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Speaker 1: Or Hey, just starting a new decade? Make you feel

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Speaker 1: young or old? What? It's a new decade. It's gonna

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Speaker 1: be very soon when this podcast comes out, it will well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it makes me feel a little bit of both.

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Speaker 1: I guess I feel you old? You old? Is that

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Speaker 1: a quantum superposition of young and old kids? It's both

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Speaker 1: in neither. Well, here's something that might make you feel

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Speaker 1: kind of young. Oh, this is this invent the Fountain

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Speaker 1: of Youth. Still running a grand application for that project.

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Speaker 1: But I know it's more a sense of perspective. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: what is it? I'll take it. Well, did you know

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Speaker 1: that the particles in your body are more than thirteen

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Speaker 1: billion years old? Compared to that, you're like a baby. Wait,

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Speaker 1: you're telling me that I'm a billion years old and

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Speaker 1: that's supposed to make me feel young. Maybe it just

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Speaker 1: means you need a n APP. Sounds good, calculatory. Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jorge. I'm a cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics.

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Speaker 1: Hi I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I've seen

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Speaker 1: many many particles pass away. Welcome to a new decade

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Speaker 1: of our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe, a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio, in which we venture forth

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Speaker 1: into a whole new decade and try to understand the universe,

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Speaker 1: a decade perhaps in which we will reveal new secrets

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Speaker 1: about the universe that nobody in human history has ever understood.

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Speaker 1: That's right. We like to talk about the planets and

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Speaker 1: the stars and the cosmos, but also the little tiny

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Speaker 1: things in the universe, the particles that we're all made

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Speaker 1: out of and that are all around us all the time.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad that you said we like to talk about

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Speaker 1: a particle. Sometimes I think it's just me. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: using the Royal We, the Physicist podcast Arial We. But yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I do like to talk about particles because I feel like,

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Speaker 1: in the end, we're all made of particles, and if

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Speaker 1: we want to understand the universe, we got to start

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Speaker 1: at the beginning, the smallest, the littlest nuggets. And if

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Speaker 1: we understand the way the universe works at these smallest scales,

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Speaker 1: then we have a chance to maybe understand the way

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Speaker 1: things work at larger scales. Yeah, you know, I think

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Speaker 1: that as human as we tend to kind of forget

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Speaker 1: that fact. You know, we're made out of tiny, little

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Speaker 1: molecules and atoms and tiny little particles. We I think

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Speaker 1: we love to think of ourselves as as these sort

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Speaker 1: of ethereal thinking beings, but really we're just like a

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Speaker 1: giant lego set of particles, right, Yeah, And ever since

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Speaker 1: I learned about quantum mechanics and the frothing vacuum and

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Speaker 1: how particles are popping in out of existence at all times,

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Speaker 1: it gives a different sense for what you are. You

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Speaker 1: are a collection of particles, but that set of particles

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Speaker 1: is changing, so you're more like a storm, like a cloud.

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Speaker 1: You're like an excitation of the space in which you

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Speaker 1: were living. He gives a different sense for what it

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Speaker 1: means to be you. And that's why I want to

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Speaker 1: understand the universe from the smallest scale, because it tells

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Speaker 1: us what it's like to be us, what it means

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Speaker 1: to be a thing. Well, I am definitely hopefully a thing,

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Speaker 1: and I'm definitely in a state of excitation. And I

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Speaker 1: have to say that I did get a fronting vacuum

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Speaker 1: for Christmas, so I'm glad you. Does that mean that

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Speaker 1: it makes phone for your coffee while it cleans the kitchen? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's a multitasker's dream. I'll have the cappuccino

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Speaker 1: vacuum please. Yeah. So, so today we'll be talking about

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Speaker 1: the things that everyone is made out of. You, me, this,

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Speaker 1: this um microphone that I'm speaking to, those speakers that

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Speaker 1: are broadcasting our voices. Everything is made out of particles.

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Speaker 1: And some people might be surprised, maybe or maybe not,

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Speaker 1: that particles don't last forever. That's right, particles are not

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Speaker 1: forever as far as we know. But there are kind

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Speaker 1: of two different kinds of particles. There's the particles that

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Speaker 1: make up me and you, and as we've talked about

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Speaker 1: in the podcast, those are mostly three different particles up quarks,

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Speaker 1: down quirks, and electrons. But then we talk about all

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Speaker 1: these other particles higgs bosons, top quarks, w bosons, and

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Speaker 1: those particles aren't around. You don't like find a pile

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Speaker 1: of them under rock somewhere, and that's because they don't

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Speaker 1: last very long. They flash into existence and then they

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Speaker 1: die very quickly. Hey, can I choose what kind of

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Speaker 1: quarks I'm made out of? Like? Can I be up

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Speaker 1: corks all the time. I don't know what kind of

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Speaker 1: special powers you have as a cartoonist, but if you're

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Speaker 1: made of protons and neutrons, and there's not a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of flexibility, so some of them disappear and some

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Speaker 1: of them are born all the time. Um, And so

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Speaker 1: to be on the podcast will be sort of tackling

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Speaker 1: that crazy phenomenon of what makes particles come into and

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Speaker 1: out of existence. Why is it that some particles were

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Speaker 1: born in the Big Bang and are still around, whereas

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Speaker 1: other particles only get to lie tend to the minus

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Speaker 1: twenty three seconds in our universe. So to be on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we'll be talking about why do particles die?

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Speaker 1: It make it sound so sad, you know, Oh, I see?

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Speaker 1: Why do particles move on? We talk about why particles

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Speaker 1: are born and what they've accomplished in their brief, beautiful lives.

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Speaker 1: You know, why do particles go to Grandpa's farm where

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Speaker 1: they're running happily and jumping over streams streams of particles?

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Speaker 1: They go to the particle reserve where they're well taken

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Speaker 1: care of. And here's another example of where we're sort

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Speaker 1: of anthropomorphizing particles. Right, Particles definitely don't have feelings and

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Speaker 1: emotions and families and Thanksgiving dinners, but we talk about

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Speaker 1: them as if they are born and as if they die,

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Speaker 1: and I think it just helps us connect to them,

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Speaker 1: it helps us think about them. So some particles decay

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Speaker 1: and others don't. So some particles die and some of

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Speaker 1: them live forever? Is that true? Can some particles live

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Speaker 1: from the beginning of time till the end of time?

