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Speaker 1: Hey or hey, are you a fan of Pokemon cards? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a little bit. My son used to play them. My

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Speaker 1: son also, though I think he mostly collected and traded them.

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Speaker 1: I don't think he ever actually played with them. M Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that happens a lot, although I did play

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Speaker 1: with him for a few times. It's a pretty interesting game.

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Speaker 1: And do you have any of those cards with like

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Speaker 1: super awesome powers? Yeah? They have pretty good names, like

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Speaker 1: flame body. My personal favorite is the card that can

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Speaker 1: do a black hole eclipse. Although that sounds kind of

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Speaker 1: like a random combination of words from physics that they

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Speaker 1: just kind of put together. I think that's the same

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Speaker 1: way that physicist name things though. Ah, so you admitted

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Speaker 1: it's all random. We just type the words into an

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Speaker 1: online random number generator and that's where we go with.

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Speaker 1: They have a bunch of physicists working for Pokemon, just

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Speaker 1: in case that the whole physics scurity doesn't work out.

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Speaker 1: Do you have a promising career working for That's always

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Speaker 1: been my backup plane. Hi am Poor Hamming, cartoonist and

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Speaker 1: the co author of Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe. Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at

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Speaker 1: UC Irvine, and I probably have hundreds of dollars worth

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Speaker 1: of Pokemon cards somewhere in the closets of my home.

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Speaker 1: Are they wrapped an individual plastic though, to keep him

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Speaker 1: in mint condition? Otherwise I'm not sure they're worth that much.

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Speaker 1: They have definitely been prepared as an investment in the future.

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Speaker 1: That's how you plan to pay for your son's college education.

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Speaker 1: I think that's how my son plans to pay for

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Speaker 1: his retirement. Yeah. Wow, if it's worth that much, maybe

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Speaker 1: they should conveniently disappear from your closet. Only if I

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Speaker 1: could find them in my son's closet. I think that's

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Speaker 1: part of his security plan. Yes, it's such a mess,

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Speaker 1: it's like a black hole in itself, but anyway is

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Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio in which we try

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Speaker 1: to clean up a mess that is this universe and

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Speaker 1: all of its crazy, confusing glory. We dig right into

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Speaker 1: everything that doesn't make sense, everything that should make sense,

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Speaker 1: and things that might never make sense. We talked about

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Speaker 1: the biggest questions at the heart of philosophical inquiries about

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Speaker 1: the nature of our universe, and we talk about practical

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Speaker 1: stuff like how things around you actually work. We dive

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Speaker 1: into all of these questions and try to explain to

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Speaker 1: you what scientists do and do not know about them

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Speaker 1: because it is a pretty fun universe full of interesting

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Speaker 1: and amazing characters, not all of them with superpowers like

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Speaker 1: Pokemon characters, but there are a lot of interesting objects

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Speaker 1: out there in the universe with the seemingly superpowerful powers.

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Speaker 1: And it is our belief, or at least our hope,

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Speaker 1: that the universe does make sense, that it's following some

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Speaker 1: set of rules, and that if we dig into it

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Speaker 1: hard enough, if we use our brains, if we come

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Speaker 1: up with a clever set of experiments, we can figure

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Speaker 1: out what those rules are. That in the end, there

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Speaker 1: isn't magic in the universe, but that everything can be

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Speaker 1: explained with science. I'm not sure the same can be

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Speaker 1: said about Pokemon powers. What are you saying that Pokemon

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Speaker 1: aren't physically accurate there? How do you know, Daniel, I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure we have to suspend disbelief. But I did

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Speaker 1: do a bit of research into what the black hole

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Speaker 1: eclipse move is for the Pokemon character, and here's the

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Speaker 1: official description. The user gathers dark energy with its Z

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Speaker 1: power and forms a black hole that sucks the opponent up. Interesting.

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Speaker 1: That seems like a bit of a dangerous weapon there,

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Speaker 1: because once you start the black hole, I guess, can

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Speaker 1: you turn it off? Or is there a Z switch

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Speaker 1: for it? It depends on what your Z power can do.

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Speaker 1: If you can tap into dark energy and expand or

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Speaker 1: contract space, then hey, you have got a lot of options. Well,

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Speaker 1: there is the idea that maybe there are unknown forces

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Speaker 1: in the universe we haven't discovered. Maybe the Z force

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Speaker 1: is one of them. And if I discovered an unknown

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Speaker 1: force and called it the Z force, would you be

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Speaker 1: impress with my naming? I guess I mean to try

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Speaker 1: out any of the other letters in the alphabet first.

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Speaker 1: The Z force makes me think it's related to the

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Speaker 1: Z boson, which we know is a very feeble boson.

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Speaker 1: It carries the weak force, probably not capable of making

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Speaker 1: black holes. So there is technically a Z force in

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Speaker 1: the universe right now, like the force made by a

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Speaker 1: Z boson is technically a Z force. Yeah, that's right,

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Speaker 1: though I'm not sure you can use it to gather

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Speaker 1: any dark energy and throw your opponent into a black hole.

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Speaker 1: But hey, best to luck to you. How do you know, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: have you tried? I haven't tried, but I'm going to

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Speaker 1: write a grand proposal to the Pokemon Science Foundation to

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Speaker 1: see if I can get some funds to try it out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the PSF, they fund a lot of work out here.

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Speaker 1: But technically, in a multiverse, isn't it possible that there

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Speaker 1: are Pokemon characters out there? I mean, if you say

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Speaker 1: in a multiverse, isn't it possible that I suppose almost

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Speaker 1: anything is possible because in some theories of the multiverse

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Speaker 1: there are universes with other laws of physics, which basically

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Speaker 1: allows almost anything to happen. Oh, there you go, It's official.

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Speaker 1: Here in the podcast, Daniel thinks Pokemon are real. They

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Speaker 1: are a really good investment in my son's feature and

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Speaker 1: a real possibility. But it is interesting. How did you

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Speaker 1: end up googling Pokemon powers online? What's going on there? Daniel? No,

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Speaker 1: I was googling black hole eclipse, of course, in preparation

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Speaker 1: for today's episode. And the top hit was not black

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Speaker 1: holes or eclipses or anything scientific. The top like ten

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Speaker 1: hits were all about Pokemon. I think that tells you

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the priority of the Internet. But

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Speaker 1: it is interesting. What do you think is going on

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Speaker 1: inside the head of those Pokemon creators, artists and writers

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Speaker 1: when they come up with these things, Right, because they

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Speaker 1: used to work dark energy, they must know a little

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Speaker 1: bit of something about physics. Well, you know, I think

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Speaker 1: as they make more and more Pokemon characters, that have

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Speaker 1: to be more and more powerful or as my son

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Speaker 1: would say, totally opie, and so they want to come

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Speaker 1: up with something really dramatics and they're really crazy. And

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Speaker 1: I guess black holes are on the top of the

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Speaker 1: list of like aspirational powers to whether you can make

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Speaker 1: a black hole using dark energy. You know, we don't

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Speaker 1: really know what dark energy is at all. We just

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Speaker 1: know that it's accelerating the expansion of space and separating

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Speaker 1: the black holes from each other. So if anything, it's

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Speaker 1: keeping black holes from getting bigger. Well, I guess my

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Speaker 1: question is what kind of energy car does that attack us?

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Speaker 1: Dark energy cars? Is there such a thing? If there

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Speaker 1: isn't such a thing, then there should be Pokemon Science Foundation,

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Speaker 1: please fund that. There should be a science type Pokemon.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's like a water type, fire type. There

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Speaker 1: should be like a physics type. We have exhausted my

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Speaker 1: knowledge of Pokemon. Now I have nothing else to contribute

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Speaker 1: to this conversation. I went a little opie on you

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Speaker 1: all overpowered you. But it is an interesting name to

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Speaker 1: give a power to a fictional character. But it kind

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Speaker 1: of makes you think, is it actually possible for something

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Speaker 1: like that to happen? And we know that crazy things

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Speaker 1: happen out there in the universe. We are constantly surprised

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Speaker 1: by what's going on in the hearts of other galaxies

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Speaker 1: and even in between galaxies, and so you should never

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Speaker 1: say never, and so do they. On the podcast, we'll

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Speaker 1: be asking the question can a black hole be eclipsed?

