Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions 52

Transcript

Listener Questions 52 · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, any aliens yet, not so far, at least
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: not that I'm aware of.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Ooh, do you think they're not hearing your invitations to
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: come on the podcast?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, if they're hearing the podcast, maybe that's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: why they're staying away.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Oh no, are you seeing our podcast? Is keeping humanity
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: for making first contact with an alien species?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It could be. But you know, if they don't like
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: dad jokes or bananas or chocolate, do we really want
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to talk to them?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: That's right? They can't be very cool if they don't
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: like any of those things. I mean, what are we
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: going to talk about with them?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I know that is in the end the great filter.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I'm Hori, ma cartoonist and the author of Oliver's Great
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Big Universe.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: uc Ermine, and I live five miles from the most
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: famous chocolate covered banana joint.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Wait what, I didn't know this? What makes it the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: most famous one?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: You've never seen? Arrested Development.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I've seen the show. I guess I'm not a super fan.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Is that like a real thing? Like the one featured
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: in the show is a real thing?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, absolutely, it's a real thing. In fact, there
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: are two chocolate covered frozen banana stands on Balbo Island
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: near my house, and they both claim to be the original.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Well one of them is lying. Then, yes, one of
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: them is lying, or one of them is wrong at least,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: or maybe they're both wrong. Maybe the original one is
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey or something.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Either way, they're feuding about bananas and chocolate.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: But then, which is one featured in the show that
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: must be the most famous one.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the one featured in the show
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: is one of the real ones, or if it's a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: fictional stand.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: In Oh interesting, So then neither of them is very famous.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: The concept of Newport Beach chocolate covered for as bananas
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: is famous.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Have you tried it? Is it good?
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You know? Not a fan of the bananas.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Is it worth going to Bubblea Island to have them?
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: No? Not a fan of the bananas. Even if you're
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: covered in chocolate.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Wow, what if it's a dark chocolate that's better?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Definitely better, but not good enough?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: You would stop at the banana like you would eat
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: it anything but the banana.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's just a chocolate delivery system, exactly the banana's got
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: nothing to represent.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I would have thought it's the food that bring us
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: all together. Daniel, It's like this podcast is a chocolate
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: covered banana.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I know, and it's a big joke, so you think
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: we'd love it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: But anyway, speaking of podcasts, welcome to our podcast, Daniel
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio, in
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: which we.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Try to feed you the secrets of the universe. We
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: dip them in chocolate, we freeze them, we do everything
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: we can to make them palatable because we think that
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: everything that's out there in the universe can be understood
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and deserves to be understood by me and by you
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and by everybody out there. Explanations are possible, and you
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: deserve to hear them.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: That's right to hear on this podcast, which is in fact,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: the most popular podcast called Daniel and Jorge Explain the
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Universe that has not been featured in a TV show yet.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: That's true, that's highly qualified, but also accurate.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: It's all the details. You could read the fine prints.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: We're probably also the most successful podcast that mentions the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: word banana so often there might be podcasts dedicated to bananas.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I feel like you're making an unscientific claim. Have you
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: sampled all other podcasts to make that claim? I have not.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing I'm definitely speculating. The first step in science
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: is speculating. Right then you go out, you gather some data.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Let's see, that's your hypothesis.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I'll follow up on it.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That's your dull hypothesis.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Nature is always full of surprises, and so maybe the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: podcast Universe will surprise me.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: We'll see, we'll see. But anyways, we do like to
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: take facts about the universe and all the amazing things
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: that are happening out there, cover them in delicious chocolate,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and then tell them to you so that you can
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: also appreciate what's out there and the dark mysteries of
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: the cosmos.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: But this podcast isn't just us talking about the universe.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It's a conversation between us and you. We want to
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: know what you don't understand about the universe. We'd love
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to know what puzzles you, what you'd like to hear
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: more about, and what explanations you find unsatisfactory. So if
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: you have questions about how the universe works, or you've
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: always heard something explained a certain way and it never
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: really clicked. Please write to us to questions at Danielandjorge
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: dot com. We will write back to you and help
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: you figure it out.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because even though it sort of starts with guessing,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: before guessing comes to questions, right, scientific progress starts with
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: somebody looking at something and going, huh, how does that work?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Why is that the way it is? And can I
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: freeze it and cover it in chocolate?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Every scientific question ends with can I freeze it and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: cover it in chocolate?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Yes? Can you take a cork, freeze it and covered
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: it in dark matter chocolate?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: These are some dark forces we're playing with.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tasty field of research there, but yeah,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: it all starts with questions. And as you said, Daniel,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: we love to take questions from our listeners, and sometimes
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: we dedicate whole episodes to answering them, or at least
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: trying to answer them.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: To making silly jokes about them. At the very minimum,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: if I get a question that I think, hmm, I
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: bet other people want to hear the answer to this,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: or I'm Sureorge has some funny things to say about
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: this topic, then instead of just running back to you,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: we will answer it here on the podcast For everybody
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to hear.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Wait, are you saying there are questions you get and
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: you're like, nobody else wants to know the answer. You're like,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: only the person asking this question could possibly be interested
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: in this topic.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. People send me their crazy, detailed theories of the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: universe and they want specific answers to why it works
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: or doesn't work. That's not the kind of thing we
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: talk about on the.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Podcast, although maybe we should. I don't know. I wonder
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: if that would make an interesting episode to get some
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: of your theories about the universe that you get and
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: then figure out why they're not true.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe it would. And if I ever find one
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: that is compelling that does sound great, then absolutely we'll
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: talk about it on the podcast.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Or I mean we can. I'll shoot another podcast, you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Daniel and Jorge shoot down your theory of everything.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Why You're wrong about the universe with Daniel.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, or just why you're wrong? That's actually a pretty
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: good idea there.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: There's a podcast already called wrong about Everything.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but we be the more famous one.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk about bananas more than the other one.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We recorded in Bubble Island, which automatically makes it
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: more famous. But Anyways, we do like to ask her questions,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: and so today on the podcast, we'll be tackling listener questions.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Number fifty two. Is fifty two an important number?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one more important than fifty one.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I feel like it has area fifty two connotations.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Isn't that area fifty one?
