Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / How was antimatter discovered?

Transcript

How was antimatter discovered? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, or Hey, did you know that there are physics truthers? What?
0:13
Speaker 1: I know there are particle theorists, but I didn't know
0:15
Speaker 1: there are conspiracy theorists. The conspiracy theorists some of them
0:21
Speaker 1: don't believe that antimatter is a real thing, so they're
0:24
Speaker 1: anti antimatter. All matter matters. What do they just think
0:29
Speaker 1: that you made up this concept of antimatter? Yeah, it
0:33
Speaker 1: turns out a lot of people don't think antimatter is real.
0:36
Speaker 1: They don't believe in it. Well, maybe they just need proof,
0:39
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they're not crazy, they're not bananas. Well
0:42
Speaker 1: it turns out the proof is bananas. Who are bananas antimatter? No,
0:48
Speaker 1: but it turns out bananas produce antimatter. Hi am Jorge,
1:08
Speaker 1: I'm made particle physicist, and I'm Daniel. I'm a cartoonist,
1:12
Speaker 1: but I'm not the author of PhD comics. And those
1:15
Speaker 1: are the anti versions of the real us. The host
1:18
Speaker 1: of this podcast, Daniel and Jorge explain the universe de
1:21
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Although since you've been listening
1:25
Speaker 1: to me talk and talk and talk for all these years,
1:27
Speaker 1: by now you're basically a particle physicist. That's right. I
1:30
Speaker 1: feel like I talked to you more than you probably
1:32
Speaker 1: talked to your grad students, so probably should give me
1:35
Speaker 1: a PhDs. Don't tell my grad students that do you
1:40
Speaker 1: allow them to hear hear this podcast? Do you let
1:42
Speaker 1: them out of their basement every once in a while.
1:44
Speaker 1: I'm curious if they listen. I think I've mentioned it
1:46
Speaker 1: to them. Actually, some of them appear in our interviews
1:49
Speaker 1: from time to time. Oh, I see people who can't.
1:55
Speaker 1: That's right. I wonder if it's extra stressful for them
1:58
Speaker 1: if they say no, Are you going to judge them
2:00
Speaker 1: based on what they know or don't know? No, I
2:02
Speaker 1: think it's extra stressful if they say yes, and then
2:04
Speaker 1: I asked them a particle physics question they really should
2:07
Speaker 1: know the answer to. Then they're on the spot, and
2:09
Speaker 1: you have them on tape. I have them on tape exactly,
2:12
Speaker 1: but the podcast universe to listen, that's right. But the
2:15
Speaker 1: goal of this podcast is not just to embarrass my
2:18
Speaker 1: graduate students and put them on the spot, but to
2:20
Speaker 1: teach all you people out there about the amazing universe
2:23
Speaker 1: of particles and stars and bananas that we all get
2:27
Speaker 1: to live in. That's right, All the things that exist
2:29
Speaker 1: out there in the universe and all the things that
2:31
Speaker 1: maybe don't exist or that exist in a constant state
2:35
Speaker 1: of denial, that's right, or things that currently only exist
2:41
Speaker 1: in the minds of particle theorists, ideas about what the
2:44
Speaker 1: universe might be like that we don't know if they
2:47
Speaker 1: are real, right, because even the things that might not
2:50
Speaker 1: be real tell us a little bit about how things
2:53
Speaker 1: really are and why they are there where they are right,
2:55
Speaker 1: that's right. And in physics we have this sort of
2:57
Speaker 1: cycle of people making predictions and saying, what if the
3:00
Speaker 1: universe works this way, and then people going out to
3:02
Speaker 1: check and say, hey, it turns out you were wrong.
3:05
Speaker 1: Go back to the drawing board. And there are many
3:07
Speaker 1: many beautiful theories out there that people came up with
3:10
Speaker 1: that they were convinced we're real, but then we're confronted
3:13
Speaker 1: by the evidence that they're not. That's right. There are
3:16
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists. Even in physics. There are people who are
3:20
Speaker 1: skeptical about the things that physicists have found. Right, even
3:24
Speaker 1: physicists themselves who are skeptical, Well, it's our job to
3:27
Speaker 1: be skeptical, but we like to think that's sort of
3:28
Speaker 1: a reason skepticism. You know, when presented with the evidence,
3:32
Speaker 1: we don't come up with an even more elaborate conspiracy
3:35
Speaker 1: theory to deny it. We accepted, we move on. But
3:38
Speaker 1: it's true that some of these ideas that are in
3:40
Speaker 1: the minds of physicists, they can be kind of hard
3:42
Speaker 1: to accept, and some people still out there think that
3:44
Speaker 1: they're just ideas, that they're not actually real, right, because
3:48
Speaker 1: it's kind of an interesting cycle in physics where you
3:50
Speaker 1: might see something in nature and then you come up
3:52
Speaker 1: with the theory, and then you do an experiment that
3:55
Speaker 1: validates or disproves this theory, and then you come up
3:58
Speaker 1: with more theories, and so it's like this weird and
4:01
Speaker 1: interesting loop, and so it's hard to tell sometimes where
4:05
Speaker 1: ideas come from. Yeah, especially in particle physics, we seem
4:09
Speaker 1: to obscolet between two modes. One is where theorists are
4:12
Speaker 1: leading the field, where they have ideas for what they
4:15
Speaker 1: think is happening in the universe, and then experimentalists have
4:17
Speaker 1: to go out and basically check those ideas. And the
4:20
Speaker 1: other mode is where experimentalists are taking the lead, where
4:23
Speaker 1: we're out there finding crazy stuff nobody understands and theorists
4:27
Speaker 1: are scrambling to keep up to explain all the bizarre
4:30
Speaker 1: stuff that we've uncovered. So what do you think it's
4:32
Speaker 1: that determines who's taking the lead. Is it like just
4:35
Speaker 1: who has more free time in their hands to play
4:38
Speaker 1: around and discover things, or who's more suspicious of the other.
