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Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, do you ever wish you had more

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Speaker 1: than two arms? That would be weird, but sometimes it

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Speaker 1: would be useful. You know, if you're a parent, you're

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Speaker 1: carrying around a couple of kids, would be great to

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Speaker 1: have extra arms. Well, is it more arms do you

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Speaker 1: want or more hands? I think what I want is

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Speaker 1: maybe more brains. That would be handy. Then I can

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Speaker 1: have twice a number of thoughts, or one of them

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Speaker 1: could think while the other one naps, and then they

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Speaker 1: can take turns. I think I already have more ideas

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Speaker 1: than my arms and hands can handle. It. Sounds like

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Speaker 1: you need less brains then, or more arms, like a

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Speaker 1: whole army of arms. That would be pretty handy. It

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Speaker 1: would be quite a handful. I am hand with cartoonists

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Speaker 1: and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm

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Speaker 1: a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I could make use of a third

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Speaker 1: arm if it had a hand attached to it. Where

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Speaker 1: would you put it? Though? In your body? Like at

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Speaker 1: the top of your head, that would be useful. I

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Speaker 1: was just gonna say it top of my head, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: You could like scratch your nose or scratch your back.

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Speaker 1: Even that would be pretty handy. Yeah, but how would

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Speaker 1: you scratch your arm? I'd have two other arms for

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Speaker 1: that job, but would they reach I think the more

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Speaker 1: interesting question is how you would call them, Like is

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Speaker 1: it your right arm, your left arm, and your top arm,

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Speaker 1: or you're like your dominant arm, your subdominant arm, and

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Speaker 1: your sub subdominant arm. Maybe you could call it like

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Speaker 1: your color arm or your weak heart. What if it's

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Speaker 1: extra strong though, on the top of my head anyway,

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Speaker 1: lots of fun things to think about, Yeah, because it

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Speaker 1: is a fun universe with a lot to think about.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of stars and galaxies and amazing

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Speaker 1: objects and invisible matter and will energy out there for

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Speaker 1: us to wonder about and to have questions about. No

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Speaker 1: matter which arm you'd like to use to scratch your head.

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

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio in which we dig into all

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Speaker 1: of the heads scratching mysteries about the universe, Why it

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Speaker 1: looks the way it does, what color it is, if

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Speaker 1: we can even possibly understand it, Why everything out there

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Speaker 1: seems to be spinning, and why they spin in such beautiful,

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Speaker 1: worly patterns. We dig into all of the mysteries of

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Speaker 1: the universe, from the tiny quantum particle to the inside

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Speaker 1: of black holes, to the edge of the universe, to

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Speaker 1: its very beginning and its very end, because we love

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Speaker 1: these mysteries, and we love marinating in our understanding and

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Speaker 1: our ignorance. Yeah, because there are beautiful patterns out there

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Speaker 1: in the universe. Patterns in color, patterns, in shape patterns,

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Speaker 1: also in mysteries. It seems like the universe has sort

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Speaker 1: of a recurring pattern of always having things that are

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Speaker 1: difficult to explain or that don't reveal how they work

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Speaker 1: right away. It is interesting that the universe is mysterious,

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Speaker 1: but not so mysterious that we can't make progress. It's

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Speaker 1: like we are just smart enough to understand like the

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Speaker 1: next chunk of physics, but not so smart that we

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Speaker 1: figure it all out right away, but also not so

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Speaker 1: dumb that it's totally a mystery to us. We seem

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Speaker 1: to be sort of like fine tuned to be entertained

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Speaker 1: by the mysteries of this universe. You're saying, we're like

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Speaker 1: the goldilocks of all species in the universe, But how

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Speaker 1: do you know this, Daniel, how do you know we're

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Speaker 1: not behind? How do you know we're not actually like

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Speaker 1: at the back of the class roster. Yeah, we could be.

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Speaker 1: There might be aliens out there that I figured out

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Speaker 1: the physics of the universe and about ten seconds. But

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Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that maybe this is more fun.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's more fun to be a little confused for

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Speaker 1: a while and then figure something out, rather than just

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Speaker 1: have the entire theory of everything come to you in

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Speaker 1: a single flash of insight. That sounds like something a

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Speaker 1: student who's not doing well in school might say, like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I got an F because it's it's fun. It's more

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Speaker 1: like somebody who wants to keep the mysteries on because

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Speaker 1: it's part of my job. I mean, if we like

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Speaker 1: solved physics tomorrow, then what would I do the rest

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Speaker 1: of my life? Is that what you tell the funding

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Speaker 1: Agency's like, Hey, you paid me all this money and

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Speaker 1: I haven't figured anything out, but I'm having a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun. And really what's more important than that. It's

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Speaker 1: the friends you make along the way to figuring out

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Speaker 1: the universe. That's right, I got an F on my

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Speaker 1: research paper, but F stands for friends and fun. Not funding.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just people like me who are wondering

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Speaker 1: about the nature of the universe and enjoying thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: It's everybody sciences of the people, by the people, and

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Speaker 1: for the people, and that includes me and you. It

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Speaker 1: includes anybody who thinks about the universe, wonders why it

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Speaker 1: works the way that does, and tries to figure it out.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Everybody has questions, and sometimes we even answer

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Speaker 1: those questions on this podcast, although sometimes the answer is

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Speaker 1: we don't know. All too often the answer is we

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Speaker 1: don't know, so give us some money to figure it out.

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Speaker 1: Stay tuned. But we encourage everybody out there to engage

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Speaker 1: with their curiosity, to look out the universe and connect

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Speaker 1: with their personal questions. You know, something that I think

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Speaker 1: maybe people don't appreciate is how science is driven by

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Speaker 1: individual people's curiosity. The reason we study this and not that,

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Speaker 1: the reason people investigate the mating patterns of South American bats,

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Speaker 1: is because somebody has decided that that's the most important question,

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Speaker 1: the one to dedicate their life too. So I like

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Speaker 1: to encourage people to think about what is your most

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Speaker 1: important question? If you could ask a single question of

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Speaker 1: the universe and get an answer what would it be?

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Speaker 1: And so we encourage our listener to think about the

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Speaker 1: universe and to write to us with their questions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we get questions all the time, and sometimes we even

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Speaker 1: answer them on the podcast. We will pull up a

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Speaker 1: question that we get and we'll try to give you

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Speaker 1: our best answer on the air. Answer Right. We answer

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Speaker 1: all of our questions that listeners send us to questions

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Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge dot com. But sometimes there's one

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Speaker 1: that I think is especially intriguing or requires a little

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Speaker 1: bit of background research, so we answer it here on

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Speaker 1: the podcast. And so today on the program, we'll be

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Speaker 1: tackling listening our questions episode number thirty six of our

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Speaker 1: listener question series That's Right, which puts us well above

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Speaker 1: a hundred in terms of questions answered on air. And

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Speaker 1: do we have a theme for this set of questions?

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Speaker 1: This one's sort of like big questions about the big Universe.

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Speaker 1: I see the usual then everything exactly. Today we have

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Speaker 1: questions about questions exactly. Let's fall into the big questions category.

