Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / So long, and thanks for all the chocolate

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So long, and thanks for all the chocolate · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Daniel here. For six years and six hundred episodes,
0:13
Speaker 1: I've been talking to you about how wonderful and mysterious
0:17
Speaker 1: our universe is. I've tried to guide you in how
0:20
Speaker 1: to think about quantum mechanics, how to wrap your head
0:23
Speaker 1: around relativity, and even how to help your teenager with
0:26
Speaker 1: their chemistry homework when you have to. Or maybe that's
0:30
Speaker 1: just me. Along the way, We've made a lot of
0:32
Speaker 1: silly jokes about bananas and chocolate and anything else we
0:35
Speaker 1: could think of to keep the mood light and to
0:37
Speaker 1: make everybody feel welcome in this exploration of the universe.
0:41
Speaker 1: And it's been a pleasure an honor to host this
0:44
Speaker 1: show and to be your guide into the joys of
0:47
Speaker 1: understanding the cosmos, because I really do think that the
0:51
Speaker 1: universe can be explained, and that it deserves to be explained,
0:54
Speaker 1: and that you deserve that explanation. When we started, I
0:58
Speaker 1: had no idea how long this podcast would go for.
1:01
Speaker 1: After two hundred, three hundred or five hundred episodes, I
1:05
Speaker 1: was amazed that people still had an appetite for more physics.
1:08
Speaker 2: And more Dad humor. But it was never.
1:10
Speaker 1: Gonna last forever, and so it's with some wistfulness and
1:14
Speaker 1: a lot of gratitude that I share with you today
1:16
Speaker 1: at the news that this episode is our farewell episode.
1:20
Speaker 1: But don't worry, neither the universe nor I are going
1:24
Speaker 1: away just yet.
1:41
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel.
1:42
Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and for the last few years
1:44
Speaker 1: I've been the host of this podcast, Daniel and Jorge
1:47
Speaker 1: Explain the Universe. I've had a rotating series of co hosts,
1:51
Speaker 1: starting of course with Jorge, then going solo for a bit,
1:54
Speaker 1: then Jorge came back, and then I was solo again.
1:57
Speaker 1: Then I invited Kelly and Katie to join us as
1:59
Speaker 1: co hosts.
2:00
Speaker 2: Jorge returned.
2:01
Speaker 1: But I've been here with you on every single episode
2:04
Speaker 1: because this project means something to me. It means a
2:07
Speaker 1: lot to me. I'm a physicist, of course, but I'm
2:10
Speaker 1: also a professor, and that means that part of my
2:12
Speaker 1: job is education, not just research. Of course, I teach
2:16
Speaker 1: classes here at UC Irvine, from first year classical mechanics
2:20
Speaker 1: all the way up to graduate level particle physics. But
2:22
Speaker 1: I also want to help address the unsatisfied thirst people
2:26
Speaker 1: out there have for jargon free, intuitive explanations about the universe.
2:31
Speaker 1: Because there's this wonderful moment when ideas click together in
2:35
Speaker 1: your mind, when you've understood something new and familiar, when
2:39
Speaker 1: it makes sense in a way it didn't used to.
2:42
Speaker 1: And I want to share those moments with all of you,
2:45
Speaker 1: giving you a shortcut to the intuitive understanding of the
2:48
Speaker 1: universe without having a way through years of mathematical training.
2:52
Speaker 1: That's my major goal with this podcast and with my
2:54
Speaker 1: book projects, to share the joy of understanding and the
2:58
Speaker 1: allure of all the unanswered questions.
3:00
Speaker 2: With all of you.
3:01
Speaker 1: So thank you, thank you for being there with me.
3:03
Speaker 1: And although this particular podcast won't be continuing my desire
3:08
Speaker 1: to connect with all of you to explore what we
3:10
Speaker 1: do and don't know about this incredible, bonkers, amazing universe
3:14
Speaker 1: that isn't going away. So I'm very happy to announce
3:17
Speaker 1: my new podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. You all
3:22
Speaker 1: know Kelly one of our wonderful co hosts on this pod.
3:25
Speaker 1: She and I have always had fun talking about science
3:27
Speaker 1: and joking around, and so we are launching this new project.
3:29
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same as explaining the Universe, but
3:32
Speaker 1: I think that fans of this podcast will also enjoy
3:35
Speaker 1: the new one. You'll recognize me, of course, and my
3:38
Speaker 1: style of explanations, and you already know Kelly, and there
3:40
Speaker 1: will be plenty of puns and silliness mixed in with
3:43
Speaker 1: the science. More about that later, because today we are
3:46
Speaker 1: here to say goodbye to Daniel and Jorge explain the universe,
3:50
Speaker 1: to celebrate what we've accomplished, to remember our best moments,
3:54
Speaker 1: and to think about all we have learned. So today
3:57
Speaker 1: on the podcast, we're saying so long and thanks for
4:05
Speaker 1: all the chocolate, to celebrate everything we have learned. I
4:07
Speaker 1: went back and listened to a bunch of old episodes
4:10
Speaker 1: to see how the podcast has changed. And you know,
4:12
Speaker 1: through the years, the podcast has evolved a bit as
4:15
Speaker 1: we found our rhythm, but you can hear the groove
4:18
Speaker 1: that we found even in the earliest episodes. Here's a
4:21
Speaker 1: couple of clips from the first two episodes of the podcast.
4:25
Speaker 2: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist.
4:27
Speaker 1: I spend my days smashing protons together at the large
4:30
Speaker 1: Hadron colliders to try to reveal the secrets of the universe,
4:33
Speaker 1: mostly so that I can tell them to you in
4:35
Speaker 1: this podcast.
4:37
Speaker 3: Basically, only one of us is qualified to be explaining
4:40
Speaker 3: things to you on this podcast.
4:41
Speaker 2: That would be the cartoonist.
4:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, physicists are not qualified usually to be explainers. Mostly
4:46
Speaker 1: we just try to solve the mysteries of the universe.
4:48
Speaker 1: We don't try to tell anybody about them.
4:50
Speaker 3: Right, Mostly physicists just need explaining, that's right.
4:55
Speaker 2: That's where the cartoons come in, right.
4:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and spouses also, spouses of physicists have to do
5:00
Speaker 3: a lot of explaining.
5:01
Speaker 2: You got some splaining to do, exactly. Yeah.
5:05
Speaker 1: You have to imagine if somebody is running our universe
5:08
Speaker 1: as a simulation, who knows what kind of computational powers
5:11
Speaker 1: they have, right, And if they are their universe, the
5:16
Speaker 1: one that our universe is running as a simulation inside
5:18
Speaker 1: of doesn't have to follow the same laws as our universe.
5:21
Speaker 2: Right.
5:22
Speaker 1: If we're in a video game inside somebody else's universe,
5:25
Speaker 1: our video game can have rules that don't exist outside
5:27
Speaker 1: the video game.
5:28
Speaker 3: Right, So they like f equals MA or general relativity
5:32
Speaker 3: that could have been something they just made up because
5:35
Speaker 3: they thought they would be fun or interesting, you know,
5:38
Speaker 3: like like we like we create video games with crazy
5:42
Speaker 3: physical rules. You know, Mario can jump half of the screen,
5:45
Speaker 3: he can jump twenty feet up in the air, so
5:49
Speaker 3: maybe that's that's what our physical laws are. They're just
5:52
Speaker 3: kind of like, hey, let's make this fun universe where
5:54
Speaker 3: f eqals maa. Is that kind of the idea.