4:43
Speaker 1: It's just up to nature. It's just up to how
4:45
Speaker 1: much stuff there is to discover. You know, in the
4:48
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties, they were discovering a new particle every
4:51
Speaker 1: time they turned on the accelerator. They called it the
4:53
Speaker 1: era of the particle zoo. Whereas these days it's like
4:56
Speaker 1: decades between particles, and that gives the theorists a lot
5:00
Speaker 1: out of time to be creative, to come up with
5:02
Speaker 1: new ideas, to say, maybe it's this, maybe it's that,
5:05
Speaker 1: because we don't have anything to sort of constrain them
5:07
Speaker 1: right now, we're in a really fury driven mode of
5:10
Speaker 1: the field. Is there a song for the particles? I
5:12
Speaker 1: feel like there should be a song particles, particle zoo
5:16
Speaker 1: doing the things particles do. There you go wow on
5:22
Speaker 1: the spot, jingle making that's right by. They might be
5:25
Speaker 1: particle physicists PhD and jingle engineering, granted, but it's interesting
5:32
Speaker 1: history right in the fifties, we were discovering new particles
5:34
Speaker 1: nobody understood. And in the very early days of particle physics,
5:38
Speaker 1: like the first particle was discovered, right, that wasn't predicted,
5:41
Speaker 1: it was discovered, and then the photon was like thought
5:44
Speaker 1: up to explain an experiment that people had seen. So
5:47
Speaker 1: the very beginning it was driven by experiments. But these days,
5:50
Speaker 1: of course it's driven more my theory. And so today
5:52
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about one such thing that has been
5:56
Speaker 1: seen or had that some people have seen in nature
5:59
Speaker 1: and physics, but maybe some physicists don't really believe that
6:04
Speaker 1: it exists. Oh, I think most physicists believe it, but
6:06
Speaker 1: I just wonder about the general public. Oh so it's just, um,
6:10
Speaker 1: you say true things, you mean physicists or people? I
6:14
Speaker 1: mean people, because physicists or not people. Is that what
6:19
Speaker 1: you're saying. You just trapped me. You totally led me
6:22
Speaker 1: into a trap there, Daniel, Are you a person or
6:26
Speaker 1: a physicist? Take one? No, I think that you know,
6:31
Speaker 1: this is really fascinating because it's one of the first
6:33
Speaker 1: things that was ever predicted before it was seen. This
6:36
Speaker 1: is the first time somebody said, maybe this crazy new
6:39
Speaker 1: thing does exist out there. In the universe, somebody go
6:42
Speaker 1: look and sort of sort of the dawn of the
6:44
Speaker 1: New era. And it's taken a long time for people
6:47
Speaker 1: to believe that it's real, and some people out there
6:51
Speaker 1: still don't. So I guess at some point this was
6:54
Speaker 1: a topic where some people thought it was true, but
6:57
Speaker 1: a lot of physicists maybe didn't think that we would
7:00
Speaker 1: see it or that it would be proven to exist.
7:02
Speaker 1: That's right. Between the prediction and its discovery. It was contentious,
7:06
Speaker 1: and it's a pretty interesting topic because it talks about
7:10
Speaker 1: a huge part of the universe that is both intriguing
7:14
Speaker 1: and super dangerous. Yeah, and fascinating. And you hear all
7:18
Speaker 1: about it in popular culture, like it's everywhere. It's even
7:20
Speaker 1: in Dan Brown novels, so you know it's got to
7:23
Speaker 1: be cool. Oh man, it must be true then if
7:26
Speaker 1: it's a Dan Brown never Yeah, I think those are
7:28
Speaker 1: all heavily researched. The Da Vinci particle. All right, Well,
7:36
Speaker 1: so today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question,
7:44
Speaker 1: how do we know antimatter is a thing or an
7:47
Speaker 1: anti thing? What's the correct way to how do we
7:50
Speaker 1: know antimatter is not a thing? Or how do we
7:53
Speaker 1: not know that antimatter isn't not a thing? That's put
7:57
Speaker 1: it more more negative, No, I and anti that kind
8:00
Speaker 1: of use of language, Daniel. I think that often the
8:03
Speaker 1: history of particle physics and the topic of particle physics
8:05
Speaker 1: is framed from a theoretical point of view, like what
8:08
Speaker 1: is our understanding of the particles? That it's out there?
8:11
Speaker 1: And that's cool, But for me, I'm an experimentalist. I
8:13
Speaker 1: want to know, like, how do we know these things?
8:15
Speaker 1: Like you say, these particles exist, how do we know
8:18
Speaker 1: that it's real? What experiment? What? What the thing happened
8:21
Speaker 1: that proved to us that it had to be there,
8:23
Speaker 1: that it's part of the universe. So we did a
8:26
Speaker 1: podcast episode about how do we know even particles exist?
8:29
Speaker 1: About the electron and how do we know photons exist
8:31
Speaker 1: in this kind of stuff? And and why are their muans?
8:34
Speaker 1: And so this is sort of in that series of
8:36
Speaker 1: like telling people about the moment when we confronted something
8:40
Speaker 1: that proved to us that this new thing had to
8:42
Speaker 1: be a part of our universe. Yeah, and so antimatter
8:45
Speaker 1: is a is a word or two words put together,
8:48
Speaker 1: and we kind of know it's a thing, but we
8:52
Speaker 1: were wondering how much people out there know about it,
8:55
Speaker 1: or that they know that it is a thing and
8:57
Speaker 1: not just one of those crazy physics ideas that are
9:02
Speaker 1: floating around. Yeah. So I went around and my goal
9:05
Speaker 1: was to ask people if they knew how anti matter
9:09
Speaker 1: was discovered. But I had to back up because it
9:11
Speaker 1: turns out a lot of people didn't even know that
9:13
Speaker 1: anti matter actually had been discovered, so they didn't know
9:17
Speaker 1: that it was a thing. Yeah, that was so surprising
9:20
Speaker 1: to me. But listen to these interviews and thinks to yourself,
9:23
Speaker 1: do you know how we discovered antimatter? Here's what people
9:26
Speaker 1: had to say. I know about about it, I don't
9:28
Speaker 1: know how they discovered it now, No, I don't have
9:31
Speaker 1: heard of it, and like science fiction and stuff, um,
9:34
Speaker 1: but I don't know how the logistics of it would
9:38
Speaker 1: even be possible. So I'm not too sure. But I know,
9:41
Speaker 1: like the phrase I've heard it like a lot of
9:43
Speaker 1: is it a real thing or just science fiction? I like,
9:46
Speaker 1: it's kind of like theory, So it's not too sure.
9:49
Speaker 1: I think they are because I read it something about
9:53
Speaker 1: it keeping the universe from expanding too fast? So how
9:58
Speaker 1: do we know anti matter is a real thing? Like?
10:00
Speaker 1: How was it discovered. I don't know exactly, but my
10:04
Speaker 1: best guess is that that it could be shown through
10:08
Speaker 1: like how the universe expands. But it seems like it's
10:11
Speaker 1: being limited by a certain the end. It's predicted to
10:16
Speaker 1: the antimatter Right now, it's all theoretical, isn't I don't like,
10:20
Speaker 1: have we actually done anything with like large hangar clider
10:23
Speaker 1: as far as any matter? Yeah, I'm not sure. I
10:26
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what that means for now.
