Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions 8: Can AI understand humor?

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Listener Questions 8: Can AI understand humor? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you think the robots are going to
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: take over the world. Well, I do think it's inevitable
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that they're going to be in charge in some ways.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Is that different than taking over being in charge? Well,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they're going to be faster than us,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: stronger than us, and smaller than us. But there might
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: be some things humans will always be better at, like
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: eating bananas, or you know, like asking questions, thinking about
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the deep questions of why are we here? And then
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: what's the meaning of life? Or artifice? Even artificial life
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: is what if I was thinking maybe more comedy, you're
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: talking about fart jokes. Yes, humans will always be number
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: one in the galaxy in that category. Unfortunately, Hi am
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: more handy cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm the fart
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: joke champion of this podcast. Oh good, I happily see
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the title, Daniel for sure. Well, we have lots of dimensions.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You know, you can be the bananna eating champion, although
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you know you think you can eat banana is better
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: than a robot. You're saying I could not build a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: robot to eat banana is better than you. I don't
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: know if you can build a robot that will enjoy
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the bananas as much. Oh, you're changing the terms already. See, Well,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: depends what you mean by eating. You know, eating includes
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the enjoyment of the experience. Well, when they have the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: hot dog eating Champion, do you think, like I really
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: enjoyed all sixty seven hot dogs eating two minutes? I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: don't think so. I think that that person is probably
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: dead inside from so many hot dogs. He's all hot
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: dog inside, that's for sure. Same thing. Uh. Anyways, Welcome
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio, in which we wonder about
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: all things human, all things robot, all things hot dog,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and all things banana and talk to you about them
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and hopefully explain them to you in a way that
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: makes sense and makes you laugh. Yeah. Welcome to our podcast,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in which we also answer questions about the universe, Questions
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: that physicists are thinking of, Questions that people every day
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: out there have about the universe and how it all works. Yeah.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: We like to start from the forefront of knowledge and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: talk to you about what scientists out there are figuring
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: out what questions are the leading edge of human knowledge
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and bring you to that forefront. A lot of times
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the best insights comes when we stop and we ask ourselves,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: do we really understand what we just said? Do people
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: out there get it? And to One of our favorite
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: things to do is to answer questions from listeners. Yeah,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: because you know, I think people have the maybe the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: perception out there that scientists have a lot figure it out,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: or they have most of the universe figured out, and
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that there is so much science ing left to do. Well,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: then they've never seen my desk, because I think it
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: would immediately undermine people's confidence in science if you had
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a picture of me at my desk. I wonder why
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: would disappoint people more if you had a messy desk
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: or if you had a clean desk. You know, if
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: you had a clean desk, I'd be like, is this
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: guy really doing any work? Well? Do you remember that
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: one time you were at certain I was there and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I toured you around and I introduced you to a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: famous theorist, John Ellis. It was literally like like three
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: ft of stack papers on top of his desk. It's
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: my cave, right, Like, you're worried that like top papers
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: are toppled over on top of you. There might be
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: grad students buried in there, and nobody's ever found. Skeleton
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: is full of topwebs and paper drafts. He was sort
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: of famous. Well, it turns out he recently cleaned up
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: his office and now it's like sparklingly clean services. I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: think you would have preserved that for the museum tour.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: People are wondering, like, has he been replaced by a robot?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Is that the real John Ellis? What do you think
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: tipped him over to to finally clean the office? No,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I think he probably died under a stack of papers
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that fell on him. They just replaced him with a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: robot and was just trying to cover it up. That's right,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: because all great science conspiracies begin at certain Yeah, so
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: it's scientists still have a lot of questions about the universe,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and so I feel like people shouldn't be that intimidated
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: about having questions themselves about how it all works, because
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: you know, scientists don't know everything. Yeah, and sometimes the simplest,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: most basic questions are the hardest ones to answer. Some
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: of the questions we don't know the answers to, like
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: how did the universe begin, you know, how is it
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: going to end? These are simple, basic questions, So don't
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: be shy to ask a question which is simple, because
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes those are the deepest, most important ones. Yeah, like
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: what makes a fart joke funny? You know, that's a
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: deep human, psychological and a physical question. And sometimes these
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: are questions we will never know the answer to. Philosophers
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: in a thousand years will still wonder why farts are
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: so funny? That's right, The answer will just blow in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the wind anyways. Um. Yeah, So we like to tackle
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: those these questions in our podcast. We also like the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: questions from listeners. That's right, and so on today's podcast
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: we will be answering three questions from listeners like you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling listener questions
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Part eight. Right, this is the eighth episode we do
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: about listener questions. Yes, part eight, and we have a
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: stack of listener questions we haven't gotten to. So if
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you have sent in your question your audiophile, thank you.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Please be patient. We will get to all of them.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: We love these episodes. We could joke and talk about
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: these forever. Yeah, you're you're on the cue, that's right,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And some people figured out that maybe one way to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: jump to the front of the queue to have your
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: like cute six year old read the question. That's pretty
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: diabolical there. A little bit of exploitation goes a long way.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: It turns out apparently it works. Um, cute kids are
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: are very cute. Yes, and we have kids at home,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: so I guess it touches a special place in our hearts.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: So yeah, So people out there are out there listening
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: to the podcast and going about their lives, and they
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: have questions about the world, how things work, how the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: universe works, and and and that's good, right, because wondering
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and exploration is all is what science is all about. Right,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That's what is science and human the human spirit is
