Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / The science of time travel television

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The science of time travel television · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, are you enjoying all the good TV shows
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: out there? There's definitely a lot to watch. But as
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a physicists, are you able to enjoy some of these
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and turn your physics brain off mostly except when it
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: really challenges me with exceptional nonsense? You mean plot wise
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: or science wise? Is there a difference? I mean plots
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: have to be scientific, otherwise they're not plots. I think
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: by definition, creativity is not scientific. I think by definition,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: plots rely on cause and effect, which is the root
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of all science. Are you talking about time trouble? That
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: is one of the worst offenders. It makes me wish
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I could travel back in time and talk to the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: writers before they make both choices. Wait, wait, what wouldn't
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: that create a paradox? Like if you go back in
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: time and prevent them from writing the show, then you
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have seen the show. That sounds pretty good to me. Actually,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that sounds like a good plot. Yeah, they would make
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: your life nonsensical. My life already feels nonsensible. Then you're
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: going to get a low rating on rotten tweatoes my
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: own review of the scientific validity of my own life.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: But what if you go back in time and prevent
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: yourself from watching the show. That could sort of work, right,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: or I guess technically to make sense, you would still
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: have to watch it, in which case you'll be watching
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: it over and over again and again and again in
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: an infinite loop that sounds like a nightmare. I mean,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you just watch it until you finally like it, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I would break you out of the loop that might
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: take forever. I am poor Hamming cartoonists and the creator
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and a professor at U C Irvine, and I give
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: every science fiction show one episode to win me over. Wow,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you have you watch every pilot of every single science
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: we can show out there? Is that part of your
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: job as a physicist or is this just a personal vendetta.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I watch every show that exists,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but every science fiction show that I do watch, I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: really give it the benefit of doubt for an episode
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to prove that it makes some sense, and if it
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't hook you in, you stop watching it. If the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: plot is nonsense, then the story is just not compelling
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: because anything can happen at any time, and so why
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: even watch who cares what the characters do. So your
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: attention span is basically what one hour. What if it's
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a slow bill. Slow bill is fine as long as
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it makes sense in the first episode. If they make
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of rules and then break them already in
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the first episode, I'm out. I see. So you're watching
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Alice in Wonderland. You're like stoves down next Daniel Pan's
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: great literature. That's exactly, but it seems like But anyways,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a production of My Heart Radio in which we try
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to explain and describe the universe, of which I am
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a great fan because so far the universe seems to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: make some sense. There are lots of cases where the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: universe does something that we do not yet understand, but
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: by application of our mental framework and our mathematical models,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and our sheer persistence and stubbornness, we have always been
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: able to understand everything that we observe. It seems to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: be some sort of logic behind the universe, some rules
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: that it follows, and those rules we can uncover. And
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: on this podcast we do our best to explain what
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: we do and do not know about those rules to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: you in our universe and in fictional universes. That's right.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It is a pretty engrossing universe, full of interesting plot
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: twists and characters and amazing world building. I mean, what
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: could be a bigger world built than the entire universe?
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I guess technically the multiverse is bigger than the universe, right,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: so Marvel is bigger than reality. It's like multiple seasons
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of the universe make up the multiverse. But I feel
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: like Danny, you're saying that you like the universe because
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: it makes sense, but maybe you don't like people because
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: people don't know. People do make sense. Just because we
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: don't understand it yet doesn't mean they don't make sense.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, are you suggesting that people don't follow some
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: laws of physics, that we are like exempt somehow from
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: natural laws of the universe. I'm saying, if you read
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the news these days, it's hard to find any sense
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and anything people do these days. I think that there's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: two kind of things out there, things we understand and
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: things we don't yet understand. Well, understanding things is what
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: we are here, and that's what this podcast is all about.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: We try to look at the universe and try to
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: find sense of it, even if it sometimes doesn't make
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: sense completely. We hope that one day science will unravel
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: all of the mysteries of the universe, but there may
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: be a fundamental limit to human capacity to understand the cosmos.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: After all, your dog probably doesn't understand the universe as
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: well as we do, and so unless you assume the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: humans are infinitely intelligent or maximally intelligent, it might be
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: that the universe can't escape our understanding. Well, I feel
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: like dogs look happier than humans a lot of the times,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: so maybe they figure out something we haven't. Ignorance is bliss,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that's what dogs have figured out. But scientists are not
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the only ones trying to make sense of the universe
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: or try to paint a picture of the universe that
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: makes sense. There are also creative artists and writers trying
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to make science fiction television and films that let us
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: think about these awesome ideas about the universe. And I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: think there's an underappreciated overlap between the creative efforts of
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: storytellers and the descriptive powers of scientists. In the end,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: science is not a dry list of facts. It's an
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: explanation of the universe in the sense we aren't telling stories.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: We're saying this mass mood because there was a force
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: on it. That's a story about what happened to the mass.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: So science, in the end is a story that humans
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: tell to each other to explain the universe that they
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: see around them. Here's why this happened, Here's why it
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: reigned last Wednesday, Here's why you don't have anything to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: eat for dinner tonight. And in the same way, creative
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: types are telling stories in fictional universes, wondering what stories
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: can exist and what human experiences might be like in
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: other universes where the rules are different. But I feel Daniel,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: isn't that sort of anti scientific to go into science
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and expecting things to make sense? Shoulding you, as a scientist,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: go into it with a completely open mind to maybe
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the possibility the universe doesn't make sense. I think if
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you're going to take a scientific approach, you have to
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: assume that science works, and it might fail at some point,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: but so far it's been pretty successful. There are a
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: lot of really interesting assumptions at the foundation of science.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: You know that empiricism works, that we can test theories
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that scientific laws don't change with times, so we can
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: do an experiment now and a hundred years from now
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: we get the same answer. One of those might one
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: day fail and that would be a fascinating philosophical discovery. Yeah,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that'd be quite the plot twist. I wonder if then
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you would give it a negative review. To the universe.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: You go online and like, you know, try to get
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: try to lowerd ron Tomato score. Somebody cancel season two
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of this universe. I'm not a fan. It doesn't apply
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to me. I don't like it. My standards are pretty low, really,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I just want you to have rules and follow them.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So far, the universe is satisfying that pretty basic requirement.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: If it breaks that, if it turns out the universe
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: is just random nonsense fundamentally, deep down, I will admit
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: to being disappointed. But we've we've sort of feared that
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: out happen. We I mean, at the quantum level, things
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: are random, aren't they. Well, there is randomness, but there's
