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Did NASA discover a parallel Universe? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you read science articles in the popular press?
0:12
Speaker 1: You know, I can't help myself because I love hearing
0:15
Speaker 1: about new science discoveries, but I always read them with
0:18
Speaker 1: a big grain of salt. You don't trust him well?
0:21
Speaker 1: You know, Sometimes I read an article where I actually
0:23
Speaker 1: know the science really well, and often I strongly disagree
0:27
Speaker 1: with how it's presented. And by often you mean always know.
0:31
Speaker 1: There are some great science journalists out there, but I
0:35
Speaker 1: guess I mean general you don't have a lot of
0:37
Speaker 1: confidence in science journalists. I mean sometimes you read these
0:40
Speaker 1: popular science articles that are just totally bonkers, like the
0:44
Speaker 1: headline scientists discover the universe is filled with invisible dark matter. Okay,
0:49
Speaker 1: that one's actually pretty good. Or physics discovers a new
0:52
Speaker 1: forced tearing the universe apart. All right. It sounds like
0:54
Speaker 1: clickbait but also true. Oh man, then how do I
0:57
Speaker 1: tell the difference? I guess you have to email us
1:00
Speaker 1: and we'll break it down for you on the podcast.
1:02
Speaker 1: Like they I am or Hey, I'm a cartoonist and
1:20
Speaker 1: the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a
1:24
Speaker 1: particle physicist, and I'll admit to gritting my teeth while
1:27
Speaker 1: reading popular science article excitement. You just read it and
1:29
Speaker 1: you're so excited you clench your draw No, not always
1:32
Speaker 1: out of excitement. Sometimes I see a headline and I think,
1:35
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, how could they even write that? What
1:38
Speaker 1: if it's something you don't know, are not familiar with. Well,
1:41
Speaker 1: then you know, I have to extrapolate, and I say, well,
1:43
Speaker 1: if I know that it's bonkers half the time, then
1:45
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that this is a bonker's article.
1:48
Speaker 1: And so I had to write to a friend of
1:50
Speaker 1: mine who is an expert in that area and say,
1:52
Speaker 1: how bonkers is this? I see it's bonkers until proven otherwise.
1:57
Speaker 1: That's my general philosophy. That's our general podcast. Welcome to
2:02
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explained the Universe, a production of I
2:05
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, in which we explore the bonkers nature of
2:09
Speaker 1: the universe, some of it true, some of it clickbait,
2:12
Speaker 1: and we break it down for you. We want you
2:14
Speaker 1: to understand the truth about our crazy, amazing, wonderful, beautiful
2:19
Speaker 1: universe without resorting to silly science journalism. Well, I guess
2:24
Speaker 1: it's tricky, because you know, sometimes the universe is kind
2:26
Speaker 1: of bonkers, right, So I guess the question it's more about,
2:30
Speaker 1: you know, telling the difference between things that are maybe
2:33
Speaker 1: overblown and what scientists actually discover. Yeah, and as a
2:37
Speaker 1: lay person, how can you tell the difference, Because there
2:39
Speaker 1: really are things that science has discovered that are hard
2:42
Speaker 1: to understand, that are hard to take seriously. I mean,
2:45
Speaker 1: the universe is billions of years old and began with
2:48
Speaker 1: a huge explosion. I mean, it's ridiculous. There are pockets
2:51
Speaker 1: of space out there that light cannot even escape and
2:55
Speaker 1: can eat any kind of matter. I mean it sounds
2:57
Speaker 1: absurd and made up, but some of it is true.
3:00
Speaker 1: Sometimes we pay people to sit around and drink coffee
3:03
Speaker 1: and smash particles together. That's that's bonkers as well. Now
3:07
Speaker 1: you're being ridiculous. Come on, I heard it happens in Geneva.
3:11
Speaker 1: That's not a job. Come on, I guess it's like
3:15
Speaker 1: podcasting to miss No. I feel very fortunate to be
3:21
Speaker 1: able to smash particles together to try to reveal the
3:23
Speaker 1: secrets of the universe, and we take our responsibility very
3:26
Speaker 1: seriously on this podcast to explain the science to you
3:29
Speaker 1: in a way that actually makes sense and doesn't overhype
3:32
Speaker 1: the already amazing discoveries of science. Yeah, So to be
3:35
Speaker 1: on the program, we'll be discussing a recent article in
3:38
Speaker 1: the popular press that has some apparently pretty bonkers results
3:43
Speaker 1: from none other than NASA. That's right. And this is
3:46
Speaker 1: an article that went all around the Internet and readers
3:49
Speaker 1: from all over the world asked us what is this real?
3:52
Speaker 1: Made a lot of noise on Twitter and on the
3:54
Speaker 1: rest of the internets, and so we thought to be
3:56
Speaker 1: useful to break it down for you, to tell you
3:58
Speaker 1: what actually happened, why it really is fascinating scientifically, but
4:02
Speaker 1: why the clickbait headlines may have gone a step too far.
4:05
Speaker 1: What does a lot of noise and Twitter sound like?
4:07
Speaker 1: Is it like click click, click, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp,
4:11
Speaker 1: chirp chirp, unlike unlike like like retweet retweeting. There's not
4:16
Speaker 1: a hate button is there on Twitter? There's I think
4:19
Speaker 1: there's enough hate on Twitter already. I don't think you
4:22
Speaker 1: need the extra buttons there. But yes, today we'll be
4:26
Speaker 1: talking about an article that came out in several outlets.
4:30
Speaker 1: For example, in New Scientists magazine, there was a headline
4:33
Speaker 1: we may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time. Boom, Wow,
4:40
Speaker 1: that's a lot of um, that's a lot of words
4:42
Speaker 1: in one sentence that makes you think, what, Yeah, yeah,
4:45
Speaker 1: I know, whow apparel universe could exist? What it goes
4:48
Speaker 1: backwards in time backwards? And what we spotted it? Oh
4:51
Speaker 1: my gosh, there's so much there, right, It's incredible. Yeah.
4:56
Speaker 1: And the Daily Star, the newspaper, says, a parallel universe
5:01
Speaker 1: right next to ours where all the rules of physics
5:03
Speaker 1: seemed to be operating in reverse, and now it's next
5:06
Speaker 1: to us, apparently right next to ours. It could be
5:09
Speaker 1: like in your pocket or you know, sitting at that
5:12
Speaker 1: next table in the cafe or something. It's adjacent, it's nearby,
5:16
Speaker 1: it's im right beyond your reach. And I don't know
5:19
Speaker 1: what happened on the internet that day, but this just
5:21
Speaker 1: really took off. It got zillions of likes, It was
5:24
Speaker 1: retweeted by everybody, and then newspaper after newspaper reported this claim,
5:28
Speaker 1: and so it's spread everywhere and a lot of people
5:31
Speaker 1: heard about it. Yeah, and so a lot of readers
5:33
Speaker 1: asked us to break this down. And so today on
5:36
Speaker 1: the podcast, we'll be asking the question, didn't NASA discover
5:45
Speaker 1: a parallel universe? Maybe in a parallel universe they did.
5:49
Speaker 1: Maybe a parallel universe discovered us. Maybe, yeah, there you go.
