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Speaker 1: What on Earth is a wardy comb jelly? And why

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Speaker 1: does it sound like it's probably very smelly?

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Speaker 2: If the Sun were replaced with a white hole, would

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Speaker 2: it be very bright or dark as coal?

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Speaker 1: How do willes navigate the seas? Magnetics gravity or mysteries

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Speaker 1: of chemistry?

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Speaker 2: Whatever question keeps you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 2: answer will make it all right.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to another Listener's Questions episode on Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I've never

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Speaker 2: been tempted to eat a warty comb jelly.

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Speaker 1: Hello. I am Kelly Weener Smith. I also have never

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Speaker 1: been tempted to eat a warty comb jelly, But I

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Speaker 1: feel like the existence of the name wharty comb jelly

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Speaker 1: reveals that biologists have a much more fun time of

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Speaker 1: naming things than physicists do. What is your favorite species name?

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Speaker 2: Daniel wait, I can't get over warty comb jelly, and

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Speaker 2: I'm not gonna let it slide that you're somehow congratulating

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Speaker 2: yourself for this name. This name is a mess. I'm like,

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Speaker 2: is it a wart is it a comb? Is it

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Speaker 2: a kind of jelly? Is it a jelly made of warts?

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Speaker 2: Can I comb my hair with it? What is going

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Speaker 2: on with this name? It sounds like just three random words.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like a password recommended by XKCD.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, so one, I think you must lack

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Speaker 1: imagination because I imagine a jellyfish that is sort of warty

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Speaker 1: with some like comy projections. I think they did a

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Speaker 1: great job.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I've heard this thing is also described

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Speaker 2: as a sea walnut, So I'm not sure anything in

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Speaker 2: our vocabulary can really capture the weirdness of this creature.

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Speaker 2: Maybe biology has gone beyond naming.

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Speaker 1: You know, it has two different life stages, and sea

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Speaker 1: walnut describes one of the stages very well, and warty

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Speaker 1: comb jelly describes the other very well. So maybe if

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Speaker 1: you just knew a little more natural history, you'd follow along.

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Speaker 2: So it needs five words in its name, not just three.

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Speaker 2: Oh it's oh that fabulous.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty fabulous. But I think my favorite species, or

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Speaker 1: my favorite common name for a species, is the humped

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Speaker 1: trash line weaver. It's a spider that has like sort

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Speaker 1: of a humpy shape, but also it puts trash in

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Speaker 1: the middle of its web. And I don't remember why

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Speaker 1: should have looked that up before the show. But it's

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Speaker 1: got a line of trash and it's got a hump,

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Speaker 1: and it's a humped trash line. Orb Weaver and I

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Speaker 1: love them. They live on my farm in Virginia and

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Speaker 1: they are permanent residents.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's a well known spider that I think could

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Speaker 2: use a better name, And I once heard an episode

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Speaker 2: of This American Life where they were speculating about a

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Speaker 2: better name for the black widow spider. And my favorite

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Speaker 2: suggestion is not family friendly. It has to do with

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Speaker 2: the fact that until we had running water, most of

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Speaker 2: the bites were on guys using outhouses because of little

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Speaker 2: swinging bits that the spiders bit onto.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was reading a journal of parasitology and

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Speaker 1: there were men who were purposefully letting themselves get bit

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Speaker 1: by black widows to try to get a handle on

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Speaker 1: how bad the bites are. And the story starts with

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Speaker 1: how he was like doing experiments on rodents and ends

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Speaker 1: with how many days he was stuck in the hospital

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Speaker 1: after he did it to himself. But the doctor treating

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Speaker 1: him said, yeah, I've seen someone else with a black

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Speaker 1: widow bite, and it was in the same location, but

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Speaker 1: alcohol was involved, and so I have since found myself

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Speaker 1: wondering if men is like, oh, it's because of the outhouse,

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Speaker 1: I just but it was really just other shenanigans.

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Speaker 2: Well, there are so many wonderful questions to ask about

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Speaker 2: that story and where people get bitten by black widows

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Speaker 2: and other things about the universe. And today we're going

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Speaker 2: to be celebrating those kinds of questions because we're here

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Speaker 2: today not to talk about the things that we wonder

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Speaker 2: about the universe, but the things that you wonder about

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Speaker 2: the universe. Our podcast is a conversation between us and you,

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Speaker 2: and we want to hear from you. We want to

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Speaker 2: know what you want explained about this extraordinary universe.

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Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and jump into our first question

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Speaker 1: about the wardy comb jelly.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Kelly, Hi Daniel wanted to see if you could

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Speaker 3: discuss the wordy comb jelly things.

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Speaker 1: Well. I was excited about this question because honestly, I've

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Speaker 1: never heard of the wardy comb jelly, and it turns

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Speaker 1: out and has a number of really fascinating features.

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, what do you think inspired this question?

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Speaker 2: Is it just the craziness of the name, or is

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Speaker 2: it some incredible biological magic that's happening in this critter.

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Speaker 1: If I had to guess, I would guess that this

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Speaker 1: listener sent us the question because this species has a

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Speaker 1: transient anus.

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Speaker 2: Another pair of words I never thought would go together.

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Speaker 1: Biology is amazing, And.

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Speaker 2: I'm hoping that that means exactly what I think it means.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably, So let's back up and let's clarify the

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Speaker 1: appearance and the diet of this thing. And so we're

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Speaker 1: gonna do the inputs and when we get to the outputs,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about the transientanus. So, all right, the warty

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Speaker 1: comb jelly you know, if you imagine it, it has

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Speaker 1: sort of like a jellyfish shape, okay, but has two

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Speaker 1: different stages of its life. When it's small, it's called

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Speaker 1: a sidipid. And at this point it looks like it's clear,

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Speaker 1: but it has sort of a walnut shape with two long,

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Speaker 1: feathery tentacles that come out from the back.

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Speaker 2: So why isn't it called a wardycomb jellyfish instead of

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Speaker 2: a wardycomb jelly Because when I hear wardcomb jelly, I

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Speaker 2: think of a pot of jam.

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Speaker 1: Uh. It was probably not named with you in mind.

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Speaker 2: And why not is the real question.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think jelly so jellyfish might be

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Speaker 1: slightly distantly related. There's probably a lot of diversity in

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Speaker 1: jelly like things out there. These are some very ancient creatures.

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Speaker 1: And also, you know, jellyfish is sort of confusing because

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Speaker 1: they're not really fish, and so maybe someone was like,

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Speaker 1: let's drop the fish because these aren't.

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Speaker 2: Really fish, and also it's pretty good on toast.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't suggest eating these, although I think they're mostly

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Speaker 1: water and I don't think they could sting you, so

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Speaker 1: maybe it would be fine. Why not? But as they

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Speaker 1: transition to adults, they lose those long, feathery tentacles and

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Speaker 1: instead they grow these lobes. So I kind of imagine

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Speaker 1: like a glass paper weight, but with like ribbons coming

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Speaker 1: off of the sides kind of, So it has these lobes,

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Speaker 1: and the lobes have these like iridescent spots on them

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Speaker 1: that attract little like tiny fish so that they can

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Speaker 1: eat them.