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: not nonsense. Quantum mechanics does predict the future. It's deterministic
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: about the probability distribution for the future that is fixed
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: in stone, just which branch of that probability is random.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean it's nonsense, right, it still makes
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: some sense. That's why quantum mechanical things like transistors in
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: your phones are working. Right now, I feel like you're
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: saying that nonsense makes sense because that makes you a
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: sleep better at night. As a scientist, I'm saying there's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: nuances of nonsense. I see, there's the there's a sense
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: of sense and nonsense. But we do like to talk
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: about the creative efforts of writers and novelists and filmmakers
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: who try to paint interesting pictures about the universe who
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I think, like you said, it's sometimes take interesting ideas
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: from science and then try to extrapolate that and see
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: how far you can push those ideas. Yeah, and one
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of our earliest episodes was about the fiction of time travel,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: where we analyze the physics of it, and recently on
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: our discord server, a bunch of listeners asked if we
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: would do another episode on more recent time travel fiction. Yeah,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: so to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: science of time travel television. Now, is this going to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: have a cliffhanger at the end if it is really
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: like television? Well, this is episode two right of the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: time travel television series. So I hope this is going
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to be a third episode, episode two? Or is this
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: a sequel? It's so hard to tell these days. Well,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: if time travel is possible, then does the order even
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: really matter? If time doesn't matter, does anything matter? But
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the way you announced the title of the episode made
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: me think that the television itself was traveling in time, Like, hey,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: can we watch TV tonight? Now? The television went back
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to nineteen fifties. It's not here right now. Well, no,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I said time travel television. I didn't say time traveling television.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: That would be maybe a good show. That would be
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: time travel television, The Adventures of a time traveling Television. Yeah,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: but what programs does it show? Like? Does it carry
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: does it bring the shows from a certain time back
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to different spots in time? Or is it stuck in
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the middle ages streaming another? Well, can the Internet broadcast
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: through time or does it need like a really long
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: time traveling cable. M Well, that is the plot of
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that movie I was talking to you recently called Beyond
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the Infinite two minutes. All right, well, don't spoil it
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: for me. It's on my two watch list and maybe
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we will talk about it in the third edition of
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Time Travel Science Fiction Science Reviewed. It will be like
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: another sequel. We'll go back in time and do it first,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: so we are prequel. We technically did it first. It
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be a prequel, it just be the first one.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Oh that's right. Prequels you do afterwards that they're slotted
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: in time doing it. Yes, yes, and they're usually not better. Yeah,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: we'll call the time travel menace. So today we'll be
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: talking about the science fiction of time travel and a
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: couple of interesting television shows that have been out recently.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And I guess we'll give it. What kind of rating
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: do we give it? Daniel for our glasses for time
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: traveling televisions for physics thumbs up. That sounds good because
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: between us we have four thumbs. I mean, I haven't
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: seen you recently, but last I remember you had two thumbs. Yes,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: but I'm not a physicist. A podcast and these shows
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: we're reviewing are the ones requested by folks on our discord, sir,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: So if you'd like to interact with us, ask questions,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and suggest topics for future episodes, please don't be shy.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Jump over to discord and join the conversation. You can
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: find the link on our website at www dot Daniel
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and Jorge dot com. All right, well, let's maybe start
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: talking just generally about time travel. Daniel, What I physicists
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: think of time trouble? Is it possible? There's not actually
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: agreement on this question. Most physicists think time travel is
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: probably impossible because it violates something really simple and basic
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: that we think is part of all science, and that
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: is causality. That the past causes the future, that the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: future is determined by the past plus some quantum mechanical randomness,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and that it doesn't go the other direction. And so
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: if causality is a thing, then the past can't be
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a function of the future. You can't change the past
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: from the future. It's really pretty basic if you believe
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: in causality. Right. Well, although I think you know, technically
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: time travel is possible. We're all traveling through time right now, right,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I think maybe we need to maybe a specify a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: little bit. What do you mean by time travel because
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: we were technically traveling time right now? Right? Yeah? Sure,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: so sort of normal physics, we have three dimensional space x, y,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and z, and then we have this weird fourth dimension time.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: And while in space we can move backwards and forwards.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: You can go to the same spot over and over
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: again in time for reasons we don't really understand, you
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: can sort of only slide into forward direction. So technically
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the whole universe versus value of time, the location of
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: now is changing all the time rights sliding forward, So
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: we are moving forwards in time. We're not being stationary
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: in time. So in that sense, we are traveling in time.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: But from that perspective, all TV is time travel TV.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So I think more specifically, we're considering alternative views where
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you can somehow move around the timeline or change the timeline,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: or jump back and forth. Right like you can skip
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: along time, like suddenly be here and one time and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: then the next a few thousand years in the future,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: or a few thousand years in the past. Right skipping
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: around time maybe should be called time skipping maybe. And
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I get why this is an attractive idea. People are
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: being creative and trying to imagine crazy ways the universe
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: might be, But I'm not sure they're always doing the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: necessary work to make sure that their fictional universe actually
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: hangs together, is actually self consistent. Right now, when you
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: say a lot of physics think time travel is impossible
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: or time skipping isn't possible. Is that really true though, Like,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: isn't it possible to skip through time and still be
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: consistent and still respect causality. So there are a couple
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: possible wrinkles, Like obviously you can skip forward in time
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: without breaking causality, right, Like I can maybe disappear and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: appear a thousand years in the future and that wouldn't
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: break any logical rules. Right, Well, how you be appearing
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a thousand years in the future, you know, what is
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the mechanism for your appearance there? That moment when you
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: appear has to be caused by the moments before that.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Like in quantum mechanics, the future is determined by the past.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: There's this evolution of the wave function of the universe,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and things don't just appear, right. Information in the universe
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: is not just arbitrarily created or destroyed. It's a function
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of the past. So for things to just disappear for
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: a thousand years and then appear, it doesn't really make sense.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know it could in my future appearance be
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: caused by my presence state. You could cook something up,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: like Jorge goes into a black hole like thing where
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you imagine he's no longer really part of the universe,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and then that black hole evaporates in a thousand years
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and you or the information that is equivalent to you
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: somehow comes out of it. And so maybe technically you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: can imagine that's not really part of our universe anymore.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But really it still is. For you to reappear in
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the future, there has to be a cause of that,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and that cause has to immediately proceeded. You know, the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: universe we think is local the way, like something that
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: happens here can't affect something that's happening super far away.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Things now can affect the immediate future, which then affects
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the immediate future. But you can't just like skip forward