10:29
Speaker 1: It's it is just an idea surreal thing. Okay, how
10:33
Speaker 1: do we know it exists? By calculation? To make your
10:41
Speaker 1: to accommodate the amount of our understanding of matter in
10:47
Speaker 1: the universe? Do you think matter? I thought there was
10:50
Speaker 1: some anti matter dirt matter connection, Okay, not that I'm
10:53
Speaker 1: aware of. Don't know. Don't antimatter Well, it's like I'm
10:59
Speaker 1: kind of doesn't exist. I mean, if it were. No, wait,
11:04
Speaker 1: because it goes to show that I know nothing about
11:06
Speaker 1: particle physics. But there's something. I mean, listen to my
11:11
Speaker 1: podcast for office. I would love to listen to your podcast,
11:14
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that that there's something I would learn
11:17
Speaker 1: from it. Antimatter is a real thing as a it's
11:22
Speaker 1: a counterpart to a regular matter rights. How do we
11:26
Speaker 1: know it exists because to create matter, you have to
11:30
Speaker 1: also create antimatter, and it's been a proven reaction, and
11:35
Speaker 1: we know that it exists despite not being able to
11:39
Speaker 1: necessarily detect. I have not heard of that term actually,
11:43
Speaker 1: all right, So it sort of seems like people are
11:47
Speaker 1: skeptical about it, or they weren't. Not a lot of
11:50
Speaker 1: people seem sure that it is a thing, Like they
11:53
Speaker 1: talk about it like it's a theoretical thing, or it's
11:56
Speaker 1: not proven, or it's an idea. Maybe actually I just
12:00
Speaker 1: realized maybe it's because it's in a Dan Brown novel
12:03
Speaker 1: and they thought, oh well, then it must be b Yes,
12:06
Speaker 1: thank you, Dan Brown. And that should be called like
12:10
Speaker 1: anti science communication anti science. I don't think he claims
12:15
Speaker 1: to be a scientist or claims to be a work
12:19
Speaker 1: of nonfiction. No, But you know, when he made that movie,
12:22
Speaker 1: of course, we're referring to Angels and Demons, Dan Brown's
12:25
Speaker 1: novel about an anti matter bomb, in which the science
12:27
Speaker 1: is mostly right actually about antime matter. But when they
12:30
Speaker 1: made yeah they did, um yeah, yeah, the science in
12:33
Speaker 1: there's is mostly correct. But they made that movie. They
12:36
Speaker 1: filmed it actually where I was working at the time,
12:38
Speaker 1: because I was at Sern and they were filming the
12:41
Speaker 1: movie at Stern and uh, and then I wanted to
12:44
Speaker 1: get a camera. What's that did you get? Did you
12:46
Speaker 1: get a camera? Next? With Tom Hanks? Only the most
12:49
Speaker 1: v I P of v I P has got to
12:50
Speaker 1: give Tom Hanks a tour. So I was like, not
12:52
Speaker 1: even in the top five list of people who would
12:55
Speaker 1: get to have lunch with Tom Hanks, unfortunately, But now
12:58
Speaker 1: now you now you would be making the top Yeah,
13:03
Speaker 1: I'm really moving up. But the cool thing was when
13:06
Speaker 1: I watched the movie, they had taken our like normal
13:09
Speaker 1: boring workspaces, which which is basically just a bunch of
13:12
Speaker 1: computers and screens, and they had science fictioned it up,
13:15
Speaker 1: so people had like cool heads of displays and like
13:18
Speaker 1: fancy interfaces with their computers, las, lasers and scanning devices.
13:26
Speaker 1: And I thought, that looks pretty cool. We should upgrade
13:28
Speaker 1: the way our office works to look like the movie.
13:30
Speaker 1: You're like taking your pocket and looking at a metal key.
13:33
Speaker 1: You're like reality versus world. But it was cool to
13:38
Speaker 1: see what like Hollywood's best designers would do with my office.
13:42
Speaker 1: Pretty cool, all right, So it seems like people are
13:44
Speaker 1: not quite sure that it's real. They think it's maybe theoretical.
13:47
Speaker 1: Do you think maybe they were confusing antimatter with other
13:51
Speaker 1: things like dark matter or yes, absolutely, I hear that
13:55
Speaker 1: a lot. Actually, I think that people know that there's
13:58
Speaker 1: something out there is a miss dearious counterpart to matter.
14:01
Speaker 1: And it turns out there's sort of a few mysterious
14:04
Speaker 1: counterparts to matter. Right, there's this whole antimatteric thing. It's
14:07
Speaker 1: dark matter that there's super particles, and so there's antimatters,
14:11
Speaker 1: there's quasi matter, there's matter, there's exotic matter. You know, yeah,
14:17
Speaker 1: I know that's a real potentially could be a thing thing.
14:20
Speaker 1: Splatter matter, there's mats matter, and now you're making me
14:26
Speaker 1: matter matter um. And so there's sort of a lot
14:29
Speaker 1: of different ideas to keep track of. And so if
14:31
Speaker 1: you're not like a particle physicists like you are, then
14:34
Speaker 1: maybe it's hard to keep your finger on which ones
14:36
Speaker 1: are real and which ones are theoretical. Right, And I
14:39
Speaker 1: have to say, antimatter does sound a little ridiculous, does it.
14:42
Speaker 1: It sounds very like nineties fifties science fitching. It's antimatter,
14:47
Speaker 1: it's like matter, but it's anti The whole concept is absurd, right,
14:50
Speaker 1: But as we said on this podcast, absurdity is no
14:52
Speaker 1: obstacle to reality. Right. Turns out the universe is kind
14:56
Speaker 1: of bonkers. Yeah, I feel that way every time I
14:59
Speaker 1: read the news every morning these days. It used to
15:02
Speaker 1: be just physics, and now it's also politics. Is bomb beers.
15:07
Speaker 1: But anyways, um so yeah, let's talk about anti matter.
15:10
Speaker 1: And we have a whole episode about anti matter. If
15:12
Speaker 1: you scrolled through our archive, you can find that episode
15:14
Speaker 1: and learn a little bit more about it. But here
15:16
Speaker 1: we'll just kind of go over quickly about what it
15:19
Speaker 1: is and how it's not actually dark matter. That's right.
15:22
Speaker 1: Antimatter is not dark matter. It's a whole other, enormous,
15:26
Speaker 1: fascinating puzzle about the universe. Anti matter is a statement
15:29
Speaker 1: about particles and patterns. It's noticing that particles come in pairs.
15:35
Speaker 1: And so some of the particles that we've discovered, the electron,
15:38
Speaker 1: the muan, the corks, there's another particle that looks just
15:42
Speaker 1: like them, except it's the opposite in a couple of ways.
15:46
Speaker 1: And so, for example, the electron is a particle. We
15:48
Speaker 1: know it, we love it, we're made of it. It's
15:50
Speaker 1: in ice cream. And there's this other particle called the positron,
15:53
Speaker 1: which is just like the electron accepted, has a positive
15:56
Speaker 1: charge instead of a negative charge. It has other negative
15:59
Speaker 1: things about it, right, like the opposite spin or the
16:03
Speaker 1: opposite quantum color, and other kinds of charges, right that
16:07
Speaker 1: are different. Some of the other charges for the for
16:09
Speaker 1: the forces are opposite. The electron actually doesn't have a
16:12
Speaker 1: color because it's doesn't feel the strong force, but it
16:15
Speaker 1: has the same mass and spin. So the positron are
16:18
Speaker 1: the same in mass and quantum spin. They're both spin
16:22
Speaker 1: one half, and they have exactly the same mass as
16:24
Speaker 1: far as we know, but they have the opposite electric charge.
16:27
Speaker 1: And so you might just say like, oh, well, it's
16:28
Speaker 1: just a different particle, and it is. It's a different particle,
16:31
Speaker 1: but there's definitely a relationship there. So we group them together.
16:34
Speaker 1: And this is what we do all the time in physics,
16:36
Speaker 1: and especially in particle physics, is we're looking for patterns.
16:38
Speaker 1: We're looking for, you know, relationships that help us simplify.