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Speaker 2: This sounds really cute.

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Speaker 1: No, it is really cute. You should look up a photos.

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Speaker 1: It's cute and it has beautiful iridescent colors. I can

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Speaker 1: imagine having it as a pet, and I've seen it

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Speaker 1: at some aquarium.

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Speaker 2: Because again the name wardicomb jelly doesn't conjure up cute

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Speaker 2: images in my mind. But your description was beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Well thank you. I mean, biologists have a sense of humor,

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Speaker 1: and that's that's what you need to know. And so

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Speaker 1: when they're young, they use those feathery tentacles to capture

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Speaker 1: very tiny creatures living in the water column. As they

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Speaker 1: get older and they get into the low bait stage

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Speaker 1: where they have those lobes, I agree, this is not

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Speaker 1: a very pretty name for the stage when they have

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Speaker 1: those like ribbons coming off the side. Then they're eating

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Speaker 1: things like eggs and tiny fish and crustaceans, so they

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Speaker 1: start eating bigger things, so they have a transition.

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Speaker 2: So does this mean they're up near the surface where

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Speaker 2: they can eat those things or do they go much deeper.

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Speaker 1: They're swimming around the surface and they can move throughout

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Speaker 1: the water column, so you can find them at different depths.

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Speaker 1: They also will eat each other. So like for the

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly checklist, we've hit cannibalism. So this species

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Speaker 1: has a lot of things that you and I love.

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Speaker 1: So next we're ar at least that I love. So

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Speaker 1: next we're going to talk about poop. That's point two

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Speaker 1: for dKu.

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Speaker 2: I hope we get to aliens eventually.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say aliens are white chocolate. That's where

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Speaker 1: we got to get this kind of station two.

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Speaker 2: So tell us about how these things spend their time

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Speaker 2: on the body.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So as they eat and they accumulate waste, their

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Speaker 1: gut expands, and as it expands and kind of balloons out.

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Speaker 1: At some point it touches the outside of the body.

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Speaker 1: And as it touches the outside of the body, it

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Speaker 1: fuses and an anus is formed. So like the gut

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Speaker 1: and the outside of the body are only like one

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Speaker 1: cell thick, and so they fuse form a hole through

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Speaker 1: which waste is expelled, and this happens like every ten

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Speaker 1: minutes to every hour, depending on how big they are.

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Speaker 1: And then once the waste has been expelled, the gut

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Speaker 1: starts shrinking and it pulls away from the outside of

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Speaker 1: the body, and that hole is completely covered up. It

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Speaker 1: goes away, it totally fuses, and the anis disappears. What

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Speaker 1: I know, and it's thought that this is an intermediate

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Speaker 1: stage between the permanent anuses so many of us know

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Speaker 1: and love, and this early stage of the anus, and

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Speaker 1: maybe we should put a warning at the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the show. But you could talk about butts with kids, right, yeah, And.

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Speaker 2: We could just pretend that permanent Anus is the name

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Speaker 2: of a punk band we both enjoy.

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Speaker 1: That's right, That's right, yeah, from the nineties.

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Speaker 2: I love their second album, Oh my God, so good?

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Speaker 2: Are you saying that this is a transition stage sort

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Speaker 2: of evolutionarily like that there are some critters that didn't

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Speaker 2: have an anus, and then there were critters with a

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Speaker 2: temporary anis, and then their critters with a permanent anis.

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Speaker 1: So I'm imagining the PhD student who will one day

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Speaker 1: have the job of working on the phylogenetic tree studying

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Speaker 1: the evolution of anuses. But I did find a paper

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Speaker 1: that was hypothesizing that this is a step in the

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Speaker 1: evolution of the anus that early on, when you've got

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Speaker 1: very primitive species, they have this transient anis that kind

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Speaker 1: of comes and goes. But as you move down the

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Speaker 1: evolutionary tree, we sort of settle on a better method,

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Speaker 1: because why recreate the wheel every ten minutes if you

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Speaker 1: don't have to do that? So anyway, yes, this could

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Speaker 1: have been a step in the evolutionary path that brought

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Speaker 1: us to where we.

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Speaker 2: Are today, and does that allow us to extrapolate into

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Speaker 2: the future, like go from non to temporary to permanent.

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Speaker 2: What's beyond that double triple extra permanent. I can't even imagine.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, we might need like AI and

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Speaker 1: artificial tech to give us, you know, additional new ones.

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Speaker 1: I know sometimes you have to move them around following

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Speaker 1: surgeries and stuff, but I can't imagine that we're going

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Speaker 1: to end up with too many more of them. I

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Speaker 1: feel like we've maybe hit the fitness peak on anus

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Speaker 1: and we're good where we are.

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Speaker 2: So I just heard a talk by Brian Mallow, the

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Speaker 2: science comedian who actually lives near you, and he was

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Speaker 2: telling me that there's a critter that lives on our

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Speaker 2: face that doesn't have an anus. It's called a face mite,

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Speaker 2: and it like walks around your face chomping on stuff,

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Speaker 2: doesn't have an anus, and events you just explodes all

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Speaker 2: over your face. And I was like, wow, that's so

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Speaker 2: many gross details.

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Speaker 1: It is one of gross details in one story. I

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Speaker 1: do feel like there's life stages of insects and stuff

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Speaker 1: where they don't have an anus. They just kind of accumulated,

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Speaker 1: and then when they move to the next stage or

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Speaker 1: when they transition to a different body plan and they

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Speaker 1: leave the feces behind. I gotta say, it's convenient to

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Speaker 1: be able to, you know, remove your waste as you

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Speaker 1: need without yeah, without too much trouble.

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Speaker 2: Well, what are the disadvantages of this.

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Speaker 1: Of needing to recreate an anus every ten minutes? I

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Speaker 1: didn't imagine i'd get asked that today. But here we are, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I but here we are. I don't know. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I have not seen reports on, for example, how often

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Speaker 1: it fails. Needing to create a new sphincter over and

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Speaker 1: over and over again. Seems less efficient than just having

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Speaker 1: one that works when you need it, And so I

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Speaker 1: imagine the downside is that it's a fail point if

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Speaker 1: it needs to be created so regularly, and it's better

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Speaker 1: to just I can't say I've thought too hard about this, all.

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Speaker 2: Right, Well, then I'm going to connect us to the

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Speaker 2: last dot and ask you an alien anus question, which is,

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Speaker 2: if we're landing on an alien planet, do you expect

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Speaker 2: that aliens are going to have a permanent anus or

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Speaker 2: where they have a transient one? What do you think

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Speaker 2: are there permanent anuses all over the universe, is my question, Kelly.

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Speaker 1: I would say, uh it, you know, it depends. You

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Speaker 1: can never know for sure, but if I had to guess,

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Speaker 1: I would put my money on Yes. It seems like

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Speaker 1: a very convenient feature. And uh, you know, they maybe

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Speaker 1: they would have. I'm gonna say, yes, what do you think, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: I agree with you.

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Speaker 2: I think the universe is probably filled with butts?