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Speaker 1: We can never say for sure. All we can say

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Speaker 1: is what we've seen and were in. Some particles, like electrons,

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Speaker 1: we have never seen them decay, so we can estimate

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Speaker 1: how long the lifetime of an electron is based on

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Speaker 1: never having seen any of them decay and having looked

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Speaker 1: at a lot of them, And the current estimate is

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Speaker 1: like seventeen ga jillion years. Now it might be is

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Speaker 1: that is that? The is? What that in a paper?

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Speaker 1: Actually I rounded up at six point nine gajillion years.

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Speaker 1: But the point is we make some statistical statement and

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Speaker 1: say it must be longer than this very very big number,

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Speaker 1: much longer than the age of the universe, or we

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Speaker 1: would have seen when decay. But we can never be sure.

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Speaker 1: And it's the same with a proton. They're pretty stable.

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Speaker 1: Like if you put an electron in a jar, it's

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Speaker 1: just gonna sit there. It's never gonna turn into anything.

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Speaker 1: It's never going to I guess collide with something and

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Speaker 1: turn into something else. Is that possible? Oh, it certainly

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Speaker 1: could actually could get absorbed and then disappeared. But an

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Speaker 1: electron in isolation could you to sit there forever, the

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Speaker 1: same way a photon can fly across the universe for

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Speaker 1: billions of years and still be a photon. But other particles,

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Speaker 1: you know, you put a neutron in a jar or

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Speaker 1: a top cork in a jar, and it will spontaneously decay,

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Speaker 1: will turn into other stuff. Some of the particles that

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Speaker 1: I am made out of might be zillions of years old,

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Speaker 1: and some of them could be, you know, three years old. Yeah, Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: most of them are billions of years old. If you

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Speaker 1: were looking to feel young, that's not the way to

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Speaker 1: do it. I'd like to focus on the young part

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Speaker 1: of me, Daniel, I'm young inside. Yeah. And so in

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Speaker 1: particle physics, the technical term we use is that some

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Speaker 1: particles are stable. We think they just hang out forever,

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Speaker 1: they don't do anything, and other particles are unstable because

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Speaker 1: they decay into other particles. And so this is kind

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Speaker 1: of an interesting word, decay and particle using them for particles,

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Speaker 1: and so we were wondering, as usual, how many people

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Speaker 1: out there associate the two works together and know about

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Speaker 1: this process that all particles go through or don't go through. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I walked around campus a UC Irvine and I

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Speaker 1: asked people if they knew that heavier particles can decay

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Speaker 1: into lighter particles and why it happens. So think about

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Speaker 1: it for a second. How much do you know about

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Speaker 1: particle decay? And what would you be able to answer

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Speaker 1: if Daniel appros you on the street one day. Here's

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Speaker 1: what people had to say. Do you know that particles decay? No?

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Speaker 1: I didn't. Yes. Do you know why that happens? No? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Do you know why that happens? I'm gonna say energy emissions? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Do you know why that happens? A great active decay?

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Speaker 1: You know what is it? I just know that if

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Speaker 1: as too many neutrons and it's center, it's like unstable,

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Speaker 1: so they can't I'll stay they shut off. No, I

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Speaker 1: did not know that. I don't know because like there's

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Speaker 1: some kind of potentials high for them. I'm actually not sure.

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Speaker 1: Do you know why that happens? Uh? No, but I

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Speaker 1: do know, like the half life of particles, and so

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Speaker 1: all right, a couple of yes and no answers. None

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Speaker 1: of the answers changed, none of the answers decayed. They're

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Speaker 1: all stable in their ignorance of this question. You know,

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Speaker 1: some people said yes, and are you saying they maybe

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Speaker 1: they said yes, but they didn't really know. Some people

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Speaker 1: said yes, they know that it does happen, but they

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Speaker 1: weren't really clear on why. And when I pressed them,

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Speaker 1: they just sort of described the process that happens, you know,

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Speaker 1: like they have short lifetimes. That's like asking, you know,

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Speaker 1: why does something I have a short lifetime? Because it

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Speaker 1: has a short lifetime. There isn't really there wasn't really

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Speaker 1: much understanding for why it happens, Like why can these

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Speaker 1: heavy particles not just stick around forever? I see? Well,

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Speaker 1: some people said radioactive decay, But that's that's a little

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Speaker 1: bit different, right, that's when a whole atom sort of

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Speaker 1: breaks down, not a particular particle. Yeah, it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit different, but it's actually the same thing because what's

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Speaker 1: going on inside radioactive decay is just a particle decay.

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Speaker 1: It has an impact on the rest of the Atomate

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Speaker 1: changes the automate changes a neutron into a proton and

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Speaker 1: that changes what the atom is. But radioactive decay is

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Speaker 1: actually just an example of one of the particles inside

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Speaker 1: the atom decay. Oh wow, so it's like a Russian doll. Yeah, precisely.

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Speaker 1: Well that's what reality is. It's like Russian dolls, right,

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Speaker 1: you get these layers and layers of reality. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: all leads back to Russia. We were going to try

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Speaker 1: to avoid politics on the show, but it's the new

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Speaker 1: in the New decade. We're not doing politics, all right,

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Speaker 1: So pretty good answers. And I have to admit I

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Speaker 1: don't know why particle decay. I know that they decay,

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Speaker 1: and they sometimes spontaneously trying to do other things, but

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Speaker 1: I also don't know why some of them don't decay.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of puzzling to me. So let's get into

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Speaker 1: a Daniel. Well, let's maybe define for people first, what

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Speaker 1: is particle decay. Yeah, decay is a funny word because

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Speaker 1: it implies like you've died and your bits are sort

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Speaker 1: of falling apart and blowing away in the winds really dramatically, right,

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Speaker 1: But really, by decay, we just mean that a particle

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Speaker 1: turns into other particles like it's it was kind of

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Speaker 1: particle and then an instant later it's like it's broke apart.