5:53
Speaker 1: Maybe we're the evil twins. Daniel, how's your gotee growing up?
5:58
Speaker 1: I guess it's sort of like alien question, like would
6:01
Speaker 1: you rather a parallel universe discover us, which means they're
6:04
Speaker 1: probably better at science than we are, or that we
6:06
Speaker 1: discover them? What do you think you're the one trying
6:09
Speaker 1: to discover these parallel universes? Well, I love they discovered
6:12
Speaker 1: us because we're not capable of discovering them. On the
6:15
Speaker 1: other hand, the people getting discovered don't usually fare very
6:18
Speaker 1: well in these scenarios, So I'd love to be discovered
6:22
Speaker 1: by an intelligent, benevolent parallel universe. You'd rather be the
6:26
Speaker 1: conquist the physicist than the confiscated. No, I do not
6:34
Speaker 1: want to be officially aligned with conquistadors on this program. No,
6:38
Speaker 1: thank you. Well, So a lot of people wrote to
6:40
Speaker 1: us asking us to break this down and talk about
6:43
Speaker 1: it and see what's real and not real about it.
6:46
Speaker 1: So before we dug into it, I went out into
6:48
Speaker 1: the Internet and asked random people if they had heard
6:50
Speaker 1: about this article and what they thought about it. So,
6:53
Speaker 1: before you listen, to these answers. Think about it for
6:54
Speaker 1: a second. Have you heard of NASA discovering a parallel universe?
6:59
Speaker 1: Here's what people had to say. I have been stuck
7:03
Speaker 1: inside due to the coronavirus, so I have been reading
7:06
Speaker 1: that much news. Um So, honestly, I don't know the
7:09
Speaker 1: answer to that one. I have not heard if if
7:12
Speaker 1: they did, that would be amazing. I'm going to say
7:15
Speaker 1: no because I think this would be all over the
7:18
Speaker 1: news if it happened. And I also don't think we
7:21
Speaker 1: have any way to probe another universe. I have no idea.
7:28
Speaker 1: What that's a reference to you? I have no idea.
7:31
Speaker 1: I sort of doubt it. I have not heard that. Well, no,
7:38
Speaker 1: how would you discover a parallel universe? I don't think so.
7:44
Speaker 1: I really I really don't think they did, But I'd
7:47
Speaker 1: like I hope that they did, because I would really
7:50
Speaker 1: love it. From my understanding of multiverse theories, there's nothing
7:55
Speaker 1: preventing there from being other universes. It might even be probable. However,
8:01
Speaker 1: we don't have a way currently to do an experiment
8:05
Speaker 1: to prove it. All right, it seems that not a
8:08
Speaker 1: lot of people are on Twitter. Maybe a lot of
8:09
Speaker 1: these people were not on Twitter or the Internet, or
8:12
Speaker 1: maybe our listeners just read better sources of science news
8:16
Speaker 1: than the New Scientists and the Daily Star. Yeah, it
8:20
Speaker 1: aren't those like the tabloids of science writing. You know,
8:25
Speaker 1: we've talked about the New Scientists in the past. They
8:28
Speaker 1: have an article promoting the e M Drive the Impossible Drive,
8:32
Speaker 1: which also in that case hyped up the claims of
8:35
Speaker 1: some scientists associated with NASA, and I think probably created
8:39
Speaker 1: a lot of misunderstanding. So we've been a little harder
8:41
Speaker 1: than in the past. They have some great articles. We've
8:44
Speaker 1: even been to their show. Remember we did n S
8:46
Speaker 1: Live in the UK a couple of years ago. They
8:48
Speaker 1: did a lot of great work promoting science, but sometimes
8:51
Speaker 1: you know, they need to rein it in. Well. So
8:54
Speaker 1: there's this apparently this experiment that is organized and run
8:58
Speaker 1: by NASA that apparently did this. There were some interesting things,
9:01
Speaker 1: or at least saw some promising things that are related
9:03
Speaker 1: to neutrinos. That's right. There really is a super fascinating
9:07
Speaker 1: discovery by an experiment on the South Pole that we
9:10
Speaker 1: cannot currently explain. And so that's a wonderful opportunity in
9:14
Speaker 1: physics to learn something new, and it makes some big discovery,
9:18
Speaker 1: and so it's totally worth digging into and understanding how
9:21
Speaker 1: it works, what they saw, and what it really could
9:24
Speaker 1: mean for physics, whether or not you believe in parallel universes.
9:27
Speaker 1: All right, so let's break it down, Daniel. So this
9:29
Speaker 1: is a real experiment that's happening in the South Pole
9:32
Speaker 1: in an Antarctica, and it's called ANITA, or at least
9:36
Speaker 1: the acronym for it is ANITA. Yeah, it's called ANITA.
9:39
Speaker 1: And the awesome thing is that it's not actually happening
9:41
Speaker 1: in the South Pole, is happening above the South Pole.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's a balloon experiment. What you can't be above the
9:48
Speaker 1: South Pole, you can only be below the South Pole, Daniel. Okay,
9:52
Speaker 1: right right, that's your Northern hemisphere biased speaking right there. Man.
9:56
Speaker 1: I'm I'm an upright ist. Yeah. But what does it
9:59
Speaker 1: stand for? ANITA A N I T A. I'm gonna
10:01
Speaker 1: guess amazing neutrino interferometer trans supporting anions. That's not terrible.
10:10
Speaker 1: Actually it stands for Antarctic impulsive transient antend. Oh no,
10:17
Speaker 1: did they really cheat on the acronym And the end
10:20
Speaker 1: is actually part of Antarctic. I would have gone for
10:24
Speaker 1: Aida too. That's a pretty good name. That sounds like
10:27
Speaker 1: an opera. Yeah, well this is sort of a science
10:29
Speaker 1: opera here going on here because they did discover something
10:33
Speaker 1: because they were looking for neutrinos. Yeah, and it's an
10:35
Speaker 1: amazing experiment because it hovers above the South Pole's not
10:39
Speaker 1: something they built like in a facility at the South Pole.
10:43
Speaker 1: It flies on a balloon like forty kilometers above the
10:47
Speaker 1: South Pole. Like imagine you're a graduate student. You developed
10:50
Speaker 1: this complicated, expensive, delicate piece of electronics and then you
10:53
Speaker 1: attach it to a balloon and just send it up
10:55
Speaker 1: into the sky. Well again, I should correct, it's floating
10:59
Speaker 1: below a southpool. Thank you for keeping me honest. I
11:03
Speaker 1: really appreciate the fact checking me straight here. And and
11:08
Speaker 1: also science on a balloon, I mean, how fun is that?
11:10
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Yeah, but you know, if you're a
11:12
Speaker 1: graduate student and you spend years building this thing and
11:14
Speaker 1: then it just crashes, like you're out of luck. So
11:17
Speaker 1: it's pretty risky. But it's an awesome experiment. And this
11:20
Speaker 1: is an experiment that's trying to understand one of the
11:23
Speaker 1: big mysteries of astro particle physics, which is basically like
11:27
Speaker 1: who is shooting crazy high energy particles at us from space. Right.
