1 00:00:08,440 --> 00:00:10,840 Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you know what I don't understand about 2 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: winning a Physics Nobel Prize? Oh yeah, what's that? Well, 3 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:16,240 Speaker 1: you know, to be honest, some of them seem kind 4 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:20,000 Speaker 1: of easy in hindsight, be easy to win a Nobel Prize. Yeah, 5 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:22,200 Speaker 1: I mean, like for Einstein, all he had to do 6 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:25,600 Speaker 1: is analyze someone else's experiment. It was just one idea 7 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 1: that he had one day and boom, Nobel Prize. I 8 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:31,400 Speaker 1: guess that's easy if you're Einstein. Well, I mean also, 9 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:35,360 Speaker 1: like the discovery of X rays was totally by accident 10 00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:37,600 Speaker 1: and it took about one day of work for them. 11 00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:40,120 Speaker 1: That's true if you happen to have X rays around, 12 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:43,400 Speaker 1: or like the Higgs boson. You know, like college physics 13 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:45,800 Speaker 1: major can do that kind of math. All right, you win. 14 00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:48,919 Speaker 1: I admitted getting a Physics Nobel Prize is easy, So 15 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:51,920 Speaker 1: then why don't we have one? Because we haven't tried. 16 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:54,800 Speaker 1: It's win one today, Daniel. Alright, great idea, Einstein, let's 17 00:00:54,800 --> 00:01:11,800 Speaker 1: do it. Hi. I am more hammy cartoonists and the 18 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:15,040 Speaker 1: creator of PhD comics. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle 19 00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:17,680 Speaker 1: physicist and I have not yet won a Nobel Prize. 20 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:20,959 Speaker 1: But maybe any day someday will be the day. Do 21 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,319 Speaker 1: you wake up every day thinking, maybe today's to day 22 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,640 Speaker 1: I'll have my great idea. I don't expect it to 23 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:29,880 Speaker 1: ever happen, but I do love those stories when somebody 24 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:33,039 Speaker 1: has a moment of insight or stumbles across something weird, 25 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:35,080 Speaker 1: and that morning when they woke up and had their 26 00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:37,640 Speaker 1: oatmeal or whatever, they had no idea that it would 27 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:40,720 Speaker 1: be that fateful day. Maybe that's the key. It's the oatmeal. 28 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:43,360 Speaker 1: And maybe it's a special kind of oatmeal. Daniel like 29 00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 1: a radioactive oatmeal. Bitten by his radioactive oatmeal, he gained 30 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:51,160 Speaker 1: his proportional intelligence. There you go. Maybe that was a 31 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:53,480 Speaker 1: nice secret. I think when people say you're as smart 32 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:55,200 Speaker 1: as a bowl of oatmeal, they don't mean it as 33 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:58,560 Speaker 1: a compliment. Well, I think that's very disparaging of oatmeal, 34 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,080 Speaker 1: because you never know, there could be sentient genius oatmeal 35 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: out there in space. They could be our next alien overlords. 36 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:08,400 Speaker 1: Yet another sci fi pitch for Netflix put it on 37 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:10,840 Speaker 1: the list. All right, Well, welcome to our podcast Daniel 38 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:13,480 Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart 39 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:16,480 Speaker 1: Radio in which we try not to turn your brain 40 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:19,919 Speaker 1: into oatmeal as we talk about all the amazing things 41 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 1: that are out there in our universe, all the things 42 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,919 Speaker 1: that we have painstakingly uncovered in our search to reveal 43 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:30,400 Speaker 1: the fundamental nature of matter and radiation and everything in 44 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:33,280 Speaker 1: the universe, and all the things that science is still 45 00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,000 Speaker 1: picking at, all the big questions that are out there, 46 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:39,120 Speaker 1: all the discoveries that might be far into the future 47 00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:42,400 Speaker 1: or just around the corner. That's right. The universe is 48 00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:46,160 Speaker 1: full of mysteries, full of big questions and wonderful discoveries 49 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:50,120 Speaker 1: just waiting for us to find them and possibly get 50 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:53,120 Speaker 1: a Nobel price for finding them in the congratulatory bowl 51 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:56,720 Speaker 1: of oatmeal. And sometimes the answer to those questions is 52 00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:00,640 Speaker 1: already out there. It's beaming down at us from the cosmos, 53 00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:04,520 Speaker 1: or it's in somebody's data. They just don't even recognize it. 54 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:08,280 Speaker 1: And sometimes those Nobel prizes come just from putting one 55 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:11,240 Speaker 1: thing next to the other, from finding that the answer 56 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:14,360 Speaker 1: to a question is already out there. Yeah, because technically 57 00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:16,680 Speaker 1: all of the secrets of the universe, all of the 58 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:20,120 Speaker 1: great big truth about it, are out there for us 59 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:22,080 Speaker 1: to discover. I mean, it's not like they don't exist. 60 00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:24,880 Speaker 1: They're there, which is haven't seen them or having discovered 61 00:03:24,880 --> 00:03:27,160 Speaker 1: them or having known where to look. Yeah, you know, 62 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:30,480 Speaker 1: that's a really fun question, Like is it actually possible 63 00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,600 Speaker 1: to unravel the nature of the universe without ever leaving 64 00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:36,720 Speaker 1: the Earth? Just by watching this guy's It's sort of 65 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:39,560 Speaker 1: incredible what we have been able to figure out about 66 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:42,960 Speaker 1: like far flung corners of the universe, the way galaxies 67 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:45,760 Speaker 1: expand and collide and do all sorts of crazy stuff 68 00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:48,880 Speaker 1: without ever having left the Earth. But I wonder if 69 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:51,600 Speaker 1: it's possible to actually figure out like all of it, 70 00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:53,560 Speaker 1: to get all the way down to string theory and 71 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:57,200 Speaker 1: quantum gravity without ever going anywhere else. It would be 72 00:03:57,240 --> 00:03:59,840 Speaker 1: pretty cool if all that information was beaming down on 73 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:02,040 Speaker 1: us right now. Are you saying, like, are we maybe 74 00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:04,360 Speaker 1: in the wrong place, Like if we were somewhere else, 75 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:07,160 Speaker 1: we could see the secrets of the universe, you know, 76 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:09,880 Speaker 1: Or maybe they're all in one box but in another 77 00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:12,080 Speaker 1: part of the galaxy. Yeah. Or it might be that 78 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:14,640 Speaker 1: you need to do some kind of experiment like smash 79 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:17,560 Speaker 1: black holes together at very high speeds in order to 80 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:19,960 Speaker 1: get the answer to some question. Or might be that 81 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:22,320 Speaker 1: you need to be able to look inside a black hole, 82 00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:24,520 Speaker 1: which we can do from here. Maybe you need to 83 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:28,000 Speaker 1: be nearby it in order to decrypt the quantum information 84 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:30,800 Speaker 1: in the Hawking radiation. It might not be possible to 85 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:33,800 Speaker 1: gather all that information from Earth. Or maybe it is. 86 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:36,520 Speaker 1: Maybe if somebody was smart enough, they could figure out 87 00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:38,359 Speaker 1: all the secrets of the universe and just from the 88 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:41,239 Speaker 1: data we are getting today. Yeah, hopefully not by getting 89 00:04:41,279 --> 00:04:43,679 Speaker 1: us near a black hole or by smashing a couple 90 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:46,440 Speaker 1: of black holes together here on Earth. That's hounds kind 91 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:49,320 Speaker 1: of dangerous. Anything in the name of science not worth 92 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:51,480 Speaker 1: a noble prize. Well, you know, everybody makes their own 93 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:54,200 Speaker 1: judgment call on that. Please, physicists, check with the rest 94 00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:56,719 Speaker 1: of us before you make those kinds of judgment calls. 95 00:04:56,839 --> 00:04:58,880 Speaker 1: I know this is important for you, all of you, 96 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,400 Speaker 1: but you know, we might I'd have other priorities, your 97 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:03,960 Speaker 1: priorities to get to name the black hole machine, right, 98 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:06,839 Speaker 1: I want to be alive to me and to call 99 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:10,000 Speaker 1: it that, you know. But yeah, the history of physics 100 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:13,200 Speaker 1: and science here on Earth has a long and interesting history, 101 00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,440 Speaker 1: full of amazing discoveries. And some of them happened kind 102 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:18,960 Speaker 1: of by accident, right, Oh, lots of them happened by accident. 103 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:22,120 Speaker 1: People stumble across stuff they didn't even know to look for, 104 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:25,359 Speaker 1: see things they don't understand, and only later realize that 105 00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:28,719 Speaker 1: they contain secrets of the universe. So today we'll be 106 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:32,240 Speaker 1: covering one such story of an amazing discovery that really 107 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:35,960 Speaker 1: kind of illuminated in a very real way the beginning 108 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,320 Speaker 1: of the universe. Absolutely, it's some of the oldest light 109 00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:41,280 Speaker 1: in the universe, and it tells us a lot about 110 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:44,080 Speaker 1: how the universe began and how hot and dense and 111 00:05:44,160 --> 00:05:47,640 Speaker 1: crazy it was billions and billions of years ago, and 112 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:52,320 Speaker 1: it was almost overlooked and mistaken for pigeon poop. Wow, 113 00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:56,360 Speaker 1: that is a big oops there for the physicist. So 114 00:05:56,440 --> 00:06:03,760 Speaker 1: today on the program, we'll be talking about how was 115 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:08,279 Speaker 1: the cosmic microwave background discovered? Now, Daniel, this is the 116 00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:11,560 Speaker 1: famous CNB, right, this is the famous CNB that has 117 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:14,360 Speaker 1: taught us so much about the nature of the universe. 118 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:17,120 Speaker 1: It's not the CNB R as they call it in 119 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:19,360 Speaker 1: the Marvel universe. You have a problem with that, Well, 120 00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:22,320 Speaker 1: the scientists in the Marvel universe can call their CNB 121 00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:25,560 Speaker 1: whatever they like, but out here in the real universe, 122 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:28,240 Speaker 1: we tend to call it the CMB. Just the cosmic 123 00:06:28,279 --> 00:06:32,239 Speaker 1: microwave background, meaning like it's the background basically of the universe. 