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Speaker 1: And can you use it to suck up your enemies?

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Speaker 1: Is the question that a lot of kids are probably asking,

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Speaker 1: and maybe some physicists. Please, if you do have the

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Speaker 1: z power to manipulate dark energy to create black holes,

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Speaker 1: don't do it. You might win the battle and then

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Speaker 1: destroy the planet. Although they'll give you a Nobel prize, though,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't they in the five minutes between the creation of

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Speaker 1: your black hole and the destruction of the Earth. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure the Swedish Academy acts that fast. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I've seen you talk, Daniel, you will sacrifice anything for science.

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Speaker 1: If you have such a Z power, create a black

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Speaker 1: hole out in the depths of space where we can

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Speaker 1: study it. Please. I guess if you have that kind

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Speaker 1: of power, you can afford to go out into space. Right.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you also have the ex power and the why power?

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Speaker 1: Right right? Although I thought the why power was physicist

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Speaker 1: superpower or is that the philosophers? It's the four year

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Speaker 1: olds power? Why? Why? Why? Why? Yes, it's an interminable

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Speaker 1: source of energy. But it is an interesting question, and

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Speaker 1: as usual, we were wondering how many people out there

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Speaker 1: had thought about this question whether a black hole can

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Speaker 1: be eclipsed. So thanks very much to everybody who volunteers

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Speaker 1: to answer these questions in advance. Were very grateful to you,

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Speaker 1: and we hope that you enjoy hearing your voice on

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Speaker 1: the podcast. If any of you out there would like

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Speaker 1: to participate, please don't be shy. Right to me two

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Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and Jorne dot com. So think about

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Speaker 1: it for a second. Do you think a black hole

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Speaker 1: can be eclipsed? Here's what people had to say. Assuming

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Speaker 1: the definition of eclipse is for one body to obscure

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Speaker 1: another body from a given a vantage point. Um sure,

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Speaker 1: I don't see why a black hole could not be

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Speaker 1: eclipsed by another celestial body. I thought that might be

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Speaker 1: how we discovered them or something. I guess a black

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Speaker 1: hole can be eclipsed. I mean normally in eclipse is

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Speaker 1: when the light from something is blocked by something else

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Speaker 1: in space. So as a black hole doesn't have any

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Speaker 1: light emitting from it, I wouldn't have thought it could

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Speaker 1: be eclipsed as such. But I guess if you get

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Speaker 1: something massive enough in front of it, in between us

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Speaker 1: and it, then it would be eclipsed. I don't see

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Speaker 1: why not. As long as something subjectively larger than them

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Speaker 1: is between them and the observer, it would eclipse. The

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Speaker 1: black hole might have to be subjectively larger than the

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Speaker 1: disc around it to really have a shot at it. Well,

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Speaker 1: the concept of eclipse, the way I understand it, is

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Speaker 1: that light from a star as blocked from Earth's view

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Speaker 1: by an intervening body. Certain's black holes do not emit light.

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Speaker 1: I don't think they can be eclipsed. I don't think

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Speaker 1: so because I believe when black holes mass passes before

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Speaker 1: a gravity you see lensing effects. And I don't know

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Speaker 1: I've ever heard of one being eclipsed before. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: think they can do if they're is a planet or

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Speaker 1: star closer to us in the right alignment with the

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Speaker 1: black hole. Yes, I think they can be eclipsed. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I think it can in the sense that is coming

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Speaker 1: in front of something else. Um. But like instead of

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Speaker 1: blocking the light like the moon we block the Sun's light,

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Speaker 1: I think it would just absorb the light of whatever

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Speaker 1: is behind it. But um, it could also have this

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Speaker 1: gravitational lensing effect where the light of the objects that

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Speaker 1: aren't directly behind it kind of get curved um due

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Speaker 1: to the black hole, and we perceive it um in

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Speaker 1: that way. So that's kind of the black hole version

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Speaker 1: of an eclipse. Yes, they can be eclips Let's say

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Speaker 1: instead of our son, it will be a black hole

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Speaker 1: like we heard at a podcast Danielle and Horhan. We

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Speaker 1: would need to be at a safe distance from it,

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Speaker 1: and we can safely go around it. And if we

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Speaker 1: have the moon that would be between us and the

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Speaker 1: that hole. I don't see why not the more collectives

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Speaker 1: the site of the black hole. All right, A wide

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Speaker 1: range of answers here. Somebody said, why not always a

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Speaker 1: good answer? Am I talking about physics of the universe.

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Speaker 1: Why not, there's the multiverse, Doctor Strange says, anything can

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Speaker 1: happen in the multiverse. Or do you think they were

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Speaker 1: taking it as a proposal, like, hey, should we make

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Speaker 1: a black hole eclipse? Why not? Let's go right now.

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Speaker 1: I'm up for it. I guess it made me think,

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Speaker 1: what do you mean by eclipse, like in terms of

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Speaker 1: attention or in terms of blocking its light? But it's

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Speaker 1: a black hole. Yeah, it's a good question. And I

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Speaker 1: noticed that there was like two different interpretations of eclipse there,

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Speaker 1: one the black hole being eclipsed like something blocking light

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Speaker 1: from a black hole, and the other the black hole

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Speaker 1: doing the eclipsing, like passing in front of something else

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Speaker 1: that makes light. So there's sort of two possibilities there. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: and I guess we're going to argue about which one

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Speaker 1: is more correct. For the next hour, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about both possibility. At least. Of course, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: do the quantum superposition. We're gonna do the forwards and

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Speaker 1: the backwards. All right, Well, let's start with the basics here, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: What is a black hole? First of all, so we

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Speaker 1: don't really know what a black hole is in the

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Speaker 1: actual universe, and we don't actually even really know if

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Speaker 1: black holes exist. As described by the theory, we have

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Speaker 1: this concept in general relativity that if you get enough

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Speaker 1: stuff together, it's gravity will overcome any sort of internal strength,

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Speaker 1: any power of the material to resist being compressed. The

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Speaker 1: gravity will eventually get so strong that it will just

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Speaker 1: squeeze it down further and further and further, and as

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Speaker 1: it gets denser and denser, and the gravity gets stronger

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Speaker 1: and stronger, and you get this crazy runaway effect, and

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Speaker 1: where gravity essentially becomes infinitely strong in a tiny little dot,

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Speaker 1: this singularity at the point in space where you have

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Speaker 1: not infinite mass but infinite density, because gravity is compressed

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Speaker 1: some blob of stuff down to a very very small distance,

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Speaker 1: and because it's compressed it so far and means that

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Speaker 1: you can get pretty close to a lot of mass,

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Speaker 1: which means the gravity even nearby it would be very strong,

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Speaker 1: so strong that we think that it curves space so

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Speaker 1: much that light cannot even escape it. So if these

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Speaker 1: things are real, if they're out there in the universe,

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Speaker 1: then whatever falls into this black hole you will never

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Speaker 1: see again because light from it cannot escape. Would you

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Speaker 1: say it's an actual hole in space, Daniel. And you know,

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Speaker 1: if you define a hole is something that you can

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Speaker 1: fall into, then it's technically it is. That's why it's

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Speaker 1: called a whole. Right, if you accept the general relativity

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Speaker 1: view of it, it's kind of a hole because it

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Speaker 1: makes a portion of space that's cut off from the

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Speaker 1: rest of the universe. It's like a little sub universe,

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Speaker 1: and once you enter that sub universe, you really are

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Speaker 1: cut off from the rest of it. I mean inside

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Speaker 1: the black hole, you can still see the rest of

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Speaker 1: the universe. Light from the rest of the universe can

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Speaker 1: still reach you, so you can see out from it,

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Speaker 1: but nobody can see into it, right, So in that sense,

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Speaker 1: it's a hole in space, right, Although that's assuming your

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Speaker 1: eyeball is still in one piece when you're inside of

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Speaker 1: a black hole, right, Yeah, precisely, assuming that you survive

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Speaker 1: long enough to look out into the black hole. And

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Speaker 1: black holes can come in all sorts of sizes. You

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Speaker 1: can make a black hole in theory out of a

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Speaker 1: pretty small amount of mass as long as you squeeze

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Speaker 1: it down to a small enough radius. You can also

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Speaker 1: make black holes out of enormous masses. Some of the

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Speaker 1: things out there that we think are black holes probably

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Speaker 1: have millions or billion times the mass of our sun.