11:32
Speaker 1: We've covered this before in our podcast, And the Earth
11:35
Speaker 1: is getting pelted by cosmic super high energy costmic grace
11:38
Speaker 1: and we don't know where they're coming from. They're too
11:40
Speaker 1: high energy to be coming from the Sun. That's right,
11:42
Speaker 1: they're definitely not coming from the Sun. We don't see
11:45
Speaker 1: any point source in the sky. We can look around
11:47
Speaker 1: to see where they're coming from, and we don't see
11:49
Speaker 1: them coming from just one spot. And they're ridiculously high energy.
11:53
Speaker 1: Nothing we know of in the universe is capable of
11:56
Speaker 1: making particles of this high energy, and yet we see them.
11:59
Speaker 1: So it's all really a great opportunity to learn something new.
12:03
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing is like where are they coming from?
12:06
Speaker 1: And these particles can be protons, that can be iron,
12:09
Speaker 1: nuclear actially, all sorts of crazy things. But one really
12:12
Speaker 1: cool idea is to look for really high energy neutrinos.
12:16
Speaker 1: There's Neutrinos are these really weird, little whispy particles that
12:19
Speaker 1: have no electric charge and hardly interact, and they're really
12:22
Speaker 1: good for doing this kind of physics because it means
12:25
Speaker 1: they point right back to what made them. They don't
12:27
Speaker 1: bend at all in magnetic fields, and so neutrinos are
12:30
Speaker 1: part of the cosmic rays that are hitting us. It's
12:32
Speaker 1: not just like protons and and course and stuff being
12:36
Speaker 1: sent as is whatever it's making these is also sathing neutrinos. Well,
12:39
Speaker 1: that's the question, is are we seeing also super high
12:42
Speaker 1: energy neutrinos. If so, that might give us another clue
12:46
Speaker 1: to tell us, like what could be out there creating
12:48
Speaker 1: these things? Is there an alien particle physics factory pumping
12:52
Speaker 1: out high energy particles? Are the only making protons? Gives
12:55
Speaker 1: a sunburned or something? We would be their motivation? Well,
12:58
Speaker 1: who knows what I do understand aliens? I certainly don't.
13:01
Speaker 1: But every time you look at the sky, you want
13:03
Speaker 1: to look at it in lots of different spectrum. You
13:05
Speaker 1: want to see what are the X ray, what is
13:06
Speaker 1: the visible light, what is the infrared? So this is
13:09
Speaker 1: in the same category. It says, let's look at the
13:11
Speaker 1: cosmic ray sky using neutrinos because they don't bend, and
13:15
Speaker 1: it's like another way to look at But I guess
13:17
Speaker 1: we're also getting showered by neutrinos from the sun, Like
13:19
Speaker 1: the Sun produces a lot of neutrinos and we're getting
13:21
Speaker 1: hit by a ton of them here. We're looking for
13:23
Speaker 1: them coming from a different direction or something. That's right.
13:26
Speaker 1: The Sun pumps out huge numbers of neutrinos, like you're
13:29
Speaker 1: hit with a hundred billion neutrinos per square centimeter per
13:33
Speaker 1: second all the time. So it's an incredible number. But
13:37
Speaker 1: those come from the Sun, and we can tell the
13:39
Speaker 1: direction of these particles. So we're looking like out into
13:42
Speaker 1: space to see if they're coming from anywhere else. And
13:44
Speaker 1: the ones from the Sun are not nearly as high
13:47
Speaker 1: energy as the one that we're looking for. We're looking
13:49
Speaker 1: for super duper high energy neutrinos, not just the ones
13:53
Speaker 1: coming from the Sun. Oh I see. So that it
13:55
Speaker 1: is that if something is making high energy particles and
13:58
Speaker 1: shooting them at us, there maybe probably also shooting neutrinos
14:02
Speaker 1: along the way, and if so, they would have the
14:05
Speaker 1: same sort of high energy and also maybe would preserve
14:08
Speaker 1: the direction. That's right, And that's the question. Whatever is
14:10
Speaker 1: this mysterious source of cosmic rays? Is it also making
14:13
Speaker 1: super high energy neutrinos? Let's look and and you never know. Right, Wow,
14:19
Speaker 1: that's a big question. It is a big question. Yeah,
14:22
Speaker 1: it seems like a small question for which you would
14:25
Speaker 1: need a lot of the quiment to measure. And you know,
14:27
Speaker 1: there's a history of discovery there, like when people first
14:30
Speaker 1: looked at the sky in the X ray, they found
14:33
Speaker 1: all sorts of things that were really bright in X
14:35
Speaker 1: rays but dark invisible light, Like the first black hole
14:39
Speaker 1: was spotted that way. We should do a whole podcast
14:41
Speaker 1: episode on that. So you might see in the sky
14:43
Speaker 1: in neutrinos really bright sources that don't line up with
14:46
Speaker 1: anything else, and that could be a clue. So like, oh,
14:48
Speaker 1: there's a new thing in the universe. So it's always
14:51
Speaker 1: exciting to look out in the universe using a new
14:53
Speaker 1: set of eyeballs, all right, So then this they set
14:55
Speaker 1: up this experiment in Antarctica that uses a balloon and
14:59
Speaker 1: it uses the eye from Antarctica. Right, that's why you
15:02
Speaker 1: need the balloon to sort of look at all the ice.
15:04
Speaker 1: That's right, because neutrinos are really hard to spot, right,
15:06
Speaker 1: They fly through a lot of material and don't interact,
15:09
Speaker 1: and so essentially we use the whole earth and the
15:12
Speaker 1: ice in Antarctica as our detector. And one thing that's
15:16
Speaker 1: really important to understand is you may have heard of
15:18
Speaker 1: neutrinos flying through like a light year of lead and
15:20
Speaker 1: not interacting. That's true for neutrinos from the Sun at
15:24
Speaker 1: a certain energy, but as neutrinos get the higher and
15:27
Speaker 1: higher energy, they tend to interact more. And we can
15:30
Speaker 1: dig into why that is a little bit later. But
15:32
Speaker 1: what these things are looking for is neutrinos flying through
15:36
Speaker 1: the Earth, so upwards through the Earth. I guess downwards, right,
15:40
Speaker 1: since we're on the North Pole. I am so upside
15:42
Speaker 1: down here. But they're they're coming from the Sun through
15:44
Speaker 1: the Earth, and they're popping out of Antarctica. They're not
15:47
Speaker 1: coming from the Sun. They're coming from somewhere else, somewhere
15:50
Speaker 1: in space. They go through the Earth and they go
15:53
Speaker 1: through the ice and Antarctica, and when they go through
15:55
Speaker 1: the ice, which is like one or two kilometers thick,
15:58
Speaker 1: they make a chirp in radio frequency electromagnetic waves because
16:02
Speaker 1: they hit something and then they split up. That's right,
16:06
Speaker 1: they hit something, they interact with the nucleus and then
16:08
Speaker 1: it causes this cascade of electrons and positrons which make
16:12
Speaker 1: this a little brief, essentially chirp in the radio frequency spectrum.