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Oh? Is it? No? I'm talking about the extra secret
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: area that people don't even know exists. It's the one
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: after the area fifty one.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Make sure you don't tell anyone about Area fifty three.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: That's double extra secret. You need one more level of clearance.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: They know about that, don't tell me because I have
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: no security clearance.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we like to answer questions here, and today
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: we have three great questions from listeners. One of them
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: is about Daniel's favorite topic, aliens. The other one is
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: about the electromagnetic force and why it works the way
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: it does. And the third one is about saving humanity
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: by destroying something that maybe a lot of people.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Hold, precious chocolate covered bananas.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll cover the moon in troublin. All right, Well,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: let's jump right in, Daniel. Our first question comes from Nick,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: who's from Tucson, Arizona.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Daniel and Jorge. This is Nick from Tucson, Arizona. Growing
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: up in a city that is so richly involved in
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: science and astronomy, asking questions about our universes become second nature.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: One of the reasons questions I've had is this, in
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: our search for life elsewhere in the universe, we see
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: abundant evidence that we are likely not alone in the universe. However,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: on the off chance that we actually are, at what
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: point do we make that determination? Given one cannot prove
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: a negative. I'm excited to hear your breakdown of how
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: we tackle such a dilemma. Thanks for being awesome.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: All right, interesting question from Nick here. I feel like
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: he's basically asking, how will we ever know whether we're
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: alone in the universe or not?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: It's a good question, and I think he's also asking
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: what can we say. Is there some point at which
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: we draw the line and say we're done looking we've
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: decided we're alone.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Like at some point in the future, if we never
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: hear from other aliens and kind have to figure it
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: out that maybe we are alone? Right like it nobody
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: ever comes to visit you to your house, obviously, the
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: answer is that you're the only person on Earth.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or everybody hates you.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the explanation. But let's keep diluting ourselves.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I think this question is really interesting from the philosophical
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: point of view, like how could you ever know whether
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: we're alone? And also it reveals something about how we
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: make statements in science, how you can make statistical arguments
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: even if you can't ever make definitive arguments.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Well, Nick brings up the idea that it's impossible to
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: prove a negative right. It's technically theoretically possible to say,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: for example, that there are no pink unicorns out there
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: in the universe, because there might be, and so you'd
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: have to check every little nuk and cranny of the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: entire cosmos to be able to say that such a
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: unicorn does not exist exactly.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And even checking every little nuok and cranny the last
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: cosmos doesn't prove it right, especially in a case of aliens,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: where the category is so broad and undefined. It's basically
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: any sension being that doesn't come from Earth. You could
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: have lots of different characteristics that we don't anticipate. You
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: might imagine, oh, if we check every single planet out
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: there and we don't find aliens, then now we're alone,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: but aliens could always exist in some manner we didn't anticipate.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah, we might not find aliens on rocky planets,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: but they could exist in gas giants or underground, or
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: in the center of stars, or in dark matter, or
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in some other way we hadn't imagined. So it's impossible
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to ever say we are totally alone in the universe.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: You can discover aliens, you can meet them and conclude
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that they're there. But you're right that we can't technically
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: say definitively that we are alone.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Right, ever, Right, Like, it's theoretically impossible.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: It's theoretically impossible to make a completely definitive statement. But
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I also think that's too high a bar. That's not
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the bar we use in science, for example.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, you mean being correct is too high of a bar.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Making absolute definitive statements is not the business we're in.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Right, it's not the business because you can't do it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You can't do it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: You try to do it, you wouldn't be able to do.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: It, Yeah, exactly, And so instead we have statistical tools
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that tell us, like how confident we can be in
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: a statement. You could never say anything really definitively, even
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: things like the Higgs boson. When we discovered the Higgs boson,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: we claim discovery of it, but we also said, here
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: are the chances that we're wrong. Here's the chances that
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the Higgs boson doesn't exist, and it just sort of
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: looks like it does right.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Right. That just kind of gets to how science actually works,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: which is through this idea of the null hypothesis. Right, Like,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: for example, even the Higgs boson, it's not like you
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: went out there and you said, well, I have a
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: certain degree of confidence of the Higgs boson exists. You're
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: actually really what you're saying in your science papers is saying,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: we have a certain degree of confidence that not having
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: the Higgs boson is not possible.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we calculate very precisely the probability of having been
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: fooled because remember, we don't see the Higgs directly. It's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: not like something we can say, here is one look
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: at it. It's not like discovering a unicorn in the forest.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: We only see its footprints and its hair left on trees,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and we have indirect evidence like we almost always do
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: in science, and so we can calculate the probability of
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: seeing that indirect evidence without there being a Higgs boson,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: which is not zero, and we could say, well, we
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: rule that out, not completely, not definitively, but we can
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: say it's very unlikely, and we can be very specific
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: about the level at which it's unlikely, and there's a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: standard threshold above which we're allowed to say we've discovered it,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: we've pretty much settled it. But of course it's never definitive.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Although I wonder if with something like the Higgs boson,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: you maybe you can't say that you've seen one, right,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Like if you collide something and you see a particle
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: fly out of it, then the maybe you could say
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: that it is there with a one hundred percent confidence.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: We can never say that with one hundred percent confidence.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: The Higgs boson lasts for like ten to the minus
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: twenty three seconds. We can never see. We only see
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: what it turns into, unfortunately. But that's the case of discovery,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: which is special and wonderful. We can also play statistical
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: games when we don't discover something. We can say, for example, oh,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: there's a new particle. If it did exist, we probably
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: would have seen it, and so we can conclude that
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: it likely doesn't exist, and that's not getting definitive. It
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: could be that we got unlucky or something. But it's
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, looking for Bigfoot. If you
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: look all through the forest and you don't see Bigfoot,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: then you can say, well, Bigfoot might exist, but he's
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: got to be pretty rare or pretty sneaky, or got
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: some camouflage technique that we didn't think of already. You
