WEBVTT - Space Roar 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.960 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.319 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.560 let's let's take a minute here to listen to the 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:25.880 music of the spheres. It's lovely, right. We forget that planets, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.640 stars and queens, oars are all giving off radio signals, 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.320 and if you have the right equipment you can actually 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.280 use drop on space and hear all these sort of 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.920 bubble squeaks. Yeah, we're talking about the sonification of this 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.159 radio wave information. And this kind of stuff has made 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.800 the rounds on the Internet time and time again. Before 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.040 the Internet, it was even available on vinyl. And it's 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.560 it is. It's haunting, it's beautiful. It's like the sound 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.120 of space whales um, you know, singing in the cosmos. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.720 But just imagine, just imagine that you go to eavesdrop 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.680 on space one day. Can you hear something that is 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:14.319 ferociously loud? Yeah, something that sounds a little like this. Okay, 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:17.679 maybe not exactly that. Yeah. That that I want to 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.000 be clear is is not an actual sonification of anything 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.440 from our universe. That is a creation by our our 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.600 sound designer and producer, Noel Brown, and we wanted to 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.320 include that clip because we're not exactly sure what this 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.440 space war which actually exists sounds like. Yeah, so all 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.119 we know it's six times louder than anything else out there, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.480 and it is a mystery. It is this haunting, perhaps 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:47.520 even disturbing on an intellectual level. Uh, noise, just discordia 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.880 emanating from the universe, and uh we throw our best 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.360 theories at it, and nothing so far has really stuck. Uh, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.600 you can't help but let your imagination run wild, of course, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.840 like I instantly, I instantly they turn to Lovecraft's HP 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.360 Lovecrafts Demon sultan as is Off, which was quote that 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.200 amorphous blight of nethermost confusion, which blasphemes and bubbles at 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:13.000 the center of all infinity, who gnaws hungrily, admits the muffled, 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:17.280 maddening beat of vile drums anothermost confusion. Yeah, we're gonna 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:19.400 have to use that. Um. Yeah, And this is not 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.960 the first time that we've had this kind of nice, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.000 deep mystery to chew on, right, like we have had 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.680 sounds emanating from the depths of the ocean, from the 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.520 depths of space. Now, um, that make us wonder what 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.600 exactly is going on. And so that's what we're going 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.000 to try to do today, plumb the depths of this 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.440 sound and figure out what it is and where it's 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:47.160 coming from. Indeed, we're gonna examine this universe wide phenomenon 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.640 of the space roar. Now, let me just clarify a 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.880 couple of things to start off. When we're talking about 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.760 listening to the space roar or any of these these 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.160 cosmic sounds, the soonification of the data. You know, we're 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.360 not talking about actual sound traveling through space. Sound travels 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.519 and waves just like light, just like heat, But unlike 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.920 light and heat, sound travels by making molecules vibrate. So 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.560 for sound to actually travel, say from a ringing bell 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.080 to your ear, there has to be a molecule filled 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.560 medium for it to travel through. Here on Earth, air 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.680 molecules provide the pathway, but in space, particularly deep space, 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:25.200 there are just no molecules to vibrate, that's right. So 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.760 what we are relying on when we talk about eavesdropping 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.919 in space, we're relying on radio waves and in n 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.600 American physicist Karl Jansky first detected radio static from our 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.640 very own milky way galaxy and similar emission from other 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.480 galaxies creates this kind of background hits of radio noise. 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.280 So when we talk about radio waves, where we're talking 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:53.360 about well, they are one of what we call electromagnetic waves. 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:58.720 So electromagnetic waves include light, radio, X ray, gamma ray, 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.920 and infrared and ultra for violet. And the thing that 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:06.680 differentiates them is their wavelength. So a wavelength of say light, 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.120 stretched out over a long, long, long and long distance 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.960 ratchets down its energy and then it shifts it into 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.960 a radio wave. So in other words, radio waves are 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.840 just another form of light. And this means that light 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.240 from a distant galaxy can't perceive by sight, but it 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.200 can be heard by radio telescopes. Hence all those bubbles 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.000 and squeaks we can hear when a radio telescope homes 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.640 in on say Uranus or Jupiter. So that brings us 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:40.640 to ARCADE. ARCADE being a two thousand and six NASA 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:46.039 experiment developed by the Goddard Space Flight Center. ARCADE stands 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:51.560 for Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, astrophysics, and Diffuse emission, and 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.280 essentially it's uh it was. It was a high altitude 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.919 balloon payload designed to study the early universe by measuring 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.720 the frequency spectrum of the ca es make microwave background 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.599 or c m D and searching for signals from the 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.320 first stars to form after the Big Bang. See heat 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.359 from the Big Bang still permeates the universe today, and 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.039 scientists can observe it as this faint glow of deep 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.200 space microwaves. This is the cosmic microwave background, and it 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:22.360 contains what some scientists dub quote a fossil record of 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.479 every of every early universe. I like that idea, that 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.960 fossil record. I really like the fossil record analogy too. Yeah, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.680 and the instrumentation aboard this device is pretty crazy. The 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:37.920 official Arcade website makes the following comparison. Imagine warming your 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.640 hands by the light of the stars in the night sky, 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.200 you know, standing out on a cold day, raising your 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.640 palms up and warming yourself by that those distant pinpricks 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.320 of light. Impossible right now. Imagine trying to detect the 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.719 heat from stars we can't even see, like you mentioned earlier, 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.320 than the light from those stars just turning nothing but 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.880 radio waves after a while. That's why NASA's Gotta Space 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.880 Flight Center designed Arcade to measure temperature differences as small 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.000 as one one thousandth of a degree in the background 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.760 only three degrees above absolute zero, while also avoiding confusing 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.159 data from everything else in the universe. So the entire 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.719 instrument inside this ballooned uh lifted package was cooled with 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.120 liquid helium to to a to a temperature of two 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.640 point seven degrees above absolute zero. So they made it 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.320 as cold, if not a little colder than the CMB, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:34.320 so there's no confusion for its seven cryogenic radiometers. So 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.840 July two thousand six successfully launched this sucker from Columbia 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.440 Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas. It ascended to an 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.240 altitude of one thousand feet or thirty seven kilometers, and 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:50.320 after four hours of observation, parachuted back to Earth. Oh 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.479 and what did Dr Alan Cogert, a research scientist at 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:59.159 Nassas Cattard Space Flight Center and head of the Arcade project, Fine, Well, 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.599 he found something was absolutely astounding, and honestly, he was 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.240 just hoping to find confirmation of the cosmic microwave background 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.160 and gather a few nude radio emission points. But says quote, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.040 the universe really threw us a curve instead of the 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.600 faint signal we hope to find there was this booming 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:23.240 noise six times ladder than anyone had predicted. He says, 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.600 the energy alone that could generate this level of signal 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:32.480 is incomprehensible. And Uh, I've seen accounts of it. It's 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.920 been described as a static like noise coming from all directions. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.320 And the discovery is based on noise measurements and the 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:45.200 microwave frequency bands at three, eight thirty and ninety giga 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.440 hurts which peaked NASIS detectors at three and eight giga hurts. 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:54.960 So they were observing about seven percent of the sky 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.840 when they had this booming sound come to them. Yeah, 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:00.800 and so we have a big fat mystery on our 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.559 hands here. Um. It's uh, it's important to to drive 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.600 home that this is not like a one time signals. 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.160 This isn't like the Wow signal or the bloop uh 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.520 that came from the ocean that we've discussed in the 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:16.040 vast UH. This is a universe wide phenomenon that is ongoing. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.120 But Arcade was the first instrument to meant to that 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.240 was actually able to measure the radio sky with enough 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:27.200 precision to detect this mysterious signal. Uh. And ironically, the 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.800 roar hides the signal uh or seems to hide the 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.199 signal from the earliest stars, thus interfering with the very 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.520 mission we originally sent Arcade up for to begin with. 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.800 All right, so let's take a quick break and we 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.880 come back. We're not going to provide an answer to 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.440 this mystery. We're not gonna solve them, but we're gonna 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:47.360 We're gonna talk about some of the ideas that have 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.880 been thrown out there, most of which are have been 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.920 shot down as well. But I think the theories, even 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.520 the ones that ultimately don't hold up, helped to illuminate 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.960 what might be happening and just the sphere of possible answers. 