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Speaker 1: Did break apart or does it transform? Yeah, that's exactly it.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't break apart. It transforms like when a higgs

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Speaker 1: boson turns into a pair of bottom corks, which it

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Speaker 1: likes to do. It's not like it was made out

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Speaker 1: of a pair of bottom quarks and it broke up

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Speaker 1: into those. This is not like you're taking a molecule

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Speaker 1: of water and splitting it into the hydrogen and the

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Speaker 1: oxygen that you can do. But when particles decay, they

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Speaker 1: transform from one kind of matter to another. It's really

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Speaker 1: it's alchemy. So the higgs boson was not made of

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Speaker 1: bottom quarks. It transformed from higgs boson into a pair

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Speaker 1: of bottom corks. It's kind of like when the Beatles

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Speaker 1: broke up. It's not that they it's almost up. Good,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad, I'm right, Okay. So it's not like a

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Speaker 1: case like it breaks down, but it's more like, um,

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Speaker 1: it just decide it to be something else totally. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it's not like it's making a decision, right, It's

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Speaker 1: like it's alive and his moods and it's like today

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Speaker 1: I'm not feeling it. I just want to be be

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Speaker 1: corks today. How do you know, Daniel, how do you

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Speaker 1: know his bosons? I've interviewed them. They're not very insightful.

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Speaker 1: You talk to them to find out that they don't talk.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying. I try to interview them.

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Speaker 1: You know, their agent never calls me back, so you

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Speaker 1: know they're super important or they have nothing to say.

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Speaker 1: And we see the same process happened for lots of

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Speaker 1: other particles and not to the Higgs boson. Right, Really,

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Speaker 1: the neutron decays into a proton, and when it does so,

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Speaker 1: it kicks out an electron and some neutrino um. The

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Speaker 1: top cork decays into a W and a B corks.

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Speaker 1: This kind of stuff happens all the time. Like, what

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Speaker 1: do you mean It kicks out like it transformed into

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Speaker 1: one thing and another thing, but one of the things

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Speaker 1: flies away. Yeah, a particle can turns. We'll get into

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Speaker 1: this a little bit later. There are a lot of

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Speaker 1: rules for how particles decay, but one of the most

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Speaker 1: important one is that a particle cannot decay into one

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Speaker 1: other single particle. It can only decay into multiple particles.

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Speaker 1: So when a neutron decase, It decays into a proton

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Speaker 1: and an electron and an anti neutrino. And this is

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Speaker 1: what we called beta decay. This is actually what happens

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Speaker 1: inside the nucleus when an atom radioactively decays, is that

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Speaker 1: one of the neutrons is turned into a proton. And

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Speaker 1: this is all kind of that quantum mechanical magic. Don't

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Speaker 1: say magic, not magic, quantum mechanical wizardry. Science. Man's you

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Speaker 1: used to word alchemy? How is that any different? Alchemy

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Speaker 1: is science. For a long time people thought it was nonsense, impossible,

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Speaker 1: but then it turns out it's actually possible. We do

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Speaker 1: it all the time, so it's been brought back into science.

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Speaker 1: Well maybe he'll disabill happen for a wizardry. Okay, alright, alright,

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Speaker 1: I'll compromise. We'll call it quantum witching about that in

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Speaker 1: one way? Is that a compromise? I don't quite understand,

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Speaker 1: But all right, it's quantum something. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess what it's. What I mean is that it's

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Speaker 1: not like things are like you said. They don't break

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Speaker 1: apart into into the parts that they're made out of.

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Speaker 1: They literally sort of like become a ball of for

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Speaker 1: more deal energy, and then that energy transforms into other things. Yeah, precisely,

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Speaker 1: you're converting one kind of matter into another kind of matter.

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Speaker 1: And that seems really strange, right, like where did it go?

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Speaker 1: But remember all of these things are particles, and particles

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Speaker 1: are just excited states of the quantum fields. Space is

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Speaker 1: filled with these fields, and sometimes they ripple, and those

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Speaker 1: ripples are particles. So we're really talking about is moving

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Speaker 1: energy from one quantum field, like the Higgs field, into

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Speaker 1: another quantum field, like the field for bottom corks. It's

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Speaker 1: like the excitation passes from one field to the other. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: just like a wave can move from one kind of

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Speaker 1: fluid into another kind of fluid. Or when you strum

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Speaker 1: a guitar string, you're changing the shaking of the guitar

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Speaker 1: string into the shaking of the air. Interesting, and so

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Speaker 1: we go back to the Beatles because it's it is

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Speaker 1: sort of like the loneliest guitar. All right, Yeah, go

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Speaker 1: you win. You're right, it's just like the Beatles. But

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Speaker 1: that's kind of what we call particle decay or particle death.

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Speaker 1: I guess that. I mean, that's what we mean when

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Speaker 1: when we asked the question why do some particles die

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Speaker 1: because basically the elect the first particle that was there

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Speaker 1: basically stops existing, stops existing, and something else exists. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's and it's bits are no longer there. We

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Speaker 1: don't know if the Higgs boson is made of smaller

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Speaker 1: bits right now we think of it. It's just fundamental.

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Speaker 1: But whatever it is is no longer around. It's not

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Speaker 1: just getting taken apart and rearranged like Jigsaw puscles into

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Speaker 1: something else, like Lego pieces into something else. It's really

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Speaker 1: getting transformed. And that's what we mean. You mean the

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Speaker 1: Higgs is not made out of little Higgy's um. I

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Speaker 1: think the Lego company has a copyrun on that name,

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Speaker 1: so we should avoid using it, all right, So that

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Speaker 1: and so it really dies, right, it's like it's no

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Speaker 1: longer in the universe. Yeah, it's gone. And so we

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Speaker 1: make particles like this in collisions all the time. We

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Speaker 1: collide protons together, we make some heavy particle z W

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Speaker 1: a top cork, Higgs boson, something else, and they live

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Speaker 1: for like ten to the minus twenty three seconds before

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Speaker 1: they turn into something else. And you know, that's what

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Speaker 1: makes it so hard to study these particles that they're

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Speaker 1: not around for very long, so it's hard to talk

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Speaker 1: to them. Wow. Well, it seems like some particles are

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Speaker 1: alive quote unquote for ten to the minus twenty three seconds,

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Speaker 1: and some of them are live for seven bizillion years.