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: can still make negative statements even if they're not definitive.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Right, But in the case of like Bigfoot or aliens,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I feel like, once you see one, then that's one
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: hundred percent confidence that they exist, right. I think maybe
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Nick is asking more about the scenario where we don't
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: see one. So if we see an alien, then for
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: sure we know for one hundred percent with confidence that
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: they exist. But if we never see one, at what point,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: I think is next question? Do you say, well, I
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: guess they don't exist.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree in spirit with what you're saying. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: just want to put an asterisk there, because even if
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you see an alien, you never know one hundred percent.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: You could be being fooled or whatever. No knowledge really
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: is one hundred percent definitive. But in practice we call
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that definitive. There are a case in the past where
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: we found things were like, there's no way that this
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: could have been faked, and then we you know, we're
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: pretty sure dinosaurs are real. For example, nobody takes seriously
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the scenario that dinosaurs are all fake.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Or like a whale, like we know, if we'll
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent turnty that whales exist and that whales
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: are a thing.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. I mean technically again, like there's always an
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: asterisk there. You never know anything one hundred percent. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: practically speaking, the probability being fooled they're so small we
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: basically call it zero. Yes, you're right, but you're right.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Nick is focused also on the other scenario. What can
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: we learn from not discovering aliens? Is there some point
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: at which and so we can make statistical statements like
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: we know, if the universe was filled with aliens and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: that were very loud in electromagnetism and travel with stars
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: very enthusiastically, we would have seen them already. And so
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: by not having seen them, we can say, well, if
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: those aliens exist, they must be rare, and we can
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: say how rare they have to be for us to
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: not see them, So we can make negative statistical statements
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: about aliens.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Or not about aliens, but about scenarios for aliens. Right, Like,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: you're not saying aliens don't exist. You're just saying aliens
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: they watch a lot of TV, broad SEV and have
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: spaceships that figure out inner Citi travel. Those are maybe
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: less likely, although those could still exist, you know, maybe
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: they don't like to travel.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You can imagine a scenario and you say, well,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: what are the chances that if that scenario is real,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't have seen aliens? And so if you imagine
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a scenario where aliens are visiting Earth all the time,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it's very unlikely that we don't see them, And so
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: if we haven't seen them, you can mostly rule that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: scenario out. But there are always other scenarios like maybe
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: they can't travel, maybe they're weirder than we imagine, maybe
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: they don't care to travel, they don't want to contact us,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: or maybe they all died a billion years ago, or
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they're hiding, or there's always some scenario in which aliens
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: could exist and we haven't seen them.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: So basically, if you haven't seen them, there's nothing you
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: can say about aliens, because I feel like there's so
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: many ifs and possibilities that you're really just starting to,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: you know, make statements based on subjetions that you know,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you really don't have any information about.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I think the kind of stuff you can say if
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you don't meet aliens is pretty weak, but not exactly
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: nothing like aliens that desperately want to come to Earth
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and have the capabilities to do so, those aliens don't exist,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Like if they existed, they would be here. So we
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: can rule out some scenarios, but the space of possible
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: scenarios that we can't rule out is infinite, and it's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: much much bigger than the things we can rule out.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: So like, what fraction of the scenarios have we ruled
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: out by not discovering aliens? Basically zero. But that doesn't
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: mean there are no scenarios we've ruled out. We've learned
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit by not having met aliens. I see.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: I think what you're saying is that we can sort
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: of paint, you know, very subtle shades of rarity about
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the idea or the question of whether aliens exist. But again,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: these are just kind of like shades of statements that
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: are you know, based on assumptions, and really nobody knows.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Really nobody knows, but you can learn something like, for example,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: in our book, we go into some of these scenarios.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Imagine there's a civilization out there in the galaxy that
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: builds self replicating robot robots that go off into space
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and find moons and mine them and make more of them.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So you can exponential number of these robots because each
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: one makes two more, which makes two more, which makes
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: two more. And you can ask, like, how long does
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it take before that civilization sends a robot to every
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: single planet in the galaxy. The answer is like tens
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: of thousands of years. So if the galaxy is billions
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of years old, if that civilization exists, or at least
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: one of them, then Earth should have some of those
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: robots visiting us. So that hasn't happened, for example, we're
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: pretty sure, and so we can say, like, that scenario
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: is mostly ruled out. So there are interesting scenarios that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: we can mostly rule out. Though you're right, we're always
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: making statistical statements and there's lots of stuff we can't
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: rule out.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Right, and at some point I feel like you're basically
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: making invaluable unvaluable statements, Like at some point you're basically saying, well,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: if we haven't seen Superman yet, that means that there
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: isn't an alien race out there, and that grew up
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: in around the Red Sun that was about to explode,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: and then their parents send at this kid out in
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: a space and on Earth. That's something we can say
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: about aliens. Yes, because so far we haven't seen Superman yet.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's true. Off the infinite list of possible scenarios,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: we can cross one off the list. That's progress. It's
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: still infinitely long.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: No, you can't even cross it out the list.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: You can paint it with a statistical rarity, right, you
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: can say that's much.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Less likely, not even that cat right, I mean, it's statistics.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So just because you haven't rolled twelve on a die
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that you can't, that's right.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: But if you've rolled the die a lot of times
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you never see twelve, then you can start to make
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: statements ill possible. It's still possible, ill possible where you
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: can make statistical statements, right, It's not true that you
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: can say nothing.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Right, right, But I guess you can debate how useful
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: statistical statement is it's.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Totally unsatisfying, especially in comparison to discovering aliens. Right, but
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: it's probably made progress. Right. It also gives us inspiration,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: like if we can think carefully about the kind of
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: categories we have been able to see, it makes us
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: aware of our blind spots, like, oh, well, actually, it
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: turns out we've only been looking for people that broadcast
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: in electromagnetism. Let's look for messages in neutrinos or in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: gravitational waves. Right. Inspires us to think outside the box
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit more.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Mmmmm, let me see, helps you maybe narrow the search
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: of how you're looking for aliens?