124 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: It's everywhere, It's all around us. Photons from the early 125 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:39,280 Speaker 1: universe plasma are zooming all over the universe in every direction, 126 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:42,359 Speaker 1: no matter where you look. That's what we mean by background. 127 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:45,560 Speaker 1: It's sort of just like always, there's everywhere. Yeah, And 128 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:48,599 Speaker 1: it has a long and interesting history of people thinking 129 00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:50,640 Speaker 1: it was there but not seeing it, or seeing it 130 00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:52,800 Speaker 1: and not thinking it was there. It's kind of an 131 00:06:52,839 --> 00:06:56,240 Speaker 1: interesting and dramatic plotline, right absolutely. And it's the kind 132 00:06:56,279 --> 00:07:00,120 Speaker 1: of thing that could have been discovered very easily decade 133 00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:03,240 Speaker 1: before it was, and in fact, it was discovered several 134 00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:06,480 Speaker 1: times without even being understood, and so it's sort of 135 00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:09,640 Speaker 1: like a story of missed opportunities and the folks who 136 00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:12,440 Speaker 1: ended up winning the Nobel Prize for finding it could 137 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,360 Speaker 1: very easily not have So it sounds like a pretty 138 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,360 Speaker 1: intriguing story. So we'll dig into that and go over 139 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:20,960 Speaker 1: every detail. But at first we were curious about how 140 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,720 Speaker 1: many people know how this amazing discovery was found. So, 141 00:07:24,760 --> 00:07:26,800 Speaker 1: as usual, Daniel went out there into the wilds of 142 00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:29,280 Speaker 1: the Internet and asked people if they knew how the 143 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:33,040 Speaker 1: cosmic microwave background was discovered. And so if you would 144 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:36,600 Speaker 1: like to be interrogated about physics by a physicist without 145 00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:40,240 Speaker 1: the opportunity to consult any reference materials that sounds fun 146 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:43,440 Speaker 1: to you, then please email me two questions at Daniel 147 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:45,720 Speaker 1: and Jorge dot com. Here's what people had to say. 148 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:48,440 Speaker 1: I think it was around the seventies. Whenever it was, 149 00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:52,200 Speaker 1: they feel was a very powerful telescope maybe radio telescope 150 00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:56,640 Speaker 1: to look at something else, and then they heard or thought, so, 151 00:07:56,680 --> 00:07:59,280 Speaker 1: I'm like what they thought was noise from a local source. 152 00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: They even thought it was the pigeons that were nesting 153 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:04,040 Speaker 1: in the telescope and actually had a big job clearing 154 00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:05,760 Speaker 1: that out, trying to get rid of it, but no 155 00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:07,720 Speaker 1: matter what they did, couldn't get rid of it. And 156 00:08:07,720 --> 00:08:10,800 Speaker 1: that but obviously eventually they realized it wasn't local at all, 157 00:08:10,880 --> 00:08:14,080 Speaker 1: but from fort almost fourteen billion light years away. The 158 00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:19,240 Speaker 1: NBA two words Hubble telescope. Okay, that's a tool, not 159 00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:22,040 Speaker 1: an answer. Aliens told us about it, and they also 160 00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:24,760 Speaker 1: told us where to look. So we pointed the Hubble 161 00:08:24,800 --> 00:08:28,160 Speaker 1: telescope at the cosmic magawave background radiation and that's how 162 00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:32,520 Speaker 1: we discovered it. I haven't really heard about it, just 163 00:08:32,559 --> 00:08:35,960 Speaker 1: as an assumption, maybe e when we were trying to 164 00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:41,880 Speaker 1: respond some kind of radiations. I think the background radiation 165 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:44,640 Speaker 1: was discovered by accident. Hadn't had nothing to do with 166 00:08:44,679 --> 00:08:47,440 Speaker 1: someone using their microwave up and to make eggs. But 167 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:49,600 Speaker 1: I think it was World War Two. Weren't they doing 168 00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:54,000 Speaker 1: radar experiments and they discovered this noise? But I think 169 00:08:54,040 --> 00:08:57,240 Speaker 1: it was by accident. The cosmic microwave background was discovered 170 00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:01,679 Speaker 1: by two scientists working at Bell Labs in New Jersey 171 00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:05,719 Speaker 1: who were investigating a strange buzz they picked up when 172 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:08,520 Speaker 1: actually working on something else. I think it was discovered 173 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:11,840 Speaker 1: around nineteen sixties as one of the first discoveries of 174 00:09:12,040 --> 00:09:15,120 Speaker 1: radio astronomy. After making sure it wasn't the error in 175 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:18,960 Speaker 1: data or in measurements, there was a lot of theorizing 176 00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:22,280 Speaker 1: what did what it means and why the signal was 177 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:27,200 Speaker 1: actually hurt quite possibly with a radio telescope. Maybe astronomers 178 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:30,640 Speaker 1: or scientists were looking at like certain stars or something 179 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:32,480 Speaker 1: they're like, hey, these guys are given off a lot 180 00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:35,320 Speaker 1: of radiation, and then they looked at the stars and 181 00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:38,280 Speaker 1: they're like, oh, it's not the stars. Put something around it. 182 00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:40,840 Speaker 1: But there's nothing around it, so they're like, oh, what 183 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:43,760 Speaker 1: if we just focused on the space around it? And 184 00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:46,480 Speaker 1: then they focused on the space. All right, A lot 185 00:09:46,559 --> 00:09:49,160 Speaker 1: of versions of the story here from the public. A 186 00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:50,959 Speaker 1: lot of people seem to know something about how it 187 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:54,560 Speaker 1: was discovered by accident. Yeah, including apparently aliens told us 188 00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:57,080 Speaker 1: about it. I like, how this president, you said two 189 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:01,439 Speaker 1: words hubble telescope bam drops to my and aliens. Oh, 190 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:03,640 Speaker 1: by the way, also aliens, well, how else do you 191 00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:06,320 Speaker 1: know where the point your hubble telescope? Right? The aliens 192 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:08,760 Speaker 1: have to tell you it makes perfect sense. It's pretty 193 00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:12,200 Speaker 1: surprising how many people hadn't heard about this. And also 194 00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:14,840 Speaker 1: I knew a little bit about it. You know, generally 195 00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:17,839 Speaker 1: people seem to know that it wasn't like this intentional thing, 196 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:20,199 Speaker 1: like there was some element of accident to it. That's 197 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:22,439 Speaker 1: exactly right. And it took a long time for people 198 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:24,880 Speaker 1: to even know that it should be there and know 199 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,720 Speaker 1: that we might be able to see it. So there's 200 00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:31,440 Speaker 1: sort of like progress and back steps and forward steps 201 00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:34,240 Speaker 1: on the theoretical side as well as on the actual 202 00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:37,000 Speaker 1: like observational side. All right, well, let's get into this 203 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:40,080 Speaker 1: story then, and maybe take us back Daniel, because I 204 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:43,520 Speaker 1: imagine this story starts in the early nineteen hundreds, and 205 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:46,320 Speaker 1: you know, we were sort of just starting to discover 206 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:49,040 Speaker 1: how big the universe was and that it maybe came 207 00:10:49,040 --> 00:10:51,520 Speaker 1: from a big bang. You know, what were we thinking 208 00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:54,760 Speaker 1: at the time, and what did we know? Because you know, 209 00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:57,360 Speaker 1: I imagine that the idea that there's some background noise 210 00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:00,760 Speaker 1: in the universe is not that surprise think to think about, 211 00:11:00,840 --> 00:11:04,240 Speaker 1: but it having some special meaning maybe is Yeah, so 212 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:07,280 Speaker 1: that we have to go back to basically Hubble. Hubble 213 00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:10,080 Speaker 1: is the one who figured out that the universe was expanding. 214 00:11:10,440 --> 00:11:12,839 Speaker 1: Before that, people thought that everything was just sort of 215 00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:15,960 Speaker 1: like hanging out in space. Things hadn't changed in hundreds 216 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:18,880 Speaker 1: or thousands or billions of years. But Hubble discovered that 217 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:21,319 Speaker 1: there were other galaxies out there and that they were 218 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:24,520 Speaker 1: moving away from us faster and faster, and suddenly that 219 00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:27,600 Speaker 1: made the universe dynamic instead of static, like things were 220 00:11:27,640 --> 00:11:32,320 Speaker 1: definitely changing. And people had two totally different concepts of 221 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:36,199 Speaker 1: ways to explain what Hubble saw that the universe was expanding. 222 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:39,000 Speaker 1: One is the idea that's very familiar to us that 223 00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:41,200 Speaker 1: if the universe is expanding, then you run the clock 224 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:44,040 Speaker 1: backwards in time, then it must have been more dense, 225 00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:46,960 Speaker 1: must have been more compact, must have been more squeezed 226 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,360 Speaker 1: together in the beginning, and you can sort of track 227 00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:51,880 Speaker 1: it back to a very early moment when you reach 228 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:55,000 Speaker 1: like infinite density, the singularity. So this is the big 229 00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:57,960 Speaker 1: bang idea that the universe came from some like huge 230 00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:01,600 Speaker 1: early expansion, and what we're now is the remnants of that, 231 00:12:01,679 --> 00:12:04,800 Speaker 1: the continued expansion of the universe. So that was one idea, 232 00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:07,560 Speaker 1: this big bang idea, right, because we we saw the 233 00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:10,120 Speaker 1: stars and the galaxies right now, they're all moving away 234 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:12,559 Speaker 1: from us. So you know, the ideas that if you 235 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:16,520 Speaker 1: rewind then at some point everything was crunched together. Yeah, 236 00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:18,960 Speaker 1: but some people didn't like that idea. They thought that's 237 00:12:19,040 --> 00:12:21,720 Speaker 1: ridiculous for the universe to have a beginning and for 238 00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:24,319 Speaker 1: it to begin in some sort of big bang. And 239 00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,760 Speaker 1: in fact, the name big bang came about as a 240 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:28,679 Speaker 1: sort of like an insult, and they were like trying to, 241 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:31,800 Speaker 1: you know, make that idea sounds silly by calling it 242 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:34,840 Speaker 1: a big bang, and instead they preferred a steady state 243 00:12:34,920 --> 00:12:37,520 Speaker 1: theory of the universe. That's sort of hard to have 244 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:40,480 Speaker 1: a steady state idea of the universe, that the universe 245 00:12:40,520 --> 00:12:43,600 Speaker 1: like isn't changing on the largest scale. When you see 246 00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:46,200 Speaker 1: that it's expanding, you know, how could that possibly be 247 00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:49,559 Speaker 1: If things are expanding, don't they get less and less dense. Well, 248 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:51,960 Speaker 1: their idea was that there was some like source of 249 00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:55,439 Speaker 1: new stuff in the universe, that stuff was constantly being created, 250 00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:59,080 Speaker 1: and that was like refilling the universe. So the universe 251 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:01,840 Speaker 1: was expanding but at a constant density because there was 252 00:13:01,880 --> 00:13:04,520 Speaker 1: some like thing that was like topping it off all 253 00:13:04,559 --> 00:13:06,800 Speaker 1: the time. That is sort of what we think of now, 254 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:10,240 Speaker 1: but back then it seems sort of counter to the evidence. Well, 255 00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:12,360 Speaker 1: that's interesting that you say that you're right that we 256 00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:15,360 Speaker 1: know that the universe is expanding and that there is 257 00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:19,120 Speaker 1: more space being created, but the universe is getting more 258 00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:21,480 Speaker 1: and more dilute. The steady state theory involved like the 259 00:13:21,480 --> 00:13:24,520 Speaker 1: creation of more stars and galaxies and more stuff in 260 00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:27,920 Speaker 1: the universe to keep like the density constant. So the 261 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:30,480 Speaker 1: steady state theory was like, well, let's figure out how 262 00:13:30,520 --> 00:13:32,280 Speaker 1: to make the universe so it's not getting more and 263 00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:35,640 Speaker 1: more dilute, that it's always been this way and live forever. 