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Speaker 1: It seems unfair, doesn't it. All right, so let's get

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Speaker 1: into why that is and what causes a particle to

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Speaker 1: decay or not. But first let's take a quick break,

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Speaker 1: all right, Daniel, So why does it happen? Why the

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Speaker 1: particles have to die? The key thing to understand is

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Speaker 1: that there's a difference in the mass of these particles.

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Speaker 1: So higher mass particles like the Higgs, like the top

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Speaker 1: they decay into lower mass particles. And this makes simple

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Speaker 1: sense because of conservation of energy. If you have a

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Speaker 1: high mass particle just at rest all of its energies

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Speaker 1: in its mass. If it turns into other particles, those

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Speaker 1: particles have to have lower mass, otherwise you'd be violating

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Speaker 1: conservation of energy. Oh, I see, And it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a spontaneous event, right, Like nothing triggers it. It's not

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Speaker 1: like it bumped into something and it broke up, or

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Speaker 1: you shot you shot a particle at it and then

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Speaker 1: that caused the transformation. It's like it was just sitting

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Speaker 1: there and because it had too much, too much mass,

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Speaker 1: it just suddenly breaks up. Yeah, it's spontaneous. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: need to be triggered from anything from the outside. And

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Speaker 1: it's also random. So if you have like a hundred

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Speaker 1: Higgs bosons and you have them all in an array

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Speaker 1: somewhere and you watch them, some of them would decay

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Speaker 1: very quickly and some of them would live a little

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Speaker 1: bit longer, and it's a distribution there. So we can

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Speaker 1: predict the probability of the Higgs boson decaying after a

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Speaker 1: certain time. You can't predict it for an individual one

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Speaker 1: because it's quantum mechanical. But we know, like what the

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Speaker 1: average lifespan is a Eiggs boson, where the average lifespan

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Speaker 1: is of a top cork, and it's totally random, Like

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Speaker 1: what what I guess? What triggers a death the death

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Speaker 1: of a particle. That's the deepest question in quantum mechanics, right.

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Speaker 1: We know that physics predicts the probability of things happening

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Speaker 1: at various times, but we don't know how the universe

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Speaker 1: makes a decision about what's going to happen when you

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Speaker 1: know in which Shortinger's boxes the cat alive or dead.

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Speaker 1: This is exactly that question, because the way the Shortinger's

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Speaker 1: box works, if you have an atom inside the box

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Speaker 1: that can decay or not decay, and it has a

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Speaker 1: certain lifespan, and if it's already decayed, that's killed the cat.

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Speaker 1: And if it hasn't decated, hasn't killed the cat. And

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Speaker 1: what makes a decision for an individual box We don't know.

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Speaker 1: The universe has some mysteriously not magical um which he

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Speaker 1: dies somewhere that makes those decisions. I see, it's not magic,

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Speaker 1: it's just mysterious. It is mysterious. Now. It's one of

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Speaker 1: my deepest questions about the universe is how it picks

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Speaker 1: random numbers. Where is the universe's random numbers generator? How's

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Speaker 1: that work? Um and and way. That's a deep fascinating question.

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Speaker 1: But the key thing to understand is that higher mass

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Speaker 1: particles decay into lower mass particles. Right that that you're saying,

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Speaker 1: that's like the Golden rule of particle decay. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: is actually something called the Golden rule, and it helps

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Speaker 1: you sort of do that do onto other particles. As

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Speaker 1: other particles we do onto you. Yeah, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how particles behave and if they're nice to each other

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Speaker 1: or not, but firm me. The golden rule helps you

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Speaker 1: understand sort of why lower mass particles are more likely

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Speaker 1: to exist in the universe than higher mass Like, why

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Speaker 1: don't higher energy, lower mass particles turn into high mass

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Speaker 1: particles all the time. Why does it mostly go the

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Speaker 1: other way? Why do things sort of move down the

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Speaker 1: mass ladder? Well, to to make something heavier rooting, you

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Speaker 1: need to collide with something else and then from that

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Speaker 1: you can like join together. Yeah, and that's exactly what

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Speaker 1: we do in particle collisions. We make these heavy particles

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Speaker 1: very briefly by smashing lower mass particles with a lot

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Speaker 1: of energy together, So we have enough energy to create

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Speaker 1: these high mass particles. But then you might wonder, like,

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Speaker 1: why don't they just stick around? Why don't high mass

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Speaker 1: particles just sit there being high mass particles forever? Right?

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Speaker 1: And is that also a rule? I mean, so, the

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Speaker 1: one rule is that you can only decay do things

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Speaker 1: that are less massive than you, so kind of basically smaller,

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Speaker 1: lighter things. That's one rule. The other rule seems to

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Speaker 1: be that maybe the like the more mass you have,

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Speaker 1: the more the quicker you are you're going to decay.

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Speaker 1: Is there a correlation also in like if you have

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Speaker 1: more mass, the less life you have. Yes, that's certainly true.

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Speaker 1: The more mass you have, the more likely you are

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Speaker 1: to decay quickly. Also, the more ways you have to decay,

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Speaker 1: the more ways you're allowed to decay, the more rapidly

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Speaker 1: you're going to decay. So if you have a really

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Speaker 1: heavy particle but it can only decay via like the

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Speaker 1: weak force, then it's gonna be around for longer because

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Speaker 1: the weak force doesn't act for often. It's very weak.

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Speaker 1: Where if you can decay via the strong force hydronically,

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Speaker 1: then you can decay very very quickly because the strong

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Speaker 1: force is very powerful. Oh so it's kind of like

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Speaker 1: if it has a lot of options, then it's going

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Speaker 1: to take one of those options sooner or later precisely.