5:56
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think
5:59
Speaker 1: that's harshly the origin of this idea. You know, what
6:02
Speaker 1: is physics doing? Ask yourself that physics is trying to
6:05
Speaker 1: figure out what are the rules of this universe?
6:08
Speaker 2: Right?
6:09
Speaker 1: What are the underlying code that runs this universe? And
6:13
Speaker 1: so now that we actually have pretty powerful computer programs,
6:16
Speaker 1: people wonder, well, if you were in a computer program
6:18
Speaker 1: and you were trying to figure out what the rules
6:20
Speaker 1: of that simulated universe were, you'd essentially be trying to
6:24
Speaker 1: understand what was the physics coded into that universe.
6:28
Speaker 3: You would be a physicist.
6:29
Speaker 1: So in some sense, yeah, you'd be a physicist exactly.
6:32
Speaker 1: Physicists are trying to reverse engineer the source code of
6:35
Speaker 1: the universe. Right, regardless of whether you believe the universe
6:38
Speaker 1: is real or a simulation, it does seem to follow.
6:41
Speaker 3: Some rules, right, So it's like when you first.
6:43
Speaker 2: It's amazing that we can even discover those.
6:45
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like when you first play Super
6:47
Speaker 3: Mario or something, and you're just jumping around and moving
6:50
Speaker 3: around trying to figure out how Mari moves. You're essentially
6:53
Speaker 3: like being a physicist in that world.
6:56
Speaker 1: Right, that's exactly right. Everybody who plays a video game
6:59
Speaker 1: for the first time, exactly.
7:02
Speaker 3: Let's give everybody who plays video games.
7:07
Speaker 2: That's right.
7:08
Speaker 1: That you just give a whole generation of listeners or
7:11
Speaker 1: reason to stop doing their physics homework and turn on
7:13
Speaker 1: their video.
7:13
Speaker 4: Yes.
7:14
Speaker 1: Of course, by the end, people we're familiar with my
7:17
Speaker 1: opinions about chocolate, the scourge that is white chocolate, and
7:21
Speaker 1: the tragedy that is a Hershey bar. Here's me interviewing
7:24
Speaker 1: a chocolate expert on the Physics of Chocolate episode. Let's
7:27
Speaker 1: talk about the Hershey bar also because it's iconic on
7:31
Speaker 1: the podcast recently, I commented that I was not a
7:33
Speaker 1: particular fan of the Hershey bar because it has this
7:36
Speaker 1: sour flavor to it. Where does that sourness come from?
7:40
Speaker 1: Is it some property of milk chocolate? Is it some
7:43
Speaker 1: secret process that Hershey has? Why are Hershey bar so sour?
7:47
Speaker 5: So the story is, and I'm sure a Hershey representative
7:51
Speaker 5: may dispute my spin on this is we talked to
7:56
Speaker 5: Europeans and say, you know, they got the process of
7:58
Speaker 5: drying liquid milk wrong and that it became there's lipid
8:04
Speaker 5: catalysis that creates organic acids that gives you the sour
8:10
Speaker 5: character that you get from baby puke.
8:13
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did you just say baby puke?
8:15
Speaker 2: I did? I did.
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Speaker 5: And I've heard those terms from other Hershey people, so
8:20
Speaker 5: I'm not taking these terms out of context.
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Speaker 1: So we have it on the record from an expert
8:25
Speaker 1: in chocolate that Hershey's tastes like baby puke.
8:27
Speaker 5: All, yeah, that'll intribution on this one.
8:31
Speaker 1: Of course, there were lots of moments when we dug
8:33
Speaker 1: deep into the physics and really tried to give you
8:35
Speaker 1: an understanding of how everything out there worked. Here's a
8:39
Speaker 1: snapshot from our episode about the Higgs boson and the
8:42
Speaker 1: Mexican hat.
8:43
Speaker 3: So then maybe the universe. It's almost like, at some
8:45
Speaker 3: point in the beginning of the universe, the universe somehow
8:48
Speaker 3: got mass like it needs to be massless everything at
8:51
Speaker 3: least the matter particles, And then something happened to this
8:53
Speaker 3: field that made suddenly everything has messed exactly.
8:56
Speaker 1: And that's the moment in the universe when electromagnet and
9:00
Speaker 1: the weak force split off from each other. Because that's
9:03
Speaker 1: what the Higgs boson does, is it breaks this symmetry
9:05
Speaker 1: between electromagnetism and the weak force, which we think are
9:09
Speaker 1: really all just one sort of big, happy force. But
9:12
Speaker 1: the W and the Z particles, which carry the information
9:15
Speaker 1: for the weak force, they're really really massive. And that
9:17
Speaker 1: happened at that moment when the Higgs boson sort of
9:20
Speaker 1: rolled away from the middle and settled at this large value.
9:24
Speaker 1: And we call that electroweak symmetry breaking. So there was
9:26
Speaker 1: a time in the early universe when we think the
9:29
Speaker 1: weak force was as powerful as electricity and magnetism, and
9:32
Speaker 1: then the Higgs broke it.
9:34
Speaker 3: Oh, man, that Higgs.
9:35
Speaker 2: What a bully.
9:38
Speaker 3: The week fourth week.
9:39
Speaker 1: It's just doing its job, man, it's just doing its job.
9:42
Speaker 1: But we think of it this also in terms of
9:44
Speaker 1: like phase transitions, Like the universe was very different before
9:47
Speaker 1: this and very different after this moment. And you know,
9:50
Speaker 1: people you might hear people talking about like how there
9:52
Speaker 1: were different laws of physics before this phase transition or something,
9:57
Speaker 1: and that's because you know, these things control how things offen,
10:00
Speaker 1: that things have no mass, and the weak force is
10:02
Speaker 1: very very powerful than the effective laws of physics, the
10:05
Speaker 1: things we experience would be very different. Deep down, there's
10:08
Speaker 1: still like the basic laws of physics underneath everything that
10:11
Speaker 1: are controlling how this happens. Those don't change, but you
10:14
Speaker 1: know the way the things end up interacting and the
10:16
Speaker 1: way they come together to form complex matter, that does
10:20
Speaker 1: change when you have one of these like big moments
10:23
Speaker 1: in the universe. So that's why they call it like
10:25
Speaker 1: a phase transition in the laws of physics.
10:28
Speaker 3: Like things click together differently, depending maybe on the size
10:31
Speaker 3: of the universe or the density of it. All right, well,
10:33
Speaker 3: let's get into what this all means. Why is it
10:37
Speaker 3: important that the Higgs field has this potential shape like
10:40
Speaker 3: a Mexican head.
10:41
Speaker 1: We had lots of fun talking science with Katie, of course.
10:45
Speaker 1: Here's a snippet from our episode about the length of
10:48
Speaker 1: the day.
10:49
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Daniel.
10:49
Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine,
10:52
Speaker 1: and I get paid whether I nap or not.
