Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Bad Science Questions

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Bad Science Questions · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:07
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what's your favorite science fiction movie? I think
0:10
Speaker 1: my favorite one is probably Primer. Primer, What do you
0:13
Speaker 1: like about it? I like that it tells like counterintuitive
0:15
Speaker 1: tale of time travel, but it actually really tries to
0:18
Speaker 1: hold true to the rules. Like they set up some
0:20
Speaker 1: rules and they follow them and the results are not
0:23
Speaker 1: what you expect. But then you think about you like,
0:24
Speaker 1: actually that makes perfect sense. So it's like clever, it's insightful.
0:28
Speaker 1: That's the best science fiction. It's like new idea, insightful. Uh,
0:32
Speaker 1: comments about how it impacts reality and human life, right,
0:35
Speaker 1: but they don't even try to explain how they achieve
0:37
Speaker 1: a time travel right, like at all. There's a little
0:39
Speaker 1: bit of YadA YadA YadA there, you know, like trying
0:42
Speaker 1: to do this YadA YadA YadA. Oops, look what happened?
0:44
Speaker 1: We can travel with time? Yeah exactly. But you know
0:46
Speaker 1: it's science fiction. It's not technology fiction or engineering fiction. Right.
0:49
Speaker 1: It's like, imagine we had this new thing of science,
0:52
Speaker 1: what would it would be like in our world? And
0:53
Speaker 1: can you make a consistent story? Yeah exactly, which is
0:57
Speaker 1: really a challenge. And as you know, because I've complained
1:00
Speaker 1: about it bitterly, most time travel movies are horribly inconsistent,
1:03
Speaker 1: untially implausible. If only you could go back in time
1:07
Speaker 1: and fix fix those plots. Yeah, I would just cancel
1:10
Speaker 1: all those projects, but then you wouldn't have seen them,
1:15
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't be inspired too, and they would be
1:18
Speaker 1: made again, and then I would cancel them and we'd
1:20
Speaker 1: be stuck in a loop forever. Yeah, but I'll be
1:22
Speaker 1: watching a lot of movies, so I guess that's not
1:24
Speaker 1: too bad. Yeah, you were creating a paradox, and the
1:29
Speaker 1: entertainment paradox exactly. Hi, I'm Hormma cartoonists and the creator
1:50
Speaker 1: of PhD comments. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist,
1:54
Speaker 1: and I'm not the creator of any online comic website
1:56
Speaker 1: yet yet. And welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge
2:00
Speaker 1: Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in
2:03
Speaker 1: which we try to take the universe apart, piece by
2:06
Speaker 1: piece and shove them down your ear whole, I guess,
2:09
Speaker 1: your wormhole brain exactly. We try to transmit them from
2:15
Speaker 1: our brain to your brain in a way that actually
2:17
Speaker 1: makes sense, so you can impress your mom or boyfriend
2:21
Speaker 1: or kids when you talk to them about it. Today,
2:22
Speaker 1: we have an extra special kind of question episode in
2:26
Speaker 1: which we're taking questions from a friend. So today on
2:29
Speaker 1: the program we have Ethan Edinburgh, the host of the
2:32
Speaker 1: podcast Bad Science. Welcome Ethan, Hey, thanks for having me.
2:36
Speaker 1: I'm very delighted to be here. I also have no
2:39
Speaker 1: comic series on the internet, so yeah, but I will
2:44
Speaker 1: say that no one would enjoy it because my drawing
2:46
Speaker 1: abilities are very bad, so bad, the worst have you
2:52
Speaker 1: have you seen? The internet? Okay, figures? Really I wasted
2:58
Speaker 1: a lot of time trying to learn how to draw.
3:00
Speaker 1: Apparently I just have to use stick figures. So maybe
3:02
Speaker 1: I'm good. Here you go. Maybe after this, after this episode,
3:05
Speaker 1: you'll give it a shot. Yeah. Well, well we're really
3:07
Speaker 1: happy you're here, right then, Ethan. Um, so, tell us
3:09
Speaker 1: a little bit about the podcast Bad Science and where
3:12
Speaker 1: people can find it, and a little bit about yourself
3:16
Speaker 1: promoting bad Science. That's what happens in your podcast? All
3:18
Speaker 1: about Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah, pretty much, that's all that. We
3:21
Speaker 1: talk about, her little gene shorts and the Avengers. Uh No,
3:25
Speaker 1: Bad Science. I sit down with a comedian and a
3:28
Speaker 1: scientist every week and we discussed the inaccuracies of films.
3:33
Speaker 1: So anything from Alien to Star Wars to whatever we
3:38
Speaker 1: go through and we have a different scientist and we
3:39
Speaker 1: talk about their expertise and try to get down to
3:42
Speaker 1: what's going on there, and I you know, butt in
3:44
Speaker 1: with my stupid questions as I'm sure I'm gonna ask
3:46
Speaker 1: you guys today. Uh. And the comedian also, you know,
3:49
Speaker 1: most comedians, I feel, are like really curious about the world.
3:53
Speaker 1: So they, you know, also think it's necessary to be
3:56
Speaker 1: curious to be a comedian. Oh that's a good one, probably, Yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: I think so, or at least nitpicky you know this way.
4:05
Speaker 1: How do people think that's reasonable? I don't know. I
4:08
Speaker 1: was just having this argument with a friend where you know,
4:10
Speaker 1: they were like, is it bad that we've complained a lot?
4:12
Speaker 1: And I've said, like, I don't know. If it might
4:14
Speaker 1: be a show. It might show that we're able to
4:18
Speaker 1: dissect the world instead of just accept what's going on. Uh.
4:23
Speaker 1: And so I think for comedy that that might be.
4:25
Speaker 1: You know, that's like Jerry Seinfeldt whole career. That's observational comedy. Yeah,
4:28
Speaker 1: it's like, why is this this way? That's science basically right. Yeah.
4:31
Speaker 1: So it's so it's a show where you make sort
4:33
Speaker 1: of a comedian and a scientist on different topics. U
4:36
Speaker 1: and so you sort of have that sort of accessibility
4:38
Speaker 1: of the science but also funny. So it's a very
4:40
Speaker 1: kind of show. It's a show that's very kind of
4:43
Speaker 1: in the spirit is our show. Yes, yeah, you'd like
4:47
Speaker 1: to show it. You should definitely check out Bad Science.
4:49
Speaker 1: I think you're saying on our show, one of us
4:51
Speaker 1: is smart and one of us is funny. I'm saying
4:53
Speaker 1: neither of us are smart or funny. Writing that that
4:59
Speaker 1: really down into the bottom there. No, I think it's
5:02
Speaker 1: great to to educate people in an entertaining way, which
5:04
Speaker 1: I think you guys do expertly. I do mediocre, But
5:09
Speaker 1: but the podcast I think is a great way to
5:12
Speaker 1: It's a great medium for that where it's like, oh,
5:13
Speaker 1: I want to learn a bunch of stuff, but I
5:15
Speaker 1: don't want to be bored by it, you know, I
5:17
Speaker 1: also want to know about you know, the Secret Men
5:20
Speaker 1: in Black Trivia at the same time, So that's kind
5:23
Speaker 1: of the basis there. Cool and so Daniel and I
5:25
Speaker 1: were just guests on your podcast, Yes, and so that
5:29
Speaker 1: will because that should probably already be out now, So
5:32
Speaker 1: you can definitely check that out. Bad science. Yes, so fun.
5:35
Speaker 1: Thank you guys again for doing that. Great time. Yeah,
5:37
Speaker 1: and it was great. We sat around and talked for
5:39
Speaker 1: an hour about the Avengers. Yeah, and the science behind
5:42
Speaker 1: the Avengers and the stretches of the imagination in Avengers
5:45
Speaker 1: and and so you should definitely check that out. Yes, yes,
5:48
Speaker 1: the guys, the bad science, the engineering, all of it.
5:51
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. Yeah, there was a
5:52
Speaker 1: very there was a vicious engineering verse science debate that
5:57
Speaker 1: happened that I just kind of I was in the
5:58
Speaker 1: front row pop or like watching your parents argued. It's
6:02
Speaker 1: like Ques, I loved it. Like to create a little
6:06
Speaker 1: bit of tention on the podcast, I mean not on purpose,
6:08
Speaker 1: but if it's there, I'm highlighting it. I want to
6:12
Speaker 1: see that layout. Cool. Well, today, Ethan, we're answering your
6:19
Speaker 1: science questions. Yes, and so tell us what's your kind
6:22
Speaker 1: of relationship to science? Have you been interested in in it?