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and say something that's happening now can affect the deep
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: future without affecting the intermediate time points. Right, things have
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to be sort of connected to each other in physics.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: But isn't there also the idea of like a wormhole.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Couldn't a wormhole take you into the future. Yeah, so
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: here the weird little cracks that might allow time travel
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to happen. According to our understanding of general relativity, you
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: can do things like build wormholes where you have places
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in space that do exactly that. You can connect distance
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: places in space. You can have a place here which
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is somehow usually connected to a place somewhere else. It's
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: not like a literal tube. It's like that location is
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: now just connected to this location, so that, for example,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: if you create a ripple here, it also gets created
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: over there. You should think of it as like a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: non simple weaving of the fabric of space. If you
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: imagine space is like a bunch of places in space
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that are all connected to the neighboring places, like pixels
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: on the screen, this would be like a weird connection
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: between two little dots. And so if wormholes are a thing,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and general relativity says they can be, it is possible
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to turn them into time machines by taking one end
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: of it, making it go really fast, and then like
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the time dilation effects, give you a wormhole which connects
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: two different points in time, not just two different points
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: in space. M So it is possible then, as far
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: as we know, to travel into the future, and wormhole
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: would allow you to travel into the future are also
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: into the past. There's another wrinkle in general relativity that
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: allows this. They're called closed time like curves. We have
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a whole episode of about how those work, and briefly
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: they involved how general relativity bends your light code in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the presence of great masses, and we think that if
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you've made, for example, an infinitely long spinning cylinder of dust,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you might create the circumstances that allow you to go
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: through a loop in time where you go back in
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: time and then loop back to the present state, and
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you're stuck in this loop forever. These are theoretical. Nobody's
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: ever observed these, and most physicists think that they probably
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: represent the breakdown of general relativity, not an actual prediction
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for what would be possible in our universe. I think
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: probably quantum effects prevent these things from actually happening. But
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: as far as we know, then you're saying that you
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: could also have a wormhole that takes you back into
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the past, So time travel is technically possible backboards and forwards.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I think that's true with a couple of legalistic caveats. Right,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: according to our best current theory of physics, those things
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: are not disallowed. But we also strongly suspect that our
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: best current theory of physics is wrong about exactly those
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: aspects of the universe, so we don't really know. It's
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: definitely a question mark. Definitely not disallowed. Is all we
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: need now to have an interesting, interesting conversation here. All right, Well,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: let's get into the science fiction of time travel of
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: several popular shows that are being played right now on
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the internet and on broadcast TV. But first, let's take
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: a quick break. Alright, we're talking about the science of
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: time travel television, not time traveling television, more about the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: television that's about time travel, because it's a popular topic,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: right for a lot of shows. It is a popular topic.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: You see a lot these days. Maybe almost too much?
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Oh too much? Wow? Is it possible to have too
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: much of anything in our current culture? I don't know.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I've definitely had too much ice cream some days. Impossible, impossible.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: But there are a lot of interesting shows that deal
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: with time travel, uh, and so we'll tackle them one
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: by one, and let's start with the first one here,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the Umbrella Academy, which streams on Netflix. Yeah, this is
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a really fun show. Have you seen it? I have.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I was actually a big fan of the comics, you know,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to ten fifteen years ago, way way back in the day.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So the current TV show is a TV show based
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: on a comic book which was written by a punk
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: rock artist. So there's multiple nested creative loops there. I
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: love one one genre inspires another, and so it's the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: TV show a fair representation of the ideas in the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: comic book. They definitely did more, you know, they had
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: to add more storyline and more drama to it, but
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I'd say the general feel of it is is pretty
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: pretty close. Yeah. Well, it's an interesting universe because the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: rules are definitely very flexible, and lots of stuff happens
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that's never really explained. You know. You have the creation
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: of these kids with special powers through some mysterious process
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: which I don't know. Maybe it's and to get explained
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: sometime deep in season seven, sort of left as a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: background mystery for the whole show, which is fine. I
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: love that it makes me curious about the universe that
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the show takes place in, so that's fun. Yeah, the
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: show definitely throws a lot at you, Like, in this
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: world in this story, the characters that have superpowers, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: there's time travel, and there's like a talking monkey and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: there's a AI robot. Also, it's like what else can
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: you throw into a sci fi show. Yeah, there's a ghost, right,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: there's a ghost. That's right, there's a ghost. Yes. Oh man,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: this this show has it all. Yeah, it does feel
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: sort of like a smoothie of culture. You know. They're
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: just like threw everything into the blender and they're like,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: what happens when we have all these characters here at once? Yeah,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: it's pretty wild. I like the second season more than
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the first one, I think. But the plot is that
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: there are these kids that are mysteriously born with superpowers
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: throughout the world, right, and then one eccentric billionaire somehow
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: manages to collect it's seven or eight of them, and
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: it tops them m and gives very creative names like
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: number four, number five, number six, numbering their children. Who
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: would do that? My dad did, what what number are you?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm number two? I'm the best number. Do you sometimes
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: introduce it to people are saying, this is my number one,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: this is my number two, it's my number three. Well,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I sometimes meet Italians whose names are like Primo and Ultimo,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's interesting. First kid, last kid? Is
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that where those names come from? Oran, They're just the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: ultimate kid. But you probably do it all the time too, right,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: you say, this is my oldest child, this is my
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: youngest child. Right, I only have two, so I just
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: introduced them by their names. But I remember my younger
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: brother making a big deal about being called the youngest
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: brother and not the little brother. For him, that was
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a big distinction. Wait, which one did he want to be?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: He wanted to be the younger brother. He thought little
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: brother was like diminutive. Somehow sounds like you have some
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: fun family dynamics there, definitely anyway in this story, it's
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: kid number five who's of interest to us because he's
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: not a ghost, he's not an AI robot, he's not
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: super strong, but he possesses the ability to move through
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: time and space, so he can sort of teleport from
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: spot to spot, and he can also jump forwards or
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: backwards in time. Pretty powerful stuff. Yeah, well, it's the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: sort of starts that he can teleport in space, right,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and then he starts experiment with jumping in time more
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and more each like bigger time jumps. And then one
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: day he jumps too far or too much and he
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: gets stuck in the in the future or the past. Well,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: he jumps forward finding like this post apocalyptic future, you know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: like the future Earth, where a lot of people have
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: died and he's basically alone, and he gets stuck there.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: He lives there for decades until he finds his way
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: back to what's I guess the present. In the main
