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Holiday Special: santa, reindeer and long-lasting lamps · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:05
Speaker 1: Happy holidays friends. This year, December twenty fifth marks both
0:10
Speaker 1: the start of Hanukkah and Christmas Day. Feeling in the
0:13
Speaker 1: festive spirit, Daniel and I decided to dig into some
0:16
Speaker 1: of the science behind these holiday stories. To the parents
0:20
Speaker 1: with kids who will be staying up late waiting for
0:23
Speaker 1: Santa this year, you may want to consider whether your
0:26
Speaker 1: children's holiday experience would be enhanced or diminished by putting
0:30
Speaker 1: these magical stories under a scientific lens. So today we'll
0:33
Speaker 1: be asking ourselves questions like how does Santa manage to
0:37
Speaker 1: go fast enough to deliver toys to all the Christian
0:40
Speaker 1: kids in the world in just one night? And how
0:43
Speaker 1: does Rudolph produce that light to guide the way? Does
0:46
Speaker 1: he have a bad bacterial infection? And how does time
0:49
Speaker 1: dilation perhaps account for the Hanukkah oil burning for eight
0:53
Speaker 1: long days and nights. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily
0:56
Speaker 1: festive universe.
1:11
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I think
1:14
Speaker 2: we don't have enough science holidays.
1:16
Speaker 1: Ooh, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites, and yeah, I'll
1:20
Speaker 1: back that up. My people. The ecologists are pretty excited
1:23
Speaker 1: about birthday. But you know, we could always use more holidays.
1:27
Speaker 1: What holiday would you.
1:27
Speaker 2: Start Universe Day?
1:29
Speaker 1: Nice? Yeah, I guess Earth Day would be a subset
1:31
Speaker 1: of Universe Day.
1:32
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, it encompasses everything. Why isn't everyday Universe Day?
1:36
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to those ads already.
1:38
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, how would you celebrate Universe Day?
1:42
Speaker 2: That's a good question. You'd need a really dark chocolate cake,
1:45
Speaker 2: I guess, to represent the absolute mysteries of the universe
1:49
Speaker 2: and the impenetrable darkness of space.
1:51
Speaker 1: I think if someone told me they were giving me
1:53
Speaker 1: a cake that represented the mysteries of the universe, I
1:55
Speaker 1: would be really worrying about what was inside that cake. Like,
1:58
Speaker 1: here's a razor blade. I don't know that I'd be
2:01
Speaker 1: excited about that cake.
2:05
Speaker 2: I'm only putting razor blades and cakes I send to
2:07
Speaker 2: my friends in prison. Kelly, You're not in prison.
2:10
Speaker 1: Not yet. No. I think we've established that the worst
2:13
Speaker 1: I've ever done is like jaywalked.
2:15
Speaker 2: That's right.
2:16
Speaker 1: Oh, no, we both committed dairy related crimes.
2:18
Speaker 2: Mmmm yes, international cheese smuggling and butter smuggling.
2:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, man, we're rebels.
2:25
Speaker 2: Maybe not a great idea, to admit to that on air.
2:28
Speaker 1: There's a show I listened to and their slogan is like,
2:30
Speaker 1: don't instagram your crimes, and we're podcasting are crimes anyway,
2:35
Speaker 1: We're not the smartest criminals.
2:37
Speaker 2: No. And the cheese was delicious, so probably worth it anyway.
2:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the butter was delicious also.
2:42
Speaker 2: And food is asential element for how people celebrate their holidays.
2:46
Speaker 2: That's why I think it should be the center of
2:49
Speaker 2: Universe Day, which I'm totally going to launch next year.
2:52
Speaker 2: But today on the podcast, we're not talking about fictitious
2:55
Speaker 2: holidays that we are starting to poke fun at real holidays.
2:58
Speaker 2: We're talking about the science of your holidays.
3:01
Speaker 1: And I am so excited. You know. We are, of
3:03
Speaker 1: course recording this a bit in advance of December twenty fifth,
3:07
Speaker 1: and my family's putting up our Christmas tree this weekend
3:10
Speaker 1: and I am so excited. I love doing that with
3:13
Speaker 1: my daughter. She's always like super excited about it.
3:15
Speaker 2: So does that mean that you observe the Christmas tree
3:18
Speaker 2: before Thanksgiving tradition?
3:20
Speaker 1: We observe no traditions in particular. It's just whenever we
3:24
Speaker 1: remember like, oh we can do that now, And this
3:26
Speaker 1: just happens to be when we're all going to have time.
3:28
Speaker 1: So we're probably gonna do it on Thanksgiving Day, just
3:31
Speaker 1: because it's a time when we're all together.
3:33
Speaker 2: And do you guys follow your childhood Christmas traditions because
3:37
Speaker 2: Zach grew up in a Jewish family.
3:38
Speaker 1: No, We've created our own traditions that mesh together Honkkah
3:42
Speaker 1: and Christmas and work for our family. What about you?
3:46
Speaker 1: Are you doing what your family did? Is Katrina's family
3:50
Speaker 1: also did they celebrate Hankah.
3:51
Speaker 2: Katrina's family is Danish, so they celebrated a very secular
3:55
Speaker 2: kind of Christmas, but with particular traditions involving like harrying
3:59
Speaker 2: and very thick bread and dinners that are called lunches
4:03
Speaker 2: and lots of schnaps and stuff like that, which is
4:05
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. And over the years we've invited
4:07
Speaker 2: like eighty people over to serve them this traditional Danish
4:11
Speaker 2: dinner which they call Christmas lunch, which is a lot
4:13
Speaker 2: of fun. But I didn't grow up with any Christmas
4:16
Speaker 2: traditions because my family is Jewish, so our Christmas traditions
4:19
Speaker 2: are Katrina's Christmas traditions. Plus Hazel's social media desires from
4:24
Speaker 2: what she's seen on other people's TikTok. She's like, I
4:27
Speaker 2: want Christmas like that, so we, for example, all wear
4:29
Speaker 2: matching pajamas on Christmas morning.
4:31
Speaker 1: I have tried to get Zach to do that, and
4:34
Speaker 1: he absolutely refuses, but I think it would be so cute.
4:37
Speaker 1: Oh that's great.
4:38
Speaker 2: This year even the dog is getting magic pajamas.
4:41
Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. Do you send out like holiday cards
4:44
Speaker 1: afterwards or like New Year cards? Mostly? I just have
4:46
Speaker 1: to see this, all right, I'll put up a picture. Okay, awesome,
4:49
Speaker 1: I can't wait. That sounds adorable, And maybe I could
4:51
Speaker 1: use that to convince Zach that we should all dress up.
4:54
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to work, but it could
4:55
Speaker 1: be worth it.
4:55
Speaker 2: Look what the Californians are doing. We should follow a suit.
4:58
Speaker 2: I don't know how to work on him.
4:59
Speaker 1: No, well that's not going to work. That's gonna anti work.
5:02
Speaker 2: All right, never mind, And we hope that you're all
5:04
Speaker 2: out there having a wonderful holiday. Whatever version or variety
5:08
Speaker 2: or tradition you are following. We hope it means one
5:11
Speaker 2: full time with your family, and we also hope that
5:13
Speaker 2: it gives you another way to think about science. That's
5:16
Speaker 2: why on today's epide That's why on today's episode we're
5:19
Speaker 2: going to be breaking down the science of holiday traditions.
5:22
Speaker 1: I think we should start calling them epipodes, and we
5:25
Speaker 1: should get like toad related facts incorporated into every episode episode.
5:32
Speaker 2: I think you hopped to that idea little quick.
5:35
Speaker 1: Oh man, I love funs. That's so great. It's too
5:38
Speaker 1: bad we can't hear the audience groaning though, But.
5:41
Speaker 2: You know they are, you know they are.
5:43
Speaker 1: That's right.