6:25
Speaker 1: I'm a very curious man. I have these questions all
6:29
Speaker 1: the time. I I've used my podcast as a way
6:32
Speaker 1: to like as a self serving way to learn, but
6:36
Speaker 1: I still have just endless questions. So I'm happy to
6:38
Speaker 1: be here and ask you guys. But my relationship with
6:41
Speaker 1: science is probably somewhat typical. I was in classes in school.
6:46
Speaker 1: I've had anatomy and chemistry and these types of things,
6:50
Speaker 1: and I was always fascinated by it. Not very good
6:52
Speaker 1: at it, just so you guys know, don't have a
6:54
Speaker 1: PhD like you guys, So I've would I love science,
6:57
Speaker 1: love to learn about it and deal somehow after a
7:01
Speaker 1: year of doing the podcast, feel like I know nothing,
7:04
Speaker 1: and but it does, uh make me really happy to
7:08
Speaker 1: learn that there's so much there's so many areas of
7:11
Speaker 1: science that scientists don't know anything about. So that makes
7:14
Speaker 1: me feel like, Okay, we're kind of in the same
7:15
Speaker 1: boat here when it comes to like you said, like
7:17
Speaker 1: dark matter, dark energy. Uh, I don't know if I'm
7:20
Speaker 1: even saying that right, what a schmuck, But definitely, I
7:23
Speaker 1: think it's definitely impossible for anyone human being to know
7:27
Speaker 1: everything that all humans know, you know, like anymore. Yeah,
7:31
Speaker 1: we're all expert. You're expert in something and you know,
7:33
Speaker 1: um and things that we have no idea about. Great,
7:36
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I'll teach you guys from Jazz
7:38
Speaker 1: Chords after this we can hang out in the show
7:43
Speaker 1: where big believers in the idea that You don't need
7:45
Speaker 1: a degree or a PhD to participate in science, to
7:49
Speaker 1: ask interesting questions about science, to you know, to learn
7:53
Speaker 1: from it and or even contribute to the search for it. Yeah.
7:56
Speaker 1: Science is a part of being human, you see, especially
7:58
Speaker 1: in kids, right, Kids ask the best questions because they're
8:01
Speaker 1: curious about the world. We all want to understand the world.
8:03
Speaker 1: And something else else really exciting about it is that
8:06
Speaker 1: there are big questions. You don't need a science to
8:08
Speaker 1: be to understand the questions. Right, You're saying, what is
8:10
Speaker 1: dark energy? How the universe begin? These are fun questions
8:13
Speaker 1: everybody wants to know the answer to. Well, today you
8:15
Speaker 1: have four really interesting and tough questions, I think for
8:19
Speaker 1: Daniel here right now, for us here today, you have
8:22
Speaker 1: questions about the recent black hole picture, Yes, the photo
8:25
Speaker 1: of the black hole. Yes, you have questions about Jupiter
8:27
Speaker 1: and what's the core of it? And questions about the
8:30
Speaker 1: big band and the future of humanity. So not small
8:33
Speaker 1: questions here even. No, Yes, I'm going big today. I'm
8:36
Speaker 1: here to light a fire. Questions about secret jelly belly
8:40
Speaker 1: flavors or anything. We're going big. You know, we're going big.
8:43
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah, I mean I don't know which one you
8:44
Speaker 1: guys want to start with. I know, I feel like
8:46
Speaker 1: the future of Earth one is it might be like grim.
8:50
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Like sometimes we get into that
8:53
Speaker 1: zone on bad Signs and I feel like, oh no,
8:55
Speaker 1: we gotta like get away from this because it's like
8:57
Speaker 1: it's dark. You know where we're at right now a
8:59
Speaker 1: little bit. But you're assuming the future of humanities is grim?
9:02
Speaker 1: Is that? I just think that we could go there,
9:06
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. So, I don't know if you
9:08
Speaker 1: want to leave that one for last. I'm just throwing
9:09
Speaker 1: it out there. I feel like there's a good, good
9:11
Speaker 1: one to end on. Then we'll end with the band well,
9:17
Speaker 1: I mean, assuming people are still listening by then. By
9:21
Speaker 1: the end of the maybe you'll have ended by then,
9:23
Speaker 1: in which case it's all. I mean, you never know.
9:25
Speaker 1: Somebody in the missile silo is going to press the
9:27
Speaker 1: button just before they listen to that part of the podcast.
9:29
Speaker 1: We just need Tony Stark to go after it and
9:31
Speaker 1: catch it, throw it into a portal, our wormhole, defense
9:36
Speaker 1: plot hole, a plot hole, or a wormhole. I don't know.
9:39
Speaker 1: It was gonna fell the same thing the Avengers movie.
9:41
Speaker 1: Maybe with that let's take a break. We'll be back
9:45
Speaker 1: in just a short minute. Yeah. The recent discovery or
10:02
Speaker 1: or advancement I guess is this picture is the black
10:04
Speaker 1: hole picture, which which I thought did look like the
10:08
Speaker 1: Interstellar like rendering of a black pretty pretty close. Yeah,
10:12
Speaker 1: so cool. I thought it looked more like a fuzzy donut,
10:15
Speaker 1: actually a fuzzy oh yeah, a little bit. It looks
10:18
Speaker 1: like a Krispy Cream donut. Yeah. Well that's my impression
10:20
Speaker 1: of the whole movie Interstellar. It's a bit of a
10:25
Speaker 1: stales mushy uh sale. But there were people online who
10:29
Speaker 1: thought it was all faked, it wasn't a real picture
10:31
Speaker 1: of a black hole, and it was actually a picture
10:33
Speaker 1: of a donut. Like literally, that would have been a
10:36
Speaker 1: great hope. Really yeah, I kind of want that to
10:39
Speaker 1: be true. Now. That would assume a sense of humor
10:42
Speaker 1: in scientists which you have never found, which does not exist,
10:46
Speaker 1: can which could be disproved by the existence of really
10:52
Speaker 1: funny science podcasts, which a year right here are so
10:56
Speaker 1: there's a few of them out there that are good.
10:58
Speaker 1: Uh So. I was getting very briefly, very brief research
11:02
Speaker 1: on this, but they needed and I can't. It was
11:05
Speaker 1: like what was the name of it was like the
11:07
Speaker 1: name of the hard drives were ridiculous. I can't remember
11:10
Speaker 1: what it was called. But they needed these like extra
11:12
Speaker 1: huge hard drive you know, tara flops or some I
11:16
Speaker 1: don't know what it was. Caps of data. Yeah, but
11:21
Speaker 1: jiga blop, thank you. It'snd like a Rick and Morty alien.
11:25
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, they needed like, I don't know, a
11:27
Speaker 1: bunch of data too. And I saw a picture of it.
11:30
Speaker 1: There's like a lady with like rows of these hard drives,
11:34
Speaker 1: which I thought was really cool. I didn't know if
11:35
Speaker 1: you guys knew about that, but it was like it
11:37
Speaker 1: was years in the making to get this picture. So
11:40
Speaker 1: a why was it years in the making? What were
11:43
Speaker 1: they doing for these years? Why is it so much data?
11:47
Speaker 1: And what are we looking at here? Yeah, these are
11:50
Speaker 1: great questions. I think it's really sort of too fascinating
11:52
Speaker 1: aspects there. One is like how did they do it?
11:55
Speaker 1: Like the technology of it while it was it hard?
11:57
Speaker 1: Why did it take so many years? And number two
11:59
Speaker 1: like what does it mean? So how did they do it? Yeah?