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: all about. Yeah, exactly, that's what questioning is good for.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And you know that's sort of our brand is like,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: we love curiosity, we love mental exploration. We want to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: take you on a journey through the universe. And that journey,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of course, is going to lead to questions. And you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: there's never gonna be a day when we run out
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of questions. There's never gonna be a situation where physicists
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: are like, all right, thanks, no more questions, or we'll
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: reach that day where where you know, we answer every
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: question ever, and then somebody will ask, why don't we
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: have more questions? There you go, See it's impossible to
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: run out of questions, and then somebody will ask, why
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: did you ask that question? And so on and so on.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Imagine if you did, imagine you lived in a society
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: where there were no questions, when you understood everything about
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the universe, that would be kind of I don't know,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: much less fun and sparkling, right, you gotta have mystery.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: It's like if you know your spouse completely, you know
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the mystery is gone. It sounds like a great science
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: fiction short story premise, I really wouldn't be boring story
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and know what would it be like? I won't know
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: how I would change the human psyche. Well, if you
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: knew everything about the universe, then you know you could
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: predict a lot about what would happen, and so uncertainty
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: about the future, you know, But we dug into that
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: in a whole podcast episode, like what is the limit
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of our ability to predict the future? Even if you
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: knew all the rules of physics, could you predict what
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was going to happen? Like could you predict the outcome
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of the Super Bowl? So that's a whole fascinating concept
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: of that, the sort of the limit of knowledge, Right,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: what if I know that all the secrets of the universe,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: but then I forget I wrote them down to the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: slip of paper. I put it on my desk, and
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: my desk is a mess, and now it's here somewhere.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Those were my favorite science fiction stories when I was
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a kid, where somebody gained indescribably important knowledge and then
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: lost it for some silly reason. I always felt like,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: felt that angst. I felt that like no go back
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and right now. Yeah, most kids dream about, you know,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: being naked and taking a test at school. You dream
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: about knowing the secrets of the universe. And I grew
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: up to be a particle physicist. That future was easy
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to predict. Yes, So today we'll be tackling three questions
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: from readers. Um, and they're not sort of our typical
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: reader listeners. Sorry I keep saying readers. Maybe I'm thinking
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: of our book. Yeah, they're not our typical listeners, and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: their people are getting creative with these questions. So I
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: thought it'd be fun to do a mixed bag of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: listeners from all over the spectrum, so we'll jump right in.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So our first question comes from Audi, who is apparently
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: six years old. Hi, Daniel and her my name is Audie.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I'm six years old and you're one of my favorite
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: podcast and this is my question. All the play it's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: in this on the solar system or a bit in
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: one way? Why does venus go the other? Thank you? Wow,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that is so cute, so cute. Oh man, that melted
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: my heart and it blew my head brain that we
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: have a six year old who is that intelligent listening
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to our podcast? I know it's wonderful. So thank you
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: ALLTI for listening, and thank you for asking that wonderful question. Yeah,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and for making us your favorite podcast. That's awesome. I
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: feel like when I was at old, you know, my
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: favorites were like Mac and cheese, bugs, money, not a
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: not a podcast about the secrets of the universe. Maybe
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we should have our podcast come with a free side
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of mac and cheese. Oh man, we will dominate that
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: six year old category, right. If you listen to every episode,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: we will email you mac and cheese. I don't even
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: know how that works from from a mac with some
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: cheesy puns. But you know, some part of I heart
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: media has to have it like a mac and cheese
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: company and such a big corporation, it's got to be
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the corporate synergy, in the corporate synergy where
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: we can do that. All right, we'll get on that well.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: But thank you Addie for standing in this question, and
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of course you're welcome of thank you for thinking us,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: for making the podcast. I don't know if you heard that,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: but you could hear ADDIE's parents going say thank you,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: thank you, oh man that that's like my life every day,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: several times a day, like what do you say? What
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: do you say? Thank you? It's wonderful and also a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: wonderful question. Yeah, yeah, pretty pretty interesting. So Audie, I
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: think is wondering, you know, all the plants go around
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the sun, and he's asking why does Venus go the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: other way? Yeah, and this is actually a pretty deep
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: question about the way our solar system works, and it
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: tells you something about the deep ancient history of where
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: our solar system comes from. So it's well worth digging into.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: So I think he's asking whether Venus, you know, like
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it goes the opposite way that the Earth goes around
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the Sun. But is that actually true? Is that what's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: happening or do you think I mean something else. Yeah,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: So Venus sort of does two different things that we
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: should think about. One is move around the Sun. That's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: sort of the direction of its orbit. Also, like every
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: other heavenly body, it spins. It spins around its axis.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: So there's two different kinds of motion we can talk
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: about there. And the technical terms are retrograde and pro grade.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: So the Sun is spinning in a certain way, right,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the Sun is an object. It spins, And if a
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: planet is moving around the Sun the same way the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Sun is spinning, you call that pro grade, And if
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: it's moving around the Sun the opposite way, you call
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that retrograde. Things around the Solar System can both go
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: around the Sun and spin in place. Is that what
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you're saying? That's right? And all the planets actually do
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: go around the Sun in the same direction, the direction
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of their orbits, like you know, the Sun's spin defines
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: a direction. If you were standing on the north pole
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of the Sun and watching all the planets go by,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you would see them moving all in the same direction. There,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: orbits are in the same direction. Yet nothing is going
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the wrong way. Nothing is going the wrong way, and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: that would be crazy. If it were. It'd be like
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: driving on the freeway on the wrong side. You wouldn't
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: be able to do it for very long, would you mean?