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Speaker 1: All right, big questions here today we have three awesome

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Speaker 1: questions about the shape of our galaxy, about the color

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Speaker 1: of the universe, and also about whether the universe is

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Speaker 1: maybe tearing itself apart. You mean emotionally or like physically.

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Speaker 1: I think first physically and then emotionally. If you tear

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Speaker 1: yourself apart physically, then if you want to really be

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Speaker 1: able to tear yourself a part emotionally, Yeah, that's true.

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Speaker 1: Depending on how the universe collapses, you might not have

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Speaker 1: time for an emotional response. Well, let's dig into these

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Speaker 1: questions because they're pretty interesting. The first one comes from

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Speaker 1: Matt from Indiana. Hey, Daniel and Horey. This is Matt

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Speaker 1: from Indiana. I was just reading an article which has

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Speaker 1: some of the most recent Hubble pictures now that it's

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Speaker 1: successfully returned to prime time. The question I have is

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Speaker 1: about the galaxy aarp m adri zero zero zero two

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Speaker 1: D five H three. NASA is saying it's noteworthy as

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Speaker 1: it only has three arms to it and most spiral

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Speaker 1: galaxies have even numbers. Why wouldn't we find an equal

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Speaker 1: amount of even an odd armed disc galaxies symmetry. I'm

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Speaker 1: perplexed on this. Thanks for your time, cheers, Matt. All right.

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Speaker 1: Awesome question from Matt. He's asking not about the milk Away,

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Speaker 1: but a different galaxy that the Hubble Telescope has found. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have imaged so many galaxies. You know, when you

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Speaker 1: look up in the night sky, you mostly see stars,

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Speaker 1: but behind those are tiny little smudges which are galaxies.

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Speaker 1: And as we saw from the recent James Webb Space

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Speaker 1: Telescope images, every tiny little dot of sky is filled

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Speaker 1: with galaxies, and they have lots of really interesting shapes

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Speaker 1: and characteristics. And so now we have lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of examples of what other galaxies look like. And Matt

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Speaker 1: is asking about one particular one that NASA said was

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Speaker 1: a little weird. Yeah, and he spelled out the name

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Speaker 1: of it. Maybe we should spill it out again in

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Speaker 1: case anyone wants to look it up. Yeah, that's galaxy

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Speaker 1: AARP DASH M A D O R E. Then the

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Speaker 1: number is two one one five dash two seven three

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Speaker 1: And we'll put a link to NASA's page about this

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Speaker 1: in the show notes. They just got a catchy name,

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Speaker 1: my daughter. It sounds like I love you or something. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you look up the image and the link on

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Speaker 1: our website, you'll see basically a picture of our galaxy.

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Speaker 1: But it looks kind of interesting because it's got two

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Speaker 1: short arms, but then a one long arm on the bottom. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: lots of these spiral galaxies have the same basic features

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Speaker 1: you have, like a central bar and then some arms

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Speaker 1: swirling around them. And this one is a little weird because,

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Speaker 1: as you say, it has two sort of shorter arms

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Speaker 1: and one longer arm. And that's the thing that Matt

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Speaker 1: picked up on that the fact that this has three arms,

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Speaker 1: according to this press release, having an odd number of arms,

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Speaker 1: like not two or four or six is a little weird.

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Speaker 1: You mean, it's a little odd you have an odd

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Speaker 1: number of arms, because I think we're kind of used

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Speaker 1: to arms coming in pairs, right, I certainly have two arms,

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Speaker 1: though i'd like a third. But if we're talking about galaxies,

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Speaker 1: then it sort of makes conceptual sense to imagine them

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Speaker 1: being even numbers, like or basically there's just two arms

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Speaker 1: because you have the central bar and then the arms

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Speaker 1: swirling off around it. But it turns out that galaxy

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Speaker 1: arms are a lot more complicated than you might imagine.

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Speaker 1: M Well, let's dig into it. First of all, why

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Speaker 1: do galaxies even have arms? And I guess maybe we

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Speaker 1: should define what we mean by arms. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: like a you look at a picture of a galaxy

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Speaker 1: you see a cluster of stars, but then you see

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Speaker 1: these kind of like tendrils, these rows of stars kind

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Speaker 1: of swirling from the center of it. That's what an

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Speaker 1: arm is. Yeah, and so we tend to call these

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Speaker 1: things spiral arms. And there's really two things going on there,

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Speaker 1: the spiral nature of them and the arms. Right, So

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Speaker 1: let's first talk about like why are these things spiraling

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Speaker 1: at all? Why is there a spiral pattern in the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: And that just comes from the fact that the galaxy

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Speaker 1: is spinning. So everything in space is spinning, and as

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Speaker 1: it collapses, it spins faster and faster. The things a

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Speaker 1: different distance from the center of the galaxy don't always

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Speaker 1: rotate at the same like number of angles per second. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they tend to move through space at the same linear speed.

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Speaker 1: So galaxies don't rotate like a DVD or a compact disc,

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Speaker 1: where like every point along some line rotates with the

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Speaker 1: same angular speed. It's more like they rotate like runners

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Speaker 1: going around a track, where people on the outside tend

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Speaker 1: to fall behind even if they're running at the same speed. Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe let's take it a step back. Because you mentioned

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Speaker 1: everything is always spinning. What does that mean? Wh are

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Speaker 1: things in space necessarily spinning or do you mean, like

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Speaker 1: everything's moving but relative to like the center of gravity

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Speaker 1: or the center of a cluster of stuff, you're sort

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Speaker 1: of spinning around that. So everything in space is sort

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Speaker 1: of whizzing around. And remember that spinning is relative to

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Speaker 1: an axis. You like, draw a line through space and say,

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Speaker 1: are things moving around this point? And so you can

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Speaker 1: pick any axis you like. You know, pick like the

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Speaker 1: center of the sun. That makes sense to think about

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Speaker 1: the motion of the Solar system, or you know, the

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Speaker 1: north south axis of the Earth. But you really could

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Speaker 1: pick anything, but it makes most sense to pick like

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Speaker 1: the center of mass of a big blob of stuff

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Speaker 1: and ask are things moving around this center of mass?

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Speaker 1: And because everything is sort of flying around through space,

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Speaker 1: it's not stationary with respect to like the center, then

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Speaker 1: all that stuff tends to add up to some spinning.

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Speaker 1: Like it's possible for a huge blob of stuff to

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Speaker 1: not be spinning, but that would require everything inside of

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Speaker 1: it to like exactly balance all of its motion. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of unlikely, like flipping a million coins and having

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Speaker 1: exactly fifty percent of them land up heads. So any

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Speaker 1: big blob of stuff tends to have some spin around

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Speaker 1: its center. Yeah, so I guess you know, things tend

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Speaker 1: to fly in a straight line in space. But once

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Speaker 1: you get a bunch of sort of in the same area,

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Speaker 1: it's going to have some gravity and it's going to

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Speaker 1: start pulling stuff inwards towards the center of massive that blob,

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Speaker 1: and that's where the kind of the spinning happens, right,

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Speaker 1: That's where the circular emotion happens. And so that's why

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Speaker 1: everything's kind of spinning around a galaxy cluster m exactly.