264 00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:38,360 Speaker 1: They were thinking, like, the density of the universe doesn't 265 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:41,439 Speaker 1: change it's somehow expanding, but the density is not changing. Yeah, 266 00:13:41,480 --> 00:13:45,080 Speaker 1: because somebody's like pouring more syrup onto these pancakes all 267 00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:48,120 Speaker 1: the time, and so even though it's dribbling off the edges, 268 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:50,240 Speaker 1: you're keeping the same amount of syrupe on top of 269 00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:54,720 Speaker 1: your pancakes. That's my big pancake theory of the universe. 270 00:13:55,160 --> 00:13:57,040 Speaker 1: I think you messed up that analogy. I think it's 271 00:13:57,080 --> 00:13:59,640 Speaker 1: it's more like the pancakes getting bigger, and so somebody 272 00:13:59,720 --> 00:14:02,240 Speaker 1: must be for more sarapes. There you go, all right there, 273 00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:05,520 Speaker 1: all right, right, that's a more delicious, very breakfast theme 274 00:14:05,559 --> 00:14:09,960 Speaker 1: physics analogy today. The oatmeal pancakes. It's the most important 275 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:12,120 Speaker 1: physics meal the day. Wait till you hear about my 276 00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:15,760 Speaker 1: waffle based observation ideas, and might have to be another episode, Daniel, 277 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,120 Speaker 1: I'm stuffed already. And so these were some of the 278 00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,160 Speaker 1: ideas people were bouncing around, like what does the expansion 279 00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:23,920 Speaker 1: of the universe mean? Did it come from some early, hot, 280 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:27,600 Speaker 1: dense point or is there someplace where the universe is 281 00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:30,240 Speaker 1: creating new stuff so that things don't get less and 282 00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:32,800 Speaker 1: less dense as time goes on. I guess why were 283 00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:35,320 Speaker 1: they fighting this idea of a more you know, kind 284 00:14:35,360 --> 00:14:38,360 Speaker 1: of empty universe, like why couldn't the universe beginning more 285 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:40,960 Speaker 1: and more dilute. I think they didn't like the idea 286 00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:44,600 Speaker 1: of a beginning. It seems sort of counterintuitive. They prefer 287 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:47,360 Speaker 1: the concept It seemed more natural to them to imagine 288 00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:50,800 Speaker 1: the universe had always been here, because if there's a beginning, then, 289 00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:53,680 Speaker 1: as you know, there are big questions about that beginning, 290 00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:55,800 Speaker 1: what came before and what caused it? Why do we 291 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:58,120 Speaker 1: have a beginning? You can avoid some of those things 292 00:14:58,160 --> 00:15:00,840 Speaker 1: if you imagine the universe is just always been this way. 293 00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:03,280 Speaker 1: Like if you don't accept that the universe could have 294 00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:05,880 Speaker 1: a beginning, then you have to make something up, like 295 00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:07,720 Speaker 1: where is all this syrup coming from? Yeah, there are 296 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:09,560 Speaker 1: always more questions, but you know, it was sort of 297 00:15:09,560 --> 00:15:12,080 Speaker 1: an aesthetic preference, and so you had physicists on both 298 00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:14,720 Speaker 1: sides of the issue, some arguing that the universe must 299 00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:17,600 Speaker 1: have started with a big bang and others suggesting that, 300 00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:20,520 Speaker 1: you know, stuff was constantly being made in this steady state, 301 00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:23,040 Speaker 1: and so that's what people were thinking about. They were like, 302 00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:25,320 Speaker 1: where does the stuff in the universe come from? And 303 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:28,640 Speaker 1: they were trying to understand for example, where heavy stuff 304 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:31,520 Speaker 1: in the universe came from, Like, where does all the iron, 305 00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:33,600 Speaker 1: where does all the nickel and all that stuff in 306 00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:36,480 Speaker 1: the universe come from? Was it made during the Big Bang? 307 00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:39,320 Speaker 1: Or is it somehow made somewhere else and being like 308 00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:42,240 Speaker 1: poured into the universe somehow? I see, because it could 309 00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:43,880 Speaker 1: have been made in the Big Bang, right, like the 310 00:15:43,880 --> 00:15:46,840 Speaker 1: heavier elements could have been forged in that hot, tense 311 00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:49,920 Speaker 1: initial moments. That's what people thought in the early part 312 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,080 Speaker 1: of the century that maybe in that incredible heat from 313 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:55,680 Speaker 1: the Big Bang, you could have made iron, and you 314 00:15:55,680 --> 00:15:58,280 Speaker 1: could have made silicon and oxygen, and maybe all the 315 00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:01,840 Speaker 1: elements were fused in that initial time period. So people 316 00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:04,720 Speaker 1: spent a lot of time doing theoretical calculations of how 317 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:07,520 Speaker 1: hot it was back then in the very early universe, 318 00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:09,800 Speaker 1: What was the temperature, what was the density? Were there 319 00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:12,760 Speaker 1: the conditions needed to make all of the heavy elements. 320 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,640 Speaker 1: So that was the reason they started doing these calculations, 321 00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:18,600 Speaker 1: and they realized, Wow, in the very early universe, there 322 00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:20,920 Speaker 1: must have been this very very hot plasma, and that 323 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:23,840 Speaker 1: plasma must have glowed the way plasma from the Sun, 324 00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,360 Speaker 1: for example, glows, And then the universe cooled, and at 325 00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:30,600 Speaker 1: some point that plasma becomes transparent because all of the 326 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:33,120 Speaker 1: ions and it capture electrons as they cool and they 327 00:16:33,120 --> 00:16:35,800 Speaker 1: become neutral, and then it's transparent. So what they were 328 00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:38,320 Speaker 1: wondering about was all that energy, all that light that 329 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:40,800 Speaker 1: was now flying around the universe. Was there enough light 330 00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:43,760 Speaker 1: there to like make the heavy elements? And they did 331 00:16:43,760 --> 00:16:46,960 Speaker 1: a bunch of calculations and they decided, no, it wasn't possible. 332 00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:49,360 Speaker 1: And now, of course we know that those heavy elements 333 00:16:49,360 --> 00:16:51,600 Speaker 1: were not made during the Big Bang. The Big Bang 334 00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:55,240 Speaker 1: mostly made hydrogen and helium and very tiny amounts of 335 00:16:55,240 --> 00:16:58,320 Speaker 1: heavier things. The heavier elements were made later in stars, 336 00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:00,000 Speaker 1: but they didn't know that at the time until they 337 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:02,600 Speaker 1: did these calculations. But how did they know that? You 338 00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:05,160 Speaker 1: couldn't have made the heavier elements because there just aren't 339 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:08,520 Speaker 1: the conditions, Like you can't make iron, for example, under 340 00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:11,320 Speaker 1: the conditions just after the Big Bang, like it needs 341 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:14,640 Speaker 1: to be hotter and denser. You need the conditions inside stars. 342 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:18,600 Speaker 1: But wasn't the Big Bang infinitely dance and super duper hot. 343 00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:20,720 Speaker 1: It was, but not for very long, you know, And 344 00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:23,359 Speaker 1: so like it took time for the basic particles to form. 345 00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:25,800 Speaker 1: You needed like quarks to shake out of it, and 346 00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,040 Speaker 1: then those quirks to get bound into protons, and then 347 00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:31,119 Speaker 1: those protons to find electrons and that's basically all that happened, 348 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,760 Speaker 1: and then things cooled down. There was very very quick 349 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:37,159 Speaker 1: early expansion. Remember the Big Bang itself is an expansion 350 00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:40,560 Speaker 1: that lasts like ten of the minus thirty seconds. I see. 351 00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:43,000 Speaker 1: There wasn't enough time to make the heavier elements, is 352 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:45,440 Speaker 1: what you're saying. But just enough time to only make 353 00:17:45,920 --> 00:17:48,520 Speaker 1: hydrogen and helium, just enough to time to make hydrogen 354 00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:51,560 Speaker 1: and helium exactly and little trace elements of what comes next. 355 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:54,280 Speaker 1: And so the other elements were later made in stars. 356 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:57,560 Speaker 1: And this is where cosmologists kind of lost interest. They 357 00:17:57,560 --> 00:17:59,520 Speaker 1: were like, all right, so there must have been this 358 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,200 Speaker 1: hot play and it must have generated a bunch of light, 359 00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:05,920 Speaker 1: but we're not interested anymore because that couldn't have made 360 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,280 Speaker 1: the heavy elements. That was the question they were asking. 