10:55
Speaker 6: I am Katie. I am a professional napper. I am
11:00
Speaker 6: so good at naps you wouldn't even believe it. I
11:01
Speaker 6: also run a podcast called Creature Feature. I am a
11:06
Speaker 6: biology educator.
11:07
Speaker 1: Hmm, and have you ever had an episode about naps
11:10
Speaker 1: in the animal world.
11:11
Speaker 5: I actually have.
11:13
Speaker 6: Like there's a lot of animals that do sleep in
11:16
Speaker 6: weird ways, like little like micro naps that birds do,
11:19
Speaker 6: where they do like little tiny, itty bitty naps throughout
11:22
Speaker 6: the day in order to stay alert, or like weird
11:27
Speaker 6: giraffe sleeping schedules where it's like they sleep in these
11:30
Speaker 6: weird chunks and wake up throughout the night but sleep
11:33
Speaker 6: like a lot.
11:34
Speaker 2: It's very interesting the.
11:36
Speaker 6: Idea of this, like you know, sleep during the night,
11:38
Speaker 6: bewake during the day, and sleep in a solid chunk,
11:41
Speaker 6: is very much just like a human quirk, right, A
11:45
Speaker 6: lot of animals sleep differently.
11:46
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder about that with my dog. I never
11:48
Speaker 1: find him sleeping in the same place in the morning
11:51
Speaker 1: as he went to sleep in the evening, and I wonder, like,
11:53
Speaker 1: does he have a night sleep? Is he just like
11:55
Speaker 1: napping a bunch because he also like sleeps most of
11:58
Speaker 1: the day.
11:59
Speaker 2: So what is my dog doing in the middle of
12:01
Speaker 2: the night?
12:01
Speaker 6: King he's online on dog Internet.
12:06
Speaker 2: No, I'm recording his own podcast, wondering what I'm doing
12:11
Speaker 2: rough stuff.
12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was always fun to talk science with Kelly.
12:16
Speaker 1: Here's a couple of clips from episodes with her.
12:19
Speaker 7: And I'm Kelly Waiersmith. I'm a parasitologist who's adjunct with
12:22
Speaker 7: Rice University, and I also like power.
12:26
Speaker 1: Do you ever wish that you could just plug yourself
12:28
Speaker 1: into solar power?
12:29
Speaker 8: Like?
12:30
Speaker 1: Why do we still need to sleep? Why can't we
12:32
Speaker 1: just recharge the way all of our devices do?
12:34
Speaker 9: Yeah?
12:34
Speaker 7: Right, that would be like an upgrade of coffee.
12:36
Speaker 1: I like it electrified coffee exactly. It just seems so
12:40
Speaker 1: much more reliable. You know, those days you have, like
12:42
Speaker 1: insomnia or whatever. You're like, I wish I could just
12:44
Speaker 1: plug in and charge up today.
12:46
Speaker 7: I overdid the coffee and I'm feeling kind of jittery.
12:49
Speaker 7: So if I could just plug into a solar panel
12:51
Speaker 7: and get nice, steady power without overdoing it, that would
12:55
Speaker 7: be pretty solid.
12:56
Speaker 1: Well maybe someday in the future, I know. I'm a
13:00
Speaker 1: particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I
13:04
Speaker 1: don't like scaring children, but I do like telling them
13:07
Speaker 1: the truth.
13:10
Speaker 7: I'm Kelly Wainer Smith. I'm an edgeuct professor at Rice University,
13:14
Speaker 7: and I prefer lying to them.
13:17
Speaker 1: What you lie to your kids, What if they ask
13:19
Speaker 1: you a science question you don't know the answer, you
13:21
Speaker 1: just make one up.
13:22
Speaker 8: No.
13:22
Speaker 7: In that case, I tell them the truth.
13:24
Speaker 2: That's important, you know.
13:25
Speaker 7: But one of them does still believe in Santa and
13:27
Speaker 7: now will not be listening to this episode.
13:32
Speaker 1: What if they ask you a science question that has
13:34
Speaker 1: a scary answer.
13:36
Speaker 7: It depends on if I think they can handle it
13:38
Speaker 7: or not. And it depends on when I want to
13:39
Speaker 7: go to bed that night, because I might be up
13:41
Speaker 7: late doing the explaining. There's lots of things to consider, But.
13:44
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,
13:48
Speaker 1: in which we try to teach you everything about the universe,
13:52
Speaker 1: scary or not, the things that will keep you up
13:55
Speaker 1: at night, worried about whether you will survive, and the
13:57
Speaker 1: things that make you feel like the universe is a comfortable,
14:00
Speaker 1: cozy place. It's all set up for you to have
14:03
Speaker 1: a good time. We talk about black holes, we talk
14:05
Speaker 1: about quarks. We talk about the future of the human
14:08
Speaker 1: race and whether it.
14:09
Speaker 2: Has a future or not.
14:11
Speaker 7: Dark stuff.
14:13
Speaker 1: My friend and co host Orge can't be here today,
14:15
Speaker 1: so we are joined by Kelly Weenersmith, who is trying
14:19
Speaker 1: to teach you things without scaring your children.
14:21
Speaker 7: That's right. I feel like maybe I need to defend
14:24
Speaker 7: that decision, but I'm just gonna let it go. Sometimes
14:26
Speaker 7: kids don't need to be scared. You get to spend
14:28
Speaker 7: your whole adulthood being scared about stuff.
14:30
Speaker 2: You know you're right.
14:31
Speaker 1: And the thing I love about the universe is that
14:33
Speaker 1: it doesn't really care about our feelings.
14:35
Speaker 2: It's just crazy.
14:37
Speaker 1: It's just bonkers. It's just doing its thing. Whether that
14:40
Speaker 1: means it's threatening to tear you apart and blow you away,
14:43
Speaker 1: or whether it's created this wonderful environment for you to
14:46
Speaker 1: relax in and sip your marker Rita while you listen
14:49
Speaker 1: to a podcast. The universe doesn't care either way.
14:51
Speaker 7: You know, it's really good that you went into physics
14:53
Speaker 7: and not like psychiatry or something. And how how are
14:57
Speaker 7: your kids turning out?
14:59
Speaker 1: My kid's so far are not sociopaths, you know, but hey,
15:02
Speaker 1: we need to collect more data. No, My strategy has
15:04
Speaker 1: always been to answer their questions honestly, though I will
15:09
Speaker 1: admit if their questions bring up something awkward or uncomfortable
15:12
Speaker 1: or maybe age inappropriate, I'll try to deflect the question
15:15
Speaker 1: once or twice. But if they really insist, if they
15:18
Speaker 1: drill in for an answer, I'm giving it to them.
15:21
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things on the podcast was getting
15:23
Speaker 1: to fan boy out and talk to science fiction authors
15:27
Speaker 1: whose work I'd been admiring for years. We got to
15:30
Speaker 1: talk to some pretty famous folks.
15:31
Speaker 10: I'm an lucky I'm the author, most famously, I guess,
15:35
Speaker 10: the author of the novel Ancillary Justice and it sequels
15:39
Speaker 10: Ancillary Sword and Ancellary Mercy. My name is Mary robinet Cole.