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Speaker 1: Good. Yeah, all right, Well, I'm guessing that's what the

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Speaker 1: listener wanted us to talk about. But this species is

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Speaker 1: well known for two other things. One, it lives on

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Speaker 1: the east coast of the US, and it's been introduced

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Speaker 1: in Europe into like the Caspi and c the Black

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Speaker 1: Sea and the Baltic Sea, and it's caused a lot

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Speaker 1: of problems there. Part of why it causes a lot

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Speaker 1: of problems is because when it is in the water,

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Speaker 1: it's consuming a lot of crustaceans and eggs and tiny fish,

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Speaker 1: and so it's been a problem for the native fish

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Speaker 1: because it's eating the baby stages of the native fish,

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Speaker 1: and it's eating the food that those baby stages of

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Speaker 1: the native fish eat, so it's competing.

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Speaker 2: That's not so nice.

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Speaker 1: Not so nice, so people have been trying to get

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Speaker 1: rid of them. But the other thing that they're well

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Speaker 1: known for is a result that was just published last year,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. It is one of the few species

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Speaker 1: we know of that is able to turn back the

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Speaker 1: clock and transition back to an earlier life stage. So

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Speaker 1: let me give you some details. So we talked about

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Speaker 1: how it has that sidipid stage where it's a walnut

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Speaker 1: with feathery tentacles, and then it has a low bait

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Speaker 1: stage where it's a paperweight with some ribbons. And if

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Speaker 1: you've got it in the low bait stage and you

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Speaker 1: starve it or give it a lob back to me

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Speaker 1: where you remove one of the lobes, which is not

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Speaker 1: very nice to no. No, Essentially, if you stress it out,

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Speaker 1: it's able to essentially go back in time and it

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Speaker 1: absorbs the rest of its lobes and it goes back

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Speaker 1: to the sidippid stage, So it goes from having those ribbons,

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Speaker 1: it absorbs those ribbons, it goes back to looking like

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Speaker 1: a walnut with feathery appendages. So it can like go

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Speaker 1: back in time and reverse its development, which not a

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Speaker 1: lot of species can do. We don't know that that

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Speaker 1: like extends its life span. But if they go back

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Speaker 1: in time and then they grow back, they can grow

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Speaker 1: back that other lobe. So it would be like if

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Speaker 1: you lost an arm and you can be like, no,

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Speaker 1: not cool, you like absorb a bunch of body parts,

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Speaker 1: go back to just being like a ball of cells,

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Speaker 1: and then you sort of go through the development again

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Speaker 1: and now you've got both arms or something like that.

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Speaker 2: Well, maybe there's a great advantage to having transient bits

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Speaker 2: is that you can generate bits at will, and so

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Speaker 2: if you lose one boom, you can grow an arm

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Speaker 2: or like, hey, I could use a second head today,

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Speaker 2: let me grow another one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know that they grow like twice as

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Speaker 1: many of the ribbons and they usually come back with

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Speaker 1: the same number of ribbons. But another thought for the

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Speaker 1: benefit of this reverse development is that if you're going

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Speaker 1: around and you're trying to eat babyfish and there's like

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Speaker 1: just no baby fish, it's not the right time of

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Speaker 1: year and you're starting to starve. When you go back

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Speaker 1: to that tentacle phase, you can now access a lot

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Speaker 1: of the much smaller food stuff, and so it could

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Speaker 1: be a way to like open up the kinds of

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Speaker 1: foods that you're able to eat at a time when

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Speaker 1: the foods that you are really well shaped to eat

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Speaker 1: are no longer available. So they've got this interesting reverse

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Speaker 1: development that we don't understand very well.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Well that is all I have to say on the

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Speaker 1: wardy comb jelly.

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Speaker 2: And wait, this is the last question, which we teased

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Speaker 2: in the intro. Oh do you think the wardy comb

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Speaker 2: jelly is very smelly?

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Speaker 1: Oh? No, no, it's mostly water. I'm guessing it. I

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Speaker 1: don't think it smells bad, but I agree it's got

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Speaker 1: a kind of stinky name.

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Speaker 2: What do you think I think probably if you put

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Speaker 2: it on toast and left it, it would smell pretty bad,

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Speaker 2: as basically everything from the sea does.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think just about any organism, if you

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Speaker 1: let it die and you left it on your toast

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Speaker 1: for a while, you're going to regret that decision.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's just fermentation. And sometimes fermentation is delicious, you know,

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Speaker 2: you get marmite or whatever, or cheese, and sometimes it's not.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know our conversation went from transient anisis

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Speaker 1: to cheese. And let's see what the listener has to say.

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Speaker 3: Hi Kelly, Hi Daniel, Thanks for talking about the wordy

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Speaker 3: comb jelly. Maybe one day we'll all be able to

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Speaker 3: regrow our parts inside or out, or even flip them around. Thanks.

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Speaker 2: All right, we're back from talking about the transient holes

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Speaker 2: in wordy comb jellies to talking about a very different

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Speaker 2: kind of hypothetical cosmic hole.

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Speaker 4: I'm Sammy, I'm ten, and I want to know what

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Speaker 4: would happen if this sun was aplace with a white hole?

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Speaker 2: All right? I love this question, and I that young

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Speaker 2: people are thinking about the universe and asking questions. And

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Speaker 2: thanks to all the parents out there who listen to

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Speaker 2: the pod with their kids.

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Speaker 1: So, Daniel, what are white holes? And do they come

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Speaker 1: and go depending on how recently youth consumed a meal?

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Speaker 2: You know, when we started this episode, I was like, well,

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Speaker 2: there are no connections between these topics. Now I'm seeing

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Speaker 2: them more and more. Yes, maybe aliens with transient anuses

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Speaker 2: are going to use cosmic white holes to come and

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Speaker 2: visit us and tell us about it and learn all

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Speaker 2: about our permanent ones.

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Speaker 1: We can hope, but hopefully they don't eat us. I

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Speaker 1: guess that wouldn't be cannibalism. So I'm not really connecting

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Speaker 1: the dots there, But anyway.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So Sam is asking a great question. Basically, he's

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Speaker 2: wondering what does a white hole look like? And could

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Speaker 2: his serve as an alternate sun, etc. So let's talk

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Speaker 2: about what a white hole is. Number one. A white

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Speaker 2: hole is a hypothetical thing. We don't know that white

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Speaker 2: holes exist in the universe, and we're not even really

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Speaker 2: clear on what a white hole is, you know, like

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Speaker 2: a black hole, we have a very crisp concept for

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Speaker 2: what it is. It's a prediction of general relativity. We

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Speaker 2: talk about it, we understand about it, we can calculate

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Speaker 2: about everybody agrees what a black hole is a white hole,

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Speaker 2: and we'll get into what it is exactly. Is the

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Speaker 2: sort of a fuzzy set of concepts that are closely related.

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Speaker 2: And so if you read about white holes and you

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Speaker 2: listen to this episode and you might think, on, that's

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Speaker 2: not what I heard, and then you go read another

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Speaker 2: article and you're like, that's not what I understood to

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Speaker 2: be a white hole. That's because there is nothing that

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Speaker 2: it is to be a white hole. It's like a

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Speaker 2: set of ideas that people are still sort of developing

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Speaker 2: that all go by the same name, which can be.

