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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, have you started working on the menu for

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Speaker 1: our food truck idea? I have. Actually, I've been experimenting

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Speaker 1: with spice mixtures, reserving spicy food more like sparky food.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean. I was going to sprinkle electrons

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Speaker 1: on top of everything to sort of jazz it up

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Speaker 1: a bit. Wow? Is that the latest gastronomical trend? What

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Speaker 1: do electrons taste like? You know? I'm not actually sure.

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Speaker 1: Maybe lightning in a bottle that would be shocking. Electrons

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Speaker 1: will be extra charge. Actually, maybe they'll be negative charge.

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Speaker 1: Hi am or hammy cartoonists and the co author of

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Speaker 1: Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm

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

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Speaker 1: I love eating electrons. Imagine they can't taste like maybe

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Speaker 1: a metal little metally, you know. They taste like pasta

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Speaker 1: when they're in my pasta. They taste like ice cream

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Speaker 1: when they're in my ice cream. They taste like tacos

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Speaker 1: when they're in my tacos. Everything tastes like electrons because

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Speaker 1: electrons taste like everything. MM. Because I guess everything has electrons.

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Speaker 1: Everything has electrons, at least everything that I've eaten. I've

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Speaker 1: never had a pure sample of protons, for example. Are

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Speaker 1: you positive about that? Because I don't live in the

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Speaker 1: center of the sun, how do you know you didn't

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Speaker 1: accidentally eat something that had its electron stripped away? That's true.

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Speaker 1: I guess if everybody accidentally eats like eight spiders at night,

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Speaker 1: then probably an individual proton is flown into my mouth

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Speaker 1: one time without me noticing, yeah, or maybe two or three.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if your tongue can taste an individual particle

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Speaker 1: the way your eyeball can see an individual photon, it must, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: don't you have little nerve sensors that they tacked individual things? Right?

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Speaker 1: I suppose? So? I wonder if people have done want

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Speaker 1: them tasting experiments. Maybe they have, and maybe they haven't.

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Speaker 1: But anyways, welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explained

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Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of My Heart Radio in which

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Speaker 1: we invite you to taste the entire universe, to take

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Speaker 1: a long drink of all of the mysteries of our universe,

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Speaker 1: to try to imbibe everything that we do understand about

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Speaker 1: the way the universe works. From the smallest tiny little

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Speaker 1: bits electrons and protons whizzing around all the way up

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Speaker 1: to the massive black holes at the centers of our

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Speaker 1: galaxy that are flushing it all down at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day. We invite you to think about all

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Speaker 1: of these big questions, to ask, to wonder, to explore,

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Speaker 1: and to listen to us make bad jokes about all

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Speaker 1: of it. It's right because it is a tasty universe

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Speaker 1: full of amazing and filling and nutritious facts and phenomenon

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Speaker 1: out there for us to explore and try out and

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Speaker 1: hopefully satisfy our curiosity. And we joke about what it's

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Speaker 1: like to taste an electron because mostly we experience the

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Speaker 1: universe at sort of a certain scale. Things are like

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Speaker 1: roughly a meter in size, or things that way about

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Speaker 1: a kilogram or take about a second to eat. That's

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Speaker 1: our familiar experience of the universe. But we know that

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Speaker 1: there's another picture that if you drill down to the microphysics,

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Speaker 1: that everything that's around you is actually made of tiny

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Speaker 1: little particles to ing and frowing and coming together to

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Speaker 1: make this incredible emergent experience of our lives. And it's

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Speaker 1: fascinating to try to reconcile those two things, to understand

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Speaker 1: how all these tiny little particles do that dance to

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Speaker 1: come together to make blueberries and ice cream and tacos

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Speaker 1: and blueberry ice cream tacos. Yeah, and fortunately we are

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Speaker 1: here to taste this amazing buffet of knowledge and amazing

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Speaker 1: fact that the universe has to offer, and we are

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Speaker 1: here to ask those questions and hopefully explain them to

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Speaker 1: you in a way that everyone can understand. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: you can explore this sort of in two directions. You

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Speaker 1: could start from the tiny little bits and say what

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Speaker 1: can these bits do? How can they come together to

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Speaker 1: make different kinds of stuff? That can be tricky to

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Speaker 1: do in as you have an incredible supercomputer or our

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Speaker 1: master of particles. But we can also do it in

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Speaker 1: the other direction. We can look around and say what

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Speaker 1: kind of things are there in the universe, and how

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Speaker 1: do we explain them? How do we look around and say,

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Speaker 1: this bit of lava and that kitten and that black

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Speaker 1: hole all somehow come from the same basic rules of

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Speaker 1: the universe. What else is possible? How do we explain

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Speaker 1: all of these incredible variety of things using the same

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Speaker 1: fundamental physical laws? And what else are those physical laws

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Speaker 1: capable of producing? In our sort of weird emergent lives. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I guess the universe has been cooking for billions

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Speaker 1: of years, and it seems to be following the same

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Speaker 1: recipe book, same rules, the same laws of physics, and

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Speaker 1: most of the time, the same three ingredients. That's right.

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Speaker 1: Most of the stuff that's out there in the universe

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Speaker 1: is made of electrons and two kinds of quarks, up

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Speaker 1: corks and down quirks, which you can put together in

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Speaker 1: all sorts of amazing different ways to cook up basically

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Speaker 1: everything that you've ever eaten and experienced. But even just

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Speaker 1: those three can make an incredible variety of things and

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Speaker 1: also different kinds of things. We see them dance together

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Speaker 1: to make liquids, we see them spread out to make gases,

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Speaker 1: we see them click together to make crystals and solids.

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Speaker 1: It's really amazing the breath of sort of different characteristics

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Speaker 1: and properties that these same basic ingredients can reveal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a pretty amazing menu that the universe has put together,

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Speaker 1: which is three ingredients. Although I feel like it's maybe

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Speaker 1: not the full menu because all of that stuff made

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Speaker 1: out of electrons and corks. It's really only five percent

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Speaker 1: of the universe, right, I wonder if there's like a

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Speaker 1: super secret menu out there. That's right. If you want

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Speaker 1: to order the universe animal style, you want to know

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Speaker 1: what's off menu. And you're absolutely right. Everything that we

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Speaker 1: have every experienced or stepped on or put in our mouths,

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Speaker 1: or stepped on and then put in our mouths are

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Speaker 1: made of these three basic elements. But there is a

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Speaker 1: lot of other stuff out there. Most of the matter

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Speaker 1: in the universe isn't actually made out of these atoms.

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Speaker 1: It's made out of something else called dark matter, which

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Speaker 1: no human has ever tasted, though it's probably flown into

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Speaker 1: your mouth and then back out the other side of

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Speaker 1: your head without you noticing, back out of the other

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Speaker 1: parts of your body. It is dark matter, after all.

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Speaker 1: That's right, But here we're talking about physics dark matter,

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Speaker 1: not biological dark matter, which everybody produces in their gut.

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Speaker 1: But you're absolutely right. There is more out there in

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Speaker 1: the universe than just these three bits. But we are

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Speaker 1: still trying to understand how these three bits come together

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Speaker 1: to do their dances and to make all of this

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Speaker 1: incredible phenomenon that we can actually order at food trucks

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Speaker 1: and enjoy. Yeah, and even though the many of the

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Speaker 1: things we see and con taste and touch is made

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Speaker 1: up of only three ingredients. It is still pretty, as

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Speaker 1: you say, fascinating. How much stuff is out there that

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Speaker 1: we can look at and study makes it kind of

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Speaker 1: wonder what else is out there. That's true, there's an

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Speaker 1: incredible variety of stuff out there, and it makes us

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Speaker 1: wonder about how it all works. It also makes us

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Speaker 1: wonder what else we could possibly make out of these

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Speaker 1: little lego bits of the universe. And can you make

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Speaker 1: weird kinds of matter by like only using one of them?