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:09.240 All Right, we'll back. Have you ever seen those maps 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.959 that say you are here, shows you in the middle 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.040 of the Milky Way. Oh no, I was just thinking 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.200 about the zoo. But the zoo, Yeah, you're here at 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.440 the zoo. Yeah, I get lost enough there without even 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.360 taking into account I see the map, right, But you 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.800 maybe have seen those illustrations before which say, hey, by 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.679 the way, the Solar system is located within the Milky 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.840 Way galaxy, so it makes sense that one of the 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.240 first places we would look to to try to solve 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.200 the mystery of the roar is of course the Milky Way, 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:44.319 because it produces something called synchrotron radiation, which is electromagnetic 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:48.120 energy emitted by charged particles. We're talking about electrons and 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.520 ions that are moving at speeds close to that of 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.800 light when their paths are altered as by magnetic fields. 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.319 It is so called because particles moving at such speeds 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.000 in a variety of particle accelerator that is known as 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:08.360 synchrotron produce electromagnetic radiation of this sort. Now, okay, great, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.480 it's creating electromagnetic radiation. We can pick up on that 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.880 as we know. Um that being said, it doesn't look 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.320 like our galaxy is the culprit because, according to dal 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.360 Dale Fixen, a University of Maryland research scientists and a 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.880 member of the Arcade team, infrared radiation goes hand in 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:31.080 hand with syncrotron radiation, and the already measured amount of 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.600 the Milky Ways infrared radiation radiation is not on the 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.080 same order of magnitude required to create that kind of roar. 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.240 So already we can look at the Milky Way and saying, no, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:44.800 you are not it. You're not the culprit alright, so 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.520 we we slashed that one off the list. Um, you know. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.760 Dale Fixen also looked into the idea that the roar 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.440 could be emanating from the very first stars that Arcade 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.640 was actually looking for. Right, these first stars, thought to 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.199 have formed about thirteen billion years ago, didn't have any dust. 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.600 That's because the first dust in our universe was formed 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:09.720 within these very stars. So in theory, possibly these stars 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.640 could have created a lot of synchrotron radiation without that 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.280 correspondingly high amount of infrared radiation, which we would have 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:23.000 theoretically already detected. So there's one possible loophole. But it's 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.520 not an answer. Dubious about it, well, I mean, I'm 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.160 I'm dubious about I trust Fixing on this. If he 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.960 says that it's not a slam dunk, then I'm gonna 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.760 have to take his word for it. Wise, all right, 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.000 what about other far flung galaxies, well, clusters of galaxies 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:45.400 formed by gravitational murder of smaller clusters and subclusters. And 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:50.880 we know from radio telescope observations that sometimes there's the 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:56.119 presence of large regions of diffuse steep spectrum synchrotron emission 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.520 and galaxies that emit more light at radio wavelengths than 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.480 a visible wavelengths. These are known as radio allowed galaxy. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.360 So there is this idea that there could be these 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.960 radio allowed galaxies out there that could have created the 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.720 space roar. However, cog art are a man at arcade 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.800 says quote typical radio galaxies can't account for the noise, 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.320 as you would need the entire universe filled of them 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.360 to produce signal strengths this high six times higher than 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:29.840 the combined emission of all known radio sources in the universe. Or, 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.640 more specifically, as fix In puts it, you'd have to 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.400 pack them into the universe like sardines. There wouldn't be 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:43.200 any space left between one galaxy universe. Not again, not 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:48.160 an answer. Alright, Well, here's another theory, and this one 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.480 I do want to preface is is out there, and 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.280 it takes us a little more into the fringes of 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.079 what we know and into some of the uh, the 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:03.920 more complex and uh mind melting, mind melting theories regarding 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.240 our universe, in our place in the universe. American physicist 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.920 David brown Um has a take on space war that 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:16.280 plays into cellular automaton and in theory, Okay, cellular automaton 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.280 is a whole area that we could we could easily 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:19.959 spend a whole podcast on, So I'm gonna try and 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.120 keep it short here, but uh, this basically, this model 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.800 involves the use of colored or shaded cells on a 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.360 grid that evolved through a number of discrete time steps 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.000 according to a set of rules based on the states 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.360 of neighboring cells. So you may have seen footage of this. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.040 It plays into the game of life um experiment where 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.520 it looks sort of like I guess they were digimon 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.000 the sort of little primitive computerized things where you canna 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.160 have like a little digitized pet. Kind of looks like that, 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.439 except more abstract little dancing pixels. Uh. And essentially it's 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.680 a model of complexity. Uh. It allows uh scientists to 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.200 observe complexity evolving, so that cellular automaton serves is a 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.040 general model of complexity, a level of complexity that ultimately 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.440 theoretically is on par with our entire universe. And you 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.520 could argue that the complexity that we see in reality 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.760 could essentially begin as a little program of dancing squares 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.840 on a computer screen. Okay, if you're still with me, 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.640 all right? If if you're still with me, that's that's 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.840 the first slab on the sandwich. We are in a 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.240 computer simulation. That's where it often leads to, is this 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.640 idea that you can think of in a way, you 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:32.840 can think of reality as a as a computer simulation 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.960 based on automaton. But the next layer on the sandwich 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.040 is in theory, a branch of string theory that presents 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.480 a model for the basic structure of the universe and 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:48.200 allows for the existence of additional universes. So Brown argues 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.840 that in theory describes the sailor automaton, and it real 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:57.280 photons are constantly leaving our universe to enter an alternate one. 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.360 Uh and this would mean that over time, the scentage 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.120 of real matter in our universe has decreased and the 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.880 percentage of virtual matter or dark matter has increased. So 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.600 this would mean there would have been more matter in 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.880 the early universe, meaning much more radio noise. And that 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.000 is what Arcade is detecting when it gazes through space 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:23.240 and time to those early stars. Okay, we are in 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.840 a computer simulation, right, a leaky one, a leaky one. 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:31.960 And as a result, uh, well, I should say. An 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:34.720 indirect result of that is the space roar, which is 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:43.960 really just uh maybe photons exchanging energy between other universes. Yeah, close, yeah, 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.600 pretty much. Yeah, we're in the matrix and and there's 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.720 this big crashing sound in the in the in the distance, 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:56.400 and that's pixels and programs being flushed out. Meanwhile, there's 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.920 a there's dark matter flowing back in. It's all very drama, 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.720 it is. It's very dramatic. And again it's it's an 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.480 out there theory and it and it does not again 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.880 solve our mystery. We're still left with this mystery of 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:13.040 the space roar, and we may always be right. It 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:14.800 may just be that we don't have the instruments that 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.280 are sensitive enough to pick up on whatever it is. Yeah, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:22.040 I mean it's it's kind of it's kind of the 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.240 great Unknown, maybe, you know, giving us the finger a 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.520 little bit, saying you think, yeah, say, you don't have 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.400 it all, you don't have all the answers, and here 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.760 I'm just gonna make a big loud raspberry noise at 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.720 you and and leave you with that. Try and figure 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.640 this out. Humans. So it's like a cosmic fart joke. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.760 Maybe maybe the biggest fart joke in the universe. You know, 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.360 I like the scatological chips. All right, Well, let's put 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.240 the space war aside and let's call over the robot 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:56.760 and do a couple of listener mail. All right, This 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.800 one comes to us from Alex. Alex writes in and says, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.560 how my name is Alex. As part of my job, 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.560 I tend to do a lot of driving, so podcasts 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.760 like yours really keep me saying for that, I thank you, essentially. 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.960 I just finished listening to your Mean World Syndrome episode 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:13.159 and I thought I would add to it. Recently, a 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.639 game called blood Born was released. You can probably guess 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.359 from the promo art, and he included this is a nice, dark, 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.800 dreary image of some dude with horns on his helmet 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:27.159 and weapons and a dreary sort of dark fantasy, grim 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.359 dark fantasy setting. Yeah uh, he says you probably a 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.800 guest from the promo art. It's not a pleasant, feel 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.760 good game. Without giving any spoilers, the world the player 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.480 is presented with is hopeless, desolate and oppressing. It's a 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.720 very good game. However, I found that after I played 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.000 for long periods, I became very forlorn and quiet. I 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.080 found myself feeling apathetic and even resentful towards the upcoming 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.679 general election. I live in the UK. I've actually stopped playing, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.280 despite how good the game is, as a direct result 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.520 of feeling so crappy straight after playing. Listening to your 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.359 podcast just after noticing this was a great little coincidence 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.800 and one I thought i'd share. Keep doing what you 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.280 guys are doing. I look forward to every single episode. 