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: narrative of the show, right, he gets stuck because he
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: somehow couldn't jump back or something, and then he actually
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: ages out there in the post apocalypt the future. He
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: becomes an old man, but then somehow when he jumps
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: back into the present time, he's back to being a kid,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and it's something cool there about how it's inherent, So
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: he doesn't really understand how it works, and he's not
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: great at controlling it, which makes sense to me. If
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: this is something like biological then every skill we have
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: is something we have to develop and practice. You know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: even the way you learn to walk. You're pretty clumsy
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: when you're one and two, and then by the time
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you're thirty five you can run and jump and do
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: all this stuff without thinking about it. So for a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: kid with these abilities, it makes sense that they would
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: still be exploring it and still sort of getting grips
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: on how to do it. And so he jumps back
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: into the present time and then he tries to warn
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: everyone that there's going to be an apocalypse, right, because
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: he lived in the apocalypse and so he tried he's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: trying to stop the apocalypse. Yeah, so that's the driving
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: narrative of the show. He has seen the future and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: it is terrible, and he's trying to figure out what
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: he can do to avert it. Right. And he's a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: pretty funny character because he's like an old man stuck
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in the body of a twelve year old. Yeah, and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I never really understood that part, like if he comes
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: back in time, why is his mind still sixty years
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: old or whatever, but his body has become twelve again.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: That never really made sense to me. Yeah, they never
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: explained that, Nor do they explain the poking monkey or
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the robot. It's kind of a show that charges ahead.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: It does, though, you know, there have to be explanations
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: for you to buy in if they want you to care.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: For example, that he can avert this apocalypse, so you
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: have to know something about what the rules are of
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: averting the apocalypse, so you can have a sense for
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: is he succeeding or is he failing or can he
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: just snap his fingers At the end of the season
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and get it done in a second. Right, So he's
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: trying to prevent the apocalypse, which means this is the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: kind of science fiction universe or time travel science fiction
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: universe where you can change what happens in the universe. Right. Yeah,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it's like a single timeline world where you can go
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: back in time and change the future. So it's got
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: these sort of causal loops in it. He goes into
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the future, he learned something, he takes that information back
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: into the present again, and then changes the future. So
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the future that he experienced he hopes never happens. That's
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: kind of the driving narrative of the show, where or
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of these shows, it is like can you
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: change the future? Can you avert the apocalypse that somebody
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: experienced in the future. Yeah, They certainly leave the audience wondering,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And when I'm watching, I'm wondering, like is it technically
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: possible or is it just something that we don't know
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: if he's going to be able to accomplish, Like is
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: it even feasible in his universe to change the future
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: or is this one of those setups like in Harry
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Potter where the time loops are part of the timeline
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: from the beginning, and so everything is inevitable, And so
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I get a little confused watching these like what kind
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: of universe are we in? What are the rules here?
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: So I can know whether to care, Like are they
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: trying for something that's impossible or what do they have
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to accomplish in order to achieve your goals? It gets
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: me a little confused sometimes, right, And in this universe,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: there's also like a like a time bureau, like a
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: big somehow bureaucracy that somehow has the job of making
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: sure that the timeline stay intact. Yeah, they call it
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the Commission, And it's a bunch of like bureaucrats in
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: an office somewhere who are responsible for maintaining the like
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: natural order of time, whatever that means. There's a mysterious
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: organization that has like a plan for how they want
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the future to go, and their agents appear in moments
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: sort of craft that future. And those agents don't have
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the same inherent capabilities that Kid number five does. They
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: transport through time using some mechanical device this briefcase that
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: they used to go from point to point on the
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: timeline right right, And the head of this agency is
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: a person with a fish bowl for a head with
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: a talking goldfish in it. Right. Also, never we're talking
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: about here, folks, there's a character whose head is a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: fish bowl and there's a goldfish in it. The talks
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and Daniels complaining about the time trouble. I did like
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the fish bowl head. That was pretty funny. You give
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the thumbs up. Yeah, that was creative. And the fact
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that this was all from the brains of a punk rocker,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe that does explain a lot. I'm not
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: sure sort of what substances this creator was on when
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it came up with these visions. Oh, that's a that's
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: a hefty accusation there, Daniel. Are you saying you can't
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: be creative about chemical support? Well, I've tried to leave
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it broad, you know, just said substances. Maybe they just
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: need breakfast. I don't know, but I'm trying to leave
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: it broad. Yes. So then, how would you rate the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: time travel in this show? Thumbs up, thumbs out? I
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: guess it depends on the standard. It's definitely a fun,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: freewheeling show and creatively sort of very open world, sort
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of anything can happen. I do get a little confused
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: about whether I should care about what happens, Like, is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: it inevitable? Does it not matter what they do, they're
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: gonna end up in the same future. Do they have
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to worry about things like paradoxes because if you can
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: go back in time and change the past and the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: future that created the past, changing you no longer exists. Um.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: They actually try to address that in this show. Whenever
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you come near like another version of yourself, you suffer
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: from this condition called paradox psychosis, which is sort of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: like plot armor to prevent you from really talking to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: yourself in the past too much. So I would give
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: it sort of like half thumbs up. It's definitely fun
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: to watch, but it's not really like rigorously thought out
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: time travel. M Yeah, I guess without spoiling it too much,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it is possible in this universe to change the future, right,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and so that's what they're talking about, Like if you
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: go back and shoot your grandfather, that's going to create
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: a paradox, and that's gonna somehow drive you crazy. I'm
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: not sure that's my interpretation at the end of the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: first season at least, but I suppose we can't get
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: too much into the details without spoiling it for everybody.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, this show has a half a thumb
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: up or a half a half a thumb down, or
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: half a thumb up and a half a thump down,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: one thumb knuckle up, yes, one thumb knuckle off, all right,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: not to have thumbs up. So just a quarter a
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: quarter of the possible rating you could give it. I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: think that's fair. But it's definitely fun to watch. Yeah,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I'm yeah, totally if you like superheroes, robots, talking monkeys,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: talking fish, and time table also the civil rights movement.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: That's a big part of season two. It's got it
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: all history. I really did enjoy that it touched on
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: big moments in history, you know, the jfk assassination. That
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Makes it feel like it's revealing some
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: truth that we might not have understood about the universe.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: So there's a little bit of the aura of the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: power of science there, which I did enjoy. All right,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: but you're still giving it just one half of thumb.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not changing my review. Maybe you go back in
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: time and watch it again. All right. Well, the next
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: year we're gonna talk about is called The Time Traveler's Wife,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and this is a TV show which is based on
