Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: dot com either everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren vocal And today we're going
Speaker 1: to look at a person who has a really important role.
Speaker 1: We're looking at Heisenberg. So he started off as Walter White,
Speaker 1: just a mild mannered chemistry teacher, but then eventually discovered
Speaker 1: that he was cancer and that he was what Werner Heisenberg.
Speaker 1: Oh all right, well, um Werner Heisenberg. Right. Uh, I'm
Speaker 1: just not sure about this topic. Heisenberg, right, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: I think I have some notes on him too. Are
Speaker 1: you this He was born on December n Yes, that
Speaker 1: one the physicist. Yes, the famous theoretical physicist. Al Right, well,
Speaker 1: all right, maybe I won't get a geek out about
Speaker 1: breaking bad, but that's fine. We can talk about Vernon Heisenberg.
Speaker 1: I like that your German pronunciation is better than the
Speaker 1: lady with the last name vocal Bomb. That's pretty that's
Speaker 1: pretty great. Um, so born on December five night, you know,
Speaker 1: one in Verzberg. Uh and yeah, Heisenberg has played an
Speaker 1: incredibly important role in the establishment that that's the foundations
Speaker 1: of what is quantum mechanics. Right, if you've heard of
Speaker 1: something something called the uncertainty principle, that is a k A.
Speaker 1: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, that that is, he is the operative Heisenberg.
Speaker 1: In this we will explain what that uncertainty principle is
Speaker 1: in certain terms, but that will be towards the second
Speaker 1: half of the podcast. First, we wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: talk about who he was, sort of his background. His
Speaker 1: father was an expert in Middle and modern Greek languages.
Speaker 1: That's a Dr. August Heisenberg. His mother there was any
Speaker 1: wink line, winklin, wink lin, was it wy? There's no
Speaker 1: w sound in German. It's um. Yeah, so vs or
Speaker 1: fs and and w s or vs. That's easy to remember, simple,
Speaker 1: all right, Yeah, so yeah, he he um. It's funny
Speaker 1: because I understand that his his own background in Greek,
Speaker 1: his father was an expert in Greek. His own background
Speaker 1: in Greek meant that when they got to the point
Speaker 1: where physicists were starting to name theoretical and he would
Speaker 1: correct people's use of Greek, saying things like, you cannot
Speaker 1: spell it this way because that's not how it would
Speaker 1: be actually spelled. If such a thing existed in the
Speaker 1: Greek language. So so he was, um, you know, helping
Speaker 1: us stay on the rails as far as the use
Speaker 1: of Greek. Right while he was growing up, when he
Speaker 1: was twelve, that is when Neil's Bore presented his general
Speaker 1: theory of of quantum existence. Yes, so Bore would be
Speaker 1: incredibly important during Heiss education. But Niels Boor also known
Speaker 1: for making the Boor model of the atom. So that
Speaker 1: was the model the atom that suggested that you had
Speaker 1: a central nucleus and then electrons that were ordering that nucleus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's you know, anyone who's taken any any class
Speaker 1: in chemistry or physics has seen the Boor model. It's
Speaker 1: still one of those things that um usually is. It's
Speaker 1: part of the history of the development of particle physics
Speaker 1: and quantum mechanics. Right, we we know now that it's
Speaker 1: a little bit um simplified. Yeah. In fact, Heisenberg would
Speaker 1: go on exactly right, Uh, he was while he was
Speaker 1: in high school. There was a major event that played
Speaker 1: out across the entire world and particularly in Europe, World
Speaker 1: War One. Yeah. World War One happened between nineteen fourteen
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighteen. Some of Heisenberg's academic contemporaries, or not
Speaker 1: even contemporaries. Some of his mentors had actually served in
Speaker 1: World War One, various officers in the military. Right. Right,
Speaker 1: Heisenberg himself had to leave school, leave high school to
Speaker 1: go help harvest crops in Bavaria at the time, and um,
Speaker 1: by by the time he got back after the war,
Speaker 1: he was deeply involved in youth groups like the New
Speaker 1: Boy Scouts. That we're trying to rebuild the science and
Speaker 1: artistic culture in Germany. Right, So keep in mind, like
Speaker 1: at this time in Germany, things are really tumultuous. I mean,
Speaker 1: World War One was already one of those events that
Speaker 1: that played upon certain sentiments in Germany, and after the
Speaker 1: war was concluded, that got even more messy because you
Speaker 1: had the rest of the world, uh, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to deal with this situation and make sure that it
Speaker 1: could not happen again. I mean, this was one of
Speaker 1: those wars that no one really expected whatever happened, because
Speaker 1: the idea was that everyone would be building up their
Speaker 1: armies to a point that anyone would be crazy to
Speaker 1: attack anyone else. And as it turns out, humans are crazy, y'all.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, we it was. It was one of
Speaker 1: those things where where as in an attempt to prevent
Speaker 1: this from happening again, there were a lot of reparations
Speaker 1: demanded against Germany. This in turn ended up fueling a
Speaker 1: lot of resentment in Germany and would eventually give the
Speaker 1: Nazi movement sort of kind of foothold. Yeah, exactly, it
Speaker 1: gave them that that that place to build some support,
Speaker 1: because you had all these Germans who felt that uh,
Speaker 1: that their lives had been ruined as a result of
Speaker 1: the actions that followed World War One. Now that plays
Speaker 1: a big role in Heisenberg's life because this is also
Speaker 1: a time when physicists are making incredible discoveries. We are
Speaker 1: learning more about the quantum world, that that atomic scale
Speaker 1: world than ever before. The instruments that were being made
Speaker 1: were becoming precise enough for us to look at things
Speaker 1: on a level that we never could have seen before.
Speaker 1: So there is a figurative explosion in physics at this time,
Speaker 1: and a lot of and sometimes literal explosions. But a
Speaker 1: lot of the physicists that were active at this time,
Speaker 1: particularly in Germany, were of Jewish descent. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: that would cause play another important role once we talk
Speaker 1: about the rise of the Nazi movement and the entry
Speaker 1: into World War two. Obviously that's going to to really
Speaker 1: shake things up. But before we get to that point,
Speaker 1: we talk more a little about about Heisenberg's educational background.