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Speaker 1: Can you build stuff out just up corks or just

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Speaker 1: down corks, or just electrons? And these are kind of

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Speaker 1: weird ideas that physicists like to explore, so really, on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we'll be asking the question can you make

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Speaker 1: matter out of pure electron? How about impure electrons? Are

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Speaker 1: you saying you can make matter out of dirty electrons?

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Speaker 1: I mean purely electrons, electrons and nothing else. There's those

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Speaker 1: such things as a dirty electron, because remember, all electrons

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Speaker 1: are really just the same electron. There's really only one

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Speaker 1: electron in the universe. Wait, wait, what what do you

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Speaker 1: mean just one electron field? Are you saying we're all

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Speaker 1: like inside of a giant electron. I'm making the point

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Speaker 1: that all electrons really are I'm making the point that

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Speaker 1: all electrons really are the same. There's no way to

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Speaker 1: like label them and to say this electron is different

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Speaker 1: in some way than another electron. They have their quantum states,

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Speaker 1: you know, spin and momentum and location, but there's nothing

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Speaker 1: really about them that's different. You're you, and I mean

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Speaker 1: we feel different. But electrons don't have an identity. And

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Speaker 1: one way to think about that is as you say

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Speaker 1: that all electrons are actually just ripples in the same

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Speaker 1: universe spanning electron field. So really every electron is just

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Speaker 1: sort of like part of the big electron field of

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Speaker 1: the universe. And that's why they're all identical, because they're

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Speaker 1: really just all part of the same thing. They're not

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Speaker 1: perfectly identical, right, don't They have different quantum characteristics, and

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Speaker 1: maybe those quantum characteristics are infinite. Also, they have different

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Speaker 1: quantum characteristics like location, right, which we think maybe there

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Speaker 1: are an infinite possible number of values of it, and

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Speaker 1: so you could have an electron here, an electron there,

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Speaker 1: and you're right, those are distinguishable technically from a quantum

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Speaker 1: mechanical point of view. But you could swap them and

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Speaker 1: there would be no difference in the quantum state. It's

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Speaker 1: not like they have any other secret labels. You know,

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Speaker 1: this one's Maria and that one's Fred, and they behave

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Speaker 1: slightly differently in the same situation. If you swapped all

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Speaker 1: the electrons in the universe, nothing would change. But don't

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Speaker 1: some of them have like spin in different directions, And

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Speaker 1: can't those directions also be infinite? Well, the spin can't

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Speaker 1: be infinite because that's quantized, right, and so they can

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Speaker 1: spin up one half or down one half. There's only

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Speaker 1: two possibilities there, So there are an infinite number of

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Speaker 1: spin axes for these electrons. My point is just that

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Speaker 1: that's all there is to the electron. Is this list

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Speaker 1: of characteristics is nothing. Else's no like identity to each electron.

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Speaker 1: It's just this list of characteristics. So if you took

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Speaker 1: like electron number seven and electron number eleven and you

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Speaker 1: swap them, including all of their quantum states, the universe

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Speaker 1: could not notice any difference because all we can notice

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Speaker 1: are their quantum states. Interesting, all right, Well, then the

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Speaker 1: question here is can you make matter out of pure electrons?

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Speaker 1: And I thought this was a weird question, because isn't

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Speaker 1: aren't electrons matter? Don't we consider electrons be part of

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Speaker 1: the particles that are matter particles? Yeah, that's true. I

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Speaker 1: guess a single electron you could consider matter. But if

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Speaker 1: you like went to a restaurant and somebody served you

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Speaker 1: a single electron for dinner, you might not be happy

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Speaker 1: with what you've got. Well, it depends on how many

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Speaker 1: courses the dinner hats it has, you know, ten to

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Speaker 1: seven churns of electrons that might be definitely filling. What

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Speaker 1: kind of tip do you have to leave for that

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Speaker 1: many courses? I mean, think about the dishes that they

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Speaker 1: had to serve. Tend to attempt two point seven obviously

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Speaker 1: to the two point seven is not ten toy man,

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Speaker 1: you're thinking about ten to Anyway, it's a good question here,

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Speaker 1: And when we talk about matter, we're really referring to

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Speaker 1: something on our scale, you know, things that we can

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Speaker 1: play with, stuff we can make in the lab and poke.

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Speaker 1: Can you have like a macroscopic serving of just electrons?

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Speaker 1: What would that be like? What would its properties be?

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Speaker 1: Can you build a complex thing out of just electrons? Yes? Exactly?

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Speaker 1: What are the emergent properties of a blob? Of just electrons,

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Speaker 1: What can they do? Because I guess you can put

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Speaker 1: together quarts, right, of course, you can't put together and

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Speaker 1: make stuff. Right, You can make protons and neutrons, and

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Speaker 1: you can make atomic nuclear out of those. Right, You

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Speaker 1: can in fact make complex structures out of just quarks.

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Speaker 1: Quirks can make protons, that can make neutrons. They can

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Speaker 1: also make other kinds of stuff like other hay drawn

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Speaker 1: and masons. Is a whole spectrum of them, chaons and pyons,

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Speaker 1: and robe particles and omega particles, all sorts of complex stuff.

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Speaker 1: Most of that stuff is unstable. It's heavy in it

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Speaker 1: decays very rapidly into other stuff. The proton is stable.

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Speaker 1: We think a proton hanging out will live forever. Neutron, weirdly,

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Speaker 1: is not stable. A neutron floating in space will last

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Speaker 1: about eleven minutes. This is a fascinating mystery about exactly

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Speaker 1: how long it survives and extra super weird. If you

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Speaker 1: put protons and neutrons together to make an atomic nucleus,

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Speaker 1: as you say, then the neutrons become stable. And one

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Speaker 1: of our listeners on the Discord channel was pointing this

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Speaker 1: out that neutrons are like maybe the only thing in

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Speaker 1: the universe which is unstable on its own, and then

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Speaker 1: you put it together with other stuff and it becomes stable.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Interesting, But I guess today we're talking

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Speaker 1: about electrons until the question is whether we can do

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Speaker 1: the same thing with electrons, Like can you build another

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Speaker 1: kind of particle maybe with electrons or any kind of

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Speaker 1: like a big crystal or a chunk of stuff made

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Speaker 1: out of purely electrons? Yeah, and then can you put

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Speaker 1: it in a spice container and sprinkle on top of

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Speaker 1: the food we serve in our food truck and charge

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Speaker 1: negative for it? Charge negative? You mean you pay people

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Speaker 1: to eat it? Sounds like a terrible business. Electrons are

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Speaker 1: negatively charged. You can't charge positive money for them. That

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Speaker 1: would be like against the rules. What of their positrons?

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Speaker 1: Those are expensive? Yeah, for sure, at sounds more positive too,

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Speaker 1: All right. Well, as usual, we were wondering how many

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Speaker 1: people had thought about this question of whether you can

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Speaker 1: make matter out of electrons, So as usual Daniel went

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Speaker 1: out there to ask people can you make matter out

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Speaker 1: of pure electrons? Thank you very much to everybody who

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Speaker 1: volunteers to answer these questions. It's a lot of fun

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Speaker 1: for me. To hear what people are thinking before we

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Speaker 1: dig into a topic, and it's a lot of fun

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Speaker 1: for the other listeners to sort of calibrate their knowledge.

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Speaker 1: So thanks again, and if you would like to participate

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Speaker 1: for a future episode, please do not be shy right

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Speaker 1: to us to questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com

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Speaker 1: to think about it for a second. Do you think

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Speaker 1: electrons can hang out and make stuff together? Here's what

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Speaker 1: people have to say. That's an interesting question. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to guess no, because the electrons being all negatively charged

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Speaker 1: in other words, all the same charge and not zero,

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Speaker 1: would repel each other, so we would not be able

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Speaker 1: to clump them together in order to make matter. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure if the somehow high energy is something going on there.