15:44
Speaker 10: I write science fiction and fantasy. I'm also an audiobook
15:47
Speaker 10: narrator and a professional puppeteer.
15:49
Speaker 1: Well, it's not that often that you made a science
15:50
Speaker 1: fiction author who's also a puppeteer. How did those two
15:54
Speaker 1: careers intersect.
15:56
Speaker 10: They're both all about theater of the possible. Anything is
16:00
Speaker 10: possible when you step into popetry or science fiction, so
16:03
Speaker 10: they're both also, I think, places that tend to naturally
16:07
Speaker 10: explore what if in imagination.
16:10
Speaker 1: It's my great pleasure to welcome to the podcast. Peter Harness,
16:13
Speaker 1: an English playwright, screenwriter and actor. Thanks very much for
16:17
Speaker 1: joining us.
16:18
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
16:19
Speaker 2: I need to update Wikipedia.
16:20
Speaker 4: I haven't done any acting for a very long time,
16:22
Speaker 4: but it's nice.
16:23
Speaker 2: It's still it's nice. It still believes that I have
16:26
Speaker 2: more Once an actor, always an actor.
16:29
Speaker 1: We also reached out to top physicists and science communicators
16:32
Speaker 1: to come talk to us about their ideas about the
16:35
Speaker 1: most confusing and mysterious theories in physics. Here's a clip
16:39
Speaker 1: from my conversation with Sean Carroll. So it's my great
16:43
Speaker 1: pleasure to introduce Professor Sean Carroll. He's a theoretical physicist
16:47
Speaker 1: at Caltech, and he's known for his work on cosmology,
16:50
Speaker 1: general relativity, and the foundations of quantum mechanics. He's also
16:53
Speaker 1: the author of several widely acclaimed and widely read books,
16:57
Speaker 1: including Something Deeply Hidden and The Big Picture, and is
17:00
Speaker 1: the host of the podcast Mindscape, which might actually be
17:03
Speaker 1: neardier than this podcast. Today, Sean is here to talk
17:06
Speaker 1: to us about the many world's interpretation of quantum mechanics
17:08
Speaker 1: and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Sean, Welcome to
17:12
Speaker 1: the podcast. Thanks very much for having me here.
17:14
Speaker 2: Wonderful to have you.
17:15
Speaker 1: So I want to dive right in and before we
17:17
Speaker 1: talk about what the many world's interpretation is, I want
17:20
Speaker 1: to get your view on what problem it solves, like,
17:23
Speaker 1: why do we need so many interpretations of quantum mechanics?
17:26
Speaker 1: What problem is it that they are trying to address.
17:28
Speaker 3: I think there's actually two problems. I mean, this is
17:30
Speaker 3: the right question, because are we just wasting our time
17:32
Speaker 3: or honestly, it's not a lot of time compared to
17:35
Speaker 3: other physicists thinking about other things. The foundations of quantum
17:37
Speaker 3: mechanics is a minority pursuit. But I think there are
17:39
Speaker 3: two problems, and they're such looming, large problems, and quantum
17:44
Speaker 3: mechanics is so important to modern physics that I do
17:48
Speaker 3: wish we were spending more time on them.
17:50
Speaker 1: And I got to talk to Carlo Ravelli. So it's
17:52
Speaker 1: my great pleasure today to introduce Professor Carlo Rovelli. He's
17:56
Speaker 1: a professor of physics in Marseille, and he cut his
17:58
Speaker 1: teeth and made his name for himself developing theories of
18:01
Speaker 1: quantum gravity, mostly loop quantum gravity, if I understand correctly.
18:05
Speaker 1: He also became a household name as the author of
18:07
Speaker 1: the book Seven brief Lessons on Physics, which sold more
18:09
Speaker 1: than a million copies and was translated into forty one languages.
18:13
Speaker 1: I've read it and enjoyed it immensely and heartily recommended
18:15
Speaker 1: to you. Today, Professor Revelli is here to talk to
18:17
Speaker 1: us about his new book, Hell Go Land and a
18:20
Speaker 1: fascinating alternative take on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.
18:24
Speaker 1: Professor Velli, welcome to the podcast and thank you for
18:27
Speaker 1: joining us.
18:27
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Dadiel. It's a pleasure in honor
18:30
Speaker 4: of being here.
18:31
Speaker 2: Wonderful.
18:32
Speaker 1: Well, I always love talking about quantum mechanics and puzzling
18:35
Speaker 1: over it with other people. I feel like every time
18:37
Speaker 1: I talk about quantum mechanics with somebody else, I think
18:39
Speaker 1: of a new question I've never thought of before, or
18:42
Speaker 1: a new angle on it, or a new mystery. Frankly,
18:45
Speaker 1: like a new corner of my mind that I haven't
18:47
Speaker 1: ever really examined, and I get confused, and so it's
18:50
Speaker 1: always fun to figure things outsie of on the fly.
18:52
Speaker 1: So today we wanted to talk about your new book
18:54
Speaker 1: and Hell Go Land, and the book essentially lays out
18:57
Speaker 1: for a lay audience this idea of relational quantum mechanics,
19:01
Speaker 1: sort of a new interpretation on quantum mechanics. And the
19:04
Speaker 1: first question for you I have is if you could
19:07
Speaker 1: describe for us what is the problem that relational quantum
19:10
Speaker 1: mechanics solves, Like why do we need another quantum mechanics interpretation.
19:15
Speaker 1: What is it at the heart of relitional quant mechanics
19:18
Speaker 1: is trying to do One of.
19:19
Speaker 3: The difficulties of the problem of quantum mechanics is to
19:22
Speaker 3: say exactly what the problem is.
19:24
Speaker 1: Those are some of my favorite moments of the show,
19:26
Speaker 1: but there are so so many, way too many to
19:29
Speaker 1: mention here, and so I encourage you to go back
19:31
Speaker 1: and listen to old episodes because there's a lot of
19:33
Speaker 1: great stuff there. And also the show isn't just me,
19:36
Speaker 1: of course, so I asked all the co hosts we've
19:39
Speaker 1: had over the years to share their thoughts on their
19:42
Speaker 1: favorite moments. Here's what I heard back.
19:44
Speaker 6: I want to say that I really appreciate being on
19:48
Speaker 6: the show, being able to be a part of it,
19:50
Speaker 6: despite not having any any prior knowledge really about particle physics.
19:56
Speaker 6: It was really really fun to come on and learn
20:00
Speaker 6: and ask questions, and I always felt sort of like
20:03
Speaker 6: I was there with you guys the audience trying. I mean,
20:06
Speaker 6: probably a lot of you know more about particle physics
20:09
Speaker 6: than me, but still I would try to be there
20:12
Speaker 6: as the stand in for the audience, try to ask
20:14
Speaker 6: the questions that I was hoping you guys would want
20:17
Speaker 6: me to ask of Daniel and man, I just had
20:20
Speaker 6: such a good time, and I really appreciate all the
20:24
Speaker 6: love and support from you guys, and I I'm so
20:29
Speaker 6: happy I got to be a part of this amazing podcast.
20:32
Speaker 6: And I hope y'all continue to learn and continue to
20:37
Speaker 6: be physicists and scientists in your own homes and keep
20:42
Speaker 6: asking really cool questions.