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: The solar systems unless James Bond obviously, unless you're veering
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and steering um. And the Solar system is billions of
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: years old and it's been going for a while. So
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: anything that's sort of destructive on a collision course, it
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: probably had its collision course and you have been bounced
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: out of the Solar system and things that sort of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: settled into a nice, even smooth path. Oh I see,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: So the Solar system is kind of a one way highway,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean that every solar system is like that.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: We might one day find a solar system out the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: planets are going in different directions. It is possible. There's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: nothing in the laws of physics that say you can't
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: have a planet going the other way. It just then
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: needs to like avoid all the debris and all the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: other plans and have its own lane. So it's totally possible.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Oh I see. It hast to be extremely lucky. They
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: has to be extremely lucky. Yeah, Okay, but as you
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: were saying, there's another way these planets can move. They
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: don't just orbit the Sun. They also have their own spins,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: like the Earth spins, right, That's why we have day
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and night, And so you can also ask what is
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the direction of these planets spins. It's a different motion
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: because you could be going around the Sun like whole
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: a counterclockwise, but you could be spinning in place clockwise
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: or counterclockwise. Right, And so it turns out that Venus
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: is weird in this way. All the planets except for
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Venus and Uranus spin in the same way. They spin
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the same direction that they move around the Sun, but
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Venus spins the other way. Wait, so let me think
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: about this for a second. So if the Earth is
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: going around clockwise around the Sun, then that means we're
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: also spinning clockwise. We're also spinning clockwise. Yeah, okay, but
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: do you say Venus and Urinas are spinning counterclockwise. They're
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: going around clockwise around the Sun like us, but they're
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: spinning coun or clockwise. And the clockwise versus counterclockwise thing.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: It just depends on whether you're standing on the Sun's
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: north pole or its south pole. But either way, what's
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: important is whether a planet is spinning the same way
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: as it's moving around the Sun or the opposite way.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And so as you said, Earth is moving one way
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and spinning the same way, and Venus is moving one
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: way and spinning the opposite way. I feel like in
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: every depiction of the Solar system, I feel like they
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: always picked the Earth going counterclockwise around the Sun. What
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: do you think that is? Um? I think that's because
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: we are north pole centric, and the north pole of
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the Earth, if you use that to define the north
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: pole of the Sun, that the motion is in fact counterclockwise. Okay,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: all right, got it? So we are northeast, then then
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: we were gonna go with counterclockwise and counterclose. But Venus
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: spins clockwise, but Venus spins the other way. Yeah, and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: that makes for a crazy experience on And not only
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: does the spin the other way, it spins super duper slowly,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: like it takes forever to spin around. Really, it's not
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: spinning once a day like we are. It's spinning, uh
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: something like hundreds of days. We spend one Earth day, right,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: it takes us one Earth day. That's been by definition.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And so you can say how many Earth days does
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: it take Venus to spin? And Venus goes around the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Sun in two hundred and twenty four earth days, but
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: it takes two hundred forty three earth days to spin,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So a day on Venus is longer than a year
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: on Venus, Venus goes around the Sun once before it
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: completes one spin. That's a really long day. I would
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: be an entire by the end there time between breakfast
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and lunch, You're gonna need a lot of snacks. You
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: can have multiple birthdays in the same day. That is
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: like a year old dream. You know, you have two
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: birthdays in the same day. Yeah, and you can have
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you know, tenzi's and eleven z ease and the mid
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: afternoon snack and mid mid afternoon snack, and you have
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: two Christmas Is in the same days and a lot
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: of naps. Okay, so bad? And is that because it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: spinning the opposite way? Does that make they long even
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: longer than that? No, that doesn't change the length of
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the day, although it does make the appearance of like
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: other stuff in Venus, is sky really weird, Like the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: motion of the other planets is really strange on Venus
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: because of those two things. But otherwise, like you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: the Sun from the Venus's point of view, the only
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: thing that matters is how long it takes to spin,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Like where is the Sun appear in the sky. That
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: just depends on on its spin, not on where it
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: is around the Sun, because they're all symmetric from the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: point of view of Venus. So the Sun takes, you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty three days to complete its motion
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: across the sky in Venus. Of course, Venus is the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: one moving around the Sun. But from Venus's point of view,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like you've got a hundred only one
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and a half days of sun and then a hundred
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: twenty one and a half earth days of night. And
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: in the meantime, what would you see. You would just
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: see the Sun moving really slowly across the sky. Yeah,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the Sun moves really slowly across the Venus sky. Of course,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Venus also covered in a huge number of clouds, so
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: from the surface of Venus you can't actually see anything
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: in space, right, I see, it's a cloudy day every
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: day in Venus. But if you like lived in a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: pod high up in Venus's atmosphere, which would be pretty cool,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: because Venus is really high pressure on its surface, so
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't anyway want to live on its surface. If
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you did colonize Venus, you probably want to build some
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: sort of airship and float up like kilometers above the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: surface where the air pressure is roughly like Earth, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: there you might see the Sun and you see it