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Speaker 1: You can make matter out of just electrons, depending probably

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Speaker 1: how you with what they interact, or how they interact.

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Speaker 1: If you can make crystals out of time, I think

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Speaker 1: you can make matter out of electrons. Of course, you

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Speaker 1: can make a matter out of just electrons. Electrons matter.

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Speaker 1: You can have an electron fluid that is just a

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Speaker 1: cloud of electrons. But if you want to build a

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Speaker 1: solid matter or even a liquid, you probably wouldn't need

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Speaker 1: several different kinds of electrons. So not I would have said, no,

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Speaker 1: you can't make matter out of just electrons, but the

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Speaker 1: fact you're asking me suggests that answer is incorrect. With

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Speaker 1: that in mind, I'm going to double down and say

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Speaker 1: that once again, you cannot make metro out of just electrons.

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Speaker 1: But in the next thirty minutes I lo to I

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Speaker 1: honestly have no idea. All Right, it sounds like people

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Speaker 1: are split on this question. Some people say yes, some

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Speaker 1: people say no. Some people are being loyally about it,

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Speaker 1: like I was saying that electrons are matter. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of speculation here, and I loved hearing all

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Speaker 1: the ideas that this question sparked in people's minds. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I guess maybe let's take um step back here

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Speaker 1: and and start at the very fundamental level here and

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Speaker 1: talk about just matter in general, Like Daniel, what does

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Speaker 1: matter normally made out of? So matter when we're talking

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Speaker 1: about like me and you and the ground beneath us,

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Speaker 1: and excluding for the moment, all of the dark matter

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Speaker 1: in the universe, most of the matter that's around us,

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Speaker 1: of course, are made out of atoms. The hundred basic

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Speaker 1: building blocks or so of the periotic table are what

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Speaker 1: make up me and you and everything you've ever eaten.

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Speaker 1: You take that apart their electrons on the outside of

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Speaker 1: it whizzing around, and that the heart is a nucleus,

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Speaker 1: which is made out of these protons and neutrons. The

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Speaker 1: protons are all positively charged, but they're sort of weirdly

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Speaker 1: stuck together by the strong force. Inside those, of course,

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Speaker 1: are quirks, up quirks and down quirks, and a huge

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Speaker 1: mess of gluons sticking them all together. And so essentially

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Speaker 1: you've got protons and neutrons with electrons all around them,

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Speaker 1: and most of these atoms typically are balanced in terms

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Speaker 1: of their charge, the same number of protons as electrons

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Speaker 1: to get a neutral atom. Yeah, that's kind of seems

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Speaker 1: important for things to kind of stick together. And what

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Speaker 1: I guess what's kind of interesting is that quarks, like

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Speaker 1: you said, can sort of stick together to make protons,

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Speaker 1: and protons can stick together with other neutrons to make

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Speaker 1: atomic nuclei. And so it's kind of weird because all

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Speaker 1: those things are positively charged and yet they're able to

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Speaker 1: stick together. Yeah, because there's a lot going on inside

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Speaker 1: the nucleus to hold that together. Right, The proto tons

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Speaker 1: are all possibly charged. They repel each other, and the

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Speaker 1: electrostatic force there is very strong, right, it goes like

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Speaker 1: one over the distance squared. And these protons are very

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Speaker 1: close together inside the nucleus, so the force pushing them

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Speaker 1: apart is very powerful, but the force pulling them together

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Speaker 1: is even more powerful. This is the strong nuclear force.

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Speaker 1: So their forces everywhere inside the atom. Inside the proton,

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Speaker 1: there's a strong nuclear force. But that strong force isn't

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Speaker 1: completely captured inside the proton. If you're like on one

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Speaker 1: side of the proton, then you're closer to like one

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Speaker 1: of the corks at the other, so it doesn't all

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Speaker 1: just totally balance out. You still feel a little bit

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Speaker 1: of the strong force, and the same for the neutrons.

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Speaker 1: And that's what lets the protons and neutrons stick together.

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Speaker 1: The strong force is so strong that even just like

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Speaker 1: the residual leftover bit that leak out of the proton

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Speaker 1: and neutron are enough to hold them together and resist

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Speaker 1: the push of the electrostatic force. And so that's how

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Speaker 1: I guess protons and nuclear are able to stick together.

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Speaker 1: It's it's because there are different forces that play here. Right.

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Speaker 1: There's the electromagnetic force pulling it apart, but then there's

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Speaker 1: just wrong force holding it together, and somehow that finds

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Speaker 1: a balance kind of in these structures exactly, And there's

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Speaker 1: a lesson there about the role of forces in matter.

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Speaker 1: We tend to think of matters made out of matter particles,

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Speaker 1: as you say, quarks and electrons. We describe the stuff

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Speaker 1: we are made out of in terms of those matter particles.

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Speaker 1: But those matter particles are held together by the forces.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of energy in those forces, and you

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Speaker 1: couldn't have these structures without the forces. So when you

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Speaker 1: hear people say, oh, the atom is made of the

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Speaker 1: nucleus and the electrons and there's a huge amount of

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Speaker 1: empty space between them, I always think, well, it's not

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Speaker 1: really empty space. There's a lot of photons whizzing around

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Speaker 1: there to hold the electron in place in its ground state.

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Speaker 1: Around the nucleus is a huge number of gluons inside

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Speaker 1: the nucleus, so there really isn't any empty space there.

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Speaker 1: And the forces play a really big role in constructing matter,

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Speaker 1: right right, Because I guess this is this look at

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Speaker 1: forces in terms of particles, right, Like when an electron

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Speaker 1: pushes another electron or proton pushes another proton, they're actually

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Speaker 1: exchanging particles. There's two different ways to think about forces.

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Speaker 1: One this in terms of fields, like each electron creates

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Speaker 1: an electric field that's all around it that pushes on

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Speaker 1: other electrons. This is sort of like Maxwell's idea. Or

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Speaker 1: you could also think about in terms of particles. You

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Speaker 1: can say, well, there aren't really fields. There's just like

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Speaker 1: a bunch of virtual particles that pass momentum around. So

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Speaker 1: when electrons push on other electrons, they're exchanging particles. Either way, though,

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Speaker 1: that space is not empty, So between the electron and

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Speaker 1: the nucleus is either a vast electric field that's tying

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Speaker 1: it all together or a bunch of photons. And this

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Speaker 1: really does contribute to like the matter that matters. Think

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Speaker 1: about a proton, for example, it's made out of three quarks,

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Speaker 1: but those quarks are a tiny fraction of the mass

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Speaker 1: of the proton. Most of the mass of the proton

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Speaker 1: actually comes from the energy of the bonds between them.

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Speaker 1: So really the proton and the atom is mostly gluons, right,

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Speaker 1: which we tend to think of as a force particle.

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Speaker 1: So the point I want to make is just that

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Speaker 1: there's not a lot of empty space there and that

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Speaker 1: matter that makes us up includes both the forces and

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Speaker 1: the matter particles, all playing their role in this symphony

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Speaker 1: of matter. Okay, so then course can built stuff together, right,

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Speaker 1: like make a proton, and you can make atomic nuclei,

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Speaker 1: and then overall that has a positive charge, and then

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Speaker 1: that's kind of how atoms are formed. Right. You have

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Speaker 1: this positively charge nuclei and which attracts electrons which come

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Speaker 1: in and they hang out all together, and that's how

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Speaker 1: you get an atom of regular matter exactly. That's how

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Speaker 1: you get an atom. And the protons that are inside

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Speaker 1: the nucleus, the number of them, as you say, determines

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Speaker 1: the number of electrons you need in order to balance

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Speaker 1: it to make it overall neutral. And that's really crucial.