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Speaker 1: And the way I like to think about it is

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Speaker 1: that these particles sort of like to relax. They start

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Speaker 1: out in these very high mass states, and you think

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Speaker 1: of it like having a lot of tension, and it

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Speaker 1: wants to relax down to the lower mass the way

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Speaker 1: it's sort of water likes to flow downhill, right, and

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Speaker 1: everything in the universe likes to spread out and cool

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Speaker 1: down and and sort of smooth out, and being in

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Speaker 1: lower mass states is more smooth, has less energy sort

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Speaker 1: of concentrated in one place. So maybe we should rename

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Speaker 1: this episode why the particles like to relax? Why are

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Speaker 1: particles so smooth? All right? So what you're saying, um,

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Speaker 1: this death of this decay, this transformation is really just

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Speaker 1: like the universe kind of reverting or going towards the

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Speaker 1: lowest possible energy state. Yeah, imagine what happens, for example,

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Speaker 1: when you strum a guitar string, right, let's go back

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Speaker 1: to that. You have a lot of energy stored in

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Speaker 1: the guitar string. But then that guitar string interacts with

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Speaker 1: other stuff, right, It can bump into air molecules and

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Speaker 1: give it some of its energy, and then the sound

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Speaker 1: spreads out through the air and you enjoy the music

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Speaker 1: of the Beatles. This is just energy dissipating, right. Why

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Speaker 1: it is energy dissipated. It dissipates because of entropy, because

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Speaker 1: things like to spread out, things like they get more smooth,

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Speaker 1: and so in the same way, you can think of

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Speaker 1: a particle sort of like as the strumming of a

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Speaker 1: quantum field, it's like a field that's oscillating, and if

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Speaker 1: that field can talk to other fields, like the Higgs

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Speaker 1: field can talk to the bottom core field, that it

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Speaker 1: has a way to sort of spread out into those

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Speaker 1: other fields. It's like it's louder and so it it

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Speaker 1: can reach other fields better. Yeah, Or it's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's in a box and there are more holes in

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Speaker 1: the box, so it can spread out. If there are

426
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 1: lots of really big holes in the box, that it

427
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 1: can get out, whereas if you put it in a

428
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:51,640
Speaker 1: box and there's almost no holes and it's gonna take

429
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: a long time for that energy to leak out. And

430
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:58,119
Speaker 1: so the lower the mass, then the more stable you are. Precisely,

431
00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:00,919
Speaker 1: and if there's no particle with or mass than you,

432
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:04,480
Speaker 1: than your stable because you can't spread out anymore. So

433
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,119
Speaker 1: the particles at the bottom of the rungs that have

434
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 1: no particles below them, then they can't decay to anything

435
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 1: else and so they are stuck. And that's the situation

436
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: with the electron, because there's nothing with a less mass

437
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 1: then you or or do you have to do also

438
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 1: with the rules of particles, like an electron can just

439
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 1: turn into a super light I don't know, quark or

440
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 1: higgs or something. Yeah, there has to be something with

441
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 1: less mass than you that you are also allowed to

442
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: decay into. So, for example, a muan can decay into

443
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: an electron, it also has to create two neutrinos at

444
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: the same time for other rules, but the opposite can't happen.

445
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 1: Electrons don't decay into muans because muons are heavier than

446
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: electrons and the electrons are the are the lightest ones,

447
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 1: right Tows and muans can both decay into electrons electrons

448
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ladder, but electrons can't decay into

449
00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 1: corks and whatever. And there's all sorts of rules preventing

450
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: some kind of decays from happening. So um, as long

451
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: as you're not breaking one of the rules, you always

452
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: decay into the lightest particle around. Oh I see. So,

453
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: like a muon can't decay into something that's not an electron,

454
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: muans almost always decay into electrons. Sometimes a particle will

455
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 1: have several things that can decay into. So for example,

456
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:18,960
Speaker 1: the higgs can decay into a pair of bottoms, but

457
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 1: it can also decay into a pair of photons or

458
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: a pair of w bosons or something else, or a

459
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,919
Speaker 1: pair of charm corks or even a pair of electrons.

460
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: So sometimes a particle will have lots of different places

461
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: it can go, all right, So there are sort of

462
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: rules to these decays, but generally they follow that rule,

463
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: like if you decay, you're going to decay into lower

464
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 1: mass particles until you hit the bottom, until you're like

465
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 1: the gopher, and then working in the mail room. You

466
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,199
Speaker 1: can't get fired demoted more than that. Yeah, it's just

467
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 1: like that. It's like getting fired down the hierarchy. And

468
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: once you're at the bottom, you know, um, then you

469
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 1: can hang on forever. I guess it's not like having

470
00:24:57,720 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 1: a job, because you could get kicked down this street.

471
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe stable particles are the unemployed ones

472
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 1: in this analogy. Right, Oh, there you go. You don't

473
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:07,159
Speaker 1: have a job, so you can't get fired, all right.

474
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 1: And so then that's why some particles never never decay

475
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 1: like electrons. You're saying, they can't decay in to anything lighter,

476
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: and so they just hang around forever. As far as

477
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: we know, they hang around forever. I mean, we don't

478
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: know that we know all the list of particles that

479
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 1: are out there but for the electron to decay into

480
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: a lighter particle, there would have to be another particle

481
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,159
Speaker 1: out there that we hadn't heard it before, and it

482
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: would have to interact with the electron. So it has

483
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: to be some force that couples the electron to this

484
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:37,719
Speaker 1: particle to allow to decay, to create sort of that

485
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:40,120
Speaker 1: hole in the box, to let the electron turn into

486
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: that other particle. Um. And you know, there are other

487
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: particles like neutrinos, but electrons can't decay into neutrinos because

488
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 1: that violates one of the rules, like electrons have a charge,

489
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: neutrinos don't. So you can't turn electron into a neutrino

490
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: because then where does the charge go. There has to

491
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 1: be conservation not just of mass, but also all these

492
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: other quantum magical quantities. Yeah, and we have this whole

493
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: list and we'll go into it in a minute for

494
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: all the rules of particles have to follow in the decay.

495
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: And the things to understand about that is that this

496
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 1: is just a list of rules we invented um to

497
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 1: sort of describe the things that don't happen. We're like, well,

498
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen. Why not, Well, let's make a rule

499
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: that says it can happen. That doesn't mean we know

500
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: why the rule is there, right, It's just we've noticed

501
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: this never happens, and so there must be a reason.

