thought they were maybe met real or

703
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 1: maybe not. Then we sort of saw evidence of their presence,

704
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: and then only until very recently do we have actual

705
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: pictures of them. Were still in the maybe they're not

706
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: real phase, right, we're never with black holes because the

707
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:44,399
Speaker 1: only way we know they are real is by looking

708
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: at the stuff that's nearby them, and black holes are

709
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: sort of like the only thing that fits that bill

710
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: until recently now we have some like alternative theories or

711
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: like what might be going on inside black holes is

712
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 1: maybe they're not actually gr black holes. And we'll talk

713
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: about that actually in a minute. But yeah, white holes

714
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: are behind black holes. Black holes we thought of, you know,

715
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: in the early part of the nine hundreds, and then

716
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: discovered indirectly fifty years later. White holes weren't really thought

717
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: about until like the sixties or seventies, when people who

718
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 1: are understanding the nature of general relativity a little bit

719
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: more deeply. So, yeah, they're bout fifty years behind black holes,

720
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: all right. So you were saying, there are three kinds

721
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: of white hole ideas or possibilities. What are they? So

722
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 1: the simplest one to think about is the endpoint of

723
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: a wormhole. A wormhole is like a connection between two

724
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: points in space where you can enter in one spot

725
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: and come out somewhere else. And this is possible because

726
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: general relativity tells us not just the space can do

727
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: things like wiggle or bend in the presence of mass.

728
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: It can also be like connected in weird ways. You

729
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: can like stitch it together to say, this point in

730
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: space over here is actually also next to that point

731
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: in space. Meaning instead of just being able to go

732
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: like up, down, left, right, side to side to adjacent points,

733
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: now one of those adjacent points is actually like somewhere

734
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: else in space, but also at the same time adjacent

735
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: to this point in space. So these wormholes can sometimes

736
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: be like a black hole linked to a white hole.

737
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: We fall into the black hole and you get spat

738
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: out the white hole on the other side. It's like

739
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: they almost like the opposite of a black hole. Yes,

740
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: so conceptionally a white hole is the opposite of a

741
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: black hole. Where a black hole has an event horizon

742
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: where nothing can escape, a white hole as an event

743
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: horizon where nothing can enter. It's like you've arrange the

744
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 1: shape of space in such a way that nothing can

745
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: ever cross that event horizon going in, the way in

746
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 1: a black hole, nothing can ever cross the event horizon

747
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: going out. Or a white hole, it's like the opposite,

748
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 1: I guess, meaning like if you shoot a photon at

749
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: a white hole will just bounce back. You will never

750
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: reach the event horizon exactly and maybe turn around and

751
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: come back. Well, the answer to that depends a little

752
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: bit on the form of the white hole that you're

753
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: talking about. In some theories it will fall forever towards

754
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: the event horizon but never actually cross it. All right, Well,

755
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: what's the second kind of white hole? So the second

756
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 1: kind of white hole sort of like a pure gr

757
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: white hole. It comes from looking at the solutions to

758
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 1: Einstein's equations. So you have like a big massive stuff,

759
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: so much stuff that you could get a black hole, right,

760
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: that's a solution to the equations. Turns out that general

761
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: relativity has this symmetry in it that every solution to

762
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,439
Speaker 1: general relativity also works backwards in time. General relativity doesn't

763
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: seem to prefer one direction in time. Like the description

764
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 1: going forward and description going backwards both are solutions to

765
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: Einstein's equation. So what that means is that, like, if

766
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: you have a massive stuff that can give you a

767
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: black hole where nothing can ever escape the event horizon,

768
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 1: then it also can give you a white hole. And

769
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: like the opposite solution, the time reverse solution of a

770
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: black hole is also a solution to the equations. So

771
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: I put a big blob of stuff in the universe.

772
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: It can give you a black hole where space has

773
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: been so everything falls in a crosses the event horizon

774
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: and never leaves. But it could also give you a

775
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: white hole, the opposite structure of space that nothing can

776
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: ever enter the event horizon. Wait, what it would be

777
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: because you have a lot of stuff. But would it

778
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: be random if it turns into a white hole or

779
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: a black hole like could be like a flip of

780
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: a coin. We don't really understand whether these solutions are physical. Right,

781
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 1: this is like a solution to the equation, but we

782
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: don't really understand, like does that mean these things can

783
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: actually exist? We've never seen one. It's sort of like

784
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: when you're solving an equation in math and you have

785
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: like an x squared equal to nine, X could be

786
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: three or x could be minus three, right, And sometimes

787
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: that makes sense and sometimes it just doesn't. Right. Sometimes

788
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 1: that's like a non physical solution, so you just ignore it.

789
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: We don't know if this is like a physical solution

790
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 1: or a non physical solution. One problem with this time

791
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: reverse scenario is that requires the black hole or the

792
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: white hole to be eternal for it to always be there.