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Speaker 1: The number of electrons around the nucleus really determine the

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Speaker 1: bulk properties. Then you stick like ten to the twenty

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Speaker 1: six of these things on a teaspoon. What do they do?

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Speaker 1: What do they look like? That depends mostly on those

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Speaker 1: electrons which surround the atom, and the number of those

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Speaker 1: electrons is determined by the number of protons inside the atom.

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Speaker 1: So it's all connected in this really cool way, right,

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Speaker 1: And so like in the atoms in my body. I

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Speaker 1: have a lot of electrons, but they're only hanging out

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Speaker 1: together because they're all attracted to the positively charged nuclei

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Speaker 1: of the atoms, right, But they don't collapse into the ams, right.

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Speaker 1: They sort of like a fly around in orbit around

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Speaker 1: the nu. Yeah, it's tempting to think about them in orbit,

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Speaker 1: sort of like an analogy to a planetary system. Remember,

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Speaker 1: these are quantum particles, so they don't have classical paths.

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Speaker 1: They're like here and then they're there, and there's somewhere else,

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Speaker 1: and they don't have to go in between those places

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Speaker 1: that you've seen them. So typically we describe it as

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Speaker 1: like electrons are in their stationary state. It's a ground

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Speaker 1: state of a quantum particle. It's not technically in an

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Speaker 1: orbit like a classical path. But yeah, the electrons are

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Speaker 1: all hanging out near each other because the protons are there, right,

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Speaker 1: But they don't collapse into the nuclei because of what

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Speaker 1: They don't collapse into the nucleus because they have a

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Speaker 1: minimum energy. Every solution to the shortening your equation has

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Speaker 1: a minimum energy when there's any sort of confinement, and

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Speaker 1: that's not zero. So every quantum field. Every quantum solution

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Speaker 1: has a non zero minimum state, and you can think

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Speaker 1: about that is sort of consistent with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

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Speaker 1: It's impossible to have a particle with zero energy because

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Speaker 1: then you know it's energy zero and its location because

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be moving at all. So there's sort of

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Speaker 1: like a minimum fuzz to all of these particles, which

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Speaker 1: is why they can't collapse into the nucleus, although electrons

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Speaker 1: do spend some fraction of their time inside the nucleus. Right,

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Speaker 1: the stationary state is mostly outside the nucleus, but some

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Speaker 1: there's some probability for them to be inside the nucleus

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Speaker 1: at any time, but not really right, because it's a

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Speaker 1: whole quantum. It's just a probability. I mean, you said

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Speaker 1: there's a minimum time, but they don't really spend time there, right, Thus,

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Speaker 1: what I'm saying, it's quantum, right, It's not like the

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Speaker 1: cat is alive or dead. It's it's like it's it's

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Speaker 1: live and it I like how you say it's quantum,

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Speaker 1: so it's not real. I think what you're saying is

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Speaker 1: that as a probability to be there, but we never

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Speaker 1: actually see it there we don't collapse the wave function

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Speaker 1: inside the nucleus. There's a really cool set of measurements

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Speaker 1: they do where they where they try to figure out

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Speaker 1: what fraction of the time or equivalently, what probability the

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Speaker 1: electron has to be inside the nucleus, and it has

430
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:54,359
Speaker 1: a real effect on measurements we make. We did a

431
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 1: whole podcast episode about that once. But the point is, yes,

432
00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,680
Speaker 1: it's a quantum particle, so as these probabilities to be

433
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 1: into from places that does include being inside the nucleus,

434
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:04,960
Speaker 1: which is super weird and awesome. All right, So that's

435
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:07,639
Speaker 1: regular matter. That's what we're made out of. Protons and

436
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: quirks and electrons hanging out together, and there are many

437
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,160
Speaker 1: different ways for these atoms to hang out together. We'll

438
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:14,760
Speaker 1: get into that in a little bit, and then we'll

439
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 1: talk about whether you can make stuff like that matter

440
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 1: complex matter using only electrons. So we'll talk about that,

441
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:36,640
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Alright, we're asking

442
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 1: the question can you make matter out of pure electrons?

443
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:42,959
Speaker 1: And now, Daniel, do pure electrons cost more than regular

444
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 1: electrons or you know, first press electrons, I like using

445
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: imported electrons. You know these domestic electrons is just not

446
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah, you want the Italian ones, like the

447
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: ones coming straight out of the olives exactly like Italian

448
00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:01,160
Speaker 1: and Argentinian electrons. They're really have that's flavor. I like, Well,

449
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:03,919
Speaker 1: it depends on the year or two. And you know

450
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,120
Speaker 1: the tero are of course, you know where they come from.

451
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: You got to know the what's the name for a

452
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 1: farm that produces electrons? I don't know. I don't know.

453
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 1: Lap to table electrons. There you go, wellap the table.

454
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: I like to know my electron uer artisanal electrons, that's

455
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 1: that's the kind. I want each one hand crafted a

456
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: little bit different from the rest, that's right, Yeah, by

457
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 1: tiny little hands. But the question is can you make

458
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: stuff out of electrons? Can you make like an olive?

459
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: Can you make wine out of an electron? Or purely electrons?

460
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: And so this is a weird question because we know

461
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:39,880
Speaker 1: that electrons can be part of matter, but usually when

462
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 1: they're hanging out with possibly charged nuclei, which is made

463
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: out of quarks, the question is can they hang out

464
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: by themselves? Yeah, And it's really interesting because electrons seem

465
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: to determine a lot of the properties that we're familiar with,

466
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: Like if you're looking at a piece of stuff and

467
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: you ask does it shine? Is it reflective? Is it dim?

468
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: Is it brittle? Does it conduct? Elect tricity? All these

469
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 1: macroscopic chemical quantities that are important to us and in manufacturing,

470
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 1: and you know, can you eat it this kind of stuff?

471
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 1: How heavy and dense is it? All of this is

472
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: determined by how those atoms come together and how reactive

473
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 1: they are, what they like to stick to, whether they

474
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: do like to stick to each other, and that all

475
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: depends on the electrons, right, Like are the electrons stuck

476
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 1: around individual atom or do they like to flow from

477
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: atom to atom? And so condensed matter physicists, the people

478
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 1: who really think about like how atoms to come together

479
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: to make different kinds of google and what kind of

480
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: properties that goo has? Think about electrons is like are

481
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: they a fluid? Is there like a liquid of electrons

482
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: inside my metal that's sort of like flowing through? And

483
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 1: so it's really the electrons that determine a lot of

484
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: these properties. So basically it's all about the electrons. Interesting,

485
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: which I guess begs the question do you really need

486
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: the quarks? Right? That's kind of what we're asking to this,

487
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,399
Speaker 1: can you make an atom or a block of stuff

488
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 1: where it's only electrons, Like, do you actually need quarts

489
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 1: to put electrons together? Yeah? And we see some fascinating

490
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: hints already when we think about strange behaviors of electrons,

491
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: like in the case of superconductivity. Super Conductivity is when

492
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: electrons can flow with almost no resistance inside of material.

493
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: Usually there's some resistance pass electricity from one spot to another,

494
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 1: the wire heats up a little bit, you lose some energy,

495
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: But electrons can flow without any resistance. Then they don't

496
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: lose any energy. That would be awesome for like sending

497
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: energy really far away and all sorts of stuff. And

498
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: this happens when electrons come together to make pairs. They're

499
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 1: called Cooper pairs of electrons. You take two electrons that

500
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: are about spin one half. You make this weird sort

501
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 1: of quasi particle. The two electrons combined together to make

502
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 1: effectively a boson, something that has spin one, which doesn't

503
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: have the same rules as fermions, Like bosons can stack

504
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: on top of each other and be happy and slip

505
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: right by each other, whereas fermions are like grumpy and

506
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: don't like to be in the same place. So already

507
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: we see a hint of electrons doing something weird when

508
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: they come together just by themselves. Is they can do

509
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: this weird super conductive bitything that they can't do when

510
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 1: they're on their own, right, because I guess on their own,

511
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 1: and electronics negatively charge, which tends to repel other electrons.