5:44
Speaker 2: So it's our first holiday tradition that we're going to
5:46
Speaker 2: interpret in the name of science.
5:47
Speaker 1: All right. The first holiday tradition we're tackling today is
5:50
Speaker 1: how the heck does Santa manage to visit about three
5:54
Speaker 1: hundred million children in the world that are distributed in
5:58
Speaker 1: about eighty five million different homes. How does he do
6:01
Speaker 1: that in just one night?
6:04
Speaker 2: Does Santa have to follow the laws of physics? Is
6:06
Speaker 2: it possible physically for Santa to accomplish this feat? We
6:10
Speaker 2: thought about some of the numbers, especially in light of
6:12
Speaker 2: our recent episode about flight and the physics of it,
6:16
Speaker 2: the mysterious science behind how things stay in the air.
6:20
Speaker 2: And so you're right, Kelly, by my calculations, there are
6:22
Speaker 2: approximately three hundred million children in the world who are
6:25
Speaker 2: expecting Santa to visit, which means eighty five to one
6:29
Speaker 2: hundred million different homes on Christmas Eve. That's a lot.
6:34
Speaker 2: And if you think about what he's carrying with him, like,
6:38
Speaker 2: that's a lot of presents. If each kid gets a
6:40
Speaker 2: pretty small present. I was thinking, like, you know, an iPod, nano,
6:44
Speaker 2: something really tiny, then he has a pretty big load
6:48
Speaker 2: to carry. It's something like one hundred and fifty thousand
6:51
Speaker 2: tons of presents. And that's got to be a low
6:54
Speaker 2: estimate because some kids are getting you know, air rifles
6:58
Speaker 2: or big Tanka trucks or bicycles.
7:01
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Oh, what was the rifle in the Christmas story?
7:04
Speaker 2: You're going to shoot your eye out with a daisy
7:06
Speaker 2: air rifle?
7:07
Speaker 1: Yet, there you go, you'll shoot your own kid. Oh
7:09
Speaker 1: that was a classic. My daughter was not crusted with
7:11
Speaker 1: that movie anyway. I haven't like looked at a map
7:13
Speaker 1: and thought about this, but are Christian homes distributed all
7:18
Speaker 1: around the earth or are there regions of the earth
7:20
Speaker 1: that you can skip?
7:21
Speaker 2: Well, Christians are definitely not equally distributed across the whole
7:24
Speaker 2: earth because there aren't that many for example, living in
7:26
Speaker 2: the Pacific, so you know, the land mass helps you concentrate,
7:30
Speaker 2: so that shrinks where Santa has to go. And also
7:33
Speaker 2: people are not evenly distributed across land, right, so you
7:36
Speaker 2: get like a lot of children you can take care
7:39
Speaker 2: of in Manhattan, for example. And of course not every
7:42
Speaker 2: country has an equal number of Santa expecting children, right.
7:46
Speaker 2: There are more proportion in the Americas than there are
7:50
Speaker 2: in Africa or in Asia for example, though of course
7:54
Speaker 2: there are all across the world, and in every country
7:56
Speaker 2: you have children who are expecting Santa. So it's actually
8:00
Speaker 2: interesting problem, and it relates to the traveling salesman problem,
8:03
Speaker 2: which is a famous problem in computer science, which is
8:06
Speaker 2: to find the shortest path among a bunch of cities.
8:09
Speaker 2: And even with like ten or twelve cities, there is
8:12
Speaker 2: a huge number of combinations that the traveling salesman would
8:16
Speaker 2: have to consider to find the shortest path. And it's
8:18
Speaker 2: not a problem we have a fixed solution to. Like, basically,
8:22
Speaker 2: the only way to find the shortest path is to
8:24
Speaker 2: try every possible combination and calculate them and then take
8:27
Speaker 2: the one with the shortest path. But because there's so
8:29
Speaker 2: many combinations, it's almost impossible to even do that. So
8:33
Speaker 2: now have eighty five million homes that you have to
8:36
Speaker 2: go to and you try to minimize the flight time
8:39
Speaker 2: between them. Basically, Sant has got to have an enormous
8:42
Speaker 2: quantum computer if he wants to solve this problem.
8:44
Speaker 1: I guess I was wondering if maybe this is what
8:46
Speaker 1: Santa does in the off time, you know, like while
8:48
Speaker 1: the elves are making the toys, but you know those
8:51
Speaker 1: Christian families are moving.
8:53
Speaker 2: Around, yeah, and having babies and.
8:55
Speaker 1: Having babies and just yeah, it's complicated. So maybe he
8:58
Speaker 1: has solved this already, and like we should be asking
9:01
Speaker 1: him what the solution is. Maybe he's a mathematician.
9:06
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, Yeah, maybe he's solved whether P equals NP.
9:09
Speaker 2: Remember we had Scott Aronson on the podcast talking about
9:12
Speaker 2: really hard to solve problems. This is one of the
9:14
Speaker 2: hardest to solve problems, and Santa clearly has figured it out.
9:18
Speaker 2: Because even on the fastest computer, if you ran this
9:21
Speaker 2: problem how to very quickly go from home to home
9:24
Speaker 2: for eighty five million homes, it would take you at
9:26
Speaker 2: least a year on the world supercomputers. So I think
9:30
Speaker 2: that proves that Santa must have mastered quantum computing.
9:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt. We should send Scott Aronson up there
9:35
Speaker 1: to visit and make a chat about it, or.
9:39
Speaker 2: At least we should have the next big quantum computer
9:42
Speaker 2: named something Santa related.
9:43
Speaker 1: I do like that idea. That's ter cool. Right, that's huge.
9:46
Speaker 1: I like it.
9:48
Speaker 2: Wait, maybe P equals NP. Maybe NP stands for a
9:51
Speaker 2: north pole. It's been the secret the whole time. It's
9:53
Speaker 2: right in front of the gosh.
9:54
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Wait, you and I should have a spinoff
9:57
Speaker 1: podcast on conspiracy theories. I'm in.
10:01
Speaker 2: Santa sasquatch quantum computing, invest in my crypto startup.
10:06
Speaker 1: Boom right, all the right words right there, Daniel. Yes,
10:09
Speaker 1: we've already got an advertisement for the show done.
10:11
Speaker 2: But even if Santa does have a huge quantum computer
10:14
Speaker 2: and has figured out the fastest way to get from
10:17
Speaker 2: place to place, he's still got a lot of problems
10:19
Speaker 2: to solve if he's going to figure it out within
10:21
Speaker 2: the laws of physics.
10:23
Speaker 1: That's right. So you said we've got about one hundred
10:25
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand tons of presents. He's got to distribute
10:29
Speaker 1: those presents at about seven hundred and sixty eight visits
10:33
Speaker 1: per second. Per second that's fast exactly.
10:38
Speaker 2: That's a lot. And that's assuming that he has like
10:41
Speaker 2: around thirty hours to do it, because you know, as
10:44
Speaker 2: the earth spins and you have time zones, is like
10:47
Speaker 2: a little bit more than a twenty four hour window
10:49
Speaker 2: where people could still technically call it Christmas. This is
10:52
Speaker 2: being pretty generous. I mean, I think most people want
10:55
Speaker 2: their presence like by four am in case their kid
10:57
Speaker 2: gets up early. But if you're generous, you know midnight
11:00
Speaker 2: to seven am or whatever, then you get about thirty
11:03
Speaker 2: one hours. And that's still a lot of visits and
11:05
Speaker 2: not a lot of time. It means, for example, one
11:08
Speaker 2: to one thousands of a second for each house, you
11:11
Speaker 2: got to land, you got to get down the chimney,
11:14
Speaker 2: you got to eat the cookies, you got to put
11:16
Speaker 2: the present, You've got to get back up the chimney,
11:18
Speaker 2: you got to get back on this leg, and you
11:20
Speaker 2: have to take off. All of these things have to
11:22
Speaker 2: happen within a thousands of a second per house.