Speaker 1: Once World War One had concluded, he attended the Maximilian
Speaker 1: School at Munich and then eventually the University of Munich.
Speaker 1: He originally went to study math, but according to reports,
Speaker 1: a professor wouldn't let him into an advanced seminar, and
Speaker 1: that's when he switched to physics. And just imagine what
Speaker 1: the world would be like without that, I mean, quantum physics,
Speaker 1: for example, might have a very different approach, particularly when
Speaker 1: you start talking about people like Schrodinger. And we will
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll even mention his cat so uh. At
Speaker 1: the university, he studied physics with professors like Arnold Johannes
Speaker 1: Wilhelm Sommerfeld, who was a theoretical physicist. Uh. He was
Speaker 1: a physicist who would stay on teaching even during World
Speaker 1: War two. So he stayed in Germany and continued to teach.
Speaker 1: He did get a little upset that the more than
Speaker 1: a little upset that his departments were being completely yet
Speaker 1: purged of anyone who had any sort of Jewish background,
Speaker 1: whether they self identified as Jewish or if they had
Speaker 1: maybe an ancestor three generations back who was Jewish. Sure
Speaker 1: also um According to some reports, the Nazis considered the
Speaker 1: theoretical physics as a field to be Jewish. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: because there were there were so many Jewish thinkers who
Speaker 1: were the leaders of theoretical physics that the Nazis looked
Speaker 1: down upon the entire discipline as being some thing that
Speaker 1: was impure and should be completely purged. And in fact,
Speaker 1: instead they wanted to have Deutsche physique that's German physics
Speaker 1: as a study as opposed to theoretical physics, so that
Speaker 1: would also disrupt the advances that could have happened during
Speaker 1: that time. Another professor was Wilhelm Karl Ferna Otto, Fritz
Speaker 1: fran Vin. You're just enjoying saying these names, aren't you,
Speaker 1: Wilhelm Wien is usually how we we say that, But yes,
Speaker 1: you're the answer to that question is yes, I love
Speaker 1: I love saying German names. Uh. He was a physicist
Speaker 1: and he focused on black body radiation and electromagnetics magnetism
Speaker 1: rather and he passed away in n so he died
Speaker 1: before World War Two began. He died before the Nazis
Speaker 1: had really taken control of Germany. Um there was Alfred
Speaker 1: Pringsheim who was a professor of mathematics and had Jewish roots.
Speaker 1: During the Nazi regime, he would see his entire fortune
Speaker 1: taken from him. Everything he had inherited a huge fortune,
Speaker 1: and every rething he owned was taken by the Nazis.
Speaker 1: He was eventually forced to change his name to Alfred
Speaker 1: Israel drinks him because of his Jewish ancestry. One wonderfully racist,
Speaker 1: you know. The Nazis were not known for being subtle
Speaker 1: with the way that they treated any one of Jewish heritage.
Speaker 1: And then a fourth professor was Arthur Rosenthal, who had
Speaker 1: a focus on geometry as well as dynamical systems, also
Speaker 1: had Jewish roots. He would be forced from his position
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six by the Nazis and would eventually
Speaker 1: immigrate to the United States and nineteen nine and taught
Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan, which has come up a
Speaker 1: lot in our conversations recently because that's where I went to.
Speaker 1: But he taught the University of Michigan. Then eventually taught
Speaker 1: at the University of New Mexico and then later at
Speaker 1: Purdue University. So these were the four professors who really
Speaker 1: kind of sparked Heisenberg's fascination with physics and mathematics, and
Speaker 1: this is founding in in those subjects exactly, so Somerfeld, Veen, Pringsheim,
Speaker 1: and Rosenthal Uh. Then in nineteen two Heisenberg went to
Speaker 1: Goodingen Goodingen as a University of Goodingen to study physics
Speaker 1: under some more famous physicists, including Max Bourne, whose focus
Speaker 1: was on quantum mechanics, particularly in statistical interpretation of the
Speaker 1: wave functioned, which we will talk about again and a
Speaker 1: little bit because Schrodinger was definitely a wave functioned guy.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Heisenberg was different. He did not
Speaker 1: really look at the wave function of quantum physics. He
Speaker 1: was looking at something else. And now I'll explain that
Speaker 1: when we get there, because that's fun for me. Um
Speaker 1: Born Max Boorne was also the director of theoretical physics
Speaker 1: at the university and was Jewish, so he immigrated to
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom when the Nazis came into power in
Speaker 1: Germany and continued to research particle physics. Well, well, not
Speaker 1: quite particle physics, quantum physics, and theoretical physics, as well
Speaker 1: as teaching in UK. Then you had James Frank, who
Speaker 1: was a physicistant, studied atomic and subatomic collisions, particularly electrons
Speaker 1: colliding with adams, and also was of Jewish heritage. So
Speaker 1: he would leave Germany in nineteen thirty three for the
Speaker 1: United States and would later participate in what was known
Speaker 1: as the Manhattan Project. We could do a full episode
Speaker 1: on the Manhattan Project. That. Yeah, it's an amazing story. Um.
Speaker 1: And here's another great story with James Frank. So he
Speaker 1: won the Nobel Prize in NT for physics. He left
Speaker 1: the gold medal, the Nobel Prize medal back in Germany
Speaker 1: when he left to essentially flee to the United States. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was another physicist named George de Heavnasy and I
Speaker 1: know I'm saying that name wrong, so I greatly apologize.