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Speaker 1: Those black holes are really really big, and if you

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Speaker 1: fall into one of those, the gravity at the outskirts

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Speaker 1: of the black hole is not actually that strong. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's strong enough to suck up light, but it's not

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Speaker 1: so strong to like tear you apart to spaghettify you.

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Speaker 1: So you might be able to survive the very first

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Speaker 1: few moments of falling into a really really big black hole,

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Speaker 1: and then you can take it selfie, although you can

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Speaker 1: never send that selfie to anyone. Hey, selfies are just

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Speaker 1: for yourself, right, that's why they're called selfie. Ironically, that

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Speaker 1: is the opposite purpose of a selfie. They should be

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Speaker 1: called that everyone else's. But it is interesting what you

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Speaker 1: said about the black holes having a size, because it's

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Speaker 1: it's kind of into it's like a hole in space,

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Speaker 1: but it does have volume, right, Like, it does occupy

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Speaker 1: three dimensional space. In fact, it's a sphere in space, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just kind of distort space, but it

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Speaker 1: does sort of occupy a certain you know, length, width

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Speaker 1: and in height. Yeah, if you say black hole, you're

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Speaker 1: probably imagining like a circle on the ground a two

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Speaker 1: dimensional object that things can fall into and disappear, like

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Speaker 1: in cartoon shows. But as you say, they are three

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Speaker 1: dimensional objects. So the simplest black hole, one that isn't spinning,

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Speaker 1: would be a perfect sphere, and you can fall into

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Speaker 1: it from any direction. If you're looking at a perfect

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Speaker 1: sphere that's perfectly black, it's always just gonna look like

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Speaker 1: a circle to you because there's no texture to it,

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Speaker 1: so you can't sort of like tell how much curvature

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Speaker 1: it has. But actually, if you look at a black hole,

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Speaker 1: you don't even really just see a black sphere. It

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Speaker 1: looks even bigger than it actually is because the paths

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Speaker 1: of light around the black hole are really really weird.

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Speaker 1: Like if somebody was very close to the edge of

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Speaker 1: the black hole on the back side of it and

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Speaker 1: turned on a flashlight, you could see it from the

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Speaker 1: other side of the black hole because the light from

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Speaker 1: that flashlight would curve around the black hole, bent by

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Speaker 1: its incredible gravity to your eyeballs. So if you're near

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Speaker 1: a black hole, if you're just looking at it, you

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Speaker 1: can actually see the entire surface of the black hole

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Speaker 1: right in front of you. You can see the front

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Speaker 1: and the back right though it just looks black, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it just looks like a bigger black circle than it

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Speaker 1: actually is. It's like puffed up, yeah, like puffed up

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Speaker 1: because in the vicinity of a black hole, space is curved,

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Speaker 1: and when space is curved, you can't trust your eyes

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Speaker 1: to be just showing you what he's there. You're seeing

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Speaker 1: now an image of what is there, and then image

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Speaker 1: can be distorted, just like if you're in a fun

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Speaker 1: house mirror and it's not flat and what you're seeing

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Speaker 1: isn't reality the same as true. Near a black hole,

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Speaker 1: light doesn't travel in straight lines anymore, and so what

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Speaker 1: you see is an image is generated by the physical

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Speaker 1: stuff that's there, but it's not a fully faithful image

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Speaker 1: of what's actually out there. It's a little bit mind

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Speaker 1: bending because a black hole is sort of like a sphere.

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Speaker 1: It sort of has the surface, but it's not really

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Speaker 1: a surface because it's not solid. It's just kind of

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Speaker 1: like the edge of the hole. So it's like a

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Speaker 1: three dimensional edge of a hole is the surface of

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Speaker 1: a black hole. Yeah, And what you call the edge

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Speaker 1: of a black hole is a little bit arbitrary. We

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Speaker 1: usually use the location of the event horizon, the point

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Speaker 1: past which light and particles and nothing can escape, and

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Speaker 1: to mark the edge of the black hole. But there's

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Speaker 1: nothing there at the edge. It's sort of like a

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Speaker 1: calculation we do to say where it is, and you

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Speaker 1: can't actually even tell where the event horizon is until

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Speaker 1: the end of the universe. The definition of the event

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Speaker 1: horizon is any particle past this point never escapes. But

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Speaker 1: it's not always easy to tell exactly what can escape

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Speaker 1: and what can't, and so you can't actually know in

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Speaker 1: any moment where the event horizon is. You have to

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Speaker 1: sort of like wait to the end of time and

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Speaker 1: then say, particles that got closer than this, none of

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Speaker 1: them escaped. So here was the event horizon, right, because

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Speaker 1: we actually like fall into the hole that sort of

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Speaker 1: almost sort of never happens, right, because time gets distorted

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Speaker 1: around the black hole that it basically as you said,

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Speaker 1: happens never. Yeah. And also there's just like nothing there

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Speaker 1: at the event horizon. It's not like a surface you

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Speaker 1: land on. It's just a point of no return. It's

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Speaker 1: like if you got into your car and you drove

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Speaker 1: too far away from a gas station so that you

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Speaker 1: didn't have enough gas to get to the next gas station.

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Speaker 1: Nothing would happen at that moment when you had gone

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Speaker 1: too far. You would only realize it later, like, oops,

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Speaker 1: we forgot to get gas and now we're stranded. The

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Speaker 1: moment when you crossed that threshold where you now too

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Speaker 1: far away from the nearest gas station you don't have

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Speaker 1: enough fuel to get one, no warning light necessarily goes off.

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Speaker 1: And the same is true for the event horizon. It

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Speaker 1: just feels like the rest of space. You pass through it,

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Speaker 1: and unbeknownst to you, you are now wrapped inside the

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Speaker 1: black hole. Right, Although you know, if you're flying that

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Speaker 1: close to a black hole, you can't claim not to

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Speaker 1: have seen it because it's going to look pretty big

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Speaker 1: to flying close to a black hole. Right. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely irresponsible space flight in the same way like

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Speaker 1: you should know if you're about to run out of gas,

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Speaker 1: and somebody should be paying attention to it, or at

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Speaker 1: least there should be a warning alarm on your space ship.

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Speaker 1: Black hole ahead, turn right, use your Z powers now.

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Speaker 1: But as you said, it doesn't occupy space because it

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Speaker 1: is an object. It doesn't have less solid surface, and

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Speaker 1: it's also like moving around in space, right, black holes

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Speaker 1: can move around in space. Even though their holes in space,

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Speaker 1: they can move around in space. It's like a moving hole. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well they are a thing, right, They are made out

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Speaker 1: of mass, and so like everything else, they have a location,

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Speaker 1: and then they can have a velocity. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the velocity of the black hole is relative, just like

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Speaker 1: everything else. If you are moving towards a black hole,

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Speaker 1: you could also say the black hole is moving towards you.

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Speaker 1: There is no difference in the physics of the universe

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Speaker 1: in those two pictures, and so black holes, like everything else,

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Speaker 1: can have location and velocity. Yeah, there could be one

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Speaker 1: moving towards us right now, right almost definitely, because we

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Speaker 1: know that there's a supermassive black hole at the heart

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Speaker 1: of the Andromeda Galaxy which is coming for us. Right

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Speaker 1: The Andromeda Galaxy is going to collide with the Milky

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Speaker 1: Way in a few billion years, and so the black

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Speaker 1: holes at the heart of each galaxy are moving towards

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Speaker 1: the other galaxy. So, yeah, black holes are headed our way.