502
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: We just don't know yet. It's not it's not so

503
00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: it's not it's less rules, but more like trends or

504
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: you know, things we've never seen happen. Yeah, and our

505
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: goal is to make the sort of minimal set of trends,

506
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: like what's the minimal set of rules you need to

507
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 1: describe everything we've seen. And then we look at those

508
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: and we say, well, do this makes sense? And what

509
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: does it mean about the universe? And can we find

510
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: a reason why these rules have to exist and stuff

511
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: like that, And so what are some of the other

512
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: particles that also live forever? The quarks lift forever. The

513
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 1: up corks and the down corps do live forever. Yes,

514
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: there are no lighter quarks, right. The charm cork and

515
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: the strange cork, those are heavier, and so they decay

516
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: into the up and the down and the top cork.

517
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 1: In the bottom cork they're even heavier, so they decay

518
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 1: also down the ladder to charm and strange and then

519
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: into up and down. So literally every particle in my

520
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: body then is is as old as time itself. All

521
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: the particles in your body are just three different kinds

522
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: of particles up quarks, down quirks, and electrons. And I

523
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: think that those particles have been around since just after

524
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:32,719
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. None of my particles have were created

525
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: more recently than that. It's not because you can create

526
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: those particles. You know, if for example, one of the

527
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: electrons in your body hits a piece of antimatter coming

528
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 1: from a cosmic ray, it can get annihilated into a photon,

529
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: and then that photon lives very briefly and turns back

530
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: into an electron and positron, so then it's been reborn.

531
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,199
Speaker 1: Right in that sense, These particles are always having interaction

532
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: and and sometimes they get they disappear and come back.

533
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,160
Speaker 1: So some of these electrons have been born more recently,

534
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 1: but it's possible for an electron to stick around the

535
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: whole lifetime in the universe. Yeah, every particle that I

536
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 1: am made out of was made at the Big Bang,

537
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: or you know, it was there when it all happened.

538
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: It's got stories to tell around. Yeah. Oh, if you

539
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: could interview particles, if only they could talk. Part If

540
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: these particles could talk, these particles could talk, they probably

541
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: tell stories like in old folks homes, you know, while

542
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 1: when I was a kid and I have an onion

543
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: on my belt and the universe was young. You think

544
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,439
Speaker 1: you have it bad now? We had to live through

545
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: the hot plasma. Yeah, I think. I think about what

546
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: it was like in the Big Bang. We have to

547
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: walk up hill both ways, all right, So that is

548
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: kind of what happens is when particles die. And so

549
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: let's get into a little bit more of what these

550
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: rules are in more detail and what they mean for

551
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: us as billion of year old beings. But first let's

552
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: take a quick break. Yeah, all right, Daniel. So particles die, unfortunately,

553
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: is just the way of the universe. Uh. And then,

554
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: and that means that particles sometimes, if they're too heavy,

555
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: they will transform into lower energy particles until you get

556
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: to a certain types of particles which apparently never decay,

557
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: like quorcs and electrons. Yeah, and not just lower energy particles,

558
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: lower mass particles or lighter particles. As we have this

559
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: rung of particles and they decay down, down down the rung,

560
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: and they get to the bottom of the ladder, and

561
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: they can't decay any further. And the particles ever spontaneously

562
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: go up the ladder. Absolutely they do. If they get

563
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,239
Speaker 1: a burst of energy, they absorb some energy, then they

564
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: can go up the ladder. And that's exactly the kind

565
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: of thing we do in particle collisions, is that we

566
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: bring particles together with a lot of energy and low mass,

567
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: and we create we push them up the ladder briefly,

568
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: because our question is like what particles are on the ladder,

569
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: how far up the ladder can you go. It's like

570
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: we're swimming in very cold, cold universe and we're trying

571
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: to climb up the ladder to see like what could exist,

572
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: what used to exist. So we create these pockets, momentary

573
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: pockets of density to push a particle up the ladder

574
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: to see like, oh look you can make top quarks.

575
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: Oh look you can make Higgs bosons. Yeah, And so

576
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: that kind of answers the question why the particles die

577
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: is that that's just kind of the way of the universe.

578
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: Nothing heavy last forever. That's the kind of caveat right,

579
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: like something's last forever. But if you're too heavy, you're

580
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: not gonna last for a long time. I feel like

581
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: that should be on your tombstone. Nothing heavy lads forever,

582
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: or maybe the you know, the motto of the universe

583
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: would be like only electrons and quarks last wherever. Yeah,

584
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: it's true that nothing heavy last forever. It's a deep

585
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: principle of the universe that things spread out. You know,

586
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: it's connected to entropy that things tend to like to

587
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: transform into more relaxed states and the ones with more disorder,

588
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: and the things that lower mass particles, they just have

589
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways to be. Like a higher

590
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: mass particle, it can basically just sit there. It's used

591
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: up all of its energy to create this particle. But

592
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: if it decayed into lower mass particles, then there's a

593
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: zillion different arrangements for it, and the universe prefers that.

594
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: It prefers configurations with lots of different arrangements. It's more disorder,

595
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: and so that's just the way the universe flows. Even

596
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: for an electron. I guess I'm curious. Even for an electron,

597
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: you're saying, we'll probably never decay, but but it can,

598
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: Like can is one of its possibilities that it just

599
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: one day disappears for no no reason and transform into

600
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: I don't know, fluton or something. Yeah, potentially, I mean,

601
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: electrons are stable. But again, all these statements that we

602
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: make are statistical. We've never seen an electron decay and so,

603
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: and there are a bunch of rules that prevented from

604
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: turning into the particles that are lighter than it, things

605
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: like charge conservation and electron number concert ration, all sorts

606
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 1: of other rules we invented just to sort of describe

607
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: the fact that we never see them decay. But in principle,

608
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: there could be some lighter particle of the electron that's

609
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 1: connected to the electron with some very very weak force

610
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 1: that we haven't discovered yet, and eventually, after sixty two

611
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: chillion years, electrons will decay into those other particles. It's possible.

612
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: Was that time you used their chillion chilion just invented it.