793
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: For the time reversal solution to exist, it has to

794
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: like exist all the way back to negative infinity, otherwise

795
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: the symmetry would be broken. Right, the black hole is

796
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: formed at some moment by a collapsing star, for example,

797
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: that's how many black holes are formed, then the solution

798
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 1: doesn't work backwards in time anymore. That was required the

799
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: start to like uncollapse somehow. So it's like the opposite

800
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: of a black hole mathematically, but we don't know that

801
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: could be physically possible. We don't know if that could

802
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: be physically possible, and it requires this weird thing called

803
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: an eternal black hole, which we also don't know if

804
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: it's physically possible at all. So it's sort of like,

805
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, it's a theoretical playground. It's like, here's something

806
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: the math does and it has a cool name and

807
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:33,399
Speaker 1: weird physical effects, but we don't really know if that's

808
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: real or if it could appear in our universe, and

809
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: there's no physical way we know of to create this thing,

810
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: this backwards in time eternal black hole. All right, And

811
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: then there's one last kind of white hole here that

812
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: has to do with quantum physics. Yeah, one issue is

813
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 1: that we think that general relativity is not complete, right,

814
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: It can't really describe the universe as we know it.

815
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: We don't think that singularities are real. We think that

816
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: the infinity predicted by general relativity is like a failure

817
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: of the theory and that if things get actually that

818
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: compact quantum effects takeover. But we don't have like a

819
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: quantum theory of gravity. We don't know how gravity interacts

820
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:11,240
Speaker 1: with quantum mechanics. But we did talk on the program

821
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,839
Speaker 1: once about a possibility, possibility that maybe black holes don't

822
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: actually have singularities at their heart. Maybe the curvature of

823
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: space creates time dilation, so like time moves really really slowly,

824
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: and what we're seeing is a star collapsing and super

825
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: slow motion. It's going to collapse to some point and

826
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: then it's gonna bounce back and explode again, and it

827
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: just hasn't happened yet because the black holes are in

828
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: super slow motion. So this is the idea of a

829
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 1: dark star and like the quantum version of a collapsing

830
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: black hole that's gonna eventually bounce back. It just hasn't

831
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 1: happened yet, right. I remember we talked about this, is

832
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,959
Speaker 1: that like it's the idea that maybe even black holes

833
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: are don't exist, like maybe black holes aren't real, Like

834
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 1: you never get to the actual black hole. You only

835
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 1: have super dense star that is never going to collapse

836
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 1: to a singularity. It's gonna blow it before it collapses.

837
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: And you're saying, I think that that explosion, when it

838
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: finally collapses, maybe a long time for now, you can

839
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: call that a white hole. Exactly. This would be a

840
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: transition from a black hole to a white hole because

841
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: at that moment things would spray out. So you have

842
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: this incredible source of energy, incredible source of radiation, and

843
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: the curvature of space would be inverted so much so

844
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 1: that it would effectively be a white hole. So I

845
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: reached out to one of the authors of that paper,

846
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: Francesco the Dotty. She wrote together actually with Carlo Rovelli,

847
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: who has been a guest on our podcast as an

848
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: excellent science writer, to ask her about what would happen

849
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: if a black hole hit a white hole and the

850
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: kind that she thinks about these quantum gravity white holes. Right,

851
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 1: here's the audio professor Francesco the Dotty talking about quantum gravity. Okay,

852
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: so we have to divide this question into two pieces,

853
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: because it really depends whether we are talking about microscopic

854
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: of macroscopic black holes. So let's imagine it's possible to

855
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 1: have a too macroscopic object, one a black hole and

856
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: one it's a vital and let's imagine that they are

857
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:11,439
Speaker 1: turning around one the other, very much like the black

858
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: cobinaries that we are now proving with the gravitational ways

859
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: telescopes like Lisa and so on. So in that case,

860
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 1: what I would expect is just to have emerging between

861
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: these two objects that is quite similar to what I

862
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: would observe for the merging of two black holes. Then

863
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: probably I'm not sure what the calculation would give exactly,

864
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: but we have a prediction for the inkdown face. So

865
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: after the two black holes merges, there is a specific

866
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: wave form that we observe in gravitational ways. There could

867
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:53,240
Speaker 1: be differences for a black and a white all margin,

868
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: but I expected something very similar and there is don't

869
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 1: know why I expect something similar is because was in

870
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:05,720
Speaker 1: the moment in which a whitehall get perturbed by another

871
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: object like a black hole, then very quickly the whitehall

872
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:16,279
Speaker 1: turns back into a black hole. So basically the two

873
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: objects that would be emerging would be just two black holes.