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Speaker 1: And as that's been happens, it very naturally forms a

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Speaker 1: spiral pattern, right, because things that the outside get left behind.

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Speaker 1: They're not spinning as fast as things closer in. Like

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Speaker 1: if you're really close to the center, it doesn't take

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Speaker 1: you as long to go all the way around the galaxy.

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Speaker 1: For example, if you're really far out and you're moving

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Speaker 1: at the same speed, takes you a lot longer to

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Speaker 1: go all the way around the galaxy. So things and

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Speaker 1: the outside tend to get left behind, and that's why

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Speaker 1: you end up with spiral patterns in the galaxy. But

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Speaker 1: that doesn't explain why you get arms, right, if you

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Speaker 1: just have like a big blob of stuff and it

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Speaker 1: was spinning and collapsing, it would tend to sort of

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Speaker 1: like wind itself up. You wouldn't necessarily get blobs like arms.

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Speaker 1: So the spinning explains the spiral nature, but not the arms. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like if you had a big blob of out there

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Speaker 1: in space and that was evenly distributed, like a hazy cloud,

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Speaker 1: and then you just got it going, you would think

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Speaker 1: it would just kind of like swirl towards the center,

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Speaker 1: kind of like a toilet, right, there'd be no clustering.

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Speaker 1: It's just like a like a tornado, like an even

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Speaker 1: swirl down to the center. Yeah, Like if you put

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Speaker 1: a fork in spaghetti and spin it, you're gonna end

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Speaker 1: up with lots and lots and lots of strands, not

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Speaker 1: like a few big clumps. But what we see in

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Speaker 1: galaxies is it we've got like really big chunks. We

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Speaker 1: got like two or four or three in this case,

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Speaker 1: chunks of stuff flying out in this spiral pattern, or

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Speaker 1: more like the three giant or three or four giant

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Speaker 1: spaghetti noodles, right, instead of like a bunch of little

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Speaker 1: spaghetti noodles. Somehow, the spaghetti's kind of clustering to giant

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Speaker 1: strands of spaghetti. Yeah, exactly like metapasta or something megapasta formations.

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Speaker 1: And so a lot of people think that when you're

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Speaker 1: looking at a galaxy and you're looking at these spiral arms,

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Speaker 1: that you're looking at structures of matter, that like, the

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Speaker 1: arms are a blob of stars like a blob of spaghetti,

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Speaker 1: and that whole arm is sort of rotating, that the

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Speaker 1: stars are moving with the arm. But that's actually not

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Speaker 1: the case. The arms are not structures of matter. They're

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Speaker 1: just density waves. They're more like traffic patterns in cars,

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Speaker 1: you know, like a traffic wave can move along the highway,

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Speaker 1: making some cars slow down and some cars speed up

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Speaker 1: or clump together, But the cars don't necessarily move with

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Speaker 1: those waves in the same way the arms in the

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Speaker 1: galaxy are rotating. But stars don't necessarily rotate with the arms.

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Speaker 1: They can be left behind by the arm, the arm

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Speaker 1: can catch up with them. The stars don't move with

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Speaker 1: the arms. Well, first of all, what do you mean,

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Speaker 1: because there aren't the arms made of stars? Like, if

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Speaker 1: we can see them in the night sky in space,

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Speaker 1: that means it's bright, and so that means we're seeing

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Speaker 1: the stars in them. Yeah, they are made of stars.

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Speaker 1: For sure, the same with the like traffic patterns are

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Speaker 1: made of cars. But the things that make the arm

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Speaker 1: the arm is that there's a denser spot of stars.

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Speaker 1: There's more stars there than somewhere else. But as the

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Speaker 1: arm moves, sort of moves through the stars the same

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Speaker 1: way that like waves move through water, but the individual

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Speaker 1: particles of water don't necessarily move with the wave. Right,

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Speaker 1: the wave is motion of the water. Oh, I see

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Speaker 1: what you're saying. You're saying, like if I looked at

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Speaker 1: a sped up or fast forwarded movie of a galaxy,

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Speaker 1: I would see it looking like it's a squirrel, like

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Speaker 1: it's spinning, But it's not actually spinning, you're saying. It

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Speaker 1: just has these waves running through it that go around.

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Speaker 1: The waves are spinning, But if you tracked a wave

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Speaker 1: and you also tracked an individual star, you would not

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Speaker 1: necessarily see them move together, like a star can be

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Speaker 1: part of an arm and then later not part of

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Speaker 1: an arm, and then part of another arm. Whoa, and

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Speaker 1: so how do we know this because we haven't been

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Speaker 1: looking long enough for us to see that. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a really interesting idea. It's only been around for a

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Speaker 1: few decades, and it's not one hundred percent certain, though

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Speaker 1: in the last few years we've got some evidence that

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Speaker 1: this is true because we've looked at the color of

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Speaker 1: light in these stars. Because the galactic arms tend to

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Speaker 1: be aligned with star formation, these galactic arms are places

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Speaker 1: of greater density, which means you get more stars being

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Speaker 1: made because you're compressing the gas. So you tend to

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Speaker 1: have younger stars in the arms as they are forming,

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Speaker 1: and younger stars tend to be bluer because bluer stars

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Speaker 1: don't live as long. So anyway, the long story short,

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Speaker 1: you can look at the pattern of color in these

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Speaker 1: arms and you can see how sort of how old

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Speaker 1: they are and the age of stars within the arms,

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Speaker 1: and so you can sort of confirm this hypothesis, though

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Speaker 1: I should say it's not a one hundred percent totally established.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying the arms of a galaxy are actually

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Speaker 1: kind of like waves that are going through the huge

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Speaker 1: cloud of stars in the galaxy. But what's causing these waves?

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Speaker 1: So these are density waves, So they're just caused by

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Speaker 1: things not being totally smooth, the same way like all

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Speaker 1: gravitational effects are. If you have a little perburbation, things

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Speaker 1: aren't totally smooth. Then gravity tends to pull on that

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Speaker 1: and exaggerated, so gravity will take a little perburbation in

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Speaker 1: like a totally smooth clump and turn it into larger

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Speaker 1: and larger perturbations. So it's not again totally understood where

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Speaker 1: these come from and why they last so long. But

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Speaker 1: they think they come from original density perturbations and like

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Speaker 1: the central clump of the galaxy. So they are structures.

