Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions 62: Single photons, moon gold and particle interactions.

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Listener Questions 62: Single photons, moon gold and particle interactions. · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, how should we open this episode?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Hmmm, maybe we should just think about the topic and
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: try to come up with something funny.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Can we think of anything funny after six hundred episodes?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I think we might be scraping the bottom of the
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: barrel of creativity here.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: How about we just jumped the shark? Or have we
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: jumped the shark already?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know why people are so down on jumping
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: the shark. That sounds like a lot of fun to me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Jumping shark. I guess it depends on the shark. Like
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a whale shark, that's pretty harmless, great white shark. I'd
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: rather steer clear.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I jump a dark matter shark any day.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, we might have just jumped a shark for real time.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: A dark matter shark. What are you talking about?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I have a special coming out of the Discovery Channel.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Dark matter weather matters, tornadoes and sharks.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It's a dark NATO.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: You just named it.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I had to jump at the chance.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Hora, my cartoonist and the author of Oliver's
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Great Big Universe.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: at you see Irvine and I'm not a great water skier.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Are you a great skier at all? Or any kind
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of skiing?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm bad at all sorts of high speed, dangerous and expensive.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But you want to jump the shark though it's a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: little bit contradictory there. I guess you can jump the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: shark and not be good at skiing.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, aspirations don't have to be realistic, right, Uh.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess you don't want to jump the gun
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: on that. But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: In which we try to jumpstart your understanding of the
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: nature of the whole universe, everything that's out there in
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the cosmos. We seek to understand it and to break
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: it down and explain all of it to you. This
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: is your one stop shop for getting all of your
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: questions answered about literally everything in the universe.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: That's right. We are literally jumping at the chance to
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: leap to conclusions about our amazing universe so that we
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: can understand it more and know not only how it
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: all works, but also what is our place in it
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and what does it mean for us to be here
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: talking about it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But we're also not shy to admit when we don't
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: know the answer, which is the case for most questions,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: because it's not all that hard to gage yourself to
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: the forefront of human understanding or confusion about the nature
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: of this amazing, beautiful and kind of crazy cosmos. So
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: we encourage you to engage your brain and to think
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: about it yourselves. Do you understand how it works? What
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: questions do you have about how this universe operates?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's with questions that all of science starts,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: questions that are not just asked by scientists but also
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: people like you, because there are still a lot of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: questions out there for us to try to find the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: answer to.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: And we want to hear your questions. We want to
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: know when there's something that doesn't make sense to you,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: maybe something that we said, or something that you read,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: or just an idea that you had about the universe
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: that isn't quite clicking in your brain. Send it to
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: us to questions at Danielandhorgey dot com. We really do
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: right back to everybody.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And sometimes we pick those questions to answer on the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: podcast release. Try to answer it real, least talk about
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: it real, least admit we don't know the answer, but
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: it takes us a whole hour or to figure that out.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we just jump over the question on water skis
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: instead of answering it, because that's all we're capable of.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Wait to wait the question. Is a shark in this analogy?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Would you rather the shark jumps over us? I mean,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know how that works.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: That would be pretty cool. So if it like freewheelly,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: but instead of like an orca, it's a shark, Yeah,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: jumping over us.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Free the sharks to do their own tricks. Man, Why
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: are they always the subject of the tricks and never
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: the object?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: But is it jumping over us? Jumping at us? That's
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a big difference. Or maybe it's jumping over me. To you,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: that's an acceptable scenario.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Perhaps, But I'm jumping with a chance to dig into
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: these listener questions.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Oh I see, I see you trying to jump to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: start this back on track? Busted because I jump the rail?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Is that?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Are we? Are we pushing it too much?
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we do like to ask our listener questions,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and so today we'll be tackling listener questions number sixty two.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: That's right. We are very happy to be talking about
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: questions you have here on the podcast, so again, please
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: don't be shy write to me. I will answer your
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: questions questions at Danielandhorge dot com. And sometimes I'll hear
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: a question I think, ooh, I bet whoge has something
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: funny to say about this? Or I don't know how
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: to answer this just yet. Maybe I should do some
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: research and then we'll talk about it on the podcast.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Well, the answer is usually no, I don't have anything's
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: funny to say. I try, I try, But you know
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: we're talking about dark matter sharks. I mean, how could
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you top that?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: The jokes just write themselves, don't they they do?