20:46
Speaker 7: I had a lot of fun on a lot of
20:47
Speaker 7: the episodes. One of the episodes I particularly liked was
20:51
Speaker 7: when we talked about how physics might help us understand
20:56
Speaker 7: biology better. That was an episode that to me thinking
21:00
Speaker 7: long after our conversation ended.
21:03
Speaker 1: So we've had fun, and I hope that you've learned
21:05
Speaker 1: a lot of physics along the way. But I want
21:07
Speaker 1: you to understand that it's not just all of you
21:10
Speaker 1: who've learned a bunch of science.
21:12
Speaker 2: I have to you. See, physics is way.
21:14
Speaker 1: Too vast for any one person to understand all of
21:17
Speaker 1: it or even have time to try. So there are
21:20
Speaker 1: always things I wanted to know more about, and as
21:23
Speaker 1: I became more and more specialized in experimental particle physics,
21:27
Speaker 1: I felt myself lacking those opportunities, but still asking the questions,
21:32
Speaker 1: how do galaxies form, how do we know what's going
21:34
Speaker 1: on inside stars? Do we know what's going on inside stars?
21:38
Speaker 1: And so the podcast was a great excuse to go
21:41
Speaker 1: and learn about these things, a reason to spend an
21:44
Speaker 1: hour reading up on the latest research on intergalactic magnetic
21:48
Speaker 1: fields or whatever the topic was that week. It also
21:50
Speaker 1: helped me understand particle physics, because yeah, I certainly learned
21:54
Speaker 1: all this stuff at one point, but you really have
21:57
Speaker 1: to understand everything and have a click in your mind
22:00
Speaker 1: if you're going to explain it to non experts and
22:02
Speaker 1: answer top questions from our co hosts. So I asked
22:05
Speaker 1: our co hosts what this experience was like for them
22:08
Speaker 1: and whether they had any farewell messages for all of you.
22:12
Speaker 6: Here's what I heard back, Hey, this is Katie Golden.
22:16
Speaker 6: My favorite topic was the episode on which forces power
22:21
Speaker 6: the human senses, which for me was a perfect mix
22:25
Speaker 6: of biology and physics. I love looking into the physics
22:31
Speaker 6: that are behind our biological functioning like our vision, our hearing,
22:36
Speaker 6: and also getting into some of the cool evolutionary biology
22:38
Speaker 6: stuff of electromagnetism and how animals can sort of sense
22:44
Speaker 6: like electromagnetism. And it was really really fun I enjoyed
22:48
Speaker 6: kind of having that merging of my pet interest being
22:51
Speaker 6: evolutionary biology and then learning about all of the cool
22:54
Speaker 6: physics behind it from Daniel. I guess the most challenging
22:58
Speaker 6: topic for me has been and continues to be trying
23:02
Speaker 6: to visualize or understand gravity, understanding it is not a force,
23:08
Speaker 6: and sort of also the idea that it is like
23:12
Speaker 6: the curvature in space, but also that space isn't like
23:16
Speaker 6: a physical fabric that bends. I still can't really wrap
23:20
Speaker 6: my head around it. It's pretty difficult, and I'm sure
23:23
Speaker 6: I'm not alone in that, But I despite it being
23:26
Speaker 6: really challenging for me to understand or visualize or have
23:29
Speaker 6: like a concept of, it's still really infinitely fascinating to me.
23:34
Speaker 6: And my favorite moments on air definitely every time Daniel
23:38
Speaker 6: would make some comparison between food and particle physics. I
23:42
Speaker 6: feel like part of that was because we would often
23:45
Speaker 6: record sometimes like for me, like before dinner, and you
23:50
Speaker 6: would definitely make me hungry talking about spaghetification into black holes.
23:56
Speaker 6: We also recently I don't know if this will be
23:58
Speaker 6: out yet, so I'll try not to do any spoilers,
24:01
Speaker 6: but we also recently did a listener question episode about
24:04
Speaker 6: the warp drive in Star Trek, and I loved talking
24:07
Speaker 6: about the fake sciencey schmayancy stuff in Star Trek, like
24:13
Speaker 6: the science gibbers that they would talk about, like the
24:15
Speaker 6: flux capacitors, et cetera. Also, I don't want to spoil
24:20
Speaker 6: it the episode in case it's not out yet, but
24:23
Speaker 6: there's a moment in it when my mind is completely
24:26
Speaker 6: blown by sort of what would happen in reality in
24:31
Speaker 6: a situation with warp drive, And you can probably tell
24:36
Speaker 6: what it is because I don't know. I think I
24:38
Speaker 6: sound pretty excited.
24:41
Speaker 7: Hello, this is Kelly Wiener Smith. So to be honest,
24:45
Speaker 7: I found a lot of the topics kind of challenging. So,
24:50
Speaker 7: you know, talking to a particle physicist as someone who
24:53
Speaker 7: has absolutely no training in that area and knowing that
24:57
Speaker 7: there's an audience listening to my responses, you know, it's
25:01
Speaker 7: a bit of a humbling experience. And quite often before
25:05
Speaker 7: I'd ask a question, I'd find myself thinking, oh, is
25:07
Speaker 7: this a bad question? Does everyone know the answer to
25:10
Speaker 7: this question already? But you know, my job was to
25:14
Speaker 7: play the you know, the everyman or the every person
25:18
Speaker 7: and ask whatever was on my mind or whatever. I
25:21
Speaker 7: didn't think I was understanding quite well enough. So I
25:24
Speaker 7: got over it and it was fun and I enjoyed
25:27
Speaker 7: the challenge and I learned a lot by going through
25:29
Speaker 7: these conversations with Daniel. I really enjoyed the running joke
25:33
Speaker 7: that we had about how Daniel was always bringing up
25:36
Speaker 7: questions about how my kids might die or how you know,
25:39
Speaker 7: everybody might die, and how I couldn't let my kids
25:42
Speaker 7: listen to the podcast because they would be petrified and
25:45
Speaker 7: wouldn't be able to sleep at night. That was kind
25:48
Speaker 7: of a fun running bit. And there was an episode
25:52
Speaker 7: we recorded about uranus that it made me giggle quite
25:57
Speaker 7: a bit because I have the heart of a twelve
25:59
Speaker 7: year old. It has been so much fun, and I
26:02
Speaker 7: learned so much by getting to come on and co
26:04
Speaker 7: host every once in a while, and I really appreciate
26:07
Speaker 7: the opportunity. Thanks everyone, But.
26:09
Speaker 1: The podcast is much more than just me and the
26:11
Speaker 1: co hosts. It wouldn't be what it is without all
26:14
Speaker 1: of you out there listening and supporting it. And over
26:18
Speaker 1: the years, I've heard a lot about how the podcast
26:20
Speaker 1: has helped you or taught you something. A few listeners
26:23
Speaker 1: sent in their thoughts about what they have learned and
26:25
Speaker 1: the role of the podcast has played in their lives.