12:02
Speaker 1: Maybe it stepp us through like the just the problem
12:04
Speaker 1: of taking a picture of a black hole in the
12:07
Speaker 1: center of the universe, the center of the galaxy. Uh,
12:11
Speaker 1: like you know what does that even mean? Like how
12:13
Speaker 1: far away is it? What's preventing us from just looking
12:16
Speaker 1: at it? Yeah, and falling into it and daring also
12:18
Speaker 1: a good question, right, right, So folks probably remember, black
12:22
Speaker 1: holes are like really really dense, right, so dense that
12:24
Speaker 1: the gravity inside the black hole is strong enough to
12:27
Speaker 1: bend space so nothing can escape, right, So it's black
12:31
Speaker 1: because photons even can't escape it. So if you would
12:34
Speaker 1: just like saw a black hole in the middle of
12:35
Speaker 1: nowhere with nothing around it, it it would be invisible. So
12:38
Speaker 1: I can't really see a black hole directly, scary, Yeah,
12:41
Speaker 1: unless something passes behind it, right, then you could see
12:44
Speaker 1: like it's shadow. Um. And we did a whole podcast
12:46
Speaker 1: episode about what is it like to see a black hole?
12:48
Speaker 1: How can you see them? And the short answer is
12:50
Speaker 1: you can't see the black hole directly, but you can
12:52
Speaker 1: see this stuff around it. So, for example, you have
12:54
Speaker 1: a black hole, it's gobbling gas, right, it's like sucking
12:57
Speaker 1: stuff up from somewhere, and the stuff hasn't yet gone
13:00
Speaker 1: into the black hole. It's like swirling around it. It's
13:03
Speaker 1: called the accretion disk. That stuff is getting hot and
13:06
Speaker 1: confused and upset and banging into itself and emitting like
13:10
Speaker 1: gamma rays and radio waves and all sorts of radiation.
13:13
Speaker 1: And you can see that. That's the part you can
13:15
Speaker 1: actually see. Oh but they took pictures of two black
13:18
Speaker 1: holes or just one black hole? I think they took
13:20
Speaker 1: pictures of two. They've only released one that I've seen
13:22
Speaker 1: so far, Okay, and where where is that black hole?
13:24
Speaker 1: And so one that they looked at is in the
13:26
Speaker 1: center of our galaxy, right in the center of the
13:28
Speaker 1: Milky Way. They haven't released that one yet. The other
13:29
Speaker 1: one is in another galaxy. And the difficulty of seeing
13:32
Speaker 1: black holes I think you're really into is that black
13:34
Speaker 1: holes are at the center of galaxies and they're surrounded
13:37
Speaker 1: by huge blobs of stuff. So you just like look
13:39
Speaker 1: in the center of the galaxy, you're gonna see the
13:40
Speaker 1: stuff around the black hole, like the dust and the
13:43
Speaker 1: gas and all that stuff. It's hard to see through
13:45
Speaker 1: that um And these galaxies are really far away. So
13:49
Speaker 1: this galaxy that they were looking at is really far
13:51
Speaker 1: away and makes the black hole like super duper tiny.
13:55
Speaker 1: It seems almost impossible to me. I mean, you can't
13:57
Speaker 1: even see galaxies when you look at the night sky
13:59
Speaker 1: or if you see one, they're not that big, right,
14:02
Speaker 1: It's just like a little fuzzy oval. And so you're
14:04
Speaker 1: saying that we actually took a picture of a black
14:07
Speaker 1: hole inside of that little tiny blob that's bright. Yeah, exactly.
14:13
Speaker 1: It's amazing because if you use the Hubble, like the telescope,
14:15
Speaker 1: the best telescope we have in space, to zoom in
14:17
Speaker 1: on those galaxies, you can get pretty nice pictures. But
14:20
Speaker 1: if you take like a single pixel from the Hubble,
14:22
Speaker 1: the black hole is like a tiny, tiny, tiny tiny
14:25
Speaker 1: thing inside a single pixel of the most powerful telescope.
14:29
Speaker 1: So one problem is they're basically invisible. The other one
14:31
Speaker 1: is it's small and really really far away. So this
14:34
Speaker 1: is a hard thing to look at. Wow, okay, I
14:37
Speaker 1: mean I'm confused by a few things. Number one, conspiracy
14:40
Speaker 1: corner here. Why not release the other pictures? You said
14:46
Speaker 1: they have two, and one's released and one's not. So
14:48
Speaker 1: what's the government hiding the question? Aliens and chocolate. That's
14:53
Speaker 1: usually the answer that the picture of it's like the
14:55
Speaker 1: black hole, but then there's like an alien doing a
14:57
Speaker 1: selfie chocolate. I want to see that they found the
15:00
Speaker 1: tests act No, I think they're just not done processing
15:02
Speaker 1: that one yet. Um, so it's coming out, Yeah, good,
15:05
Speaker 1: it's coming out. They're staggering them like Game of Thrones.
15:09
Speaker 1: It's not a binge worthy. They're waiting for the ad campaign,
15:13
Speaker 1: you know, they get the right sponsors and all that
15:15
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Um. And the reason it took so
15:18
Speaker 1: long is that it's really far away and it's tiny,
15:21
Speaker 1: and um, the wavelength of light that we used to
15:23
Speaker 1: see it radio waves are really really large, and so
15:27
Speaker 1: in order to see something really really far away you
15:30
Speaker 1: need a really really big telescope. You gotta gather enough light.
15:33
Speaker 1: And also, because the length of the light waves is
15:36
Speaker 1: so large compared to the size of the thing in
15:38
Speaker 1: the distance, you need basically an earth size telescope. Jesus. Yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: so we don't have that. We don't really have that.
15:45
Speaker 1: We don't have a single telescope that's the size of
15:47
Speaker 1: the Earth. Right. But what they did is they said,
15:49
Speaker 1: let's take a bunch of telescopes all around the Earth, okay,
15:52
Speaker 1: and take pictures from each of those little ones, and
15:55
Speaker 1: then pretend that they're all part of a bigger telescope.
15:58
Speaker 1: And you're thinking, okay, but you're missing most of the
15:59
Speaker 1: tell lescope. And that's true, but you know, the Earth
16:01
Speaker 1: spins and rotates, so you can sort of like fill
16:04
Speaker 1: in the gaps. So you're never taking one earth size picture.
16:08
Speaker 1: But if you wait a few years and then you
16:10
Speaker 1: collect elevent good jiggle blocks of data and analyze it,
16:13
Speaker 1: you can reconstruct the black hole. Because it's not like
16:17
Speaker 1: an action shot, right, it's not like in motion. This
16:19
Speaker 1: is like integrated over years a single picture. And as
16:23
Speaker 1: the Earth rotates around the Sun too, right, did that
16:25
Speaker 1: give us an actually a little bit of like coverage. Yeah,
16:29
Speaker 1: exactly exactly after Earth spins and it rotates, and you know,
16:32
Speaker 1: our galaxy is moving compared to that galaxy, and so
16:34
Speaker 1: we get all these different angles and you have to
16:36
Speaker 1: add them all up to get one picture. So it's
16:39
Speaker 1: not a picture. It's not a snapshot of a moment
16:42
Speaker 1: of this black hole's life. It's uh combination of a
16:47
Speaker 1: bunch of cameras taking a bunch of pictures and then
16:50
Speaker 1: for a long time. Yeah, it's like say you had
16:51
Speaker 1: a statue in a town square and you had a
16:54
Speaker 1: picture from somebody's tourist photo of the back of it,
16:56
Speaker 1: and then a year later, somebody took a picture of
16:58
Speaker 1: the front of it. A year later some it took
17:00
Speaker 1: a picture of the side and you put together like
17:01
Speaker 1: a three TV construction and what that statue looked like.
17:04
Speaker 1: Because Satu is not moving, it's pretty cool you can
17:06
Speaker 1: do that. But the stuff around the black hole is moving, right,
17:10
Speaker 1: I mean, can we do we know how fast that
17:12
Speaker 1: stuff to move, like the speed at which it's getting
17:15
Speaker 1: sucked into the abyss. Yeah, it's moving really fast. Um
17:20
Speaker 1: it's getting sucked in there. And um I was glowing. Right,
17:23
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's falling and being shredded so fast
17:26
Speaker 1: that it just it just explodes, right, Yeah, And the
17:29
Speaker 1: environment around a black hole is not a nice place
17:31
Speaker 1: to be. Right. Gravity is a really powerful force, but
17:34
Speaker 1: the strength of the force varies with distance, Like the
17:36
Speaker 1: further you are away from the black hole, the weaker
17:38
Speaker 1: it is, and the closer you are, the stronger it is. Right.