Speaker 1: But for once, we're talking about someone who's not German,
Speaker 1: so I can't say his name, but he he in
Speaker 1: order to protect this gold medal from being taken by
Speaker 1: the Nazis and melted down, he dissolved the metal and
Speaker 1: acid and then put the solution on a shelf so
Speaker 1: it's a solution with dissolved gold on the shelf. World
Speaker 1: War two is over, he goes back, the solution is
Speaker 1: still on the shelf. He then precipitates that solution, precipitating
Speaker 1: the gold out of the acid and used the gold
Speaker 1: to melt it back into the metal and meant a
Speaker 1: new and meant a new metal so that they can
Speaker 1: give it uh back to James Frank. So that I
Speaker 1: thought was a really cool story. Then there's another professor
Speaker 1: he studied under was David Hilbert, was a mathematician who
Speaker 1: focused on geometry and functional analysis, who retired in nine
Speaker 1: so he lived to see the Nazis purge Germany of
Speaker 1: Jewish mathematicians and physicists, and was later asked at a
Speaker 1: state dinner. He was actually asked a question about what
Speaker 1: was the state of mathematics after it had been quote
Speaker 1: unquote freed of Jewish influence, and his response was, there's
Speaker 1: no study of mathematics anymore. He was essentially saying that
Speaker 1: the actions of the Nazi had effectively into the entire
Speaker 1: field because they had they had removed or or had
Speaker 1: caused to flee all of the leading thinkers and instead
Speaker 1: of including like Einstein. So they were turning mathematics and
Speaker 1: science into a political thing, and by doing that, they
Speaker 1: were saying that these other things that did not fit
Speaker 1: that political regime as invalid. And that's not the way
Speaker 1: science works, not the way mathematics works, but that's how
Speaker 1: they were demanding it. It can be a very effective
Speaker 1: means of controlling a population by controlling their education. But
Speaker 1: also it also ends up meaning that you you really you,
Speaker 1: you just throw a huge monkey wrench and into any
Speaker 1: kind of advancement in those fields. So before World War two,
Speaker 1: this is, this is all happening before World War two,
Speaker 1: and Heisenberg is studying under these different professors, So during
Speaker 1: these years he has the ability to really pursue his
Speaker 1: interests in theoretical physics and mathematic x. So uh, this
Speaker 1: was on the in the nineteen twenties so, and so
Speaker 1: was before even the Third Reich was coming into power
Speaker 1: at all, right, right, So that these are in the
Speaker 1: years between World War One and the Nazis rise to power.
Speaker 1: So during those years, that's when Heisenberg was studying. And
Speaker 1: while many of his professors would end up having to
Speaker 1: flee or would be removed from their jobs at this time,
Speaker 1: none of that was necessarily evident that that was going
Speaker 1: to happen, So he spent his time really talking with
Speaker 1: some of the leading thinkers of the day when it
Speaker 1: comes to theoretical physics and mathematics, right um so Ine
Speaker 1: he earned his PhD from the University of Munich and
Speaker 1: um went to become an assistant to his old professor
Speaker 1: Max Born at the University of getting and so in
Speaker 1: ur he would go to the University of Copenhagen and
Speaker 1: begin work with Niels Henrik David Bore, who was Danish,
Speaker 1: not German, but a Danish physicist and uh and of
Speaker 1: course he was really interested in atomic radiation and atomic structure,
Speaker 1: and we talked about the Boor model of the ADAM
Speaker 1: earlier in the podcast um so. In nineteen twenty six,
Speaker 1: Heisenberg would go to the University of Copenhagen for about
Speaker 1: a year and then leave. But in ninety six there
Speaker 1: was a position opening opening up at the University of
Speaker 1: Copenhagen for a lecturer in theoretical physics. So Boor recommended Heisenberg,
Speaker 1: thinking that Heisenberg was an up and coming leader in
Speaker 1: this space, and so Heisenberg became the lecturer in theoretical
Speaker 1: physics at the University of Copenhagen. Bore himself would be
Speaker 1: at Copenhagen for quite some time until nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: where he would eventually flee to Sweden to escape the Nazis.
Speaker 1: Nineteen twenty five, that's when Heisenberg publishes his theory of
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics. So he was of the ripe old age
Speaker 1: of twenty three years old. Twenty three years old, and
Speaker 1: he is uh, he is he is presenting a complete
Speaker 1: lee um. Well, he's presenting his own, his own perspective
Speaker 1: on what quantum mechanics actually is. As we'll see, that
Speaker 1: ends up getting kind of um assimilated into a unified
Speaker 1: view by looking at some some other theories that Heisenberg
Speaker 1: did not necessarily agree with at the time. Yep, Nope,
Speaker 1: not so much at all. As it turns out, physicists,
Speaker 1: like any other type of human being, can occasionally get
Speaker 1: very married to specific ideas and maybe a little bit snarky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some there's some great quotes that will be reading it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it turns out that not everybody agreed on
Speaker 1: the behavior of particles at that level because they were
Speaker 1: first of all, there was no way to really directly
Speaker 1: observe them, so it's all hypothetical, and it was mostly
Speaker 1: things like, your equations are are not as easy to
Speaker 1: understand my equations, therefore my equations are better. That kind
Speaker 1: of thing. In fact, that really is one of the arguments.
Speaker 1: So in now seven, at the age of twenty six,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's definitely hitting that that middle age
Speaker 1: there for physicists. Twenty six years old, he becomes the
Speaker 1: professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leipzig, and
Speaker 1: this made him the youngest full professor in Germany at
Speaker 1: the time, so he was certainly making a name for
Speaker 1: himself in the in the academic world. In ninety nine
Speaker 1: he goes on a lecture tour of the United States
Speaker 1: and Japan and India uh and in nineteen thirty two
Speaker 1: he receives the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery
Speaker 1: of the allotropic forms of hydrogen. It was is for
Speaker 1: from that paper that he had published about quantum mechanics.
Speaker 1: Out of that one of the applications was this discovery. Right, So,
Speaker 1: in case you're wondering what the heck is an allotrope
Speaker 1: it's a different structural modification of an element. So let's
Speaker 1: take carbon. Carbon is a great example. When you have
Speaker 1: a certain structure of carbon, it forms graphite. Difference utra
Speaker 1: of carbon forms diamond too, slightly different substances. Yeah, these
Speaker 1: these different, these different manifestations of the same element. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the exact same element. It's just the way
Speaker 1: that it's been or the way that it arranges itself
Speaker 1: determines its qualities. And graphite and diamond are like nine
Speaker 1: day They're incredibly different. So that's what an allotrope is
Speaker 1: is these different manifestations of an element that have very
Speaker 1: different qualities. With the case of hydrogen, we're talking about
Speaker 1: ortho hydrogen and parahydrogen. Don't ask me what that actually means,
Speaker 1: because I'm not a physicist or a chemist, so I
Speaker 1: am incapable of answering me neither I am. I'm at
Speaker 1: a loss there, but I do know that in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: Heisenberg married Elizabeth Schumacher, who he would go on to
Speaker 1: have seven children with over the course of their marriage. Wow.