16:41
Speaker 1: We're looking for symmetries that give us insight. And so
16:44
Speaker 1: it's interesting not just because the electron has this weird
16:47
Speaker 1: partner particle, But so does the muan, and so do
16:50
Speaker 1: all the quarks, right, and and we call it matter
16:53
Speaker 1: and antimatter because the ones we call matter are the
16:57
Speaker 1: ones that make of most of the things we see.
16:59
Speaker 1: A round is right, like positrons and anti mu as
17:03
Speaker 1: an anti quarks. I'm not made of any of these things.
17:06
Speaker 1: I'm made out of the regular versions, the provisions. That's right,
17:10
Speaker 1: you're made of the regular versions. But you're right also
17:12
Speaker 1: that we call them regular versions because they're familiar. They're
17:15
Speaker 1: like the first ones we encountered, because they make up
17:17
Speaker 1: the world we know, and so there's nothing anti about
17:21
Speaker 1: the other ones. They're just sort of not the first
17:23
Speaker 1: ones we found. Maybe maybe a different word might be
17:26
Speaker 1: like mirror matter or symmetric matter that's actually already taken.
17:30
Speaker 1: There's a whole other theory about mirror matter we can
17:32
Speaker 1: talk about another time. But it's a crowded field of
17:35
Speaker 1: terrible names for particles, and you're running out of English
17:38
Speaker 1: words to append to your existing physics concepts. Banana matter taken.
17:42
Speaker 1: Banana matter is not even an idea yet, not until
17:45
Speaker 1: this podcast comes out. Is banana matter not ever a
17:47
Speaker 1: phrase anybody's effer Herd in their mind. But it's fascinating
17:50
Speaker 1: because it seems to be like a thing. It's like
17:52
Speaker 1: a symmetry in the world, you know, like a lot
17:56
Speaker 1: of these particles which exist, there is also this other
17:58
Speaker 1: one of them in the same way that we notice
18:01
Speaker 1: that electrons and muans and taws have a relationship, right,
18:04
Speaker 1: They all have the same electric charge and the same
18:07
Speaker 1: weak interaction, and they're organized in a similar way, but
18:10
Speaker 1: they have different masses. So it's like these different directions
18:13
Speaker 1: along which patterns sort of form. All these particles are
18:17
Speaker 1: kind of different versions of each other, Like one of
18:19
Speaker 1: them has a little bit of this more, or this
18:21
Speaker 1: one has the opposite of that more. But they're all
18:23
Speaker 1: sort of particles that we know and love because some
18:27
Speaker 1: of them make us who we are, that's right, And
18:29
Speaker 1: we're tempted to define one of them is like the
18:31
Speaker 1: normal one. But again that's just the first one we discovered.
18:33
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, what's real chocolate, dark chocolate or
18:37
Speaker 1: white chocolate. You know, maybe if you grew up in
18:39
Speaker 1: a family or white chocolate was the first thing you ate,
18:42
Speaker 1: then dark chocolate would seem to be like the anti chocolate,
18:44
Speaker 1: do you right? Yeah, that I think we should we
18:49
Speaker 1: should do that, just call it anti chocolate. Um. And
18:54
Speaker 1: and and remember also the antimatter is has positive mass,
18:58
Speaker 1: right as far as we oh, it's made of the
19:00
Speaker 1: same kind of stuff, and so it is antimatter because
19:04
Speaker 1: it has the opposite charge. And if you collide matter
19:07
Speaker 1: and antimatter, they interact and turned into light and turned
19:10
Speaker 1: into energy. But in that sense, they're just more matter.
19:14
Speaker 1: It's just you know, they have this relationship. We could
19:17
Speaker 1: have called it something other than antimatter. We could have
19:19
Speaker 1: called it, called it oppositely charged matter, or something that's
19:22
Speaker 1: a little bit longer to fit into it didn't focus
19:26
Speaker 1: group as well. Yeah, alright, so that's what antimatter is.
19:31
Speaker 1: And there's this whole mystery about how most of the
19:34
Speaker 1: universe seems to be matter and not antimatter, which we
19:37
Speaker 1: got into into in our last podcast about antimatter. But
19:40
Speaker 1: in this case, this one is more about how we
19:44
Speaker 1: discovered it and how we know that it actually is
19:47
Speaker 1: a thing. Right, that's right. The history of antimatter is
19:50
Speaker 1: like almost a hundred years old now, um, it's sort
19:53
Speaker 1: of surprising, but positrons, the first antimatter particle ever discovered,
19:58
Speaker 1: were found You know in nineteen thirty two, so we've
20:01
Speaker 1: known about them for a long long time, which kind
20:04
Speaker 1: of surprised me that people still don't necessarily believe that
20:07
Speaker 1: they're a thing or are aware that it's a thing,
20:09
Speaker 1: because it's been a thing for decades. People, Right, Well,
20:12
Speaker 1: I think antimatter is anti celebrating birthdays, so that's probably
20:17
Speaker 1: why maybe nobody has noticed. But let's get let's get
20:20
Speaker 1: into whether or not antimatter really is real or theoretical,
20:24
Speaker 1: and how we know that it's real or anti real,
20:27
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. But first let's take a
20:29
Speaker 1: quick break, all right, Daniel, So antimatter is real, whereas
20:46
Speaker 1: an anti real or anti fake, which makes it real.
20:51
Speaker 1: I'm so confused. It's really really anti anti real. So yes,
20:56
Speaker 1: it's real. That did not help. Okay, So it's real
21:01
Speaker 1: in the sense that not only can it exist in theory,
21:06
Speaker 1: but you can actually like see and touch antimatter. You
21:09
Speaker 1: can see in touch antimatter. I don't recommend actually touching
21:13
Speaker 1: any antimatter because it's quite reactive. But it is a thing.
21:17
Speaker 1: And you know, there's sort of two ways something can
21:19
Speaker 1: be a thing. One is it's in the list of
21:23
Speaker 1: particles that can exist in the universe, like the potential particles,
21:27
Speaker 1: and the other is that it's actually made, that it
21:29
Speaker 1: really exists. You can imagine a universe where that's cold
21:33
Speaker 1: and dead and the only thing in it our photons,
21:35
Speaker 1: for example, and you could in theory and that universe
21:38
Speaker 1: have electrons. It just don't exist. Right, So one thing
21:41
Speaker 1: is like being on the list of potential particles, the
21:43
Speaker 1: other is actually existing an antimatter is both, but started
21:47
Speaker 1: off on the theoretical list and then people actually found it.
21:49
Speaker 1: You mean, people looked at the equations of the universe
21:52
Speaker 1: at the time and they said, you know, we have
21:54
Speaker 1: a little pocket here where there could be like an
21:58
Speaker 1: electron with a positive charge. Like, there's nothing that would
22:01
Speaker 1: prevent the equations from making this real. So you're saying
22:05
Speaker 1: that's one way that something can be real if it's there,
22:07
Speaker 1: if the equations point to it as being possible. Yeah,
22:12
Speaker 1: and more than just the equation saying it's possible, you
22:14
Speaker 1: could prove that it exists. But it doesn't have to
22:17
Speaker 1: always actually exist, you know, like the Higgs boson, right,
22:20
Speaker 1: the Higgs boson. We know it it's a thing, but
22:23
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually like get created very often you know
22:26
Speaker 1: you have you have specially need very special circumstances to
22:29
Speaker 1: actually make one. So it's sort of like knowing that
22:33
Speaker 1: the recipe works and actually making the cake. Right, It's
22:36
Speaker 1: like unicorns can exist, but maybe they're just technically aren't
22:39
Speaker 1: in right now the unicorns, what's the difference here, Daniel?