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Speaker 1: Then you said earlier that they weren't structures. So it

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Speaker 1: is there because the stuff in it is kind of

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Speaker 1: holding together gravitationally. Yeah, but it's a density structure. It's

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Speaker 1: not like a matter structure. It's not like the same

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Speaker 1: stars are sweeping around and staying in the arm. There

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Speaker 1: is a structure there at the density structure, right, and

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Speaker 1: that you're saying the density is caused by the gravity

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Speaker 1: between them. So let's see, I'm a planet or I'm

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Speaker 1: a star around a galaxy. What's going to make me

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Speaker 1: want to join one of these waves. Well, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of sweeping through the galaxy and it creates regions with

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Speaker 1: higher gravity and regions with lesser gravity, and so some

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Speaker 1: stars are like getting pulled towards these things, and some

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Speaker 1: stars are getting left behind right, And so that's how

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Speaker 1: a density wave propagates. Right, it creates regions of great

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Speaker 1: and lesser force, which tends to apply differential forces on

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Speaker 1: the stars. Right. But unlike a wave and water, you

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Speaker 1: have forces that pull and push, right, like something behind

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Speaker 1: you pushes you forward, but then some in front of

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Speaker 1: you pushes you back, and that's kind of how the

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Speaker 1: wave occurs. But in gravity, gravity only attracts. So what

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Speaker 1: moves the wave forward? Well, what's moving the wave forward,

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Speaker 1: Like at the forefront of the wave, it's density, So

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Speaker 1: it's pulling those stars towards it. Right, So the density

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Speaker 1: of the arm creates a denser region in front of it.

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Speaker 1: Oh I see, So the wave in front of it

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Speaker 1: eats up more stars, which moves the center of gravity

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Speaker 1: of the arm forward, which then leaves behind the stars

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Speaker 1: behind it exactly. And so that's how a density wave propagates.

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Speaker 1: And what's really interesting to me is that you know,

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Speaker 1: the velocity of the arms is not the same as

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Speaker 1: the velocity of the stars. That means where your star

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Speaker 1: is in the galaxy determines whether these density waves are

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Speaker 1: passing you or whether you're passing them, like for example,

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Speaker 1: our sun moves around the center of the galaxy at

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Speaker 1: a certain speed, which is basically determined by where it

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00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,719
Speaker 1: is a distance from the center, And so it's actually

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Speaker 1: moving around the galaxy about twice as fast as the arms.

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Speaker 1: So we are catching up to arms and passing them by.

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Speaker 1: But if we were further out, then the density waves

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Speaker 1: would be passing us by, and so that's where arms

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Speaker 1: come from. Now. Matt's question was, why is it weird

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Speaker 1: that this one galaxy that we saw has three arms?

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Speaker 1: Why is it weird to have an odd number of arms?

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Speaker 1: So they make this comment on the page describing this galaxy.

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Speaker 1: So I chatted with a couple of experts about galaxy formation,

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Speaker 1: and they quibbled a little bit with this claim that

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Speaker 1: it is unusual. First of all, they say, it's not

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Speaker 1: even really easy to define, like how many arms a

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Speaker 1: galaxy has, you know, because it's basically just visual inspection.

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Speaker 1: You're just sort of like looking at it and seeing sorrels.

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Speaker 1: But you know, galaxies have more complex structure than just

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00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:55,240
Speaker 1: like here's an arm. There's an arm. Like if you

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Speaker 1: look at the Milky Way our galaxy, it has sort

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Speaker 1: of two major arms, but lots of like little spurs

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00:20:01,359 --> 00:20:05,119
Speaker 1: off of it. For example, we live in the Orion spur,

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00:20:05,440 --> 00:20:09,960
Speaker 1: which is like a little offshoot from the major Sagittarius arm.

398
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:13,359
Speaker 1: So is that really another arm or not. It's not

399
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Speaker 1: like a well defined way to count these arms. It's

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Speaker 1: just sort of like by looking at it, M I

401
00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:21,920
Speaker 1: see so's it's it's hard to define what makes an arm.

402
00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:25,280
Speaker 1: It's hard to define what makes an arm exactly. And

403
00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 1: so you look at this particular galaxy and you're like, yeah,

404
00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:29,840
Speaker 1: I could call that three or I could call that

405
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:33,320
Speaker 1: four maybe. And so the short answer is that I

406
00:20:33,359 --> 00:20:36,879
Speaker 1: don't think there's broad agreement on how to define arms

407
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:41,320
Speaker 1: or how many arms it makes sense for galaxies to have. M.

408
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:43,640
Speaker 1: I guess my question would be, if you look at

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Speaker 1: all the galaxies that we can see out they're in space,

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Speaker 1: what is more common? Is it more common to have

411
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,920
Speaker 1: an even ish number of arms or an odd ish

412
00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:55,640
Speaker 1: number of arms. Yeah, it's a great question, and it's

413
00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 1: a hard question to answer without like a systematic way

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00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:01,360
Speaker 1: to analyze these things. Basically, a human has to look

415
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:03,520
Speaker 1: at it and say, I think it has three, But

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00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:05,960
Speaker 1: another human might look at the same galaxy and say, no,

417
00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 1: I think this one has four. So to get like

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00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:12,400
Speaker 1: enough statistics to do some analysis of that, you need

419
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 1: some like really rigorous way to analyze these things. And

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00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 1: people have done like for any analysis or the distribution

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Speaker 1: of density waves through galaxies, But that's really just a

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00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,920
Speaker 1: way of counting like the strength of these things. Again,

423
00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:26,119
Speaker 1: you have the problem of deciding when to call it

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Speaker 1: another arm. So right now is really just mostly anecdotal.

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Speaker 1: People have seen a bunch of galaxies and they haven't

426
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,560
Speaker 1: seen ones that look like this to them, And there

427
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:36,159
Speaker 1: are ways to explain it. Like if you look at

428
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 1: a galaxy like this and you say, how did this

429
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:41,720
Speaker 1: galaxy get this way? Well, one possible explanation is that

430
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Speaker 1: it recently had a strong gravitational interaction with another galaxy

431
00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:47,600
Speaker 1: that sort of messed it up. Because this one also

432
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: seems sort of asymmetric, right It's got like one long

433
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:52,879
Speaker 1: arm on one side and two shorter arms on the

434
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,159
Speaker 1: other side. So it may just be that like a

435
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: passing galaxy sort of pulled on it in a way

436
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 1: it separated those density waves. M But I mean, I

437
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:05,160
Speaker 1: guess is it easy to pull up pictures of galaxies

438
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: that look like they have three arms? Is it maybe

439
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 1: harder or easier or the same as pulling up pictures

440
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:13,520
Speaker 1: that looked like they have four arms or two. I

441
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,280
Speaker 1: think it's probably true that most of the galaxies you

442
00:22:16,400 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 1: look at, if you've just counted them, you would probably

443
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:20,560
Speaker 1: get an even number of arms. A lot of them

444
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:22,639
Speaker 1: just look like they have two, though they're sort of

445
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,240
Speaker 1: like tightly wrapped around. But look at the Milky Way,

446
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 1: for example, it's not easy to say, like how many

447
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:30,520
Speaker 1: are there? Like I count one, two big ones and

448
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 1: at least two maybe four little ones. Although we don't

449
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:35,440
Speaker 1: really have a picture of the Milky Way, do we.