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually broaden the search, right, consider other ways we
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: might be contacted.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: All right, what would you say? Is the answer for
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Nick here?
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I would say we never make that determination.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Superman does not exist.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I would take an even bet against Superman existing for sure, Yes,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: but we can never prove that we're totally alone in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the universe.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: All Right. I wonder if that's comforting or not. Would
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: you want to know you're the only species in the
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: universe or would we feel better knowing there are other
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: aliens out there?
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: It's sort of frustrating because it's one of these questions
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: where either answer yes, we're alone in the universe, so
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: we're super rare and special, or no, we're not alone
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: in the universe, so there's other intelligent life out there.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Either answer is amazing and mind blowing. So it's kind
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of frustrating if the answer we get instead is hm hm.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe here's some statistics.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Here are some statistics based on some guesses, based on
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: some comic books and sci fi novels that Daniel has read.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's absolutely less satisfying than a definitive answer yes
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: or no. So that's pretty frustrating. I feel you, Nick,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I feel you.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, it sounds like there is no point
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: at which we can make that determination, but at some
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: point you kind of have to get suspicious about whether
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: or not they do exist out there. Yeah, all right, Well,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Nick is definitely not alone in having questions about the universe.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Other people have questions and they have sent it to us,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: and we are going to answer them here on the program.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: So when we come back, we'll tackle two more questions
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: about electromagnating charges and about destroying the moon. But first
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: let's take a quick break. All right, we're answering listener
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: questions here today, and our next question comes from column.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: Hey, I'm Callum and I wanted to know why specifically
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: do positive and negative charges attract to each other? As
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: well as why do you to negative charges and to
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: positive charges repel from each other? How exactly does that work?
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you? All right? Awesome question from column here. It
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: sort of gets into the very idea of what is
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: the nature of forces and electromagnetic forces and charges? Right?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question, really fun, really deep, kind
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of philosophical And it came to me actually originally from
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: column's physics teacher. He said he got this question in class,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't sure how to answer it. Could I help him out?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And so I thought, hey, let's talk about it, and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: he agreed to play our answer in class. So HI,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: call him and everybody in your class.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hello, I hope you're not disappointed.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Let's give him the answer first and then we'll see it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Do you think this is more or less exciting than
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: the lecture that teacher normally would have done?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Oh? I'm pretty sure Colin's teacher is a fabulous lecture
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: in addition to being good looking.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Yes. Best Teacher of the Year Award multiple years going,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: or at least they will.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, and probably hilarious too, right.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, all teachers should play our podcast on her classroom.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: But thank you to all the high school science teachers
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: out there for your service on the front lines of education.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And for all of you students out there,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: if you give us a five star rating on Apple
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Podcasts or any of those platforms, you automatically get an
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: A in this class. Wow.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or hey, does not have the authority to promise that,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: but go ahead give us a five star rating.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, we never tell the lies here in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: this podcast.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's statistically possible that you could get an
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: A from giving us a five star rating that we
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: can't say definitively.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Now I feel really
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: alone and make a nice statement.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Better statistics than lies.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Right, all right, weants to get to Colum's question. Colin
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: wanted to know why do plus and minus charges attract
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: and why do two charges with the same polarity repel? Like,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: how does that work? Why is it so binary? I guess?
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: And what makes one combination attract and the other one repel?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really fun question. Because it gets to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the nature of like what is charge? What do we
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: really know about it? And it also gets to the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: question of like, well, why does electromagnetism attract with opposite
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: charges and why do other forces not? You know, for example,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: an electromagnetism, two positive charges repel, but in gravity, two
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: positive masses attract each other. So there's lots of different
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: directions to go in with this question.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Right, because you have the idea that a charge's like
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: just a property of particles, right, They're like little labels
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: that you attached to things to stuff out there, like
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: electromagnetic charge or like mass, or like maybe some of
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: the other charge forces.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's definitely a valid way of thinking about it,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and that's the way we teach it. But I think
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: there's a layer we need to pull apart there so
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: we clear on which part of it is actually something
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: we observe and which part of it is sort of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: an explanation we've concocted to explain what we've observed, because
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: in the end, charge is a tool we use to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: explain attraction and repulsion. That's what we see out there,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: see a bunch of particles, some of them push against
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: each other. Some of them attract each other. And what
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: we've noticed is if you put these labels on the particles,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: call some of them plus and some of them minus,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and you come up with this explanation like charges attract
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and opposite charges repel, then it works. It's consistent. It
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: explains all the attraction and repulsion that we see. So
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: it's not like we discovered charge. What we discovered is
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: some particles push and pull, and we came up with
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: charge as a way to explain that.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: You're saying, like the idea of a charge is really
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: just it's a definition thing. A charge is maybe not
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: something fundamental to the universe. It's just something we came
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: up with to explain what we see. Yeah, that's the
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: philosophical side of it. We don't know if this really
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: is a property u or just part of the story
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: that we tell. But what we definitely see, what we
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: observe is the pushing and the pulling, and we use
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: charges to explain that. I think there's another important wrinkle
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: there in something you just said, which is these are
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a property of the particles. It's actually really fascinating because
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: it's a property actually of a pair of particles, like
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: what does a particle do if it has charge and
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: it's all alone in the universe.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't push or pull. It doesn't get pushed,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it doesn't get pulled. Right, It's only when you put