17:41
Speaker 1: But because the gravity is so strong near the black hole,
17:43
Speaker 1: if you were near the black hole, the force of
17:45
Speaker 1: gravity on your legs, for example, would be different than
17:48
Speaker 1: the force of gravity on your head. There are different distances,
17:51
Speaker 1: and that means that effectively a force tearing you apart.
17:54
Speaker 1: So black hole. If you got near it would literally
17:56
Speaker 1: pull you in pieces because the differential gravity on the
17:59
Speaker 1: different parts of you. So I wouldn't recommend it, okay.
18:02
Speaker 1: And that's what's happening to the gas, That's what Jorge
18:04
Speaker 1: was saying. So that gas is getting squeezed and pulled
18:06
Speaker 1: and torn apart, and that makes it glow. And that's
18:09
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is the glow of the gas around
18:11
Speaker 1: the black hole. Interest, that's the donut. That's the donut. Yeah,
18:16
Speaker 1: that's the thing that looks like a donut, not actually
18:18
Speaker 1: a donut, hoaxa. So it's like space is black and
18:22
Speaker 1: then you got the glowing stuff around the center, the edges,
18:25
Speaker 1: but then the center is black again, right, because that's
18:27
Speaker 1: but the black hole. That's right, that's the event horizon.
18:30
Speaker 1: That's the place afterward inside which no light can never
18:33
Speaker 1: leave um and the and so what you see in
18:36
Speaker 1: the picture is gas around the black hole, right, which
18:38
Speaker 1: is glowing um. And then in the center is blackness, right,
18:41
Speaker 1: and that's where the black hole is. Well, it just
18:43
Speaker 1: looks like blackness, but actually it's like a wormhole to
18:46
Speaker 1: the other side of the universe, right to the DC universe. Okay,
18:50
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure um exactly, And the
18:54
Speaker 1: size of that hole is not really the size of
18:56
Speaker 1: the black hole itself, right, Like the black hole, we
18:58
Speaker 1: don't know what's happening inside the event horizon, like huge
19:01
Speaker 1: mystery of science, Like what's in there? Is it a
19:03
Speaker 1: tiny little dot that's super super heavy, Is it's some
19:05
Speaker 1: quantum fuzziness. Is there something else going on? We don't know.
19:09
Speaker 1: But there's a sphere we call the event horizon that
19:11
Speaker 1: says nothing from inside here can ever leave. But the
19:14
Speaker 1: picture you see of the black hole is actually bigger
19:16
Speaker 1: than that event horizon, Yeah, because it's really complicated. The
19:20
Speaker 1: space around a black hole. Like you look at something,
19:23
Speaker 1: you imagine that you're seeing the photons sort of in
19:26
Speaker 1: the same order that they were sent to you. Like
19:28
Speaker 1: I see the photons from your head above the photons
19:31
Speaker 1: from your foot, So imagine your heads above your foot. Right.
19:34
Speaker 1: But if there's some like complicated lens or mirror between us,
19:37
Speaker 1: that can get all mixed up, right, Well, a black
19:39
Speaker 1: hole is a huge complicated lens. It bends space. So
19:42
Speaker 1: part of the blackness you're seeing is like the backside
19:46
Speaker 1: of the event horizon, because light from that comes around
19:49
Speaker 1: and gets bent towards your eyes. So it's a it's
19:51
Speaker 1: really complicated the matrix here, you're describing broken part of reality.
19:59
Speaker 1: It's no, it's a reveals the matrix, right, It shows
20:01
Speaker 1: us how the matrix actually works. It tells us like
20:03
Speaker 1: what's going on in science? These are the best, the
20:05
Speaker 1: most extreme, Uh, areas of the universe are the place
20:09
Speaker 1: to learn, like where things break down and where we
20:10
Speaker 1: don't understand them, and so that's why it's pretty awesome.
20:12
Speaker 1: But he's sort of writing that it does break our
20:15
Speaker 1: models of the universe, right, like things like are we
20:18
Speaker 1: don't have a good model for what's happening inside of
20:21
Speaker 1: the black hole? Right like wheverything just breaks down. We
20:23
Speaker 1: have two models for what's happening instead of a black hole.
20:25
Speaker 1: They don't agree. Both of them are wrong. Um, and
20:28
Speaker 1: so yeah, we don't know they're both right about everything
20:31
Speaker 1: else in the universe. Yeah, they just disagree about what's
20:33
Speaker 1: inside exactly. And the black hole is the place where
20:36
Speaker 1: they disagree most and also a place where we can't
20:38
Speaker 1: look inside. So that's like frustrating and tantalizing and amazing. Yeah,
20:42
Speaker 1: do you prescribe to you know that this could be
20:45
Speaker 1: a interdimensional thing like there's some other I don't know
20:49
Speaker 1: dimention or universe multiverse like, and black hole is the
20:54
Speaker 1: I don't know what entry point for something. Does that
20:56
Speaker 1: make sense? That would be pretty awesome if they were true.
20:59
Speaker 1: There are a lot of theories of wormholes, like how
21:01
Speaker 1: black holes could be connected to white holes, and they
21:04
Speaker 1: could be and these are really big black holes, so
21:06
Speaker 1: you know it's honestly, it could be true, Like all
21:09
Speaker 1: that crazy stuff you just said, honestly could be reality.
21:12
Speaker 1: That's the thing I love about it, Like you did
21:15
Speaker 1: you get credit for it though it turns out to
21:16
Speaker 1: be true. Oh yeah, I'm not sure. He's the first
21:18
Speaker 1: person to speak Maybe that's a unique set of science
21:22
Speaker 1: words nobody's ever said before in that order. Hey, i'll
21:25
Speaker 1: take it. I'll give it to you. Get an honorary
21:26
Speaker 1: degree from Daniel and jrge My mom is gonna be
21:30
Speaker 1: so proud. But I think also there's a larger context,
21:33
Speaker 1: Like I think some people think, oh, we saw a
21:35
Speaker 1: picture of a black hole, so now we know they're real.
21:37
Speaker 1: We sort of already knew they were real. You could
21:39
Speaker 1: tell the black holes were there indirectly from their gravity,
21:43
Speaker 1: the way the stars move around them. Um, a lot
21:45
Speaker 1: of black holes are not that hard to see, Like,
21:48
Speaker 1: the gas around them is super bright. It's actually one
21:50
Speaker 1: of the brightest things in the universe. We call them quaisars.
21:53
Speaker 1: They admit a huge amount of radiation. These ones that
21:55
Speaker 1: they took a picture of are the more common ones
21:57
Speaker 1: that are not very bright, that are hard to see. You,
21:59
Speaker 1: that's why it's so impressive. But wait, wait, wait, If
22:02
Speaker 1: quasars are the brightest thing, it's easy to see and
22:05
Speaker 1: it's around the black hole, why haven't we seen pictures
22:08
Speaker 1: of that? We have, We've seen quasars are all over
22:10
Speaker 1: the place. We've seen them as stars. Basically, we haven't
22:14
Speaker 1: We've never had this kind of detailed picture of an
22:17
Speaker 1: actual black circle. Right. This is the first time we
22:19
Speaker 1: see like an actual black circle. Right. The cool thing
22:21
Speaker 1: about this is it's the first time we've seen them
22:23
Speaker 1: in this way. This directly and resolved the shape of
22:27
Speaker 1: the event horizon. That's the thing we hadn't seen. It
22:29
Speaker 1: was like, what does the event horizon look like? We
22:31
Speaker 1: think it's a circle? What if it was something else?
22:33
Speaker 1: When it was a hexagon or like a big middle finger, right,
22:38
Speaker 1: like the big cube. Yeah, or the agents agents of
22:42
Speaker 1: shield symbol or something. So that's what you're looking at
22:46
Speaker 1: in the picture. Then, right, that's you're looking at the
22:49
Speaker 1: glowy stuff. The doughnut is the gas around the black hole.
22:52
Speaker 1: But then what you're seeing the black spot in the middle.
22:55
Speaker 1: That is like the event horizon of a black hole.
22:58
Speaker 1: That's like the spot where not even like can escape.
23:01
Speaker 1: It's the first time that we can put it as
23:04
Speaker 1: our wallpaper. Yeah first selfie, very cool. And wait, what
23:09
Speaker 1: about white holes? Then that is also real? Have we
23:12
Speaker 1: seen those? We have pictures? White hole could be real.