11:25
Speaker 1: Well, and it's some of the families. You have to
11:26
Speaker 1: grab the carrots that people left for the reindeer and
11:29
Speaker 1: feed those to the reindeer. And that was something my
11:31
Speaker 1: family did. So that's another step you can't miss.
11:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and then you have to factor in the
11:35
Speaker 2: travel time between houses also, right, So assuming again that
11:39
Speaker 2: sand has somehow minimized this, I estimated that the total
11:42
Speaker 2: travel time of his trip is going to be around
11:44
Speaker 2: seventy five million miles. That's making some simplifying assumptions about
11:49
Speaker 2: how far apart the houses are around the world. That's
11:52
Speaker 2: a long way to go in thirty one hours. And
11:55
Speaker 2: I hid in the back of my mind this question
11:56
Speaker 2: is like, is Sana going to have to break the
11:58
Speaker 2: speed of light limit? Santa FTL is not only is
12:01
Speaker 2: he quantum Santa? Is he also like Einstein was wrong?
12:05
Speaker 2: Santa is he?
12:06
Speaker 1: No, he's not right because he's under that he's not.
12:08
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, it turns out he only has to travel
12:11
Speaker 2: about seven hundred miles per second, which is pretty fast.
12:15
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like thirty four hundred times the speed
12:17
Speaker 2: of sound. But it's nowhere near the speed of light.
12:20
Speaker 2: So the speed of light does not interfere with Christmas.
12:23
Speaker 1: So how much do you think Jeff Bezos has offered
12:26
Speaker 1: Santa for this technology that allows you to deliver packages
12:31
Speaker 1: this quickly?
12:34
Speaker 2: Who's the logistics master? Right? That's right? Right? Santa should
12:41
Speaker 2: really branch out and compete with Amazon. If he did
12:43
Speaker 2: more than just Christmas, right, if Santa could deliver anything
12:45
Speaker 2: to you right now, like faster than Amazon, Wow, Santa
12:49
Speaker 2: could be rich.
12:50
Speaker 1: You know what makes me a little nervous though, is
12:52
Speaker 1: last year it was noted that some of the bags
12:55
Speaker 1: the toys came in looked like the same bags Amazon
12:58
Speaker 1: uses when you deliver a gift, So at your house,
13:01
Speaker 1: at my house, there might be a little bit of
13:04
Speaker 1: collaborating going on, so maybe they're sharing secrets. Amazon packages
13:08
Speaker 1: get there like the next day sometimes that's pretty fast.
13:11
Speaker 2: That's pretty fast, And I definitely don't want Jeff Bezos
13:15
Speaker 2: like learning to fly drones down chimneys just to deliver
13:18
Speaker 2: packages faster like that would be creepy.
13:20
Speaker 1: Would be creepy, all right, So never mind, Let's hope
13:22
Speaker 1: they're not talking to each other. Could he travel that fast? So, like,
13:26
Speaker 1: at those speeds, is it gonna heat up? Or is
13:28
Speaker 1: he maybe traveling he goes up to space to avoid
13:31
Speaker 1: air friction, that comes back down again real fast.
13:34
Speaker 2: You can't really avoid the resistance the atmosphere though, because
13:36
Speaker 2: if you come back in you have the re entry
13:38
Speaker 2: He's moving pretty fast. I mean, mock thirty four hundred
13:42
Speaker 2: is very fast to move through the atmosphere. Like I
13:45
Speaker 2: don't hear it, but if Santa really is traveling that
13:47
Speaker 2: fast on Christmas Eve, then there's gonna be some serious
13:50
Speaker 2: sonic booms. And not to mention that, Remember we're talking
13:53
Speaker 2: about a huge amount of cargo. Like we set one
13:55
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand tons of presents. That's about the
14:00
Speaker 2: same mass as two fully equipped loaded aircraft carriers. So
14:05
Speaker 2: now imagine two aircraft carriers traveling through the atmosphere at
14:10
Speaker 2: mock thirty four hundred. This sounds like the plot of
14:12
Speaker 2: the Avengers, right. Those things are definitely going to burn up.
14:15
Speaker 2: They're going to pressurize the atmosphere in front of them.
14:17
Speaker 2: It's going to turn into plasma. They're going to melt
14:20
Speaker 2: the front of it. He's going to have some really
14:22
Speaker 2: intense heat shielding. Yeah, but what does he have in front?
14:25
Speaker 2: He's got reindeer. So somehow maybe those reindeer noses are
14:30
Speaker 2: working as heat shields. I don't really understand how that's possible.
14:33
Speaker 1: I don't think that we have that as an example
14:36
Speaker 1: in the Animal Kingdom yet. That would be pretty incredible
14:40
Speaker 1: I guess maybe he has figured out some invisible heat
14:42
Speaker 1: shielding that can be used. Maybe that's how we explain this.
14:46
Speaker 1: I don't know.
14:48
Speaker 2: I don't know. That seems like a copa because then
14:49
Speaker 2: you can do invisible anything. Right, Yeah, he's got an
14:52
Speaker 2: invisible warp drive.
14:54
Speaker 1: That's where the magic happens. Then I guess, so you
14:57
Speaker 1: mentioned those reindeer flying, and let's take a break and
15:00
Speaker 1: talk about how that might have evolved. Okay, and we're back.
15:20
Speaker 1: So Santa has reindeer that fly and bring him around
15:24
Speaker 1: the world somehow without burning up to deliver gifts to
15:27
Speaker 1: all the boys and girls. How do those reindeer fly?
15:32
Speaker 1: So there's a whole field studying the evolution of flights.
15:35
Speaker 1: We have three vertebrate examples where these animals evolved the
15:40
Speaker 1: ability to fly. So we've got bats, birds, and pterosaurs.
15:45
Speaker 1: That's right, we're going back in time.
15:46
Speaker 2: Wow, So what you're saying, in the entire history of Earth,
15:49
Speaker 2: only three vertebrates have learned to fly. We got to
15:52
Speaker 2: dig back to dinosaurs to have our third example.
15:55
Speaker 1: According to the cow Museum website, I was looking at Yes,
16:00
Speaker 1: those are the three examples I saw. The website didn't
16:03
Speaker 1: look super modern. So maybe it was a little bit,
16:06
Speaker 1: but as far as I know, yeah, we've got birds, bats,
16:09
Speaker 1: and pterosaurs.
16:10
Speaker 2: And what about the evolutionary history there, because I know
16:12
Speaker 2: that people tell us that, like, oh, birds are basically
16:15
Speaker 2: descended from dinosaurs. Does that mean that birds are modern
16:18
Speaker 2: day pterosaurs? Do they come from the same origin? Did
16:21
Speaker 2: that flight involve twice or once?
16:23
Speaker 1: I think that terosaurs are not dinosaurs.
16:27
Speaker 2: What pterodactyls are not dinosaurs? Calvin and Hobbes taught me wrong.
16:31
Speaker 1: That's right, Paradactyls are not dinosaurs. I mean, I hate
16:34
Speaker 1: to ever say anything negative about Calvin and Hobbes and
16:37
Speaker 1: Bill Waterston. Yeah, but you know children are allowed to
16:40
Speaker 1: dream and that is a fictional account of things. So yeah,
16:43
Speaker 1: pterosaurs are not dinosaurs.
16:45
Speaker 2: So wait, what makes something a dinosaur? All giant reptiles
16:48
Speaker 2: living with the dinosaurs or not dinosaurs?
16:50
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's right. Not everything that lived in the
16:52
Speaker 1: time of the dinosaurs were dinosaurs. And we have now
16:55
Speaker 1: maxed out by paleontology knowledge. When I was like eight,
17:00
Speaker 1: could ask me any of this and I could have
17:01
Speaker 1: rattled off the answers.