361 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:10,560 Speaker 1: So they had the idea that there might be this 362 00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:14,040 Speaker 1: light from the early universe flying around, but they didn't 363 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:16,479 Speaker 1: care because it didn't answer the question they were asking 364 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:19,720 Speaker 1: At the time. They were more interested in, like had 365 00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:22,320 Speaker 1: the planets come about and had its stars and galaxies, 366 00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:24,960 Speaker 1: like the stuff that you can actually kind of that 367 00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:27,520 Speaker 1: is interesting to them, at least at the time in 368 00:18:27,560 --> 00:18:29,959 Speaker 1: the universe. Yeah, so it's very much motivated by like 369 00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,679 Speaker 1: what questions scientists are asking. Sometimes you stumble across an 370 00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:35,919 Speaker 1: idea and you don't realize, oh, this could actually be 371 00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:39,120 Speaker 1: really interesting and important for a totally different question. They 372 00:18:39,119 --> 00:18:40,880 Speaker 1: were focused on, you know, how do you make these 373 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:43,840 Speaker 1: heavy elements? And on top of that, nobody imagined that 374 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:46,480 Speaker 1: you could even see this light. Even if they thought, 375 00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:49,120 Speaker 1: well that light is cool and if you could see it, 376 00:18:49,119 --> 00:18:51,760 Speaker 1: it would prove that there was this hot, dense state 377 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,359 Speaker 1: in the early universe. They didn't imagine to be possible 378 00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:56,679 Speaker 1: to see it today, and so they just sort of 379 00:18:56,720 --> 00:18:59,200 Speaker 1: like wrote it off and cosmologists sort of like moved on. 380 00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:01,919 Speaker 1: This is acculation is done in the forties by some 381 00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:05,320 Speaker 1: guys named Alpha and Herman and George Gammao, and they 382 00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:07,400 Speaker 1: did it, and people thought, well, I guess you can't 383 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 1: make heavy elements in the Big Bang, and then they 384 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:11,719 Speaker 1: just sort of turned to other stuff. They thought the 385 00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:14,560 Speaker 1: Big Band was too boring. They're like, you know, like 386 00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:17,680 Speaker 1: all right, yeah, that's where the universe came from. It 387 00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:21,040 Speaker 1: was a big flash, but nothing interesting happened, nothing interesting 388 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:23,960 Speaker 1: that we could see today. These photons, they started out 389 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,800 Speaker 1: really hot, you know, like thousands of degrees kelvin, but 390 00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:29,560 Speaker 1: then they got cooled down as the universe expanded. They 391 00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:32,520 Speaker 1: got stretched out as the universe expands down to very 392 00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:37,400 Speaker 1: very cold temperatures, which means long wavelength, which means radio waves. 393 00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:41,480 Speaker 1: And so at the time, radio astronomy was like really 394 00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:43,480 Speaker 1: a brand new field that had just begun a few 395 00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:46,640 Speaker 1: years earlier. So nobody imagined you could actually detect these 396 00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:50,280 Speaker 1: faint signals. Nobody even bothered to propose that somebody do that. 397 00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:52,560 Speaker 1: All right, well let's get into a little bit more 398 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:55,600 Speaker 1: detail about what they were expecting to see and then 399 00:19:55,680 --> 00:19:59,159 Speaker 1: how it was accidentally discovered. But first let's take a 400 00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:15,240 Speaker 1: quick break. Alright, we're talking about the cosmic microwave background 401 00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:17,680 Speaker 1: and how it was discovered. Now, Daniel, some of our 402 00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:21,000 Speaker 1: listeners might not know exactly what the cosmic microwave background 403 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:22,600 Speaker 1: is or where it comes from. You want to go 404 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:25,040 Speaker 1: as a quick recap of what it is and what 405 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,320 Speaker 1: exactly it is that we're seeing when we look at it. So, 406 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:31,359 Speaker 1: the cosmic backgrounwave background are photons from about three hundred 407 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,480 Speaker 1: eighty thousand years after the Big Bang. Right, big Bang happens, 408 00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:38,040 Speaker 1: things are really hot and dense and stuck together, and 409 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:40,960 Speaker 1: the universe expands, which means everything is getting more dilute 410 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,560 Speaker 1: and more cool. And by about almost four hundred thousand years, 411 00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:47,640 Speaker 1: the universe had cool to the point where atoms could form, 412 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,040 Speaker 1: like electrons were slow enough that they can now be 413 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:53,879 Speaker 1: captured by protons and turned into hydrogen, for example. And 414 00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:56,879 Speaker 1: that means that the universe became transparent. So there's this 415 00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,439 Speaker 1: moment when the universe goes from like really hot and 416 00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:04,200 Speaker 1: glowy but opaque too, slightly less hot and slightly less 417 00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,399 Speaker 1: glowy and transparent. Right, it becomes like glass all of 418 00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,680 Speaker 1: a sudden. So what happens to those photons that were 419 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,440 Speaker 1: made just before the universe became transparent, Well, they were 420 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:17,119 Speaker 1: flying around and they're still flying around, and fourteen billion 421 00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,879 Speaker 1: years later, most of them are still flying around. And 422 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,360 Speaker 1: so they were everywhere because the Big Bang was everywhere, 423 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:27,280 Speaker 1: and this plasma filled the entire universe and filled it 424 00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:30,240 Speaker 1: with these photons. So that means that everywhere, all around 425 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:33,240 Speaker 1: us are these photons not from the Big Bang, itself, 426 00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,320 Speaker 1: but from this hot plasma that existed about four hundred 427 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,239 Speaker 1: thousand years after the Big Bang. Yeah, I'm thinking like, 428 00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,119 Speaker 1: it's like you're in the middle of a giant fire 429 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:44,840 Speaker 1: and then suddenly the fire, everything are all around you 430 00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:48,880 Speaker 1: becomes transparent, and so you sort of get that one 431 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:52,440 Speaker 1: last you know, flash of light from that fire right 432 00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: before the universe became kind of solid. And because it 433 00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,399 Speaker 1: happened everywhere all at once, then there are always photons 434 00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:02,440 Speaker 1: wherever you look. Right, we look out and we see 435 00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:04,800 Speaker 1: this just in the night sky. Right, if you point 436 00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:07,600 Speaker 1: to a radio telescope to the night sky in any direction, 437 00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:11,400 Speaker 1: you see this because there's always a place where fourteen 438 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,520 Speaker 1: billion years ago, almost a photon was created and it 439 00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:17,600 Speaker 1: has been flying towards us ever since. And as time 440 00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,720 Speaker 1: goes on, we're seeing these photons from further and further 441 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:24,240 Speaker 1: slices of that early plasma. So we're always seeing it. 442 00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:26,520 Speaker 1: We always will see it. And so you were saying 443 00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:29,440 Speaker 1: that in the beginning of the Nine DS and through 444 00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:31,960 Speaker 1: the middle of it, we sort of knew this story. 445 00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:34,840 Speaker 1: We knew that's what had happened or possibly happened at 446 00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,159 Speaker 1: the Big Bang, and what happened to all those all 447 00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,960 Speaker 1: that light. But you're saying, nobody really cared about seeing 448 00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:43,240 Speaker 1: this light. Nobody imagined that you could write. Nobody thought, wow, 449 00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:45,639 Speaker 1: you could actually go and detect this stuff. It seemed 450 00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:47,720 Speaker 1: like it would be a really faint signal and you 451 00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:50,880 Speaker 1: need really impressive technology. And so people just sort of like, well, 452 00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,440 Speaker 1: I guess that existed, just like lots of other things 453 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:56,480 Speaker 1: probably existed in early states of the universe. Doesn't mean 454 00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:59,120 Speaker 1: we think we can see clues of them now. It's 455 00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,640 Speaker 1: sort of like incredib able to imagine that you could 456 00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:06,800 Speaker 1: see today remnants of something that happened fourteen billion years ago, right, 457 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:09,040 Speaker 1: that's sort of incredible. Most of the stuff that happened 458 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,040 Speaker 1: a long time ago was gone, right, Like you can't 459 00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:13,520 Speaker 1: see most of the dinosaurs that were on Earth, just 460 00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:16,280 Speaker 1: a very few that happened to get fossilized. I think 461 00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,120 Speaker 1: part of it is that, you know, we were at 462 00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:21,440 Speaker 1: that time stuck on like visible light astronomy, right, We're 463 00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,480 Speaker 1: trying to look at the entire universe only through like 464 00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,800 Speaker 1: the visible lights spectrum. Yeah, at the same time, people 465 00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,080 Speaker 1: were just starting to figure out that there were other 466 00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:31,239 Speaker 1: ways to look at the universe. It was in the 467 00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:35,920 Speaker 1: thirties that radio astronomy was accidentally invented because somebody built 468 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,359 Speaker 1: a big antenna to try to communicate across the Atlantic 469 00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,480 Speaker 1: and realized, oh my gosh, there are crazy radio signals 470 00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:46,840 Speaker 1: coming from space. What wise space making radio signals. And 471 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,399 Speaker 1: that was the discovery, for example, of the big radio 472 00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:51,960 Speaker 1: source at the center of our galaxy, which turns out 473 00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,800 Speaker 1: to be from a black hole's accretion disk. And so 474 00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,600 Speaker 1: we had just begun to understand that radio astronomy was 475 00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:00,000 Speaker 1: a possible thing. You could do another way to look 476 00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,359 Speaker 1: at the universe. Right, everything in the university is glowing. 477 00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:07,240 Speaker 1: Everything that interacts electromagnetically gives off some kind of light, 478 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,159 Speaker 1: and it just depends on the temperature. So you're not 479 00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:12,760 Speaker 1: very hot, so you don't glow in the visible light 480 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,280 Speaker 1: the way like a white hot piece of metal does, 481 00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,440 Speaker 1: or the sun does. You and the Earth do, however, 482 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,960 Speaker 1: glow in the infrared. And so if you're cold enough, 483 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,439 Speaker 1: then you glow at longer and longer temperatures which are 484 00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:26,760 Speaker 1: not visible. So if you look at the night sky 485 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,000 Speaker 1: or any sky really and look at it in the 486 00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:32,040 Speaker 1: frequency of radio waves, then you can see colder stuff, 487 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,840 Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't glow in the visible things like gas 488 00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:37,320 Speaker 1: and dust and planets and other kinds of things. So 489 00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,320 Speaker 1: it's a different way of looking at the universe. A 490 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,440 Speaker 1: different filter shows you different stuff, right, And it also 491 00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:44,960 Speaker 1: travels differently through space, right, which is why it's sort 492 00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:48,760 Speaker 1: of like clearer to see things in the radio spectrum. 