23:16
Speaker 1: We don't know, theoretically possible, never been observed, but yeah,
23:20
Speaker 1: it could be a thing in the universe for sure,
23:22
Speaker 1: could be a thing. Okay, stay tuned, and remember black
23:25
Speaker 1: holes used to be in the could be a thing
23:26
Speaker 1: in the universe category, but nobody really believed it because
23:29
Speaker 1: it sounds too crazy. Now actually a thing. We have
23:31
Speaker 1: pictures of them. Yeah, so there's a good, long, rich
23:34
Speaker 1: history of stuff going from crazy idea nobody really believes,
23:36
Speaker 1: but we can't rule it out to Look, there's a
23:39
Speaker 1: hundred of them over there. Yeah, so that's pretty awesome.
23:41
Speaker 1: Wake up, you doubters. Yeah, the universe is filled with crazy, nasty,
23:47
Speaker 1: hot stuff, weirder than we could ever imagine. So it's
23:50
Speaker 1: a it's a great source of entertainment for me. Cool. Well,
23:52
Speaker 1: that's that's your first question, Ethan. We'll get to your
23:55
Speaker 1: other questions, but first let's take a quick break. All right,
24:10
Speaker 1: we have Ethan Edinburgh here from the podcast bat Science,
24:14
Speaker 1: a podcast which deconstructs science fiction movies with real sciences
24:18
Speaker 1: and comedians. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't even have to be
24:20
Speaker 1: science fiction movies. Just anything that there's a science spin on.
24:23
Speaker 1: Science will attack it science movies. You ever like take
24:26
Speaker 1: a movie and you're like, actually, this is all good science,
24:29
Speaker 1: so we should rename our podcast. You canceled this episodes
24:31
Speaker 1: that never happened accurate science. Sometimes there are like Apollo
24:34
Speaker 1: thirteen was one of them that science was all pretty
24:38
Speaker 1: you know, accurate. You were watching documentary by accident and
24:41
Speaker 1: be like, oh wait, we can't uh no, I mean
24:46
Speaker 1: we have you ever dismantled documentary claimed man discovery was real?
24:50
Speaker 1: That's normally what we do. No, we I mean, honestly,
24:53
Speaker 1: we will just use it as like a launching pad
24:55
Speaker 1: to talk about science. So I'm not in the field,
24:58
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not trying to attack these movies or
25:00
Speaker 1: say like, oh this is wrong and this isn't good,
25:03
Speaker 1: you know, I mean normally because I don't know anything,
25:05
Speaker 1: but also just to uh, you know, say the movie
25:08
Speaker 1: is great, here's what I love about it. Here's what
25:10
Speaker 1: didn't really make sense to me. But let's dive into
25:13
Speaker 1: how snakes reproduce because that's interesting, you know. Yeah, we
25:18
Speaker 1: just did Anaconda, so it's on my mind. So they
25:22
Speaker 1: just like butt off a little mini and a conda
25:23
Speaker 1: off the back or how does that work? It's honestly,
25:26
Speaker 1: and how snakes I had no idea. Well they so
25:29
Speaker 1: first of all, the I'm not gonna get super indokes.
25:31
Speaker 1: We don't have a ton of time, Like we can
25:33
Speaker 1: look up your podcast. Yeah, yeah, it goes to the
25:35
Speaker 1: Anaconda episode. I'll just tease you with the fact that males,
25:38
Speaker 1: and this is across a lot of species apparently, you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: multiple males will like smell the pheromones from a female
25:45
Speaker 1: and all want to mate with the same female, and
25:47
Speaker 1: they'll create this anaconda ball. So like there's like seven
25:52
Speaker 1: snakes all wrapped in one and they'll just stay that
25:55
Speaker 1: way for like weeks at a time, fighting and trying
25:59
Speaker 1: to mate, and it's it's a disaster. You just give
26:02
Speaker 1: all our listeners Nightmara. I know, I'm sorry. It's a
26:04
Speaker 1: ball of snakes. Guys, this is real. It's out there.
26:08
Speaker 1: It's probably not in your backyard. It's scarier than the
26:10
Speaker 1: film Anaconda. So imagine that makes a podcast. Yeah, finally, Well,
26:16
Speaker 1: today we're answering York science questions about physics and the universe,
26:19
Speaker 1: and so your next question is about Jupiter. Right, So
26:22
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with Jupiter because it's the largest
26:25
Speaker 1: planet and it's like a gas giant, and that huge
26:27
Speaker 1: red spot is super weird. And I remember learning as
26:31
Speaker 1: a kid that we just don't know what's in the
26:34
Speaker 1: middle because we just can't send anything out there, we
26:37
Speaker 1: can't measure what's there. And so I want to know
26:40
Speaker 1: if that's still true, and what what do you guys
26:43
Speaker 1: think you know, theoretically is in the middle? You know?
26:46
Speaker 1: And why can't we tell We can see a picture
26:49
Speaker 1: of a fuzzy donut in the middle of the galaxy
26:51
Speaker 1: and we don't know about Jupiter. Why is that? Daniel, Well,
26:53
Speaker 1: we actually have learned the core of Jupiter is actually
26:55
Speaker 1: a huge ball of snakes. They're all fighting. It's amazing. Um,
27:00
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating question. And you know, it's really interesting,
27:02
Speaker 1: like we see these things in the sky, can we
27:03
Speaker 1: understand them? What's in there? Are they like our planet
27:06
Speaker 1: or not? When I was a kid, I always wondered, like,
27:08
Speaker 1: why can't you land on Jupiter and just like sink
27:10
Speaker 1: forever through gas and pass through the other side or something.
27:14
Speaker 1: But Jupiter is really interesting. It's got a lot of layers,
27:16
Speaker 1: like an onion. You know, you cut through it and
27:18
Speaker 1: you get two different stuff, um and um. We can
27:21
Speaker 1: actually probe it a little bit two different ways. One is,
27:24
Speaker 1: we can study the density of Jupiter because we fly
27:28
Speaker 1: satellites around it, and those satellites can measure the gravity
27:30
Speaker 1: of Jupiter, and the gravity of Jupiter depends on how
27:33
Speaker 1: much stuff there is, right, more stuff, more gravity, So
27:36
Speaker 1: we can measure sort of in the same way that
27:38
Speaker 1: we can measure like what's inside the Earth. We can measure, um,
27:41
Speaker 1: the density of different regions inside Jupiter just by measuring
27:44
Speaker 1: how the gravity changes as you move around, which is
27:46
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Okay, so this is sounding like we do
27:49
Speaker 1: kind of know what's in there, because that gives us
27:51
Speaker 1: a picture and then once we actually dropped something into
27:54
Speaker 1: Jupiter and we're like, okay, let's see what's in there.
27:57
Speaker 1: They built this thing, they try to make it really
27:58
Speaker 1: really tough. I guess they you know, add a mandam
28:00
Speaker 1: or vibranium or whatever. And it dropped it in there
28:02
Speaker 1: and it lasted like, you know, tens of seconds before
28:06
Speaker 1: it was just like crushed into a tiny pulp. So,
28:10
Speaker 1: because Jupiter is really big and so it has a
28:12
Speaker 1: lot of gravity, and so it's squeezing things really really hard,
28:16
Speaker 1: and so it's really dense. And so mostly Jupiter is
28:19
Speaker 1: a huge ball of hydrogen. But that ball hydrogen gets
28:22
Speaker 1: compressed by all that gravity, and crazy stuff starts to happen. Well,
28:26
Speaker 1: it changes mad state of matter, right, Like most most
28:30
Speaker 1: of the ball that you see in Jupiter is like hydrogen, right,
28:33
Speaker 1: but it's in different forms of hydrogen, right, So it's
28:36
Speaker 1: hydrogen gets hotter or more compressed, it changes, right. Hygen
28:40
Speaker 1: here on Earth is just a gas. We can breathe
28:42
Speaker 1: it or you know, put it in a balloon or whatever,
28:44
Speaker 1: or inside of individual and ill fated airshift for example,
28:48
Speaker 1: you know, the humanity, the humanity um. But on Jupiter
28:51
Speaker 1: gets compressed, and so the outer layer is gaseous hydrogen.