450
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:38,399
Speaker 1: We certainly don't have an actual image of the Milky

451
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:41,960
Speaker 1: Way from the outside, though we can reconstruct the density

452
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 1: of stars in the Milky Way using a lot of

453
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,920
Speaker 1: our observations. Right, well, could there be maybe some effects

454
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,480
Speaker 1: we are talking about waves right around sort of a

455
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 1: fixed medium. Is it possible that, you know, given the

456
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: typical size of a galaxy with the typical number of stars,

457
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:02,120
Speaker 1: maybe like a standing way of four arms is more

458
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 1: likely than a standing wave of three arms, you know,

459
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: like waves around the spiral of the galaxy. I read

460
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 1: some papers about these things, and there's are some arguments

461
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,200
Speaker 1: for why you might get two or four if these

462
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,199
Speaker 1: things really do come from like density perturbations in the

463
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,399
Speaker 1: center of the galaxy, because you would expect that to

464
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 1: be somewhat symmetric, right, that it would cause similar effects

465
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: in one direction and in the other. And so it

466
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: makes some sort of sense for this thing that collapse

467
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 1: into a bar that then generates two arms, and that

468
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 1: those might split, but that splitting would always give you

469
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: an even number. So there are some papers suggesting that

470
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,439
Speaker 1: you would expect, on average to get an even number

471
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: of arms, and I think that makes some sense, but

472
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 1: it's not very well established. Well, so then the picture

473
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,119
Speaker 1: that Matt saw, he saw I did an article that

474
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: said that NASA think is weird to have an odd

475
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,119
Speaker 1: number of arms? What was NASA saying there? So the

476
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 1: quote the article says, while most disc galaxies have an

477
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 1: even number of spiral arms, this one has three. But

478
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: you know, the astronomers I talked too, quibbled with that

479
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 1: a little bit. They didn't think it was so weird.

480
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: They've seen galaxies with three arms before. M I guess

481
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:11,679
Speaker 1: we'll have to ask NASA. I mean, what do they know.

482
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 1: Let's have them on the podcast. All right, Well, I

483
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:17,400
Speaker 1: think that answers Matt's question, which is like, maybe it's

484
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: maybe it's not that weird, right, It seems like some

485
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 1: astronomers don't think it's as weird to have three arms.

486
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: It seems like it's kind of a fuzzy thing. Anyways,

487
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: it is. But what is weird is that arms exist

488
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: at all. It's really fascinating in the dynamics of galaxies.

489
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: They have these things slashing and swirling around, and it

490
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: just reminds you that galaxies are dynamical objects. They're not

491
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 1: fixed things that have been formed millions of years ago

492
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: and unchanged. Right, they are swirling, they're crashing into each other,

493
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: they're constantly changing, just on these vast, vast time scales

494
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,199
Speaker 1: that we can hardly even imagine. Yeah, and they're not

495
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 1: just dynamic, they're like wavy, right, They're rippling. That's what

496
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,919
Speaker 1: these arms are. They're ripples in their structure. All right, Well,

497
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: let's get into some of our other questions. One is

498
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 1: about the color of the universe and the other is

499
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,160
Speaker 1: about the fate of the universe. So let's get into those.

500
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right. We're

501
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: answering listener questions here about everything is usual, the whole

502
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 1: she bang, the whole universe. And our second question comes

503
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 1: from Genie, Hi, Daniel and Hagee. The question I would

504
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 1: really like to ask is did the universe have a

505
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:38,679
Speaker 1: color after the Big Bang? If there was no color,

506
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: when was there first a color? And what was it?

507
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 1: Thank you have all the questions we've gotten, this is

508
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: the one that really threw me for a loop, Like, Wow,

509
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: a question I've never even thought of before, never heard

510
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: of before. What a super fun question. Yeah, it's a

511
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: very colorful question. Jennie asked, did the universe have a

512
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: color after the Big Bang? So I guess a big

513
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: bang happened, and I guess her maybe her question is like,

514
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,879
Speaker 1: if there was a human present there, what would it

515
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: look like? Would it look red, purple, green, polka? Or

516
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: would it just fry your eyes? Yeah? It really is

517
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: one question what would you see if you were there? Right?

518
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: Really love this question and I think it's really fun

519
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: because it makes us think about like what is color? Anyway? Yeah,

520
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: let's dig into that. What is color? How would you

521
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: define it? I know it's related to the wavelength of

522
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 1: the light. It is related to the wavelength of light,

523
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: But I think it's important to distinguish, right, Like, photons

524
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: have a wavelength, which means like how long it takes

525
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 1: for them to go up and down. It's related to

526
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 1: their frequency, right, how many times they wiggle per second.

527
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: But the color is not a property of the photon,

528
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: like photons themselves don't have color. Color is something inside

529
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: your head. It's like how your brain responds to a

530
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: signal of a photon of a specific color, So it's

531
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,959
Speaker 1: not part of the photon itself. It's like the taste

532
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: of salt itself. Doesn't have a taste your tongue as

533
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: a response to sensing salt. Right, I guess you're sort

534
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: of quivaling about the definition of things. But I mean

535
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: light does have different wavelengths, right, it does. But there

536
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: are lots of wavelengths of light that we can't see

537
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: and our brain doesn't respond to. So photons above the

538
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,640
Speaker 1: visible spectrum like have no color to them. Early, they

539
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: have no color. So far, we could panically start naming

540
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: other colors, right, Yeah, absolutely, you could even imagine creating

541
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: a new internal response that's a different color than anybody

542
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: has ever imagined before. Right, If colors are really just

543
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: part of your mind, If there are a response to

544
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 1: signals from your optic nerve that in principle there's no

545
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 1: limitation on experiencing new colors, not just combinations of existing colors,

546
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,959
Speaker 1: but like brand new colors, and so in principle that's possible,

547
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: and you could assign those to very high frequency light.

548
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: You could imagine like building a technological eyeball that sends

549
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: messages to your brain. Your brain would learn to interpret

550
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:02,880
Speaker 1: those responses by giving you some new experience that would

551
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: be like a new color. Yeah. I think what you're

552
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: talking about is that you know, light has a certain

553
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,640
Speaker 1: frequency that can come in certain frequencies, and let's say

554
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: like seven gig gigga hurts or something, or like seven

555
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: hurts might be a frequency. And when I see that

556
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: frequency of light, I think the color green, for example,

557
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 1: And you and I agree that if we see light

558
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: at this frequency, if we're going to call it green.

559
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: But I think what you're saying is like, maybe what

560
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,199
Speaker 1: I experienced this green is different with them what you

561
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: experience is green. That's certainly true. And there's only also

562
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 1: a narrow band of photon frequencies that we even have

563
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: colors assigned to, and sort of the long history of

564
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: the universe is that it started out really really hot

565
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: and dense, and photons created in the very very beginning

566
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: of the universe after the Big Bang had very very

567
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: high energies, very high frequencies. Then the universe is cooling down,

568
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: and so the photons created get longer and longer, right,

569
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: lower frequencies, and so the universe sort of starts out

570
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: invisible and then passes through the visible spectrum. And so

571
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: like Genie's asking, what color was the universe when it started? Right,

572
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: And the problem is that the energy of the photons

573
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of the universe don't really have

574
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: a color. They're too high frequency for us to fc right,

575
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,959
Speaker 1: because the energy of a photon is related directly related

576
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 1: to its frequency, right, Like the higher the energy, the

577
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: higher the exactly, and hot stuff tends to make higher

578
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: energy photons. We've talked about this on the podcast a

579
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: few times. Everything generates photons. Everything that has charged particles

580
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: inside of it generates photons, and it generates photons based

581
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: on its temperature. So the Sun generates photons as some

582
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 1: temperature because of its thousands of degrees kelvin, the Earth

583
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: glows and generates photons at some temperature because it's much cooler,

584
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: and you generates photons at some wavelength. Your eyes can't

585
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: see the photons generated by yourself or by the Earth.