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Speaker 1: Better get working on that Z force, Daniel. We're counting

401
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Speaker 1: on you. I only have the P force, the physics force.

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00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:11,600
Speaker 1: Other people have to work on the Z force, or

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Speaker 1: it could be the W force. For whites and there

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Speaker 1: you go. I guess the the Andromeda black hole. That's

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Speaker 1: something we don't want to catch alther if you find

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Speaker 1: a good container for it. I guess, yeah, maybe you do.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, let's talk about whether or not a

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Speaker 1: black hole can be involved in an eclipse, whether it

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Speaker 1: can eclipse other things, or whether you can eclipse a

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Speaker 1: black hole. But first let's take a quick break. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the physics of Pokemon, right, that's the

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Speaker 1: title of the episode. That's right, Pokemon characters use physics

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Speaker 1: on each other. I feel like that would be a

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Speaker 1: pretty viral title to put on this episode. What do

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Speaker 1: you think, physics of Pokemon? It might be viral. It

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Speaker 1: would also be totally misleading, but I guess that's how

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Speaker 1: everything goes viral. But we could do a whole episode

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Speaker 1: on this, right, just pick a bunch of Pokemon cars

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Speaker 1: and we'll break down the physics of their superpowers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: le's good like this. Yeah that's totally made up. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that doesn't where Yeah that's ridiculous, But could it happened?

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Speaker 1: Aren't there books about the physics of Star Trek and

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Speaker 1: Star Wars in a multiverse where Pokemon is real, But

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Speaker 1: we are talking about the powers of one specific Pokemon.

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Speaker 1: Which Pokemon has this power? Daniel did, did you look

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Speaker 1: up the name? Well, according to my research, it says

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Speaker 1: any non mega evolved non primal Pokemon can use black

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Speaker 1: hole eclipse if it knows a damaging dark type move

429
00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:41,119
Speaker 1: and holds darkinium z and if it's trainer where's a

430
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 1: z ring? So if that made sense to you, please

431
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,440
Speaker 1: explain it to me. Well, that's a lot of preconditions there,

432
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,800
Speaker 1: so any Pokemon that checks those boxes can use it. Yeah,

433
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:55,200
Speaker 1: apparently any non mega evolved non primal Pokemon. I don't

434
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:56,560
Speaker 1: know if there's a lot of them or just one.

435
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 1: We we should you should have interviewed an expert. But anyways,

436
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,000
Speaker 1: we're asking the question of whether or not you can

437
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 1: actually eclipse a black hole or I guess involved a

438
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,560
Speaker 1: black hole in an eclipse. And you said, Daniels, there's

439
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:11,840
Speaker 1: two possibilities here. You can either eclipse a black hole

440
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:15,439
Speaker 1: or have the black hole eclipse something else. And so

441
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: I guess, first of all, Daniel, what's the legal definition

442
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:20,919
Speaker 1: of an eclipse? So an eclipse is a fun astronomical

443
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:24,160
Speaker 1: situation where two things fall along the same line, your

444
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 1: line of sight. So you're looking out into the universe

445
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 1: and you can imagine a line between your eyeball and

446
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: some object. If something else passes along that line, then

447
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 1: it has eclipsed whatever you were looking at. So if

448
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,119
Speaker 1: you're looking at the Sun not recommended, and the Moon

449
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:43,719
Speaker 1: passes in front of it, then that's a solar eclipse. Right.

450
00:22:43,760 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 1: The moon is eclipsing the Sun because it's passing along

451
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 1: the line between your eyeball and the Sun. Interesting, so

452
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: if a technically, if I put my thumb in front

453
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 1: of me and block out the Sun, I'm creating a

454
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: solar eclipse. That's what you're saying. Yeah, I mean your

455
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,400
Speaker 1: thumb is not an astronomical object. Have you seen my sun?

456
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 1: It's pretty stiller. It's been a while, So assuming you've

457
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 1: upgraded it with your Z powers, than maybe or his

458
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: them can perform in eclipse. One of my favorite things

459
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: though about solar eclipses is that they're possible. Right, Like,

460
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:19,400
Speaker 1: the moon can block the Sun in the sky, which

461
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,560
Speaker 1: requires not just that the Moon goes in front of

462
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: the Sun, but that the Moon is the same size

463
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: or bigger than the Sun in the sky. The amazing

464
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,199
Speaker 1: thing is that the Moon and the Sun are just

465
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:31,680
Speaker 1: about the same size in our sky, like they can

466
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: eclipse each other just about, which is a total cosmic coincidence.

467
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: The Moon could have been bigger, or it could have

468
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 1: been further, or it could have been closer. They don't

469
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: have to be the same apparent size in the sky,

470
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,400
Speaker 1: and yet they are. Yeah, that's a pretty wild coincidence.

471
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: Although it is also a function of where we are

472
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: right now, right, because eventually the Moon is going to

473
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,640
Speaker 1: move further away from Earth and so it will look

474
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 1: smaller than the Sun. Yeah, exactly, it gets smaller and

475
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: smaller every year, and before like it maybe increased or

476
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 1: times or millions of years ago, the moon looked bigger

477
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,679
Speaker 1: than the Sun during a solar eclipse. Yeah, And the

478
00:24:04,720 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: Sun is also growing in size as it gets older, right,

479
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 1: and pushing out more of its layers further and further.

480
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:13,399
Speaker 1: So the Sun is getting bigger and the Moon is

481
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 1: getting smaller. And it's a really valuable lesson about coincidences.

482
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes we see coincidences out there in the

483
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: universe and we go, oh, there must be an explanation

484
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: for that, and can't be by chance, But sometimes it is, right.

485
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: We don't think there's a reason that the Moon and

486
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 1: the Sun happened to appear to be the same size

487
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,640
Speaker 1: in our sky, but it seems like a huge coincidence.

488
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 1: But sometimes they just happen. Yeah, And I guess the

489
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: coincidence is that they're almost the same size and from

490
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: our point of view and the sky. But it's sort

491
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:43,920
Speaker 1: of not a coincidence that it just happens to fly

492
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 1: in front of the Sun, right, because the Moon is,

493
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,160
Speaker 1: you know, spinning around Earth all the time, and we're

494
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 1: spinning around the Sun all the time, and so technically

495
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: the Moon kind of sits everywhere at any point in

496
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,439
Speaker 1: the sky at some point eventually, right, So it's not

497
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: a coincidence that it just happens to line front of

498
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 1: the Sun, that's right. And most of the things in

499
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: the Solar System are in the same plane, and so

500
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 1: it's possible for them to line up. If the Moon,

501
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 1: for example, was orbiting the Earth outside the plane of

502
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: the Earth's orbit, it would be much harder for it

503
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: to eclipse the Sun. But because it moves around in

504
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,919
Speaker 1: the same plane than it gets itself between the Earth

505
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: and the Sun, and of course it doesn't eclipse the

506
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: entire Earth. The Moon casts a shadow on the Earth,

507
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,920
Speaker 1: and that shadow moves across the surface of the Earth.

508
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: When you're in that shadow, then you can see the eclipse.

509
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: And at the same time, there are people who are

510
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: not in that shadow who can still see the Sun

511
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: sort of around the side of the moon because they

512
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: have a different angle. I saw the total eclips back

513
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen. Was it? It was pretty awesome event. Yeah,

514
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: And there's another one coming up in a in a

515
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: year or two. Right. There are a bunch of eclipses

516
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: all around the world the next few years, and if

517
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:49,959
Speaker 1: you have the opportunity to see them, I totally encourage you.