493 00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,679 Speaker 1: Longer wavelengths are less obstructed by like small particles and stuff, 494 00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,719 Speaker 1: so radio can travel more easily through like big clouds 495 00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,600 Speaker 1: of gas and dust and this kind of stuff. So 496 00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,439 Speaker 1: let's you see through different things, because every odd is 497 00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:04,280 Speaker 1: transparent or opaque at different frequencies. Right. For example, your 498 00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:09,680 Speaker 1: walls are transparent in X ray, right, but opaque invisible light. 499 00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:11,720 Speaker 1: You can see through them with some kinds of light 500 00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,520 Speaker 1: X ray light with very high frequency, but you can't 501 00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,280 Speaker 1: see through them in other kinds of light, like visible light. 502 00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,920 Speaker 1: So that's kind of the picture that sets up the discovery. 503 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,200 Speaker 1: So we knew there was this light out there where 504 00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,480 Speaker 1: we didn't think we could see it, and also we 505 00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,880 Speaker 1: were just discovering, you know, the radio spectrum of signals 506 00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:30,080 Speaker 1: out there in space. So then how did they finally 507 00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,439 Speaker 1: put the two together? So people put the two together 508 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,720 Speaker 1: sort of accidentally at first, and it wasn't even realized 509 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,920 Speaker 1: until decades and decades later, because it was World War 510 00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:43,240 Speaker 1: Two that really improved our radio technology. Obviously that was 511 00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,760 Speaker 1: important for signaling during the war, and so it gave 512 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,040 Speaker 1: a great boost to like a lot of our electronics 513 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,719 Speaker 1: and radar and radio technology. And so after World War Two, 514 00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,400 Speaker 1: people started playing around with radio a little bit more, 515 00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,560 Speaker 1: and there were folks that were like looking at the 516 00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:00,520 Speaker 1: sky and surveying it at various wavelengths. And for example, 517 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:04,359 Speaker 1: a Frenchman named Emil LaRue in ninety five made a 518 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,880 Speaker 1: measurement of radiation from the sky and he found this 519 00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,399 Speaker 1: source of radiation at just the right frequency, which we 520 00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,199 Speaker 1: now understand was the CMB. He just didn't understand what 521 00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,520 Speaker 1: it was, and nobody recognized it. I see. He just 522 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,679 Speaker 1: hooked it up and he heard like a or something 523 00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,520 Speaker 1: through his earphones or something. Yeah. And people are looking 524 00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:26,920 Speaker 1: for sources right there, like pointing this telescope and various things, 525 00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,840 Speaker 1: trying to find things that generated radio waves, like the 526 00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:33,240 Speaker 1: center of the galaxy generated radio waves, the Sun generates 527 00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,040 Speaker 1: radio waves, Jupiter. You're looking for like objects. You're trying 528 00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,080 Speaker 1: to understand what's out there. But what they were seeing was, 529 00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,959 Speaker 1: in addition this noise that you hear from every direction, right, 530 00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:44,800 Speaker 1: it doesn't matter where you point at the center of 531 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,160 Speaker 1: the galaxy, of the center the Solar system, doesn't matter where. 532 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,439 Speaker 1: It's coming from every direction, and so that's sort of weird. 533 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,720 Speaker 1: And people had sort of forgotten this prediction by the 534 00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,040 Speaker 1: theorists that there would be this like radio noise from 535 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:00,720 Speaker 1: the early universe out there, and then they started to 536 00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,520 Speaker 1: hear it, and they didn't understand what it was. I see, 537 00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:05,160 Speaker 1: But I guess how did they know it wasn't just 538 00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:10,800 Speaker 1: noise like just general noisy equipment, you know, thermal fluctuations, 539 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,080 Speaker 1: you know, noise in the air. How did they know 540 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,480 Speaker 1: it was something special and not just like, hey, I 541 00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,520 Speaker 1: have bad equipment. Yeah, that's a great question. That took 542 00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:23,199 Speaker 1: a more detailed comparison between what was expected and what 543 00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,080 Speaker 1: was predicted and what was actually seen. But we'll get 544 00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:27,800 Speaker 1: there at a moment. To me, it's super fun to 545 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,360 Speaker 1: look back into history and see evidence of future discoveries 546 00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,560 Speaker 1: in people's data, to see people who could have claimed 547 00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,200 Speaker 1: the discovery of something which later won the Nobel Prize, 548 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,879 Speaker 1: they just didn't understand what they had and so this 549 00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,639 Speaker 1: actually happened twice for the CMB. In nine was a 550 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,240 Speaker 1: meal LaRue and two years later a Russian guy named 551 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,920 Speaker 1: Shamanov observed a signal at the same temperature in every 552 00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,240 Speaker 1: direction and didn't understand it, and they just sort of 553 00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,879 Speaker 1: like went and then moved on and never really figured 554 00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,440 Speaker 1: it out. Now, of course we know that was all 555 00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:00,919 Speaker 1: the data they needed to claim this every of the CMB, 556 00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:04,000 Speaker 1: they just didn't really have the context for it. Yeah, 557 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:06,639 Speaker 1: I mean, like, is it directional this noise or is 558 00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,119 Speaker 1: it only coming from space? If I pointed back towards 559 00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,800 Speaker 1: the Earth, I don't hear it, you know. I guess 560 00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:13,880 Speaker 1: paint us a picture like if I'm in the sixties 561 00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,200 Speaker 1: and I haven't SENTTENNA, what would I be experiencing? Yeah, 562 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,280 Speaker 1: so it comes from space, right. Earth actually is a 563 00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,399 Speaker 1: big source of radio noise, so not just electronics, but 564 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:27,159 Speaker 1: like everything around us is constantly emitting light. Just like 565 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,920 Speaker 1: we said earlier, it's glowing, and so you've got to 566 00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,480 Speaker 1: get rid of that by only pointing your antenna up 567 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:35,280 Speaker 1: at the sky, so you're listening to radio from the 568 00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:38,560 Speaker 1: sky only. The interesting thing about this is that there 569 00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,000 Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be any particular source of it. It 570 00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,520 Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's coming from the center of the galaxy, 571 00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,160 Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's coming from Jupiter or from the 572 00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,520 Speaker 1: Sun or any particular source. Once you point your radio 573 00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:51,800 Speaker 1: telescope up at the sky and listen, you see it 574 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,360 Speaker 1: equally from every direction, which is really weird. And it's 575 00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:59,320 Speaker 1: a clue that's not coming from any particular object out there. 576 00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,240 Speaker 1: It's just sort of like the cosmos are filled with 577 00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,480 Speaker 1: this bath. And of course you have to make sure 578 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,800 Speaker 1: it's not instrumental, that it's not just like noise in 579 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,920 Speaker 1: your electronics or something like that. And so you can 580 00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,400 Speaker 1: spend a lot of time trying to find that noise 581 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,719 Speaker 1: and remove it and make sure you know that's not 582 00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,080 Speaker 1: from your electronics. But you can tell that it's not 583 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,480 Speaker 1: from any particular object because it's coming from every direction 584 00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,920 Speaker 1: in the sky. It was definitely coming from somewhere, is 585 00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,360 Speaker 1: what you're saying. It was coming from space, right, It 586 00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,800 Speaker 1: was definitely not coming from Earth, all right, So then 587 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,400 Speaker 1: what was the big breakthroughout it they piece it all together. 588 00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,800 Speaker 1: It was in the sixties when one group at Princeton 589 00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,840 Speaker 1: realized a whole lot of second we might be able 590 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,640 Speaker 1: to see this radiation. They sort of like dug back 591 00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,160 Speaker 1: into these old calculations from the forties to think about 592 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,920 Speaker 1: this light from their early universe and realize that with 593 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,959 Speaker 1: the advance in radio technology, it might actually be possible. 594 00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:53,360 Speaker 1: And so this is like go back and read old 595 00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,000 Speaker 1: papers people, because there are great ideas out there that 596 00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,360 Speaker 1: people wrote down that they didn't follow up on because 597 00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,760 Speaker 1: the technology wasn't there. And so there was a guy 598 00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:03,720 Speaker 1: Princeton named Dickie who realized, you know what, we could 599 00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,920 Speaker 1: probably see this light. We think it's out there. It 600 00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:09,640 Speaker 1: would be evidence that the universe was wasn't hot and 601 00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,880 Speaker 1: dense enough to generate this light. And now we think 602 00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:14,520 Speaker 1: we might be able to see it. So let's go 603 00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,440 Speaker 1: build a radio telescope so we can go and look 604 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,720 Speaker 1: for it. So this was Dickie at Princeton. I see. 605 00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,080 Speaker 1: It was somebody who said, like, hey, radio astronomy is 606 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,240 Speaker 1: a thing. You could find interesting signals out there in 607 00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,840 Speaker 1: the radio spectrum, and oh, by the way, um you 608 00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,440 Speaker 1: should be able to see this early light, this dim 609 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:32,720 Speaker 1: light from the universe beginning. Yeah, and it was a 610 00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,680 Speaker 1: great idea, you know, the technology had come around. The 611 00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:39,680 Speaker 1: question was interesting, I realized, Wow, I have the hammer 612 00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,040 Speaker 1: to bang in this nail. And actually, as a weird acide, 613 00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,520 Speaker 1: Dickie didn't believe in the Big Bang as the beginning 614 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,720 Speaker 1: of the universe. He didn't think the universe had a beginning, 615 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,800 Speaker 1: but he did think that the universe had an early, 616 00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,080 Speaker 1: really hot, dense state. He had this other idea. He 617 00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,080 Speaker 1: thought of the universe as a sort of a cycle. 