26:29
Speaker 8: Hi, Daniel, your podcast has helped me to understand the
26:32
Speaker 8: universe to a depth where I can start formulating an
26:35
Speaker 8: intellectual and emotional connection to the cosmos on the grandest
26:41
Speaker 8: or largest scale and the smallest or quantum scale. I
26:45
Speaker 8: tried to express this in a painting I made recently
26:49
Speaker 8: in which I learned two facts and combine them on
26:54
Speaker 8: the painting. One was that fungal mycelium has a filamentous
26:58
Speaker 8: network structure, and the other was something I learned from
27:01
Speaker 8: your podcast that said, in which you told us that
27:05
Speaker 8: galaxies in the universe form chains called galactic filaments that
27:10
Speaker 8: connect groups and clusters of galaxies. These sorts of repeating
27:15
Speaker 8: patterns in nature have always fascinated me, and to find
27:19
Speaker 8: that the filamentous pattern of my celium is also found
27:23
Speaker 8: at the largest scales of the universe just fills me
27:28
Speaker 8: with awe. Thank you again, Daniel for sharing your knowledge
27:34
Speaker 8: and understanding with the world through your podcast.
27:39
Speaker 11: I enjoyed learning about how space expands because that kind
27:45
Speaker 11: of stuff just blows my mind. Mostly, I enjoy the
27:49
Speaker 11: podcast in general and learning about all these new things
27:54
Speaker 11: that you've introduced to me because my friends are idiots
27:58
Speaker 11: and I have no one to talk to.
28:01
Speaker 9: Hello, Daniel and Hora, this is Walt from Tennessee. I've
28:06
Speaker 9: learned a lot from listening to your podcast, but the
28:09
Speaker 9: most significant item that I've learned is the realization of
28:13
Speaker 9: how far we are from the ultimate knowledge of how
28:16
Speaker 9: the universe really works. Plus, I really enjoy the speculations
28:22
Speaker 9: about someday being able to ask aliens for the truth
28:25
Speaker 9: after they've been around for millions of years. Unfortunately I
28:29
Speaker 9: won't be around for that.
28:32
Speaker 12: Once nor I had was on the July twenty fourth
28:35
Speaker 12: episode about membranes. Katie said insane in the brain, and
28:41
Speaker 12: just like we had planned and rehearsed it on my
28:45
Speaker 12: response was insane in the brain, right on top of
28:48
Speaker 12: your response. And I did get a little bit of
28:50
Speaker 12: laugh out of that, and I'll bet a lot of
28:52
Speaker 12: us had the same reaction, at least for those that
28:55
Speaker 12: remember those older times. I do roll my eyes at
28:59
Speaker 12: some of the in the beginning of the show between
29:02
Speaker 12: you and Jorge, but it's still a good portion of
29:05
Speaker 12: the show. Another thing I look forward to is listener questions,
29:09
Speaker 12: especially the younger kids.
29:11
Speaker 11: I love.
29:12
Speaker 12: I love to hear younger kids asking, you know, questions
29:16
Speaker 12: that you know I may know a lot more about
29:18
Speaker 12: than them, but still it tells me that they're asking
29:20
Speaker 12: and interested and you provoke those questions. So I think
29:23
Speaker 12: that's great. Katie and Kelly are very nice additions, and
29:27
Speaker 12: they add a lot more humor with their perspectives. Some
29:31
Speaker 12: of my favorite episodes I love anything to do with
29:34
Speaker 12: the sun. I love how the sun works and I
29:36
Speaker 12: love to learn more about it. Some of the episodes
29:40
Speaker 12: that leave my eyes glazing glazing over are the any
29:44
Speaker 12: any any podcasts dealing with particles? I just I just
29:48
Speaker 12: don't get it, but I still listen to them all,
29:53
Speaker 12: and I listened, and I also look forward to listening
29:55
Speaker 12: to the next one. Thanks for letting me play a
29:58
Speaker 12: small part, not quite as small as your portion of
30:02
Speaker 12: the Nobel Prize you want.
30:05
Speaker 4: Daniel Johy, I'd just like to thank you onward from Australia.
30:09
Speaker 4: I'd just like to thank you both for satisfying my
30:13
Speaker 4: quest for knowledge and trying to help me understand quantum physics,
30:19
Speaker 4: which is challenging for me. But I really appreciate what
30:23
Speaker 4: you to do and you have a perfect balance.
30:26
Speaker 13: Thank you so I remember the first episode that I
30:30
Speaker 13: have ever heard, and it was very special for me
30:34
Speaker 13: because it just make me laugh and I learned something new,
30:41
Speaker 13: which was something that didn't happen for me for a
30:44
Speaker 13: couple of months after I had a baby and I
30:48
Speaker 13: was just struggling to find myself again, and after I
30:53
Speaker 13: heard that episode that it was about the Gluons, every
30:57
Speaker 13: day I would listen to at least four episodes while
31:02
Speaker 13: I was taking care of my baby, and that helped
31:07
Speaker 13: me so much, especially not to feel alone. So thank
31:13
Speaker 13: you very much.
31:16
Speaker 14: This is Eric from Idaho. I just wanted to let
31:18
Speaker 14: you know that I discovered your show back in February
31:21
Speaker 14: and from the very first episode, I was hooked for
31:23
Speaker 14: four straight months. All he did was listen to every
31:26
Speaker 14: single episode. My kids are way into it as well.
31:30
Speaker 14: My son gave the best compliment I believe. He said, Dad,
31:33
Speaker 14: I love Daniel and Jorge. They are just a couple
31:35
Speaker 14: of dads sitting around talking about science and making some
31:38
Speaker 14: dad jokes. I'm grateful for what you guys do and
31:42
Speaker 14: look forward to another six hundred episodes.
31:46
Speaker 15: Hi, Daniel and Hooge and Katie and Kelly as well.
31:51
Speaker 15: My favorite moments are when you guys entered a discussion
31:54
Speaker 15: about the reality behind the physical theories. It's very important
31:58
Speaker 15: to me because it too reminds me that although being
32:02
Speaker 15: the best tools and methods we have to predict and
32:05
Speaker 15: manipulate nature, they are not an exact description of what
32:10
Speaker 15: it really is. I deeply believe in science as one
32:13
Speaker 15: of the best ways to understand and solve problems, but
32:17
Speaker 15: knowing it has its limitations is also important not to
32:20
Speaker 15: turn it into a under idealized or flawless or an
32:25
Speaker 15: unbiased institution. During the COVID nineteen pandemic, for example, it
32:30
Speaker 15: became very important to understand these limitations in a world
32:34
Speaker 15: that was craving for information but also generating lots of disinformation.
32:40
Speaker 15: Congratulations on a huge podcast you have. I hope it
32:43
Speaker 15: becomes so big it turns into a black hole someday.
32:50
Speaker 16: This podcast as a quite an important role for me
32:57
Speaker 16: because it makes commuting bara. It is one of the
33:02
Speaker 16: few good podcasts that get updated twice a week most
33:08
Speaker 16: of the time, and therefore helps me bearing driving my car.
33:16
Speaker 16: I very much like the possibility to chat with Daniel
33:21
Speaker 16: about some physics topics I struggle to understand and have
33:27
Speaker 16: someone who wants to share his thoughts and is willing
33:34
Speaker 16: to listen to my thoughts about debatable topics. And it's
33:42
Speaker 16: hard to find somebody like that. So this is a
33:46
Speaker 16: great plus of this podcast. For example, our exchange about
33:52
Speaker 16: the many worlds of interpretation and related topics, and also
33:58
Speaker 16: so horus commentaries on all the topics are very entertaining.