613
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: But it's technically like the Chilian it's it represents the

614
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: flow of the universe. Man, Oh dude, yeah, alright, So

615
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:36,479
Speaker 1: I let's getting through these rules because I feel like

616
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: that's where the meat of this is, right, Like, it's

617
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: not like any particle can just die spontaneously. It has

618
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: to follow some rules that the universe seems to follow

619
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: or maybe not rules. Are these more like we've never

620
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: seen these things happen, but maybe they but they they're

621
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: not absolute rules. Maybe. Well, it's that way with all

622
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: the physics. We see stuff happen. We write down rules

623
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: that we think describes what happens, and that we hope

624
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: those rules are fundamental to the universe. But we could

625
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: be wrong. There could be exceptions to these rules we

626
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: just haven't observed yet. So in the same way, we're like,

627
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: you know, let's write down all the results of particle

628
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: physics experiments, and then let's try to simplify that into

629
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: a set of rules that we think describes all those experiments,

630
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: and then we try to understand those rules, like do

631
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: they make any sense? And why this rule and why

632
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: of that other rule? Er what are the patterns among

633
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: the rules. That's sort of the stage we're ad in

634
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: particle physics. So it's it's interesting to think about what

635
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: these rules are and what they might mean. I see.

636
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like you if you dropped an

637
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: egg and it broke on the floor, and you dropped

638
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: an egg again, and it broke on the floor, and

639
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: you dropped another egg and it's broken the floor, and

640
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: so and your mom is like, why did I have

641
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: an experimentalist as a kid? And so you made a

642
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: rule that set if you drop an egg it'll break. Yeah,

643
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: and that describes what you've seen and and then of

644
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: course you should test your prediction and try dropping eggs

645
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: in other people's houses and tom toomps the mountains and

646
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: to see if it is a deep rule of the

647
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: universe or just something specific like if you drop an

648
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: egg on the space station doesn't break. So it turns

649
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: out your rule needs to qualifier, right, I see this

650
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: is a special egg breaking rule only in whore his kitchen,

651
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: or only on Earth, or only near objects with gravity.

652
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: If you drop egg, does this break? Yeah, there's a

653
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: difference between general eggcticity and special eggticity. All right, So

654
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 1: what are some of the rules that govern particle decay

655
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: and just I guess real quickly here. Yeah. Well, one

656
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: of them we talked about already is that they have

657
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,919
Speaker 1: to decay from heavier particles in the lighter particles because

658
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: of conservation of energy. The other is that electric charge

659
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: has to be conserved, so electrons, for example, can't decay

660
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: into neutrinos um muans have to decay into electrons. They

661
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: can't decay into positrons. You have to conserve because the

662
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: universe can't do anything with that extra charge. Is that

663
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 1: it it's like it has to do thing with it. Yeah, precisely,

664
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: electric charge is conserved. The universe cannot create or just

665
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: destroy electric charge. It sticks around, and that's not something

666
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: we understand why. But we've noticed that that it's the

667
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: case that electric charge is always conserved. I guess my

668
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,280
Speaker 1: question is where did all this charge come from? Ymtanu

669
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: the Big Bang? And you know electric charge comes in

670
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: positive and negative, right, So you can create a positive

671
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: charge if you also create a minus or photon can

672
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: turn into an electron and a positron, because the total

673
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 1: electric charge is then conserved, all right, So that's a

674
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: that's another rule you have to concern And that also

675
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: works for the other charges I imagine, right, like the

676
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: color charge and the the smelly charge and all the

677
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:45,720
Speaker 1: other charges. Yeah, for the other charges, there are similar

678
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: conservation rules. And you know these charges also are important,

679
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: for example, because the photon can only interact with charge particles.

680
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: So for example, the photon can turn into a electron impositron,

681
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: but it can't decay into neutrinos and interact with neutrinos

682
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: at all because it only talks to the electron and

683
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,399
Speaker 1: the positron. Can it kind of do like a three

684
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: point turn like kind of decay into an electron which

685
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: then decase into a neutrino. Well, remember electrons are stable,

686
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: so if a photon decase and electrons, it can't then

687
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: turn into neutrinos. But if a photon decayed into like

688
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:22,720
Speaker 1: a muon and an anti muon, that muant an antimu

689
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: and could then turn into a pair of electrons and

690
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: positrons and produce neutrinos at the same time. So yeah,

691
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: photons can eventually produce neutrinos, but not directly. I think

692
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: what I'm getting here is that if you are a

693
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: person who likes rules and memorizing rules, then particle physics

694
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: is for you. And we've got fewer rules than like

695
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: organic chemistry. You know, we're trying to keep it simple.

696
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: That's true that organic chemistry is all rules, and that

697
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 1: it's just a list of rules that nobody understands and

698
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: it's an exception for every single case. That's that's why

699
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: I didn't do organic chemistry. Didn't see what I mean

700
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: because the list is shorter. That's the only difference. Actually,

701
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 1: totally Pegg, dude, I'm interested in particle physics because it

702
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 1: has the smallest list of things to memorize. Did I

703
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: ever tell you why I became an engineer? No, because

704
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: you wanted to work with cockroaches. Because my dad said

705
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: to me in high school, He's like, engineering is the best. Man.

706
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: You don't have to memorize anything. If anyone asks you

707
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: a question, you just look it up in a book.

708
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,400
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's for me when your classes

709
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: or when your homeworkers due or no to turn out,

710
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: you don't need those things either. Um, but maybe we

711
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: should just round it up with my favorite rule of

712
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: particle decay. Okay, okay, you have a favorite favorite is

713
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 1: that a particle cannot decay into one other particle has

714
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: to decay into at least two. Yeah. You can't just

715
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: have like a Higgs Boson decay into a bottom cork,

716
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,720
Speaker 1: or you can't even just have like a Muon decay

717
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: into an electron. Why not? We're not exactly sure why not,

718
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 1: but we know that if it could happen, it would

719
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: break another rule, which is conservation of momentum. Imagine you

720
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: have a heavy particle it's just sitting there, has no momentum,

721
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: and it turns into a lower mass particle. Now, now

722
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: that energy that from the difference in mass has to

723
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: go somewhere, and usually that goes into the motion of

724
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: the particle. Okay, So if a muon, for example, turned

725
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: into an electron, there's extra energy there from the mass difference,

726
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: so the electron is moving. But then that violates conservation

727
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 1: the momentum because the muon originally had no momentum and

728
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 1: now the electron has momentum. So you have to create

729
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: another particle to balance out the momentum that the electron

730
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: is getting to go the other direction. But wait, what

731
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 1: if the muan, the first one, was moving a little bit,

732
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: can it decay to a smaller particle that's moving faster,

733
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: because then you can still conserve momentum. They can't because

734
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: there's some of potentially some observers moving to the same

735
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: speed as the muan, and they also need to see

736
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: something that makes sense. And so that's true for all

737
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: particles that have mass, that there's always the potential to

738
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: catch up to it and see it motionless. And so

739
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: you have to have a rule that works also for

740
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: those observers. You can always look at it in a

741
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: way that had that it has zero momentum because it's

742
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: not moving. And in that frame where has no momentum,

743
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: it can't just spontaneously turn into an electron that's moving,

744
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: because then you've created momentum. And conservation momentum is another

745
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: one of those rules about the universe. We don't know

746
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: why it exists. Um, we don't know why it's there.