618 00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,520 Speaker 1: He thought the universe expanded and then slow down and 619 00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,520 Speaker 1: crunched back together again, and he was trying to understand 620 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,800 Speaker 1: if that crunch was sort of like intense enough to 621 00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,480 Speaker 1: break apart all of the matter. He wanted to find 622 00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:12,840 Speaker 1: this early radiation as like evidence of how matter was 623 00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:17,040 Speaker 1: destroyed rather than created. He thought this fireball destroyed the 624 00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,960 Speaker 1: previous universe and then hours was birthed out of that 625 00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,760 Speaker 1: what like a crunch from the Big Bang or before 626 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:25,960 Speaker 1: the Big Bang, from before the Big Bang. He thought 627 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,080 Speaker 1: that our universe was just like the latest and infinite 628 00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:33,080 Speaker 1: series of universes, and that before our big bang, there 629 00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:35,200 Speaker 1: was a big crunch, and that this sort of like 630 00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,640 Speaker 1: cleansed the universe from all the stuff from the previous universe, 631 00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:40,400 Speaker 1: you know, sort of like wipe the table and set 632 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,440 Speaker 1: this for a new meal. He's thinking, maybe you can 633 00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:46,360 Speaker 1: hear the crunch or see like this crunching the current universe. Yeah, 634 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,440 Speaker 1: and he thought that maybe this cosmic microwave background radiation, 635 00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,880 Speaker 1: if you could spot it, would be evidence for this 636 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,800 Speaker 1: like cleansing radiation that basically destroyed the previous universe and 637 00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,480 Speaker 1: helped create ours I see. And what made them think 638 00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,560 Speaker 1: that radio would be a better way to see it 639 00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,800 Speaker 1: than other wavelengths. So they did this calculation. They thought 640 00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,040 Speaker 1: how hot was it back then? And it was about 641 00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,960 Speaker 1: three thousand degrees kelvin, And if that light was still around, 642 00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,320 Speaker 1: what would be its wavelength now? So it's a little confusing. 643 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,120 Speaker 1: We talked about the temperature of light. What we really 644 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,440 Speaker 1: mean when we say the temperature of light is we 645 00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:22,080 Speaker 1: mean the temperature of a thing which would generate light 646 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,080 Speaker 1: at a certain frequency. So, for example, we say the 647 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,800 Speaker 1: light was three thousand degrees kelvin, we really mean a 648 00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,120 Speaker 1: plasma that was three thousand degrees kelvin would glow a 649 00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,920 Speaker 1: certain frequency. Something that's colder, some that's three degrees kelvin, 650 00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,320 Speaker 1: for example, would glow at a much longer frequency. But 651 00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,960 Speaker 1: if you have a plasma for a long, long time ago, 652 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,640 Speaker 1: and the glowing at three thousand degrees kelvin. It made 653 00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,680 Speaker 1: very high frequency light light that like zigs and zags 654 00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:50,880 Speaker 1: really quickly. As the universe expands, member space stretches, that 655 00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,440 Speaker 1: light gets too longer and longer frequencies. That light gets stretched. 656 00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:57,400 Speaker 1: Doesn't get slowed down. Light always moves to the same speed, 657 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,200 Speaker 1: but the wavelengths gets stretched. So now that light is 658 00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:05,120 Speaker 1: much longer frequency, whereas we say colder temperature. And so 659 00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,040 Speaker 1: they did that calculation. They figured what the frequency of 660 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,200 Speaker 1: the light should be, and they figured it should be 661 00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:14,000 Speaker 1: something corresponding to radiation from an object. They around three 662 00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,840 Speaker 1: or five or ten degrees kelvin. So they sort of 663 00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,760 Speaker 1: knew that if this light from the early universe glowed 664 00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:22,960 Speaker 1: at a certain frequency or a frequency range, it's not 665 00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,760 Speaker 1: like you can measure that glow in the X rays 666 00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:27,880 Speaker 1: or in the visible light, like it only glows in 667 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,320 Speaker 1: that certain frequency. Yes, it would be characteristic at that temperature, 668 00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:33,680 Speaker 1: all right, And so they were poison to go look 669 00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:38,280 Speaker 1: for it basically and then realize what an amazing discovery 670 00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,120 Speaker 1: it was. So let's get into how they found it 671 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,000 Speaker 1: and when they realized what they were sitting on. But first, 672 00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:58,960 Speaker 1: let's take another quick rate. All right, we're talking about 673 00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,840 Speaker 1: the cosmic microwave background and how it was discovered, and 674 00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,720 Speaker 1: it feels like people knew was there and this new technology, 675 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,440 Speaker 1: this radio astronomy, was just coming into fashion, and so 676 00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,040 Speaker 1: people were ready to see it. People were ready to 677 00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:14,960 Speaker 1: see it, you know. But just like to recap the 678 00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:18,400 Speaker 1: crazy history, it was like predicted in the forties and 679 00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:23,000 Speaker 1: then ignored, accidentally discovered twice in the fifties and then ignored, 680 00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,719 Speaker 1: and then in the early sixties, Dickie at Princeton is like, 681 00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,279 Speaker 1: hold on a second, I bet we could see this. 682 00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:30,920 Speaker 1: Let's build a telescope to look for it. So he's 683 00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,160 Speaker 1: the first one to like really bring this idea together 684 00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,960 Speaker 1: and decide to look for this thing on purpose. But 685 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,640 Speaker 1: he's not the one who actually found it. Oh really, 686 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,000 Speaker 1: But did he build a telescope for it to look 687 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,239 Speaker 1: for it? No, he got started and they were like 688 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,920 Speaker 1: getting going and starting to build this thing. Meanwhile, at 689 00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:51,360 Speaker 1: the same time, totally coincidentally, sixty kilometers away from Princeton, 690 00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,160 Speaker 1: at Bell Labs, there was another couple of guys working 691 00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,760 Speaker 1: at a totally different project looking for something totally different. 692 00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,000 Speaker 1: They built a radio telescope because they were working from 693 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,680 Speaker 1: Bell Labs and they were trying to communicate with balloons satellites. 694 00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,480 Speaker 1: Bell Labs was experimenting with like building a telecommunication networks 695 00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,839 Speaker 1: using floating balloons in the upper atmosphere. So they built 696 00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,520 Speaker 1: this thing to talk to balloons. So they had already 697 00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,799 Speaker 1: built one, but not to do astronomy. To do like communications, 698 00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:20,960 Speaker 1: you had to do communications. And so they had built 699 00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,080 Speaker 1: this thing and they were like trying to talk to balloons, 700 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:25,520 Speaker 1: and then Bell Labs decided, you know what, we're not 701 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,160 Speaker 1: interested in this. Let's cancel the whole project. We're not 702 00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:31,040 Speaker 1: interested in like balloons satellites as a way to build 703 00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,759 Speaker 1: the telecommunications network. But these guys Penzis and Wilson, the 704 00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,840 Speaker 1: ones working from Bell Labs, they had done radio astronomy 705 00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:39,960 Speaker 1: for their PhDs. They knew how to do that, and 706 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,319 Speaker 1: they were like, all right, well we have this awesome telescope. 707 00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:45,279 Speaker 1: Why don't we point at the sky and see what 708 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,080 Speaker 1: we see. We got some questions about you know, they 709 00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:50,400 Speaker 1: wanted to follow up from basically from their THESS and 710 00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,600 Speaker 1: do some more research. So they just sort of like 711 00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,640 Speaker 1: took advantage of this existing thing and started trying to 712 00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,800 Speaker 1: do some research. I see. So they were originally scientists 713 00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,720 Speaker 1: and they probably hoped they could use it for signs, 714 00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:04,239 Speaker 1: but they had this pesky engineering problem they had to 715 00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:06,359 Speaker 1: work on. But then when that got canceled, they could 716 00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,319 Speaker 1: do signs on it. Yeah, And so they had this instrument. Now, 717 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,719 Speaker 1: Dickie was building one for himself over Princeton because he 718 00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,279 Speaker 1: knew what to look for. Penz S and Wilson they 719 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,239 Speaker 1: already had it, but they didn't know what to look for. 720 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,000 Speaker 1: They weren't looking for the cosmic marcrotwave background. They didn't 721 00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,600 Speaker 1: know what existed. It wasn't on their radar, so to speak, 722 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,040 Speaker 1: at all. They were just trying to build a sensitive 723 00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:27,839 Speaker 1: instrument so they could listen to the sky. And you know, 724 00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:31,279 Speaker 1: they're great engineers, and they built this really awesome telescope. 