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, we're answering listener questions here today, and
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: we have three great questions. We have a question about
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the double slit experiment and photons. We have a question
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: about what the moon is made out of it's kind
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of a cheesy question. And we also have a question
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: here about how particles interact or not interact with things
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: like you and me.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, super fun questions. Thank you everybody for sending in
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: your questions, and especially these volunteers who are brave enough
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: to send me the audio of themselves asking the questions, and.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So our first question comes from Renaldo Hi.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Horah, Hi Daniel. I was wondering I never would be
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: readly about the double slit experiment. We eventually read something
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: like you'll get an interference better even if we shoot
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: a single photon. My question is, how the hell do
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: we know there's a single photon if we can take
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: any measurements for obvious reasons. Thanks for the great podcast,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: you guys.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Rock all right, Well, this question is kind of creating
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: an interference pattern in my head. I'm not quite sure
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I understand it.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: This question is about the double slit experiment and the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: weird quantum behavior that emerges when you slow it down,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: so you're sending single particles through it, one at a time,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: And he's essentially asking like, how can you do that?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: How can you make a single particle gun? How do
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: you know that you're sending one particle through the experiment
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: at a time.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Interesting, So, I guess we should maybe start by recapping
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: what the double slit experiment is. It's sort of a
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: classic experiment that it's always used in explanations of quantum
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: physics and physics classes to sort of explain the wave
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: slash particle nature of matter right, even light.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: H although originally it was used to demonstrate the wavelike
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: nature of light. Two hundred years ago, before we had
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: any understanding of how light worked, people were debating as
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: light a particles, light a wave, and the prevailing theory
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: at the time was that it was a particle. But
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: then Young did this experiment with two slits. Basically, light
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: at a wall, but you have two little slits in
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the wall. Each slit then serves as a source of light,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: and beyond that you have a screen, and he saw
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: an interference pattern in the screen, which is the kind
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: of thing you expect to see if you have two
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: sources of waves, waves can add up to enhance each other,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: or they can work in opposite directions to cancel each
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: other out. And that's exactly the kind of interference pattern
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: that Young saw on the screen. So he proved that
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: light has these wave like properties to using his original
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: double slit experiment, which was a bombshell at the time.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Interesting, is this an experiment people can do at home?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Like if I take a little piece of cardboard, you know,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: cut out two slits on it next to each other,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and then I shine a flow am I going to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: see an interference better.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: It's possible to do this experiment at home. It's a
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: little bit touchy because you need very thin slits, and
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: you need those slits to be close together. So it's
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: not just like any two slices and a piece of
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: cardboard are going to give you this behavior. It depends
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: on the wavelength of light and the width of the slits,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: and the distance between them has to be connected to
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: the wavelength of light. So it's a little bit tricky
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to get right, but it is possible. I mean, young
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: did it two hundred years ago, So it's not like
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: you need fancy laser technology or anything.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Meaning if I just put two random slits next to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: each other, it won't work.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll probably just get two geometric shadows. To what
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: two geometric shadows like? You know when you do shadow puppets,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: You hold up a flashlight and you put your hand
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: in front of it. Creates a shadow on the wall,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and the shape of the shadow is exactly the same
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: as the shape of your hand. Right, that's the idea.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: It's a geometric shadow. But if you zoom in on
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the edges of that, you'll see there really are very
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: small fringe effects. Those are the wave like behaviors of that.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, so you can't see it really.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Zoom in carefully. Yeah, And then to get an interference pattern,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: you need like two small slits that exhibit those wave
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: like behaviors at the fringes, and then they have to
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: be close together so they can interfere.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Mmmm. Now do I need like a laser or will
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: it flashlight work?
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: No, any source of light will work. You don't need
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: a laser or a laser is just like a single coherence
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: source of light of a single frequency. But you don't
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: need that. Any flashlight would work. But then there's the
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: quantum version of it. Because Young's version says, Okay, light
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: is like waves, and it's no big deal that waves
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: can interfere. It's cool that light is like waves, but
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the fact that waves interfere is not a big deal.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: The quantum version of this experiment says, well, if light
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: is made out of packets, then you could turn that
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: light source down, so the instead of sending like huge
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: numbers of photons so you're getting these waves, you're now
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: sending individual photons through the experiment. And the cool thing
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: is you still see an interference pattern even when there's
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: only one photon in the experiment at once. That's the
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: quantum version of it.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: WHOA, well, okay, maybe let's take step back here. So
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: when I shine a light through these those slits, I
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: get an interference pattern on the wall. And by interference,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I mean like it alternates between light and dark spots
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on the wall.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly, the two sources are interfering. You have dark spots
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: where the two sources are waving in opposite directions by
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: the time they hit the wall, so they cancel out,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: and bright spots where they're waving in the same direction,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: so they add up coherently, they make a brighter source.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: You get these stripes dark and light and darken light
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: on the wall. They give you the interference pattern.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Right, Like this sort of works with just regular like
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: water waves. Right if I have it like it's very
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: still lake, and I put a little plate with two
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: slits on it, and then then I create some waves
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and the ways it goes through the slits on the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: other side of the slits, the waves are gonna ripple in,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: but they won't look like one smooth wave. It will
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: look like it's this ripple pattern.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, each slit accit basically a point source of
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: those waves. So you get these two circular waves coming
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: out from each slit and then those interfere. And you know,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: waves interfering is also not new or weird thing. It
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: happens all the time with sound. Like you walk around
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: your living room and you hear your TV better or worse.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: That's because the acoustics of your living room things are
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: canceling out or adding up or bouncing off of each
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: other or noise. Canceling headphones work this way. They create
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: exactly the sound necessary to interfere with the outside sound
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: to cancel it out. They push and pull in the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: opposite way so that you hear nothing. So waves interfering
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: is a totally intuitive phenomenon. This is just life doing it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: That's the classical version. The quantum version is super cool
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: because now what's interfering. You have a single photon going
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: through the experiment at a time. The quantum version says,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: that still gives you an interference pattern, right, right.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And that's a weird thing because like in the water experiment,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: like water is this medium, right, It's like this a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: wave is broad. It's acting in many places at the
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: same time, and it's interfering over here, and it's adding
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the wave over there, and so you expect it to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: be ripple at the end. But if you just dwing
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: like a single droplet of water, maybe you wouldn't expect that, right,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Like if I shoot like one atom of water like
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: H two molecular of H two out of two slits,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I might expect it to either make it through one
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of the holes or maybe hit the wall and then
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: not nothing will come out the other side exactly.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: But photons are not little drops of water. They are
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: quantum objects, and they have a probability to go through
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: one slit or the other slit, and it's the wave
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: function that corresponds to those probability that's doing the interfering.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: So if the photon is allowed to have both possibilities,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: it's wave function includes it going through both, and that
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: wave function can interfere with itself, and so that's what's
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: doing the interfering. The wave function for the photon is
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: doing the interfering when you have a single photon in
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: the experiment. That's why it's the quantum version, because classical
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: objects can't do that. They're just in one location.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Well, as I understand it. It's the probability that's interfering
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: with itself. Right. But at the end, when it hits
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the wall, it's still going to be like one dot
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: or not a dot.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, to be technically accurate. And it's the wave
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: function that's doing the interfering, not the probability. Probabilities don't
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: interference the wave function itself. But that's technical detail. The
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: concept is right, the possibility that it's going through the
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: other slid that's doing the interfering. And then when it
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: hits the screen, now it's interacting with the classical object.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And so Copenhagen quantum mechanics says, now the universe has
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: to make a choice. Now, it has to choose from
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the various possibilities. And the cool thing is every photon
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: is the same probability distribution to land somewhere on the screen.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: So you shoot individual photons through one at a time.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Each one, even if it has the same initial conditions,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: can land in a different place on the screen, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: you slowly build up the same original interference pattern that
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: you saw when you had a brighter source of light.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe let's walk us through this scenario. So I
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: shoot one photon that a double slid and follow along
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: with the photon. What happens to the photon?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Well, already we're in philosophical trouble because following along with
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the photon means like where is the photon? But we
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: can follow along with the wave function. Right, the wave
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: function says the photon could go through slit A or
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: could go through slit B. Right, it's not determined.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: But it is the wave function moving or is it
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: propagating from my flashlight?