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Speaker 1: Confusing, sort of like our study of the anus, you've

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Speaker 1: got multiple stages. We're not really sure how to define it,

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Speaker 1: but all right, go.

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Speaker 2: On, yeah, yeah, So most commonly, a white hole is

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Speaker 2: thought as something like the opposite of a black hole.

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Speaker 2: So a black hole is a region in space, an

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Speaker 2: event horizon, which nothing can escape. Right. Remember that gravity

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Speaker 2: is the bending of space time in the presence of

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Speaker 2: mass and energy. So the Earth and bends the space

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Speaker 2: around it, which affects the way things move around it.

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Speaker 2: And if you have enough mass and enough energy, you

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Speaker 2: bend space so much that you change its shape so

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Speaker 2: that nothing can escape. It's not that black holes have

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Speaker 2: intense gravity to pull on things, even light. It's just

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Speaker 2: that the shape of space is such that nothing can escape.

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Speaker 2: Space only points in one direction past the event horizon,

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Speaker 2: towards the center. So no matter how fast you go

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Speaker 2: or how you wiggle or struggle, you're always going towards

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Speaker 2: the center. That's the black hole, a region of space

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Speaker 2: where nothing can escape because of the shape of space itself.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so if I were to just guess a white hole,

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Speaker 1: so you'd imagine it would be exactly the opposite. So

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Speaker 1: is it is everything running to escape from a white hole.

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Speaker 1: Nothing can you get pushed away from it if you

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Speaker 1: get too close.

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Speaker 2: A white hole is a region of space that nothing

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Speaker 2: can enter, so things can escape it, but nothing can

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Speaker 2: enter it. And the opposite of a black hole. A

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Speaker 2: black hole things can enter but nothing can escape. A

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00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:58,199
Speaker 2: white hole is a place where nothing can enter, but

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Speaker 2: things can escape.

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Speaker 1: How is that made?

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00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a different question, right, Like what is it?

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Speaker 2: And could it exist? It's a different question from how

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Speaker 2: do you make it? That's an important subtlety, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: for example, a wormhole, which we'll talk about in a minute,

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Speaker 2: is something which can exist in general relativity, and a

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Speaker 2: white hole can exist in general relativity. But that doesn't

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Speaker 2: mean that there are any or that we know how

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Speaker 2: to go from a universe without one to a universe

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Speaker 2: with one. It's like the difference between saying, oh, I

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Speaker 2: know how to eat a soufle. I know soufles exist,

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Speaker 2: and I know how to make a soupfle from ingredients.

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Speaker 1: Right, it's hard to make a soufle, yes, exactly.

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Speaker 2: The recipe is a challenge. So those are actually two

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Speaker 2: different questions, Right, is it possible for them to exist

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Speaker 2: in the universe? And is there a series of actions

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Speaker 2: you can take to create one.

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Speaker 1: Two different questions are we going to answer either.

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Speaker 2: H we have no idea about the second one. We

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Speaker 2: are going to talk about the first one, right oka, like,

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Speaker 2: can general relativity accommodate this? What does it even mean?

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Speaker 2: What are we talking about here? And so the first

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Speaker 2: concept of a white hole, and I think the most

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Speaker 2: generally discussed one, is a sort of mathematical extension of

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Speaker 2: space time. Roger Penrose is famous for thinking about black

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Speaker 2: holes and the structure of space time, and he came

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Speaker 2: up with a cute little diagram to draw the whole

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Speaker 2: universe and like a little square where infinities are like

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Speaker 2: squeezed down into the corners, so you can draw things nicely.

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Speaker 2: And they're called Penrose diagrams. You can google them and

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Speaker 2: see them. They're a little hard to wrap your mind around,

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Speaker 2: and we're not going to try to explain them today.

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00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,840
Speaker 2: But these diagrams do inspire the concept of white holes,

436
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 2: because if you look at the diagram, the whole universe

437
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,200
Speaker 2: is like a diamond and black holes are on one side,

438
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,520
Speaker 2: and you can ask, hmm, what could be on the

439
00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 2: other side, And so it's just sort of like, hey,

440
00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 2: let's ask questions about this diagram and is it possible

441
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 2: there's something there we hadn't considered the way you might

442
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:48,760
Speaker 2: be like, oh, there are positive numbers, could there be

443
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 2: negative numbers? There are particles, could there be antiparticles. It's

444
00:21:52,320 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 2: just like this search for symmetry in the universe and wondering,

445
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:58,880
Speaker 2: and then people realized, well, there's really nothing preventing that.

446
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:01,439
Speaker 2: Like in print, Well you could have a region of

447
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:04,959
Speaker 2: space that nothing could enter, but things could escape from.

448
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:07,040
Speaker 2: And the way to think about it in terms of

449
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:10,080
Speaker 2: these Penrose diagrams is just some region of space where

450
00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 2: you can get messages from but you could never reach.

451
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 2: And that seems really weird. I have two sort of

452
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 2: ways to think about it for you. Number one is

453
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 2: to just reverse the black hole. Like if you think

454
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:23,440
Speaker 2: about black holes not as a big blob of stuff

455
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:25,840
Speaker 2: pulling in on you really really hard with its gravity,

456
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 2: but literally a rearrangement of space so that space only

457
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,840
Speaker 2: points in so that no matter what you do, you

458
00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 2: are moving towards the center. Remember that black holes and

459
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,679
Speaker 2: gravity are all about the shape of space itself, not

460
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:42,360
Speaker 2: forces on stuff within space. Now just reverse that. Imagine

461
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,160
Speaker 2: a points in space where space points outwards, and the

462
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:48,880
Speaker 2: only way you can go is out. There is no in, right,

463
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:52,120
Speaker 2: there's only motion outwards. So if you accept that black

464
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 2: holes are space pointed in, then white holes are just

465
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 2: space pointed out.

466
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: So for white holes, nothing can get in, but stuff

467
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 1: can come out. Where is the stuff that comes out

468
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: coming from?

469
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: Great questions?

470
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: Did the gut gets filled into the white hole?

471
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 2: And great question? And in general general relativity has no

472
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:14,640
Speaker 2: answer to that, right, It doesn't predict anything that could

473
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,200
Speaker 2: come out it nothing comes out, could be that green

474
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 2: eggs and ham comes out, right, General relativity is no

475
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 2: idea what could come out. In general. However, there are

476
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 2: some theories that connect white holes and black holes via

477
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:30,399
Speaker 2: a wormhole. And say, for example, if you have a

478
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:32,879
Speaker 2: black hole where things go in, and then you have

479
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 2: like basically a tube that connects it to a white hole,

480
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 2: things come out the white hole after they've gone in

481
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 2: the black hole. And so in that sense, a black

482
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 2: hole and a white hole are two ends of a

483
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:47,440
Speaker 2: one directional wormhole transit, and so things come out the

484
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 2: white hole that fell in the black hole. But you

485
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:50,360
Speaker 2: can't go the other.