586
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: They can see the ones from the sun. So some

587
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: of these photons are visible and some of them are invisible.

588
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: But the hot or something is the higher energy the

589
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: photons it generates. Right. So are you're saying maybe at

590
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: the Big Bang everything all the photons that were there

591
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 1: were super high frequency or low wavelength. What are you

592
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: saying that? Initially at the Big Bank things were so crazy.

593
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: All the photons were super duper high energy. They were

594
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: super high energy, which means very short wavelength, which means

595
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: very high frequency, right, And so these photons were zipping

596
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 1: around the universe. And if your eyeball was there just

597
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: after this moment, when the universe was like at the

598
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: Plank temperature, then not only would it be cooked instantly,

599
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: but the photons that hit it it wouldn't know how

600
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: to interpret. Your eye wouldn't see them, So the universe

601
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: would just be black, even though it'd be super duper

602
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: hot and filled with photons. Yeah, Like, if your eye

603
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: could somehow survive being in a Big Bang, it wouldn't

604
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: you would see total darkness, right, because all the light

605
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: would be sort of like X rays, they just passed

606
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: through your eyeball. One question is would they interact with

607
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: your eyeball or they passed through like X rays, right.

608
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: X rays do interact with some parts of your body,

609
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: but not others. And as a frequency of photons change,

610
00:30:57,160 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: there are chances of interacting with you changes. But you're right,

611
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: a lot of these photons might just fly right through you,

612
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: like X rays, which are higher energy photons than our

613
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: eyeballs can see. But then the universe temperature changes. But

614
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: then eventually, after the Big Bang, the universe started cooling down, right,

615
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: and so you started seeing photons with a lower energy, yes, exactly.

616
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: So as the universe cools and it's really dense, plasma

617
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: gets more and more dilute, it cools down, and so

618
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: it starts generating photons with longer wavelengths. So as time

619
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: goes on, the temperature of the universe is dropping and

620
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: the energy those photons is dropping, and so the wavelength

621
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: is increasing. So they're like the general light of the

622
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: universe started off way too high for our eyes, but

623
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: then it gradually as it cools starts to approach the

624
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: visible spectrum. Yeah, and there's a really fascinating moment around

625
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty thousand years after the Big Bang

626
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: when the universe cooled so much that atoms could now form.

627
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: So you have protons and electrons whizzing around with so

628
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: much energy that they couldn't be bothered to bond together.

629
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: But after a certain time things cool down those electrons

630
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: that it no longer had enough energy to escape the

631
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: pull of those protons which have a positive charge and

632
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: pull on the electrons, and so you get neutral hydrogen forms.

633
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: And in this moment, the universe goes from being opaque

634
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: like a really hot plasma like the center of the Sun,

635
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: to being transparent, just like clouds of gas in space

636
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: that light could mostly pass through. So all the light

637
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: generated before this moment was just reabsorbed by the hot plasma.

638
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: Light generated after this moment can fly through the universe,

639
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: and like hit your eyeball, and this light is still

640
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: flying through the universe. It's the cosmic microwave background light.

641
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: We can see it with our telescopes. When it was

642
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: generated at that moment in time, the universe was still

643
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: filled with a pretty hot plasma. It was like several

644
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: thousand degrees So that was the moment when the universe

645
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: first became transparent and the light that were created sort

646
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: of becomes persistent. Right, But still that light is too

647
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: high energy for eyeballs to capture. Right, Like when I

648
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: look up at the night sky, I can't see the

649
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: cosmic microwave background with my eyes, can I You cannot

650
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: see the cosmic microwave background with your eyes currently. But

651
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: when it was created, it actually was in the visible

652
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: spectrum because remember that the wavelength depends on the energy,

653
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: on the temperature, and when that light was created, the

654
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: universe was still pretty hot. It was several thousand degrees kelvin,

655
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: which is about the same temperature as the surface of

656
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: the Sun, which produces visible light. So when the CMB

657
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: light was created, it was in the visible spectrum. You

658
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: could have seen it if Jeanie had her eyeballs back

659
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: in the early universe. Back then, she could have seen

660
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: the CMB with her eyeballs. Now, you're right, when you

661
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: look up in the night sky, you don't see it.

662
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: That's because it's no longer at that frequency. It's been

663
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: stretched by the expansion of the universe. Down to much

664
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: much longer wavelengths, right, and that's why you need like

665
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: infrared telescopes, right exactly. But it's too low frequency for

666
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: us to see, right. It started out in the visible

667
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: spectrum and got stretched out below the visible spectrum very

668
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: very long wavelengths infrared, and so that's why we need

669
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: really sensitive telescopes in order to see it, because it's

670
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: now super duper infrared. And people say the temperature of

671
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: the universe is two point seven three degrees kelvin. What

672
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: they're talking about is the temperature a plasma would have

673
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 1: to be to generate the photons that we see in

674
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: the CMB. The plasma that actually generated those photons much

675
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: much earlier, was much hotter, but then it's light got

676
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: stretched out, so now it looks like a plasma that's

677
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 1: much cooler generated this light. Right. So that's a cosmic

678
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 1: microwave background radiation which comes from the moment when the

679
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: universe became transparent and not hazy. But that's I wonder

680
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,760
Speaker 1: if that's really what would fit into her definition of

681
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,959
Speaker 1: the first light, Like, you know that the light still

682
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: existed when the universe was hazy and opaque, right, yeah, exactly,

683
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,720
Speaker 1: So backing up again, the universe started out really really hot,

684
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: and then as it cools, it passes into the visible spectrum.

685
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: That happened before this moment when the universe became transparent,

686
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 1: but just about the same time. It's like an interesting

687
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: overlap here that the universe became transparent around the same

688
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: time as it became visible. The temperature for hydrogen become

689
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: neutral is about the same as the temperature of the

690
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: surface of the sun where visible light is generated. Right, So,

691
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: then as the universe moved into the visible spectrum, what

692
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: would have been the first color that you would have

693
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: seen if you were there and was able to survive, Like,

694
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: what's the highest frequency color that we can see with

695
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 1: our eyes? Yeah, it'd be like the most violet violet, right,

696
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:37,320
Speaker 1: it'd be like super duper purply blue is the highest

697
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: frequency light that we can seem. So then the first

698
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: color was blue, That was right. I don't know if

699
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: purple and blue are the same, but yeah, it was

700
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: definitely very very bluey, very purply blue, ultra violet, he said,

701
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: violet blue. All right, we'll go with purple. The first

702
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: color in the universe was purple, basically, Yeah, I think

703
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 1: that's true. It was purple. All right, Well, Genie, thank

704
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 1: you for that question. I hope purple is your favorite

705
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 1: color as well, because it is apparently the universe first color.