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: another charge there do they push or pull on each other.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: So it's sort of like velocity, where velocity is relative.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: You know, you can only measure a velocity of an
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: object relative to something else. Velocity is not the property
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of an object. Even though we describe particles as having charge,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: it's only really meaningful relative to another particle. So it's
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: more like the property of a pair of particles. Here's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: two that have the same charge, here's two that have
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: opposite charge, And we've come up with a consistent explanation
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to describe all of that, and so we think that's
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: probably what's going on, But you know, we don't really know.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So you're saying that as scientists, we've been studying things
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: out there in the universe, and sometimes we notice that
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: when you have these little things particles, sometimes they repel
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: each other and sometimes they attract each other. And we've
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: come up with this scenario where when they attract each other,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: it must be because they have opposite of something, and
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: when they repel each other's when they have the same
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: of something. Yeah, and we call that a charge.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: So to ask like, why does that happen, the answer
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: is like, basically because it does.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Well, the answer is we see it happen, and we
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: can tell a story about the mechanism behind it. Right,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: we have this idea that each particle that has a
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: charge creates a field, and that field has a force
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: on other particles, and so we can describe it, we
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: can accommodate it. But we're doing much better than just
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: saying this is what happens in the universe. We're not
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: just describing everything we see. We're really explaining it. And
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you can tell the difference between describing and explaining because
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: explanations are simpler, not just a list of everything you've seen.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: They're more compact, they're more economical. So specifically, if you
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: have like ten particles you want to understand, there's like
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: fifty different unique pairs of those particles. So a totally
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: descriptive theory, one that just lists what happens between every
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: particles would have like fifty pieces of information wouldn't simplify
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: anything at all. The idea of electric charge is really
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: an explanation because by putting a plus or a minus
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: on every particle, that's just ten pieces of information one
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: per particle. Then the result for any pair of particle
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: is determined by the relative charges. So it's not just
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: a description of what happens. It's a clever, compact, economical explanation,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and that's good physics. The rest is turkey philosophy. Right,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Why does the universe work this way and not some
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: other way? That's a deeper philosophical question. We can also
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: talk about why in electromagnetism like charges repel whereas in gravity,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: like charges attract. That is something we do understand.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like basically you're saying that the
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: answer is because it does, Like why is it that way?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Because that's what we observe. But I wonder if maybe
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Colin is asking more, like, you know, in our knowledge
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: and our models of quantum mechanics and particle and quantum fields,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: like what is the basis of a charge in that scenario?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And what's the mechanism by which having a positive or
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: negative of that charge makes you attract or repel another particle?
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the story is fascinating and compelling. The way
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: we talk about it is that particles have these fields
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: around them. So electron creates an electric field, right, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: it depends on the charge. A proton has a different
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: field than an electron, and that field can vary, you know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it can be like stronger here and weaker there, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that variation is crucial if the field is slanty. If
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: it's like stronger in one place and weaker in another place,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: it will create a force on other charged particles. So
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the slantiness of the field is where that force comes from.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Just like if you put a ball down on the ground,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: If the ground is leveled, the ball's not going to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: roll anywhere. But you put a ball down on a hill,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: it's going to roll downhill. In exactly the same way.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: You put a charged particle in space where the field
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: has a gradient where it varies it's stronger in one
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: place weaker somewhere else. It's going to feel a force
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: pushing it to where the field is weaker, depending on
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: its charge.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Right, I feel like you're saying again just more like
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: it is because it is. But I wonder if you
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: can say something about in your math formulations of quantum
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: mechanics for quantum particles. How do you account for a charge?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Is it just like a little number you append to
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: a particle or to like a viiable that you call
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: a particle? And then how does it come up that
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: if you have the same as sign or plus or minus,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: then you repel? And how does it come up that
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: you attractive? We have different signs?
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, so equonom mechanics. We have these labels that we
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: assigned to particles. And I think maybe what you're looking for,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: and what column is asking, is like, where do these
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: labels come from? What really is charge? Sure, they seem
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to work and they're compact, and we can use them
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: to predict the forces on particles, But do we understand
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: where the charge itself comes from? The answer is no.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: And here's where we get a bit philosophical, because you
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: have to think carefully about the kind of answer you're
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: looking for when you ask this question. Take a step back,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: for example, and ask a similar question, why does a
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: proton have charge plus one? Where does that come from? Well,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: we know the answer, it comes from the bits. The
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: proton is made out of the quarks, So back to
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the electron or for the quarks. Also, what's the answer there? Well,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: we don't know because we don't know what the electron
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is made out of, or if it's made out of
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: anything but just the electron. So for bigger stuff that's
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: made of smaller stuff, we can answer this question. We
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: can explain it in terms of that smaller stuff. For
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the smallest stuff, we can't. It's just how the universe is,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and that will be also true when we eventually find
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: out what's at the foundation of the universe. It's the smallest,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: most basic bit of matter, we'll look at it and say,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: why is it the way that it is, And if
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: it really is the foundation of the universe, we'll have
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: no answer because we can't explain it in terms of
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: its bits, because it doesn't have any internal bits. So
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that's the philosophical answer. We don't yet know what's inside
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the electron, if anything, so we don't really have any
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: insight into why it has charge. But zoom back out
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: from that philosophy and you can still learn things about
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: forces and fields and charges if you start from the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: charge in the field it makes. That tells you something
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: about the forces. We act as if the charge is
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a property of the particle, and then it creates these
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: fields and those fields push or pull on the other particles.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: But the nature of the field, whether it's electromagnetism or gravity,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: determines whether like charges attract or like charges repel. And