874
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: A completely different story is the case of two microscopic

875
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,799
Speaker 1: black and white oats. First of all, it's more complicated

876
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:35,919
Speaker 1: too created such a situation because being a microscopic well,

877
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: it's not so easy maybe to create abounded the pair

878
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: that would merge like in the microscopic case. And the

879
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: other complication is that in the moment in which you

880
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: have microscopic objects is not so clear the distinction between

881
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: the black and the white one in the sense that

882
00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 1: you can have objects are so small that are basically

883
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 1: at the Plank scale, the Planck scale, those objects behave

884
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 1: like quantum objects. They are kind of quantum particle that

885
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,800
Speaker 1: have at the same time a black and the white

886
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,320
Speaker 1: nature like particles. So that could be in a superposition

887
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,439
Speaker 1: of spin up, a spin down, or if you want

888
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: to like the shooting get that could be alive and

889
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: at the same time. So those objects that can be

890
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: black and white at the same time. So what you

891
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: are marging are in fact a gray hole and another

892
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: gray hole together. All right, thank you, professor Franchise Dirty

893
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: it sounds like she's saying there are two scenarios here

894
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:38,760
Speaker 1: that can happen when a white hole, or a theoretical

895
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: white hole hits a probably real black hole. Yeah, exactly,

896
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:44,359
Speaker 1: and one of them is actually the joke that you made, right,

897
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: you might actually get a gray hole. Really, oh, I

898
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 1: should get the Nobel price. Then the idea is if

899
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 1: their macroscopic, they're like big classical objects, then they spiral

900
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: in together. Then when they touch the black hole will

901
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 1: convert the white hole into another black hole, and you'll

902
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: get like a really big black hole. Basically the black

903
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: hole eats the white hole and becomes a super black hole.

904
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 1: What the black hole winds, basically the black hole winds exactly.

905
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,800
Speaker 1: And if they're microscopic, if they're super duper tiny, because

906
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: you know, there's nothing stopping you from having a tiny

907
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: black hole or a tiny white hole, then their quantum objects.

908
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 1: Then quantum effects take over and they can be in

909
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 1: this weird superposition where like each one could be like

910
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: chance of being a black hole or chance of being

911
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:28,919
Speaker 1: a white hole, which is crazy, and that's what she's

912
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: calling a gray hole. Wait, so it kind of depends

913
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: on the sizes of these white and black holes. If

914
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: they're really big, she said that the black hole would win.

915
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:39,799
Speaker 1: I guess, but why does it have to win. Why

916
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: can't it just kind of switch together? Why does the

917
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: black hole win? Because white holes are fragile objects. They're

918
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: like not as stable as black holes in her conception

919
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,320
Speaker 1: of them. So but basically, a black hole is still

920
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 1: collapsing star. It's like sucking all matter and it doesn't

921
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: really matter what's your throw in there, another star, another

922
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: black hole, even a white hole. Really like, what if

923
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 1: I like a really really really big white hole and

924
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 1: a tiny little black hole. Couldn't the white hole overwhelmed

925
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: the tiny little black hole or what? The tiny little

926
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: black holes still win. We're in the macroscopic region where

927
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:13,879
Speaker 1: we're ignoring quantum effects, and she's saying the black hole

928
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: would win, that it would convert a white hole into

929
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: another black hole. Well, no matter like how big or

930
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: small each of them are, as long as you're above

931
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,359
Speaker 1: quantum properties. Yeah, and then the other scenarios, if we're

932
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: tiny enough, the quantum effects take over. And again this

933
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: is speculative because she's using the theory of quantum gravity,

934
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: which we don't know if it's true or not. It's

935
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 1: just like something we're thinking about. In that scenario, you

936
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: could even stranger quantum effects, whether it be in a

937
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: weird superposition of being a black hole or a white hole. Interesting,

938
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,439
Speaker 1: and this is if the white hole on the black

939
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: hole are are really tiny, small enough, the quantum effects dominate.

940
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about like particle size black holes

941
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: and white holes. All right, well, I guess that answers

942
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: the question then for Carson. Basically, Jorge was right. If

943
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 1: the black hole in the white hole are small enough,

944
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: then you get a little, tiny gray hole. But if

945
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,239
Speaker 1: they're big, then the black hole always wins and the

946
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 1: whole thing turns into a giant black hole exactly, So

947
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: it's not really much of a collision. I guess it's

948
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 1: more like the black hole will always eat the white hole.

949
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 1: That's the prediction, at least according to the quantum gravity expert.

950
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you Carson for that great question,

951
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:16,720
Speaker 1: and thank you to all of our listeners who send

952
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: in their questions. We love to answer them here on

953
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: the podcast. We'd like you to think about the way

954
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: the universe works, the way it might work, the way

955
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: we pretend that it could work, and then to ask

956
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: the questions about whether or not they are real. So

957
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 1: if you have a question, feel free to send them

958
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: to us. We might answer it here on the podcast,

959
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 1: or Daniel's dog will answer the question. Apparently it's a

960
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: pretty smart dog. You can be pretty rough sometimes with

961
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: these answers. Well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for

962
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 1: joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening, and

963
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a

964
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast For my

965
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

966
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.