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a movie, which is based on a book. Yes, and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I originally read the book and really enjoyed it. It
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: was very creative. It's totally different kind of time travel
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: fiction from anything I'd ever read before, So I was
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: constantly guessing about what was going to happen next and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: being pleasantly surprised by sort of unpredictable consequences of the
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: rules that the author did lay out for her universe. Yeah,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty interesting book. And it's actually part of
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a kind of a recent genre called speculative fiction, where
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like anything can happen, and it's sort
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: of science fiction an maybe a little fantasy, but they
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: don't like to say that it's science fiction. I think
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: it might just be political. It's people who would like
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to think of themselves writing literature, and they don't like
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to to think of themselves as writing science fiction, which
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: is a genre in itself. So to me, it's like
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: science fiction for people who don't want to say they're
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: reading and writing science fiction. Right, Basically, writers who don't
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: want to be labeled as nerds, I think is what
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: you're saying exactly, Like you can write a love story,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: but you might not want to categorize as a romance
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: novel sort of the same idea. Well, I think maybe
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the descision goes a little bit deeper in that, you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: there are things in speculative fiction like time travel or
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: sometimes cloning or things like that, but they're not trying
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to base it in the world on science. Right, That's
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: why it's not science fiction. It's more like speculative fiction
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: in that, you know, there's a reason science fictween it's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: called science fiction is because a lot of the writers
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: in science fiction try to find a scientific basis for it,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: or at least make things in that world based on science.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: But speculative fiction, I feel like they don't even try to.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Just like, what if there's a love story that has
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: time travel in it? I guess so. I've always categorized
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: science fiction into hard science fiction and soft science fiction,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: hard meaning that there really are rules to the universe
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: that makes some sense and they're trying to give you
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: an explanation for everything that happens, and soft meaning like,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you know, we just sort of swallow it and move on.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure what the distinction there is between
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: soft science fiction and spec fiction. Right, this is more
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: like it's jelly's fiction. Maybe science fiction. Yeah, Anyway, there's
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff in speculative fiction. For example
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of the book The City and the City by China
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Meaville is officially a speculative fiction book, but it's really
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: a fantastic novel. Alright. Well, The Time Traveler's Wife has
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: an interesting plot, which is that there's this man who
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: has a genetic condition that makes him travel through time
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: but sort of randomly, right, he can't control it. Yeah,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: unlike Kid number five in the Umbrella Academy, he has
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: no control over it. He sometimes gets some warning it's
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: like a gusting wind, and he feels a little bit nauseous,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and then he just sort of like disappears and appears
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and another point in time. Right, And they don't even
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: try to explain this, right, Maybe that's the difference between
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: speculative fiction and science fiction. Like there's no effort at
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: all to explain what could be happening to him or
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: what if the basis is biological or aliens or some
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, I mean, like some sort of machine. Right,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: there's no clue, not even an attempt to explain it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I think there's a small effort made. They suggest that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it's genetic, right, because later on when he tries to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: have kids, his children also have the same effect, and
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: so they imagine that it's a genetic thing, which suggests
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: that it's biological. In that sense, it might be similar
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to the Umbrella Academy. Kid number five is created biologically
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: with this power, and so in the same sense, it's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: like a product of his physiology. As much as I
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: hate to say anything that's definitely not aliens, I know
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: they you should invent your own genre science fiction aliens.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: For Danny. That's about fifty of science fiction anyway, so
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: that's good. Keeps you busy reading. But in this story,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: he can't change the past or the future, right or Kenny,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: he can't. Yeah, it's interesting because he knows things about
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the past in the future, he like zaps forward and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: backwards in his own life. He appears, for example, to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: his wife when she's really young, and he knows things
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: about their future together because he's been there. But he
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be able to change the timeline. And
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: that part isn't really very well explained, though I was
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: imagining it was sort of again the Harry Potter structure
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: where he had this timeline with branches and connections on it,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: but it's sort of always been that way. The timeline
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: itself doesn't ever change, just has these sort of loops
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and paths in it. So every time you count one
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of these branches, the same thing happens because it's always
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the same conditions, right, And so did this start when
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: he was little or at some point when he was
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: an adult? Like has he always been hopping around in time?
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And is he growing along the way? He's growing along
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the way, and he's getting older. And so the fascinating
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: sort of narrative structure of this book is that it's
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: told from the point of view not of him, but
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: of his wife, Like what's it like to be married
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: to someone like this? Where you meet him when he's
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: really old because he's apps backwards in time when you're twelve,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and you meet your future husband when he's sixty or whatever,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: or you meet him later on in life and he
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't know you yet because he hasn't experienced that. So
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: it sort of like scrambles their whole relationship and makes
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: it really tricky and complicated. He's definitely moving forward through
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: his life that he takes these occasional jumps forwards and
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: backwards along his own timeline, and then you see ever
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: in the same point in time twice, like in his
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: can his older self meets his younger self. It is
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: possible in that universe. Yeah, there are some scenes where
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: future and present Henry's that's the name of the time
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: traveler can meet each other. I feel like it's a
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: good statement for people out there, like, Hey, you think
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: your spouse is acting like a child and it's never
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: around and is not in the same time as you,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: will check out this story exactly. Are you frustrated in
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: your marriage? Will at least be glad you're not in
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: this one? Be god, you're not the time Traveler's wife.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of fun, but there's also some sadness,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you know, because this is biological. When she does get pregnant,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: she tends to miscarry because the baby also has this
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: capacity though because it's not fully formed, it can't survive
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: jumping out of her womb into some time in the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: future and some time in the past, so she has
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: this series of miscarriages. Yeah, it's kind of a basically
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a love story, Like what would the love story look
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: like if one of the people was a time traveler
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and they couldn't control their their time jumping right. Like
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: sometimes like she is a little girl, meets him when
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: he's really old, which is kind of creepy because he
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: knows that she's going to be his future wife and
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: talks to her. But then sometimes later like she's an
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: adult and he's a little kid. Yeah, exactly, So she
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: sort of falls in love with a very grown up,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: very mature version of him, and then later on in
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: her life she has to meet the immature, young version
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of him, and she's already sort of used to the
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: more grown up version. So they have difference of romantic
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: challenges than most couples do. And that's what I really
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: enjoyed about this book. It's not just like, hey, time
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: travel I'm gonna go back and save the world. It's like,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: what is this like to live through universe where this happens?
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: What are the consequences for real people they are feeling?