518
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: Even though it has no deep astronomical significance, is just

519
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: sort of like a cool event. It makes you feel

520
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 1: connected to people who have seen these things since prehistoric

521
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,479
Speaker 1: times and looked up and wondered, like, WHOA, something is

522
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: different about the sky today. I wonder what that means. Yeah,

523
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: just like I feel connected to my thumb whenever I

524
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: put it in front of the sun. Are there times

525
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: you don't feel connected to your thumb. That's what we

526
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: should worry about. Sometimes I feel like the thumb is

527
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,439
Speaker 1: like we're not connecting into a deep level. You know,

528
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: you and your thumb needs to go to therapy. It

529
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 1: sounds like work out these issues. Yeah, yeah, do you

530
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: know anyone Maybe there's a good podcast for that. Maybe

531
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,360
Speaker 1: I can point you to one I could point off

532
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: with my index finger isn't talking to me either, so

533
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: there's always a surprise in the podcast. This is the

534
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: direction I never would have guessed. Yeah, but it's interesting.

535
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: So what do you call a solar eclipse? Is when

536
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: something blocks your view of it? Right, Like, you can

537
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 1: also have a moon eclipse, right, the lunar eclipse, Yeah,

538
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: that's right. That's when the Earth gets between the Sun

539
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: and the Moon, and so the Moon is then blocked

540
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: from the Sun by the Earth, and so you can

541
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: still see the Moon, but it's sort of like shaded.

542
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 1: It turns a funny color because it's no longer getting

543
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: as much direct sunlight because it's in the Earth's shadow.

544
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: So basically, eclipses are like when somebody gets into somebody

545
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 1: else's shadow, right, or I guess technically a lunar eclipse

546
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: is like an earth eclipse if you were standing on

547
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 1: the moon. Yeah, although if you were in the moon

548
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: you would probably call that is solar eclipse, right, because

549
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: the Sun would be getting eclipsed. Are you saying it's

550
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: all relative, Daniel, It's all relative and the names are

551
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: not consistent. That's exactly the lesson of the podcast, all right.

552
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: And so it's interesting that you can you can block

553
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: out the light from the Sun, but that applies also

554
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: to any star, right, Like, you can have eclipses out

555
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 1: there in space with any star, not just our sun.

556
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: That's right. Stars out there have their own planets, and

557
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: those planets have moons, and so on those planets there

558
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 1: are eclipses happening. Those planets. Moons are blocking that Sun's

559
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,879
Speaker 1: light and creating shadows which crawl along the surface of

560
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: those planets around other stars, and maybe aliens are looking

561
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: up at those and being impressed by the astronomical display.

562
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 1: But we can actually see those eclipses as well, because

563
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: sometimes those planets pass in front of their star, blocking

564
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: a little bit of the light from that star. So

565
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: instead of making a line from your eyeball to our sun, now,

566
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: imagine a line from your eyeball to some star far

567
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: far away, millions or billions of miles away, and a

568
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: planet can pass along that line. Now, because you're so

569
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: far away. The planet can't hope to block the entire star,

570
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: but what it can do is dim it a tiny

571
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: little bit. And that's actually one way that we discover

572
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 1: planets around other stars. We see them making these sort

573
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: of many or partial eclipses of their star. Yeah, it's

574
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: one way we can detect a planet and other stars.

575
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: And in fact, you sort of look for its stars

576
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: that twinkle a little bit periodically, right with a constant beat,

577
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: and that kind of tells you, hey, maybe it has

578
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: a planet swinging around it. Yeah. You study the brightness

579
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: of the star and you notice a dimming and it

580
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: dims periodically. So it dims for like a few days,

581
00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: and then it gets bright again for a fixed amount

582
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: of days, and then dims again, and it happens periodically,

583
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: and that's how you can tell that something is going

584
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: in front of it and blocking it, because otherwise stars

585
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: can just twinkle and dust clouds can interfere with your observation.

586
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: But if it's something regular, then you know that it's

587
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: probably something orbiting near the star that's moving around it.

588
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: And so it's a really powerful way to discover these

589
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: other planets and also to measure their size because the

590
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: more dimming you get the bigger the planet is, and

591
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: these are always tiny little eclipses. You need really sensitive

592
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: telescopes to even notice that these things are dimming. You

593
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: could never see this with a naked eye, right, And

594
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: so if you see a star out there dimming and

595
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: being eclipse regularly, it might be a planet in its orbit.

596
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: But it's kind of interesting also to think about that.

597
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: You know, there are probably eclips is happening all the

598
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: time with all the stars out there, right, Like maybe

599
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: even asteroid flies near us, or it gets in our

600
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: way between us and another star. Technically that's an eclipse too. Yeah,

601
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: that's probably true, And there are eclips is happening that

602
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: we can't see, right this technique of seeing these planets

603
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: and we're lo eyes on the planet lining up with

604
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: our line of sight to that star. There are plenty

605
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: of planets out there around stars that are just not

606
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: aligned with us. Like we talked about how in our

607
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 1: Solar system, the Moon and the Earth and the Sun

608
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: of mostly aligned in the disc of the Solar system.

609
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: But the disc of our Solar system is not the

610
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: same as the disc of other solar systems. Those are

611
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: mostly random. I mean every solar system has its own

612
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: disc and the planets mostly follow that disc, but the

613
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: arrangement of our disc relative to other Solar System discs

614
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: is kind of random, which means that most stars, when

615
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: their planets passes in front of them, don't cause an

616
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: eclipse that we can see. All right, Well, we're talking

617
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: about whether or not you can involve a black hole

618
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: in an eclipse, and so Daniel, can can you eclipse

619
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: a black hole? Or can a black hole eclipse something else? Yeah,

620
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: it's a really fun question. Let's first talk about whether

621
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: you can eclipse a black hole. And the very question

622
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: is like, well, could you see a black hole anyway? Right? Like, technically,

623
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: what does it mean to see a black hole? Like,

624
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: even if there was nothing between you and the black hole,

625
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,040
Speaker 1: are you actually seeing a hole? Like the whole it

626
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: was the absence of something, right, Exactly. A shadow can't

627
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: cast a shadow, right in the case of an eclipse

628
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: on the Earth, the moon is casting a shadow on

629
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: the Earth. But a black hole doesn't give off anything

630
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: to create a shadow. And so technically a pure classical

631
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: general relativity black hole is completely black. You saw it

632
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: out in the middle of space, you would not see

633
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: it doesn't give off any light. The only way you

634
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: could see it is if it was in front of

635
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: something else that was bright. It was like passing in

636
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: front of a star and eclipsing it. So a classical

637
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: black hole doesn't give off any light. Something could technically

638
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: block your view of the black hole, right, Like if

639
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: a planet happened to fly between you and the black hole,

640
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: you wouldn't see the black hole anymore? Would you call

641
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: that an eclipse? That sounds like a legal decision? Mean

642
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: the black hole not giving off any light than is

643
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: it being eclipsed? Right, And let's say behind the black

644
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: hole isn't like a galaxy or something bright or a

645
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: cloud of a bright cloud of gas or something, so

646
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: you can actually without the planet blocking, you would see

647
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: the black hole. But now there's a planet between you

648
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: and the black hole, so you don't see the black hole.

649
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: And technically it would sort of look like an eclipse, right,

650
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: It would be like a black circle getting blocked by

651
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: something maybe brighter. Yeah, that's technically possible. But we do

652
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: think that black holes do give off a little bit

653
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: of radiation in some cases, and the black holes create

654
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: an environment that gives off a lot of radiation, a

655
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: lot of light. So if you move away from just

656
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: like the classical general relativity pure black sphere and talk

657
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: about like the quantum version of it, or if you

658
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: talk about the stuff around the black hole, in the

659
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: environment created by the black hole, then that could be eclipsed, right,

660
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: because what stuff falls into the black hole, it tends

661
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: to get sped up so fast that it actually burns up.

662
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: And then that's right right. So things when they come

663
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: near the black hole, they don't always fall right in.

664
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: I mean, if your head is straight for the black hole,

665
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: you're going into the black hole. But if you sort

666
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: of go near the black hole, then you get bent

667
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: towards it and you sort of spin around it for

668
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 1: a long time before falling in. And so that's all

669
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: the accretion disc. It's like stuff that's on deck to

670
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: be sucked into the black hole. And while you're in

671
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: the accretion disk, the black hole is still working you.