706
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: But you know, if there are aliens out there and

707
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 1: they have eyeballs and their brains interpret things differently, if

708
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: they brains give them like a red experience for that

709
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: same frequency and a purple experience for very low frequencies,

710
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: then aliens would say a different color was the first color.

711
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: And that's just because again, color is not part of

712
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: the universe, it's part of our brains. So it's a

713
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,439
Speaker 1: very human thing to say that violet was the first

714
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:32,760
Speaker 1: color in the universe. It was the first human color

715
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,319
Speaker 1: in the universe, I suppose. Well, it's the first name

716
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 1: that the human would give it. But the frequency was

717
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: still the same, so we would all agree. I mean,

718
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: the experience I have a violet might not be the

719
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: same experience you have a violet, but we can all

720
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:48,280
Speaker 1: agree that about that frequency. That's true. Yeah, though aliens

721
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: might be able to see much higher frequencies, and they

722
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: might say an even higher frequency was visible before our violet.

723
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: M I see, they might have a different first color,

724
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: assuming they call it color. Maybe they spell over the

725
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: K or something, but they put a U after the second. Oh,

726
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,879
Speaker 1: I think you went too far there, Yeah, who would

727
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: do that? All right, well, I think then answers Jeannie's question.

728
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jeanie. And so we'll get to our last question.

729
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: This one is about the universe tearing itself apart. So

730
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: let's take that apart. But first let's take another quick break.

731
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 1: All right, we're answering questions about the universe and our

732
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: last question. It's a bit dramatic, a bit drastic, it

733
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: certainly is, which is why we saved it from last.

734
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: All right, our last question comes from Courtney, and she

735
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,800
Speaker 1: has a question about the universe. Hey, Daniel and Jorge,

736
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: I have a question for y'all. Is our universe tearing

737
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 1: itself apart? Is physics as we know and measure it

738
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: stable enough to be really light upon? If so, for

739
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: how long? If at the beginning of the universe the

740
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,280
Speaker 1: electro week force broke in one moment, everything was whizzing

741
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: around at the speed of light, then suddenly the next

742
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: some particles experienced mass, fundamentally altering the trajectory of our universe.

743
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 1: Could we be looking forward to another dramatic change in

744
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: how our physical forces manifest themselves? Could we measure that

745
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,240
Speaker 1: looking forward to hearing back? Thanks? All right, awesome question

746
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 1: for Corney. I think really what she's asking is does

747
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: she have to do her homework for tomorrow or do

748
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: that errente she needs to do? Or if the universe

749
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: just totally going to flip on itself or maybe she

750
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:42,879
Speaker 1: could be doing other things today. Yeah. I did get

751
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 1: the sense that she was trying to make plans and

752
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: she wanted to know how far in the future she

753
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: needed to think, Like, if I buy this house, is

754
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: it going to be for sale in twenty years or

755
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 1: is the whole universe going to get shredded before that? Yeah?

756
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: Do I still have to pay my mortgage? Or can

757
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: I just buy the biggest mansion I can now because

758
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:02,479
Speaker 1: the universe is going to end? That's right, real estate

759
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: investment advice from people you shouldn't be listening to about

760
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: real estate. Well, she's going to ask a multipart question.

761
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,839
Speaker 1: She asked whether the universe is tearing itself apart, which

762
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:12,959
Speaker 1: I guess maybe is related to her second question, which

763
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: is like how stable do we think the universe is? Like?

764
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: Is it going to stay like this? Forever. Can we

765
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 1: invest in real estate? Or is it possible for the

766
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,479
Speaker 1: universe to suddenly change tomorrow or today or right now

767
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: and make it a whole different universe, And it maybe

768
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: that happened, we would we notice even I really love

769
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: this question because the touch is on one of the

770
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: most interesting ideas in physics that I think is not

771
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: very widely appreciated, And it's actually connected to Genie's question

772
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: about like the temperature of the universe. You know, we

773
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: think about the universe and how it works, but we're

774
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: really just describing the universe in one phase. When I

775
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: say phase, I don't mean like, you know, a toddler

776
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 1: throwing a tantrum. More like a phase is in the

777
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: state of matter. Like if you're a scientist and you're

778
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: trying to understand water, then you might have one understanding

779
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 1: of how works when it's a vapor, and another understanding

780
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: of how it works when it's a liquid, and another

781
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:06,799
Speaker 1: understanding of how it works when it's a solid. Right,

782
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 1: we notice these phase transitions when water changes its behavior

783
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,919
Speaker 1: pretty dramatically as it heats up or as it cools down,

784
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: and we can have a law that describes each of

785
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: those phases and in principle, if you had like the

786
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: ultimate theory of physics, you could have a single law

787
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: that describes all of them. But typically what we do

788
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,839
Speaker 1: is we have effective laws to describe one phase at

789
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: a time. And so the universe, the whole universe is

790
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 1: cooling down, as we talked about a minute ago, and

791
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: so we think it's passing through different phases, and so

792
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: our current understanding of physics, a standard model of quarks,

793
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: the photons, the weak force, the Higgs boson, all that

794
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: stuff just describes the current phase of the universe in

795
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: the sense of like having an effective theory that describes

796
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: how things work right now, right because as we kind

797
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: of talked about a minute ago with Genie's question, the

798
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,760
Speaker 1: universe kind of went through a pretty significant a change

799
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: early soon after the Big Bang, Like before this event,

800
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: everything all the matter, what's had so much energy, so

801
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: much velocity, so much going on that like not even

802
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: protons and electrons could hold together or come together and

803
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: stick into atoms and matter things that are just kind

804
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 1: of like a giant plasma. And then when things cooled,

805
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: when space expanded, things cool suddenly, like things clicked into

806
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: atoms and the stuff we see today, which is I

807
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:28,799
Speaker 1: think what you're trying to say is similar to like

808
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: what happens to vapor or ice. It's like the molecules

809
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 1: are flying around, but at some point they lose so

810
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: much energy that some of the other forces in plate

811
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 1: start to click them together or to bring them together

812
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,919
Speaker 1: as a liquid exactly. And what Cordy is bringing up

813
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: is another kind of phase transition, even deeper phase transition

814
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 1: than just like how do protons and electrons click together?

815
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: She was talking about the moment when things got mass.

816
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: All right, we've described the nature of the universes. We

817
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: understand it in terms of all these quantum fields that

818
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:00,800
Speaker 1: are slashing around, and we talk about how the Higgs

819
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 1: field is there and it's giving mass to particles by

820
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 1: interacting with them and changing how they moved through the

821
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:08,759
Speaker 1: universe and all of this stuff. But if you go

822
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: back to one of our podcasts where we talk about

823
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: the very early history of the universe, you know that

824
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: there was a moment before this happened, before the Higgs

825
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: field was giving mass to particles, when we still had

826
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: this description of everything in terms of quantum fields, but

827
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 1: effectively the universe was very different. Everything was basically mass

828
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:28,360
Speaker 1: less electrons and quarks and all this stuff. We're flying

829
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,760
Speaker 1: to the universe all at the speed of light before

830
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: the Higgs boson sort of kicked in and gave everything mass.