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: It was really creative in that sense. Yeah, it's an
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: interesting premise. I don't know which one came from at first,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: but there's a season of Doctor Who that's basically this
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: but taken kind of to the extreme. It's like doctor
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: who has this woman that he's in love with, but
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: she's also a time traveler, and they basically travel all
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: throughout the cosmos from the beginning of time to the
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: end of time, and so they like meet up pretty
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: extreme situations in their different timelines. Interesting, they're not traveling together. No, No,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: she's like I think he meets her later on. But then, yeah,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it's all pretty a headache douzy. Sounds like you need
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a diagram. Yeah, but this one is more maybe little literary,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: or more speculative or more jellow fiction, and it is
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: more a bit of a serious love story, right exactly.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: And so the focus really here is on the characters
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and the impact on them. And you do get the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: sense that there's not much they can do about it.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: They seem sort of resigned to life turning out this way.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: They're not trying to solve his condition. There's none of
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: this like back to the future, let's make sure we
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: fall in love in the right way sort of situation.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: It's more just about the experience of living with somebody
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: whose time is scattered. All right, Well, how many thumbs
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: up would you give this one? I give this one
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: a thumb up. I mean it's sort of soft on
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the science of it. It's not that well explained, and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I think there are some inconsistencies there, because if you
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: can jump into the past, why can't you change it
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: this sort of stuff. But I think it's very clever
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: and creative and exactly the way I always want fiction
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to be, to take me to places that makes sense
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that I didn't anticipate. I think, I know what's going
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: on here. We're we're actually rating things on whether you
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: like them or not, not whether the science is good
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: or not. Is that what's going on here? Is this
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: just really like? What is Daniel like? I mean, it's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: part of it, right, I see. So Daniel gives it
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a one thumb up, which is not the full two
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: thumbs up, but it's better than half of them up,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: at least for now. All right, let's get into our
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: last year that we're talking about here today, And this
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: one is a doozy. It's so complicated. Daniel had to
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: stop watching it because it was giving him a take.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: So let's see how many thumbs that one's worth. But first,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: let's take another quick break. We're talking about the science
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of time travel television or at least the Daniel's taste
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: of time travel television. And I watched a lot of
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: science fiction, and every time the show comes on that
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: hals time traveling, I'm like, please be good, Please be good,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Please be good. Well, in terms of the science, I
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: feel like when we talked about this in a previous
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: episode two about how there's kind of two things, like
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: one time travel where you can change the future or
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: the past, and there's time travel where you can't change
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the future, like there's one set of events that happened,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: and even if you go back in time, you're just
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: gonna do the thing that you were supposed to do.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And uh, I know as a scientist you don't like
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the ones that break that rule. But it sounds like
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that's not really related to which television shows you like.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: There's a loose relationship there. I mean, if they break
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: those rules and they can just do anything at any point,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: then I just sort of stopped caring about what happens
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: to the characters. But also, you know, there is still
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: room for creativity in the whole structure of a time
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: travel story. I do sometimes see movies where I'm like, wow,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I never thought of time travel that way. You know.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: An example is the movie Primer. Primer is a really
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: creative time travel story that doesn't really fall into either
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: of those two categories you described. Maybe we'll have to
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: talk about it when we do the time travel movie
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: episode in the future. Wait, Primer, isn't it the one
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: where you can change the future? In Primary you can
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: change the future, but within certain limits based on sort
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: of like how far back in the past you built
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: time machine portals. Well, the thing that always gets me
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: about time travel in fiction or in general is that
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: if you travel back in time, the Earth is always
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: moving because the Earth's going around the Sun, and the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Sun is going around the Milky Way, and the Milky
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Way is moving. So if you only change your time
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: cord in it, you're gonna end up floating in the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: middle space if your time trauble right. And yet somehow
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: in these in shows and films, when you travel back
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: in time, you're still on Earth, sometimes even in the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: same place. Wouldn't that be a super complicated kind of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: like uh, cosmological coordinate calculation to end up in the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: same place. Well, I think it's a lot of interesting issues.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: They're like number one, if you can travel through time
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: then in principle, you should also be able to travel
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: through space. Whatever technology is allowing you to move from
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: an arbitrary time point to another probably also allows you
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: to move from a space time point to another space
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: time point. You bring up another point, which is like,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: would it be complicated to figure out where that is?
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: That's actually sort of a fuzzy question theoretically, because there's
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: no absolute locations in space, right, and so like, how
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: do you compare a location at one time to a
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: location at another time? Not even sure really what that means. Well,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: we think there's no absolute space. We think that there's
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: no absolute space. Yeah, we're talking about physics of the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: universe here, but you know, yeah, in an arbitrary universe,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: maybe there is absolute space, in which case that would
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: make sense. But you could like define your origin to
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: be your head. You're at zero zero, So you jump
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: back in time, you're still at zero zero. Where you
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: could define the origin to be the center of the earth, right,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and so you were at zero zero, is still at
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: zero zero. The fact that the Earth is moving relative
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: to other stuff out there, why should that be relevant
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to your time travel device? You know? And then there's
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the third wrinkle, which is like, well, what we're really
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: talking about in time travel here is not you traveling
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: back in time, but you somehow rewinding the rest of
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the universe backwards in time without rewinding you. So like
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: what happens when you get in the time machine, it's
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: not like the time machine is moving the stuff inside
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: of it backwards in time. It's like it's somehow rewinding
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the universe outside of it, which is even more bonkers.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: So none of it makes sense if you start to
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: think too hard about it. It really also falls apart.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why they call it fiction. But the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: last year we're talking about here today is called Dark,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: which also streams on Netflix. Right, basically you only watch Netflix.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Is that what's going on? Because I think the time
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: travel is a wife? Isn't that also Netflix? That one's HBO?
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I watched HBO. Also, Yeah, okay, so this one's called Dark,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and I've never heard of this one, but you said
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: it's pretty popular. It's pretty popular. It's in German and
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: with subtitles, and for a while at least it was
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: one of the top shows on Netflix in Germany, in
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the United States and on the Discord server. A bunch
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: of people wanted us to talk about it. There's a
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: lot of sort of physics layering here, Like they use
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the Higgs boson and nuclear power and wormholes and all
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: sorts of like physics words to try to give the
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: impression that the time travel in this show is like
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: realistic or scientific. So then would you categorize it as
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: hard science fiction or saw science fiction or jelly science.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's soft science fiction masquerading as hard science fiction.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing where they give an explanation,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: but if you know anything about the words they use
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: in the explanation, it doesn't really make any sense at all. Well,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: they are German, you know, they're probably very exacting about that.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: It has to be hard science for you know, like
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: I watched shows and somebody says, well, wait, how is
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: that possible? And somebody else says, well, due to the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Heisenberg uncertainty principle of the quantum field theory, and they go, oh, yeah, okay, thanks,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to me. What are you talking about? It's sort of
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing, right, because you're a physicist, and
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: so I wonder, like, how many shows do the same thing,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: but for like architecture or biology, and you're like, oh, yeah,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: sure that makes sense. I'll never know, right unless I
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: listen to the podcast where an architect reviews all of
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: these TV shows. They could never build that subway station.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Give it two rulers up. You'll have to go back
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: in time and study architecture. Me and George Costanza, All right, well,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: maybe step us through. What is the basic plot line
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: of this show. This show is about a mysterious cave
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: in the woods, and one of the characters disappears when
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: they go inside the cave, and it's sort of this
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: multiple plot line mystery. You have plot lines in two
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, you plot lines in nineteen fifty three, you
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: have plot lines in six And it turns out that
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: going into this cave, you enter a wormhole that can
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: take you sort of backwards or forwards in time, back
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to the same cave, back to the same cave. Yeah,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: so it's a sort of wormhole that has an opening
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the same location on the Earth, but different points in time. Wait, like,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: you go in, it gets dark, and you keep walking
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and you come out the same cave but at a
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: different time on Earth. Yeah, exactly, Like how do you
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: have to wait? They're in the cave? How does this work?