512
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 1: So really, like if you just had two electrons in

513
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: the universe, they would want to be as far away

514
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 1: from each other as possible, right, they would keep pushing

515
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: each other away for eternity. That's right. And the key

516
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: thing to think about is the kinetic energy versus the

517
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: potential energy. What you're talking about is their potential energy,

518
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: their desire to push each other apart. Right, they have

519
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: this strong coolumbic potential energy from the electrostatic force between them,

520
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: and it provides a force that pushes them apart. The

521
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: other kind of energy they can have is kinetic energy,

522
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 1: just their velocity. If they have a lot more kinetic

523
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: energy than the potential energy, then the potential energy doesn't

524
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: really matter, it doesn't really play a role. And that's

525
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: often what's happening inside metals, for example, is that these

526
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: electrons have a lot of kinetic energy, so they can

527
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: just flow and mostly ignore their repulsion. But if they

528
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of kinetic energy, if they're like

529
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: cold or slow, then that potential energy can really dominate

530
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: what happens to them. It can really determine the structures

531
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: that they can form and their behaviors. But it's I

532
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: guess it's not just this interplay to right, Like there's

533
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: other stuff going on inside of these superconductor or these

534
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: weird materials. Right, there's a whole bunch of electrons to

535
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: pushing on each electron and also other positively charged nuclear

536
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 1: hanging out right, So it's kind of like this really

537
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: complex soup that kind of gives you these weird behaviors. Yeah. Absolutely,

538
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: it's very complex, and it's not something that we theoretically

539
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 1: understand that well, it's not easy to say, here's my setup,

540
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:27,919
Speaker 1: is this going to be super conductive or not? Like,

541
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 1: we don't have the theoretical tools to be able to

542
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: make those predictions every time, which sort of boggles my

543
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: line every time I run into that situation. It's like,

544
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: but we know the particles, we basically know how they interact.

545
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: Why can't we predict what's going to happen, And the

546
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: answer is it's complicated. Right. There's a lot of chaos

547
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: and it's not easy to translate from the rules of

548
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: what happens to tiny particles to what it's going to

549
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,479
Speaker 1: be like to have ten to the twenty six of them. Right,

550
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: sort of like how macro economics is hard to predict

551
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 1: from micro economics, particle physics is based on this idea

552
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: of like reduction, let's strip everything down to the time,

553
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: any basic rules that are gonna reveal what everything does.

554
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: That doesn't always give you an explanation for what happens

555
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: and why it happens at the bigger scale, Right, it

556
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,679
Speaker 1: sounds like you're just complaining how hard your job is.

557
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: Then I'm amazed at how hard everybody else's job is.

558
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 1: That's why I do particle physics because we don't have

559
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: to worry about like more than five or six particles

560
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: at once. To me, it's too complicated to even think about. All. Right, Well,

561
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: the question here is can you make stuff out of electrons?

562
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: So I guess maybe a step is through what happens

563
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: if I try to make something out of electrons, Like

564
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: if I just get five electrons and put them together

565
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:33,719
Speaker 1: in one place, they're probably going to repel each other

566
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: and try to fly away as far away as possible. Right,

567
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: Because electrons only really feel the electro mechantic force. They

568
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: don't have this back of force like quarks do to

569
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: keep them together exactly. Electrons don't feel the strong force, right,

570
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: they feel the electromagnetic force. They also do feel the

571
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: weak force, so that's so weak that it's not really

572
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: relevant here. Do they feel gravity? You know, we don't

573
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: know the answer to that question. How and whether they

574
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: feel gravity. That depends on the theory of quant um gravity,

575
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: and it's sort of a mystery to us. Right. Wait,

576
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: we don't know if electrons feel gravity. We think they do,

577
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: but we don't really know how they do. For example,

578
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: say an electron has a probability to be over here

579
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: or over there. Where is its gravity? Is it over

580
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: here or is it over there? Or is it half

581
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: over here and half over there. We don't know because

582
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: we don't have a theory of quantum gravity. We don't

583
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: know how gravity works for tiny, little quantum particles. But

584
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: I guess I mean, we know that photons, for example,

585
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: do bend to the effects of gravity, Like if you

586
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:31,960
Speaker 1: shoot photons near a black hole, they're going to bend.

587
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: If I shoot an electron at a black hole, is

588
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:35,719
Speaker 1: it going to bend or is it going to keep

589
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: flying straight through? It's definitely gonna bend, right, And the

590
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: reason that photons bend near a black hole is not

591
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: because of their particular gravity as much as it's because

592
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: of the bending of space from the black hole. So

593
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: it's really the gravity of the black hole there that's

594
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: determining the path of the photon, and the electron will

595
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: also do almost the same thing. We won't move in

596
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: the same geodesic as the photon because it does have mass.

597
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: But yes, absolutely electrons will get bent around a black hole,

598
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: so they do feel the effect of gravity. Then, yes,

599
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: they feel the effects of gravity and bent space time,

600
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 1: but we don't really understand exactly how that works because

601
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: their quantum particles and we don't have a theory of

602
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: quantum gravity. Sounds like, you know, they feel gravity, you

603
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: just haven't tried to figure out how it works. Oh,

604
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: we'd love to, but those experiments are really hard to do,

605
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: right because the force of gravity from an electron is tiny.

606
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: The smallest things we've ever been able to measure gravity

607
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: for are like on the size of millimeters, and that's

608
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: really really hard because the force of gravity, so we

609
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: compare to everything else, Like a few electrons on the

610
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: surface of a millimeter sized piece of iron will overwhelm

611
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: the gravity of that iron because just a few electrons

612
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: have enough force to overwhelm the force of gravity from

613
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: like you know, ten to the thirty iron nuclei. Yeah,

614
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: obviously the electromagnetic force is stronger than gravity. But I

615
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: guess I'm asking, like, if you have two electron sitting

616
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: next to each other, are they pulling on each other

617
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: through gravity? I think they are, but we don't really

618
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: understand exactly how that works because we don't know how

619
00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: to combine the quantum uncertainty in their location with the

620
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: classical theory of gravity we have, which doesn't allow for

621
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: uncertainty in location. Yeah, so if you bring a whole

622
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: bunch of electrons together, they are going to be pulling

623
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: on each other through gravity, but it's not enough to

624
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: overcome the extreme repulsion they feel towards each other electromagnetically,

625
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: that's right. So it's all just about the electromagnetic force.

626
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: And if you wanted to like have a pile of electrons,

627
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: you might think, like, can I like the coolest down

628
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: into a solid made out of just electrons? Can you

629
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: like build a crystal out of just electrons? Right? Well,

630
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: I guess you know that, don't. They have experiments where

631
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: you're able to create electrons, right, and you're able to

632
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: shoot at them. Can you just shoot a whole bunch

633
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: of them together at the same time? Like, that's kind

634
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: of how hard TVs would used to work, right, Yeah.

635
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 1: TVs used to work with cathode ray tubes where you

636
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: would boil electrons off of the surface and then accelerate

637
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: them towards the screen and then they would make a

638
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: little flash of light. And we definitely do experiments where

639
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: we like smash electrons into each other and annihilate them

640
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: to make other kinds of stuff. But I think what

641
00:31:57,560 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: we want to do here is say, let's have a

642
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: bunch of elector rons and just like try to get

643
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: them together to build something bigger than themselves. Can we

644
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: like stack them together like lego pieces? Can we get

645
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: them to form some sort of structure? And then what

646
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: emergent properties does it have? Does it flow? Is it shiny,

647
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: does it conduct electricity? Does it taste good? That have

648
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: constant volume or not, this kind of questions about the

649
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: like emergent macroscopic properties of electrons stuff, right, right, But

650
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: I guess I'm saying it seems impossible because if you

651
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: try to put together some electrons together, they're just going

652
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: to repel each other. So step us through what the

653
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: idea here for maybe trying to get them all together

654
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: into a crystal or some kind of structure. You can

655
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: put stuff together that repels each other. You can stack

656
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: magnets on top of each other, you know, north to north,

657
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: south to south, et cetera, just sort of sit on

658
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: top of each other. So you can imagine stacking electrons

659
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: in the same way. We like get a bunch of

660
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: them together. You contain them somehow, and then they fall

661
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: into some pattern which which like minimizes the overall potential energy,

662
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: so they're like distances between each other. Well, I think

663
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: that's the key you work right there, containment, Right, You

664
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: somehow have to squitch them together and keep them together.