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: The wave function is not necessarily a physical thing, right,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: It describes possibilities. It's in a sort of abstract space
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: of possible outcomes, but it describes the photon and what
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the photon might be doing as it moves through the universe.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: It just it allows for multiple possibilities at once. So
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: you have like the physical space of the photon and
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: then the possibility space that the wave function exists in.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So then what happens to the photon wavefunction when it
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: hits the double slits?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: So the wave function for the photon says, when you
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: hit the double slit, you could either have gone through
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: slit one or slit two. And the wave function then
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: acts as a source on either side of those slits
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and then does the interference the same way we just
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: talked about for light interfering with itself or water waves
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: interfering with themselves. Wave functions follow wave mechanics, and the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: can interfere in the same way. So you have these
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: sort of like sources of possibility, if you like, from
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: each slit, and those possibilities are interfering at the screen.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Is it sort of like the photon is going through
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: both slits at the same time, Like it's both left
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and right, sort of like the short anger's cat, Like
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it's going through both slits and it's coming out the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: other side of the both slits, like if the cow
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: was dead or alive.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Very loosely speaking, it's sort of like that. But in reality,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: although you hear in popular science all the time quantum
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: particles can be in two places at once, that's not
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: technically accurate. The more correct way to say it would
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: be that they have the possibility to be in two
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: places at once, and those possibilities can interfere. It's not
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: like the photon is coming out of both slits. It's
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: that it has the possibility to come out of both slits,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: and in quantum mechanics, those possibilities can interfere with each
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: other before the universe even decides which one is true,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: or if it ever decides.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: When it comes out to the other side. There's the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: two sources of ways of possibility, and then both ways interfere,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and then the result hits the wall. Yeah, right, Like,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: if I should juice one photon at this those slid
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: some of them are going to hit the walls of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the slid, right, They're like some of them are going
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to be totally blocked. Yeah, some of them are not
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: going to make it through, right.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're only talking about the ones that make it through, right, Right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So then the ones that do make it through, I'm
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: not going to see a wave in the wall. I'm
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: going to see like a little thought right where the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: photon hit. Yes, so just a single photon doesn't create
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: a ripple, right, single photon juice ends up on the wall.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Single photon ends up on the wall. Where on the
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: wall does it end up? Well, that's determined by the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: wave function, And the wave function has various possibilities for
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: where that photon can end up, and those possibilities have
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: interfered with themselves. Do you have an interference pattern of possibilities. Now,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: when the universe says where does this one photon end up?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: It draws from the various possibilities, and there's a greater
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: chance that ends up in the bright regions and a
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: much lower, maybe zero chance that ends up in the
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: dark regions. Every photon is a new role of the
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: die and ends up in a different spot, even if
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the initial conditions are the same. But then over time
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: it builds up the interference pattern because each photon follows
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: that possibility interference pattern.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Right Like, I shoot one photon and goes through it
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: hits the wall in a certain spot. I shoot another photon,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: it hits it in another spot. Shoot another photon, it
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: hits it in another spot. It sort of seems random.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: But if I shoot like a bazillion photons, then they're
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: going to make a pattern on the wall because they
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: all have sort of the same possibility wave pattern exactly.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: So quantum mechanics is deterministic about the probability function on
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the wall, it's not deterministic about an individual photon. Each
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: one is drawn randomly from that distribution. So the laws
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: of physics, instead of saying I'm going to tell you
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: exactly where a photon goes. Now they're saying, I'm going
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: to tell you what the probability distribution is. Each individual
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: photon is drawn from that probability distribution, and if you
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: shoot enough photons, you're going to figure out what that
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: distribution is. And that's the interference pattern on the screen.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Right, And I think it's because basically when you're shooting
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the photon, there's sort of an inherent uncertainty. When I'm
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: shooting the photon, like I might think I know where
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the tip of my laser gun is, but actually when
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the photons come out, they have a certain fuzziness to them, right,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: they had they have a certain uncertainty or probability about
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: where they actually are. So if there wasn't a double
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: slit barrier, that probability would just kind of spread out
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and hit the wall in an even way, just look
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: look like a fuzzy cloud of thoughts. But because I
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: have the double slid it sort of messes with that
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: probability wave.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In order to have the setup work, you need
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to create a beam of photons which have the possibility
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to go through slit A or slid B. If your
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: beam of photons was like already super duper precise, and
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: you aimed it at slit A with no chance of
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: them going through slip B. Then you wouldn't get the
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: interference path fuzzy enough beams so that an individual photon
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: has the possibility to go through A or B.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Right, Right, But.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe we should get to Ronaldo's question.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to do that, but first the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: thame we should talk. Well what his question is I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: don't quite understand it. Is he talking about how do
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: you measure a photon? What is he talking about?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I think he's saying, how do you know a
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: single photon is going through the experiment, Because in order
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to create this interference pattern, you need to not measure
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: the photon, Like, if you try to measure the photon
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: whether it went through slit A or B, you collapse
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: away function and destroy the interference pattern. So you need
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: to have single photons go through the experiment, but not
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: touch them. So basically he's asking like, number one, technically,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: how do you make a single photon anyway? And number two,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: how do you know that you did?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I mean like, how do you detect it on the wall?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, how do you tell the difference between one
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: photon and two photons, Like, how do you know you
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: didn't have two photons in the experiment at the same time?