Speaker 1: Now this is also the time when we're starting to
Speaker 1: see the Nazis come into power. In World War two,
Speaker 1: is beginning, and this was this becomes a pretty muddy
Speaker 1: area of Heisenberg's life because it's hard to know which
Speaker 1: historical records are the most accurate. Right There's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of contention within the historical community about um, what
Speaker 1: exactly Heisenberg's personal views and um and roles were in
Speaker 1: all of this. He had become the target of of
Speaker 1: Johannes Stark. N I'm just apologized with our English, our
Speaker 1: English pronunciation in German pronunciation are different and and and
Speaker 1: to be fair, the vocal downside of my family is
Speaker 1: is really more like Polish Russian. So Johannes Stark was
Speaker 1: also a physicist, but he was and he was a
Speaker 1: physicist in fact who in his UH in the twenties
Speaker 1: had published a paper by Einstein. He had actually um
Speaker 1: Uh solicited Einstein to write a paper for the publication
Speaker 1: that he was editing, and it was a publication that
Speaker 1: would avenge Lee lead Einstein to ruminate upon the general
Speaker 1: theory of relativity. It was sort of a kind of
Speaker 1: a precursor to his general theory, which meant that in
Speaker 1: a way, Johannes Stark was very much part of what
Speaker 1: made Einstein a worldwide phenomenon. Now, the reason why I
Speaker 1: say that's really interesting, or perhaps he might even say ironic,
Speaker 1: is that Johannes Stark would align himself with the Nazi regime.
Speaker 1: He wanted essentially to be the fewer of physics, which
Speaker 1: is that's I mean, that's exactly the way I saw
Speaker 1: it worded when I was reading the biography, which is
Speaker 1: kind of terrifying. But he he also aligned himself with
Speaker 1: the Deutsche Physics movement, the the German physics movement, and
Speaker 1: he said that because Heisenberg continued to teach Einstein's theories
Speaker 1: in the classroom, in Einstein's theories, of course we're not
Speaker 1: part of this Deutsche physics uh movement, that he was
Speaker 1: what what Stark would call a white Jew or an
Speaker 1: arian Jew, someone who is not Jewish by heritage but
Speaker 1: is by association because he continues to teach these thoughts
Speaker 1: that Jewish mathematicians and physicists had come up with originated,
Speaker 1: so that somehow that meant that he was a traitor.
Speaker 1: So um so. Stark was very much opposed to Heisenberg
Speaker 1: and didn't feel that Heisenberg should should have any sort
Speaker 1: of position of authority that did not stop Heisenberg from
Speaker 1: having that position. He was obviously very important to the
Speaker 1: university and was one of the few protected. Of course,
Speaker 1: part of it was that he did not actually have
Speaker 1: any Jewish ancestry that anyone could determine, so that kept
Speaker 1: him somewhat safe, right sure, um. You know, there's part
Speaker 1: of the debate about Eisenberg is is whether or not
Speaker 1: he um he stayed in order to uh to help
Speaker 1: preserve Germany's scientific and cultural communities, or whether he was
Speaker 1: actually working for Nazi Party. Um. He he was made
Speaker 1: the director of the German Adam bomb project and spent
Speaker 1: about five years working on that, supposedly, during which another
Speaker 1: portion of the debate is whether he was working towards
Speaker 1: a nuclear reactor or nuclear weapons, and no one is
Speaker 1: really entirely sure Supposedly he gave a report to Nazi
Speaker 1: official Albert spear Um that as of one or so,
Speaker 1: it would take three or four years for them to
Speaker 1: build a nuclear weapon, and that that is part of
Speaker 1: why the Nazi Party said, I'll forget this nuclear weapon thing,
Speaker 1: Let's go with nuclear reactors to help drive Sure, um
Speaker 1: and uh so, but but you know that's that's There's
Speaker 1: been other research um. For for example, one Paul Lawrence
Speaker 1: Rose wrote an entire book called Heisenberg and the Nazi
Speaker 1: Atomic Bomb Project that stated that uh, Heisenberg wasn't being
Speaker 1: evasive to the Nazi Party, that rather, he was being
Speaker 1: truthful due to a basic misunderstanding of the way that
Speaker 1: nuclear fission worked, and that by the time he figured
Speaker 1: it out, it was when the war was already winding
Speaker 1: down and he started to hear about the atrocities that
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party had committed and kind of reactively recreated
Speaker 1: this image of himself as as having been an anti
Speaker 1: Nazi the entire time. And that's the thing is that
Speaker 1: it's it's impossible for us to say one way or
Speaker 1: the other because there are conflicting reports and and really
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's just it's a it's a difficult thing. Again,
Speaker 1: once again, we take our our our podcasting hats off
Speaker 1: to our sister podcast stuff you missed in history class
Speaker 1: that deals with this kind of stuff all the time,
Speaker 1: oh sure, And and especially you know, everything surrounding the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party is incredibly sticky. Um. You know, some of
Speaker 1: my favorite favorite stories about that time or stuff like
Speaker 1: like like like Lenie Reefenstahl, who was one of them,
Speaker 1: who was the propagandist or documentary filmmaker for the Nazi Party,
Speaker 1: and I mean she she took tea with Hitler frequently
Speaker 1: and has claimed forever that she never knew about the
Speaker 1: atrocities that were going on. And so it's it's it's
Speaker 1: one of those things like who do you believe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, getting back into into the what
Speaker 1: Heisenberg was going through at this time. So there is
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that he was trying
Speaker 1: to preserve the scientific community in Germany as best he could,
Speaker 1: because there were others who were also trying to do that.
Speaker 1: Max Planck, for example, was also trying to um to
Speaker 1: do that. Although Plank had hoped that the the rise
Speaker 1: of the Nazis was just a temporary kind of kerfuffle
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't going to balloon into this incredible
Speaker 1: conflict that would span the entire globe, he just had
Speaker 1: no he had no concept of that actually happening. So
Speaker 1: he had decided to stay and to try and keep
Speaker 1: the German departments of mathematics and physics as intact as possible.