665
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: Would you do that with magnets or what the first

666
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 1: thing people tried is just making them cold. You're saying, like,

667
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: let's just cool electrons down so they don't have a

668
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: lot of kinetic energy and then see where they settle

669
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: Do they settle down into something where they're like tiling

670
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: themselves in a pattern, for example. But that didn't really

671
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: work because when electrons get cold, their quantum wave functions

672
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: get really wide. Same thing with the Heisenberg and certainty

673
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: principle there that if you're cooling something down, their location

674
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: uncertainty becomes really really large. And now you have all

675
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: of these electrons whose wave functions are overlapping, and now

676
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: they're interfering with each other and they tend to like

677
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: slosh around and break things up. So the first approach

678
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: just like cooling things down, that didn't really work. What

679
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: is cooling down an electron meaning just lowering its velocity? Yeah,

680
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: just lowering its velocity. The idea here is to get

681
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: a situation where the potential energy dominates over the kinetic energy.

682
00:33:57,960 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: You want the location of the electron to be de

683
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: term and by its repulsion from the other electrons. You

684
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: want to like stack these things together somehow into a lattice,

685
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: so you need them to not be wiggling around very much.

686
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: You want them to sort of like fall into a

687
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:14,240
Speaker 1: little well made by all the other electrons around them.

688
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: But they would be repelling each other. So I think

689
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: you're saying, like, let's put it on like maybe a

690
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: magnetic bottle or something where they're forced to be close

691
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: to each other. And then you're asking what happens? Then

692
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: there's not a stable situation, is it? You're right, even

693
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,919
Speaker 1: if you built this thing, eventually it would basically blow

694
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: itself up or there's nothing else holding it together. So

695
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: you need some sort of like outside containing vessel or

696
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: some other force. And we'll get into the experiments in

697
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 1: a minute. Most of them use either some sort of

698
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 1: like layers of two D materials to hold these electrons together,

699
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: or some like external magnetic field or something trying to

700
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: like group the whole thing together so it doesn't just

701
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: like blow itself up from the potential forces. It's like

702
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 1: putting a bunch of toddlers or four year els together

703
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 1: trying to get them to sit in a group or

704
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: to stand in line. It's like, it's pretty hard. You

705
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: need something to kind of external force exactly. So imagine,

706
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: for example, putting a bunch of marbles inside a bowl,

707
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: right and thinking about the lowest energy configuration, you can

708
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: like stack the marbles together so they're like regularly structured.

709
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:14,720
Speaker 1: Then they form this pattern and they're all held together

710
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: because they're inside the bowl and they're pushing against each

711
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: other because they all have these surfaces. So the question

712
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 1: is like can you do that with electrons? Can you

713
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: get a bunch of electrons and somehow get them together

714
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:26,919
Speaker 1: so they're like stack? And then what does that make?

715
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Yeah, Like if you take

716
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 1: a bunch of electrons and like pressure cooked them together

717
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,399
Speaker 1: or crushed them together, what do they do on their own?

718
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: Like do they just slatch around like a soup? I

719
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 1: think maybe you're asking, like what's the phase of the thing?

720
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: If you put a bunch of electrons together? Is it

721
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 1: is it a solid or is it a liquid? Exactly?

722
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: That's the question what is the phase? And it's a

723
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: famous physicist, Ernest Vigner who about ninety years ago thought

724
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: about this and he predicted that if you've got a

725
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: bunch of electrons together and you cooled them down, but

726
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: you also didn't use too many, you have like a

727
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 1: low electron density so they didn't bother each other too much,

728
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 1: you could form something called a Vigner crystal, which is

729
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: matter made out of just electrons, electrons like tiled together

730
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:12,240
Speaker 1: in this way. M okay, Daniel, I think after forty

731
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 1: four minutes, I finally understand the question we're asking here.

732
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: I think you're really asking is can you make solid

733
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 1: matter out of pure electron? That's kind of what you're asking,

734
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: can you build electron crystals? When you say matter, you're

735
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: actually saying solid mat right, because you can have liquid matter. Well,

736
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: we don't know what the phase of this is, right,

737
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: Bigner didn't know. Is it going to be a liquid?

738
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: Is it going to be solid? Is gonna be some

739
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 1: new kind of thing where neither solid nor liquid can

740
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: adequately describe it. We just don't really know what matter

741
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: can do when you bring it together the emergent properties

742
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: of electrons. Nobody knows what that is. You know, is

743
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: it tasty? Is it spicy? Is it giny? These are

744
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 1: the questions, right, Yeah, Really, the question I think you're

745
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: asking is what's the phase of a whole bunch of

746
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: electrons that you squished together and force them to hang

747
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,959
Speaker 1: out with each other in a cold way. Because it's

748
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:04,839
Speaker 1: definitely going to be matter, it's just a question of

749
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: what's the phase of that matter? Is it a solid

750
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 1: or liquid or something new. Yeah, if you can succeed

751
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: in building that, then exactly you can explore what is

752
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: the phase of that, what properties does it have? Is

753
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 1: it's something new, is it similar to something we've seen before?

754
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: Exactly right? Because it could just be like a liquid

755
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,719
Speaker 1: or some kind of gas, right, or some kind of

756
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: like totally random structure. And Wigner proposed that if you

757
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: make these electrons cold enough and you space them out

758
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: enough so there's not so much of a density, then

759
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,240
Speaker 1: they will form this thing he called a Vigner crystal,

760
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: which would be a new kind of solid with different

761
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: properties than anything we've seen before. All right, well, let's

762
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: get into what this electron crystal would look like, what's

763
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 1: keeping it together, and what are the forces determining its structure,

764
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: and also what kind of experiments are being done to

765
00:37:50,920 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: make one. But first, let's take another quick break. All right,

766
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: Now that we understand the question Daniel episode after half

767
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: an hour, which is what happens to a bunch of

768
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: electrons when you squish it together, stepp Us through the possibilities, like, right,

769
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: you can squish a bunch of electrons together, cool them down,

770
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: maybe they'll just hang out in a random pattern, or

771
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,399
Speaker 1: maybe they'll snap together in some kind of crystal. That's

772
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: really what we're asking here today, right, And really the

773
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: question is can we get them into a crystal? Is

774
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: that possible? And it seems really challenging because, as we say,

775
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: you can't just like cool a bunch of electrons down.

776
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: There's no challenge in like binding electrons, in making electrons,

777
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: even in getting like a bunch of electrons, but in

778
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: cooling them down to make a crystal is really interesting.

779
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,840
Speaker 1: People already think electrons inside of metal are basically like

780
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 1: an electron liquid. So really the cutting edge of sort

781
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: of like electron matter is focusing on these crystals. Is

782
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: it possible to build these? And because Vigner predicted this

783
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: like ninety years ago, everybody's been trying to make it

784
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: for decades. It's been like a holy gray All of

785
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: experimental condensed amount of physics for a long long time

786
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: is trying to overcome the challenges of making this electron crystal. Now,

787
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: do they try to make these like in a vacuum

788
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: where it's just pure electrons or are you telling me

789
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 1: that they're trying to make it inside of another material?