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Uh, can you shoot one at a time?
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think he's asking how do you do that?
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Oh? Okay, how do you shoot a photon at a time?
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: So it turns out to be quite tricky, right, Like
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: number one thing you could do is like take your
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: laser or your light source and just turn it down, right,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: so it's like rarely mits photons. If a beam of
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: light is just like a huge number of photons, just
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: turn it down and eventually it'll break up into little blips. Right.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: That's tricky though, because you can't really guarantee that you
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: have single photons. You might still get two photons. Is
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: a randomness to that process. If what you want is
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: like really absolute guarantee, and that's what these quantum dudes
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: are doing. They want absolute guarantees that there are single
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: photons in their experiments because they don't want philosophical loopholes, right,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And so that turns out to be much more challenging.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: But we do have technology to do this. Now. What
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: you can do is take a crystal which has a
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: special property that it takes in a photon and it
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: breaks it into two photons of half the energy, so
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you can use one photon to know that the other
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: photon was there without touching it. So you take a
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: beam of photons, you hit this special crystal and it'll
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: shoot out two photons in different directions, and you can
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: detect the second one. Be like, Okay, I can tell
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: that there was a photon there. I know when the
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: photon is coming, and that tells me that there was
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: a photon going in the other direction as well.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Well, you sort of split it into two. But I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: guess the question is why do you have to do that? Like,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: couldn't you just put a camera on the other side
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and whenever the camera the texts a photon, it's like, oh,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: that was one photon.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But if you do that, then you've spoiled it, right,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: You can no longer send that photon into your experiment
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: if you've detected it.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Now you put it at the end on the other
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: side of the slits. You mean just the screen, Yeah,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: just the screen, isn't that what he's asking?
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah? But how do you know there was just one photon? Right?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Because you only detected one You only saw it on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: your camera. Right. We have cameras that can detect single photons.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Right, we have cameras that are sensitives to single photons.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: But we only know that they're sensitives to single photons
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: because we have confirmed beams of single photons using this
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: crystal trick. Otherwise you don't know if you're seeing a
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: single photon or if you're seeing two photons right on
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: top of each other.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're talking about the scenario where they're on top
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: of each other. That's the scenario we're trying to avoid.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're trying to make sure we're really seeing an
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: individual photon.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Oh and not like two.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, because it's only if you have a single
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: photon in the experiment that the quantum version is weird.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Althoughwise it's like, yeah, you had a bunch of photons,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: two photons interfered with each other, what's the big deal.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: We want to see a single photon and an interference
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: pattern because that proves there's a quantum effect there, that
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: shows us the wave function is doing some weird physical
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: interference thing.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: So then the idea is that you send one, but
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you split into two, and so you catch one, so
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: you know that there's one and then but doesn't that
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: create sort of like entanglement problems.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, the two are entangled, but not in a way
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: that's going to spoil the quantum state of the other
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: one for the experiment that you want to do, Like
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: they're entangled and that their energy has to add up
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: to the original photon. But that's not a problem, all right.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: So then that's how you can tell that it was
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a single photon. Mm hmmm. Is that then Rinaldo's is azer?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. And I think the other interesting
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: answer to Ronaldo is that it's harder to do with
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: photons for these reasons, and people actually did it with electrons,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: single electrons before they did it with single photons, so
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: single photons sort of came after single electros.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Well, you can do with anything, right, any quantum particle. Yeah, exactly,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Petrino's shark shark particles. Right, But then would that make
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: it the double shark jumping experiment.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: The jump shark experiment jumps the shark itself.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: He squeezed the shark. All right, Well, great question, Ronaldo,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Hopefully that answers your question. The
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: idea is that scientists are coming out with the clever experiments,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and so you can say that it which is one
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: with greater confidence.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these are great questions. Thank you very much for
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: asking them, and I encourage everybody out there to send
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: us your questions questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: All right, we have two more awesome questions. One of
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: them is about what the moon is made out of
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: and the other one is about how particles interact or
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: not interact with all of us. So stay tuned for that.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. We're answering listener
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: questions and our next question comes from Bruce from Saskatchewan, Canada.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: Daniel and Jorge, you guys are awesome. I've got an
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: idea about valuable elements. If the Moon has been littered
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: with meteorites and asteroids, then would it not be an
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: excellent source of valuable elements. Platinum seems connected to molten material,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: gold seems connected to supernova asteroids and meteoroids. Nicol seems
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: connected to materials, meteorites and the Earth's core. One thing
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: I know is you will wonderfully set me straight. Thank
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: you very much for everything you guys do.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: All right, awesome questions. Basically, I think Bruce wants to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: know if he should go to the Moon to do
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: some gold penning.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: I think Bruce is asking us to invest in his
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: moon mining company.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. It's called my Moon. Oh Moon
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: of mine, we moon. But yeah, interesting question, like what
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: is the Moon made out of and does it have
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: maybe some of the valuable materials or metals that we're
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: sort of running out of here on Earth or that
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: we find really precious here on Earth, because you know,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it wasn't the Moon sort of made at the same
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: time as the Earth or came from the same rock.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this is an interesting twist on like
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: asteroid mining. The idea there is that there are heavy
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: metals like gold and platinum and whatever, and everything in
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: the Solar system was made out of the same basic stuff.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So the Earth has a lot of gold and platinum
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: in it, the Moon must have some. Asteroids have some.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: But when you have a big body like the Earth
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: or even the Moon as this molten phase, and then
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: things differentiate and a lot of the heavy valuable metals
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: on Earth have sunk down deep into the Earth. They're
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: not like sitting around on the surface. But asteroids, we
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: think have a lot of gold and platinum in them,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: And he's basically asking, what about those asteroids that have
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: hit the surface of the Moon. Aren't they basically just
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: like big blobs of heavy, valuable metals sitting on the Moon.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Should we go up there and get it?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Oh? Interesting? So, like I think you're saying that the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Earth because it was a big ball of lava at
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: some point, Maybe the precious metals that we like so much,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: do they sunk to the center of the Earth, And
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: so that's why it's so rare to find gold on
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the surface.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: So what you're saying, that's one reason. The other is
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: that like gold and some of these other metals really
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: like iron, and so they tend to mix with iron
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: and form weird alloys, and then they sink as the
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: iron sinks, as the heavier stuff tends to sink, especially
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: if it's iron loving.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: But maybe an asteroid or a small body like the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Moon which didn't have as much gravity, maybe those metals
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: are closer to the surface.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think he's interested in the gold that
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: is part of the Moon. I think he's interested in
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the stuff on the surface. And because asteroids are hitting
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: the surface of the Moon all the time, just like
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: they're hitting the Earth's atmosphere. Most of the time, when
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: they hit the Earth's atmosphere, they melt or they explode
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: or they turn into a fireball. But that doesn't happen
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: on the Moon, and the Moon they just land on
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: the surface. They make a crater, but they're still sitting there.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And so in principle, if you wanted to mine asteroids,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: you could do it without going to the asteroid belt.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: You could just go to the surface of the Moon
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: and pick them up.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: But wouldn't that be the same as Earth, Like, don't
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: we get asteroids hitting us all the time? Too?