17:02
Speaker 2: But you know, oh man, we should have eight year
17:05
Speaker 2: old Kelly on the podcast. That sounds great.
17:07
Speaker 1: She was a lot more fun.
17:10
Speaker 2: When I build a time machine, that's the first thing
17:12
Speaker 2: I'll do. So I'll go back in time and ask
17:14
Speaker 2: eight year old you dinosaur questions.
17:15
Speaker 1: Awesome, sounds good. I hope she's as clever as I
17:18
Speaker 1: seem to remember her being. But I guess we'll find out,
17:21
Speaker 1: all right.
17:21
Speaker 2: But we were talking about reindeer flight, and you were
17:23
Speaker 2: giving us the context of the evolutionary history of flight pterosaurs, bats,
17:27
Speaker 2: and birds. So it's possible for vertebrates things with bones
17:31
Speaker 2: in them, to learn to take to the air. How
17:34
Speaker 2: does that happen? What are the evolutionary pressures that are needed,
17:37
Speaker 2: and could they possibly apply to a reindeer.
17:40
Speaker 1: So for a lot of this stuff, you know, we
17:41
Speaker 1: can't go back in time, we can't see it ourselves,
17:43
Speaker 1: but we can look at evolutionary trees and try to
17:46
Speaker 1: see what closely related ancestors were doing and then try
17:49
Speaker 1: to get a sense for what happened over time. So,
17:51
Speaker 1: for example, it looks like the pterosaurs, they evolved the
17:56
Speaker 1: ability to fly from ground dwelling ancestor, so it looks
18:01
Speaker 1: like they were sort of leaping up into the air
18:03
Speaker 1: and having wings maybe helped them soar or glide for
18:06
Speaker 1: a little while and then but birds seem to have
18:08
Speaker 1: evolved from animals that were up in the trees, and
18:11
Speaker 1: so they jumped out of the trees and then they
18:12
Speaker 1: would glide. So you've got, you know, bottom up and
18:14
Speaker 1: top down abilities to learn how to fly.
18:16
Speaker 2: But in both cases there had to be some evolutionary pressure.
18:19
Speaker 2: I mean, you're giving us examples of like how there
18:21
Speaker 2: was proto flight, which somehow got selected for and encouraged.
18:25
Speaker 2: What was the pressure that made these tree jumpers want
18:27
Speaker 2: to fly or these ground leapers want to fly.
18:30
Speaker 1: There are a couple different hypotheses for what the pressures were.
18:33
Speaker 1: I think the most convincing, or at least the most
18:35
Speaker 1: commonly stated one is that it had something to do
18:37
Speaker 1: with like escaping predators. So if a predator is coming
18:41
Speaker 1: for you and you can jump out of the tree
18:43
Speaker 1: and then glide away, for example, then that helps you
18:46
Speaker 1: get away. And then over time there were all these
18:48
Speaker 1: additional benefits. So, like gliding is nice, but if you're
18:51
Speaker 1: able to stay in the air for longer and maybe
18:53
Speaker 1: flap your wings, you can get from place to place.
18:55
Speaker 1: Maybe you can find a spot where there's better food.
18:57
Speaker 1: But every step along the way has to have some
18:59
Speaker 1: benefit in order for you know, evolution to continue building
19:02
Speaker 1: on that trait.
19:03
Speaker 2: And something I don't often hear enough about when it
19:05
Speaker 2: comes to these stories of evolution are the costs. Because
19:09
Speaker 2: I could tell a story about how it would be
19:11
Speaker 2: awesome if I had wings, Like I could escape predators,
19:14
Speaker 2: I could escape traffic, I could hunt better, like I
19:17
Speaker 2: could do all sorts of things. I would love to
19:19
Speaker 2: have wings, Like, obviously there are benefits. Why don't everybody
19:22
Speaker 2: have wings? And I guess the answer must be that
19:24
Speaker 2: there are costs to having wings which don't pay off
19:27
Speaker 2: for everybody, right, So, like why don't humans have wings?
19:30
Speaker 1: Well, you know, sometimes evolution is a cruel mistress. I mean,
19:33
Speaker 1: so wings are often like the bones in your arms
19:36
Speaker 1: get sort of repurposed and you end up with like
19:38
Speaker 1: webbing in between. And so you know, bats, if you
19:40
Speaker 1: look at it, it's like the fingerbones have like extended
19:43
Speaker 1: and now there's webbing in between. And so you know,
19:45
Speaker 1: we really benefit from our ability to use our hands, right,
19:48
Speaker 1: so if we could fly, we might you know, lose
19:50
Speaker 1: some of that, and so yeah, there's trade offs or
19:53
Speaker 1: just about anything.
19:54
Speaker 2: You know, if you asked me like wings or hands,
19:56
Speaker 2: that would be a tough call because wings would be awesome.
19:58
Speaker 2: But boy, who's going to like scratched at my nose
20:00
Speaker 2: if I don't have hands?
20:02
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, I mean you can rug your nose on
20:03
Speaker 1: a tree or something.
20:04
Speaker 2: That doesn't seem very dignified.
20:07
Speaker 1: Well, humans do tons of undignified things. We could Acclabate's true.
20:13
Speaker 1: But you know one thing you might have noticed is
20:15
Speaker 1: that reindeer don't have wings at all. That's right, Yeah,
20:20
Speaker 1: so what's going on with that? I can't think of
20:22
Speaker 1: any example of an animal that can fly with no wing.
20:27
Speaker 2: All right, So let's talk a little bit about the
20:29
Speaker 2: physics of reindeer flight. How is it possible to get
20:33
Speaker 2: in the air. All the examples you're giving us for
20:36
Speaker 2: how to get in the air involved having like really
20:38
Speaker 2: low density like birds we know have like hollow bones
20:42
Speaker 2: and bats really have minimal bones because you want to
20:45
Speaker 2: minimize the amount of mass you need to get in
20:47
Speaker 2: the air, and then some huge surface areas that you
20:50
Speaker 2: get lift. And we had a whole episode about how
20:53
Speaker 2: lift works. And you need either some angle of attack,
20:56
Speaker 2: so the Newtonian force pushes you up as the air
20:59
Speaker 2: particles put down, or you need some airfoil to create
21:02
Speaker 2: pressure difference in velocity difference, or you need both. So
21:06
Speaker 2: the physics of flight is quite complicated, but it always
21:08
Speaker 2: involves wings, right. Even insects have wings, even though their
21:12
Speaker 2: flight mechanics are completely different. So it's hard to imagine
21:17
Speaker 2: how a reindeer without any wings at all are going
21:20
Speaker 2: to get up in the air, right, Like, physics problem
21:24
Speaker 2: number one is, I don't think their bones are hollow.
21:26
Speaker 2: You know, they are made for like holding a lot
21:29
Speaker 2: of meat and running pretty fast on the ground. Reindeer
21:34
Speaker 2: running like thirty five miles per hour, you need some
21:36
Speaker 2: pretty strong bones for that. I have to hold the muscles.
21:38
Speaker 2: I did learn, however, that reindeer hair is hollow. So
21:43
Speaker 2: they're living cold places and for insulation, it's nice to have,
21:47
Speaker 2: you know, fluffy hair, and their hair is like little tubes,
21:52
Speaker 2: so it's very low density.
21:53
Speaker 1: That's great.
21:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's sort of like having the frosting
21:58
Speaker 2: without the cake because you got a much bigger problem
22:01
Speaker 2: to solve just getting the thing off the ground. And
22:03
Speaker 2: then there's the big question of the antlers, right, Like,
22:06
Speaker 2: you don't see a whole lot of flying things with
22:08
Speaker 2: heavy duty antlers. And there's a reason, right, Like what
22:12
Speaker 2: about the pterosaurs? Do they have like really big heads
22:16
Speaker 2: and pokey bones.