725 00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:32,879 Speaker 1: If you look at pictures of it, it it looks kind 726 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,040 Speaker 1: of funny. It doesn't look like a telescope you see 727 00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,520 Speaker 1: often because it's only part of a parabola. It looks 728 00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:40,560 Speaker 1: sort of like a big shovel, like a big scoop, 729 00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,520 Speaker 1: because it's only a little sliver of a parabola. Because 730 00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,000 Speaker 1: they wanted to be really careful and only pointed towards 731 00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,799 Speaker 1: the sky, so it's like really well shielded from the 732 00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,280 Speaker 1: ground and just gathers a bit of the radio waves 733 00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:53,319 Speaker 1: from the sky. Now did they set out to look 734 00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,799 Speaker 1: for this cosmic microwave background or were they, you know, 735 00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,319 Speaker 1: hoping to look at stars and black holes and things 736 00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,040 Speaker 1: like that. They were not looking for this at all. 737 00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,160 Speaker 1: They had no idea this thing existed as a concept, 738 00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,360 Speaker 1: and they had no idea that it was possible to 739 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,640 Speaker 1: see it. One of them was interested in like finding 740 00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,520 Speaker 1: big clouds of hydrogen that were glowing, so they wanted 741 00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:13,920 Speaker 1: to look for other stuff. But they were really good 742 00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,480 Speaker 1: engineers and builders, and so they built this thing, and 743 00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,799 Speaker 1: they cooled it really really cold, because what you want 744 00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:22,719 Speaker 1: to do for your radio telescope is not absorbed signals 745 00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:27,080 Speaker 1: from like the telescope itself. Remember, everything glows, including your telescope. 746 00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:29,400 Speaker 1: So they had to cool the whole telescope down to 747 00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,920 Speaker 1: four point two degrees kelvin so they didn't like swamp 748 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,680 Speaker 1: itself with its own radio signals. And then finally in 749 00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,359 Speaker 1: July nine, while Dickie is over there building his own telescope, 750 00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:42,680 Speaker 1: they turn it on and what they saw was a 751 00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,120 Speaker 1: lot more noise than they expected because they had done 752 00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:48,720 Speaker 1: such a good job of like cooling everything that they 753 00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:51,080 Speaker 1: expected to hear this clean signal. But really they saw 754 00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,759 Speaker 1: this like giant hiss in the radio wave spectrum. Yeah, 755 00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,480 Speaker 1: they saw this giant hiss, and they pointed their telescope 756 00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,480 Speaker 1: in different directions. It's on a big wheel, so you 757 00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,400 Speaker 1: could like turn it this way and that way in 758 00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:03,480 Speaker 1: the other way, and they just couldn't get rid of 759 00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,359 Speaker 1: this hiss. And they like took apart all their electronics 760 00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,000 Speaker 1: and replaced them. They like put another layer of shielding 761 00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,799 Speaker 1: on everything, They cooled everything down a little bit. All 762 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,640 Speaker 1: this made like a very small amount of difference, reducing 763 00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,439 Speaker 1: the noise a very small amount. But they couldn't get 764 00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:19,640 Speaker 1: rid of this hiss. I see. They were trying to 765 00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,160 Speaker 1: get rid of the science signal, but they did because 766 00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,760 Speaker 1: they didn't know it as a science signal. Yeah, exactly. 767 00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:26,200 Speaker 1: They thought it was just noise that was going to 768 00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,400 Speaker 1: interfere with their science. And at one point they found 769 00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,319 Speaker 1: a bunch of pigeons that were nesting in their telescope, 770 00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,240 Speaker 1: and they had covered part of the electronics with pigeon poop, 771 00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,160 Speaker 1: or as they called it in their paper White Poultry 772 00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:42,520 Speaker 1: Dialectic Material, and they cleaned all that off, but it 773 00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,799 Speaker 1: didn't help anything, and so they were very disappointed. You know, 774 00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:48,560 Speaker 1: at the time, Wilson says, this was a huge disappointment 775 00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,400 Speaker 1: for us scientifically, And they spent like a year plunking 776 00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:53,880 Speaker 1: away at this thing, trying to get rid of this noise. 777 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:56,239 Speaker 1: They had no idea what they were looking at. Well, 778 00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,560 Speaker 1: in a way, they were right, you know, like if 779 00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,040 Speaker 1: they were trying to get you know, radio waste, like 780 00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:03,600 Speaker 1: those from a cloud of hydrogen somewhere, this is sort 781 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:05,640 Speaker 1: of noise that gets in the way, right, Like the 782 00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,120 Speaker 1: universe just has this noise. They just didn't know it 783 00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:10,839 Speaker 1: was a feature of the universe absolutely. You know, one 784 00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,840 Speaker 1: man's noise is another woman's signal as another woman's Nobel prize. 785 00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,040 Speaker 1: And we have that in particle physics. All the time 786 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:19,719 Speaker 1: we were looking for the top cork, and now the 787 00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,520 Speaker 1: top cork is an obstacle in finding other particles. We 788 00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:24,040 Speaker 1: wish we could like turn it off and get it 789 00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:25,920 Speaker 1: out of the way so we could see other stuff. 790 00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,480 Speaker 1: And so yeah, it's very subjective, all right. So then 791 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:31,000 Speaker 1: they thought they had some sort of error or some 792 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,239 Speaker 1: sort of equipment failure for over a year, and then 793 00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:36,920 Speaker 1: how did they realize that this was something of interest? 794 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,000 Speaker 1: So Pensis, one of the guys who built this telescope, 795 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:43,200 Speaker 1: happened to run into one of his friends, Bernard Burkey, 796 00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:45,760 Speaker 1: on an airplane, who told him that Dicky over Princeton 797 00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,799 Speaker 1: was looking for this exact thing. So Pensis is like 798 00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:51,160 Speaker 1: complaining about how we have this his in our telescope. 799 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,160 Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we don't understand it. And he says, 800 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,520 Speaker 1: you should talk to these guys at Princeton because I 801 00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,600 Speaker 1: think they know what you found. Oh wow, no kidding 802 00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,560 Speaker 1: on an airplane, on an airplane, just like by chance. 803 00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:03,680 Speaker 1: And I'm guessing this is, you know, the sixties, So 804 00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:08,040 Speaker 1: they were, you know, we're in ties, drinking cocktails, smoking. Yeah, 805 00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:13,680 Speaker 1: it sucking in the plane right over the loud propeller noises. Yeah. 806 00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,799 Speaker 1: So Pensy has calls up Dickie at Princeton and says, 807 00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,799 Speaker 1: I heard about this thing you're predicting. Dickie sends him 808 00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,880 Speaker 1: a paper written by his student John Peebles, predicting this 809 00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,640 Speaker 1: noise and explaining exactly what it should look like. And 810 00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,640 Speaker 1: Pensys is like, wow, this is exactly what we are 811 00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,920 Speaker 1: seeing in our telescope right now. They had no idea, 812 00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:33,839 Speaker 1: you know, what does it mean? What it looks like? 813 00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,640 Speaker 1: Should like it? Should it have a specific like signature 814 00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,440 Speaker 1: and when you look at the signal in the frequency spectrum, 815 00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,640 Speaker 1: or should it have this particular shape to it, or 816 00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:43,879 Speaker 1: what is that like? How would you recognize it? Yeah, 817 00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,920 Speaker 1: it looks like what we call black body radiation. So, 818 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,719 Speaker 1: as we said earlier, everything in the universe that has 819 00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:53,040 Speaker 1: a temperature glows, and it glows at a specific frequency, 820 00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,520 Speaker 1: but not at only one frequency. It tends to peek 821 00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,279 Speaker 1: at a frequency and then have a particular shape. So 822 00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,280 Speaker 1: at one frequency you'll have the high it's intensity of radiation, 823 00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:03,560 Speaker 1: and then at the nearby frequencies it will sort of 824 00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,359 Speaker 1: fall off in a very characteristic pattern that we call 825 00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:09,759 Speaker 1: black body spectrum. And so what they saw was the 826 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:14,400 Speaker 1: frequency of something at two point seven degrees kelvin glowing 827 00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,040 Speaker 1: with black body radiation. And so it wasn't just like 828 00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,280 Speaker 1: we saw a bunch of photons of this one number, 829 00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,279 Speaker 1: like they saw the whole shape. You know, it's like 830 00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,240 Speaker 1: if you saw a mountain of a very specific shape 831 00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,760 Speaker 1: and somebody predicted seeing a mountain of exactly that shape. 832 00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:30,879 Speaker 1: You'd be like, okay, you've understood how that mountain came 833 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,480 Speaker 1: to be because black body radiation. I think it doesn't 834 00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,720 Speaker 1: just look like a bell curve, like a random noise curved. 