790
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: They're trying to make it inside of another material, and

791
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: they're trying to use a bunch of tricks. So people

792
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: focused initially on like using magnetic fields to try to

793
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: confine them. But that felt like impure because you have

794
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,919
Speaker 1: all these forces coming from the outside and it didn't

795
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: really feel like it was an electron crystal. Wait, what

796
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: to mean that would be more pure? Right, because then

797
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 1: you're definitely just dealing with a little space of space

798
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: with just electrons in it, as opposed to like putting

799
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 1: it inside of another material. Then there's all kinds of

800
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: things in there. It's not pure anymore. In this case,

801
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: the magnetic fields helping align the electrons. It's not just

802
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: like an external bottle pushing on the outside, it's throughout

803
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: the whole bulk. And so this feels like then the

804
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: order of the electrons is dependent somehow on the magnetic

805
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: field more than the actual electric field of the electrons.

806
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: People want to see, like can you build a crystal

807
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: just out of the electric field of these electrons? All? Right,

808
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: So then you're saying that the experiments they are now

809
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: gravitating towards is to make these electron crystals inside of

810
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: other materials exactly. So people are focused on two D

811
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: electron crystals, You can imagine these things and sort of

812
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: several dimensions, Like imagine what a one dimensional electron crystal

813
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,360
Speaker 1: would be. That would just be like electrons evenly spaced

814
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: along a line where it's like sort of settled in

815
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: where all the potentials are minimized, right, so the forces

816
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: are all balanced. Is the lowest energy state would just

817
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 1: be a bunch of electrons along the line. Now, in

818
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: two dimensions on a plane, what's the sort of lowest

819
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: energy configuration to build electrons? That would be what we

820
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 1: call like triangular lattice, or you think about like a

821
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: triplet of electrons and then you just sort of like

822
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: tile the whole floor with that triplet. And then in

823
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: three D gets more complicated. You have like a cube

824
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: with you know, electrons at the point to maybe one

825
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,240
Speaker 1: in the center. But cubes are really hard, and people

826
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: have been focusing on two D electron crystals, so like

827
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: can you make a sheet of electrons constructed out of

828
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: like these triangles of electrons? So that's what people are

829
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: focusing on. But I guess why are they aiming for

830
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: these triangle structures? I mean, you don't know what's going

831
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: to happen, right. I don't know what makes you think

832
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: it's going to form into triangle structures. If I just

833
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: you know, throw a bunch of electrons on a tray, well,

834
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: that's the prediction from the theory that that's the configuration

835
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: that would minimize the energy of the arrangement. Remember that

836
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: forces in the end are always trying to minimize potential.

837
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: Force comes from the negative derivative of the potential of

838
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: force always appears to push things to move to minimize potential.

839
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,680
Speaker 1: Like you have a ball on a hill, there's a

840
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: gravitational potential, and the force of gravity is going to

841
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 1: push that ball down the hill to minimize the gravitational potential.

842
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 1: And so this is just the prediction that comes out

843
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 1: of that calculation that says this is the arrangement. The

844
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: triangular lattice would be the lowest potential energy arrangement. So

845
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: that's what nature will try to do. You're saying that's

846
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,280
Speaker 1: the grid that a bunch of electrons on a tray

847
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: would fall into, because I guess each electron is repelled

848
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: by the other electrons, but they're also being pushed in

849
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 1: all directions from the other electron. So it's almost like

850
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 1: they're containing each other. Yes, exactly, they're containing each other.

851
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 1: So this two D approach actually came out of completely

852
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: different research. People sort of accidentally made electron crystals using

853
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: the two D materials. Remember we had a whole podcast

854
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: episode about building two dimensional materials, these like very very

855
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 1: thin sheets of things. We started with like graphing, which

856
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: is a weird construction of carbon, where people were able

857
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 1: to make like one atom layer thick of graphing by

858
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: using Scotch tape, remember, and sticking it to like a

859
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: piece of coal basically and pulling it off, and it

860
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 1: actually comes off in these one atom layer sheets, which

861
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: we consider like sort of two D materials. And then

862
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 1: people did crazy stuff like making sandwiches layers of these

863
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: two D materials which have all sorts of other weird properties. Well,

864
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: what they discovered in some of these experiments was you

865
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 1: could get electrons trapped between some of these layers, so

866
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: that gives you some of the confinement and inside those layers,

867
00:42:57,239 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: if you cool the electrons down and you didn't try

868
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 1: to cram too many ectron's in, they would actually form

869
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 1: these electron crystals. Right. Interesting because I guess the electrons

870
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 1: try to go up, but they're being blocked by the carbon,

871
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: and they try to go down and they're also blocked.

872
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: But there's you're saying they can kind of flow free

873
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: lease from side to side in front of back exactly.

874
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: But then if you cool them down, they tend to

875
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: form this crystal. But why wouldn't they all just ripple

876
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: each other towards out to the sides. But you have

877
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: some confinement out on the sides also, And we talked

878
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 1: about this once for two D electron gases, like if

879
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: the electrons have a lot of energy, then they're not

880
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: forming a crystal, right, they're forming like a two D

881
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: electron gas or two D electron liquid. That's fascinating also

882
00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 1: because there's different mathematics that describes what happens there. It's

883
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: really cool experiment to explore, like the math of two

884
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: D objects, but here with interested in like a two

885
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: D crystal. What happens when you cool everything down? How

886
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:49,839
Speaker 1: does it fit together? What properties does it have there?

887
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: And what did they find? So they made the sandwich,

888
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: they cool the electrons in this sheet and did they

889
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:58,919
Speaker 1: snap into crystal or did they just do random things?

890
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: So people have been playing with this kind of thing

891
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 1: for a long time, and they suspected that there were

892
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 1: electron crystals being formed, but it's kind of hard to

893
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: tell because it's very fragile, like how can you tell?

894
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: How can you see it? People? We're trying to use

895
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:15,280
Speaker 1: things like scanning tunneling microscopes to see these electron crystals,

896
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: but the problem with that is that you're basically using

897
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: electrons to probe it, and as soon as you like

898
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: zap it, it just breaks the crystal. You need something

899
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: which has really high spatial resolution, right, which you can

900
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: see an individual electron, but also somehow doesn't perturb the

901
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 1: electron lattice. And those two requirements were like a conflict

902
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: with each other, right, because being sensitive to one electron

903
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: requires like strong coupling to that one electron, but not

904
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: messing up the crystal requires not having strong coupling to

905
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: that electron. So they need to come up with a

906
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,399
Speaker 1: special trick to be able to see whether they were

907
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: making these electron crystals, because I guess, how do you

908
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: see an individual electron or can you poke an individual electron?

909
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 1: Have we ever taken a picture of an electron? Yeah?

910
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: So you can't take a picture of an electron using

911
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: phote hons typically because they have a wavelength that's smaller

912
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 1: than the wavelengths of light that we can use. So

913
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: typically people use these scanning tunneling microscopes which like basically

914
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: shoot electrons at a surface and see what angle they

915
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: bounce off at, and you can use that to make

916
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: an image of an atomic surface. So like the highest

917
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:19,839
Speaker 1: resolution pictures we can take, that doesn't really work here

918
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: because it basically smashes the crystal. The crystal is made

919
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: of electrons, and they're very very fragile, right, because they're

920
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: all like very delicately balanced inside each other's electric fields.

921
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: And now you're shooting a high energy electron into it,

922
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,320
Speaker 1: you're basically smashing the whole thing apart. So you can't

923
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: see it with a scanning tunneling typical microscope. What are

924
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 1: you saying it's unstable. I'm saying it's fragile, right. It

925
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: will hang out there by itself, we think, for a

926
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: long time. But if you try to shoot electrons at

927
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: it, it it will shatter. Then when it's formed together again, yeah,

928
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: it probably will. But if you want to see it right,

929
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 1: then you need some way to probe it without chattering

930
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,440
Speaker 1: it all right, So that sounds like a pretty tough problem.