22:17
Speaker 1: I think they had like projections on their heads. I
22:21
Speaker 1: don't know what the point of those was. But they
22:24
Speaker 1: also had like giant weights, perhaps to offset stuff like that.
22:28
Speaker 2: So I was thinking, if I had to get a
22:30
Speaker 2: bunch of reindeer off the ground, how would I do it?
22:33
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, maybe we're looking in the wrong place.
22:37
Speaker 2: Maybe the physics of reindeer flying is actually about the sleigh,
22:41
Speaker 2: because you never see the reindeer flying by themselves. There's
22:44
Speaker 2: always reindeer plus sleigh. So I thought, maybe it's like
22:47
Speaker 2: asking how does a jet engine fly. It doesn't fly
22:50
Speaker 2: by itself, it flies with a wing. So I thought
22:52
Speaker 2: maybe we should take a more careful look at Santa's
22:55
Speaker 2: sleigh because potentially that could be like an airfoil. Think
22:58
Speaker 2: off Santa Slay as the wind and the reindeer as
23:01
Speaker 2: the engine. So they're running along the ground and maybe
23:04
Speaker 2: providing enough thrust so you get lyft off Santa's sleigh
23:08
Speaker 2: and then you can take off.
23:09
Speaker 1: What is that going to get you across the ocean
23:11
Speaker 1: like that might get you off the ground, but then
23:13
Speaker 1: those hooves become helpless.
23:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the physics doesn't really hold together. That
23:18
Speaker 2: was just like, can I even make a first step
23:21
Speaker 2: here towards somehow getting this thing in the air. There's
23:24
Speaker 2: some obvious problems there, Like number one, you're saying, how
23:28
Speaker 2: do you stay afloat? Right? Like reindeer they can run
23:31
Speaker 2: pretty fast, but then what do they do once they
23:34
Speaker 2: get into the air. Because they don't have wings, they
23:36
Speaker 2: can't paddle through the air. Though when you see a
23:39
Speaker 2: typical depiction, they're somehow still running through the air, Like,
23:42
Speaker 2: I don't know what they're supposed to be working on.
23:45
Speaker 2: Another big problem even with this idea is they got
23:47
Speaker 2: to be able to take off from a rooftop right,
23:50
Speaker 2: basically from a standstill. Yeah, and reindeer can run it
23:54
Speaker 2: like thirty five miles per hour, But they don't go
23:56
Speaker 2: from zero to thirty five miles per hour instantly, right,
23:59
Speaker 2: They take some time aim to accelerate. Even a reindeer
24:01
Speaker 2: can't survive like more than a few g or their
24:04
Speaker 2: insides will liquefy the same way humans would. And reindeer
24:09
Speaker 2: speeds are thirty five miles per hour. That's pretty fast,
24:11
Speaker 2: But jets need like one hundred and twenty one hundred
24:14
Speaker 2: and fifty miles per hour going over those airfoils or
24:17
Speaker 2: hitting the angle of attack to take off. So reindeer,
24:20
Speaker 2: I can't see how they could get up to high
24:22
Speaker 2: speeds or accelerate from the rooftop to get fast enough.
24:26
Speaker 2: The only thing that's left is, like, reindeer have kind
24:29
Speaker 2: of big ears. You know, maybe those ears could flap somehow.
24:33
Speaker 2: Maybe we're just like looking in the wrong place and
24:35
Speaker 2: all the magic is in the ears. So I did
24:37
Speaker 2: a little calculation to think if you treat the ears
24:41
Speaker 2: like wings, how fast would they have to flap to
24:43
Speaker 2: provide enough thrust? And the number I got, which I'm
24:46
Speaker 2: sure has a lot of uncertainty, is about thirty five
24:48
Speaker 2: thousand times per minute.
24:51
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I mean, does that take into account
24:53
Speaker 1: all the weight that they're pulling and the fact that
24:55
Speaker 1: they're teeny tiny with low surface area. No, okay, no, just.
24:58
Speaker 2: To take off the reindeer the I'm thinking like the
25:01
Speaker 2: reindeer version of a hummingbird here, like like it would
25:06
Speaker 2: be insane, and I think you would notice that happening.
25:09
Speaker 2: I don't see that in the depictions. So I did
25:12
Speaker 2: the best I could, but I couldn't get these reindeer
25:14
Speaker 2: off the rooftop no matter what I did. I just
25:18
Speaker 2: think the physics is not there.
25:20
Speaker 1: I mean, it wouldn't be a dKu episode if we
25:22
Speaker 1: didn't talk about aliens once or cannibalism, which we've somehow
25:25
Speaker 1: managed to miss. Do you think maybe Santa has access
25:28
Speaker 1: to some alien levitation technology or maybe this is where
25:32
Speaker 1: the magic comes in.
25:33
Speaker 2: It's certainly possible if you give yourself access to any
25:36
Speaker 2: sort of potential future human technology or alien technology across
25:40
Speaker 2: the galaxy, you might imagine that Santa is using anti
25:43
Speaker 2: gravity technology. I mean, fundamentally, we do not understand what
25:47
Speaker 2: gravity is or how it works. We have this wonderful
25:49
Speaker 2: theory of gravity general relativity that tells us that mass
25:53
Speaker 2: bends space and space tells mass how to move, and
25:56
Speaker 2: that this weird bending can cause things that look like
25:59
Speaker 2: forces to appear, which is what we call the force
26:01
Speaker 2: of gravity. So the space is bent near the Earth,
26:04
Speaker 2: which is why everything falls towards the center of the Earth.
26:07
Speaker 2: And in order to avoid falling towards the center of
26:09
Speaker 2: the Earth, you need to be accelerated up or outwards
26:12
Speaker 2: away from the center, which is what the surface of
26:14
Speaker 2: the Earth is doing. That's why it appears that things
26:17
Speaker 2: are moving under gravity when you're standing on the surface
26:20
Speaker 2: of the Earth. What's actually happening is you're accelerating against
26:23
Speaker 2: the natural force of gravity. That's a long way to
26:25
Speaker 2: say that maybe Santa has some technology that bends space
26:29
Speaker 2: itself so that he can create some pseudo force, basically
26:33
Speaker 2: anti gravity. And if you imagine, like the gravitation a
26:36
Speaker 2: well of the Earth, things would naturally be falling towards it.
26:40
Speaker 2: But a Santa can counteract the bending of space only
26:43
Speaker 2: in his local environment, so that he's not falling towards
26:46
Speaker 2: the center of the Earth. It would look like he's flying.
26:49
Speaker 2: You would look like there's some great force there. So
26:51
Speaker 2: potentially super advanced aliens or time traveling future humans might
26:56
Speaker 2: have access to space bending technology that to us would
27:01
Speaker 2: look like anti gravity basically levitation. So if we're gonna
27:04
Speaker 2: go for aliens, then that's my solution, Santa, the anti
27:07
Speaker 2: gravity alien.
27:09
Speaker 1: I feel like there's all kinds of things that we
27:11
Speaker 1: could learn from Santa if he would only come hang
27:12
Speaker 1: out with the rest of us a little bit more.
27:16
Speaker 1: Maybe our scientists holiday should just be when Santa visits
27:19
Speaker 1: and reveals all these secrets to us.
27:21
Speaker 2: I know he's mastered quantum computing, he's mastered anti gravity.
27:25
Speaker 2: Maybe he's figured out quantum gravity. Right, maybe Santa is
27:27
Speaker 2: a string theorist. Oh my gosh, Santa, please come on
27:30
Speaker 2: the podcast and explain physics to us.
27:33
Speaker 1: That would be great.
27:35
Speaker 2: You know, I was gonna say if anybody out there
27:37
Speaker 2: has a connection to Santa, but then I realized anybody
27:39
Speaker 2: can just write to Santa. So let's send a message
27:42
Speaker 2: to Santa and say what we want for Christmas is
27:44
Speaker 2: for him to come on the podcast and explain the
27:46
Speaker 2: universe to us.