486
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 1: Direction, right, So I'm tempted to ask how many anuses.

487
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,879
Speaker 1: That means the universe has for Sammy, well.

488
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 2: That would be one, right, because you can think about

489
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 2: your digestive system as a tube. There's an in in

490
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 2: and out and usually one direction always.

491
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: But there's more than one black hole in the universe, right,

492
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: So there's more than one anis that's true.

493
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 2: And we don't think that all black holes are connected

494
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 2: to white holes, right. Some of them just eat stuff.

495
00:24:14,080 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 2: There's no anus there at all. It just gets bigger

496
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 2: and bigger and maybe eventually explodes like a face mite

497
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 2: on your face.

498
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: I don't know, mmm, love these connections.

499
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's sort of the concept of white holes.

500
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,639
Speaker 2: Another way to think about white holes that's maybe easier

501
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 2: to grapple with is try to imagine a region of

502
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 2: the universe where you can get messages from, but you

503
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 2: could never send messages too, And that seems contradictory, like

504
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 2: how could you do that? But actually that exists in

505
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 2: our universe already. It's our cosmic horizon. Like there are

506
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 2: galaxies out there that sent us photons, but they are

507
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,919
Speaker 2: now past our cosmic horizon because of the expansion of

508
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:51,159
Speaker 2: the universe. If we shout a photon at them, it

509
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 2: would never reach them. So there's a whole region of

510
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 2: the universe where photons have escaped. They've come from there,

511
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 2: but they can't go to there. So I'm not saying

512
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 2: that everything outside the observable universe is a white hole,

513
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 2: but it's just sort of a way for you to

514
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,119
Speaker 2: get a handle on what are we talking about.

515
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 1: Okay, so I've absorbed a lot of information and the

516
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: you know, my brain is a box and it's overflown

517
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 1: and some has started to fall out. So I think

518
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: you've already said this, but just to confirm, white holes

519
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: are not anything that's really supported by physics theory. It's

520
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: more of a thought experiment that arose out of a

521
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 1: way that we decided to portray the way the universe

522
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: could look. But that could have just been a result

523
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: of our artistic way of trying to explain things.

524
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,120
Speaker 2: It could be, yes, it could also be that we're

525
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 2: exploring the true nature of the universe and discovering it

526
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:40,959
Speaker 2: in our minds before we discover it in the universe,

527
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 2: the same way we did with black holes. People thought

528
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 2: exactly the same thing about black holes before we found them.

529
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 2: They were like, well, that's cute, but it's just a

530
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,440
Speaker 2: mathematical oddity. I'm sure that doesn't actually exist out there

531
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 2: in the universe. That would be bonkers, And then of

532
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:57,719
Speaker 2: course we found them. And so sometimes mathematically exploring the

533
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 2: corners of our minds can reveal the true nature of

534
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 2: the universe, which is amazing and philosophically deep and incredible

535
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 2: and really kind of a as close as you get

536
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 2: to a spiritual moment, I think in cosmology.

537
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'll give you that. That's incredible.

538
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 2: So everything you said is true, But I think the

539
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 2: implication that therefore is probably not really out there, I

540
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 2: think is a question mark.

541
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: All right, So can you remind me what was Sammy's

542
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: question in particular?

543
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 2: So Samy was like, if you replace the sun with

544
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 2: a white hole, what would it look like? Oh, and

545
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 2: before we get to that, we had to consider one

546
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,679
Speaker 2: more idea about white holes, because white holes, again a

547
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 2: broad topic. So we've talked about white holes is sort

548
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 2: of like inverse black holes region of space time that

549
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 2: you can escape and not enter, or maybe the back

550
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: end of a wormhole. But there's one more version, which

551
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 2: is the quantum version of a white hole.

552
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: What's that?

553
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 2: And this suggests that there are no black holes actually

554
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 2: that the things we see out there in the universe

555
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 2: that look like black holes are actually just slowly collapsing

556
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 2: stars because in regions of very high mass, time slows down.

557
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 2: Talked about time dilation many times, and so perhaps what's

558
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 2: happening is stars are collapsing, but time has slowed down

559
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,239
Speaker 2: so much that it looks like a black hole. It's

560
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 2: just a very very slowly collapsing star. And there are

561
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 2: folks out there like Carlo Ravelli who thinks that it's

562
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 2: not actually going to collapse all the way to a singularity.

563
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 2: Quantum mechanics will somehow prevent that from happening, push it

564
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 2: back and invert it, and eventually a black hole sort

565
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 2: of bounce back and turn into something which emits all

566
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 2: of its mass.

567
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: Wow.

568
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 2: So this is Carlo Ravelli's concept of a white hole.

569
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: Ah okay, all right, very cool. And so we've talked

570
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: about three different ways to get white holes, or three

571
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: different ways of thinking about it. Does each one of

572
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: them give a different answer to Sammy's question?

573
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely it does. So you know, if white holes

574
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 2: are just some region of space that you can't escape,

575
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 2: and you replace the Sun with a white hole, then

576
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,920
Speaker 2: like maybe nothing would come out right, there's no prediction

577
00:27:58,040 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 2: for anything to come out. It just depends on what

578
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 2: happened to be in that regional space in the deep

579
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 2: deep past before it formed, right, and so probably nothing.

580
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 2: If the white hole that we put in the center

581
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,199
Speaker 2: of our solar system is the back end of a wormhole,

582
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 2: then what comes out depends on what's going in that

583
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,400
Speaker 2: black hole. If there are aliens out there and they're

584
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 2: treating that black hole as like a cosmic dumpster. They're

585
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: like making really dangerous elements in their crazy experiments and

586
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 2: they're dumping it in a black hole for their safety,

587
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 2: then you know we're going to be the cosmic dumping

588
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 2: yard of some alien physicists, which could be amazing, like wow,

589
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 2: you could see some cool stuff come out of that

590
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: white hole though, or it could be really bright, you know,

591
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 2: like what if that black hole eats a star or

592
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 2: something like an enormous amount of radiation could come out

593
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 2: of it. Or it could be just like weird alien leftovers.

594
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 2: Who knows, I.

595
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: Would eat weird alien leftovers, give it a shot.

596
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: If I had to choose between weird alien leftovers and

597
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 2: wardycomb jelly on toe, I'm not sure what I would choose.

598
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be a tough decision. So what about Carlo

599
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: Ravelli's vision of a white hole.

600
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if white holes are actually slowly collapsing black

601
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 2: holes that then reverse, then you're gonna get something with

602
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of radition. It's going to be very,

603
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 2: very bright. And one of the inspirations for white hole

604
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: research is that there are things in the universe that

605
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 2: are very bright that we don't understand, things like gamma

606
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 2: ray bursts, these very short lived, incredibly bright waves of

607
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 2: gamma rays, very high energy photons. Nothing in the universe

608
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 2: we know about can make them, and yet we see

609
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 2: them and people wonder like, oh, maybe those are white holes.