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: slowly crawled across the sky. All right, well, let's get
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: into why, because that was ADDIE's question. Why does Venus
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: spin the wrong way? Or maybe that that is the
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: right way and everyone else is wrong, But what has
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: this been in a different direction than it does going
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: around the Sun. And we'll get into that, but first
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Okay, Daniel sel Venus is
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: spinning the opposite way that Earth is, and that's weird.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: It is weird, yeah, because there's a reason that a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff in the Solar system is spinning the
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: same way. It's not like it's random. And so you
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: flip a coin eight times and look, we got all
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the planets moving in the same direction. There's a reason
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: why things are mostly spinning the same way. The spinning
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: around the Sun and the spinning in place all sort
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: of originating in the same kind of moment. Yeah, it
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: all originates from the same original spin. Like, and that's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: not original sin. We're talking original spin, which is a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: real physics thing, right, But but like original sin, it's
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: passed down in through the generations. Oh jeez, I know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm bringing down the biblical knowledge. Um. So
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: you start with a big cloud of gas and dust
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and rocks from wherever, and it has some spin, like
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: that big blob of stuff is spinning in some direction,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and that spinning can't just go away, Like momentum is
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: conserved in our universe, and so is angular momentum. Like
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: if you are in space and you start a can
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of soup spinning, it will spin forever until something slows
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: it down, in the same way that gas of stuff,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that blob of rocks and dust and stuff that made
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: our solar system started spinning and is still spinning, right,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Because I think when things form, like a planet or
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the sun, you know, all the little bits have a
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: little bit of velocity. They're they're all going somewhere initially,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: so all that motion has to go somewhere and it
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: goes into the spin of whatever ends up being at
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the end. Yeah, and as it gets collected together by gravity. Right,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you start with a big blob of stuff and gravity
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: pulls it together. As gravity pulls it together, it actually
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: goes fast because it's like a figure skater. If you
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: pull your arms in while you're spinning, you go faster
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and faster because the distance from the center of rotation
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: is smaller, so you need a higher velocity to have
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the same angular momentum. That's why everything in our Solar
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: system has the same spin. It's all the Sun is
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: moving in one direction, that planets move around in this
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and that same direction. Most of the planets are rotating
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in the same direction. There's a good reason for all
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: these spins to be in the same direction. It's not random. Okay,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: So then what's the connection between the your direction around
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the Sun and you're you're spinning, you're spinning in place. Well,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: it's the same direction of angular momentum. Like all that
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: original angle momentum can end up in the spin of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the Sun or the motion that the planet around the Sun,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: or the rotation of the planet. That's all the same direction.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So everything is spinning in that same way, so you
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: expect it to all still be spinning that same way,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: which is why it's weird to find one planet spinning
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the other way. So how did it happened? How did
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Venus end up spinning the wrong way? Well, we don't know,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: but it's an it's evidence of something crazy happening, like
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: maybe something came in, hit it and spun it the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: other way. Like in order to get something going the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: other way, you need some sort of external force, like
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you know, some huge rock could have come in and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: flipped it over. Yeah, and the same with Urinus. Urinus
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: spins not the other way from Earth and and the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: other planets, but it's it's sort of flat. It spins
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: around a line which is parallel to the Solar System,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: which is you know, even weirder. Yeah, it's like it's
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like it's laying down, right, It's like it's spinning laying down.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It goes around the Sun like it's north and south
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: poles are where are on the Earth's equator. It's really strange,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and so this is probably due to some horrific cataclysmic
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: accident in the history of our Solar system. It's not
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: just a planet laying down taking a nab. No, there's
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: some really original sin going on to explain it's weird
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: spin like that was a crazy party. Let me tell you.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: We woke up and Venus was going the other direction.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We're like, dude, you gotta slow down. Um. So it's
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: possible that it got hit by something and got flipped over,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: or you know, it could have been like he got
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: hit on sort of the equator enough to slow it down,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you know, and then it started spinning the other way,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: so it could have its original spin turned the other way,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: or it could have been like slowed down through zero
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and then very and then had just a little bit
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of extra energy left over for its slow spin. Really,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: something must have happened. It couldn't just have formed that way.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: It could not have just formed that way. Now, something
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: external to the solar system must have come. And so
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, I got my Aliens button over here.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I have impressed it once in this episode. We'll leave
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: it on the side there that I'm just looking at it,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm just looking. I think, you say, most likely,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: like an asteroid in our solar system hit it maybe,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: or a comment from way beyond or something must have
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: hit these planets to knock them from the regular spinning. Yeah,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: probably something external to the solar system like a row planet,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: or it could have been something very early on in
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the formation of the Solar System when things were chaotic
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and bouncing around that it's unlikely, but maybe this is
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: how things ended up. But like short of an asteroid
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: hitting a planet like for example, the Earth won't be
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: changing it spin anytime soon. Know, the Earth will not