27:47
Speaker 1: That sounds great. All right, Well, Santa, please get in
27:51
Speaker 1: touch with us. That's my only wish for Christmas. And
27:54
Speaker 1: let's take a break, and when we come back, let's
27:56
Speaker 1: talk about Rudolph's shiny nose. All right, and we're back.
28:16
Speaker 1: So our next task is to try to figure out
28:19
Speaker 1: how Rudolph's shiny nose shines. We've got a couple ideas here.
28:24
Speaker 1: So we discovered what we didn't personally discover. We discovered
28:27
Speaker 1: by doing a tiny bit of research that actually a
28:30
Speaker 1: lot of mammals are fluorescent, which means that when you
28:34
Speaker 1: shine black light on them, they sort of reflect that
28:36
Speaker 1: light back in a variety of different colors. So mammals
28:40
Speaker 1: are fluorescent. So Rudolph could maybe be fluorescent, but that's
28:44
Speaker 1: just reflecting light back and it's not producing light the
28:47
Speaker 1: way it feels like Rudolf's nose is supposed to be doing,
28:49
Speaker 1: so I think he's not fluorescent.
28:51
Speaker 2: The fluorescence is really interesting from a physics point of view.
28:54
Speaker 2: I mean, what's happening there is a little bit more
28:56
Speaker 2: complex than just reflection. You're absorbing that light, converting into energy,
29:00
Speaker 2: and then emitting light at a different wavelength, right, because
29:04
Speaker 2: you're absorbing ultraviolet light or something else and then emitting
29:07
Speaker 2: at a different wavelength. So it is fascinating, right, Fluorescence
29:10
Speaker 2: is not just reflection. It's amazing that it exists in
29:13
Speaker 2: so many animals and there's so many biological applications for it.
29:16
Speaker 2: Why do you think animals would have evolved this? Why
29:18
Speaker 2: is fluorescence a thing in an animal kingdom? Yeah?
29:20
Speaker 1: I don't think we have a great handle on this yet.
29:22
Speaker 1: I think in some cases it seems like it's to
29:25
Speaker 1: attract prey, and other cases it's to attract mates. I
29:28
Speaker 1: think there's probably also a subset of instances where the
29:32
Speaker 1: fluorescence doesn't really have any purpose. It's just kind of
29:36
Speaker 1: an accident. Like the pigment is, you know, I don't know,
29:39
Speaker 1: it's like red or something, and it's meant to signal
29:41
Speaker 1: other animals. But that red pigment also happens to fluoresce
29:45
Speaker 1: if it's hit with the right wavelength of light. And
29:47
Speaker 1: maybe that doesn't really happen in nature, but it happens
29:50
Speaker 1: in the lab. And so you know, in nature, maybe
29:52
Speaker 1: that fluorescence doesn't do anything because it just kind of
29:54
Speaker 1: doesn't come up that often. But I don't think we
29:56
Speaker 1: know why a lot of mammals are fluorescent, because I
29:58
Speaker 1: think we didn't realize it was until recently.
30:03
Speaker 2: I was looking at a picture of a bat under
30:05
Speaker 2: a black light and it's like fabulously blue. It's like, wow,
30:09
Speaker 2: maybe bats are like having a party this whole time,
30:12
Speaker 2: and they looked like they were colored in a boring
30:14
Speaker 2: way to us, But the reality is that they're spectacular.
30:17
Speaker 1: Bat ravees every night, I'm it.
30:21
Speaker 2: I also remember talking to a friend of mine here
30:23
Speaker 2: at U c Irvine who studies birds and vision and
30:26
Speaker 2: she discovered that a certain kind of bird called the
30:29
Speaker 2: blue tit, is actually emitting in the ultraviolet, and that
30:33
Speaker 2: the birds themselves can see the ultraviolet. And they only
30:36
Speaker 2: discovered this because they smeared some of these blue tits
30:39
Speaker 2: with vasiline, which blocks the ultraviolet, and when you do that,
30:42
Speaker 2: the otherwise very sexually successful tits were now totally ignored
30:47
Speaker 2: by all the females.
30:49
Speaker 1: Wow.
30:49
Speaker 2: So that means that the females were selecting the fabulously
30:53
Speaker 2: ultraviolet blue tits.
30:55
Speaker 1: That is incredible.
30:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:57
Speaker 1: There is an incredible chapter in Ed Young's book Immense World,
31:00
Speaker 1: all about different kinds of visions, and he points out
31:03
Speaker 1: that there's lots of animals that can see things that
31:06
Speaker 1: we can't see. And I found that both like absolutely
31:09
Speaker 1: amazing that there's so much as animal behaviorists that maybe
31:11
Speaker 1: we're missing when we study animal behavior because we just
31:14
Speaker 1: don't know what they're seeing, but also like a total
31:16
Speaker 1: bummer that there are colors that I will never see. Okay,
31:19
Speaker 1: so I think that these deer are not fluorescing, which
31:22
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Maybe they're fluorescing on top of it,
31:24
Speaker 1: but Rudolph's knows. My best guess is that it's bioluminescence,
31:30
Speaker 1: And so bioluminescence is a chemical reaction. So you get
31:34
Speaker 1: this thing called luciferin, and when it combines with oxygen,
31:38
Speaker 1: they produce something called oxyluciferin, and that reaction releases light.
31:43
Speaker 2: And luciferin as in lucifer.
31:46
Speaker 1: Luca is like a prefix that means something about light.
31:49
Speaker 2: Oh I see, yeah, yeah.
31:51
Speaker 1: So like fireflies, I believe that they've got like luciferin
31:55
Speaker 1: and oxygen like in similar places in their like butts,
31:59
Speaker 1: and then they release luciferase, and that's an enzyme that
32:02
Speaker 1: speeds up the chemical reaction and so it increases the
32:05
Speaker 1: amount of light that's visible. Some animals can do this,
32:08
Speaker 1: like fireflies, but there's also bacteria that can do this.
32:12
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of animals that bioluminess not because
32:15
Speaker 1: they're doing the reaction themselves, but because they harbor bacteria
32:19
Speaker 1: in these specialized organs, and the bacteria produce the bioluminescns.
32:23
Speaker 2: Oh that's very cool. Yeah, I love when you can't
32:26
Speaker 2: do it yourself you outsource it to microbes.
32:28
Speaker 1: Symbiosis. Pretty cool. How would this have evolved for Rudolph?
32:34
Speaker 1: One possibility is for camouflage. So we see a lot
32:39
Speaker 1: of bioluminescence happening in the ocean, and often it's being
32:43
Speaker 1: used at night. So the deal is, if you're an
32:45
Speaker 1: animal that's swimming around, you know, under the water surface
32:48
Speaker 1: in the ocean, the light reflects off the moon and
32:51
Speaker 1: into the water and it leaves little like trickles or
32:54
Speaker 1: streams of light coming through. And so if you as
32:56
Speaker 1: an animal moving around in the ocean, have to watch
32:59
Speaker 1: out because if you cast a shadow, then predators underneath
33:03
Speaker 1: you can see the shadow that you cast and then
33:06
Speaker 1: know that they can go to eat you. And so
33:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of animals that have either their own
33:11
Speaker 1: bioluminescence or they store organisms that release light in ways
33:16
Speaker 1: that mimics the way moonlight trickles down through the ocean.
33:20
Speaker 2: So that's fascinating because your intuition is if you want
33:22
Speaker 2: to hide, you should be dark. But if the background
33:25
Speaker 2: is shimmery, you actually want to be shimmery to blend
33:28
Speaker 2: in with the shimmery background, because otherwise your shadow makes
33:31
Speaker 2: you obvious.
33:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And so I think the most famous example
33:34
Speaker 1: of this are bobtail squid, and the bobtail squid have
33:38
Speaker 1: a compartment that stores these bioluminescing bacteria, and they feed
33:42
Speaker 1: the bacteria things like sugars and stuff to make them
33:44
Speaker 1: happy and keep them reproducing, and it casts enough light
33:48
Speaker 1: that sort of cancels out the shadow that's made by
33:51
Speaker 1: the squid. So this is like a famous symbiosis where
33:54
Speaker 1: squid and bacteria live together nicely. So it could be
33:58
Speaker 1: that maybe why so few of us see Santa's sleigh
34:02
Speaker 1: at night is because there's some bioluminescent tricks canceling out
34:06
Speaker 1: Santa's sleigh shadow. But I think maybe that's not what's happening,
34:11
Speaker 1: because the light is facing in the wrong direction, right.
34:14
Speaker 2: And also, we're talking about just one reindeer here, right,
34:17
Speaker 2: Rudolph is the only one with the shiny news. So
34:21
Speaker 2: not only do you have to explain how Rudolph evolved this,
34:23
Speaker 2: but how you have like a subset of reindeer with
34:25
Speaker 2: shiny noses and most of the population doesn't.
34:29
Speaker 1: I have concluded that Rudolph is probably a separate species.
34:33
Speaker 2: Oh, I see, all right, his.
34:35
Speaker 1: Species evolved this, but he may be the last one
34:39
Speaker 1: left of his species. Because no, this is tragic, I know,
34:42
Speaker 1: because another purpose of bioluminescence is to attract mates, and
34:46
Speaker 1: it just doesn't seem to be working for poor Rudolph.
34:49
Speaker 2: That's right.
34:50
Speaker 1: A final purpose for this bioluminescence is to attract prey.
34:55
Speaker 1: There's an interesting story with cookie cutter sharks where they've
34:59
Speaker 1: got this like on their abdomen where it kind of
35:02
Speaker 1: looks like the light sort of coming down through the ocean,
35:06
Speaker 1: but then there's a blank patch, and the hypothesis is
35:09
Speaker 1: that blank patch looks like a fish that's swimming above
35:13
Speaker 1: and is creating a shadow, but you're actually just looking
35:15
Speaker 1: at the belly of a cookie cutter shark. And so
35:18
Speaker 1: when a predator comes up, thinking it's gonna eat a fish,
35:22
Speaker 1: the cookie cutter shark quickly spins around and they take
35:26
Speaker 1: like a cookie cutter shaped chunk out of the animal
35:30
Speaker 1: and then they swim away really quick. So maybe Rudolph
35:34
Speaker 1: is predatory.
35:36
Speaker 2: What he's not a grass munching vegetarian like the other reindeer.
35:41
Speaker 1: It's unclear. It's unclear. So the question is, I guess,
35:45
Speaker 1: you know, is Rudolph another species or does he maybe
35:49
Speaker 1: just happen to have a weird bioluminescent bacterial infection in
35:53
Speaker 1: his nose? And so maybe he is the same species,
35:56
Speaker 1: it doesn't benefit him at all, and he just has
35:57
Speaker 1: this infection he can't clear.
35:59
Speaker 2: That could be certainly, It's amazing how these things happen, right, Like,
36:04
Speaker 2: obviously none of this is designed or organized. It means
36:08
Speaker 2: that sometime in history, like one of these squid or
36:10
Speaker 2: one of these shark like developed some infection and it
36:14
Speaker 2: turned out to be beneficial. Right that's crazy.
36:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, So an infection implies a negative outcome. So it
36:19
Speaker 1: could have been that these bioluminescing bacteria ended up invading
36:23
Speaker 1: some small part of the bobtail squid and they just
36:25
Speaker 1: lived there and didn't hurt the bobtail squid. But the
36:28
Speaker 1: ones who harbored the bacteria just did better, and over
36:31
Speaker 1: time it was better to have more bacteria, So some
36:33
Speaker 1: of them, you know, ended up feeding them with sugars.
36:35
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. It doesn't have to start negatively, but
36:37
Speaker 1: it could have, right.
36:39
Speaker 2: No, I don't even think about microbes negatively. I think
36:41
Speaker 2: I've just been propagandized by my wife who like helps
36:44
Speaker 2: me appreciate like basically microbes are essential for everything we
36:48
Speaker 2: do in every part of our lives. Like sterile humans
36:51
Speaker 2: just could not survive, right, and so we're totally colonized
36:55
Speaker 2: by all sorts of micros, bacteria and phages and all
36:58
Speaker 2: sorts of crazy stuff easing ecosystem that keeps us all going.
37:02
Speaker 2: But it's crazy when that changes, when you get colonized
37:05
Speaker 2: by new criter, which changes what you could accomplish. It
37:08
Speaker 2: makes me wonder, like why humans never learn to glow? Right?
37:12
Speaker 2: I can imagine some scenarios where all these stories you tell,
37:15
Speaker 2: I can imagine some scenario where it could apply to
37:17
Speaker 2: humans right, where we could attract prey, or we could
37:20
Speaker 2: camouflage better or something.
37:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I guess it's worth noting that most
37:24
Speaker 1: of the examples of animals that bioluminous are living in
37:28
Speaker 1: aquatic environments. It seems to be much more beneficial there. So, yes,
37:32
Speaker 1: we have fireflies, but they're pretty unique in their ability
37:34
Speaker 1: to buy iluminess on land. So it might be that
37:37
Speaker 1: the benefits on Earth are just not that big, which
37:39
Speaker 1: makes it even more surprising that Rudolph is able to
37:42
Speaker 1: do it.
37:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, though, there are lots of land creators that fluoresce, right,
37:46
Speaker 2: so like under a black light will glow cool colors
37:49
Speaker 2: or something. But humans know you got to wear a
37:50
Speaker 2: crazy T shirt for that at your next dance party.
37:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, Ah, the nineties were wild time.
37:56
Speaker 2: But speaking of lighting, there's another holiday that happens right
37:59
Speaker 2: around the same time of year. It's not just Christmas.
38:02
Speaker 2: So let's talk about the science of Honkkah, the festival
38:06
Speaker 2: of lights.
38:07
Speaker 1: That was a beautiful transition. Yes, let's do that. Tell
38:09
Speaker 1: me about the Honkah story. I did marry a Jewish man,
38:12
Speaker 1: so I'm familiar with it. But in case other people aren't.
38:15
Speaker 2: So the story of Honkkah, as most of the stories
38:18
Speaker 2: from the Old Testament center around battles, those lots of
38:21
Speaker 2: these battles, Jews were always getting involved in wars. And
38:25
Speaker 2: this is a battle between the Jews and the Maccabees
38:28
Speaker 2: over the temple. And it raged back and forth, and
38:31
Speaker 2: the Jews lost the temple and then recovered it and
38:34
Speaker 2: they won the battle. But in the end, when they
38:36
Speaker 2: got back into the temple, they found that most of
38:38
Speaker 2: the oil that they used to light the lamps. This
38:40
Speaker 2: is ali of oil in the original temple, which of
38:43
Speaker 2: course now destroyed, had been spoiled. And you know, this
38:47
Speaker 2: is like the center of Judaism, and so you need
38:49
Speaker 2: oil that's like pure and has been blessed in all
38:52
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. You can't use spoiled oil. And
38:55
Speaker 2: they only had a little bit of oil left. They
38:57
Speaker 2: had oil enough to keep the lamps going for one day,
39:00
Speaker 2: and it's essential, so you keep the lamps burning. And
39:03
Speaker 2: it takes about eight days to make more oil, to
39:06
Speaker 2: press it and purify it and bless it and all
39:08
Speaker 2: this stuff. So the pipeline is eight days long. It's
39:10
Speaker 2: been interrupted. You have one day supply. So they're like, uh, oh,
39:14
Speaker 2: we got to get these lamps going, but there's no
39:16
Speaker 2: way they're going to last eight days. And so the
39:18
Speaker 2: miracle of Honkkah is somehow a one day supply of
39:21
Speaker 2: oil lasted for eight days. It lasted until they could
39:25
Speaker 2: get a fresh supply, and so the lamp never went out.