610
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 2: People also talk about, you know, the Big Bang maybe

611
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 2: being the result of a white hole in the early universe,

612
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 2: because people like thinking about cyclical universes, like the whole

613
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 2: universe turns into a singularity and then bounces back into

614
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 2: a big white hole. Anyway, Sammy, the answer is, we

615
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 2: don't know if white holes are real, and if they are,

616
00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 2: it depends on which flavor of white hole you get.

617
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: Do you think that Sammy wanted to know what would

618
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: happen to Earth if the Sun was replaced by a

619
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: white hole, or what would it be like if the

620
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: Sun was replaced by a white hole? I think in

621
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: all of these situations, Earth is toast.

622
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 2: Earth is not in a great shape in any of

623
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 2: these situations. Yeah, and in many cases the white hole

624
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 2: has mass also, so you could continue to orbit it

625
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 2: while you're getting fried with alien cosmic junk.

626
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: Thumbs down. All right, what do you think, Sammy?

627
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 4: I prefer if the sun was not a plate to

628
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 4: a white home, although that that end of a wom

629
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 4: hole idea does sound pretty cool.

630
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: All right. Our last question comes from Rhonda and is

631
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: about humpback whales.

632
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 5: Hey, Daniel and Kelly, it's Ronda and I live in

633
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 5: North Alabama. I was recently scrolling through the Internet and

634
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 5: saw a whale of a tail about how whales migrate.

635
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 5: They were saying that whales migrate because the bacteria in

636
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 5: the bumps in their back aligned with magnetic north. I

637
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 5: was just wondering if you might be able to clarify

638
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 5: that a little bit. Let me know if it's true.

639
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 5: Huge fan of the show, Love you guys, and thank

640
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 5: you so much for feeding my curiosity.

641
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: Well, this is a great question, Ronda. I was super

642
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: excited to have the opportunity to dig into navigation for

643
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: humpback whales. A little bit of background, There are humpback

644
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: whales at both of the poles. They tend to feed

645
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: in polar regions, and for example, Antarctica has loads of

646
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: this crustacean called krill that they eat, and you find

647
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: it in really high densities there. So they go to

648
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: the polar regions to feed, and then when it comes

649
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: time to have babies, they head up to the tropics

650
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: where the is warmer and shallower. We think maybe those

651
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: are better baby nursery conditions, so they head up there

652
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: to breed, and then when the babies are old enough,

653
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,959
Speaker 1: they head back down to the cold areas where their

654
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: food is found in high abundances.

655
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 2: So this is similar to how birds migrate, but it's

656
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 2: just much more massive in underwater.

657
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, and I mean incredibly long distances. Imagine going

658
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: from you know, Antarctica to the tropics, like that's a

659
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: huge distance, and they often make very straight line paths,

660
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: and so it's been for a long time a question

661
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: how do they remember, you know, when they're very young,

662
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: when they make this journey for the first time, how

663
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: do they remember where they've gone, and how they go

664
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: back to the same place, and how do they go

665
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: there without Like, you know, I get lost when I

666
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: go to the grocery store sometimes, like how do they

667
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: not get lost?

668
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 2: And it's a super fascinating question. I heard that these

669
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 2: whales move in a straight line relative to the earth

670
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 2: rather than relative to the water, right, which requires some

671
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 2: kind of navigation because you know, no matter what the

672
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 2: currents are, they find a way to follow the path,

673
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 2: which suggests that maybe they know where they are on

674
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 2: the earth, which is amazing.

675
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: It's crazy. But let me just take a step back

676
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: to talk about why it's so hard to answer this

677
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: question in humpback whales. So if you were asking this

678
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: question in pigeons, for example, you could take a pigeon

679
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 1: from one place and if you thought that maybe they

680
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: were paying attention to some queue in the northern hemisphere,

681
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: you could transport them to the southern hemisphere and then

682
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: see how they change their behavior. If they thought they

683
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: were paying attention to magnetic fields, you could, like I

684
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: don't know, stick a giant magnet on their back that

685
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: confused them and then look to see do they get lost?

686
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: If you thought they were looking for visual cues. You

687
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: could you know, put them in a giant arena and

688
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: move the cues around and see how that messed things up.

689
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: And then you could do other things, like you know,

690
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: could put blindfolds on them and if you think that

691
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: they're just you know, responding to magnetic fields or something.

692
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: But with humpback whales, they're endangered, or at least they're threatened.

693
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: I can't remember what their status is right now. But

694
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: you can't do any of those things to them. Yeah,

695
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: you can't move them to the other hemis. You can't

696
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: poke their eyes out. You shouldn't poke their eyes out.

697
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: You can't do the kinds of manipulative experiments that you'd

698
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: need to really try to nail this stuff down. So

699
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 1: the best that we can do at the moment, as

700
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: we can look at old records for where humpback whales

701
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: were killed in the era where whaling was popular, and

702
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: now that we have technology for tracking animals, you can

703
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: put trackers on them and you can follow their movements

704
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: over time and then you can collect data on how

705
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:30,879
Speaker 1: their movements are correlated to things that you think might

706
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: be important for navigation.

707
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 2: So we basically have to wait for natural experiments like

708
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 2: if the magnetic poles flip, or if the currents change,

709
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 2: or if the visual conditions change, we can look to

710
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 2: see how it affects the whales, but we can't induce

711
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 2: those changes ourselves.

712
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: Right, And unfortunately humans are doing some of those experiments now.

713
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:49,399
Speaker 1: So one of the things we think they queue into

714
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: is water temperatures or following certain currents or certain salinities.

715
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: And as global climate change is happening, that's impacting water

716
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: temperatures and that's impacting where currents go. And I guess

717
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: the good news is that for humpback whales these changes

718
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 1: are relevant to their smaller movements, so it's relevant to

719
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: where their food sources are. As their food sources, for example,

720
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: maybe track certain water temperatures. But even as all of

721
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 1: this stuff is changing, they are still taking pretty straight

722
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: line paths up to their breeding ground, which suggests that

723
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: that's not the main cue that they're using. So even

724
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: as this changes, they're still getting to where they need

725
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,919
Speaker 1: to go. So one of the leading hypotheses is that

726
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic fields are being used by these giant

727
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: whales to try to figure out where they're going to go.

728
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: And Daniel I should tell you that while I was

729
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: writing this outline, I just assumed that you would be

730
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: able to explain these to us, and I didn't give

731
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 1: you the heads up or research it ahead of time.

732
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: Was I right?

733
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 2: You actually were right. I'm really fascinated by this. Okay,

734
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 2: and the folks in my department here at UC Irvine

735
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 2: biophysicists who study this question of how birds migrate, for example,

736
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 2: which is a very similar question and one of the

737
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 2: leading hypotheses has to do with quantum mechanics. Actually, there's

738
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 2: like a protein inside bird's eyeballs which has two different states,

739
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 2: and it flips back and forth between these two states,

740
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 2: and the rate at which it flips depends on the

741
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 2: magnetic field. So this is a thing which actually does happen.

742
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 2: And so in principle, is a mechanism by which an

743
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 2: animal could sense a magnetic field Because like we don't

744
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 2: think humpback whales or Canadian geese are like building little

745
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 2: compasses and strapping them to their bodies, as cute as

746
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 2: that would be, they need some sort of biological mechanism.