Speaker 1: So it could be that that's the case, we honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. In nineteen forty one, Heisenberg becomes the professor
Speaker 1: of physics at the University of Berlin and the director
Speaker 1: of the Kaiservillehelm Institute for Physics. And in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: five Heisenberg is taken prisoner by American troops and is
Speaker 1: sent to England. Uh. He's freed in nineteen forty six
Speaker 1: and returns to Germany and helps rebuild the Institute for
Speaker 1: Physics at Guttingen, and then UH that eventually becomes the
Speaker 1: Max Planck Institute for Physics, which would eventually relocate and
Speaker 1: I believe, I believe Heisenberg personally renamed the institute them
Speaker 1: on Max Planck ins and UH. He would continue to
Speaker 1: travel and give lectures about his work, in fact doing
Speaker 1: so almost right up to when he died. He died
Speaker 1: in on February one, nineteen seventy six, after developing cancer.
Speaker 1: So he was very much active in the world of
Speaker 1: lectures and academia well after the end of World War Two. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: towards the end of his life he became interested in
Speaker 1: plasma physics and a thermonuclear processes. So see it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's certainly one of those interesting timelines, and
Speaker 1: in a moment we're going to really dive into what
Speaker 1: his contributions were in the field of quantum mechanics and
Speaker 1: give a full explanation, or as as full as we
Speaker 1: possibly can make it, of what the uncertainty principle is
Speaker 1: all about, as well as why it's important in technology,
Speaker 1: because yes, this does have to do with tech. It's
Speaker 1: just gonna take us a while to get there. But
Speaker 1: before we jump into that, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. All Right, so now it's time
Speaker 1: to dive into quantum mechanics. I gotta tell you, I'm
Speaker 1: not really certain about this. I'm just gonna keep making
Speaker 1: that joke excellent until it's funny. Um. So, yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: Heisenberg had worked in theoretical physics and quantum mechanics during
Speaker 1: the early early days of the discipline, and he was
Speaker 1: particularly interested in studying the radiation from an atom. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing that he was also interested in seeing
Speaker 1: what was actually observable. You know, really look at the
Speaker 1: atom and see what you could actually see it. Because
Speaker 1: we had all these hypothetical, uh particles, in these theoretical particles,
Speaker 1: things that that should exist based upon the math involved.
Speaker 1: But but but the signs at the time was based
Speaker 1: on on bombarding these these tiny, tiny, tiny sub atomic
Speaker 1: particles with um with things like gamma radiation and then
Speaker 1: observing what we could observe, right, And so he began
Speaker 1: to differentiate between what you could observe and what you
Speaker 1: could not, and then he started to notice things. He
Speaker 1: said that, you know, we can't really always assign a
Speaker 1: position in space to a specific electron at any given time,
Speaker 1: and we can't follow electrons around their orbits. It's it's
Speaker 1: not like a planetary orbit that we can watch continuously, right,
Speaker 1: It's more like there's an area that an electron could
Speaker 1: be in, as opposed to we can specifically point out
Speaker 1: that this is where the electron is at any given moment,
Speaker 1: or this is the direction it is traveling at any
Speaker 1: given moment. And this would start to plant the seed
Speaker 1: in his mind for the uncertainty principle. So first he
Speaker 1: said that, you know, bores postulation that the the the
Speaker 1: orbits of electrons are around the nucleus was more or
Speaker 1: less correct. You couldn't actually be certain of what those
Speaker 1: orbits were because the unobservable nature of these. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: just no way to assign a figure to this. You
Speaker 1: can't say the electron is in uh, this particular quadrant
Speaker 1: around the nucleus UM, and you couldn't talk about really
Speaker 1: the electron's velocity either. Velocity, by the way, is speed
Speaker 1: plus direction, right, And so he started to say that
Speaker 1: instead of using um classic numbers, the kinds of numbers
Speaker 1: that we would use to describe human scale physics, that
Speaker 1: that we needed to use UM matrices. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: matrix is essentially an abstract mathematical structure. So uh, this
Speaker 1: was almost like talking about probabilities. It's it's kind of fuzzy,
Speaker 1: it's not specific, it's not precise. And in fact, that
Speaker 1: was Heisenberg's argument, was that precision is something that you
Speaker 1: could strive for, but you were never ever going to get. Uh.
Speaker 1: He kind of arrived at this gradually. So in ninety
Speaker 1: six he was involved in a bit of a spat,
Speaker 1: a debate, if you will, about a theoretical spat actually
Speaker 1: was real spat about theory, uh, but it was on.
Speaker 1: So you had two sides to this debate. You had
Speaker 1: Heisenberg and his his fellow physicists who thought of quantum
Speaker 1: mechanics in the term of these matrices, these this abstract
Speaker 1: mathematic uh way of describing the position or motion of
Speaker 1: an electron, because again he was arguing that you could
Speaker 1: not define it in a way that was like it's
Speaker 1: at x, y and z coordinates. You could not do
Speaker 1: that was using the matrix. And there was another set
Speaker 1: of scientists who were trying to describe some atomic particles
Speaker 1: as as waves the way that we would electromagnetic radiation,
Speaker 1: um like our own Schrodinger, Yeah, Schrodinger, SCHRODINGERTI is kitty cat,
Speaker 1: actually Schroedinger and the cat story is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Just a little side notes. So you've probably heard of
Speaker 1: Schrodinger's cat, where Schrodinger was, uh, kind of giving a
Speaker 1: thought experiment kind of thing to explain how how this
Speaker 1: this other form, the matrix form of quantum mechanics is
Speaker 1: a little weird. The idea that you have a cat
Speaker 1: inside a box, and inside that box you also have
Speaker 1: a little canister with poisonous gas in it, and there's
Speaker 1: some explosive that has a that that will go off
Speaker 1: at some point, and I am giving a variation very
Speaker 1: classic overview. So so within half an hour there's a
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance that the explosive inside that canister has
Speaker 1: gone off and released the poisonous gas and little killed
Speaker 1: the cat. Yes, Kitty is no more. One life down,
Speaker 1: eight to go. There's also a fifty percent chance that
Speaker 1: the that the explosion has not yet happened, and that
Speaker 1: Kitty is fine but possibly very bored inside this box.