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: There's a portal that you walk through, and according to
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the show, this was created during a sort of accident
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: and a nuclear facility sort of adjacent to the tunnels
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: in this cave. So somehow this nuclear physics experiment and
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: blame it on the scientists, created this rift in time.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: And so if you walk through this cave, it's sort
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of mysterious. They don't show it to you, and the
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: show is called dark after all, They just sort of
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: show you coming out of the cave at another time.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Now does it always take it to the same time
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: or does it always take you the same number of
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: years in the future or past or or is it rents?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: So there are these fixed end points to the wormhole
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that are thirty three years apart, so in nineteen fifty three,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, two thousand, nineteen, and sometimes you even
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: get glimpses of the further future. So it seems like
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: for some reason, this wormhole connects all these points in
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: time that are fixed times apart. But like it's so
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: meaning like if I go walk into the cave at
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: any point in time, I can only come out in
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: certain years. Yeah, exactly. If you go in nineteen eighty six,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: you can't come out in nineteen eighty four or nineteen
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: eighty two, but you can't come out in nineteen fifty
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: three or in two thousand nineteen. I see, But what
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: did like two people going at the same time. Wouldn't
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: they all come out at the same instant. Well, the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: story is taking place at these times, right, If you
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: go in in nineteen eighty six, you come out in
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three. There's thirty three year increments. Presumably the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: story goes on, and if you jumped into it in
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety you would then come out in nineteen fifty seven.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: So the thirty three years apart. But the wormhole ends
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: are not fixed in time. It's not like the wormhole
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: ends appear at nineteen eighty six and appear in two
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: thousand nine and teen. The portals of the wormhole are
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: also moving forwards in time. M Yeah, that's what I meant,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Like there's a fixed number of years that the wormhole jumps. Yeah, exactly,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: it moves you forwards or backwards a certain integer and
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: multiples of thirty three forwards or backwards. So like if
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: you go in, you might go three three years in
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the future or thirty three years in the past. Yeah, exactly.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: And there's this original wormhole created by this nuclear incident,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: which is sort of left fuzzy. But then later there's
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: also a group of people who are constructing devices that
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: let them travel forwards and backwards in time, and I
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: think it's sort of left unclear whether they can control
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: that gap or not, or whether it lets them just
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: move forwards and backwards in time without going into the cave. Right,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: So there's a natural time travel device, and there's also
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: artificial time tratle device in the story. You know, it's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: sort of all artificial because the one in the cave
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: is created by a nuclear incident, which definitely comes from
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: human scientific experiments, right, but that one sort of fixed
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: in place. And then there's a mobile time travel device,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: this clockwork box that some people build so they don't
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: have to be in the cave to travel forwards and
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: backwards in time. They made their own cave. And who
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: are these people that made the cave. I don't want
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: to give any spoilers, not caveman, cave man. But the
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: funny thing is that in order to have this box
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: that can move forwards and backwards in time. They need
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: some sort of like extra physics, right, They don't use
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the wormhole to do this, so the writers needed some
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: extra layer of physics, so they describe it as being
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: powered by the God particle. Interesting, wait, so there's multiple
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: technologies here that can make tried preble possible. There's one
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: that's a wormhole, and then there's one that uses the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Higgs boson. Basically, Yeah, they never say higgs boson. They
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: call it the God particle, and they actually show it
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to you on the screen, like we see the God
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: particle on TV, and it looks like this sort of frothing,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: swarming mass of blue and black light. It's kind of
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: creative visually, but you know, of course it's nonsense, like
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the higgs boson is not the God particle first of all,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and the higgs boson doesn't look anything like what they've
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: just gribed it on TV. And the Higgs boson in
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: no way would allow you to travel through time or
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: create wormholes. It's just like a phrase in science that
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: you know that I know, yes, because it is the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: God particle. I mean, you're saying it's not the Higgs
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: boson so it could be some kind of particle that
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: we have yet to discover, right, yeah, all right. If
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the god particle is not supposed to be the Higgs boson,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: if it's some crazy future thing that create wormholes and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: plot devices, then sure it all makes sense. Didn't physicist
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: for a while thing neutrinos traveled back in time? No
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: nobody ever thought new Trina's travel back in time. There
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: was a moment when some people claim that neutrinos traveled
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: faster than the speed of light, but that was doing
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a miscalibration of their clocks. All right, Well back to
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the show. So there is a cave that's a warm hole,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and then there's somebody meant at a box that somebody
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: uses particle physics to what to teleport whatever goes in
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: into another time or teleport the whole box where you
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: can use the box and if you set the box
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: and you and the box moved forwards and backwards in time.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: It's a lot like the briefcase in the Umbrella Academy.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I see, and it's this box blue And does it
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: look like a British telephone? No, it's much smaller. It
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: looks sort of like an old fashioned mechanical device the
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: whole show. I wouldn't say it's steam punky, but it's
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: more like mechanical than electrical. Like you crank it up,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: it goes, and then you and the box somehow travel
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: to another time exactly, And how do they use all
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: this time traveling? So on top of this, there's an
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: incredibly complex plot because people are traveling forwards and backwards
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in time. Some of the characters in the future are
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: actually the same as the characters in the past, but
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you just don't know it. And they like become their
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: own fathers, and like it's very complicated what they become
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: their own fathers. I mean, again, I don't want to
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: spoil too much, but did you already spoil it? So
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: let's get into this. How does this work? Like I
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: go back into time and I and I have a
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: kid with somebody who happens to be my mother. Doesn't
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: that break all rules of biology? Yeah? And that's not
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the smallest problem with the show? All right, let's keep
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: going then, And there's also some very difficult to watch
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: scenes where they do like painful experiments on humans as
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: they're developing these time travel boxes to see if they
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: get them to work. This is like mysterious organization that's
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: trying to build these clockwork devices for reasons we don't
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: really understand. Sometimes we get glimpses of a post apocalyptic
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: future dominated by futuristic weapons and the whole world is
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: at war, and we get a sense that maybe people
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: are trying to prevent that future. It's very complicated, and
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I watched a season and a half of this and
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I had to start taking notes and drawing diagrams to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: keep tracking, like what is going on? Who is what,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and what do they want? And eventually I just got
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: so confused. I did stopped watching. Wow, it was too
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: much for your physicist brain, or like you just lost interest.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: It was just too much for me. Like I can
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: watch ten different shows at once and keep all the
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: threads in my head, so when like episode nine comes on,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember what's happening. I care
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: about this again, But this one I was just lost.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I even tried just watching this show by itself for
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: a week to like try to keep track of the threads.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: I even started reading the wiki pages that the fans
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: put up to explain everything, and I just couldn't even rock.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: It was the problem that every time you turned on
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the show, the previously on Dark took like an hour
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: just to explain what happened before. It was just that
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I couldn't even recognize any of the characters in any
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: of the scenes. I felt like there was stuff that
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: was happening that was really momentous if you knew who
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: these people were, But I just had no idea, why
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: are we watching this? Who are these people? What does
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: that mean that this person just shot that person? Well,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: what's the overarch king arc of the show? Or who
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: are we supposed to follow? Who are we supposed to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: care about in this show? Is there one time traveler
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: that you were following or a group of people that
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: discover the cave. It's a whole interconnected family and the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: consequences for that family and everybody they know. One of
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the initial driving questions is like, what happened to this kid?