672
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: It's got these tidal forces. It's pulling on the part

673
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: that's closer to you harder than the part that's further

674
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: from you, because gravity is stronger for closer things, and

675
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: so big clouds of gas and dust that are about

676
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: to fall into the black hole have a lot of

677
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: internal friction because of the black holes tidal forces, so

678
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: they get heated up incredibly hot and admit a lot

679
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: of radiation, and some stuff almost falls into the black hole,

680
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: but the strong magnetic fields like guided around the black

681
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: hole and it gets spun out at the top of

682
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: the black hole, making these enormous jets of radiation. So

683
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: black holes, even though themselves past the event horizon are black,

684
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: the stuff around them could actually be very, very bright.

685
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: These things quasars are some of the brightest things in

686
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: the universe. Yeah, we've had episodes about that. Now. It's

687
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: kind of ironic, right that some of the brightest things

688
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: in the universe actually come from black holes. Yeah, because

689
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: they are the source of a lot of gravitational energy,

690
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: so they can speed stuff up, they can focus stuff,

691
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: they can shoot stuff in another direction, even though you know,

692
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: if they actually ate that stuff up, you would never

693
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: see it. But when they're not actually eating stuff, they're

694
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 1: also powering the acceleration of other stuff nearby, which creates

695
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: fantastical light shows. And those light shows can be eclipsed

696
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: right right, although, as you said earlier, not every black

697
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: hole has these light shows, right, Like, there's a whole

698
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 1: range of black holes. There are maybe black holes who

699
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: are sitting all by themselves somewhere with nothing around it

700
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: to feed it to make it bright. And there are

701
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 1: black holes with huge clouds of stuff that is constantly

702
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 1: falling into the black holes. Yeah, there's a broad diversity

703
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: of black holes. The ones with big accretion disks are

704
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: the ones that are easier for us to see because

705
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: you can see the accretion disk right. Otherwise, it's very

706
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: difficult to spot a black hole. You have to see

707
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: it passing in front of something else. You have to

708
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: see it eclipsing something in order to spot it. Mostly

709
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 1: the way that we've identified black holes is from their

710
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: accretion disk or from like the motion of stuff near them,

711
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: indicating that there must be something very very heavy but

712
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: not right there. Well, I think I see what you're saying. Like,

713
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: if you define an eclipse as when you're blocking the

714
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: light that's coming from something else, then you sort of

715
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 1: need the situation where the black hole is giving off

716
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: light from its incretion disk to have a black hole eclipse. Yeah,

717
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: Otherwise you're just having a shadow of a shadow. And

718
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is, but probably exists

719
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: in the Pokemon universe. A shadow of a shadow is

720
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 1: a it's a double shadow, it's a shadow squared. But

721
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: I guess you could thankically block the shadow of a shadow, right,

722
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: like you could blog looking at the shadow. Yeah, I suppose.

723
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: I mean, if you stand in a shadow, do you

724
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: still have your own shadow? I don't know. That's a

725
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 1: philosophical question. That's like the sound of one hand clapping. Well,

726
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: I guess you need like a third source of light

727
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: or something, right, right, Yeah, and then you can also

728
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: it's a complicated shadows, but you're saying there's a situation

729
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: in which a black hole could have an increation disk

730
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: around it, which would make it bright, in which case

731
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: something could float between you and it and block your

732
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: view of this light source exactly, And that would be

733
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: a really powerful way to see interesting things really really

734
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 1: far away. Because black holes are very very bright when

735
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,800
Speaker 1: we see them. We can see them in very very distant,

736
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 1: very ancient galaxies. So the very powerful probe of what's

737
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: out there in the universe. There's sort of like these

738
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: pencil rays of light that shine out into the universe.

739
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: We can use them to measure like the density of

740
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 1: stuff along that ray. We once talked about the cosmic

741
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: web and how we use these pencil rays of light

742
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,839
Speaker 1: from quasars to like illuminate the universe and tell like

743
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: where the dark matter is and where these filaments of

744
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: gas between the galaxies are super interesting. And when something

745
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: else happens to pass in front of that pencil ray

746
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: of light in a way that we can see it,

747
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: then we can use that to identify something. We can

748
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: use that to see something that otherwise would have been

749
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 1: invisible to us. So we can use these eclipses as

750
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 1: ways to find stuff really really far away. Wait wait

751
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: you mean, what what does this stuff do well? For example,

752
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: the technique we talked about for finding planets around other

753
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: stars that mostly only works in our galaxy because the

754
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: stars have to be close enough for us to like

755
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: resolve a single star and measure its brightness very effectively.

756
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: So it's very difficult to see exoplanets in other galaxies

757
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 1: because remember, our galaxies like a hundred thousand light years across.

758
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: Other galaxies are like millions of light years away, So

759
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 1: we can't really use that technique to find planets around

760
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: stars in other galaxies. But scientists have recently used this

761
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,799
Speaker 1: to find planets passing in front of black holes in

762
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: other galaxies because black holes are such intense sources of

763
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: this kind of radiation whoa, because they act like a

764
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: beacon within that other galaxy. But is this a planet

765
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: that is part of the black hole system or is

766
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: this like a random planet floating around another star that

767
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 1: just happens to ones fly in front of the black hole.

768
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: We don't know, and in the case of a recent observation,

769
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: the theories that it might be a planet orbiting black

770
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: hole with a period of about seventy years, which means

771
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't know for another seventy years because we'd

772
00:37:57,280 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: have to wait that long to see the next eclipse.

773
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: If it is in fact orbiting that black hole, it's

774
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:05,439
Speaker 1: just like a random transit, some blob passing in front

775
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 1: of the black hole. Then it won't happen again. But

776
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: they actually did see this. They looked out with the

777
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 1: Chandra X ray telescope at a galaxy called the Whirlpool

778
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: galaxy and they saw this kind of eclipse, meaning that

779
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: we're looking at this galaxy that's far away, and we

780
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,320
Speaker 1: think that the light coming from it is a black hole.

781
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: That's right. We can zoom in on one part of

782
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,399
Speaker 1: that galaxy, and they think that there's a binary system there.

783
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: They have like a normal like star and around it

784
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: is orbiting a black hole, and the black holes probably

785
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:37,479
Speaker 1: from some other star which collapsed and left a black hole.

786
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,240
Speaker 1: So the origin is probably some binary star system. Two

787
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 1: stars orbiting each other, and that's a little bit surprisingly

788
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 1: not uncommon, because stars tend to form near each other.

789
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 1: One of them becomes a black hole. They have this

790
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: binary system where the black hole is now like sucking

791
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: material from the other star and it generates a very

792
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: bright accretion disk. And so from that black hole you

793
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 1: now have this invariant hence source of radiation, and the

794
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: telescope consume in on that and see the radiation from

795
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: the accretion disc of this black hole as it eats

796
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: its sibling. Wait, the black hole is orbiting the Sun.

797
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: I guess it. It's it's a smaller mass than the Sun. Well,

798
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: the sort of orbiting each other, right, the two both

799
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,359
Speaker 1: came from stars, and the black hole doesn't have all

800
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: the mass of the original star came from Probably these

801
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: two stars started out similar mass, and so more accurately

802
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 1: you would say they orbit each other m And then

803
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: on top of that they think that maybe there's a

804
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 1: planet orbiting around the black hole that's orbiting around the

805
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: Sun exactly, because the black hole is actually quite small,

806
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 1: it's very compact, and so when this planet passes in

807
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: front of the black hole, it actually eclipses a good

808
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: fraction of it. We would think about a planet transitting

809
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: in front of a star in our galaxy, it's a

810
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 1: tiny little dip in front of that star. But here,

811
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: because the accretion disc in the black hole are very compact,

812
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 1: every compressed by gravity, this planet actually blocked most of

813
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: the light from the secretion disc as it passed forward.