747
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 2: What we don't know is if that's really the mechanism.

748
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,720
Speaker 2: You know, this is like something inside their body that's happening.

749
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 2: We don't know if it's connected to their sensory organs

750
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 2: or somehow to their brain to allow them to somehow

751
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 2: like see or experience these fields, or actually even use

752
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 2: them in their navigation.

753
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 1: There's a newer hypothesis that there are bacteria that also

754
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: respond to magnetic fields, and they sort of align themselves

755
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: with magnetic north And the idea here is that you'd

756
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 1: have these bacteria and then the animals would have some

757
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: way of sensing what the bacteria are doing. And this

758
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 1: is what the listener was referring to. But actually what

759
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:14,439
Speaker 1: I had imagined you would explain was why does Earth

760
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: have magnetic fields in the first place.

761
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that's awesome. It's a little bit of a mystery.

762
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 2: I mean, we know that magnetic fields are generated by

763
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 2: charges in motion, right, Like, give an electron, it just

764
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 2: generates an electric field. You move the electron, you give

765
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 2: it a velocity, you get a magnetic field, which is

766
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 2: already kind of mind bending because it means that like

767
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 2: whether the electron has a magnetic field around it is

768
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 2: frame dependent. You know, Like I'm holding an electron, I

769
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 2: see it as an electric field. You whiz, buy me

770
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 2: in a car, you see that electron having a magnetic field,

771
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 2: So we like disagree about whether there's a magnetic field there,

772
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,319
Speaker 2: which is crazy. Yeah, that's a whole fascinating story about

773
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 2: the development of special relativity. But anyway, charges in motion

774
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 2: generate magnetic fields. There are no magnetic charges in the

775
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: universe that we know about that could just generate magnetic

776
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 2: field while sitting there. So most of the magnetic fields

777
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,760
Speaker 2: are generated either by like electrons spinning that quantum version

778
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 2: of motion can generate a little magnetic field, or you

779
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 2: have the electron itself is like flowing in a current,

780
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 2: And so what's flowing underneath our feet when there's lots

781
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 2: of rock and metal in motion underneath our feet, and

782
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:22,760
Speaker 2: we think that that motion is probably generating the magnetic field,

783
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 2: but we don't totally understand it. The magnetic field is

784
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 2: weird and not reliable. The poles flip and flip it

785
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,439
Speaker 2: in a irregular way, like sometimes every fifty thousand years,

786
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,800
Speaker 2: sometimes once a million years. The poles are always migrating

787
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 2: a little bit, and sometimes they're like, you know, north

788
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 2: and south will flip, which is weird. Meanwhile, like in

789
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 2: the sun, it's super regular every eleven years, the Sun

790
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 2: flips its magnetic field, and this has to do with

791
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 2: like currents of plasma going through the Sun. Again not

792
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: totally understood. So roughly we think it's flowing currents within

793
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 2: the Earth, but there's lots of detailed questions we don't

794
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 2: know the answers to all right.

795
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 1: Well, so the idea here is that, either through the

796
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: bacteria that live with the whales or different senses that

797
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: there are organs that they have in their body that

798
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: have not yet been identified, they're able to sense these

799
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: magnetic fields and follow them from one place to another,

800
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 1: and there's some good evidence that this has happened. For example,

801
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 1: whales tend to get stranded more often during solar storms,

802
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 1: and what they think is happening here is that when

803
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: there's a solar storm, it's messing with the whale's ability

804
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: to sense the Earth's magnetic fields. So it's not that

805
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: it's messing with the Earth's magnetic fields, it's just sort

806
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: of giving the wrong information to whatever the whale is

807
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,439
Speaker 1: using to figure out where the magnetic fields are, and

808
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 1: so whales are more likely to get stranded. Essentially, the

809
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: idea here is that they're not able to read the

810
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: Earth's magnetic lines anymore, and so they end up in

811
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: places where they're not supposed to be.

812
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 2: So that's really interesting, and it sort of suggests that

813
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 2: whales are using the magnetic field or that something else

814
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 2: about these solar storms might be affecting their senses. Do

815
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 2: we know anything about the history of whale migration as

816
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 2: the magnetic field shift.

817
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:05,879
Speaker 1: I did find a paper that tracked humpback whales over

818
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: a fifteen year period, and during that period there were

819
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 1: pretty significant shifts in the magnetic fields. And even in

820
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: years where there were shifts, the whales were going on

821
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: the same paths and essentially a straight line. So these

822
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: shifts didn't seem to move them off course, which suggests

823
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: that it's not just the electric field. Maybe it's the

824
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: electric field plus some other things that they're using to

825
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: correct themselves. But it does make it look like this

826
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: is not the whole story.

827
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 2: Could they be using just visual cues, like hey, turn

828
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 2: left at this canyon and then go around this underwater

829
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 2: mountain cause they just have like amazing memories.

830
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: They could They could have amazing memories. They also often

831
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: travel with other individuals, so you know, like sometimes when

832
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,719
Speaker 1: I think I'm lost. I'll never ask that because that

833
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: would just make it worse. But like if i'm you know,

834
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: if I'm in the car with a friend, I'll be like,

835
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: you know, oh, do you remember Chase Bank being on

836
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: that side of us last time? Or should it be

837
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: on the other side? Are we going the wrong way?

838
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: And so, you know, whales travel with friends might use

839
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: each other. And additionally, whale calls can be heard over

840
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: very great distances, and so it could be that they can,

841
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: you know, hear that, like Frank is way up ahead,

842
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: and they're just following the noises that Frank makes or

843
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: Fran And so it could be a combination of noticing landmarks,

844
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: you know, sharing information with each other, and then listening

845
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: to the sounds of the seas to get to where

846
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: they're going.

847
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 2: Is there any chance that they're like popping up to

848
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 2: the surface and opening their eyeballs and like using the

849
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 2: stars to navigate.

850
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: There have been some folks who have proposed that they

851
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: think it's more likely that they might be using cues

852
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: from the sun than cues from the stars. We don't

853
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: know that whale vision would allow them to see the

854
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: stars with the level of detail that you would need

855
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 1: to navigate by it. And so there are folks who

856
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: are interested in that question. But I'd say at the

857
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: moment that's a pretty hotly debated topic in the field,

858
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:53,239
Speaker 1: and there's not a clear consensus. Although I do absolutely

859
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 1: love the idea of the humpback whales navigating by the stars.

860
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 2: That's beautiful, that would be gorgeous. Well what if they're

861
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 2: just really good good at dead reckoning. You know, what

862
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 2: if they don't need navigational cues, they're just like, I know,

863
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 2: I swim in this direction for forty five minutes and

864
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 2: then I turn, I swim in that direction. It's hard

865
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 2: to conceive of. I mean, imagine like driving to your

866
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 2: friend's house, like across country with your eyes closed. Yea, right,

867
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 2: just like knowing when to turn. That would be crazy.

868
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 2: But hey, maybe whales are just good at that.