Speaker 1: And so the thing is that because of uh, this
Speaker 1: this weird quantum effect, and keep in mind, this is
Speaker 1: really something that only happens at the quantum level. When
Speaker 1: you get up to the macro level that we see
Speaker 1: this is not actually the case. But the idea is
Speaker 1: that the cat is both alive and dead at the
Speaker 1: same time, and superposition that has both states and superposition,
Speaker 1: and it's only when you open up the box and
Speaker 1: observe the cat that one of those two possibilities becomes true,
Speaker 1: becomes true, and the other one just becomes yeah, it
Speaker 1: goes away, and that then you have either the live
Speaker 1: cat or the dead cat, So that the cat is
Speaker 1: said to be alive and debt at the same time
Speaker 1: until you observe it, and that's when reality snaps into
Speaker 1: place and you suddenly get one of the two results.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a way of saying like
Speaker 1: this is just, you know, kind of crazy. It's turned
Speaker 1: out to be one of those things we always refer
Speaker 1: to anyway. So Schrotinger's cat and Heisenberg's N certainty principle
Speaker 1: both are trying to explain various weird things about the
Speaker 1: quantum level. There's another one that we can touch on
Speaker 1: also that gets confused with Heisenberg's N certainty principle, which
Speaker 1: is the idea that by observing something you actually affect
Speaker 1: the outcome. So, in other words, when we're looking at
Speaker 1: subatomic particles, simply shining light onto them affects their movement
Speaker 1: because we're talking about photons impacting subatomic particles, which changes
Speaker 1: the pathway, which means, just by taking an observation in
Speaker 1: a measurement, you have changed what has what was going
Speaker 1: to happen. So it makes it even more impossible to
Speaker 1: predict things based upon the behaviors of stuff, because just
Speaker 1: by observing it, you change what that outcome actually is.
Speaker 1: Now that's not Heisenberg's ncertainty principle either, but of thing
Speaker 1: gets confused. So we've got this debate, We've got the
Speaker 1: wave mechanics debate, and that's Schrodinger's side, and we've got
Speaker 1: the matrices debate, and that's Heisenberg's side. And the debate
Speaker 1: was not always civil. Uh, there was there was. There
Speaker 1: was a quote that Heisenberg made to another physicist, Wolfgang
Speaker 1: Ernst Pauli, which was, the more I think about the
Speaker 1: physical portion of Schrodinger's theory, the more repulsive I find
Speaker 1: it what Schrodinger writes about the visualizability. Visualizability, Boy, that's
Speaker 1: a hard word of his theory is probably not quite right.
Speaker 1: In other words, it's crap thick burn. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a little that was a little rough. So here's what
Speaker 1: the difference was between these two. Schrodinger's approach require less
Speaker 1: complicated math to explain the relationship of a sub atomic
Speaker 1: particles movement and and and uh, it's it's position around
Speaker 1: a nucleus, for example, an electron around the nucleus as
Speaker 1: an example. And it fur themore X explained some of
Speaker 1: the things that Heisenberg's theory couldn't really fully explain. It's
Speaker 1: sort of it's sort of pushed them under the rug
Speaker 1: in a way, because Heisenberg's approach showed that there were
Speaker 1: these little quantum jumps leaps actually as if yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's quantum leaps when you cannot quite solve the problem,
Speaker 1: or you solve the problem and then you have to
Speaker 1: leap into the next body and hopefully your next leap
Speaker 1: is the one that takes you home. Uh No. In
Speaker 1: this case, the quantum jumps were the fact that you
Speaker 1: would see electrons behave in a weird way, like suddenly
Speaker 1: an electron would behave as if it had a higher
Speaker 1: amount of energy than it normally would, and that was,
Speaker 1: you know, Heisenberg's approach showed these jumps well with Schroedinger's approach,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about a continuous wave a wave function.
Speaker 1: It smooths everything out, so you don't have these jagged,
Speaker 1: you know jumps, you have just a smooth transition um.
Speaker 1: So the Schrodinger's argument was that, hey, you know, I've
Speaker 1: looked at the way you are calculating this, and I
Speaker 1: look at the way I'm calculating this, and it turns
Speaker 1: out the outcomes are the same. We're getting the same results,
Speaker 1: but mine requires less complicated math and not all this
Speaker 1: mathematic abstraction that you are insisting upon. So therefore I'm
Speaker 1: right and you're wrong, or at least mine is more eloquent.
Speaker 1: So you've got these two parties of physicists getting a
Speaker 1: little caddy Schroedinger caddy. Perhaps um, there are alive cats
Speaker 1: and percent dead cats. But then, uh, it's interesting because
Speaker 1: you started getting into other physicists getting into the game,
Speaker 1: including Ernst Pascal Jordan's or Jordans I suppose, who was
Speaker 1: a German physicist who would actually later joined the Nazi
Speaker 1: Party become part of that movement, in fact enlisted in
Speaker 1: the Luftwaffe Um. And then you had Paul Derak, who
Speaker 1: was an English physicist who both created unified equations that
Speaker 1: took the wave function approach and the Matrice's approach and
Speaker 1: combined them into what was called a transformation theory, which
Speaker 1: is the very basis of quantum mechanics. So again this
Speaker 1: is all theoretical. It's essentially trying physicists trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to to apply the same sort of observation
Speaker 1: that they had in classical interpretation of physics on the
Speaker 1: macro scale to the quantum level, which is the incredibly
Speaker 1: tiny scale, the atomic or subatomic scale at which the
Speaker 1: rules do not apply. Right. So, but the transformation theory
Speaker 1: ended up showing that there was a combination of both
Speaker 1: Schroedinger's approach and Heisenberg's approach the sort of wave particle
Speaker 1: duality that we know about with quantum mechanics. That's kind
Speaker 1: of what was coming out of this discussion. So instead
Speaker 1: of them both saying no, I'm right, No, I'm right,
Speaker 1: these guys are like, well, actually you're both right. Technically, yeah,
Speaker 1: light is a particle and a wave, and it gets boy,
Speaker 1: toy doesn't get even more crazy, Like it seems magical
Speaker 1: to those of us who are used to classical physics
Speaker 1: on that macro scale, because if things on the macro
Speaker 1: scale behaved the same way that things in the quantum
Speaker 1: scale behaved, it would be like we were living in
Speaker 1: Harry Potter World or something right right there. There would
Speaker 1: be a lot of a lot of you know, people
Speaker 1: suddenly jumping to the left right, yeah, because you know,
Speaker 1: or you could never really be sure where someone was
Speaker 1: or how quickly they were moving and and emitting light
Speaker 1: when they did it. They'd be half dead and half
Speaker 1: alive until you looked at them. Yeah, there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of things that would be pretty bizarre. In our world.