814
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 1: So you can look at like the brightness of this

815
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: black hole over time, and they see this huge dip

816
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 1: as something apparently eclipsed it. It clips the black hole,

817
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: lips the black hole. Yeah, but they only saw this once,

818
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: or have they seen this periodically. They've only seen it

819
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: once and now have a model for this system and

820
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: how far aware this plant would have to be and

821
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 1: how big it is, and in that model it takes

822
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: about seventy years to orbit this system. But of course

823
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: they're not making the grad student wait seventy years to graduate,

824
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: although it could have also been like an asteroid passing

825
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,399
Speaker 1: in front of the Chindra telescope or something that could

826
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 1: have caused this dip. Right, Yeah, there's a lot of possibilities.

827
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: We don't see this thing very directly. We only just

828
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: see a dip in this black hole, which we otherwise

829
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 1: can't explain, which means something probably passed in front of

830
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,720
Speaker 1: it to block our view. And one hypothesis is a planet,

831
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: but we can't tell very precisely. Right, it could have

832
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 1: been somebody's thumb. Maybe did you put your thumb on

833
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: Chindre that day? Is that what happened? I don't know.

834
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: My son doesn't tell me everything it does. That's the

835
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 1: whole problem. But if it's true, then it's really interesting

836
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: because it's the first time we've discovered a planet in

837
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: a far away galaxy using this transit technique. Interesting. That's amazing,

838
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 1: and it would be amazing to be on that planet.

839
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: Can you imagine living on that planet and having like

840
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,919
Speaker 1: not just a sun but a black hole also kind

841
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 1: of like sunrising and sunsetting every day and seeing the

842
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 1: black hole eat your sun. Right, That sun gets dimmer

843
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: and dimmer every year as the black hole pulls the

844
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,720
Speaker 1: material out of it. Wow, that'd be a pretty amazing

845
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: view when you look up from that planet. I wonder

846
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: if that's where Pokemon out from, that's where they get

847
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: their Z power from the view. It's so amazing. Alright, Well,

848
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,279
Speaker 1: we've seen a black hole get eclipse, and there are

849
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: other examples of that, and there's also the reverse situation

850
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: of whether or not a black hole can eclip something else.

851
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: So let's get into those. But first let's take another

852
00:41:56,120 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're talking about black hole eclipses,

853
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: whether or not you can eclipse a black hole or

854
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: whether a black hole can eclip something else. And it

855
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:18,879
Speaker 1: turns out that yes, you can eclipse a black hole.

856
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:20,919
Speaker 1: We've seen it. We have data from a black hole

857
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: being eclipse out there in another galaxy. That's right. Even

858
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: though black holes are super powerful in the real world

859
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 1: and in Pokemon, you can just stand in front of

860
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: them and block their light. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. We

861
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: have data from that. And you said there's another example

862
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: of a black hole eclipse that we've seen. That's right.

863
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: There's a really cool galaxy about sixty million light years away.

864
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 1: It goes by the exciting name of n GC, and

865
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: it's exciting because it has a very active galactic nucleus.

866
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:50,839
Speaker 1: This is what astronomers say when they mean that there's

867
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 1: a big black hole at the heart of it, and

868
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: it's very powerful and it's shooting a lot of stuff out.

869
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: So if you imagine a galaxy is like a big

870
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: flat disc of stuff, maybe with arms trailing behind it.

871
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: Now add to that huge jets of stuff shooting up

872
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:08,360
Speaker 1: and down sort of from the middle of that disk.

873
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 1: So the galaxy is no longer just like flat. It

874
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: now has like an axle around which it's spinning. And

875
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 1: so we've seen this galaxy and and has something eclipses. Yeah,

876
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: astronomers were really curious about what was going on in

877
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: the heart of that galaxy, and they wanted to know

878
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: how big was the black hole and how big was

879
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: the active part of it, this sort of like really

880
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: intense part of the center of the galaxy. How big

881
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: is that accretion disk. Problem is that the galaxy is

882
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 1: so far away that it's really hard to measure that.

883
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: Like we've taken pictures of black holes and their acreation disks,

884
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 1: but it's very very difficult, and for this galaxy, it's

885
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: too far away for us to even use the event

886
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: horizon telescope. So they were trying to figure out how

887
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: big this thing was. And then they got lucky. They

888
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: got lucky because a big cloud of gas, when they

889
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: already knew and they had studied before, passed in front

890
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 1: of the black hole and eclipsed it. Because they knew

891
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: how big this cloud was and how fast it was going,

892
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: they were able to use that to measure the size

893
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: of the black hole accretion disc itself. Wait, what so

894
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: there was a black hole in another galaxy far waing

895
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: and a gas cloud within that galaxy pass in front

896
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 1: of it, or between us and that other galaxy. The

897
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: gas cloud is part of that other galaxy. You know, Oh,

898
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:20,279
Speaker 1: I see? And how do we know how big that

899
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: gas cloud was? Because it's so far away. It's so

900
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: far away, but it's really big. And so they were

901
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: able to measure the size of this gas cloud. It's

902
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: much bigger than the black hole, but it's big enough

903
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: to see with the telescopes. It's big enough to see. You.

904
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: We can see other galaxies and we can see individual

905
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: components of it. We can't always resolve things as small

906
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: as stars, but big gas clouds we can resolve. And

907
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: so the cloud eclipse the black hole in the middle

908
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 1: or the quasar in in the middle, like it blocked

909
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:48,720
Speaker 1: it completely or it just made it kind of fuzzy

910
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: for a while. It blocked it almost completely. I mean,

911
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: some light can get through it at some wavelengths. But

912
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 1: you can see definitely the dramatic dimming of this black

913
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: hole because this cloud passes in front of the accretion disk,

914
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,240
Speaker 1: and so as it passes in front of one side

915
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 1: of the acreation disc, it starts to dim. And then

916
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: if it's totally blocking the disk, then you get the

917
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: minimum brightness. And then as it starts to reveal the

918
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 1: accretion disc again, the light comes back up. And so

919
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: from the size of the gas cloud and the speed

920
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 1: and with the gas cloud was moving, you can figure

921
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: out the size of the accretion disk, which is what

922
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: the astronomers are really curious to know. Interesting, So these

923
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 1: are recorded instances of black hole eclipses, Like you could

924
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:31,839
Speaker 1: be the astronomer that saw a black hole eclip. Yeah, exactly.

925
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 1: And these are lucky coincidences, right, just like the Sun

926
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: and the moon lining up. In the case that these

927
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 1: things line up in the sky, we can use that

928
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 1: to learn something about these systems. We're always taking an

929
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: advantage of what's going on in the universe. Astronomers never

930
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 1: get to like build experiments and say what happens if

931
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 1: I crash these two things together, or if I pass

932
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 1: this in front of the other thing. They have to

933
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:55,320
Speaker 1: just be clever in other ways of saying, well, I

934
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 1: didn't get to design this situation, but what can I

935
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: do to learn about the universe? Frum it anyway, And

936
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: so I love seeing astronomers be clever this way and

937
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: figure out, like how to use the lucky lining up

938
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: of these two objects to learn something about them. And

939
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: in this case, I used the gas cloud to learn

940
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: about the size of this black hole. What did they

941
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: learn about it? So they learned the size not just

942
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: to the black hole, but also the disc around it, right,

943
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 1: because it's the disc around it, the accretion disc that

944
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 1: really is generating that radiation. So they learned that this

945
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,919
Speaker 1: disc is about seven a U wide, where a us

946
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: the distance from the Earth to the Sun. And so

947
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: if you put this thing in our solar system and

948
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: you extend out past the Earth's orbit and out past Mars,

949
00:46:34,600 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: so this thing is really pretty big. Wait, we can

950
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: measure the size of the cloud before, but we couldn't

951
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: measure the size of the black hole. Yeah, and the

952
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: cloud is bigger than the black hole, so we were

953
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: able to resolve it all right. Well, the final question

954
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 1: is whether a black hole could eclipse something else. Like

955
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: if there's a star or a sun out there and

956
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: a black hole pass in between it and us, would

957
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: it create an eclipse? That would be pretty dramatic, wouldn't it.