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Disappeared into the cave? Turns that he went back in time, etcetera, etcetera.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: He was living as an older version of himself the
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: whole time. But then it morphs into this like broadened
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: narrative about preventing this post apocalyptic future and preventing these
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: clockwork box people from somehow taking over the world with
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the god particle, and so it becomes so broad and
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: complicated that I couldn't even follow the plot. How many
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: seasons has it been going on? For many more seasons
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: than I've watched, and the season's happened in chronological order?
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Do you have to watch the whole show and from
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: season one through forward or can you skip around? I
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: do not recommend skipping around, And if it's not going
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: to make sense, might as well, right, And maybe it's
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: just me. I know a lot of people enjoy this show.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: A lot of folks on the Discord server are really
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: into this show. So maybe it just took paying more
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: attention than I was able to give it late at
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: night when I watched TV. Or maybe you just need
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: to speak German right right, Or maybe you're just like
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: a dog who you know, is b beyond the human
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: beings or just your you know, neural capacity. Yeah, exactly,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just a dog barking at the night sky when
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: I watched this show at the television. Well, so it's
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: so complicated and made a particle physicist confused and unable
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: to follow. How many thumbs up would you give that
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: this one. I don't give any thumbs up. Yeah, I
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: couldn't even finish watching it unfortunately, zero thumbs up. Well,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: let me maybe put it a different way. What do
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: you think of the science and this the signs consistent?
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Is it like the good kind of time travel where
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: you get would that respect causality? Or is it the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: kind of time travel that doesn't respect causality. I think
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the science of the show is basically gobbledygook. I mean,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: when they started using the god particle to explain stuff
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: that didn't make any sense, I was like, yeah, we're done.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: It insulted you personally, and so you discounted the rest
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: of it, even though apparently it's very popular. You're like,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: you pushed my button, man, forget it. I give it
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: no thumbs Yes I would. I have an abuse of
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the higgs boson button, and this show pressed it right.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: So this whole show, that this podcast episode, it's not
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: really even the science of time travel or what you
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: like is whether or not a show mentions the Higgs
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: boson and cause it a god particle or not. That's
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: really the thumbs up Earth of down Here. Yeah. Look,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: if somebody out there is a writer for a science
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: fiction show, and you're tempted to use the Higgs boson
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: to solve your plot holes. Please just don't because if
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: you do, I'm not going to watch it. But they
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: didn't use the god particle. It's just maybe in German
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: it's just a mistranslation. Then maybe you're just projecting your
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: own problems with it. Yeah, maybe it really is just
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the Da Vinci code. Yeah yeah, maybe really in the
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: original German it means the goddess particle or you know,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: the d D particle. Okay, you know what, I'm gonna
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: learn German and then I'll watch it in the original
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: language to give it a fresh take that sounds fair,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: and also learn some architecture and maybe some biology, because
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I feel like if you were a biologist, this show
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: would make you turn it off right away, Like don't
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: they know how DNA works? You can't. You can't sorry,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: your own yourself with another person. If you use the
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: god particle, maybe you can. Oh, there you go. Maybe
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the uses the the god dam yeahvolves every problem and
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: it's cool and looks blue and black on the screen.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're also your wife in this episode. Maybe you
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: are your own time traveling god particle. Wife. There you
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: go that's dark and uses an umbrella. There'll be the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: ultimate show. Maybe then you'll give it a thumps up,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'll give it at least one episode.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think the big takeaway here is
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: that time travel is tricky but also irresistibly fun to
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: think about and to write stories about, because I guess
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: we all wonder how this universe works, and we're all
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: wondering how far can you push it? Right, Like, if
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: time travel is possible, what would happen if you made
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a box that could do it or if someone had
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the power to do it exactly? And it's totally worthwhile,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: mean creative about these things because physicists don't really understand them,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: and it's fun to think about what the universe might
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: be like if we could break some of these rules,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: like mentioning the Higgs boson, which is a big no
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: note here, I guess on the podcast, don't break that rule.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Don't mention the eggs boson if you don't know what
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: you're talking about. That is definitely my rule. Oh man,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: now I'm tempted. Every time you say something could be aliens,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like Pep, what if it's just the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Higgs boson, I mean, the God particle. Just to push
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: your button. Did you're gonna give us thumbs down to
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: our own podcast? No? No, that's creating a paradox or
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: a paradoctor in philosophy. I'm gonna get paradox psychosis, You're
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: gonna get paradox. All right, Well, regardless, we recommend these
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: shows that you check it out yourself and see if
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: you like it and whether the time travel in it
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: or the lack of time travel or the lack of
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: explanation or over explanation for the time travel appeals to you. Yeah,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: and as you check out these shows, serve yourself a
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: nice scoop of ice cream with extra Higgs bosons on top.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: That's right, just don't call it the God ice cream.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, see
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Heart Ready or more podcast from my Heart Radio, Visit
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H