16:16
Speaker 1: And the reason that ice is important is that ice
16:18
Speaker 1: is transparent, Like if you make this chirp in the ice,
16:21
Speaker 1: it will propagate through the ice and then you can
16:23
Speaker 1: see it above the ice. If it makes this chirp
16:26
Speaker 1: like in deep rock, then it just gets absorbed. So
16:29
Speaker 1: you needed a big slab of something which will make
16:32
Speaker 1: it chirp and also propagate those chirps. So you thought Antarctica,
16:37
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ice there, better use it before
16:39
Speaker 1: it goes away. Yeah, exactly, Like where else can you
16:42
Speaker 1: get a one mile thick sheet of ice. It's pretty incredible.
16:47
Speaker 1: And so then they look for these chirps. But you know,
16:49
Speaker 1: if you just put a detector on the surface and
16:51
Speaker 1: look down, you can only see a tiny little bit
16:53
Speaker 1: of ice. So the higher you are, the more ice
16:56
Speaker 1: you can visualize. So that's why they put this thing
16:59
Speaker 1: on a balloon and fly like forts above the ice
17:03
Speaker 1: looking for these signals coming out of the ice from
17:06
Speaker 1: neutrinos that are flying through the earth and coming out
17:09
Speaker 1: through the end. Okay, so then really what's on the
17:12
Speaker 1: balloon is just kind of a camera, So it's just
17:14
Speaker 1: taking pictures of the ice looking for these neutrino collisions.
17:17
Speaker 1: That's right, And it's a special kind of camera. You know,
17:19
Speaker 1: there really are radio frequency antennas, and that's why the
17:23
Speaker 1: experiment is called transient antenna. Transient because it's not up
17:27
Speaker 1: there all the time, and they're looking also transient because
17:30
Speaker 1: the signals are transient, and because they're using an antenna
17:32
Speaker 1: as a form of a camera. You know, they have
17:34
Speaker 1: a bunch of these antennas, so they can essentially take
17:36
Speaker 1: a picture of the ice in this radio frequency spectrum. Cool.
17:40
Speaker 1: All right, Well let's get a little bit into what
17:43
Speaker 1: the experiment is actually looking for and how it's looking
17:46
Speaker 1: for it, and whether or not they discovered a parallel universe.
17:50
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, Daniel,
18:05
Speaker 1: we're talking about whether NASA discovered a parallel universe, is
18:08
Speaker 1: headlines recently seemed to say out loud, And so it
18:13
Speaker 1: just has to do with the experiment called Anita. That's
18:16
Speaker 1: a balloon floating above the Antarctic taking pictures of the
18:19
Speaker 1: ice looking for neutrinos hi, not just neutrinos, high energy
18:23
Speaker 1: neutrina that's right. And they've been running this thing for
18:27
Speaker 1: almost a couple of decades now. Like they build it,
18:30
Speaker 1: they launch it, it flies up there for like thirty
18:32
Speaker 1: to forty days essentially until it runs out of helium
18:36
Speaker 1: and then it comes back down. Really, it's been going
18:38
Speaker 1: for several decades. Yeah, well they have that, you know,
18:40
Speaker 1: they need to rebuild it every time. So they had
18:43
Speaker 1: a run in two thousand and six, and then had
18:44
Speaker 1: another run in two thousand nine, and they did one
18:47
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen. What do you what do you
18:49
Speaker 1: mean the balloon doesn't last? No, you can't have a
18:51
Speaker 1: balloon up there forever. Eventually the helium leaks out and
18:53
Speaker 1: the thing comes back down to Earth. But eventually the
18:56
Speaker 1: balloon comes down and it runs for a long time.
18:59
Speaker 1: It runs on solar power. That hangs up there for
19:02
Speaker 1: like thirty or forty days collecting data. All Right, they're
19:05
Speaker 1: up there. They're taking pictures of the ice and they're
19:07
Speaker 1: looking for high energy neutrino collisions. So I guess, let's
19:11
Speaker 1: maybe dig a little bit into the signs. And so,
19:14
Speaker 1: why are neutrinos more likely to hit things if they're
19:16
Speaker 1: going faster. It seems like it should be the opposite. Yeah,
19:19
Speaker 1: So what they're looking for a really high energy neutrinos, right,
19:23
Speaker 1: And they saw something really weird is that they saw
19:25
Speaker 1: neutrinos that are super duper high energy. And these are
19:28
Speaker 1: fascinating because, as you say, they're actually more likely to
19:31
Speaker 1: stop and being into something than slower neutrinos. And the
19:36
Speaker 1: reason is special relativity. Like remember that when you move quickly,
19:40
Speaker 1: things in your view tend to look shorter. Like if
19:43
Speaker 1: you're running past your house and nearly the speed of light,
19:47
Speaker 1: there's length contraction. Your house seems to get shorter. What wait,
19:51
Speaker 1: so to to the neutrino, the universe sort of contracts.
19:56
Speaker 1: Everything feels smaller, yes, or like closer. That's right, because
19:59
Speaker 1: for very fast moving neutrino, the universe is rushing by
20:03
Speaker 1: at a fast speed, so the universe contracts and effectively
20:06
Speaker 1: gets denser. So it's like the neutrino sees more of
20:10
Speaker 1: the universe or more of the material it's passing through
20:13
Speaker 1: at any given moment, which means it has like more
20:16
Speaker 1: chances to interact with some Oh man, that makes no sense,
20:22
Speaker 1: Daniel to us. Then neutrino, it's just moving fast, you
20:26
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like it's not actually going through
20:27
Speaker 1: more stuff, that's right, But we're talking about the range
20:30
Speaker 1: of its potential interaction. Remember going through stuff and banging
20:33
Speaker 1: into it. Really, we're not talking about like physically stuff
20:36
Speaker 1: connecting and hitting. We're talking about things interacting. It's all
20:40
Speaker 1: about the power of your forces. Are you being influenced
20:43
Speaker 1: by the gravity of the Sun. Yes. Are you being
20:46
Speaker 1: influenced by the gravity of Alpha Centauri? Probably not a
20:49
Speaker 1: little bit. But if you were moving really really fast,
20:52
Speaker 1: then you would be influenced by things even further away
20:55
Speaker 1: because it would be effectively contracted to be closer to you.
20:58
Speaker 1: What if I was moving to or it's the Sun,
21:00
Speaker 1: I would feel it's gravity more. Yes, absolutely, because space
21:03
Speaker 1: would be contracted between you and the Sun. All right,
21:07
Speaker 1: I don't I don't recommend it. I kind of have
21:10
Speaker 1: to take your word for a Daniel. It seems kind
21:12
Speaker 1: of bonkers, But you're it's going really fast, so it
21:15
Speaker 1: seemed more of the universe. The universe seems denser, and
21:18
Speaker 1: so it's interacting more. It's more likely to interact, that's right.
21:21
Speaker 1: And so a slow moving neutrino like when that comes
21:23
Speaker 1: from the Sun will pass through the Earth and have
21:26
Speaker 1: almost no chance of interacting. But a faster moving neutrino,
21:30
Speaker 1: like a really really high energy neutrino, is very unlikely
21:33
Speaker 1: to make it all the way through the Earth. So
21:36
Speaker 1: if neutrino comes to the Earth and hits the North Pole,
21:39
Speaker 1: then start traveling through the very very high energies, it's
21:42
Speaker 1: unlikely to make it all the way through. It's going
21:44
Speaker 1: to bang into something and the core of the Earth
21:46
Speaker 1: and get absorbed and stop. Most of them will probably
21:49
Speaker 1: get absorbed by the Earth, but some of them will
21:51
Speaker 1: make it through and hit the ice in Antarctica. That's right.