835 00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:38,839 Speaker 1: It actually has kind of a shape twit, right, Yeah, 836 00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:40,799 Speaker 1: it has a shape. It's asymmetric around the peak, so 837 00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,840 Speaker 1: it's very characteristic. All right. So then Dicky's like, oh, 838 00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:46,720 Speaker 1: like I'm building the cells coope, but these guys already 839 00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,239 Speaker 1: have it and we've been scooped. Yeah, exactly. There's a 840 00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:51,960 Speaker 1: famous story where Dicky gets off the phone from talking 841 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,759 Speaker 1: with Penzias and says, boys, we've been scooped. And that's 842 00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:57,840 Speaker 1: really kind of a bummer for Dicky because he's the 843 00:41:57,880 --> 00:41:59,560 Speaker 1: one who had this idea to look for it and 844 00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:03,200 Speaker 1: started building his telescope, like that was really the ingenuity, 845 00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:06,040 Speaker 1: and Penzias and Wilson just sort of like stumbled across it, 846 00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,919 Speaker 1: had no idea what they had found until Dicky told 847 00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,120 Speaker 1: them that's what you get for answering the phone, Daniel, 848 00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,319 Speaker 1: That's why I never answered my phone. It could be 849 00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:20,240 Speaker 1: somebody trying to scoop. So then they worked together. Everyone 850 00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:22,759 Speaker 1: was a very good science citizen at that point, and 851 00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:24,759 Speaker 1: Dickie like explained to them what they were looking for, 852 00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:27,400 Speaker 1: and they all agreed to publish together. So Dicky and 853 00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,640 Speaker 1: his crew published a paper saying, we predict that if 854 00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,440 Speaker 1: you looked in the sky this frequency, you could see 855 00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,000 Speaker 1: the afterglow of remnants from the Big Bang and it 856 00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:38,200 Speaker 1: would look just like this, and you can do it 857 00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,840 Speaker 1: and it'll be very interesting. And then in the same journal, 858 00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,359 Speaker 1: the next paper is Penzias and Wilson saying, by the way, 859 00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:46,680 Speaker 1: we've looked in the sky and we see this weird glow, 860 00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,399 Speaker 1: we think it might be explained by this previous paper 861 00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:51,759 Speaker 1: you just read by Dicky and his group. Interesting, it 862 00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,040 Speaker 1: was a two part series. It was a two part series. 863 00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,239 Speaker 1: And this is nice. You know when scientists who are 864 00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,480 Speaker 1: working on something and realize they're sort of in competition 865 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,600 Speaker 1: or in working in parallel, they decided to publish together 866 00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:05,200 Speaker 1: rather than like have some crazy race to who gets 867 00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,600 Speaker 1: their paper in one minute before. Yeah, that's that's pretty cool. 868 00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:11,800 Speaker 1: So then, because I guess Dickie didn't have his telescope ready, 869 00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:13,480 Speaker 1: It's not like he could have just like jumped in 870 00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,399 Speaker 1: and found the signal. He just still ways away from 871 00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,440 Speaker 1: having a functioning telescope. Yeah, he had been scooped right, 872 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,959 Speaker 1: and just by chance, if Penzias and Wilson had waited 873 00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,400 Speaker 1: another year or something, then Dickie could have had the 874 00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,880 Speaker 1: idea and the data. But he didn't, And Penzias and 875 00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,320 Speaker 1: Wilson went on to win the Nobel Prize in nineteen 876 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:34,000 Speaker 1: seventy eight for this observation. Wow, and also people's gut 877 00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:36,719 Speaker 1: it to write peoples who originally had this idea and 878 00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:38,719 Speaker 1: wrote the paper. He won the Nobel Prize in two 879 00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:44,080 Speaker 1: thousand nineteen for like other contributions to cosmic microwave background theory. 880 00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,640 Speaker 1: But Dickie in the end never won the Nobel Prize. 881 00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,080 Speaker 1: I seem so back then it went to the people 882 00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:51,480 Speaker 1: who have discovered it, not the people who predicted that 883 00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:53,600 Speaker 1: it would be there. Yeah, because if you look back 884 00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,600 Speaker 1: in history, it turns out that other people had already 885 00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:59,080 Speaker 1: predicted it, right. People in the forties had the idea 886 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,160 Speaker 1: that this would be there, And there was this other 887 00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,320 Speaker 1: Russian group which in the early sixties had also published 888 00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,279 Speaker 1: a paper saying, by the way we might be able 889 00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,560 Speaker 1: to see this, people should go look for it. So 890 00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:10,839 Speaker 1: that was an idea which was sort of old hand 891 00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,520 Speaker 1: bubbling up around the world at the same time, and 892 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,120 Speaker 1: maybe by a lot of those people who had died 893 00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:18,040 Speaker 1: or something. Right that you couldn't give him the Nobel 894 00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,359 Speaker 1: Prize for it, that's true. You can't give the Nobel 895 00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,719 Speaker 1: Prize to somebody if they've already died. Yeah, alright, Well, 896 00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,880 Speaker 1: so that's how we humans discovered the cosmic microwave background. 897 00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:29,359 Speaker 1: And it's something that's pretty significant, right. It tells us 898 00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:33,120 Speaker 1: a lot about the conditions for the early universe, about 899 00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:36,800 Speaker 1: the composition of the universe. It confirms things like dark matter, 900 00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,040 Speaker 1: dark energy. I mean, there's a lot in that signal. Yeah. 901 00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,919 Speaker 1: Hawking says it's the greatest discovery of the century, if 902 00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:47,520 Speaker 1: not of all time. And the reason is that it 903 00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,280 Speaker 1: is really very, very rich, like how the cosmic microwave 904 00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:54,960 Speaker 1: background looks, and specifically how it's not exactly smooth but 905 00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:57,080 Speaker 1: has these little ripples in. It tells us a lot 906 00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:00,640 Speaker 1: about how that early universe plasma was rating what it 907 00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:03,720 Speaker 1: was doing, and like ripples in that plasma are sensitive 908 00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:06,000 Speaker 1: to things like is the dark matter fraction of the 909 00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,759 Speaker 1: universe or five, because it changes how that matters, sort 910 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,080 Speaker 1: of slashes back and forth if the dark matter is 911 00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:15,399 Speaker 1: interacting or not. So, as you say, we can fit 912 00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,319 Speaker 1: a lot of the parameters of the universe. A lot 913 00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:19,560 Speaker 1: of the questions about what the universe is made out 914 00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,600 Speaker 1: of and how it came to be come from understanding 915 00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,560 Speaker 1: that in great detail. And you know, years later people 916 00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,640 Speaker 1: launched a satellite to measure the cosmic microwave background radiation 917 00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,440 Speaker 1: very precisely. That was called the Kobe satellite, and then 918 00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,200 Speaker 1: that one a Nobel prize. So it's like a very 919 00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:37,160 Speaker 1: rich area of research. Right. There's not just a lot 920 00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,840 Speaker 1: of information in it, but it also kind of basically 921 00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:44,320 Speaker 1: confirms our theories about the early universe, right, Like it 922 00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:46,840 Speaker 1: it's like perfect evidence for all these series about the 923 00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,840 Speaker 1: Big Bang and inflation and the you know what was 924 00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,799 Speaker 1: happening in ing in those early few seconds. Yeah, it 925 00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:54,960 Speaker 1: definitely confirms the Big Bang, right It tells us that 926 00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,080 Speaker 1: the steady state theory just doesn't work because the universe 927 00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,400 Speaker 1: was once much more dense and hot and crazy, so 928 00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,080 Speaker 1: rules out the steady state theory and confirms the Big Bang. 929 00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:08,680 Speaker 1: It doesn't exactly confirm inflation precisely. There are some predictions 930 00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,520 Speaker 1: for like weird little wiggles in the CNB, we might 931 00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,959 Speaker 1: be able to see that would confirm inflation. And several 932 00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:16,279 Speaker 1: years ago there was an experiment called BICEP two that 933 00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,319 Speaker 1: thought they had seen that, but it turns out they 934 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,759 Speaker 1: were wrong. But in the future, there's a lot more 935 00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:23,520 Speaker 1: we can learn about the universe. Whether inflation was right, 936 00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:25,719 Speaker 1: is it the right theory of what caused the Big 937 00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,160 Speaker 1: Bang in the very very early universe, We still don't know, 938 00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,960 Speaker 1: But we hope that there's more layers of information in 939 00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:33,720 Speaker 1: the CNB that will one day reveal even more about 940 00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:35,879 Speaker 1: the early universe and how it all came to be. Yeah, 941 00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,600 Speaker 1: there might still be more noble prices in there. Yeah, 942 00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:41,239 Speaker 1: there might be information in that data right now which 943 00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,520 Speaker 1: you could download onto your laptop and if you knew 944 00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,520 Speaker 1: how to interpret, could win you a Nobel prize. Sometimes 945 00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:49,719 Speaker 1: everything you need is right in front of you, or 946 00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,040 Speaker 1: I guess the dangerous you could download it, have it 947 00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,680 Speaker 1: on your computer and then not discover something, and then 948 00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,600 Speaker 1: in the future of some physicists and a podcast saying, 949 00:46:57,640 --> 00:46:59,920 Speaker 1: see that person had that data in his or her 950 00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,560 Speaker 1: laptop and didn't see so better to just just not downloaded 951 00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,720 Speaker 1: or just don't you never hear about how you were scooped, 952 00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,400 Speaker 1: you'll have an easier life, all right. Well, that is 953 00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,399 Speaker 1: how we discover one of the greatest discoveries a few 954 00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:17,799 Speaker 1: in history apparently, although I would argue that, you know, 955 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:19,920 Speaker 1: that bowl of oat meal I had this morning was 956 00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,480 Speaker 1: pretty good discovering as well. I think brown sugar and 957 00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:29,839 Speaker 1: oatmeal that was a pretty big discovery. No thanks, no thanks, huh, 958 00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,480 Speaker 1: that's a level too far. Alright, that's for the future. 959 00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:34,880 Speaker 1: All right. Well, we hope to enjoy that story. Thanks 960 00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:44,840 Speaker 1: for joining us, See you next time. Thanks for listening, 961 00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:47,640 Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is 962 00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:51,080 Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio or more podcast for 963 00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:54,960 Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 964 00:47:55,040 --> 00:48:02,960 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. No