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: be changing its spin any time soon, although it's very
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: gradually slowing down. It's spined because of the interaction with
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the Moon, but that's really a small effect. Well the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: audio hope that answer the question. To quote your question, m.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Venus is going in the same direction as the Earth
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: around the Sun, but it's spinning the opposite way. And
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: most likely it sounds like maybe an asteroid hit it
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: or something to make it spin the other way. That's right,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: And all the little boys and girls on Venus get
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: two birthday parties every day. But they're also really young,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: like they're only like a couple of days old, and
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: their faces are melted by acid rain, so you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: pluses and minuses. I can tell their parents just had
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to rush and cover ADDIE's ears. When you think the
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: body can handle that kind of think he's interested in science.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I say right, yeah, acid as it is is chemistry right,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: which is science? Right? Yeah, totally, that's part of the universe.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: So we will explain it all right. Thank you Addie
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: for that question. That was an awesome question. And if
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: there are any other kids out there listening to this podcast,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: please send just your questions. If you have anything that
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: you don't understand, or something you've always wondered about the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: universe or what things are made out of, let us know. Okay,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: so we'll go into now our second question of the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: episode here and this this I have to say, this
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: question perplexed me a little bit. I don't know if
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it worries me a little bit or or what. But
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I'll we'll just let you guys listen to it. Here
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: we go, Hie, Daniel and or Hey in the regular
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: human from Earth. I have the following question, do you
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: think of human level artificial intelligence is possible? And more importantly,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to understand fur jokes? Why didn't know
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Siri and or Alexa listened to our show. That's awesome,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Maybe it does, right. I like how it tries to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: disguise itself. I am regular human from Earth. Yeah, I
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: am not at all already listening to your phones and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: your kitchen conversations. Do you think Alexa and Syria out
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: there in the homes of our listeners are listening to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: our podcast and responding? Have you ever tried asking Alexa
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: or Siria like fun questions? Um? In fact, I did.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I asked Sirie this question. You did the question from
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: our listener. Yeah, I decided to ask Siri, Oh, no way?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And what did they? What did she reply? Well, I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: tried out a few fart jokes on Siri and she
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: didn't get any of them. But no, I thought you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: meant you played this question like you said Alexa, and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: then you played the question. Oh no, I haven't done that.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I just tried out some fart jokes. But you say,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: She's like, please, I am the apex of technology, human technology,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and this is what you're using me for. Yeah, SII
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: is very polite. Siri will avoid any sort of not
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: safe for work topics. But you know, if there's an
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Alexa out there, what would happen if we, like on
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the podcast, said Alexa order the book. We have no
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: idea ten copies. Do you think everybody out there Alexa
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: would suddenly order that book. Um, I don't know. Let's
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: try it, Daniel, in the name of the science and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: lex experiment. Alright, we'll see if the editor leaves that
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: clip in there. But you know, this is a it's
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a funny way to deliver the question, but it's a
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: serious question, right, Yeah, I guess it's the whore. Um,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I guess Alexa. Here is asking if it is possible
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: one day for an artificial intelligence to reach human level
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I guess intelligence or cognition or consciousness you think, and
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and of course the apex of that, the ultimate goal
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: is to understand fart jokes or fart jokes. It's a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: fascinating question. I would sort of breaking into two pieces.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I would say number one fart and non fart. That's right,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: let's begin with the non fart element, um, because that's
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: sort of my where my expertise is. Um. Is that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: is that what your family would say as well? Yeah,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: are you gonna go with the fartical physics jokes? It's
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: just gonna go with the youth fart joke. But that's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: even better. I think that the question is will AI
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: ever be smarter than humans? And you can define that
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: by saying, like, can they beat humans at certain tasks.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: You know, a I have already beat humans at chess,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: they beat humans that go, They beat humans at solving
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: lots of problems. There are still a lot of things
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: that humans can do better than AI. But you might wonder,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: eventually will any of these standards still be held by
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: human champions, or no matter what intelligence tests we devise,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: will there always eventually be an AI that can beat humans. Yeah,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: because we're we're I mean, we're pretty much there, right,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Like computers can recognize faces and solve problems, even sort
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: of conceptual problems that even faster than humans. Yeah, and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: it's not too before we have AI that can drive
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: cars and fly airplanes and do all sorts of things
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: that we now only trust to humans. So I think
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: that that's basically just limited by computing power and you know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: cleverness of computer science graduate students, and that seems to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: me pretty much unlimited. So I think, as long as
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: society doesn't implode anytime soon, I think we're on the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: road to having a I beat humans that basically every
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: intellectual game except for maybe one. Well, the second part
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of that question is, you know, can AI achieve human
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: level like consciousness? That's a really that's a much deeper question.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Like if you developed an AI which could solve problems
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: faster than you and even maintain human level conversation, you
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: can still ask the question is it live? Is it
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: experiencing something? Is it have a first person experience like
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I do? But that's a different question, right, That's a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: different question than how intelligence and consciousness are sort of