831
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:37,760
Speaker 1: So that was another big phase transition in our universe.

832
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: Now that one's pretty fundamental, like the universe went from

833
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: not having mass to having mass. Things having mass, and

834
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 1: you said, something clicked, but like the laws of physics change,

835
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,479
Speaker 1: or within our laws just some sort of potential change,

836
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 1: or we reached the threshold where suddenly the laws preferred

837
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: to be this way rather than having no mass, so

838
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 1: that the laws we have now describe the universe now.

839
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: And also before this transition, so same laws of physics,

840
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: but you have different temperature. And so as the Higgs

841
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: field was cooling down, it got stuck in sort of

842
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: a local minimum, and that's what she referred to as

843
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: electroweak symmetry breaking. It's got stuck in this sort of

844
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: weird spot where it treats w's and z's differently from

845
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,720
Speaker 1: how it treats photons, and it gave those particles mass,

846
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: and it gives mass to the other particles sort of

847
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 1: because where it got stuck as the universe was cooling,

848
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: So it's the same basic laws of physics, but as

849
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: the universe cools down, the effect of those laws changes,

850
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:37,720
Speaker 1: and one of the effects is that the Higgs field

851
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: got stuck in this weird spot and that's why these

852
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: particles have mass. And so really, I think her question

853
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: is like, do we expect further similar phase transitions in

854
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: the future or the universe that could fundamentally change what

855
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: we experience. Yeah, I guess she's not asking like can

856
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 1: the laws change? He's more asking like, is the universe,

857
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: like you said, is the universe stable? Are we like

858
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: in a spot where the basic configuration of the universe

859
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: is going to be the same, or can it change

860
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: like it did once before? Though, you know, it is

861
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: possible that the laws could change, because even though we

862
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: can describe the history of the universe pretty far back

863
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: using our laws and quantum fields, there's a moment beyond

864
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 1: which we can't right at the very very beginning of

865
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: the universe, just after inflation with things where at the

866
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: plank temperature. We think our laws break down there, and

867
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: before that we need something else, some theory of quantum

868
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 1: gravity that's deeper. We think that even our laws of

869
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:32,280
Speaker 1: physics that do a great job of describing the universe

870
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,799
Speaker 1: today and very very far back in time. They are

871
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: just effective laws. They're like understanding water when it's a

872
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: liquid and how it flows, but not deeply understanding the

873
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,240
Speaker 1: true theory of water that would explain all of its phases.

874
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: So there is a sense in which the actual effective

875
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: laws of physics do change over time, though we don't

876
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen in the future. We think

877
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: the universe is just going to keep cooling and probably

878
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: this current effective set of laws are going to hold fast.

879
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: But even if these laws hold fast, there might be

880
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: phase transition still in our future. Right. We talked on

881
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: the podcast once about how the Higgs field is sort

882
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: of stuck in this one spot, but it's not that stable.

883
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: We don't know if it's going to stay stuck in

884
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: that spot or if it's going to collapse and change

885
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: the masses of everything, and that would be like another

886
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 1: effective phase transition. So it might be that sometime in

887
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: the future, you know, maybe spurred on by particle collisions,

888
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 1: that some super collider could spark a change in the

889
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: Higgs field which creates an effective phase transition in the

890
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 1: basic laws of physics. Yeah, I think we talked about

891
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: this in our book. Frequently ask questions about the universe,

892
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 1: But you know, is the universe is going to end

893
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: at some point? Or how is the universe going to end?

894
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: And one possibility is for this Higgs field to collapse,

895
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: because it can collapse right like, it's sitting at a

896
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: place where it can still fall down in terms of energy. Yeah,

897
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 1: the reason the Higgs field does what it does is

898
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: because it has a lot of energy still stored in it.

899
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 1: It's like the whole universe is cooling down, but the

900
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: Higgs field got stuck and sort of staying hot. But

901
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 1: it's kind of like ball that's stuck on a shelf

902
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: and it could roll off that shelf and fall further

903
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: down in temperature. We don't really understand very well how

904
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: stable the spot it's stuck in is and what it

905
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: would take to sort of nudge it out of that,

906
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,320
Speaker 1: and so there's a possibility that it could collapse even further,

907
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 1: and that would mean a change in the masses of

908
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: all the particles, which would mean like chemistry out the window,

909
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,760
Speaker 1: need totally new chemistry, and you know, everything that relies

910
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: on chemistry, like life and podcasts also out the window,

911
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: and I guess buying a house also along with that.

912
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 1: But I think you describe it as sort of like

913
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: a spark and a spark propagating. I know we've covered

914
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:39,919
Speaker 1: this in the book, but it's almost like if something

915
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: happens and does cause a Higgs boson to kind of

916
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: fall over or give up its energy in one spot,

917
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: it would basically cause the entire universe to do the same,

918
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: Like it would spread out like a wave. Right, if

919
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: it happened anywhere, it would spread out like a wave

920
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 1: propagating at the speed of light. So it may have

921
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: already happened somewhere else in the universe, and that wavefront

922
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: of phase transitions is heading for us or maybe not,

923
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,879
Speaker 1: and maybe it'll be stable forever, right, And you're saying

924
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 1: that one thing that could trigger it maybe is building

925
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: a large particle collider, maybe under Geneva or something, yeah,

926
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: or around the surface of the Moon or around the

927
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: edge of the galaxy. It sounds like we need to

928
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: shut those things down right away. It sounds like we

929
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: need to build one and find out. That sounds like

930
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,400
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite thing. You want to find out if

931
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: you can destroy the universe. I don't know. I'm pro curiosity.

932
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel. I am pro not

933
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: destroying the universe, because once you find out that you

934
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: can destroy the universe, you've destroyed the universe, Daniel, but

935
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,919
Speaker 1: you've learned something along the way. No, because you won't

936
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: be here. Look what I'm saying, is nobody ever regretted

937
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: destroying the universe. Well, I think the answer here for

938
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,879
Speaker 1: Corney is that go ahead and buy that house you're

939
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: thinking of buying. And maybe you should write to Daniel

940
00:47:55,880 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 1: tell him not to destroy the universe. Send your questions,

941
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: your ideas, your requests to not destroy the universe. Two

942
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. All right, thank

943
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: you everyone for sending us their question. A lot of

944
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: interesting things we've learned about here. I think we can

945
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: give ourselves a pat on the back, Daniel, maybe with

946
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 1: a third army out at the top of your head. Yeah, exactly,

947
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 1: it's busy scratching my head right now. You can give

948
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:21,320
Speaker 1: yourself three handshakes. Triple high five. It would be the

949
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: highest of fives. M it would be a triple five. Yeah,

950
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 1: it would be a fifteen. All right, Well, thanks for

951
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: joining us. We hope you enjoyed that. See you next time.

952
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,800
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

953
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:45,759
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast

954
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

955
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:52,320
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.