39:28
Speaker 1: Amazing. And just to be clear, and it's not being
39:30
Speaker 1: used for cooking or for heating. It's being used for
39:32
Speaker 1: religious purposes and lighting.
39:35
Speaker 2: Up the temple. Yeah, it's a ritual essentially, it's like
39:37
Speaker 2: the eternal flame, right, Okay, got it. Got And so
39:40
Speaker 2: even before we dig into like the miracle of Honkkah,
39:43
Speaker 2: I've always been amazed at the technology of lamps like,
39:48
Speaker 2: it's kind of incredible. You have this fuel you want
39:51
Speaker 2: to burn, but you want to burn it a little
39:53
Speaker 2: bit at a time, so you have a low, consistent glow.
39:57
Speaker 2: And there is this amazing bit of technology which it
40:00
Speaker 2: comes to us from the ancient world, which is the wick.
40:03
Speaker 2: You don't want to just like set your oil ablaze
40:06
Speaker 2: because just like all burn out and pollute the indoors
40:09
Speaker 2: and you won't have a lighting for very long. So
40:11
Speaker 2: they have this incredible technology of the wick, which essentially
40:14
Speaker 2: pulls a little bit of fuel from your main supply
40:17
Speaker 2: and burns only a little bit at a time, giving
40:20
Speaker 2: you a constant glow. And it's so simple. It's basically
40:22
Speaker 2: just you put a string in your fuel. It's one
40:25
Speaker 2: of these genius bits of technology that must have been.
40:28
Speaker 1: A huge improvement in quality of life when that was
40:31
Speaker 1: figured out. Like being able to read all night by
40:34
Speaker 1: the light of a lamp as opposed to just needing
40:36
Speaker 1: to pick and choose, when you're going to be able
40:38
Speaker 1: to burn your big supply of oil all at once.
40:40
Speaker 2: That sounds incredible, It is incredible, and it's something that
40:42
Speaker 2: humans have been doing for thousands of years. We're telling
40:45
Speaker 2: a story from the Old Testament, so it's a couple
40:46
Speaker 2: thousand years old. But wick technology has been found by
40:49
Speaker 2: archaeologists dating back at least three thousand BC. Right, so
40:53
Speaker 2: the ancient Egyptians used wicks. This is something people figured
40:56
Speaker 2: out a long long time ago, and probably independently. We
41:00
Speaker 2: think that the Chinese used rice paper to create wicks
41:03
Speaker 2: and made wax out of insects and seeds and all
41:05
Speaker 2: sorts of stuff. So this is like kind of ingenious
41:08
Speaker 2: but also fairly simple, and so people discovered a long
41:12
Speaker 2: time ago.
41:12
Speaker 1: We are a pretty clever species. So is one possibility
41:16
Speaker 1: then that when they came back into the temple and
41:19
Speaker 1: they noticed that a lot of the oil had gone bad,
41:22
Speaker 1: they switched to using wicks and it used it more efficiently.
41:26
Speaker 1: Or that's not the miracle.
41:28
Speaker 2: No, they were using wicks the whole time. Yeah, absolutely,
41:31
Speaker 2: wick technology was pretty well established at that point. I
41:33
Speaker 2: also love the word wick because the word tells you
41:37
Speaker 2: what it does. Right, Like everybody's familiar with like fancy
41:40
Speaker 2: shirts that wick the sweat away from your body, right,
41:43
Speaker 2: that's what wick means. It like slurps up the liquid.
41:46
Speaker 2: It's wicking the liquid. Anyway, That's enough about the science
41:50
Speaker 2: of wicks. They're sort of incredible. So then let's dig
41:53
Speaker 2: into the miracle of it, right, how could you possibly
41:55
Speaker 2: use science to make your lamp burn longer than you
41:59
Speaker 2: have a fuel supply for? And the crucial thing is
42:02
Speaker 2: you have to keep it burning the same brightness. You
42:03
Speaker 2: can't just like turn it down and be like, oh,
42:05
Speaker 2: I'm going to make it last for eight days by
42:07
Speaker 2: having it be an eighth as bright. You got to
42:09
Speaker 2: keep it as bright and somehow get more energy out
42:12
Speaker 2: of it. Right, And so unless you're going to say like, oh,
42:15
Speaker 2: there was fusion happening or some other sort of energy
42:19
Speaker 2: source to pull additional energy out of the fuel, seems
42:23
Speaker 2: pretty implausible. The only thing I could think of, and
42:26
Speaker 2: I'm basically going back to the same Santa miracle, is
42:29
Speaker 2: somehow bending of space and time. Because we know that
42:32
Speaker 2: there is a way in physics to have time slow down. If,
42:37
Speaker 2: for example, I sent Kelly in orbit near a black hole,
42:41
Speaker 2: I will see her clocks running slow, and she'll see
42:43
Speaker 2: my clocks running more quickly. And so, for example, if
42:47
Speaker 2: I could create a special bending of space in the
42:51
Speaker 2: vicinity of these lamps, I could slow down time for
42:54
Speaker 2: the lamps and then far away from the lamps, even
42:56
Speaker 2: a few meters, I would observe clocks running slowly. So
43:01
Speaker 2: essentially one day for the lamp would be like eight
43:04
Speaker 2: days for me.
43:05
Speaker 1: And during that time you were making new oil.
43:09
Speaker 2: During that time, I was making new oil. And so
43:11
Speaker 2: this requires you to like somehow know how to bend
43:14
Speaker 2: space and time. But you know, if we're gonna give
43:16
Speaker 2: Santa that power, then we can give the ancient Jews
43:18
Speaker 2: that power. Also. There are some wrinkles here though, because
43:23
Speaker 2: if the clock is running slower, you would argue that
43:26
Speaker 2: it's also producing photons less often, and so technically you'd
43:30
Speaker 2: be getting photons at one eighth the rate. You know,
43:33
Speaker 2: It's sort of like if you're getting a video stream
43:36
Speaker 2: from a spaceship going near the speed of light? Are
43:38
Speaker 2: you getting those frames at the same rate that they're
43:41
Speaker 2: being produced? Does it look slow motion to you? You
43:43
Speaker 2: could go down a whole rabbit hole here the science
43:46
Speaker 2: of Hanukkah. Basically there's no way to really make it work.
43:49
Speaker 2: But that's the best I could come up with.
43:51
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it was a noble attempt, I think, yeah.
43:55
Speaker 2: And you know, though it's fun to use these as
43:57
Speaker 2: a launching off place to talk about science and how
43:59
Speaker 2: you accomplish these things. We all recognize the point of
44:02
Speaker 2: these stories is not to have a scientific explanation their
44:06
Speaker 2: mythology and their nice stories to tell about our history
44:09
Speaker 2: and to have traditions and to all gather together over
44:12
Speaker 2: the holidays and enjoy time with our families. So we
44:15
Speaker 2: don't mean to try to ruin these things for you
44:17
Speaker 2: by trying to turn them into science. We just mean
44:19
Speaker 2: to use them as a fun place to have science
44:21
Speaker 2: conversations on these topics.
44:23
Speaker 1: That's right. The miraculous nature of these stories is what
44:25
Speaker 1: makes them so exciting to tell the kids.
44:29
Speaker 2: Exactly, and having stories in common is what makes us human.
44:31
Speaker 2: And so everybody out there, hope you enjoyed this little
44:34
Speaker 2: dose of science and then you enjoy your time with
44:37
Speaker 2: your family on the holidays.
44:38
Speaker 1: Happy holidays everyone. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced
44:49
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44:52
Speaker 1: We really would.
44:53
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44:56
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe.
44:58
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45:04
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45:04
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45:08
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45:11
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45:20
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