931
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: How are they solving or have they solved it? They

932
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: have solved it. It is a team at Berkeley had

933
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,919
Speaker 1: figured out a way to add another sheet on top

934
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: of it. So they put a sheet of graphing on

935
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: top of this electron crystal, and then they image the

936
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: graphing with the scanning tunneling microscope and they were able

937
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: to figure out how the electron crystal affected the graphing.

938
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like they put a sheet between

939
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 1: themselves and the thing they wanted to see, and they

940
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 1: could probe the sheet, and they could tell how the

941
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: sheet was affected by the electron crystal behind it, like

942
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 1: you would see whether there was a kind of like

943
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: a pattern imprinted on your on the sheet you put

944
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: on top. Yeah, the presence of the electron crystal behind

945
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: it changed the electron structure of the graphing above it,

946
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 1: which you could then read from the scanning tunneling microscope.

947
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like one layer of indirection. But

948
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 1: they could prove that it's there, and they were able

949
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,240
Speaker 1: to do all the reverse calculations to make an image.

950
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: So now we have an actual image of an electron crystal,

951
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,720
Speaker 1: which they published in this really cool paper in Nature

952
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: last year. We got a picture or an inferred picture

953
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 1: of this Wickner crystal, right, which is made out of

954
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:06,280
Speaker 1: pure electrons that are trapped inside of these layers. Yeah,

955
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,240
Speaker 1: and just as Vigner predicted, they fall into this triangular lattice.

956
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: It's like a perfect triangular lattice. It's kind of beautiful

957
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:15,880
Speaker 1: to look at it, to see this like realization of

958
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 1: what some dude with pencil and paper almost a hundred

959
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: years ago predicted. But I guess what other forms could

960
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: it have taken? Can you fall into a square pattern?

961
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: If it had, that would have been a real surprise, right,

962
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: because we wouldn't understand that the prediction is this triangular

963
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 1: lattice that makes sense in terms of like minimizing the

964
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 1: energy between the electrons, but you never know until you

965
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: see the thing, like is it possible to make it

966
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,240
Speaker 1: at all? And doesn't have different properties from what we expect.

967
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: And so if it had been a different shape, it

968
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: had been like you know, hexagonal or square lattice or

969
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 1: something different that tiled itself differently, that would suggest that

970
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: there's something else going on that hadn't been accounted for,

971
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 1: and that would be a cool clue, right, to be

972
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,879
Speaker 1: a thread to unrolled to learn something else about electrons. Well,

973
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: I guess it. Maybe maybe one thing that was infusing

974
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,359
Speaker 1: me is this idea of phases, And I guess you know,

975
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 1: anything that is solid is basically a crystal, right Like,

976
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: if you cool anything down, even corks, like even the

977
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:12,719
Speaker 1: quarks inside of proton, could be said to be sort

978
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: of like a crystal. Right, it's probably falling into some

979
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,839
Speaker 1: kind of pattern. It depends how much order there is, right.

980
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: There are also other things, like glasses that we talked

981
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: about recently, that are disordered at the microscopic level and

982
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: don't always fall into a crystal. It depends a little

983
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: bit on the forces between the things and how you're

984
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: cooling it. How these things relax into their lowest energy

985
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:34,720
Speaker 1: state can determine whether they click together into an ordered

986
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: structure crystal, or whether they're even disordered when they're cold

987
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: and stuck together. All right, Well, that's pretty cool. They

988
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: made a crystal of only electrons that is hanging out

989
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 1: between these sheets of other materials, and so they prove

990
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: that you get a bunch of electrons cooling down, they

991
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 1: do snap together into some sort of crystal. Yeah, exactly,

992
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,439
Speaker 1: it's a new kind of solid matter. As you said,

993
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: it's a new phase of stuff made out of just electrons,

994
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 1: which is pretty awesome. What's not a new phase or

995
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: technically right, it's it's a solid crystal. It's just it's

996
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 1: made out of something that hadn't been put together before. Yeah, okay, sure,

997
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 1: it's a new example of a solid made out of

998
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:13,799
Speaker 1: stuff we hadn't made solids out of before, but we

999
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: think it might have different properties from other kinds of solids.

1000
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: There's another prediction from Vigner that said that you can

1001
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 1: melt this crystal into a new kind of liquid without

1002
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 1: changing its temperature at all. So it does this weird

1003
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: kind of quantum melting. What does that mean? Like it

1004
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:30,799
Speaker 1: just gets fuzzier and can you melt it over a

1005
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: hamburger to take like a nice electron cheeseburger and just

1006
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: bring for me here for our food truck menu. It

1007
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: has to do with the quantum properties, right. A phase

1008
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 1: transition is when the same stuff arranged differently, it gives

1009
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 1: you different macroscopic properties. And so Vigner predicted you could

1010
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: take the electron crystal and without changing its overall energy,

1011
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:52,919
Speaker 1: it could do a phase transition to this other weird

1012
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: kind of phase. Cool. Well, they I guess they did it.

1013
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,879
Speaker 1: They made a solid out of electrons only. I guess

1014
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: what does that mean? What does that mean about our

1015
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,320
Speaker 1: understanding about the electron Well, it means Vigner was a

1016
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:05,720
Speaker 1: smart dude and he knew what he was talking about.

1017
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:07,759
Speaker 1: And it also means that we can now continue to

1018
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: explore it in other directions, Like people can try to

1019
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: make multiple sheets of this thing to see, like, what

1020
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 1: do multiple layers of this thing form and you get

1021
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: weird electrical properties out of it? Can you make like

1022
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: a three D electron lattice just out of electrons? And

1023
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 1: what properties would that have? Right? Would it be conductive?

1024
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: Would we not be conductive? All these sorts of questions.

1025
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 1: Every time you make a new kind of goo, you

1026
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 1: make stuff out of the same microscopic ingredients, but in

1027
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:35,839
Speaker 1: a different way. You can make revolutionary new behaviors. Right,

1028
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,280
Speaker 1: All the kinds of behaviors we've seen in the universe

1029
00:50:38,400 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: just come from the kinds of stuff we've been able

1030
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: to put together, and we don't know what else matter

1031
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,399
Speaker 1: is capable of when you put it together in new

1032
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 1: weird ways. So I guess now electrons can feel a

1033
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 1: little bit better about themselves. Right, it's not just quarks

1034
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 1: that can make structures. Now we know electrons can too.

1035
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 1: That's right. Electrons are doing it for themselves. They're not

1036
00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: the learners we thought they were. They are able to

1037
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 1: play in a team. That's right. Electrons have now unionized,

1038
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:04,840
Speaker 1: so watch out. That's right, everything's gonna cost more in

1039
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 1: come with a bigger charge, exactly. The whole universe will

1040
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: be more negatively charged than before. All right, Well, another

1041
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: awesome example of how the universe keeps surprising us. You know,

1042
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: we think we know all of the ways that the

1043
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: stuff in it can click together and make stuff, But

1044
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: there's always known interesting situations that physicists can make to

1045
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: create new kinds of matter, and there's no telling what

1046
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 1: it's gonna do and how it's gonna surprise us. One day,

1047
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: we'll make something which has a completely new kind of property.

1048
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,759
Speaker 1: We don't even have a word for today because we've

1049
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 1: never seen it before. And you'll see it first on

1050
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 1: our menu for our food truck. Because hopefully it won't

1051
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: kill you. We'll just taste good. And if it does

1052
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 1: kill you, hopefully your errors don't sue us. Right, well,

1053
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us you

1054
00:51:51,560 --> 00:52:01,759
Speaker 1: next time, Thank you're listening, and remember that. Daniel and

1055
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.

1056
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: For more podcast for my heart Radio, visit the I

1057
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

1058
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. Yeah,