28:54
Speaker 1: Then you sink down further and you get liquid hydrogen. Right,
28:57
Speaker 1: So you can press a gas and it turns in
29:00
Speaker 1: a liquid um, and then below that it turns into
29:03
Speaker 1: this crazy stuff. It's helium rain, helium rain rain. It's
29:08
Speaker 1: like drops of helium that are like going up and
29:10
Speaker 1: down like clouds of helium then raining down and like
29:13
Speaker 1: helium is crazy stuff, and like you've got to be
29:16
Speaker 1: really really dense or really really cold to get it
29:18
Speaker 1: liquid um. So it's it's under a lot of pressure.
29:21
Speaker 1: So so it's raining inside these other layers of and
29:25
Speaker 1: it's raining helium. You're telling me it's raining helium. And
29:28
Speaker 1: this isn't a big practical joke that you're trying to
29:31
Speaker 1: I'm trying to act deliver some real science exactly. Um.
29:35
Speaker 1: And then it just gets crazier, Like as you go down,
29:38
Speaker 1: you get crazier and crazier stuff. A huge blob of
29:40
Speaker 1: is this thing we call metallic hydrogen. She's like hydrogen
29:44
Speaker 1: that acts like a metal, like a conduct electricity that
29:47
Speaker 1: likes heavy metal music. I think, so, yeah, exactly, And
29:53
Speaker 1: it can conduct the electricity, it can be a solid
29:55
Speaker 1: or it can be a liquid. Right, So if you
29:57
Speaker 1: went down far enough, you would like pass through the
30:00
Speaker 1: rain of helium. It's assuming you were in some incredibly
30:03
Speaker 1: powerful ship that could withstand all this pressure, and then
30:06
Speaker 1: you would either get to the surface of the you
30:08
Speaker 1: get like an ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen, and then
30:11
Speaker 1: you get to like a surface of like metallic hydrogen,
30:14
Speaker 1: which I don't know what that would be like, we
30:16
Speaker 1: don't have that here. We do not have that here
30:18
Speaker 1: now exactly. Okay, Okay, so that's yes, that's it's metallic
30:22
Speaker 1: possibly liquid. There's one more layer though, because Jupiter is
30:26
Speaker 1: not just hydrogen is hygen plus is a bunch of
30:29
Speaker 1: like rocks and other stuff in there, and that stuff
30:31
Speaker 1: all sunk to the bottom. So the very very core
30:34
Speaker 1: of Jupiter is actually basically a big rock, you know.
30:36
Speaker 1: It's like a big rocky icy ball, you know, like
30:40
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that made the Earth. And so
30:42
Speaker 1: when the Solar System formed, different planets got different amounts
30:44
Speaker 1: of stuff. Jupiter got a huge serving of hydrogen and
30:47
Speaker 1: a big blob of rock. Earth got mostly rock, right,
30:50
Speaker 1: So you could sort of think of like Jupiter as
30:53
Speaker 1: a much smaller planet with a really really really big
30:55
Speaker 1: and really really dense atmosphere that's like liquid hydrogen. So
31:00
Speaker 1: it's pretty crazy over there on Jupiter. And again, well,
31:03
Speaker 1: it's not like we have a picture of this, or
31:04
Speaker 1: we send the probe down, or we we've take an
31:07
Speaker 1: X rays of Jupiter. It's it's more like we have
31:09
Speaker 1: models of what's going on in there, and those match
31:13
Speaker 1: what we're seeing from satellites that go around Jupiter. That's right,
31:16
Speaker 1: And we can probe it gravitationally. You can also probe
31:18
Speaker 1: it electromagnetically, like we can look at the magnetic field
31:21
Speaker 1: of Jupiter, and in order to have a magnetic field,
31:23
Speaker 1: you have to have certain stuff going on inside, and
31:26
Speaker 1: so we can compare like is the magnetic field the
31:28
Speaker 1: way you would expect if this model works. So it's indirect,
31:31
Speaker 1: like you, we haven't sent probes deep into Jupiter that survived,
31:35
Speaker 1: but we have a pretty good picture. But yeah, it's indirect. Okay.
31:38
Speaker 1: I do think taking an X ray is a smart
31:40
Speaker 1: idea that somebody should, right, yeah, get on it. Um Okay.
31:48
Speaker 1: So I was also wondering about the Big Bang, uh,
31:51
Speaker 1: and and if something happened before the Big Bang, Yeah,
31:54
Speaker 1: that's wonderful. Question, Tell me, why do you want to know?
31:56
Speaker 1: Like if I told you the answer, If I knew
31:57
Speaker 1: the answer and I told you, how would that change
31:59
Speaker 1: your life? Um? It probably wouldn't, because even just the
32:03
Speaker 1: Big Bang is a huge mystery to me. Uh and
32:07
Speaker 1: the how the universe came to be and how it's
32:10
Speaker 1: all evolving all the time, expanding all the time, that's
32:13
Speaker 1: just mind numbing. But I just I'm very you know,
32:18
Speaker 1: it's like that, uh, what comes after the end or
32:21
Speaker 1: what comes before the beginning? You know? So I just
32:24
Speaker 1: was curious if there's any because we can measure, which
32:27
Speaker 1: I already find fascinating, that the Big Bang even happened,
32:29
Speaker 1: what a thirteen point eight million years ago or something
32:32
Speaker 1: like that. Uh So, just that is crazy to me
32:35
Speaker 1: that we even know that that happened. But yeah, I
32:39
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean why, if there's any information at
32:42
Speaker 1: all out there, how could that a have happened? And
32:45
Speaker 1: what could have possibly been before that? It's a great question.
32:49
Speaker 1: I think it's a really deep question. I think we
32:51
Speaker 1: knew the answer, he would change that way we felt
32:52
Speaker 1: about like our whole existence, you know, like if you
32:55
Speaker 1: knew like how the universe came to be, and what
32:57
Speaker 1: happened beforehand that made it happen. That's a pretty deep question.
33:00
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like I think it would change
33:03
Speaker 1: human the human condition that much like you know, people
33:06
Speaker 1: suddenly abandoned Instagram and devote themselves knowing more about you
33:11
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like, do you think really think
33:12
Speaker 1: people would uh change their every day life? I think so.
33:15
Speaker 1: I think it's a delicate territory. But I think a
33:17
Speaker 1: lot of people believe in a creator and also accept
33:22
Speaker 1: the you know, old universe hypothesis. The universe is fourteen
33:25
Speaker 1: billion years old almost, and they imagine the universe had
33:28
Speaker 1: a creator because there was this moment when it started.
33:31
Speaker 1: But what if there wasn't. What if that we knew
33:32
Speaker 1: that that moment was instead the end of the previous universe,
33:35
Speaker 1: just part of some infinite cycle, and there was no
33:37
Speaker 1: moment of creation. I think that argument plays a big
33:40
Speaker 1: role in a lot of people's context for the universe,
33:42
Speaker 1: and they're they're belief in God, So I think it
33:44
Speaker 1: would inform people's decisions. Just as the more we learned
33:47
Speaker 1: about our origin and where we are in the universe
33:50
Speaker 1: and how big and old it is, we learned about
33:51
Speaker 1: our context and it changes people's views about how important
33:55
Speaker 1: we are or aren't. So yeah, great answer, Um, so
33:57
Speaker 1: what is the answer the question? Though? The answer is
33:59
Speaker 1: we have no idea what came before the Big Bang,
34:03
Speaker 1: and also we might never like it might be impossible
34:07
Speaker 1: to learn. You know, it might be that you're still
34:10
Speaker 1: in the Big Bang, right, Daniel, Yeah, there's that also,
34:12
Speaker 1: like what does the Big Bang even mean? Right? Some
34:15
Speaker 1: people think of the Big Bang is this moment very
34:17
Speaker 1: very early on in the universe when the universe expanded
34:19
Speaker 1: really really fast. And the numbers I'm about tell you
34:22
Speaker 1: are crazy that it's really hard to imagine. But like
34:24
Speaker 1: the universe expanded by a factor of ten to the
34:26
Speaker 1: twenty five. That's like ten with zeros in ten to
34:31
Speaker 1: the minus thirty seconds. So yeah, they went from really
34:35
Speaker 1: really small to enormously massive, really really quickly. And it's
34:38
Speaker 1: not moving at that rate anymore. It's like slowed down. Yeah,
34:42
Speaker 1: it did that really really briefly, and then it then
34:44
Speaker 1: it's just sort of puttered along for about ten billion years,
34:47
Speaker 1: and then five billion years ago it started expanding again
34:51
Speaker 1: and we don't know why, but we call that dark energy.