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: We do get asteroids hitting us all the time. The
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: bigger ones survive and actually, like early human civilization used
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: it as a source of heavy metals, Like a lot
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: of the swords and daggers in the very early times
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: and human civilization were made from like star metals. It's
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: pretty awesome we have these daggers that we can prove
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: or come from like meteorites. Before humans figured out like
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: how to do mining, right, there was the main source
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: of heavy metals on the surface of the Earth, right.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And that's how they got y radium, right.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: That that happen right, jump the SHARKI eam also.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: That's right, we're jumping the panther. But I think the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: idea is that maybe like asteroids are richer in these metals,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: perhaps because they haven't been a big ball of lava
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: with a lot of gravity where they sank out of reach.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Like maybe these asteroids have a higher concentration of these metals. Right, Yes, exactly,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: they're being caught by the Moon and stain on the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: surface of the Moon. Could we go pick them up?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's exactly the question. And it's again
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: correlated to the question like should we go mine asteroids,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: And that seems like maybe harder because asteroids are further
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: away than the moon, and you know, the Moon at
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: least has some gravity, et cetera, et cetera, And so
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: he's wondering, like, we can go to the moon. Shouldn't
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: we just go there and pick these up?
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Well, obviously you need a metal detector.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: You go mooncombing, you do need a metal detector. The
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: answer is that it is possible, but it's probably not
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: worth the money. It's probably would cost you more to
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: go and get those metals, and you would get for
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: selling them back here on Earth.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see, because it costs so much to go
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to space.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: It does cost so much to go to space, it'd
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: be really complicated. Also, you know, there's like a lot
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: of difficult issues engineering wise to establishing any sort of
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: infrastructure on the Moon. You know, there's a lot of radiation.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: The temperature variations on the surface of the Moon are crazy.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: They get really hot, then it gets really cold. There's
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: lower gravity, which turns out to be like really hard
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: to do work in if it's low gravity. And so
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: just like establishing any sort of industry on the surface
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: of the Moon is difficult. And then there's the cost
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: of like bringing it back. You know, you're going to
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: launch from the surface of the Moon and bring stuff
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: back to Earth.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: It's expensive, But that should be easier, shouldn't it because
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the gravity and the Moon isn't that high?
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Probably? Just could you like toss it over to the Earth.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: To burn up in the Earth's atmosphere and waste all of.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Your and to catch it right before it hits Earth? Maybe?
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't sound dangerous at all. We're just like
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: dropping heavy rock into the gravity well of Earth. Oops.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Sorry that yeah, Well, I mean if you missed then
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: it'll get burned in the atmosphere. But if you write
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: like you're not going to send like a Manhattan sized
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: ball of gold, but you can, I don't know, send
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: like car sized balls and if you miss, it'll just
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: burn out.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Nope, I'm not counting on the restraint of Bruce and
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: his investors to not go after the Manhattan sized blob
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: of gold. But I read an analysis of this, because
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: people thought a lot about this, and they thought about
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: asteroid mining whatever, And one quote I read said, if
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: there were gold bars on the Moon, the best thing
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you could do economically is to leave them there, Like
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: it would cost you more. Even if they were like
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: perfect gold bars just sitting on the surface of the Moon,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: it would cost you more to go and get them
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: than you would be able to sell them for.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Well, it costs more given today's market, yes, and technology,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Like right now, the cost of gold is not enough
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: to overcome the cost of it. But maybe maybe it'll
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: get cheaper to go to space.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Maybe it will. And if we had like a space
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: elevator and an established infrastructure on the Moon, then maybe
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: this would be a cool thing to do.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, you're against throwing gold bars to Earth. But
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you're pro building a giant elevator that might fall down.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not pro. I'm just saying it would make Bruce's
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: company more realistic. I'm not an investor in Bruce's company.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I have no legal obligations.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Here, but you know what I mean, like or maybe
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: like gold is not worth enough now, but maybe in
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the future. Yeah, you know, when we start to run
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: out here on Earth, maybe will become super valuable.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: It certainly could be. Yeah. Maybe Bruce has a very
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: long term business plan.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Or you know, there's already people going to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the moon, right, we were sending things. Why not pick
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: up a few gold bars? Well you're there.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: It's heavy and that's complicated to pick that stuff up.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Right, right, But it's shiny, shiny and pretty.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Anyway, it's there, and if you can figure out the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: economics of it, more power to you. I would not
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: invest in Bruce's company today, but you're right it might
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: one day make a profit.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: Mmm.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Now, but can we see these asteroids from Earth? Like
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: you know, when we look at the moon, it just
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: looks like white dust. Basically, you don't see like flex
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: of gold, do you or do you?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: No, you don't but you do see craters, and you
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: know what's at the center of every crater has to
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: be some sort of impact, and if you go to
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: the center of the crater, you can often find a
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: meteorite sitting there. The same thing is true here on Earth,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: like meteor crater in Arizona. They went to the center
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: of it and they found like chunks of the meteor,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: like pieces of that metallic object. So certainly possible to
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: find them if you know where the craters are. And
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: on the Moon, the craters are easy to spot. You
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: can see them with a telescope and definitely if you're
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: on the surface, you can find them, but you have to.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Go and dig around. Yeah, you might have to use
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: like a metal detector.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: They're probably covered in a little bit of regolith from