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: that gets a little bit mathematical. It's like the structure
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: of the field. Is it a vector field, is it
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: just a scaler? Like is there a number or is
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: there a direction to the field that determines the kind
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: of particle that transmits the information. So an electromagnetism, we
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: have the photon, right, the photon is a complicated particle.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It has spin, whereas the Higgs field, for example, has
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the Higgs boson, which doesn't have any spin. And it
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: turns out it's the spin of that particle that's communicating
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the information that determines whether like charges attract or like
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: charges repel.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, what do you mean, Like, what's the connection
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: between the spin of something and it's charge. And are
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: you talking to actually about like particle spinning or are
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: you talking about some thing we call spin.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Well, when we're talking about particles, they don't actually spin.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: They just have this thing we call quantum spin, right,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: And so some particles don't have any of it. We
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: call them spin zero, Some particles have spin one, some
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: particles have spin a half. All of the particles that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: transmit forces like electromagnetism have unit spin spin zero, spin one,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: spin two. So the photon, for example, is a spin
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: one particle, and that comes out of the knee sure
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of the electromagnetic field. Like when you make photoons, which
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: are ripples in this electromagnetic field, you make these particles
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that can have spin, and that's because the electromagnetic field
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: has vectors that can like point in different directions, whereas
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the Higgs field is just a number, and so the
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: ripples you make in it don't have any spin. And
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: then the spin of these particles that transmits the forces
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: determines whether like charges attract or repel. So electromagnetism, because
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: it has a photon, a spin one particle, that's what
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: makes like charges repel.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Why is it? What's the connection there? Why does the
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: photon having spin one make like charges repel.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it has to do with how we construct the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: mathematics of the quantum field theory. Basically, you get a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: negative sign every time you go up in spin, so
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: spin zero, like charges attract. You add spin to spin one,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you get a negative sign. You add another spin to
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: spin two, like the graviton, then like charges attract again.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: So it comes out of the statistics of quantum field theory,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: which I think is a little too hairy to get into.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: So wait, are you saying that potons have spin?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Photons have spin? Absolutely, Photons can be polarized, right that
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: whole episode about polarization of photons. They can spin this way,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: they can spin that way.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: And so when when you say spin one or spin zero,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: what does that icually mean, like the number of dimension
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: or are we just creating categories to explain why something's
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: attract and repel.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Well, spin zero means just just a number, doesn't have
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: any spin. Spin one means it's a vector. It points
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: in some direction. It can also point in the other direction.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Spin two is for really complicated particles like gravitons. They're tensors.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: They're more like not a vector, they're more like a matrix,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: really complicated. So they can have more values of spin.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: A particle that's called quote unquote spin one can have
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: zero plus one or minus one spin particle that's quote
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: unquote spin two can have plus two plus one, zero
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: minus one minus two. So as the structure the field
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: itself gets more complicated, the nature of the particle is
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: more complicated, and then that changes the kind of interaction
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that it mediates.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I see. So I feel like maybe you're saying that
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the answer for our high school audience here is that
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: it's sort of related to the dimensionality of the forces
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: that we're talking about. Like if the force that we're
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: talking about has a certain number of dimensions, then like
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: charges are going to repel. If it has a different
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: set of dimensions, then like charges are going to attract.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: And it's almost like it sort of goes by the
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: odd or evenness of the number of dimensions.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right, And you know the explanation we game earlier,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: like well, this is just sort of what we see,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not just descriptive. Like we put together
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: as simple as possible an explanation for all the pushing
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: and pulling that we've seen, and it works together kind
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: of beautifully. It's really compact, it's simple, it tells a
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: really compelling story, and there's some restrictions to it, Like
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: you can't just build any quantum field theory you want.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: They don't all work. These are the ones that work,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and that do explain what we see. So in that sense,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: maybe we are revealing something that's true about the universe.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: This is what's actually happening behind the scenes. Maybe charge
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: is real and it's part of these particles. We'll never
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: really know, of course, any more than we know if
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: there's aliens out there or Bigfoot exists. But it's very
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: compelling story we're telling about how it works.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's sort of based on the math. If
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: the dimensionality, how many dimensions the force has, then like
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: charges repel. If it's even, then the like charges attract.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: That's kind of a fundamental thing about the universe, right, Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Does it ties math to what we see and experience
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: in our everyday lives.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That's what I was trying to say earlier,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: is that there's only a few ways to build these theories.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: It's not like you can just build any theory you like,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: so you have an infinite number of possible explanations. There's
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of constraints on making these theories work, so
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: they don't break down, they don't make nonsense predictions. They
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: also agree with everything we've seen, and so what we've
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: seen is that the universe really constrains us. There are
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: rules for how you can build these theories mathematically, and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: that's why seeing something work in the mathematics, it's often
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a really big hint that it might reflect something in
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the universe. And so that's why we hope that by
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: exploring the mathematics of these theories, were actually investigating what's
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: happening behind the scenes in the universe.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, So then the answer for Column and
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Column's class and for everyone out there is that like
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: charges repel in electromagnetism because of the number of dimensions
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: that the electromagnetic forces seem to operate in. If the
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: electromagnetic force is operated in a different set of dimensions
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: or number of dimensions, then like charges would do the opposite.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: They would attract each other.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly like they do with the Higgs field and like
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: they do with gravity.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, everyone gets an a.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Extra credit on the house all around.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Well, if you sat through that whole explanation and that discussion,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I think everyone deserves an a what do you.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Think at least a frozen banana?