869
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this could be an example where my

870
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: personal experience limits my ability to imagine an answer. It

871
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: is hard for me to imagine that. But you know,

872
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: they've got giant brains. Maybe they're putting some of that

873
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: giant mass to like incredible processing abilities to navigate incredible distances.

874
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 2: All right, So what's the answer then, to the listener's question,

875
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 2: I would say.

876
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: The answer is, we don't completely know. It probably has

877
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: something to do with landmarks, something to do with sharing information.

878
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: They might be using the magnetic fields to some extent.

879
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: They're paying attention to currents and temperature, but even when

880
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: those change is not throwing them off course. So it's

881
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 1: probably a what we would call like multimodal signals like it.

882
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: They probably making lots of different kinds of information and

883
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 1: integrating it. But at the end of the day, we

884
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: can't do the sort of manipulative experiments we'd need to

885
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: lock it in, So we're just gonna have to keep

886
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: waiting to see what sort of experiments nature throws at

887
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: us so that we can collect data as we go.

888
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 2: Amazing.

889
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: Oh and I forgot. There was one other queue that

890
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,760
Speaker 1: has been getting a lot of attention in the papers

891
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: that I read, and that's gravity as a sort of landmark.

892
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: And so I think the idea here is that there

893
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,839
Speaker 1: are like mountain ridges that are made of dense materials,

894
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,959
Speaker 1: and so they pull on these giant whales a little

895
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 1: bit more, and so you can use these as sort

896
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: of cues as you move around their environment, because these

897
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: don't change much you know those mountains. If they're there

898
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: one year, they're probably going to be there one hundred

899
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 1: years from now. And so there's some thought that those

900
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,799
Speaker 1: are cues that are being used. What do you think

901
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: as a I mean, I know, we don't know what

902
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: particle makes gravity, but does this make sense?

903
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 2: It makes sense sort of from a physics point of view.

904
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,720
Speaker 2: I mean, we all feel gravity, and gravity mostly points down,

905
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 2: but gravity would points straight down if the Earth was

906
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 2: a perfect sphere. If you're standing next to like a

907
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,720
Speaker 2: huge blob of stuff, then you're gonna feel it's gravity also,

908
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 2: and so the net gravity is gonna point like a

909
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 2: little bit to the side. And so if there are

910
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 2: like dense deposits of iron under the ocean floor or something,

911
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 2: and whales are super sensitive to the direction of gravity,

912
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 2: they have some like internal biological pendulum, then in principle

913
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 2: they could detect those and I guess in principle you

914
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 2: could use that to navigate. To me, I'm not sure

915
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 2: how much of a navigation a help it is because

916
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 2: it doesn't provide you like longitude latitude information the way

917
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 2: the stars do, right, It just tells you that you're

918
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 2: near a landmark. To me, it seems like about as

919
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 2: useful as eyeballs, not as useful as celestial navigation.

920
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,840
Speaker 1: Well, but if you can't see the stars, then you

921
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: know that doesn't help so much. And we don't know

922
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 1: that the whales can see the stars. Does it matter

923
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: that they are so like many orders of magnitude bigger

924
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: than we are. Does that make it easier for them

925
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: to detect differences in gravity along the Earth's surface.

926
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,919
Speaker 2: You definitely have a larger force on larger masses, right,

927
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: But of course they also have larger mass, so it

928
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 2: is the same acceleration which they sense in their stomachs probably,

929
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 2: so like maybe they're sensing shifts in how their stomachs

930
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 2: move or something. I mean, And what I mean by

931
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 2: like as good as eyeballs is that you know, if

932
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,360
Speaker 2: you could see underwater features like oh, there's a mountain underwater,

933
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 2: or there's this cliff underwater, that seems to me as

934
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 2: good as this gravitational stuff. It's not like it tells

935
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 2: you where you are on the planet. It's still local

936
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 2: information in that way. But yeah, maybe whales are doing that.

937
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: And that would give a whole different meaning to like,

938
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 1: I've got this gut feeling the mountain is actually pulling

939
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: your gut to the right, and you're like, we should

940
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: go right.

941
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,359
Speaker 2: I mean, you're joking, But your gut is an accelerometer, right.

942
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 2: That's why on a roller coaster you feel like you're

943
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 2: leaving your stomach behind or it's in your mouth. There's something.

944
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 2: It's for exactly that reason. You are measuring a change

945
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,160
Speaker 2: in the local acceleration away from the normal Earth's gravity.

946
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 2: And so, for example, if you walked by some super

947
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 2: dense deposit of material, you would feel the same way.

948
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 2: You would feel a force pulling in a weird direction,

949
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:13,840
Speaker 2: and yeah, it'd be a gut feeling.

950
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: Well, usually it pass out on roller coasters before I

951
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,720
Speaker 1: get that feeling. So but maybe if I was slowly

952
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: walking along the ocean floor, I'd be able to sense

953
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: it better. But all right, so I think the summary

954
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: point here is that we don't really have it all

955
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: figured out yet. It's probably more than one thing. They're

956
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: probably integrating cues from a variety of different sources, but

957
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: one way or another, they make these amazing migrations.

958
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 2: Well, you might be wondering, how is Daniel going to

959
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 2: connect this question of whales back to the aliens and

960
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 2: their auses.

961
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: I'm dying to now.

962
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 2: It's a lot easier than you might imagine. Any fan

963
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 2: of Star Trek knows that in Star Trek four the

964
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,879
Speaker 2: aliens were interested in the humpback whales because it turns

965
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,360
Speaker 2: out they're the smartest critters on Earth, and so maybe

966
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 2: aliens will come to Earth to talk to not just

967
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 2: about their navigation, but you know, to get advice about

968
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 2: whether or not they should promote their transient aeuses to

969
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 2: permanent ones.

970
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I am so proud of the way

971
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: you tied it all together. It's only missing cannibalism and

972
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:14,240
Speaker 1: a dig on white chocolate. Bravo.

973
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 2: You know, we try to end these episodes about inspiring humanity,

974
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure that accomplished that, but I did

975
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 2: find some connective tissue.

976
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 1: I'm impressed. And on that note, let's see if Ron

977
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 1: does impressed. Wow.

978
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 5: Thank you so much Daniel and Kelly for digging into

979
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,799
Speaker 5: that question about humpback whales and how they migrate. I

980
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 5: found it was really fascinating and I've never heard some

981
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 5: of those theories before. I really can't wait until the

982
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 5: aliens get here to interpret the answer for us too.

983
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 5: Thank you again.

984
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:46,720
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we had a lot of fun talking

985
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 2: about jelly and white holes and whales and tying it

986
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: all together in surprising ways. And we also had fun

987
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,359
Speaker 2: because we're answering your questions, and we'd like to think

988
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 2: that we're scratching your curiosity inch because there's so many

989
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,279
Speaker 2: incredible things to be curious about in this universe. So

990
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 2: please share your curiosity with us and with the other listeners.

991
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 2: Write to us to questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org.

992
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:18,200
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993
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,880
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994
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:22,600
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995
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996
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,480
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997
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999
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1000
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,799
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1001
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:42,040
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1002
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:43,160
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1003
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:47,080
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1006
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