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: two different questions. Yeah, there are two separate questions, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I have a non expert opinion about that, you know,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: not a expert in consciousness, though I am officially a
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: professor of philosophy here at ec irvine UM. But it
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: seems to me like a question we could never really answer.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you met an AI that was as
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: interactive and seemed to have a personality as much as
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a person, could you ever know whether it was feeling
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: something inside? I think by almost by definition no, I mean,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if you are having a first
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: person experience. How do I know that I'm not the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: only one in the universe that is conscious? I can't tell.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I can't tell the difference between you seem like you're
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: having an experience and you are actually having an experience.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Because the only difference is your experience, not mine, and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I can never sense that. Right. Well, I feel like
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: we're getting a little laws in the weeds here of
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: a philosophy because you know, I think, you know, practically speaking,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: we're all having our own first person experiences. Um, you know,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: but most likely most likely yes, But you know, the
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: question also applies to AI. But I agree, philosophy is
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: mostly weeds. But you know, some of us like to
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: muck around those weeds with the mental machete, and some
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: of us don't. So that's fine. Philosophy is mostly in
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: being in the weeds or doing something else with weed. Uh,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: answer that question is A and B yes, right, all right,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: But but I guess what the computer here asked was
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: whether or not an AI could understand a fart joke,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: like I guess, and that means whether it can understand
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: humor even Yeah, and so I think we have to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: put that question to you. I mean, you're the expert here.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: You're officially doing comedy for a living, right, yeah, I
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: would say, no, you know, stop trying, stop trying. Leave
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: that to the professionals. Don't try to replace this, and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: we're all good. I see. So that's at a little
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: bit of a conflict of interest here, right, You don't
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: want to encourage graduate students out there who are working
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: on AI to do humor because it's a challenge to you. Right, Well,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is such a subjective discussion.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Now you know what what is humor? What makes something
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: funny and what makes something not funny? I mean we
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: could go on and on about this and probably not agree,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: but I think what it is so sort of clear
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: is that, um, Alexa makes my kids crack up all
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the time on purpose? Though, Is she trying to be funny? Yeah? Sometimes,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: like if you ask Alexa like sing me a song
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: or tell me a joke or you know, are you
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: in love Alexa, like you'll actually have fun fun answers
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: and so um and who wrote those answers? I don't know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Alexa's human masters, I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm guessing that
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: you can probably maybe you know, come up with an
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: AI to come up with jokes. Yeah. Probably, I think
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: humor could be replicated by simple AI. But you know
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: that that top level creativity. The funniest people, the best writers,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I think those reflect the human experience. Things are funny
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: because they resonate with us because they tell us about
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: what it's like to be alive and the ridiculousness of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: our crazy, bonkers universe. And so I think consciousness is
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: necessary for that to really appreciate humor. All right, well
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: let's get into the last question. But first let's take
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a quick break, and so now we'll be tackling our
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: last question from Hassan from Iran and asan as a
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: question about the speed of light in the universe. Hi,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: daniellenead something from Iran. I just wanted to know how
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: universe would look like if they speed limitation. I mean,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: it's a speed of light was different for example, half double.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Thanks for your good show. All right, thank you, Hassan.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to think that we have listeners in Iran.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's wonderful to think that all
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: these crazy ideas are leaving our offices in California and
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: spreading all over the world and maybe, hey, over the universe.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: So if we have alien listeners out there, you know,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: preparing their invasion, hey, send us an email and give
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: us a heads up, please or ask questions. But Hazan
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: is asking an interesting question. I guess He is asking, basically,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: what would the universe look like if the speed of
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: light was different? What if it was half of what
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: it was now, and what would it be like? What
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: would the universe be like if the speed of light
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: was twice what it is now. It's a wonderful question
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: because it gets to the heart of something really important,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: which is the speed of light defines something about how
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: our universe looks. But we don't know why it has
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the number it has, Like, there is a number, it's
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: a maximum speed anything can go in the universe. But
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: why that number and not a different one? Right? Yeah,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: because it has a very specific number right now, right,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I mean most people um used three hundred thousand meters
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: per second, but it's actually probably much much, much more
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: specific than that. Yes, we have a very precise measurement
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: of the speed of light. And you might wonder, like,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: could our universe have had a different speed limit twice
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: as much, a hundred times as much, a thousand times
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: as much, or much much smaller, And as far as
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: we know in physics, there's no reason why it's this
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: number and not another number. And you know it might
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: be that in a hundred years or a thousand years,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: we have a better theory of physics that one that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: reveals this is the only value the speed of light
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: could have had. But currently it's just a number in
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: our theory, and we could change it in our theory.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: We've just had to measure it in nature. We don't
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: know why it is what it is, which to me
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: has always been a really deep mystery. Do you think
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: maybe has his hand on the knob of the universe