22:46
Speaker 1: But and the matter is real. It occurs naturally in
22:51
Speaker 1: cosmic rays. You don't actually need like a particle collider
22:54
Speaker 1: or special physics lab to make it. It's created in
22:56
Speaker 1: collisions in the atmosphere. Um, every time you have rate,
23:00
Speaker 1: you active decay, you can create antimatter. Sometimes these decays
23:04
Speaker 1: will create anti neutrinos or anti electrons or stuff like this.
23:08
Speaker 1: Really in our atmosphere, we're getting rained down. Wait, it's
23:13
Speaker 1: it's like regular matter is coming from the Sun as
23:16
Speaker 1: cosmic rads hitting the atmosphere, and then in those collisions
23:20
Speaker 1: you're saying antimatter is produced. That's right. Antimatter and matter
23:24
Speaker 1: can turn into each other, right. Um Photons, for example,
23:27
Speaker 1: can turn into a pair at an electron and apositron
23:31
Speaker 1: one is matter? What is antimatter? All you have to
23:34
Speaker 1: do is follow the rules of physics, which say, like
23:36
Speaker 1: conserve electric charge. But if you have photons, they can
23:39
Speaker 1: turn into matter and antimatter. So you have in the
23:41
Speaker 1: atmosphere because of cosmic rays, you have all these crazy complicated,
23:45
Speaker 1: high energy collisions, and some of those just turned into
23:47
Speaker 1: antimatter particles. Does that mean we're constantly and currently being
23:52
Speaker 1: rained down upon by antimatter? Absolutely? It is antimatter rain.
23:59
Speaker 1: I think that is a song by Prince wasn't it? Yeah,
24:02
Speaker 1: anti Prince Um. But the wait I thought it was dangerous.
24:09
Speaker 1: How can I be getting rained on by antimatter and
24:12
Speaker 1: not exploding like you said I would? It is dangerous
24:15
Speaker 1: in high quantities, but there's not that much antimatter, Just
24:19
Speaker 1: like you know, there's radiation coming from the upper atmosphere
24:21
Speaker 1: all the time, and radiation is also dangerous. You know,
24:24
Speaker 1: protons and muans that go through your body have the
24:27
Speaker 1: opportunity to damage your DNA, but there's not that much
24:30
Speaker 1: of them, And so the higher you go up in
24:32
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, the more there there is just particle radiation,
24:35
Speaker 1: and some of that is antimatter. So what happens if
24:37
Speaker 1: a positron hits your arm, Well, it encounters an electron
24:43
Speaker 1: and it turns into a photon. That photon has the
24:46
Speaker 1: energy that's the equivalent twice the mass of the electron
24:50
Speaker 1: because all that mask got turned into a photon. But
24:53
Speaker 1: that's not that much, so you know, you one photon
24:57
Speaker 1: gets created. Should I be wearing anti sunscreen? Then said,
25:01
Speaker 1: there's no sunscreen. You can wear it to protect your
25:03
Speaker 1: things that matter or just antimatter. Just make me glow
25:06
Speaker 1: in a way that's desirable. Antimatter. It gives you an
25:09
Speaker 1: anti tan, So actually what you want to do? Yeah,
25:13
Speaker 1: you do look brighter, I guess in a way, so
25:16
Speaker 1: it's almost like you're The amazing thing about antimatter, though,
25:19
Speaker 1: is that it is really energy dense because it converts
25:21
Speaker 1: all of the masses inside of it into energy. So
25:23
Speaker 1: if you had, for example, like a raisin's worth of antimatter,
25:27
Speaker 1: which is a lot more than one positron, right it's
25:30
Speaker 1: ten to the twenty three particles or something, then that
25:33
Speaker 1: would be as much energy as a nuclear bomb exploding.
25:36
Speaker 1: But again that's a much bigger dose. And in the
25:39
Speaker 1: atmosphere you get you know, a few few positrons at
25:42
Speaker 1: a time, and it's not just the atmosphere. Your favorite
25:45
Speaker 1: snack actually is an antimatter of factory. What. Yeah, a
25:50
Speaker 1: random banana has potassium in it. As we've mentioned before,
25:54
Speaker 1: potassium is unstable and it decays radioactively and produces one
25:59
Speaker 1: positron every seventy five minutes. One positron, Like a sitting
26:05
Speaker 1: banana will shoot out a positron or does it get
26:08
Speaker 1: caught by the other you know, banana electron banana on.
26:16
Speaker 1: It depends. I guess where it gets produced. If it's
26:17
Speaker 1: produced in the skin to the banana, it will shoot
26:20
Speaker 1: out into the air. But of course positrons don't last
26:23
Speaker 1: very long because they interact with electrons. But yeah, your
26:26
Speaker 1: favored fruit, whether it's sitting on the table or you know,
26:29
Speaker 1: in a high speed banana accelerator or whatever you do
26:32
Speaker 1: with your bananas, produces about one positron every seventy five minutes.
26:35
Speaker 1: It doesn't get stopped by the peel electrons electron. Yeah,
26:38
Speaker 1: if it's produced in the center of the banana, then
26:40
Speaker 1: it could. But if it's produced near the edge, and
26:42
Speaker 1: then you could make it out of the banana into
26:44
Speaker 1: the air. Well, maybe that's where I get my superpowers. Dan,
26:46
Speaker 1: You get antimatter, you get that banana's proportional strength. Yeah,
26:53
Speaker 1: there you go. I can make anyone slip and fall.
26:56
Speaker 1: That's superpower. I can't make anyone uncomfortable with my ban
27:00
Speaker 1: ant a chewing. All right, Well, let's just slide on
27:02
Speaker 1: past that discussion. Yeah, alright, So antimatter is real. It
27:08
Speaker 1: is a thing. It's all around this. In fact, you're
27:10
Speaker 1: probably baild in antimatter even though you maybe didn't know
27:14
Speaker 1: it um. And you can also like make it in
27:17
Speaker 1: a lab, right, like a certain you guys have been
27:20
Speaker 1: making anti protons and anti hydrogen for a while, like
27:25
Speaker 1: you have an antimatter of factory there. Yeah, that's right,
27:28
Speaker 1: And the reason is that we're curious about it. We're
27:30
Speaker 1: curious about like how symmetric our matter and antimatter. You know,
27:34
Speaker 1: For example, can you make an anti proton and pair
27:37
Speaker 1: it with an anti electron to get anti hydrogen? Does
27:40
Speaker 1: chemistry work for antimatter? You know? Can you get enough
27:44
Speaker 1: of it to test its gravitational properties? We don't even
27:48
Speaker 1: know if antimatter feels gravity the way matter does, or
27:52
Speaker 1: or if it feels like anti gravity because you just
27:55
Speaker 1: never made enough of it. Really, the equations don't tell
27:58
Speaker 1: you whether it should have mass or anti mass. Yeah,
28:00
Speaker 1: because it's really hard to measure the gravitational force on
28:03
Speaker 1: a particle because it hardly has any mass. And in
28:06
Speaker 1: the history of particle physics, we've made something like twenty
28:09
Speaker 1: nanograms of anti matter ever total, and so it's pretty
28:14
Speaker 1: hard to measure the gravitational effect of such a tiny scrap.