21:54
Speaker 1: And so what this experiment was designed to look for
21:56
Speaker 1: is actually not neutrino is going all the way through
21:58
Speaker 1: the Earth, but just sort of skimming it a little bit.
22:01
Speaker 1: They knew that they couldn't see neutrinos a very high
22:04
Speaker 1: energy to go all the way through the Earth because
22:06
Speaker 1: they shouldn't make it through the Earth. So they're expecting
22:08
Speaker 1: to sort of skim the horizon and see neutrinos that
22:10
Speaker 1: just sort of like dip into the Earth a little
22:12
Speaker 1: bit and then come up through the ice. That was
22:14
Speaker 1: their goal. Oh, that just kind of hit the edge
22:17
Speaker 1: of the Earth at the north pole. Yeah, precisely at
22:19
Speaker 1: the South pole, and that makes the ice, I mean thicker, right,
22:22
Speaker 1: because it's like if you hit the sheet of ice sideways,
22:24
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot thicker, you've got a longer view
22:26
Speaker 1: of the ice. So they were that's what they were
22:28
Speaker 1: expecting to see. That's what they were hoping to see.
22:30
Speaker 1: That's what they were designed to see. And weirdly, they
22:33
Speaker 1: don't see any of those. Like they've been running for
22:36
Speaker 1: a long time, they've never seen a single high energy
22:39
Speaker 1: neutrino passing near the horizon. They're like just coming up
22:43
Speaker 1: through the Earth in the way they would expect to
22:45
Speaker 1: see them if there were these very high energy neutrinos
22:48
Speaker 1: flying through space. Right, So I'm trying to picture it.
22:50
Speaker 1: The ne trino's coming kind of at an angle. It's
22:54
Speaker 1: skimming the Earth. It hits the ice, it cream makes
22:56
Speaker 1: an interaction and it's braced some other stuff in all directions,
23:00
Speaker 1: make an interaction, and its sprays radio frequency light. Essentially,
23:04
Speaker 1: the sprays a little burst of radio frequency noise out
23:08
Speaker 1: through the ice, which is then picked up in the
23:10
Speaker 1: air by the ANITA antenna like it creates photons. Yeah,
23:14
Speaker 1: radio waves are photons, that's right, and then it explodes
23:18
Speaker 1: like it they come off in all directions. Now, because
23:21
Speaker 1: the neutrino is moving really fast, it's actually collimated, so
23:24
Speaker 1: it's a very narrow tube. And so you can tell
23:27
Speaker 1: the direction of the neutrino by seeing where this arrived
23:30
Speaker 1: and exactly when. And Anita has like lots of different antennas,
23:33
Speaker 1: and so by the different arrival times on different parts
23:36
Speaker 1: of Anita, they can tell the direction that this pulse
23:40
Speaker 1: of radio waves from the neutrino came from. Okay, so
23:43
Speaker 1: then that's how you would see them, But they didn't
23:45
Speaker 1: see them for years and years and years. Yeah, that's right.
23:48
Speaker 1: They look at the horizon, they look for these neutrinos
23:50
Speaker 1: skimming the horizon, and they see nothing, not a zilch
23:53
Speaker 1: in all of their runs. But they did see something
23:57
Speaker 1: really weird that they didn't expect to see. Okay, recently
24:01
Speaker 1: or was this a way back in its early runs,
24:03
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and six and then again in
24:05
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, so now twice in the total runs
24:08
Speaker 1: of this experiment, they saw neutrinos or what looks like
24:11
Speaker 1: neutrinos coming straight up through the Earth. So something that
24:15
Speaker 1: shouldn't happen, because neutrinos shouldn't make it all the way
24:18
Speaker 1: through the Earth. But they see these pulses that look
24:21
Speaker 1: like very very fast moving neutrino, ridiculously high energy neutrino,
24:26
Speaker 1: but coming straight up out of the ice. Wow, So
24:29
Speaker 1: it's sort of coming from the Earth or through the Earth. Well,
24:32
Speaker 1: we don't know, right if it's a neutrino, it's hard
24:35
Speaker 1: to understand how it could be coming through the Earth, right, Like,
24:38
Speaker 1: because neutrinos at that high energy, and we're talking about
24:42
Speaker 1: energies much much higher than like the particles at the
24:45
Speaker 1: Large Hadron Collider, right We're talking about seventy or a
24:48
Speaker 1: hundred thousand times more energy. These are really really high
24:52
Speaker 1: energy particles. But they shouldn't make it through the Earth.
24:55
Speaker 1: So maybe they're created inside the Earth, or maybe there's
24:58
Speaker 1: something else, some other weird kind of particle that turns
25:01
Speaker 1: into neutrinos. And we can dig into all of that.
25:03
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe couldn't it just be a neutrino
25:05
Speaker 1: that got lucky, you know, Like, couldn't it just be
25:09
Speaker 1: um one that did somehow make it through the Earth. Yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: it could certainly be. Like one explanation is there's some
25:15
Speaker 1: source of very high energy new trinos and it's shooting
25:19
Speaker 1: it right in that direction, and you have a lot
25:21
Speaker 1: of them, and so even if the chances are low,
25:23
Speaker 1: maybe one of them leaked through or two of them
25:26
Speaker 1: leaked through and then hit the ice right and then
25:28
Speaker 1: hit the ice. And so we have other detectors out
25:31
Speaker 1: the South Pole that do similar things, like this one
25:34
Speaker 1: called ice cube, which actually seriously like the wrapper, did
25:39
Speaker 1: he sign off on this um? I have not been
25:42
Speaker 1: in touch with these people, but ice cube, I think
25:45
Speaker 1: it's a general phrase. And they've drilled into the ice
25:49
Speaker 1: and they dropped cameras into the ice. They've like instrumented
25:52
Speaker 1: the ice itself to look for particles coming through the ice.
25:55
Speaker 1: So they have sort of similar capabilities, and they didn't
25:59
Speaker 1: see these things. So you would expect if there was
26:01
Speaker 1: like a really high energy source of neutrinos pointed at
26:04
Speaker 1: the Earth that happened to be going all the way through,
26:07
Speaker 1: that this other experiment, ice Cube, would have seen them.
26:10
Speaker 1: But it doesn't really. I mean, I mean two over
26:13
Speaker 1: like twenty years, it seems like these are pretty rare,
26:15
Speaker 1: So it could still it could maybe still be that
26:17
Speaker 1: it's just super rare. The other ones that haven't seen it,
26:20
Speaker 1: it could still be. I mean, cosmic ray physics is
26:22
Speaker 1: all about small numbers, like These things are very rare
26:25
Speaker 1: and very weird, but that's what makes them fascinating. And
26:28
Speaker 1: if you've only ever seen one, you'd be pretty skeptical.
26:30
Speaker 1: But seeing two man that tells you this something real there.