34:55
Speaker 1: So you know, looke back to the podcast. We talked
34:57
Speaker 1: to you about. That's the tests a rapt man. You know,
35:01
Speaker 1: the infinity stones were created in the moment of creation
35:04
Speaker 1: and responsible. Um. I mean, I just feel like I'm
35:07
Speaker 1: equally insignificant no matter how the Big Bang happened or
35:11
Speaker 1: what happened before your musical man, So you're definitely significant.
35:14
Speaker 1: Are gonna be kind of those records? Yeah, for billions
35:17
Speaker 1: of years. But I think the point is that, you know,
35:19
Speaker 1: fourteen billion years ago sounds like a long time, but
35:23
Speaker 1: if you imagine maybe the universe is trillions of years,
35:26
Speaker 1: it's going to be around for trillions of years. And
35:28
Speaker 1: you know, technically we're still of like at the beginning
35:31
Speaker 1: of the universe, right, we could be still in the
35:32
Speaker 1: kind of like the echoes of the Big Bank. I mean,
35:35
Speaker 1: it makes still makes me feel like I'm totally meaningless.
35:38
Speaker 1: But I hear you, and that's nice special extra special names.
35:41
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I know it's both. That's true. That's true.
35:43
Speaker 1: It is both. And so we look backwards, we try
35:46
Speaker 1: to understand, like what happened in those first few moments.
35:48
Speaker 1: We have some ideas for like how do you get
35:50
Speaker 1: this crazy expansion and what would you need to make
35:52
Speaker 1: that happen, and we have like a few sort of
35:55
Speaker 1: ideas for how to put that together that are really
35:56
Speaker 1: pretty fuzzy. But we don't know is how do you
35:59
Speaker 1: create those conditions? Like, in order to make the universe
36:02
Speaker 1: explode in the first few moments, you need this stuff
36:04
Speaker 1: called inflationary matter. All right, how do you make inflationary matter?
36:08
Speaker 1: We literally have zero ideas. Okay, but you know that's
36:10
Speaker 1: how science works. We're like, okay, explain this. We need
36:13
Speaker 1: you know something before it. How do we explain that? Okay, now,
36:15
Speaker 1: how do we explain that? It's an iterative process? But
36:18
Speaker 1: if the universe started from this like really really dense state,
36:21
Speaker 1: it might be that all information from what happened before
36:24
Speaker 1: it is destroyed, right, that it's just gone. The records
36:27
Speaker 1: were sway, yes, and then you can never know even
36:32
Speaker 1: like humans in billions of years. Yeah, it's possible. Or
36:35
Speaker 1: it could be that there's like dregs of information and
36:38
Speaker 1: super duper smart scientists will be able to figure it out. Yeah,
36:41
Speaker 1: that could be Also, we don't know, But it could
36:43
Speaker 1: be that the universe is in a cycle, you know,
36:45
Speaker 1: it expands and then we don't know what dark energy
36:47
Speaker 1: is doing, or if it could turn around and make
36:49
Speaker 1: a crunch. So it could be that our universe started
36:51
Speaker 1: at the end of the last universe when there was
36:53
Speaker 1: a crunch um. There's also a lot of really crazy
36:56
Speaker 1: philosophical questions, like was there time before the Big Bang?
37:00
Speaker 1: Like what is the word before the big bang? Even
37:03
Speaker 1: means right, And you might think, but maybe there's no
37:05
Speaker 1: before the big bang? Yeah, like big bang? Is it?
37:09
Speaker 1: That's when time started? Right? And you might think, well,
37:11
Speaker 1: that's crazy. That's just like a bunch of words. I
37:13
Speaker 1: don't mean anything, but I mean something to me. But
37:16
Speaker 1: like imagine, for example, I think this is Stephen Hawkins analogy.
37:19
Speaker 1: Imagine you're at the North pole, right, which direction is north?
37:22
Speaker 1: From the north pole? There's no more north. Yeah, that's
37:25
Speaker 1: the north northeast exactly, And so it might be the
37:29
Speaker 1: time is like that, it sort of started there, and
37:30
Speaker 1: you can't if you go back to zero, you can't
37:32
Speaker 1: really ask what's before because there's no more before us. Yeah,
37:36
Speaker 1: we don't know. I would like that. Actually, that seems
37:38
Speaker 1: like a nice organized you know, like this is when
37:40
Speaker 1: it started. That's it's well with you. Yeah, that's nice.
37:43
Speaker 1: That's pretty that's that definitive. Yes, I appreciate that. Cool.
37:52
Speaker 1: All right, Um, so you have one last question for us,
37:55
Speaker 1: even yes, it is a big one because I worry
37:58
Speaker 1: about this all the time and I'm talking to you know,
38:00
Speaker 1: marine biologists and environmentalists of different uh expertises, and sometimes
38:06
Speaker 1: we get into this place of sheer frustration because of
38:10
Speaker 1: what's happening with the climate, and to me, it's hard
38:15
Speaker 1: to be optimistic about it. And it seems like we
38:18
Speaker 1: are messing up huge and have been for a while.
38:21
Speaker 1: And you know, you can look up these like little
38:23
Speaker 1: documentaries even from the sixties and like they knew that
38:26
Speaker 1: what we're doing is bad and we need to stop,
38:28
Speaker 1: and like we just keep on keep on truck and
38:32
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, my question is how do you guys
38:35
Speaker 1: view that? How do you deal with it? How do
38:37
Speaker 1: you you know, do you think that we're headed in
38:40
Speaker 1: a good direction or a bad direction or both? Are
38:43
Speaker 1: there things to be optimistic about? And please tell me
38:45
Speaker 1: about them? No, all right, I'll see you next time, guys.
38:53
Speaker 1: Uplifting Podcast. Um, what do you mean that when you
38:58
Speaker 1: when you ask a questions are we going to save
38:59
Speaker 1: the or or destroyed? You're you're talking about the climate
39:02
Speaker 1: and the our ability to live on the planet, not
39:05
Speaker 1: like if it we're accidentally going to open a wormhole
39:08
Speaker 1: or no. I mean I think that possibility. When you
39:12
Speaker 1: say that, I'm not open any more. But I didn't.
39:14
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't look at the scientists working to
39:18
Speaker 1: create that hole. Yeah, ploding weirdly, tapping his fingers. I mean,
39:24
Speaker 1: I think that the whole thing is possible nuclear bombs, Like, Okay,
39:28
Speaker 1: that's a threat that you know, at any moment we
39:30
Speaker 1: could all just end. Sure, but it seems like we're
39:34
Speaker 1: in this slow decline that we know about with the climate,
39:38
Speaker 1: man made climate change, global warming, all this, you know,
39:41
Speaker 1: melting ice caps and so yeah, that that's really what
39:44
Speaker 1: I'm referring to is like, can we reverse this process?
39:47
Speaker 1: Can we save the Earth? How would we do it?
39:50
Speaker 1: Or in your guys opinion, are we screwed? You know,
39:57
Speaker 1: I think we're screwed, um, But I think the answer
40:00
Speaker 1: is different from what you might expect, because I think
40:02
Speaker 1: I worry most about is actually the nuclear bombs. Because
40:06
Speaker 1: I grew up in Los Alumus, I know a lot
40:07
Speaker 1: about like the nuclear infrastructure and all this kind of stuff,
40:10
Speaker 1: and you know, we have a lot of nuclear weapons
40:12
Speaker 1: and they have a lot of nuclear weapons and they're
40:14
Speaker 1: all pointed at us and where ours appointed at them,
40:17
Speaker 1: and they're on a hair trigger like that, you have
40:20
Speaker 1: to be able to launch nuclear weapons within like a
40:22
Speaker 1: minute of hearing that somebody else has attacked you are destroyed,
40:26
Speaker 1: so dumb, So you need like to be able to
40:28
Speaker 1: launch nukes within a minute. No congressional approval, nothing else.