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: the impact.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right right. I wonder if you can see them,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: like if you look at the you know, spectral wave
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: reflection on the Moon.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And in fact, they have done some of these experiments.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: There was a satellite called l CROSS, the Lunar Crater
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Observation and Sensing satellite, that confirmed presence of gold on
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: the Moon's surface using exactly that kind of technique, you know,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: like bouncing light off of it and seeing how it
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: reflects and the spectrum of it.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: WHOA, Okay, what if Bruce goes to the moon, he
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: digs up these asteroids and he finds that they're made
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: out of a new metal, and he names him Cheesium.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Then he's completed the circle.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: He's jumped the short probably. All right, Well, I think
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that answers Bruce's question, which is that, yes, the moon
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: would be an excellent source of valuable elements like gold, platinum,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: but right now it's too expense. It's good to go
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: get them.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: But maybe in the future Space Driver will become cheaper,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: so stay tuned for that. Let's to get thro our
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: last question, and this one is about how particles interact.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: So we'll tackle that one, but first let's take another
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're answering listening to your questions
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: here today, and our last question of the day comes
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: from Rebecca.
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: I have a question, and it's about how particles interact.
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: Because you often talk about where the particles have interactions
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: with other particles, and then some particles either don't talk
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: very weakly interact, so muons can go straight through the
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: planet and neutrinos pretty much the same. But when you
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: say that, what does it actually mean when you say interaction?
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: Are you saying that they go into a field and
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: then have vibrating qualities within a field? Or for example,
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: an electron that's affected by a gravitational field, does it
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: go into the gravitational field and do something? Or is
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: it repelled by a gravitational field? Or similarly, a photon,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: how do they actually interact at the quantum level with
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: the different fields? So how does a photon behave in
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: an electrical field or how does a electron behave in
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: a gravitational field? I really appreciate an explanation.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, I can tell you're salivating for this answer, Daniel.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It's all about particles, particle physics, particle interactions. What does
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: it mean to interact? Oh boy, let's trap in.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I was wondering where you think we should
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: go with this question because there's a lot of stuff
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: in here, and I'm wondering if you got a sense
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: for like, what do you think she's really asking?
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think Rebecca is picturing the scenario where,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: you know, we've often talked about Neutrina's flying through the
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: earth and going through us, going through our thumbs, but
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: not interacting with us. But we know that sometimes they
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: do interact. It sounds like she's asking, like what exactly
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: is happening when they interact, Like do the quantum fields
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: somehow interfere or something triggers an interaction?
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so that's a cool question. And you know,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: the short answer is that these things are quantum mechanical,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: which means that everything is a probability. So neutrino, for examples,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: passing through the earth, and that means that there's a
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: little ripple in the neutrino field. That's when a neutrino is,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: it's a little ripple in the neutrino field, and it's
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: passing through the earth. And the Earth is made out
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: of quarks and electrons, which are little ripples and quark
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: and electron fields whatever. So you have these fields that
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: are all actually on top of each other, and there's
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: a ripple passing through one, and there's ripples in the
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: other ones, and those ripples have possibilities probabilities of interacting.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: So every time a neutrino passes a quark, for example,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: there's a possibility that it interacts, and the universe rolls
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: a die, and the dye is like ten to fifty
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: sides on it, and only one of those sides says yes,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: the neutrino interacts, and the other ones say nope, it
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: ignores it. So every time a neutrino is passing by
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: a cork, the universe rolls this die and it says nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: And then very occasionally it rolls the die and it
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: says yes. Then then neutrino interacts with that quark.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Is it related to like how close those two particles
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: fly next to each other?
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, let's forget the whole planet. Let's just
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: put like a one electron in the center of the Earth,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: and then it's shoot one neutrino at it, like if
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: we know it's definitely not going to interact if it's
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: really far away from it, or can it? Are you
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: saying that it can't it can?
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: The probability depends on a lot of things, and one
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: of them is distance. You know, the old like one
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: over distance squared rule that comes out of these possibilities
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: to interact. And so the further away you are the
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: smaller the probability to interact. It also depends on other things,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: like how much momentum is exchanged and the interaction, like
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: higher momentum exchange, like a bigger bounce back, is less
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: probable than like a slight interaction where they like barely
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: brush each other. So there's a whole spectrum of things there,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: and all of them affect the probability.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean a bounce back? What did
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: you mean by that?
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Well, imagine two scenarios. Like one is, neutrino flies by
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: an electron and its direction is only slightly changed. It's
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: basically going the same direction it was before. It's just
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: like dinged a little to the left, versus the neutrino
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: like hits a wall and comes back in the exact
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: opposite direction, Like it bounces back, it changes its momentum completely.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Well, I feel like we're jumping ahead a little bit.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: So you're saying one possible interaction between these two things
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: is that they exchange momentum like they bump into each other,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: as if there were little, bigger balls.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exchanging momentum is the interaction. That's what an interaction
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: is. Is that energy is going from one field to the other.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: If the neutrino interacts with the electron, it's momentum has
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: to change. That's what the interaction really is, is an
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: exchange of momentum between the two things. Just like when
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: two billion balls bounce off each other. What are they doing?