28:18
Speaker 1: But you have made anti protons and anti hydrogen, which
28:23
Speaker 1: is pretty cool, right. It's like a hydrogen, but the
28:25
Speaker 1: complete opposite. Yeah, And as far as we can tell,
28:28
Speaker 1: it works exactly the same way as a hydrogen atom.
28:31
Speaker 1: So they get into a bound state, they can get excited,
28:34
Speaker 1: they emit photons. It's exactly the same. So it's super
28:37
Speaker 1: fascinating either to learn that they're different or to learn
28:40
Speaker 1: that they're the same, you know, and it brings up
28:42
Speaker 1: all sorts of interesting questions like why why is there antimatter?
28:46
Speaker 1: It seems like such an interesting clue, Like why does
28:49
Speaker 1: universe have this weird reflection? You know, it has all
28:52
Speaker 1: these reflections. I love all these symmetries and particle physics,
28:55
Speaker 1: but each one should tell us something about the universe.
28:57
Speaker 1: They're a big, deep clue that says, here's something fastening
29:00
Speaker 1: that's going on. We just don't know what it means, well,
29:03
Speaker 1: you know, some people are just really contrarian, you know,
29:05
Speaker 1: and to mabe, the universe is just just being anti
29:08
Speaker 1: anti for no reason other than to just be anti.
29:12
Speaker 1: But if it, But if antimatter exists, then why aren't
29:15
Speaker 1: there other sort of reflections? You know, Why can't you
29:18
Speaker 1: have all the same particles but with different spin. Oh
29:21
Speaker 1: well that's supersymmetry, you know, why this reflection not other reflections? Anyway,
29:26
Speaker 1: it's kind of stuff that makes me wonder do you
29:29
Speaker 1: think it's these other mirror images exist? Do you think
29:31
Speaker 1: they would have better names in physics, like actually good
29:35
Speaker 1: ones because they're to be the opposite. Well, they can't
29:38
Speaker 1: have much worse names. So there you go. All right,
29:44
Speaker 1: Well it does exist. It's real. You can we can
29:47
Speaker 1: make it in the lab. It's my banana makes it
29:50
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. And there are still a lot
29:53
Speaker 1: of open questions about anti matter. So now let's talk
29:56
Speaker 1: about how it was discovered, because that's a pretty interest
30:00
Speaker 1: seeing story as well, and what it could mean for
30:03
Speaker 1: the future of the universe. But first, let's take another
30:05
Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, Daniel, So how is antimatter discovered? Were
30:22
Speaker 1: they not looking for it and found it that would
30:26
Speaker 1: be a great story. No, and that matter is sort
30:29
Speaker 1: of a theoretical triumph because it happened actually very similarly
30:34
Speaker 1: to the joke you made earlier, or the comments you
30:36
Speaker 1: made earlier about people sort of noticing a gap in
30:39
Speaker 1: the equations. What happened was the Paul Drac who's famous
30:43
Speaker 1: theorist of around the beginning of when quantum mechanics was
30:47
Speaker 1: was being formed, he was taking the Shortinger equation, the
30:50
Speaker 1: equation that describes the motion of particles, and he was
30:53
Speaker 1: trying to make it work for really fast moving particles.
30:56
Speaker 1: He was trying to fold in relativity and quantum mechanics,
30:59
Speaker 1: which amos is very hard to do, but he was
31:02
Speaker 1: able to actually unify um, quantum mechanics, and special relativity
31:06
Speaker 1: the laws that tell you what happens when things move
31:08
Speaker 1: really really fast. So he came up with Yeah, he
31:13
Speaker 1: came up with a new equation. It's called the Dirac equation,
31:15
Speaker 1: and it's like the relativistic version of the Shortinger equation.
31:18
Speaker 1: Shortinger equation tells you what happens for quantum particles that
31:22
Speaker 1: are not moving that fast. The direct equation tells you
31:25
Speaker 1: what happens when quantum particles are moving fast enough that
31:28
Speaker 1: relativity kicks in. So he had this awesome equation already
31:32
Speaker 1: a triumph, right, and it turned out to be true. Right,
31:35
Speaker 1: This theory is as far as you know now. Yeah,
31:39
Speaker 1: and that's amazing, right, direct unified special relativity and quantum mechanics.
31:43
Speaker 1: And remember we've never successfully unified quantum mechanics and general
31:48
Speaker 1: relativity theory by like bending space. That's still like to
31:51
Speaker 1: be done. So folks out there looking to make a
31:54
Speaker 1: big impact on physics that's been an open problem for
31:56
Speaker 1: a hundred years TVD to be discovered. That's right. But
32:00
Speaker 1: then Derek looked at this equation. He's like, this is
32:02
Speaker 1: something weird about this equation. He noticed that the equation
32:05
Speaker 1: worked for a negatively charged particles like electrons, but it
32:09
Speaker 1: would also work for positively charged particles. They thought, that's interesting.
32:13
Speaker 1: Did did the equations have a pocket or like an
32:15
Speaker 1: empty space for an anti electron? Or he just figured
32:18
Speaker 1: out that this equation that we think describes the universe
32:22
Speaker 1: could also work for something that looks like an anti electron. Yeah,
32:27
Speaker 1: it's an equation with two solutions, just like you find
32:29
Speaker 1: all the time and equations that have like squares in them,
32:33
Speaker 1: like X squared equals nine, while there's a solution there, right,
32:36
Speaker 1: X equals three, But there's another solution X equals minus three, right,
32:41
Speaker 1: because minus three ties minus three is also plus nine. Yeah, exactly.
32:46
Speaker 1: And so he noticed that his equation described electrons as
32:50
Speaker 1: we know them, but it also described something else, something
32:52
Speaker 1: we hadn't seen before, another particle with positive charge. And
32:56
Speaker 1: it's for exactly that reason that there's a squared in
32:59
Speaker 1: his equation, and it allows for you know, particles of
33:03
Speaker 1: either charge to satisfy his equations. And so he predicted
33:06
Speaker 1: that this would work for an anti electron. But did
33:09
Speaker 1: he predicted for other anti matter particles or just just
33:13
Speaker 1: for the anti electron? Oh? Yeah, the story gets exciting,
33:16
Speaker 1: But first he started small. He's like, you know what,
33:19
Speaker 1: I think this is real? And I wonder like what
33:21
Speaker 1: went through his head there? What makes him think, Oh,
33:24
Speaker 1: that's not just a mathematical oddity. I've discovered something about
33:27
Speaker 1: the universe. Because a lot of times we have equations
33:30
Speaker 1: that describe things and we just sort of toss out
33:33
Speaker 1: solutions and say they're not physical, Like if you're talking about,
33:37
Speaker 1: you know, how a ball moves through the air, you
33:38
Speaker 1: have a parabola. And sometimes there are non physical solutions
33:41
Speaker 1: to those equations, and you say, oh, those don't make
33:44
Speaker 1: sense because they required the ball to move through the
33:46
Speaker 1: ground or something. But he thought, no, this is real.