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and a frozen banana. Okay, all right, Well,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: thank you Colum, and thank you Colm's teacher. For bringing
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: this up. It's creating. You know, there are high schoolers
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: out there that are curious about these things, and they're
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: drilling to the nuances and having questions about very basic things.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: M hmm. And it also shows you how easy and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: common it is to ask simple questions that have tricky answers.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: We don't really know the answers to. Now, this is
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: a pretty basic question, and the answers are a little
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: bit slippery and philosophical and mathematical. So you're right there
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: at the edge of our knowledge and our understanding.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: All right, well, let's get to our last question of today,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and this one is pretty dramatic and pretty intense. It's
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: about destroying the moon, maybe to save humankind. So let's
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: dig into that question. But first, let's take another quick break.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: All right, we're answering questions from listeners, or at least
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: the question is that Daniel feels like answering.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I answer all the questions, I just elevate some of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: them to the podcast.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, this is elevating the questions. Interesting, I thought
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: it was lowering them.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: You're thinking your contribution to these is lowering our answers
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to them.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Possibly, Yeah, we're covering it with Hersey's chocolate. But our
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: last question here comes from Kim from Toronto.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel and Jorge, This is Kim from Toronto in Canada.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: I know how much you enjoy answering ethics and physics
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: questions from aspiring evil villains.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: So I have a question for the two of you.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: If climate change is melting the ice caps and forcing
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: sea levels to rise at the equator, could this effect
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: be offset at the equator by destroying the Moon safely
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: of course, so nobody gets hurt. And since more of
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: the Earth's population is closer to the equator than the poles,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: would this potentially save the lives of those who are
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: currently living in zones which would flood if the sea
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: levels rise. And a question for Jorge, if I were
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: to single handedly destroy the Moon in order to save
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: millions of lives, would this make me a hero or
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: a villain?
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: All Right, a bit of question here from Kim. I'm
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: not even sure what to make of this question or
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: what it even means, Like, how do you tie destroying
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: the moon to saving the planet.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I do like the creativity here, Like we're facing
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: some issues people, let's think about out of the box solutions.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Right, that's right. We have the problem of climate change. Obviously,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: the easiest thing is to destroy the moon.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's the easiest thing or even
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: on the top ten easiest solutions to climate change, but
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting to think about.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Okay. So, I think what Kim is thinking here is
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: that climate change is a thing, and one of the
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: consequences of climate change are rising sea levels, which is
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: a problem. Maybe not if you're a Montana or in Siberia,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: but if you're in a coastal city then it's sort
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: of a problem. And if the sea levels rise, and
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: it's going to cost a lot of chaos and instability
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: for billions of people, which is better news for everybody.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: And so I think Kim is thinking, like, oh, rising
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: sea levels, that sounds like something related to tides, and
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: tides are related to the moon. Why if we destroy
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: the moon, well, that solve the consequences of climate change, right,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: I think that's what Kim is trying to propose here.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the idea or the hope is that
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: you could mitigate the impact of rising sea levels by
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: minimizing the tides. Like, yeah, maybe the ocean is going up.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: But the worst part is when you're the ocean goes
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: up and you have high tides. If your tides aren't
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: as high, or if you can remove the tides, then
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the ocean doesn't rise as much. And so you're somehow
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: mitigating the rise in sea levels by preventing these swings
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: in the ocean depth.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Right, right, because I imagine that Kim has figured out
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: that if you remove the moon, that doesn't mean that
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: the sea levels go down. It just means that they
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: don't go up and down.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. They don't go up and down,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and so they're not as high, right, I think that's
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the point.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: The highs are not as high and the lows are
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: not as well. So you eliminate the variation of the tides,
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: which helps. It doesn't solve the rising sea levels because
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: the average sea level will surprise, that's right, Maybe the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: high tide will be as bad as it would be
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: if you had the move.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly And this relies on the sort of a simple
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: model of the tides, where the moon is pulling on
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the water and making it deeper here and narrower there,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and so it's making higher tides and lower tides, And
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: it's true that the tides can be very large and
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: quite variable. You know, in some places around the world
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the tides can be like, you know, more than ten meters,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: So it can definitely be very dramatic.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Well you mean like in some places it can go
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: up and down ten meters.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, tides could be very very dramatic.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Where is it? Ten meters is a lot thirty feet?
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: It is? I looked at a map of the tidal
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: variations and it's sort of surprising. It's not focused on
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the equators. You know, there's like the inlet under Alaska
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: is very dramatic. Actually, the waters just to the west
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: of Central America have some of the strongest tides. Up
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: near the coast of Europe has very strong tides. It
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't just vary on latitude. Tides in the end are
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: influenced by the moon, but there's lots of other important factors,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: like the shape of the coast and the depth of
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the water, how the water likes to slash around, the
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: temperature of the water. Lots of things affect the amplitude
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: of the tides.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: So then what does that mean? Does that mean that
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: if you eliminated the moon, you would still get tides.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: That's also true because the Sun contributes like a third
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of the tidal forces. So if you eliminated the moons,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: you would reduce the tides, though it wouldn't be concentrated
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: necessarily at the equator. But if you liminated the moon,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: you would still have tides because the Sun also causes
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: tides and a slightly different pattern of course than the moon,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: but you wouldn't get rid of them by destroying the moon.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember we had a whole episode about ties
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: and it was kind of complicated.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: It's very complicated. People have been trying to understand this
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: for a long time, and Newton had the first model
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: based on, you know, gravity pulling on the water, but
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that's just one part of it. That's just like the input,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that's how much gravity is pushing on the water. You
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: also have to understand how the water responds. Like if
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: you sit in your bathtub and you push on the
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: water to make a wave, you make a wave. The
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: water doesn't just bend under your hand and stay there.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: So you have to understand the water's response, all the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: wave equations to really understand how the tides are formed.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: It's very, very complicated these days. We have a really
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: solid understanding of it, though, which is why you can
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: look up the tides anywhere on Earth pretty far in
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: the future and get a pretty good prediction of it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Right, right, although I hear the accuracy of that kind
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: of goes up and down. Then when you look or
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: where the moon is. I think what you're saying is
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: that Kim's plan would work sort of like if you
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: took out the moon, you wouldn't totally eliminate the tides,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: but you would maybe eliminate two thirds of the tide,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: which is sort of Kim's plant.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: You would eliminate two thirds of the tides, but it
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have the most impact in the coastal areas. It
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: would have the most impact other places on Earth, which
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: is still helpful. Right, everybody would benefit from having lower
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: ocean levels or lower highs.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I suppose Wait, what do you mean it wouldn't affect
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: the equator. You're saying, but tides affect the coastal areas, right.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Tide affects the coastal areas. But where around the world
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: those tides are most dramatic is not in the equator?