34:06
Speaker 16: By the way, we need more PhD comics, and so
34:11
Speaker 16: this podcast is one of the foundations of my spare
34:16
Speaker 16: time entertainment.
34:19
Speaker 2: Hi, Daniel Norge. This is Dan from Vienna, Virginia. Here.
34:23
Speaker 17: I've been with you guys since the beginning. At the
34:25
Speaker 17: time I was looking for a new podcast, and this
34:27
Speaker 17: just hit the mark. Early on, when Daniel would speak
34:30
Speaker 17: of the type of matter that would make up galaxies, planets,
34:33
Speaker 17: and people, he would frequently include hamsters. I figured he
34:36
Speaker 17: must have owned one, as it's always seemed top of mine.
34:39
Speaker 17: Maybe he just finds them cute. I've enjoyed the mind
34:42
Speaker 17: bending topics and learning about the largest and smallest parts
34:45
Speaker 17: of the universe. Perhaps I've had most interesting, though, were
34:49
Speaker 17: the topics that were about those things in our solar
34:52
Speaker 17: system that I never knew before.
34:54
Speaker 18: Keep up the great work. Ever since I was a
34:58
Speaker 18: little kid. It was fascinated astronomy, how the universe works
35:02
Speaker 18: from every scale, the smallest to the largest, And once
35:07
Speaker 18: I got into higher levels of education, I realized that
35:11
Speaker 18: the advanced mathematics was not for me. But I always
35:15
Speaker 18: remained an active spectator in the world of science and
35:18
Speaker 18: its advancements and everything. In all of that, the challenge
35:23
Speaker 18: with modern science reporting is that some of it is
35:28
Speaker 18: not great. But once I found my way to this podcast,
35:34
Speaker 18: I realized that these concepts may be incredibly complicated in
35:39
Speaker 18: the calculation of them, but in actually understanding the premise
35:44
Speaker 18: of them. It just needs somebody who can explain it.
35:48
Speaker 18: And this podcast has helped do that for me and
35:52
Speaker 18: obviously so many others. And while it's always been a
35:55
Speaker 18: delight hearing my own voice on the pod trying to
35:58
Speaker 18: answer questions poorly, the whole premise of it, the whole
36:03
Speaker 18: engagement of a global community all working together to advance curiosity, fascination,
36:11
Speaker 18: and understanding in how the world works around us and
36:13
Speaker 18: realize we're all kind of closer together than we may think.
36:17
Speaker 18: I love it and thank you for doing this.
36:21
Speaker 19: I don't know if I have a favorite episode per se.
36:27
Speaker 19: But I must say that when the audience participation questions
36:34
Speaker 19: were conducted in person and I had an opportunity to
36:38
Speaker 19: attend a conference in southern California, I was very, very
36:43
Speaker 19: tempted to take a day off the conference proceedings and
36:48
Speaker 19: find the UC Irvine campus and look for I don't
36:54
Speaker 19: even know what to look for, some sort of what
36:57
Speaker 19: I imagined to be a grizzly haired professor serve with a
37:00
Speaker 19: microphone and or tape recorder. However, I did not do that,
37:07
Speaker 19: And you know, perhaps it's fair to say that the
37:10
Speaker 19: silver lining of the pandemic is that it encouraged the
37:15
Speaker 19: audience participation to be expanded out into the realms of
37:18
Speaker 19: the Internet. And I really enjoy that format, and I
37:23
Speaker 19: was very very happy to have one of my listener
37:27
Speaker 19: questions even answered on the pod.
37:30
Speaker 20: Hi, Daniel and Jorge, congratulations on over six hundred episodes.
37:36
Speaker 20: My name is Andrea, and I'm a relatively new fan
37:39
Speaker 20: of the podcast. I think what I love most about
37:43
Speaker 20: the podcast is how you explain super complex topics in
37:50
Speaker 20: a way that is really accessible for people without dumbing
37:54
Speaker 20: it down. Though I mean there's a lot of times
37:57
Speaker 20: where I find myself having to go and do a
38:00
Speaker 20: little digging after listening to your podcasts. But what really
38:05
Speaker 20: keeps me coming back is your puerile sense of humor.
38:10
Speaker 20: It is pretty funny to have that in the mix.
38:13
Speaker 20: And finally, my very favorite part is when Daniel gets
38:19
Speaker 20: upset about white chocolate. I never realized how kind of
38:24
Speaker 20: pointless white chocolate was until I started listening to your podcast.
38:29
Speaker 20: I totally agree. I was wondering if maybe you could
38:31
Speaker 20: do a deep dive episode into the science behind and
38:36
Speaker 20: history of white chocolate, but if you did, I'd probably
38:40
Speaker 20: skip that one, so it might not be a good idea.
38:44
Speaker 20: Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
38:47
Speaker 1: Thank you for validating my crusade against white chocolate. If
38:51
Speaker 1: I've achieved nothing else on the podcast, I freed one
38:54
Speaker 1: more person e from the tyranny of white chocolate, and
38:57
Speaker 1: on the topic of the science of white chocolate, there
38:59
Speaker 1: is it's scientifically disgusting. I also asked my wife, Katrina,
39:04
Speaker 1: who I've referred to many times on the podcast and
39:06
Speaker 1: whose voice you've occasionally heard, what she thinks the podcast
39:10
Speaker 1: has meant for me and for the family.
39:12
Speaker 2: Here's what she had to say.
39:14
Speaker 21: Well, I love that Daniel has been doing this podcast.
39:18
Speaker 21: I mean, I can't believe how big it's gotten and
39:21
Speaker 21: how many episodes they've made. It's just amazing to me
39:24
Speaker 21: what a life this thing has taken. And we really love.
39:28
Speaker 21: Our family loves hearing the messages from the people on
39:32
Speaker 21: the podcast. Like I remember during the pandemic there was
39:34
Speaker 21: this group of housemates in Australia who were hilarious and
39:38
Speaker 21: they sent in all these messages where they were having
39:40
Speaker 21: fun together and listening to music and we were all,
39:42
Speaker 21: you know, alone in our house and it was so fun.
39:45
Speaker 21: All that interjected into our lives. And yeah, I just
39:50
Speaker 21: I love that there are so many listeners and that
39:52
Speaker 21: it's really impacted people's lives. I've heard stories about people
39:55
Speaker 21: going back to school, or people you know, using this
39:59
Speaker 21: as companion chip. And then even in our own family,
40:03
Speaker 21: when our kids couldn't fall asleep, I would often play
40:05
Speaker 21: Daniel's podcast so they could get to hear his voice,
40:08
Speaker 21: and it is really comforting. I love that we can
40:10
Speaker 21: hear his voice on command and get to hear his
40:12
Speaker 21: fun sense of humor. In fact, some of our really
40:14
Speaker 21: good friends were backpacking on the JMT this summer and
40:17
Speaker 21: they were listening to Daniel's podcast at night, but they
40:20
Speaker 21: said it was not to fall asleep and that they
40:22
Speaker 21: loved learning about Unfortunately I don't remember, but I'm sure.