33:49
Speaker 1: It's kind of like if you said that the number
33:51
Speaker 1: of cookies that I have times a number of cookies
33:53
Speaker 1: you have equals nine. You wouldn't say we both both
33:56
Speaker 1: have minus three cookies. That wouldn't that want to be
34:00
Speaker 1: a serious solution, because let's face it, we always have cookies. Yeah,
34:05
Speaker 1: you impose a physical requirement there at least zero cookies. Right,
34:09
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a negative cookie. And but
34:11
Speaker 1: Dirac was like, you know what, what if negative you
34:14
Speaker 1: can count it as a negative. If I eat your cookies,
34:18
Speaker 1: then maybe you have negative cookies. I don't know. I
34:21
Speaker 1: would have a very negative reaction. Sure. I think there's
34:23
Speaker 1: probably a whole course in philosophy on theory of negative cookies,
34:27
Speaker 1: the ethical ramifications of less than zero cookies. Yeah, anti
34:32
Speaker 1: ethics or anti pastry. But he predicted it. He was balls,
34:37
Speaker 1: and he said, I believe in myself, I believe in
34:39
Speaker 1: my equation. I think this thing is real. So he
34:42
Speaker 1: predicted his way before iPhones or the internet. Yeah, he
34:47
Speaker 1: couldn't have just googled for it or asked Siri if
34:49
Speaker 1: this is real. He made a prediction. And he's sort
34:52
Speaker 1: of famous for being, you know, a bit of an
34:54
Speaker 1: odd guy. You know, he probably fit in well on
34:57
Speaker 1: the Big Bang theory. It had a lot of self confidence,
35:00
Speaker 1: but maybe not a lot of social skills. He made
35:02
Speaker 1: the claim that these equations work for an anti electron,
35:05
Speaker 1: so therefore there must be an anti electron. Is that is? That?
35:10
Speaker 1: Was that his big leap there? That was his big leap.
35:12
Speaker 1: He says, I've discovered this equation, and the equation is
35:14
Speaker 1: fundamental to the universe and it describes something happening that
35:18
Speaker 1: we haven't seen. So I think it's happens right, even
35:21
Speaker 1: though we haven't we haven't seen it because we haven't
35:23
Speaker 1: looked for it. This equation allows for it to happen.
35:26
Speaker 1: So let's go see if it does happen. Was that
35:28
Speaker 1: a shift in physics as well? You know, people thinking
35:31
Speaker 1: that well, if the if the math predicts it, then
35:35
Speaker 1: it must be real. You know, like that's a big
35:37
Speaker 1: leap to think about that. It's a big leap. It
35:39
Speaker 1: takes a lot of ego but it was the first
35:42
Speaker 1: time a particle had been predicted. Yeah. Before that, every
35:45
Speaker 1: particle discovered had been discovered first and then explained. It's like, oh,
35:49
Speaker 1: look who we found How does that make sense? Let's
35:52
Speaker 1: try to stitch together a theory that that accommodates it.
35:55
Speaker 1: It's like in baseball, it's like calling your shot run
35:57
Speaker 1: than just hitting a home run. You're like, I'm gonna
35:58
Speaker 1: hit a home run and it's the land right over there. Well,
36:03
Speaker 1: I guess he had a history. Maybe he had up
36:05
Speaker 1: to that point, there was a history where they had
36:07
Speaker 1: discovered particles and then they found out the math fits it.
36:10
Speaker 1: So then this, in this case, the math fitted and
36:13
Speaker 1: so he probably thought, well then it must exist. Yeah,
36:16
Speaker 1: And it didn't take long for him to be proved. Right.
36:18
Speaker 1: He was a babe ruth of physics. Yeah, and he
36:21
Speaker 1: gets better. So it was just a few years later
36:24
Speaker 1: a guy at cal Tech named Carl Anderson. He actually
36:27
Speaker 1: found the first positron, and like we were talking about,
36:30
Speaker 1: he found it in cosmic rays. He just saw one
36:33
Speaker 1: flying through the air. And what made him think it
36:35
Speaker 1: was a positron or an anti electron? Was he looking
36:38
Speaker 1: for it? Or I guess maybe his setup could only
36:41
Speaker 1: work for an anti electron. No, he was looking just
36:44
Speaker 1: to study cosmic rays, which were fairly new discovery at
36:47
Speaker 1: the time. The whole idea that there were these particles
36:49
Speaker 1: being rained on us from the upper atmosphere was sort
36:51
Speaker 1: of new, and he was using a pretty cool device.
36:54
Speaker 1: At the time, the first cosmic rays were discovered basically
36:57
Speaker 1: by huge cubic blocks of film that they had to
37:00
Speaker 1: slice up and analyze later. But he wanted some real time.
37:03
Speaker 1: He wanted to see these things in real time, so
37:05
Speaker 1: he used this thing called the cloud chamber, which is
37:07
Speaker 1: basically a box of glass that you can see into
37:11
Speaker 1: and then you fill it with air which is supersaturated
37:13
Speaker 1: with water, and when a particle goes through it that
37:15
Speaker 1: has a charge, it will cause droplets along its path,
37:19
Speaker 1: and so you see are these like little drops of
37:22
Speaker 1: water appear as a particle flies through it. You can
37:24
Speaker 1: actually build the cloud chamber in your garage. Yeah. It
37:27
Speaker 1: creates like a trail of bubbles as it goes through.
37:31
Speaker 1: Not bubbles, there's there's something else called the bubble chamber.
37:33
Speaker 1: This creates a trail of water droplets and you can
37:37
Speaker 1: see them, and they have them in a lot of
37:39
Speaker 1: science museums you can see like muans flying through them,
37:42
Speaker 1: and so he had seen muans and people have seen
37:44
Speaker 1: electrons and stuff like this. But then he put it
37:47
Speaker 1: in a magnetic field, and the magnetic field bends the
37:50
Speaker 1: path of this particle, and the magnetic field will bend
37:53
Speaker 1: a positive particle differently than it bends a negative particle
37:57
Speaker 1: cool and so that this was just a few years
38:00
Speaker 1: after direct So he did he know about directs prediction
38:03
Speaker 1: or did he discover it kind of independently. Now, he
38:07
Speaker 1: definitely knew about directs prediction. It was an idea that
38:09
Speaker 1: was out there, so it helped him sort of interpret
38:11
Speaker 1: his data. And what he saw was, of course, a
38:14
Speaker 1: bunch of electrons. Electrons are much more common in the
38:16
Speaker 1: atmosphere than positrons. But then he saw this one track,
38:20
Speaker 1: this track that curved the wrong way, and he said,
38:23
Speaker 1: what's that? You know? And he could tell the mass
38:26
Speaker 1: of the particle by how much it curved, and you
38:29
Speaker 1: could tell the charge of it by the direction of
38:31
Speaker 1: its curve. So he knew, for example, it wasn't a proton,
38:34
Speaker 1: because the proton is much heavier and would have curved less.