26:33
Speaker 1: You know, it's like seeing two big Foot or big feet.
26:36
Speaker 1: I guess that's you believe it a lot more easily
26:40
Speaker 1: than just seeing one. All right, it's like two people.
26:43
Speaker 1: It's like seeing Bigfoot twice, like taking two photographs of
26:47
Speaker 1: her over like twenty years. Yeah, except you know, you
26:50
Speaker 1: were out there looking for something else. You were trying
26:52
Speaker 1: to take pictures of chimpanzees, and you saw Bigfoot twice,
26:55
Speaker 1: so you're like, what what's going on here? Isn't even
26:58
Speaker 1: what could be something? All right? Well, that's what they found.
27:01
Speaker 1: They found these two. So it's just two nutrinos that
27:04
Speaker 1: they found. It's just these two chirps from the ice
27:06
Speaker 1: that they think are neutrinos. They look like neutrinos and
27:09
Speaker 1: they're coming up straight up from the ice. And that's
27:12
Speaker 1: the data. That's what they've seen, and they can't explain
27:15
Speaker 1: it using current physics. Captured by a balloon, captured by
27:18
Speaker 1: a balloon. That's that seems like the was a bonkers
27:21
Speaker 1: part of it. It's sort of Victorian, right. I imagine,
27:24
Speaker 1: like you know, steam pumping and mechanical knobs and valves
27:27
Speaker 1: and stuff. Some woman with a big hat and a
27:30
Speaker 1: guy with a big mustache up there taking nutrito measurements.
27:33
Speaker 1: Hope they packed a picnic. Yeah, all right, Well, let's
27:36
Speaker 1: get into whether or not they actually discovered a parallel
27:39
Speaker 1: universe and what makes them think that they did. But
27:42
Speaker 1: first let's take at another quick break. All right, dinnel,
27:59
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Anita experiment, which found two over
28:03
Speaker 1: twenty years, they found two neutrinos, and so help me
28:07
Speaker 1: make the connection here. How do these two neutrinos tell
28:10
Speaker 1: me there's a whole parallel universe out there? All right, Well,
28:13
Speaker 1: it's a very long walk from two neutrinos to there's
28:17
Speaker 1: a parallel universe right next to you. All right, yeah,
28:20
Speaker 1: I know. So how much time do we have? Ten minutes? Alright? Go,
28:24
Speaker 1: it's complicated. But the short version of it is, if
28:28
Speaker 1: there's a parallel universe, then there might be some heavy
28:31
Speaker 1: kind of neutrino gathered collected in the center of the Earth,
28:35
Speaker 1: which is decaying and producing these neutrinos and shooting them
28:39
Speaker 1: out from the center of the Earth. What that's the
28:42
Speaker 1: short version. Wait, there's what's at the center of Neutrinos
28:45
Speaker 1: are hanging out in the center of the Earth. Yeah.
28:47
Speaker 1: The idea is we have neutrinos, and there's lots of
28:49
Speaker 1: mysteries about neutrinos, like we don't know if neutrinos have
28:53
Speaker 1: their own antiparticle, if there are other really heavy neutrinos
28:57
Speaker 1: we've never seen before. And we had a whole episode
28:59
Speaker 1: about that kind of mystery. And they're connected to other
29:02
Speaker 1: really deep mysteries in physics, like why do we have
29:06
Speaker 1: matter and not antimatter? Why does time flow forward and
29:10
Speaker 1: not backwards? You know, every time in physics we see
29:13
Speaker 1: something which isn't balanced, which is in symmetric, we ask why,
29:16
Speaker 1: you know, the way we blame Adrina, it seems like, well,
29:20
Speaker 1: it's just so easy, you know, They're just so easy
29:22
Speaker 1: to blame. They're so neutral, They're they're being sneaky about something.
29:26
Speaker 1: You those neutrinos are hiding something. I can smell it.
29:29
Speaker 1: Never trust someone without an opinion, Isn't that what I
29:33
Speaker 1: just said? But you know, it's like wondering, why are
29:37
Speaker 1: humans more right handed than left handed. There's something going
29:40
Speaker 1: on there. There's a clue to brain physiology or something.
29:43
Speaker 1: So we wonder why is there more matter? Why is
29:46
Speaker 1: time flow forwards? And one simple way to sort of
29:48
Speaker 1: get rid of that question is to say, well, maybe
29:51
Speaker 1: it's not actually in asymmetry. Maybe there's another universe where
29:55
Speaker 1: time flows backwards and it's filled with anti partic like
30:00
Speaker 1: somehow we started together but then we got split off. Yeah,
30:03
Speaker 1: at the Big Bang two universes were created, one made
30:06
Speaker 1: of matter where time flows forwards, and one made of
30:09
Speaker 1: antimatter where time flows back. Why but then but um,
30:13
Speaker 1: and we're right on top of each other and right
30:15
Speaker 1: next to each other. No neither. I mean that doesn't
30:18
Speaker 1: really make any sense. It's like, you know, time is
30:20
Speaker 1: flowing backwards, it's a different part of space. I mean,
30:22
Speaker 1: it's parallel in a sense that it's like not here,
30:25
Speaker 1: it's not there, it's not right next to you, it's
30:27
Speaker 1: not anywhere in our space. It's like where is yesterday?
30:31
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not to my left or to
30:33
Speaker 1: my right. You know, it's backwards and behind me. It's
30:36
Speaker 1: behind me, just like the south pole is belowing. But
30:39
Speaker 1: if time is flowing backwards and to be ahead of you. Right,
30:42
Speaker 1: So this is like the South Pole universe. It started
30:45
Speaker 1: at the Big Bang going the other way and is
30:47
Speaker 1: dominated by antimatter. Okay, so wait, So the theory is
30:51
Speaker 1: then that these two neutrinos came from this other universe.
30:55
Speaker 1: That's the idea is if there's this parallel universe, that
30:59
Speaker 1: means that there's a symmetry to the universe that you know,
31:01
Speaker 1: matter has antimatter, and that suggests that there are other
31:05
Speaker 1: kinds of neutrinos in our universe, that the neutrino has
31:09
Speaker 1: some really heavy partner because they make the other universe work.
31:13
Speaker 1: You need these heavy neutrinos in our universe. That's what
31:16
Speaker 1: the equations would suggest. Like if you invert the equations,
31:19
Speaker 1: then you get a heavy neutrina. That's right, because there
31:22
Speaker 1: has to be some other neutrino for that universe to have,
31:25
Speaker 1: and so it has to be possible in our universe.
31:28
Speaker 1: Just like our universe is mostly matter, not antimatter, the
31:31
Speaker 1: other one is mostly antimatter, but we can still have
31:33
Speaker 1: antimatter in our universe, and so their version of neutrinos
31:38
Speaker 1: could also exist in our universe, and those neutrinos would
31:42
Speaker 1: be super duper heavy. They'd be like really really massive,
31:46
Speaker 1: unlike our neutrinos talking about well, you know, we talked
31:48
Speaker 1: about this on that episode, Like these neutrinos could be
31:52
Speaker 1: ridiculously massive, like thousands or millions of times heavier than
31:55
Speaker 1: anything we've seen, or even more, you know, up to
31:58
Speaker 1: like you can have a single particle has like the
32:00
Speaker 1: mass of a whole city. These things could we what
32:03
Speaker 1: could be really really heavy just in its resting match,
32:06
Speaker 1: just in its resting mass. Yeah, because remember a particles mass,
32:10
Speaker 1: it's not like how much stuff is there in it.