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.280 You don't have to read this out. I just wanted 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.439 to give you guys what I thought was a fresh 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.440 perspective and example. Cool X, thanks for writing in about that. 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:18.800 We also got some feed We got a lot of 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.879 feedback from our episode of the Gordian Knot of Race. 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.199 We expected to get a lot of feedback. We got 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:29.359 confirmation of unconscious bias from listeners. We got some people 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.960 saying that unconscious bias doesn't exist, and we're not too 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:34.959 happy that we covered it. I think we had at 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.960 least one person say that they don't see race. We did, 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.360 and uh so we thought we would share this one 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.640 from Melissa. She says, and this came through Facebook. Says, 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:46.879 I just finished listening to your podcast and the Gordian 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.080 not of race. This is a topic that has always 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.560 fascinated me, how something so seemingly inconsequential as how you 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.600 look could and does affect all areas of life. I 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.520 thought you did a very good job of talking about 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.280 unconscio a racial bias and how things woven into our 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.800 culture can affect how we feel about a person, even 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.879 if we don't know it. I took the test linked 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.240 on the landing page for the podcast, and I thought 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.840 the results were very interesting and much different than what 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.320 I was expecting. For some background, I live in a 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.359 very heavily wide area. There are very few minorities of 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.640 any race in my childhood as well as today. Best 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.480 friend is mixed, black father, white mother. I love my 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.639 friend dearly and I have very few early memories without 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.159 her in them. We met at about age four or five, 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:35.960 and as a result, I have very few memories that 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.200 do not include her family. I expected that I would 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.040 have a slight preference for white faces. She's talking about 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.359 the I A T, which is the implicit association test 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.439 that she took. UH slight preference for white faces simply 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.600 due to culture, cultural factors and what a white area 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:56.919 I live in and grew up in. However, when the 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.320 results came back, that came back as your data suggests 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:04.120 little to automatic preference between African American and European American. 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.240 This greatly surprised me and got me thinking. Could my 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:11.040 lack of unconscious prejudice have something to do with my 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.639 best friend of so many years and her family? Could 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.399 it be a reflection of how, having been exposed to 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.159 them at such a young age, and caring so deeply 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.560 for them, I developed the necessary empathy to get such 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.280 a score. Could this mean that if more schools had 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.440 a more even mix, or neighborhoods were not so prominently 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.280 one race over the other, unconscious race preferences could go 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.640 away as well. All rather abstract questions with no easy answers. 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:39.800 I was just curious if you found any information about 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:41.840 this in your research. Keep up the great work. You 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.200 are always a fun listen, Melissa. So thank you, Melissa 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.919 that that's a excellent firsthand account of not only the 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:52.760 results that you got on your test, but what your 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:57.200 own experience m has been. Indeed, and if if anyone 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.120 else wants to take the I A T you can 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.119 either of course find it search or I've also we 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.479 also included a link to it on the landing page 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.159 for the Gordian Knot of Race episode. Now, I'm not 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.960 surprised that you know, at such a young age, with 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.200 her experience with her friend who is a mixed race, 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.000 that she would have those results, because I'm thinking back 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.480 to the episode when we were talking about kids. I 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:26.840 believe as young as seven begin to express unconscious bias um, 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.320 so you can see how the positive side of that 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.480 could be reflected, and that that's why I thought it 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:33.040 was so great that she shared that with us, because 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.080 it is the positive side. Indeed, it's good to hear 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.920 about the positive side of that point. Sody, you have it, 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.040 We'll send the robot back to its chamber once more, 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:44.240 and hey uh. In the meantime, you would like to 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.280 check out more episodes of the podcast, If you want 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.040 to check out blog pose, videos, links on to social 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.760 media accounts, whatever, you can find it all at stuff 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:54.960 to Blow your Mind at dot com. And if you 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.040 have some thoughts you'd like to share with us, please 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.600 send them our way. You can do that by emailing 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:06.600 us at below the Mind at how stuff works dot com. 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.160 For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:16.280 how stuff works dot com.