40:25
Speaker 8: They do, and.
40:28
Speaker 21: That was really fun. Also, every time I see Starbucks
40:31
Speaker 21: n True Cold Brew, I think about Daniel's ad, which
40:35
Speaker 21: is also funny. And we've had people send us amazing things,
40:38
Speaker 21: like one time we came home on a hot day
40:40
Speaker 21: to a box full of beautiful chocolate from Canada. And
40:47
Speaker 21: our lab has had a artificial intelligence microwave for several
40:51
Speaker 21: years that a listener came and brought it to us
40:54
Speaker 21: and showed us how to make salmon and broccoli in
40:56
Speaker 21: this beautiful microwave that targets the heat in an evenly
41:00
Speaker 21: and directed distributed way. So that was really fun. And
41:06
Speaker 21: I just love how much Daniel has learned. You know,
41:09
Speaker 21: he's constantly going and talking to his colleagues to learn
41:12
Speaker 21: new things. I think it's brought him, you know, really
41:15
Speaker 21: huge breadth and depth to his physics knowledge that as
41:19
Speaker 21: a researcher you often kind of get lost in your
41:22
Speaker 21: own rabbit hole, and I feel like Daniel is really
41:24
Speaker 21: not in that position. I'm sure it's been really good
41:27
Speaker 21: for his science I think you could ask Daniel to
41:30
Speaker 21: give a lecture on any topic in physics and he'd
41:32
Speaker 21: have no problem. Like we know this Italian guy who
41:35
Speaker 21: was interviewing for a physics professorship, and they would pull
41:39
Speaker 21: a topic out of a hat and you'd have to
41:40
Speaker 21: give a lecture in front of the department on it
41:42
Speaker 21: with no preparation. And that seemed so intimidating to me.
41:45
Speaker 21: But I know Daniel could just do that now because
41:47
Speaker 21: of this podcast.
41:49
Speaker 8: So lately I've.
41:50
Speaker 21: Been hearing Daniel brainstorm names for the new podcast, and
41:53
Speaker 21: I'm really glad he has a new podcast partner, Kelly.
41:57
Speaker 21: I loved her book about the possibility of colonizing Mars,
42:02
Speaker 21: and clearly she's a very thoughtful and in depth scientist.
42:07
Speaker 8: Oh.
42:07
Speaker 21: Another thing that was fun was like we would anytime
42:10
Speaker 21: we were in a new place, Daniel would start doing
42:13
Speaker 21: his like man on the Street interviews, like airport in Jerusalem,
42:17
Speaker 21: Man on Street Interviews Airport in London, asking the locals,
42:21
Speaker 21: and then you'd hear the podcast and get to hear
42:23
Speaker 21: people with accents from our trip on the podcast. I
42:28
Speaker 21: really love that whole aspect, and sometimes, like my students
42:31
Speaker 21: or people I knew would get interviewed and then get
42:34
Speaker 21: to hear them on the podcast, and I love that.
42:36
Speaker 21: So I think it's been a wonderful, wonderful thing. As
42:40
Speaker 21: our kids have been growing up, the podcast has happened,
42:44
Speaker 21: you know, starting since twenty seventeen, I think maybe twenty eighteen,
42:47
Speaker 21: so our kids were like little elementary school kids, and
42:52
Speaker 21: they've grown up getting to hear all these stories about
42:54
Speaker 21: the podcast. Now they're teenagers, and I think it's been
42:58
Speaker 21: a really cool thing to have our family.
43:01
Speaker 1: All right, So it's time now to say goodbye to
43:04
Speaker 1: this podcast, and I just want to say that it's
43:06
Speaker 1: been my pleasure and my honor to host this show
43:10
Speaker 1: and to share with you my joy about what we
43:12
Speaker 1: have managed to figure out and what we have not
43:15
Speaker 1: managed to figure out about the universe, and to anticipate
43:18
Speaker 1: all of those discoveries yet to come. And though of
43:21
Speaker 1: course this show is coming to an end, you can
43:24
Speaker 1: still hear me talking about the universe. So let me
43:27
Speaker 1: tell you a little bit about our new show, Daniel
43:30
Speaker 1: and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.
43:32
Speaker 2: The official description is that.
43:34
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly cannot stop talking about our amazing, wonderful,
43:37
Speaker 1: weird universe. Each episode is a fun and easy to
43:41
Speaker 1: understand explanation of deep topics in science, from particles to
43:45
Speaker 1: black holes, to moon colonies, to aliens and insects and
43:48
Speaker 1: everything else in the universe. Because there are so many
43:51
Speaker 1: wonderful and amazing things in our universe, some explained and
43:54
Speaker 1: some still mysterious, it really is an extraordinary universe. And
43:59
Speaker 1: I love the world extraordinary in the title because it
44:02
Speaker 1: colls to mind extra terrestrial or extra dimensions, and as
44:05
Speaker 1: my fifteen year old daughter would say, the universe is
44:08
Speaker 1: just so extra But it also makes me think about
44:11
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan's famous line, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Because
44:16
Speaker 1: on this new podcast, we want to be very open minded,
44:19
Speaker 1: ready to learn what the universe might teach us, to
44:23
Speaker 1: ditch the dogma and accept the new ideas, from aliens
44:26
Speaker 1: to black holes to new weird parasites. But we also
44:30
Speaker 1: want to be clear eyed about what we can and
44:32
Speaker 1: cannot know, what we can prove, what we have data
44:35
Speaker 1: to support. I mean, I'd love for there to be aliens,
44:39
Speaker 1: but I also know that hard evidence for alien visitors has.
44:41
Speaker 2: Been pretty hard to come by.
44:43
Speaker 1: I'd love to unravel the mysteries of quantum mechanics, but
44:46
Speaker 1: a lot of the ideas out there are well, they're
44:48
Speaker 1: still kind of out there. So on the new podcast
44:52
Speaker 1: will embrace the craziness of the Extraordinary Universe, but will
44:56
Speaker 1: also try our best to take a healthy skepticism and
44:59
Speaker 1: use our scientific minds to sift out the kernels of truth,
45:03
Speaker 1: because the best way to honor our extraordinary universe is
45:07
Speaker 1: to understand it. So if you've enjoyed this six year
45:10
Speaker 1: journey and you're disappointed that it's coming to an end,
45:13
Speaker 1: know that I feel the same way, and I hope
45:15
Speaker 1: you'll continue the journey with me and Kelly at Daniel
45:19
Speaker 1: and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe wherever you get your podcasts. And
45:23
Speaker 1: one last little Easter egg for.
45:25
Speaker 2: All of you.
45:26
Speaker 1: We have a few extra episodes of Explain the Universe
45:29
Speaker 1: we've produced that we will share throughout the next year.
45:32
Speaker 1: So there is a little bit more explained the Universe
45:35
Speaker 1: left to hear, so stay subscribed to Explain the Universe
45:38
Speaker 1: so you can hear those when they come out. Until then,
45:41
Speaker 1: this is Daniel, your host, saying so long and thanks
45:44
Speaker 1: for all the chocolate, Thanks for listening, and remember that
45:52
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe is a production of
45:54
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the
45:58
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
46:03
Speaker 1: favorite shows.