32:12
Speaker 1: It's just some weird interaction with the Higgs field. And
32:14
Speaker 1: so in a sense, it could be anything. We have
32:17
Speaker 1: no clue why particles have this mass or that mass
32:20
Speaker 1: or the other mass. It's all a mystery. So you
32:22
Speaker 1: can set them to be anything. There's very few rules.
32:25
Speaker 1: So this parallel universe that we're imagining, it's just kind
32:28
Speaker 1: of the same, but it has a different preference, right, Yeah,
32:32
Speaker 1: when the universe started, it's not like the universe decided
32:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to have matter instead of antimatter. It did both.
32:38
Speaker 1: It's like we'll do matter and we'll do antimatter. We'll
32:40
Speaker 1: cover both of our basics. We have two verses, Yeah,
32:43
Speaker 1: we are in this. Why why buy one when you
32:45
Speaker 1: can buy two for the same physics, That's right. You know,
32:49
Speaker 1: if you're going to go universe shopping, go to costco
32:52
Speaker 1: r Yeah, yeah, you save shipping. Well, we just said
32:55
Speaker 1: that in parallel Dannie. So if there's a parallel universe,
32:59
Speaker 1: then it suggests the existence of these really heavy neutrinos.
33:03
Speaker 1: And they could be the dark mouth like they could
33:07
Speaker 1: be Yeah, there's a lot of steps here. They could
33:09
Speaker 1: be the dark mount And if so, then they're really heavy.
33:13
Speaker 1: They interact gravitationally. They could be collecting at the center
33:16
Speaker 1: of the Earth like like the Sun, Like they're hanging
33:20
Speaker 1: out at the center of the Earth. They're coming along
33:22
Speaker 1: with us as we go around the Sun. Yeah, because
33:24
Speaker 1: that's where things do gravitationally, is they clump together, and
33:27
Speaker 1: the Earth is a big gravitational blob, and these neutrinos
33:31
Speaker 1: don't feel the Earth in any way. They just sort
33:33
Speaker 1: of passed through. The only thing they feel is it's gravity.
33:36
Speaker 1: And so the Sun and also the Earth and all
33:38
Speaker 1: the other planets might have collected these very heavy dark
33:42
Speaker 1: matter neutrinos at the center. Wait, you just called it
33:46
Speaker 1: in the same name. They're dark matter neutrinos, meaning neutrinos
33:49
Speaker 1: that maybe explain dark matter. Yes, because we know that
33:52
Speaker 1: there's a lot of missing stuff in the universe. We
33:54
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of mass out there we cannot see.
33:57
Speaker 1: We don't know what it is. We're looking for it.
33:59
Speaker 1: We think maybe it's this, maybe it's that, Maybe it's
34:01
Speaker 1: primordial black holes. One idea is maybe it's some weird,
34:04
Speaker 1: new kind of very heavy neutrino we've never seen. And
34:07
Speaker 1: these neutrinos are pretty suspicious. There's a lot of ifs here, right,
34:10
Speaker 1: if there's a parallel universe. They are explaining matter and
34:14
Speaker 1: antimatter time and also dark matter. Are they also involved
34:17
Speaker 1: in dark energy? They kill JFK, that's what I think.
34:21
Speaker 1: And the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs anyway, these things hanging out this
34:25
Speaker 1: end of the Earth, they have a lot of energy,
34:27
Speaker 1: have a lot of mass just sort of stored up
34:28
Speaker 1: inside them. They're like very tightly coiled springs. So what
34:32
Speaker 1: happens when they decay, Like some particles, they eventually decay.
34:35
Speaker 1: Very heavy particles often decay. They can decay into normal neutrinos,
34:39
Speaker 1: But normal lutrinos have very low mass, and so they
34:42
Speaker 1: would have to decay into very high energy, very fast
34:45
Speaker 1: moving neutrinos. So the mass of these mysterious dark matter
34:49
Speaker 1: neutrinos gets turned into the energy, the kinetic energy the
34:53
Speaker 1: motion of these very light normal neutrinos. Well, okay, I
34:57
Speaker 1: guess maybe first of all these neutrinos, why don't they
35:02
Speaker 1: decay more? I thought the universe didn't like like big
35:05
Speaker 1: massive things hanging out. Yeah, that's a great question. The
35:08
Speaker 1: universe doesn't like big massive things hanging out. But big
35:11
Speaker 1: massive things hanging out can only turn into lighter things
35:14
Speaker 1: if they have a way to do it, if there's
35:16
Speaker 1: some interaction, some process. They use a photon to use
35:19
Speaker 1: a w or z so you can keep something that's
35:22
Speaker 1: very heavy, you can keep it stable if you turn
35:25
Speaker 1: off all of its ways of decaying. So we don't
35:27
Speaker 1: know anything about these things. They could have like a
35:29
Speaker 1: very hard time decaying into these neutrinos, But also we
35:34
Speaker 1: don't know, like it could be that it happens all
35:36
Speaker 1: the time. There just aren't that many of them in
35:38
Speaker 1: the center of the Earth mat Maybe there's only forty
35:40
Speaker 1: of them and the decay once a year, And can
35:42
Speaker 1: the universe be making these or can these only be
35:44
Speaker 1: made in the big band universe? Probably wouldn't be making
35:47
Speaker 1: these anymore. They would be primordial. They would have been
35:49
Speaker 1: made in the early universe and then still existing. So
35:52
Speaker 1: that means that if it is dark matter, then that
35:54
Speaker 1: means the dark matter would be disappearing. Yes, dark matter
35:57
Speaker 1: would be disappearing, but very slowly. Right like we know matter,
36:00
Speaker 1: if it exists, is cosmologically stable, like it was made
36:03
Speaker 1: very early on in the universe, and not much of
36:06
Speaker 1: it or if any has disappeared, And so these neutrinos,
36:10
Speaker 1: if they do decay, it can't happen very often. So actually,
36:14
Speaker 1: if we saw two of them in the last twenty years,
36:16
Speaker 1: that suggests there must be a lot of them if
36:18
Speaker 1: they exist in the center of the Earth, I see,
36:20
Speaker 1: all right, So then that's how you connect the thoughts,
36:23
Speaker 1: is that we saw these two neutrino pings and we're like,
36:26
Speaker 1: where they come from. They couldn't have come from anywhere
36:29
Speaker 1: that we know of, So maybe they said they came
36:31
Speaker 1: from the center of the Earth and they were made
36:33
Speaker 1: by these two heavy neutrinos that are hanging out there,
36:35
Speaker 1: that's right, And if those two heavy neutrinos do exist,
36:38
Speaker 1: there are a clue that maybe the universe has this
36:41
Speaker 1: symmetry after all, that maybe there is another universe out
36:45
Speaker 1: there that started the Big Bang going the other way.