747
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,399
Speaker 1: We show a whole podcast episode about these rules because

748
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: they're really fascinating, and they highlight a famous woman in

749
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: physics who has long been overlooked, Emily Nurther, who invented

750
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,959
Speaker 1: sort of the symmetry that that describes all these things.

751
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: H interesting. Well, I feel like you're saying that every

752
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: particle is that a stand still for somebody, every particle

753
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 1: that has mass. Yes, photons are never to stand still

754
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 1: because they have no mass and if they were to

755
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: stand still, they'd be nothing. Okay, So you always need

756
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: to decay to two particles because everything is particles, right,

757
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: even sort of like energy? Whoa man? That was deep?

758
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 1: Did I tell you I didn't have a banana today?

759
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,839
Speaker 1: So I am running on fubes man, everything is energy

760
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: and energy particles. Let's go with that. You're like, let

761
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: me take a puff here? Yeah, man, what did you said?

762
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: Go for it? I'm smoking my banana appeals. But it's

763
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating that every particle when it decays

764
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: has to turn into two others. It can't just turn

765
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: into one. That means that the number of particles increases,

766
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: so there's no conservational rule and like the overall number

767
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: of particles in the universe, that's not a problem, all right,

768
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: Maybe just to wrap it all up then, um, you know,

769
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: I feel like we started off with the question why

770
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: do particles die? And I feel like I feel like

771
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: we arrived at a good answer. You know, I feel

772
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: like it what is the meaning of last of particles

773
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: or two? It's it's like, that's the way the universe is,

774
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: you know, nothing, Um, most particles don't last forever. You know.

775
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: That's just the way. That's a constant truth truth of

776
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: the universe, unless you're you get to the bottom rung,

777
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: in which case you can last forever. You can last, right,

778
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: you can hang on forever at that bottom rung. But yeah,

779
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: the universe just likes to spread out. That's what it

780
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: means for time to move forwards in some sense is

781
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: that pockets of energy density spread out and diffused themselves

782
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 1: across the universe. The whole universe is spreading out and

783
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: getting colder and more dilute, and so the same thing

784
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: happens on the particle level. So in that way, we

785
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:31,359
Speaker 1: have that in common with particles. And I think it's

786
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: amazing to think about that, the idea that every particle

787
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: in my body, like every single one potentially or most

788
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: of them, they were all there at the Big Bang, right,

789
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: and maybe part with the Big Bang? Is that true? No,

790
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 1: we think they were. That matter was created just after

791
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. Oh, I see, okay, so it was

792
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: there in the Big Bang. All of these particles that

793
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: are made out of the journey fourteen billion years just

794
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: for the privilege of being part me. And I hope

795
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: they're not disappointed. Yeah, I hope this is not their

796
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: peak moment here. You know, they've been in the heart

797
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: of stars, they've flown through the universe, but this is

798
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:13,919
Speaker 1: where it is, This is where it's good. Maybe maybe

799
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,719
Speaker 1: the answer to why particles eyes that they realized they

800
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 1: travel all this way just to be part of For

801
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: here sously the aspultaneously decay, because why even go on? Man. Yeah,

802
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: but it's cool, even if this is not their peak.

803
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: It's cool to think that every particle in my body

804
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: may be here until the end of time, right like it.

805
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 1: It was there the Big Bang, and now it's part

806
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: of me and it they'll still be around buzillions of

807
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: years into the future most likely. Yeah, because, like we've

808
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: talked about on this podcast several times, the thing that

809
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 1: is you is not the things that make you up.

810
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: It's the arrangement of those bits. Because you could take

811
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: your bits and rearrange them and to make a star

812
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 1: or lava or kittens. It's all the same stuff when

813
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: the same proportions. It's just how it's put together, so

814
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: you can put it together to make a whorehey, or

815
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: a Daniel or you know, BMW or whatever you like.

816
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: It's all the same stuff, and it's been around for

817
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 1: a long time, and it's gonna be here for sixty

818
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: two chillion years. I think what you're saying, Daniel is

819
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: that my particles are old, but I can be as

820
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,240
Speaker 1: young as I want to be. That's right, That's exactly

821
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Your particles are fourteen billion years old,

822
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: but you're as fresh as a breath of air. But

823
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: then that that air is also made out of old particles. Yeah, precisely,

824
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: but we don't know, and we can tell where it's

825
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: been based on how it smells. All right, Well, we

826
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:38,800
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed that discussion about death, the death of particles,

827
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: the death and birth and rebirth sometimes of particles, and

828
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: the eternal life of other particles, and all the rules

829
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: in between. And we are struggling to understand these rules.

830
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: And the more we smash particles together and see the

831
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 1: rules for new particles, the more we can understand why

832
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: we have these rules and not those rules. And are

833
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 1: these rules really universal? And do they only exist in

834
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: our part of the universe or for for the particles

835
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: that we have seen so far. And one day we

836
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: hope to have a very simple, concise set of rules

837
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:06,760
Speaker 1: that we totally describe everything in one line, and hopefully

838
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: we'll be around to explain that line. So stay tuned,

839
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:12,920
Speaker 1: keep listening, subscribe and follow us on Instagram and Twitter,

840
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: and have a great twenty everybody. See you next time.

841
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: Before you still have a question after listening to all

842
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to

843
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

844
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's One Word, or

845
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.

846
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

847
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

848
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart

849
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

850
00:44:52,000 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Two