38:37
Speaker 1: So curved just like an electron except the other way,
38:41
Speaker 1: except the direction. Yes, And this is amazing to me
38:45
Speaker 1: because these days, to discover something, you don't just need
38:48
Speaker 1: one example. You can't be like, hey, look here's the
38:50
Speaker 1: Higgs boson. We found it, and here's the picture of it.
38:53
Speaker 1: You know, um, we need like five examples or something
38:57
Speaker 1: to show statistically that it really exists. Really, he claimed
39:01
Speaker 1: his discovery with and equals one data points and equals one.
39:05
Speaker 1: It was so conclusive. Nothing we knew of could make
39:08
Speaker 1: that data. He didn't even wait to get another one. No,
39:11
Speaker 1: he didn't even wait to get another one. And you
39:13
Speaker 1: can see like that is famous data. You can google
39:16
Speaker 1: for it and see like his original data that proved
39:19
Speaker 1: the discovery of the positive. Sure he didn't he didn't
39:22
Speaker 1: get at least two. He didn't wait a little bit
39:24
Speaker 1: and got another one. Maybe he got some backup data,
39:27
Speaker 1: but you know that's all he needed. That that convinced everybody.
39:30
Speaker 1: I'm still convinced by one image. Yeah, and um, and
39:36
Speaker 1: so he discovered that was ninety two. And then the
39:39
Speaker 1: next year Dirac wins the Nobel Prize for predicting antimatter.
39:44
Speaker 1: Did Carl and Anderson also get it? Or just the
39:48
Speaker 1: just the rack in nineteen thirty three, but then Anderson
39:50
Speaker 1: wanted three years later sort of in a combined Nobel
39:53
Speaker 1: Prize for cosmic rade discoveries. But my favorite bit of
39:56
Speaker 1: this story is that Dirac, you know, he was a
39:58
Speaker 1: heavy guy, and he made of this bold prediction and
40:01
Speaker 1: then it actually had come true. So then you know
40:04
Speaker 1: he like called his shot at like babe Ruth. So
40:06
Speaker 1: then in his acceptance speech where he's like, you know,
40:09
Speaker 1: at the Nobel Prize ceremony getting the Nobel Prize from
40:12
Speaker 1: the King of Sweden, in that speech he predicts another particle.
40:15
Speaker 1: He like doubles down. He's like, I predict a million
40:20
Speaker 1: dollars in my bank account tomorrow. He predicted the anti proton.
40:27
Speaker 1: He was like, well, if the electron has an anti particle,
40:31
Speaker 1: why not the proton? So he predicted it. Oh wow.
40:34
Speaker 1: And then when he got the Nobel price for that one,
40:36
Speaker 1: did he also make another prediction in the next speech, like,
40:40
Speaker 1: how when did you stop? It's still going on? Actually,
40:44
Speaker 1: I see he's still making predictions. He's like, and the
40:48
Speaker 1: next election will be won by Hey, doubling down works
40:51
Speaker 1: for you, right, you just keep doubling down. And the
40:53
Speaker 1: exponentially you get more and more Nobel prizes. Yeah, yeah,
40:58
Speaker 1: alright cool. So that's how the antimatter, the first antimatter
41:02
Speaker 1: particle was discovered, and since then we've we've seen antimatter
41:06
Speaker 1: particles all over the place and for all kinds of
41:09
Speaker 1: particles to write, that's right. And these days in particle
41:13
Speaker 1: collisions we can very easily make anti electrons, which are positrons,
41:17
Speaker 1: and anti muons, and we've seen antiquarks and all sorts
41:21
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff. There are some antiparticles we haven't seen yet.
41:25
Speaker 1: Oh really, they're still hiding or there's still we just
41:28
Speaker 1: haven't bothered. Well, no, there's some some that are still hiding.
41:32
Speaker 1: For example, anti neutrinos. Like we know neutrinos are a thing.
41:36
Speaker 1: What we don't know is if there are anti neutrinos.
41:39
Speaker 1: I mean we talk about it, but we don't really
41:41
Speaker 1: know if anti neutrinos are just the same thing as
41:44
Speaker 1: neutrinos because they have no electric charge. Yeah, how can
41:48
Speaker 1: you be anti nothing? Yeah? Well, for example, the photon
41:52
Speaker 1: is its own antiparticle, or you could say it doesn't
41:55
Speaker 1: have an antiparticle. So we don't know if neutrinos are
41:57
Speaker 1: in that category of particles that don't would have antiparticles,
42:01
Speaker 1: or if they're in the category of particles like electrons
42:03
Speaker 1: and do have antiparticles, like asking who who is the
42:08
Speaker 1: anti version of Switzerland and sucerand is neutral? So nobody
42:12
Speaker 1: and everybody precisely. So people are trying to figure out
42:16
Speaker 1: do neutrinos have antiparticles or are they just themselves? Um,
42:20
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, And then people are doing more
42:23
Speaker 1: and more experiments to make antimatter and try to study
42:25
Speaker 1: its chemical properties. We'd love to see, like more than
42:28
Speaker 1: just anti hydrogen. We'd love to see you know, anti
42:31
Speaker 1: water and all sorts of crazy stuff. But I guess
42:33
Speaker 1: the point is that it does exist, and that it
42:37
Speaker 1: is something that was predicted by the physics, by the
42:40
Speaker 1: equations first, and then we went out and found it,
42:45
Speaker 1: and now there's in controvertible proof that it does exist,
42:48
Speaker 1: that antimatter can exist, does exist, even if we don't
42:52
Speaker 1: know exactly where it is in the universe. That's right.
42:55
Speaker 1: Even though it's been featured in the Dan Brown novel,
42:57
Speaker 1: it is really out there, and it's a triumph in
43:00
Speaker 1: the theoretical physics to sort of notice these patterns in
43:03
Speaker 1: the universe and assume that the universe might follow those patterns,
43:07
Speaker 1: right to say, we think the universe makes sense, and
43:10
Speaker 1: if we can figure out the rules that describe it,
43:12
Speaker 1: then maybe we can use that to predict things in
43:14
Speaker 1: the universe we've never even seen. Right, what a crazy
43:17
Speaker 1: step forward. Yep, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's a
43:21
Speaker 1: conspiracy fact. We have a picture of it from that
43:28
Speaker 1: says that it's true, so it must be true. It's
43:31
Speaker 1: out there, it's in you, it's in me, it's in
43:33
Speaker 1: jogees bananas, So get used to it, folks. All right, Well,
43:37
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that and got to learn a
43:39
Speaker 1: little bit more about the anti universe out there, the
43:42
Speaker 1: antihistory of physics, or the physics of antihistory, or the
43:46
Speaker 1: history of anti physics. Well, you've definitely convinced me. Daniel
43:49
Speaker 1: am definitely pro anti matter. Now, thanks everyone for tuning in.
44:02
Speaker 1: Before you still have a question after listening to all
44:04
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us the line. We'd love to
44:08
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
44:10
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or
44:14
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
44:18
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
44:21
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I heart Radio. For
44:24
Speaker 1: more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
44:27
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
44:31
Speaker 1: favorite shows.