Speaker 1: So Heisenberg studied Jordan and Deracs papers and found that
Speaker 1: there were problems whenever he tried to measure the basic
Speaker 1: physical variables appearing in the equations. And by physical variables
Speaker 1: I mean an electrons position and its momentum. So that
Speaker 1: led Heisenberg to create the famous principle of uncertainty, which
Speaker 1: he did in nine seven. We usually call that Heisenberg
Speaker 1: uncertainty principle. So here's here's how it breaks down. The
Speaker 1: more precisely you determine the position of a sub atomic particle,
Speaker 1: for example, an electron around the nucleus. So the more
Speaker 1: precisely you determine its position, the less precisely you can
Speaker 1: know about the moment momentum at that moment, and vice versa.
Speaker 1: So if you more precisely determined the sub automic particle's momentum,
Speaker 1: the less precisely you can know its actual position. Right um.
Speaker 1: So specifically, he was saying that um that running the
Speaker 1: calculation for this, for this determination of the position and
Speaker 1: the momentum um necessarily contains errors, the product of which
Speaker 1: physically cannot be less than the quantum constant h Planks constant,
Speaker 1: which is the smallest unit the quantum of action in
Speaker 1: an atom, right, And so what he's saying here is
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter how advanced your measurement apparatus is.
Speaker 1: In fact, there was one point where More criticized Heisenberg's
Speaker 1: approach because he said that he was using essentially microscopes
Speaker 1: that were not precise enough, and in fact it made
Speaker 1: an error, and then Heisenberg got really upset a bore,
Speaker 1: and the two of them had a falling out that
Speaker 1: lasted about a year, and then Heisenberg eventually wrote a
Speaker 1: paper and acknowledge. He said, you know, Boor has criticized
Speaker 1: this because of such and such an acknowledge that in
Speaker 1: fact there was an error, but said that ultimately that
Speaker 1: error was beside the point because it would not matter
Speaker 1: how precise that was. The fact remained that the more
Speaker 1: you would learn about one thing, the less you could
Speaker 1: know about the other. That's the uncertainty. Or complementaryanism is
Speaker 1: another way that some people have said that there's this
Speaker 1: complementary relationship between the momentum and the position. So in
Speaker 1: case you want to know what momentum is, that's mass
Speaker 1: times velocity, velocities that speed and direction. So that's important
Speaker 1: to know. So on the human scale, this uncertainty is
Speaker 1: completely negligible. There's you might as well just throw it
Speaker 1: out the window because on our scale it just doesn't
Speaker 1: that it doesn't factor into it. It's such a tiny thing.
Speaker 1: But when you look at the smaller scales, this tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny thing becomes huge because you're looking at things on
Speaker 1: an incredibly small scale. And because we can't know but
Speaker 1: with precision both a sub atomics particles a position and
Speaker 1: its momentum, we cannot really make predictions about what's going
Speaker 1: to happen in the future. And in fact, uh this
Speaker 1: is where Heisenberg says causality becomes a problem because if
Speaker 1: you cannot determine that sub atomic particles position and momentum,
Speaker 1: you cannot actually know what's going to happen next. So
Speaker 1: if you were to expand this out, now this is
Speaker 1: this is to the absurd, But if you were to
Speaker 1: expand this out, you could say that you cannot for
Speaker 1: certain know that by doing a certain action a particular
Speaker 1: effect is going to follow. That's not really the case
Speaker 1: with classical physics again because we're talking about the macro scale,
Speaker 1: but on the qualm scale, that's the case, we cannot
Speaker 1: really know what will happen from one moment to the
Speaker 1: next because we can't know enough about all the factors
Speaker 1: to make that determination, which is which is kind of
Speaker 1: wonderful and kind of terrifying right simultaneously. And now it's
Speaker 1: a cat in a box, yep. And and this also
Speaker 1: ties into that observation problem, right because if we even
Speaker 1: if we observe the phenomenon, then we're affecting the phenomens.
Speaker 1: We're making it even more impossible to determine what the
Speaker 1: effect is going to be. The cause and effect at
Speaker 1: the scale is something that becomes pure really theoretical, because
Speaker 1: as soon as you try and apply practical approaches to it,
Speaker 1: it all breaks down. And we promise this really does
Speaker 1: relate directly to technology. We're getting there. So we then
Speaker 1: show that light can be interpreted as both wave functions
Speaker 1: and as a particle. That's with Boor and Heisenberg together working,
Speaker 1: they were able to kind of come to this conclusion.
Speaker 1: And as soon as you decide how to observe a
Speaker 1: particular experiment, that interpretation becomes true and the other interpretation collapses. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you're looking at light as a wave,
Speaker 1: you see it as a wave. If you look at
Speaker 1: light as a particle, you see it as a particle,
Speaker 1: and the other half of that interpretation goes away, which
Speaker 1: is insane. They were talking about it about how how
Speaker 1: you observe the experiment. We disturb untouched nature, and we
Speaker 1: become limited in learning about nature as it really is.
Speaker 1: In other words, we have a very narrow view into
Speaker 1: what reality is, and once we focus that view on something,
Speaker 1: we cannot know everything else that's outside of that view.