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: They're exchanging momentum, right, But.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Don't some of them kind of like transform into other things? Right?
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Can't like two particles combine to make other particles. Isn't
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that also one way they can interact.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, the neutrino and the electron could interact to
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: create like a w boson, Right, So both of them
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: could disappear. Absolutely. So it's all sorts of different possible outcomes,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: and the universe picks from among those, and some of
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: those are more likely than others.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, So then by interaction you mean several things.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: They could bump and change each other's momentum, or they
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: can combine and create other particles. And you're saying this
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: interaction depends on the distance, And what else.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Depends on the distance depends on how much momentum is
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: being exchanged. A greater momentum exchange is less probable, like
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: you're more likely to have a glancing interaction than like
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: a bounce back interaction.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait, what what do you mean? The
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: faster my neutrino's going, the higher the probability it will what.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I wasn't referring to the speed of the neutrino. I'm
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: talking about the amount of momentum exchanged. So the greater
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: the difference between the initial and final neutrino momentum, the
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: less the probabilities. So the more you want to change
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: the neutrino's angle, for example, the less likely that's going
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: to happen. You're more likely to have a glancing interaction
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: than like a bounce back interaction.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Meaning like it's harder for the nutrina to hit the
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: electron head on than it is for it to miss
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: The classical picture in your head of particles is like
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: tiny little balls. That's why you sometimes bounce back, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: that's why you sometimes don't, because a bounce back is
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: like when you hit it head on and it comes
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: right back. These are quantum particles, so there's no like
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: hitting anything head on. There's just probabilities various outcomes, and
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: the bouncing back is less.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Likely because it's harder to hit it head on, or
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: it's harder for the center of the probability curve of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: one to be aligned with the center of the probability
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of the other one, right.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: M yeah, sure, I mean that's what quantum mechanics tells us.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: It tells us the various probabilities of things happening. And
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: the cool thing is that as you zoom out and
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: make these things bigger and bigger, it starts to align
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: more with our classical intuition, our naive sense of these
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: things as objects that are touching and pushing on each
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: other in the same way. Really, these are quantum interactions,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: and various things have various probabilities. Like it's possible for
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the neutrino to hit the electron head on and just
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: go right through it and not interact. In fact, that's
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: the most likely thing.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: You mean, even though it's the most likely thing. Like
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: if I shoot the nautino head on to the electron,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: you probably would say that most likely it's going to
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: get it head on and bounce back, but it could
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: not happen.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: The most likely thing for it to do is to
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: just go right through the electron, even if it's right
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: exactly the same location, the neutrino can be right on
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: top of it. Yeah.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What I mean is like, out of the things
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: that could happen, if something happens, even if you align
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: it perfectly and shoot it to say, head on, and
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the most likely thing if something were to happen was
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: for it to bounce back. Not bounce back.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it may not bounce back at.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: All, because the probability depends on other things, not just
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: how close you are.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not just how close you are. And it also
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: does depend on the initial velocity of the neutrino and
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: all sorts of things that go into the quantum mechanical calculation.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: But the point is you get various probabilities of things happening.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: It depends on lots of different factors.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Well maybe this is kind of what Rebecca is asking.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: It's like, what exactly is going on? What are some
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: of these other factors that might cause these two things
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to ignore each other.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: I think the major ones are the distance between them, right,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: and the initial momentum of both of the particles. Really
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: high speed particles are affected by special relativity, which sort
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: of changes their experience as they fly through space. They
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: see space as contracted as squeezed in front of them.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Everything is shortened. You take like a wall that's a
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: meter thick, and now it's much much shorter, but it's
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: more dense, and so that changes your probability to interact
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: with the atoms inside it, for example.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: And so makes it harder, and it gives you a.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Higher probability of interacting with them. Actually, oh, higher probability
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: because now you have more of them. Yeah, because it's denser,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: so you have more of them.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: But like let's say we're still talking about one by
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: one electron and I'm shooting a natrina at it, is
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: it more likely for them to interact if I shoot
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: my neutrino super super fast or if it's cruising by slowly.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Low energy particles in general are going to be more
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: likely to interact qualitative that you can imagine, like they
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: have they spend more time in each other's vicinity, so
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: they're closer for longer period, so they get to like
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: roll the die more times. There's one way to think
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I see. So basically, like if you want the nutrina
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: to hit the electron, you just got to hit it
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: it on and throw it slowly. So it's the same
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: as like throwing a bit a baseball. The slower you
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: throw it, the easier it is to hit the center
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: of the glove.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. So that's what you want to do.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: If you want the electron and then trino to interact,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Throw it slowly right at each other.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Right, But even if you hit it dead on at
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: a slow speed, there's still a probability that they'll ignore
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: each other.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's the most likely thing. By far. Neutrino's
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: almost always ignore everything, including electrons.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: And I guess why is that? Is it because the
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: two quantum fields don't like each other, or they're not
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: likely to interact with each other. I mean it sounds
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: like it's a slam dunk if you're hitting it straight on.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they interact.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Well, some fields just don't interact with other fields. And
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: some fields interact very strongly, and some fields interact very weakly.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: And this is just like a number. You know, you're
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: calculating the probabilities, and you have all these factors momentum
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: and angle and distance whatever. Then there's also just a
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: number you multiply these calculations by. And it's different for
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: different pairs of fields, and in this case, it's the
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: weak interaction, and we know that weak interaction just has
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: a small number in front of it. Why is that
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: number week We don't really know. You know, the strong
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: force is a bigger number electromagnetism as a number close
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to one over one hundred. The weak force has a
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: much smaller number. Gravities even weaker if you think about
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: it in a quantum scale. We don't know why these