40:32
Speaker 1: Just whoever is the presidents like shocking that it hasn't happened? Yes, exactly.
40:36
Speaker 1: So now ask yourself this question, how long can we
40:38
Speaker 1: go on for with people having this their finger on
40:41
Speaker 1: this button and never press it? Never ever, ever, ever ever.
40:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think billion years. I don't
40:46
Speaker 1: think so. I think I think it's inevitable as long
40:49
Speaker 1: as we have they're going to present at some point. No,
40:52
Speaker 1: I think there's gonna be a miscommunication or a mistake
40:55
Speaker 1: or a technical glitch. And you know, we've been close
40:57
Speaker 1: to that several times. It's really terrif find if you
41:00
Speaker 1: look up the history of that, there's been times when
41:03
Speaker 1: like one guy has just said that no, we're not
41:05
Speaker 1: launching and has like literally saved humanity. Um, so it's
41:09
Speaker 1: pretty dangerous. We're living with huge guns pointed at our
41:12
Speaker 1: heads at a hair trigger all the time, and that
41:14
Speaker 1: will eventually go off unless, oh, climate change destroys human
41:18
Speaker 1: civilization and then we lose we lose the capability to
41:23
Speaker 1: maintain it by a nuclear weapons, So hopefully we ruin
41:26
Speaker 1: the planet and you know, then the few survivors you
41:30
Speaker 1: know living in the swamp will not die of radiation poisoning. Sweet, Okay,
41:35
Speaker 1: they've had me, guys a right, let's uh. But you know,
41:38
Speaker 1: I think I have a more positive view, which is
41:40
Speaker 1: I feel like, um, I think I think things are
41:43
Speaker 1: not going to get better anytime soon, right, And I
41:46
Speaker 1: think part of the problem is just that a lot
41:49
Speaker 1: of it is just kind of a communication problem, you know, like, um,
41:53
Speaker 1: our forecast for the future is based on models and uh,
41:57
Speaker 1: you know, our current understanding of things, and they're projecting
42:00
Speaker 1: far into the future, and so right now, I think
42:02
Speaker 1: it's it's harder for scientists to communicate and for people
42:05
Speaker 1: to really absorb the idea that we're heading in a
42:07
Speaker 1: bad direction. Um. But you know, I think eventually things
42:10
Speaker 1: will become more obvious and people population, hopefully through podcasts
42:14
Speaker 1: like Yours and Hours. She's kind of become more familiar
42:17
Speaker 1: with science and are able to absorb the message and
42:21
Speaker 1: hopefully it won't be too late. Yeah, that would be nice.
42:24
Speaker 1: And maybe in the process we could also make some
42:27
Speaker 1: sort of nuclear arms treaty where we just all agree
42:29
Speaker 1: to blast them all into the black hole, or at
42:33
Speaker 1: least make it like a two stap button, you know,
42:35
Speaker 1: I feel like that that would help a lot. Yeah,
42:39
Speaker 1: it's a clever proposal from an ex defense um um
42:43
Speaker 1: secretary Defense to get rid of all of our stationary
42:45
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, the ones that are like voluntary, Yeah, the
42:48
Speaker 1: ones like in underground silos, those are the ones that
42:51
Speaker 1: can be destroyed by baron nukes. Right, So if your
42:54
Speaker 1: nukes are on submarines, you know, or in the air instead,
42:57
Speaker 1: that you don't have to launch within a minute. You
42:59
Speaker 1: can wait and really make sure it's happening, and you
43:02
Speaker 1: have thirty minutes or so, because your nukes are not
43:04
Speaker 1: necessarily going to be destroyed by their nukes, so you
43:06
Speaker 1: don't have to be on a hair trigger. Shouldn't we
43:09
Speaker 1: just not allowed nukes? I mean, is that a crazy thought?
43:12
Speaker 1: Why do we need huge bombs? Right? Yeah? Why don't
43:16
Speaker 1: we all just get along? I mean, yeah, I think
43:19
Speaker 1: guns are even unnecessary. Can't we just use like paintball?
43:25
Speaker 1: Why a nuke replaced nukes with paintballs? That's what is
43:28
Speaker 1: their war in humanstory? But yeah, I think we can
43:31
Speaker 1: answer that today. Okay, great, Well, I feel ethan. I
43:33
Speaker 1: feel like maybe the answer to all of your questions
43:36
Speaker 1: today has been we have no idea. No. I. By
43:39
Speaker 1: the way, it's the title of our book, Daniel book Plug.
43:42
Speaker 1: There is yeah, true, but but yeah, do you feel
43:46
Speaker 1: like we very informed? I think there was a lot
43:49
Speaker 1: of answers today. I I mean the Core of Jupiter
43:52
Speaker 1: was a big one for me. I mean Helium Rain
43:54
Speaker 1: was shocking your next album. I mean that does sound
44:01
Speaker 1: I'm sure people would be like a little bit for us.
44:02
Speaker 1: Come on, what does Helium Rain sound like? Helium Rain?
44:05
Speaker 1: It sounds like almost like a love song exactly cover.
44:11
Speaker 1: It's a weird al parody. Actually, uh no, I I think, well,
44:15
Speaker 1: first of all, that's a really intriguing title. I think
44:17
Speaker 1: anything Helium Rain I'm gonna check out just based on
44:19
Speaker 1: the title is like, what the hell is that? But no,
44:21
Speaker 1: I think the whole like the black whole stuff, and
44:24
Speaker 1: if there was a lot there, Yeah, I feel I
44:27
Speaker 1: feel what's the word looking for educated? I got I
44:31
Speaker 1: got schooled today. Here's your Oh thank you, Yes, it's
44:36
Speaker 1: so gorgeous. Put up on you wall show it's all
44:38
Speaker 1: your friends. I will, I will. But I think that's
44:41
Speaker 1: a big part of what we like to talk about
44:43
Speaker 1: is that there's still big mysteries out there, and even
44:45
Speaker 1: the scientists and the experts are still asking questions, and
44:50
Speaker 1: everyone out there people listening. People, uh, it's studying this,
44:55
Speaker 1: and kids in the future can all participate in answering
44:58
Speaker 1: these questions. And some of these questions that we're asking,
45:00
Speaker 1: people will know the answer to them in fifty years, right,
45:03
Speaker 1: and they'll look back and be like, ha ha, those
45:04
Speaker 1: guys didn't know anything, you know, how silly were they? Hey, listen,
45:08
Speaker 1: if people are listening to this in fifty years, we
45:09
Speaker 1: did something, right, boys, dig this out of the rubble
45:14
Speaker 1: of human civilization of our climate. But I mean, imagine
45:20
Speaker 1: like what people used to think about a hundred years ago,
45:22
Speaker 1: the questions they had two hundred years ago. Right Now
45:24
Speaker 1: children know the answers to those questions. So in yeah,
45:29
Speaker 1: six year old will like casually know the answer to
45:31
Speaker 1: questions we are struggling with today, and I love that
45:34
Speaker 1: progression of human knowledge. It's just wonderful to think about. Yeah. Cool, Well,
45:38
Speaker 1: I hope people enjoy that, And thank you Ethan for
45:39
Speaker 1: being on the show to thing having us in your
45:41
Speaker 1: show Science anytime, anytime on Absolute Delight. Let's ry had
45:45
Speaker 1: bad science and good answers. Yeah, and you can find
45:48
Speaker 1: bad science at anywhere anywhere listen to the podcast. Yeah.
45:52
Speaker 1: And also, if you're curious, have a very stupid fake
45:56
Speaker 1: financial podcast called success Express. Uh. They're like fifteen minute
46:00
Speaker 1: episodes and they're just basically a bunch of fake advertisements.
46:04
Speaker 1: So if you want to laugh and not think about anything,
46:06
Speaker 1: that's probably the way to go. Foundable. Thanks for being
46:10
Speaker 1: on and thanks to all of you guys for listening
46:12
Speaker 1: to this discussion. See you next time. Before you still
46:22
Speaker 1: have a question after listening to all these explanations, please
46:25
Speaker 1: drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
46:27
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
46:31
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or email us at
46:34
Speaker 1: Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening,
46:38
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is
46:40
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio more podcast from my
46:44
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio, Apple podcasts, or
46:48
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.