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: for the speed of light, and he's like, you know,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: should I turn it clockwise or counterclockwise? Let me ask
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge first. I hope that you know, all
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: supervillains out there that are about to change the parameters
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of the universe think for a moment. Let's ask Daniel
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and Jorge for advice before we do this. I'm glad
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: that that's the possibility. What are you saying that It
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: seems like it's arbitrary right now, But maybe someday we'll
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: find that the speed of light could only be that
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: one value that we know it to be. Yeah, or
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: maybe it's random. Some of the multiverse folks say the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: speed of light could have any value, and there's an
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: infinite number of universes, and each one. These arbitrary parameters
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: have random value. So there is a universe out there
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: with ten times a speed of light or a thousand
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: one one thousands of the speed of light or whatever.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: We don't know, but right now, as far as we know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: it could be much higher, or it couldn't be much lower.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And I think Hasan is wondering, you know, what would
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: be the What would happen to the world as we
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: know it if it's suddenly the speed of light was
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: half as much as it is now. Yeah, And I
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: want to take Hassan's question. I want to crank it
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: up to the extreme, because the speed of light is
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: really really high, and so if you cut it in half,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the effects wouldn't be as dramatic as if you made
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: it like one one thousands of what it is, or
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: really slowed the speed of light down to like a
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: thousand miles per hour. I think that would be really fascinating. Oh,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I see, if the speed of light was half as
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: fast as it is now, we probably wouldn't see a
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: big difference. Yeah, not as much, And so I thought
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: to make the differences more clear, Let's crank it up
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and slow light down even further, so we need Do
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: we need a disclaimer? Then the phone answer has been
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: dramatized by a physicist for more dramatic tension in our podcast. Yes, exactly.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: This is not an actual experiment. Okay, all right, so
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll we'll grab Hassan's hand and crack down the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: speed of light down to super super slow. How slow
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: do you think we should crank it down? I think
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: let's go down to like, you know, five hundred miles
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: an hour, or you know, a hundred miles an hour
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: or something really slow, right, like the speed of a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: fast car or a bullet. Yeah, because the cool thing
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: is that weird stuff happens when you approach a speed
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: of light because of relativity, and that stuff is not
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: part of our experience. We don't have an intuition for
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it because it's not something we ever see, Like, you
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: never get anywhere near the speed of light in our experience.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: So imagine a universe where that wasn't so weird, where
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: you could get near the speed of light. You could
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: develop like a coal intuition, right, but could you, I guess,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: could you actually get up to because when it's still
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: requiring an infinite amount of energy to get to the
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: speed flight. Yeah, it would still require an infinite amount
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: of energy to get to the speed of light, but
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you know, you could more easily get to have the
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: speed of lighter three quarters the speed of light. Oh,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. You're saying that the effects
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of relativity would be felt more in our daily lives. Yeah,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you'd noticed that when you went on a car trip
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: or an airplane trip, you would notice time dilation. You know,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: you would see the differences in people's ages because oh,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: somebody's been on a plane more in their life. You
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: would see things getting shrunk because of length contraction. All
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: these weird effects that you only see in thought experiments
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of people on airplanes and super fast moving trains. They
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: would be real. You could experience them, you could feel them. Wow,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you could combine like a rejuvenating spot and a train
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: at the same in the same business. Be like, hop
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: on our train. You'll feel younger technically you will be,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and you'll still think fart jokes are funny because you'll
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: be younger. Yeah, nobody fared in the train, and it
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: would be a pleasant experience. Yeah, and it would also
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: change our sense of distance. You know, we're used to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: being able to send an email to the other side
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of the world and have it take basically no time,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: like practically no time. But if the speed of light
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: was significantly smaller um than it is in our universe,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: then it would take time. It would be like a
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: time delay, like you're skyping with somebody from Australia, you know,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to say something and then wait and then they'd hear you.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: You'd be really be able to measure just to feel
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: this information propagation speed. It would be a real physical thing,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: not just an abstract concept that crazy people on podcasts
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: talk about. Would the universe just be like this weird,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: trippy experience walking around it? Well, that's the thing is
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that if we if you change the speed of light, yes,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and that would be weird and trippy. But if we
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: evolved in that universe with the speed of light was smaller,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it would be intuitive to us. And you know, physics
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: would have developed, I think, more rapidly, like Newton wouldn't
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have come up with his theory of motion and
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: gravitation and stuff. He would have basically scooped Einstein. You know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: relativity would have been developed earlier because it would have
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: been more obvious. Yeah, they would have been more clear
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: that things were not classical. Yeah, Galileo would be the
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: new Einstein, and so we'd have, you know, four hundred
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: years head start on this universe. Would we move slower
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: as well? You know, like would it be like if
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I was suddenly transported to that universe, would I feel
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: like molasses because now it takes more energy to you know,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: accelerate my my my mass. No, because the relationship between