Speaker 1: So imagine that you have a telescope and you are
Speaker 1: using that telescope to look at something that's on the
Speaker 1: distant horizon, and you can see that you can see
Speaker 1: the thing that's on the horizon, but everything else has
Speaker 1: faded away. It's like all of that's just gone. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what the sort of an analogy as to
Speaker 1: what he was saying here, which is disturbing to think
Speaker 1: about in a way, but that's how reality works, so
Speaker 1: you gotta kind of deal with it. Um. So Heisenberg's
Speaker 1: uncertainty principle in Schruner's wave functions become the basis of
Speaker 1: the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and uh the reason
Speaker 1: why we even did this podcast besides the fact that
Speaker 1: I think someone actually asked us to and Lauren's going
Speaker 1: to look that up, but the the reason why we're
Speaker 1: doing this is because heisenberg'suncertainty principle plays into the way
Speaker 1: that we use electronics today. Because now we're working with
Speaker 1: electronics that have components that are on this tiny, tiny
Speaker 1: skin at least the nanoscale, which is one one factor
Speaker 1: up from atomic but not far away. The flow of
Speaker 1: electrons is critical for modern absolutely and while we're making
Speaker 1: these tiny transistors or transistor elements that are part of
Speaker 1: these integrated circuits. You know, the whole purpose of transistors
Speaker 1: is to guide the flow of electrons, to allow them
Speaker 1: to pass or to not allow them to pass through
Speaker 1: a circuit. Well, if you make the gates really thin.
Speaker 1: And Heisenberg's in certainty principle tells us that there is
Speaker 1: a kind of a zone in which you might find
Speaker 1: an electron, and because of the uncertainty about the electron's
Speaker 1: momentum or energy, sometimes that electron can jump up an
Speaker 1: energy level. Because of our uncertainty, we we you know,
Speaker 1: it just will pop up an energy level and then
Speaker 1: pop back down, which means that can be found in
Speaker 1: a slightly larger zone than you would not necessarily expect
Speaker 1: based upon its actual energy level, which can be problematic
Speaker 1: when when you've got these incredibly thin gates that are
Speaker 1: supposed to be keeping an electrons on one side, right,
Speaker 1: that that zone might extend beyond the far side of
Speaker 1: that gate. And if the zone extends beyond the far
Speaker 1: side of the gate, that means that it's possible for
Speaker 1: an electron to appear on the other side of the
Speaker 1: gate without having actually passed through that circuit, which means
Speaker 1: called electron tunneling. And since it's possible, it happens, which
Speaker 1: which means that, yeah, unless we figure out ways of
Speaker 1: getting around these you know, these these fundamental quantum phenomena
Speaker 1: that we you know, there's a point where you cannot
Speaker 1: make the components any smaller because the electrons just won't
Speaker 1: play ball there just every way that the fundamental quantum
Speaker 1: traffic laws, as you put it in our exactly Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it means that that you're you're gonna get errors in
Speaker 1: your various chips because they will not be allowing the
Speaker 1: or or preventing the electrons from flowing the way they're
Speaker 1: supposed to, because the electrons are just going to be
Speaker 1: able to tunnel right through when when those uh, those
Speaker 1: energy levels bomb up uncertainly. It's bizarre, it's so weird
Speaker 1: to think about. Um. But engineers have found ways of
Speaker 1: working around that, using different materials that uh that that
Speaker 1: minimize this, so that they can continue to make things
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller. But we will reach a point when
Speaker 1: that is just not going to be the way that
Speaker 1: chips will be designed anymore. Either will will plateau and
Speaker 1: we won't be able to make chips with smaller components,
Speaker 1: or we'll find a different means of using sub atomic
Speaker 1: particles to process information and we'll move away from electron
Speaker 1: based chips, which is hard to consider. It's really weird
Speaker 1: to think about. Yeah, that's not that that that is
Speaker 1: beyond my entire brain right now. Yeah. No, I'm actually
Speaker 1: starting to feel a nosebleed coming on because I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm an English literature major. Al Right, well, let's let's
Speaker 1: let's bring this back to something, to something a little
Speaker 1: bit more peaceful and serene. I have I have I
Speaker 1: have a quote from Heisenberg via via pbs UM. He
Speaker 1: once said natural science does not simply describe and explain nature.
Speaker 1: It's part of the interplay between nature and ourselves. It
Speaker 1: describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, which I thought was nice. I thought that
Speaker 1: that was a much less nosebleedy way of saying that, um,
Speaker 1: that we messed stuff up scientifically. And also it also
Speaker 1: is less uh nasty than his note to uh or
Speaker 1: note about Schrodinger. Right. So um oh, I found the
Speaker 1: name of the person who requested this via Facebook. This
Speaker 1: was from listener Peter. So Peter asked us about this,
Speaker 1: and I hope that we were able to answer your
Speaker 1: questions to uh your satisfaction. It was certainly to the
Speaker 1: best of our ability, keeping in mind that neither of
Speaker 1: us are theoretical physicists, not by a long shot, or
Speaker 1: mathematicians for that matter. UH. Fascinating subject, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of books out there that are really really
Speaker 1: good about explaining Heisenberg's role and also the contributions of
Speaker 1: his contemporaries, everyone from Einstein to Somerville, to Schrodinger to
Speaker 1: to all all the eight physicists of the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: and thirties who have really made modern technology possible through
Speaker 1: their discoveries, right, you know it? Right? I mean really,
Speaker 1: the way that we control the flow of electricity and
Speaker 1: therefore have stuff that turns on and off. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: what not would not be possible. It's interesting because because
Speaker 1: you know, you had the practical discoveries, you had the
Speaker 1: engineers who made the practical discoveries, and the scientists who
Speaker 1: were able to refine those discoveries through their own or
Speaker 1: refine those designs rather through their own discoveries. It's this
Speaker 1: this intricate yeah, you know. Without without both sides, obviously
Speaker 1: our lights wouldn't come on. So thank you to both um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that kind of wraps up this discussion. If you guys
Speaker 1: have any comments, So if you have questions, if you
Speaker 1: want to suggest other topics for us to tackle in
Speaker 1: the future, I recommend you get in touch with us
Speaker 1: because otherwise we won't know, We'll be completely uncertain about
Speaker 1: what others you want. So make a certain right to
Speaker 1: us our addresses tech stuff at discovery dot com or
Speaker 1: drop us a line on based or Twitter. You can
Speaker 1: find our handle it is tech stuff hsw which you
Speaker 1: can also find our tumbler. Oh right, I keep forgetting
Speaker 1: about that. You've been tumbling for a while now, and
Speaker 1: I just failed to notice you falling over and over.
Speaker 1: A right tumbler, you can find us there to check
Speaker 1: us out. Lauren's been doing a great job with that. Guys,
Speaker 1: you need to you need to take a look and
Speaker 1: uh hey, we'll talk to you again really soon, I'm
Speaker 1: certain of it. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, is it how stuff works dot com