958
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: That would be pretty dramatic, But it's almost impossible. If

959
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:03,240
Speaker 1: somebody standing on the other side of a black hole

960
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: and like turning on and off a flashlight, then a

961
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,240
Speaker 1: lot of those photons would get to you anyway. Remember

962
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: that space around the black hole is really really curved,

963
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 1: so light doesn't always travel in straight lines. So light

964
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: that comes out from their flashlight that wouldn't otherwise get

965
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: to your eye gets bent by the black hole towards

966
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 1: your eye. So the black hole would eat some of

967
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: the photons from the flashlight, but other photons that were

968
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,360
Speaker 1: going in other directions would get bent towards your eyeball,

969
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: so you would still see it. Right, Like if a

970
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: black hole just happened to fly into our solar system

971
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 1: and get between us and the Sun, it wouldn't totally

972
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: block the Sun. It would only block some of it. Yeah, Like,

973
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: if somebody stood on the other side of a black

974
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: hole with a laser of single photons, they could shoot

975
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: them at the black hole and you would eat them

976
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't see it. But if their source has

977
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:51,359
Speaker 1: any sort of width to it, if the photons come

978
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:53,439
Speaker 1: out at any sort of angle, then some of those

979
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: are going to get bent around the black hole and

980
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 1: towards your eye. We see the same thing happening actually

981
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,800
Speaker 1: already with the moon the Desiginstein's famous proof of general

982
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 1: relativity that space is curved by mass, because he showed

983
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: that photons from the Sun don't always get blocked by

984
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: the Moon. The Moon bends them around itself a tiny

985
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: little bit. The Moon is lensing the light from the

986
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: Sun a little bit, and a black hole would be

987
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: a very very powerful gravitational lens. So it's almost impossible

988
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: to hide behind a black hole, right, you're saying, like,

989
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: because the Moon is almost the same size as the

990
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 1: Sun and the sky, it doesn't totally block the Sun

991
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: because some of the light kind of flows around the

992
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,399
Speaker 1: Moon and gets to us anyway. But if the Moon

993
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: was bigger, right, and the sky might like ten times

994
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 1: bigger than the Sun. It would almost totally blocked the Sun, right, Yeah, exactly.

995
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,160
Speaker 1: Although the Moon was more massive than it would be

996
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: more effective at bending some of the Sun's light towards us.

997
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: And so there's two different effects going on there. And

998
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: so something is very small, like a black hole and

999
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: very very dense, it's going to be excellent at gathering

1000
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 1: light that otherwise wouldn't have gone to you and sending

1001
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: it your direction. So what would we see if a

1002
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: black hole stood between us and our son. We would

1003
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 1: see like a black circle with a bright ring around it, right,

1004
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: and then that ring would sort of merge with the

1005
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: Sun and kind of distort the light around it, and

1006
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,879
Speaker 1: then they would block the Sun, and then it would

1007
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: keep going. Yeah exactly. It would look really weird and awesome.

1008
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 1: It reminds me actually of a great science fiction book

1009
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: I read, Paraheli In by Greg Egan. He talks about

1010
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,240
Speaker 1: what happens when a black hole enters our solar system,

1011
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: and it's not something you should look forward to because

1012
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: it would disrupt everything in the solar system even before

1013
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: it made an impressive distortion of the Sun's light. Would

1014
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 1: be bad news, but let's say it was a really

1015
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: big black hole. It would totally eclipse our sun, right,

1016
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: or we we still see all of the light from

1017
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: the sun. We wouldn't, right, We would only see some

1018
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 1: of the light from the sun get bent around the

1019
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:50,760
Speaker 1: black hole, but mostly it would be blocked. We wouldn't

1020
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: see all of the light from the sun because photons

1021
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 1: shot directly towards the center of the black hole would

1022
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 1: still fall into the black hole, but photons shot in

1023
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:01,839
Speaker 1: other directions would get bent around it. To us, well,

1024
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: there would be a range, right, wouldn't there be a range? Like,

1025
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: It's not just the ones directly to the center of

1026
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:08,799
Speaker 1: the black hole and the ones a little bit off

1027
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: to the side also get sucked into the black hole. Yeah,

1028
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: the bigger the black hole, or the closer you are

1029
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: to it, the sort of the wider range of photons

1030
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,360
Speaker 1: that do fall into the black hole. But also the

1031
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 1: more powerful the black hole, the more it's able to

1032
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: bend other photons around it so that you can see it.

1033
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: And have we seen an example of this, I guess

1034
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 1: we kind of have, right, I mean, we've taken pictures

1035
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 1: of black holes, right, we have pictures of black holes,

1036
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 1: and presumably there are stars behind the black hole that

1037
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:39,919
Speaker 1: we're not seeing because they're getting blocked by this black hole.

1038
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,240
Speaker 1: I don't know that we've seen that directly. We've discovered

1039
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: smaller black holes because of their gravitational effects on the

1040
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: nearby stars. Like if you see a star and it's

1041
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 1: moving in such a way that you can tell it's

1042
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 1: orbiting something, but you don't see the thing there, then

1043
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: you deduce that there's probably a black hole there, even

1044
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 1: if you don't see it. I don't know if we've

1045
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: seen direct lensing of background stuff from a tellar mass

1046
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 1: black hole. Well, I guess if we have a picture

1047
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:05,399
Speaker 1: of a black hole, technically it was blocking something behind it, right,

1048
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 1: assuming there was something behind it, then yeah, it's getting blocked. Yeah, well,

1049
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,439
Speaker 1: technically there that has to be something behind it, doesn't there.

1050
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like they're it's totally empty space

1051
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: behind it, right, Yeah, there's always background galaxies no matter

1052
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: how far you look. All right, Well, I think your

1053
00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 1: point is that it's complicated, right, because black holes bend

1054
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: space so much that it and they act like lenses

1055
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 1: out there in space that it's it's kind of a

1056
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: complicated situation to have a black hole block something else. Yeah,

1057
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: black holes are great at bending light and eating photons,

1058
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: but they're also great at showing you what's behind them. Yeah,

1059
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,800
Speaker 1: but definitely, for sure, we've seen things block black holes

1060
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:42,399
Speaker 1: from our view. It's just that the situation is more

1061
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 1: complicated for a black hole blocking our view of something else. Yeah, exactly.

1062
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:48,720
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think the main lesson is Pokemon

1063
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:52,319
Speaker 1: is right. I think that's what you're seeing, right, that's right.

1064
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:54,359
Speaker 1: You don't need a physics degree. You just invest your

1065
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: college savings in Pokemon. That's right. Just catch them all

1066
00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: and you can't retired to that tropical island or at

1067
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:03,879
Speaker 1: least pay for your son's college. It kind of caused

1068
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: the same these days, does cause the same. Maybe you'll

1069
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 1: get a PhD in Pokemon. I think there are pro

1070
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: hard people getting their PhDs on the cultural impact of Pokemon.

1071
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:16,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can get a PhD on anything, exactly.

1072
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: Everybody can get a PhD. Al right, Well, I guess

1073
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: the next time you look out into the night sky

1074
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 1: or even the daytime sky, imagine that there are black

1075
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,239
Speaker 1: holes out there being eclipse and also eclipsing our view

1076
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: of the universe. Because the universe is full of all

1077
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 1: these amazing objects and be impressed by how astronomers are

1078
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: taking an advantage of coincidences and happenstands out there in

1079
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 1: the universe to teach us lessons, to reveal the nature

1080
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 1: of the mysteries of our cosmos. That's right. The main

1081
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: lesson here is don't put your thumb down on physics.

1082
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: Give it those thumbs up. Yeah, two thumbs up to astronomy.

1083
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: All right. We hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us,

1084
00:52:50,480 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 1: See you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that

1085
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,360
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is a production of

1086
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:06,800
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,

1087
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1088
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Ye