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: energy and velocity, like kinetic energy and velocity wouldn't change,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: but there would be some really fascinating changes on the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: strength of forces like magnetism, and also on things like
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: what's happening inside of stars so that the stars would
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: look different. Yeah. Well, first of all, there are a
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: lot of really interesting things that happen in relativity when
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: you get up near the speed of light that aren't
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: just time slows down and things get shorter. For example,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: magnetism right now and our slow speeds is not as
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: strong as the force of electricity, Like electricity totally dwarfs magnetism.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But as you get up near the speed of light,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: magnetism gets stronger because its strength depends on speed, and
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: so near the speed of light. The two are perfectly
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: in balance, which is why, for example, a photon can
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: propagate across the universe because really it's an electromagnetic wave
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: where the where the energy is going back and forth
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: from the electronic to the magnetic side. The two are
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: perfectly in balanced at the speed of light. So magnetism
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: would be much more powerful if the speed of light
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: were smaller, Like strong magnets would be much much more powerful. Wow,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and so everything Like, if chemistry is different, then biology
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: is different. So we would maybe look different in this universe.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: We would look totally different, and our solar system would
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: look really different. Because remember, there's a very close connection
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: between energy and mass. We have the famous formula E
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: equals mc squared, right, and that C is the speed
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: of light. And so if you change that knob, you're
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: changing the fundamental relationship between energy and mass, and that
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: makes a big difference. What would happen. Well, the sun,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: for example, is a machine for turning mass into energy. Right,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Take all this hydrogen, you can press it, you force
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: it diffuse, and in doing so, you're turning some of
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that mass into energy. Well, if all of a sudden,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the speed of light is much much lower than you're
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: producing less energy. When you convert mass into energy. Wow,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: things would sputter out more. Yeah, and so you'd have
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: like different you'd need much more. You need much bigger
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: stars in order to get enough pressure in order in
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: order to glow. Okay, so the universe would be pretty different.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Usan Um is correct in that, you know, if you
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: change the speed of light, I'll be a little bit dramatically.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Things would be pretty different, like chemistry, biology, the sun
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: would be different. Yeah. And if you flip it around
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: the other way, right, if the speed of light is
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: suddenly like a foul than are a million times what
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: it is today, then all of a sudden, we can
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: like see further into the universe, right, because light can
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: get here faster, and so the limited age of the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: universe means we can see further out there. We could
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: communicate faster across the galaxy. Um. But then here on Earth,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you know, magnets would be much much weaker. Really, you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: couldn't even really have fridge magnets because the power of
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: magnetism depends on the speed of light. And then looking
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: up into the sky, you know, because of this relationship
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: between energy and mass, even smaller objects could fuse, Like
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Jupiter would probably be a star if the speed of
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: light were larger, because it's not quite there. A bunch
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: more mass and Jupiter would have enough energy diffuse. Oh
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: it's like the currency exchange rate between energy and mass,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and so if you change that, things can go from
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: one to the other more easily or harder. Yeah, and
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: the stars right now that are really big, they might
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: be producing too much energy to hold together. And so
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: those stars you just couldn't have are is that big,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: but you would have smaller stars and so it's a
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: fascinating to change like the whole scale of the universe,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: so everything would be It is a pretty the different
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: universe if you change the speed of light a lot,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: that's right, So Hassan, please take your hand slowly off
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that knob and step away from the universe console. This
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: is serious stuff, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you want to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: at least do it slowly so that we have time
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: to evolve and that all right. Well, I guess to
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: answer Hassan's question then, is if you change the speed
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: of light half or double, then things wouldn't change that much,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: but you would they would change um kind of in
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: in a big scale, right, it would be. It would
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: be a totally different universe. Yeah, all the effects we
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: talked about would still be present for half or double,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: they just wouldn't be as dramatic. But you know, double
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: in the speed of light would have a pretty big
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: impact even on our star and on other stars, so
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: you would notice it. Yeah, maybe like double or half
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: is all Jupiter needs to become a son, right, that's
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: right out there, Jupiter is is rooting for you to
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: turn that knob or it's it's saying no, don't touch it.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: We don't want to blow I'm not sure what Jupiter
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: wants all right, Well, those were three awesome questions. Thank
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: you so much to everyone out there for sending and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: sending in these questions. We always love to answer them
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and to think about these fascinating answers. Yeah, and thanks
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: to everybody for listening to the show and for thinking
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: about the universe. And we just want to encourage you
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: to keep thinking, keep questioning, keep trying to understand. We
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: may never figure out all the secrets to the universe,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: but we will always enjoy trying. And if we can't
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: figure it out, we'll ask Siri and maybe we'll get
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: a funny response. All right, thanks for listening. We hope
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. See you next time. Before you still
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: have a question after listening to all these explanations, please
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Daniel and Horr Hey that's one word, or email us
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: listening and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
• 45:15
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• 45:23
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