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Depends on the shape of the continents and all sorts
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: of stuff. If you google like a tide map, you'll
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: see these red hotspots where the tides are most dramatic,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and they are not along the equator. So if he's
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: looking to focus his efforts and help people along the equator,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: tides are not the way to do it.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure Kim actually is that concern about
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: people in the equator, and specifically, I think he's just
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: concerned about the overall consequences of climate change. And you're
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: saying it wouldn't be focused on the equator, It would
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: sort of spread out all over in weird places. But
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: if you did eliminate the moon, it would lower the
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: ups and downs of the tide.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it would. It wouldn't reduce the tides, But of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: course you're also contributing lots of other potential knock on
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: problems from getting rid of the moon, which does much
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: more than just provide tides.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: What do you mean, like, what other effects would removing
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the moon have?
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Well, the moon is crucial for lots of ecosystems. You know,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: provides light at certain times of night at certain parts
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: of the month. Predators rely on the moon for hunting
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: at night. There's a lot of biological things that are
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: linked to the moon. You know, a lot of our
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: cycles are linked to the Moon for lots of reasons.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: So you get rid of the Moon, it could have
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: difficult to predict impact on ecosystems.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: Mmmm.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I think my question is how would you even destroy
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: the moon?
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: That's the engineering you man.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Let's say you like obliterated. It wouldn't all those rocks
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: fall on Earth and kills all of which I make
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: climate change a small problem.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, definitely, you'd have to do this safely. I've actually
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: read that novel Seven Eves where their moon is destroyed
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: and rains down rocks on the Earth. Super interesting. You know,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: instead of destroying the Moon, you can just like push
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: it out into space. You don't actually have to destroy it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Oh whoa, whoa. Interesting, Like just attach some rockets into
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: it and have it just beIN out of control and
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: shoot off Earth. Yeah, exactly what kind of energy would
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: that take?
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: A lot of energy if you want to do it quickly,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: if you want to do it gradually and you're happy
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: to wait millions of years, then you know, low rocket
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: thrust could do it. In fact, we're already losing the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: moon right, it gets further and further away from us
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: by like a centimeter per year. So Kim could also
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: just wait a few million years.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: And that will all be dead from other things. I
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: wonder if you could take all this co two on Earth, right,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: take it to the moon, build some sort of engine
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: with that, and then you solve two problems.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there you go. There's the engineering you But
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you're always creating other problems when you're disturbing
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the system, like the moon does again, even more than
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: like helping predators find prey, it also stabilizes the Earth's spin.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: The Earth spins off axis right, so it's a little
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: bit unstable. It wobbles a little bit, and they think
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: that the moon helps stabilize that wobble, like absorbs some
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: of that angular momentum. And without a big moon, the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Earth's axis might tilt more and more until eventually it's
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: tilted all the way over on its side the way
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Urinus is.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: WHOA. Well, in that case, maybe will come out with
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: the idea to make a moon to tilt this back.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: I mean it, Kim seems to have pretty big ideas.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he'll solve one problem, create another one. Then solve
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: that one create a bigger problem. I see where this
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: is going.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well Kim has a second part of
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: the question, which is if Kim manages to destroy the
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: moon and save people's lives, but make them a hero
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: or a villain?
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this question specifically for you?
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder why specifically for me, am I the
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: ultimate judge of people's actions.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I think Kim recognized that you have a deeper appreciation
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: of like a comic book superhero lore.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, I see, I see interesting. Interesting. I guess it
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: depends on several things. Does Kim have a doctorate to
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: be you know, most villains are called doctor something?
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Interesting?
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Does Kim wear a cape and a hood? That makes
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: a big difference. Also, yeah, we'll get that to Kim's
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: PR department right away. Well, I think it depends maybe
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: on the ultimate effect of Kim's actions. You know, maybe
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Kim will say millions of lives now, but in the
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: long run, make the earth the worst place to live.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: M interesting, in which case you'd be like a tragic hero.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: So we're responsible for the unintended consequences of our.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Actions, I'm saying, and we would all suffer from the
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: unintended consequences of Kim's actions.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Well, if this podcast is attracting aliens to Earth and
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: they come and they kill us, all, are we then villains?
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Only? That was your intent all along.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Daniel, I'm going in no comment on that one.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a yes.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: No comment to that as well.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: That's what a super villain would say.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Supervillain has a super team of lawyers, and that's what
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: they advise.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, superheroes don't have lawyers. They're honest and forth right.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: There you go, Kim, So if you have a lawyer,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: you're a villain.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, although Kim has been pretty forthright about their plans,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: so maybe I'm very confused.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I'm very confused ethically here. Yes, I'm hoping for hero
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I'm pushing for Hero in this one. Yeah.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: All right, Well we're all cheering for you, Kim and
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: your plan to destroy the moon. Maybe it'd be easier
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: if we just cut carbon dioxide emissions. Yeah, it sounds
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: like a like an easier path here. All right. Well,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: that's the answer for Kim, and I think that means
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: that we've answered all the questions.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Stick, that's right, we have, and we love your questions.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: We love thinking about them. We love talking about them,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: we love answering them. If you have questions about how
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the universe works and you want to hear us talking
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: about them, please write to me two questions at Danieljorge
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: dot com.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whichever question you sent in, Daniel will give you
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: an A and a banana covered in chocolate. Yes, digital
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: frozen banana covered in chocolate.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Covered in digital chocolate.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: joining us, See you next time.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: For more science and curiosity, come find us on social media,
• 50:55
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• 50:59
  Speaker 1: disc work in, and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a
• 51:05
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