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: numbers are stronger or weaker for various forces.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I see. So you're saying the weak the weak force
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: is weak and the strong force is strong.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that's the description of what we've observed, right.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: We also do know that these numbers change with energy. Actually,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: as the universe gets hotter and denser and everything is
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: flying around higher speeds, these numbers in front of the fields.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Do change, so they become more likely to interact.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: They do become more likely as the temperature of the
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: universe increases. So we think in the early universe these
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: probabilities were different, and the universe is now cooled and crystallized,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and the weak force ended up being quite weak. That
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: we think in the early history of the universe the
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: weak force might have been as strong as electromagnetism.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: WHOA, it's just an inherent something about it just makes
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: it more reactive.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called spontaneous symmetry breaking. We think that the
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: universe sort of like cracked in this way when it
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: was cooling and made the week force week and then
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: electromagnetism less week. We think in the early universe there
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: were really just one symmetric, beautiful bundle that was all
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: the same, and it cracked into these two halves that
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: are very different now.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And then it cracked the shark. Obviously, I mean, it
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: cracked the cork. But I guess maybe I wonder now
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: if Rebecca's question is, Okay, let's say I shoot antuna
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: an electron, I hit it it on and I rolled
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: it die, and the universe says, all right, let these
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: two particles interact. What's happening then, Yeah.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: That's a great question. And in our current understanding, these
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: things are fundamental, so we have no insight into what's
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: going on inside them. Maybe something is happening, they're exchanging
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: little internal particles, or something is changing inside their state.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: We don't know. Our current picture of them is that
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: we can't see inside of them, so we don't really know.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: All we know is that we can describe the it's happening,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: and it's like one unit of understanding. We don't know
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: how to crack it open. To us, it's essentially instantaneous
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: because we don't have any insight into the internal workings
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: of an electron or a neutrino.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see, like you don't have an idea of like,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: all right, you can play this out in slow motion,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: is what you're saying.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. For example, it used to be that we understood
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: how neutrinos decay the same way neutrinos turned into a
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: proton an electron neutrino. How did that happen? We didn't
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: know there were all point particles to us. Now we
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: can see inside the proton, we can see what happens.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: We can see that, oh, it's this quark turning into
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: that and that's why you get a neutron, and we
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: can understand the details inside of it. But we can't
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: tell that for the inside of an electron or a neutrino.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: So maybe it's instantaneous and we're looking at fundamental interactions
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: to the universe, or maybe there's something happening inside of it.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: We just can't see yet. That could happen in slow motion.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So maybe it's just like one timestep of the universe,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: or maybe it's multiple ones. We can't tell the difference, well.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Because it's happening so fast, or maybe because it is
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: it's instantaneous.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Both. Maybe it's so fast, maybe it's instantaneous. We can't
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: tell the difference yet. We can't resolve those two differences.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: We don't have the technology to see those things. We
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: can't look inside the electron, for example.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I wonder if, like some interactions, the two things
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: sort of combine into pure energy in a way and
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: then outcomes other particles. Maybe you may imagine these ripples
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: kind of mixing together, becoming this blob, and then it
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: ripples out into other things. Maybe is that how maybe you,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: as a particle physicists, think about it or see it.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I see it as like energy transforming from one field
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: to another. So, for example, you have an electron and
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: a positron. They annihilate to make a photon. Right, that's
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: like just energy does no matter anymore. The way I
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: think about that is two ripples in the electron field,
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: one the electron, the other a positron. Which is just
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: like a different kind of ripple in the electron field
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: come together, and then that energy slides over into another field. Right,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: the energy is gone from the electron field. It's slipped
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: over into the photon field, the electromagnetic field. So those
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: fields have coupled, They've transferred energy from one to the other,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and so now the electron field is quiet and the
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: electromagnetic field, the photons field is rippling because it has
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: the particle in it. So I imagine all these fields sort
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: of on top of each other and energy is sliding
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: back and forth from one to another.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Well, that's when they transform into each other. But what
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: about like when they just bounce off each other.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exchanging momentum. So then you have like ripples
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: that are approaching each other, and then they can go
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: off in other directions. Right, They're still communicating by exchanging
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: momentum or exchanging energy.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Like a little bit of my horizontal energy, I give
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: that to the other particle, and then that particle that
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: moves a little bit in the horizontal.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Direction, yeah, exactly.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: M all right, well then I think that is Rebecca's answer,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: which is, uh, Daniel has no idea, nobody has any idea.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: We have a current picture which we can use to
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: do calculations which are extraordinarily accurate, but we don't understand
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: the internals of it yet. We don't know if we're
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: at the end of the story or or just step
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: five out of ten thousand future experiments we hope will
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: reveal the answers.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, Like, to us, it looks like they just bounce
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: of each other. But maybe when you zoom in and
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: you know, look at it in super high speed motion,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: maybe there's a little like sharks jumping from one particle
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to the other.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you give me one hundred billion dollars
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: to build a shark collider, I can prove it.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Maybe I can get Bruce's new Moon mining company to
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: fund a big collider.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it all comes together. We're gonna fund
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the little shark experiment with Moon Cheesy Cheesy.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Don't invest in crypto, invest in Moon Cheesiam, it's a
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: much more solid investment. Yes, put all your retirement money there.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, send us the money now, and in about a
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: thousand years, when space travel is cheap, you might see
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: a return.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Sounds good?
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: All right? Well, thanks to everyone who sent in their questions,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: so it's fun to see what people are curious about
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and to try to tackle these interesting mysteries of the universe.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Thanks very much everybody who sends in your questions, and
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: thanks everybody else out there for your curiosity. Empowers our
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: science and our podcast and are jumping.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, See
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: you next time.
• 51:28
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• 51:31
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• 51:39
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