36:48
Speaker 1: But you know that's also a reach. Yeah. I'm having
36:51
Speaker 1: trouble with that one because it just means that these
36:53
Speaker 1: having neutrinos exist. It's like saying that because we can
36:56
Speaker 1: see antimatter, that means there's another universe. But that's not
36:58
Speaker 1: really the case, is it right? You cannot conclude that
37:01
Speaker 1: there's a parallel universe, even if you proved that there
37:04
Speaker 1: are super heavy neutrinos at the center of the Earth
37:06
Speaker 1: decaying into normal neutrinos, because there are other explanations that
37:10
Speaker 1: are not as bonkers and crazy. Is a parallel universe
37:13
Speaker 1: I see, So that the parallel universe is just one
37:17
Speaker 1: maybe possible explanation for why our universe has the light
37:21
Speaker 1: neutrinos and not the heavy neutrinos. But we do have
37:24
Speaker 1: the haaving neutrinos, So I guess I'm complu we have
37:26
Speaker 1: the light neutrinos, we don't know if we have the
37:28
Speaker 1: heavy neutrinos in our universe. Like, that's one idea it
37:31
Speaker 1: could be, and one reason to explain it is like
37:34
Speaker 1: maybe there's a parallel universe and that requires us to
37:37
Speaker 1: have heavy neutrinos. But there are other theories that have
37:39
Speaker 1: heavy neutrinos in them also. I mean, what happened is
37:42
Speaker 1: Anita saw these weird neutrinos. A bunch of very well
37:45
Speaker 1: meaning theorists who've been working on this idea of a
37:47
Speaker 1: parallel universe said, hey, wait a second, I like that
37:50
Speaker 1: that could be explained by our theory. Here's a fun,
37:53
Speaker 1: crazy theory that could explain it that we've been working
37:55
Speaker 1: on for ten years and involves a cool parallel universe.
37:58
Speaker 1: They wrote this paper. Then science journalism was like, now,
38:01
Speaker 1: so it discovered a parallel universe, and so you know,
38:05
Speaker 1: they screamed like that, like like like very excited kids.
38:10
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. There was a lot of journalistic jumping up
38:11
Speaker 1: and down. All right, Well, it seems like a reach.
38:14
Speaker 1: It seems like you're extrapolating two signals to the whole
38:19
Speaker 1: existence over this new particle, to the whole existence of
38:23
Speaker 1: apparallel universe. That's right, every step there is a reach, right,
38:27
Speaker 1: just because you see these two new particles doesn't mean
38:30
Speaker 1: that there's anything new. It could be experimental error. It
38:33
Speaker 1: could just be luck. Or it could be some heavy
38:37
Speaker 1: new particle in the center of the Earth, which could
38:40
Speaker 1: be maybe a new trino, which could maybe potentially give
38:44
Speaker 1: credence to this crazy, fun, silly theory about a parallel universe.
38:48
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe why does it have to come
38:51
Speaker 1: from the center of the Earth. Is that the only explanation? Well,
38:53
Speaker 1: because we only see them coming up from the earth, Like,
38:55
Speaker 1: we don't see them skimming the earth. We don't see
38:58
Speaker 1: them coming in any other direction. We only see them
39:00
Speaker 1: coming straight up from underground, because that's the only place
39:02
Speaker 1: where we have the camera, isn't it. The camera can
39:05
Speaker 1: see these things coming even straight down or sideways or
39:08
Speaker 1: coming up from the ice and just skimming it like
39:11
Speaker 1: just along the horizon. But they don't see anything in
39:14
Speaker 1: those directions. They see only these very high energy netrinos
39:17
Speaker 1: coming straight up from the Earth. All right, Well, what
39:21
Speaker 1: else could they be? One thing is they could be
39:23
Speaker 1: experimental error. I mean, the two out in twenty years
39:26
Speaker 1: does seem sort of like a blip. Yeah, it does
39:28
Speaker 1: seem like a blip. And so you have to ask, like, well,
39:30
Speaker 1: how well do we know these things? Sometimes there's something rare,
39:33
Speaker 1: but when you spot it, you're pretty sure. Like if
39:36
Speaker 1: you discover a unicorn. Yeah, they're hard to find, but
39:39
Speaker 1: when you get one in your lab, you can pretty
39:41
Speaker 1: well tell us in uniform. You seem to speak from experience.
39:46
Speaker 1: That's my dream, you know, the one day discover unicorn.
39:49
Speaker 1: And so what do we actually know about these things? Really,
39:51
Speaker 1: the measurements we have come from these antennas and they're
39:54
Speaker 1: pretty good, but they can get spoofed. Like one scenario
39:58
Speaker 1: is these things come from the center of the Earth.
40:01
Speaker 1: They came from straight down, like maybe a high energy
40:04
Speaker 1: neutrino came straight down and hit the ice and the
40:08
Speaker 1: signals sort of reflected in the ice and then came
40:11
Speaker 1: back up and then it was captured by the balloon,
40:14
Speaker 1: so it looked like it came out of the ice,
40:16
Speaker 1: but actually the original particle was coming straight down. Oh,
40:19
Speaker 1: so that can happen. They can bounce. That totally happens.
40:23
Speaker 1: They can bounce, But this experiment can usually tell because
40:27
Speaker 1: there's a polarity to this signal. The signals effectively spin
40:30
Speaker 1: in a certain way because of the Earth's magnetic field,
40:33
Speaker 1: and if they hit the ice and bounce, that polarity flips.
40:36
Speaker 1: It's like when light bounces off of water, it changes
40:39
Speaker 1: this polarity, and so they can see this, and so
40:42
Speaker 1: they see this. Actually all the time, they see cosmic
40:44
Speaker 1: rays coming from space that bounce off the ice up
40:47
Speaker 1: to the experiment and then they remove them. But for
40:49
Speaker 1: these two weird neutrinos, they don't see that, so it
40:52
Speaker 1: doesn't look like they bounced, right. But you know, how
40:56
Speaker 1: well do we really understand the details of Antarctic ice?
41:00
Speaker 1: Could there be something weird going on? Occasionally it gets
41:03
Speaker 1: double reflected or something, right, there's always a possibility. I
41:06
Speaker 1: think they came from a parallel universe data with a
41:09
Speaker 1: different polarity. I'll call New Scientists magazine. Okay, a parallel
41:13
Speaker 1: universe where everybody likes bananas and DC makes better movies
41:17
Speaker 1: than Mardel. Impossible. That just breaks the laws of physics.
41:21
Speaker 1: Al Right, Well, um, it sounds like it's pretty tantalizing,
41:24
Speaker 1: I guess, but it's sort of build upon two measurements,
41:28
Speaker 1: and it's kind of extrapolating a lot from two measurements
41:32
Speaker 1: to new particles, to the whole different universe. It's like
41:36
Speaker 1: a lot of ifs there and a lot of like
41:39
Speaker 1: maybes built on top of each other, and a lot
41:41
Speaker 1: of people doing very careful work, Like the experimentalists have
41:43
Speaker 1: been building this thing and running it for twenty years,
41:46
Speaker 1: and their papers are totally solid. They very carefully understood
41:50
Speaker 1: the source of these things. And in their papers, you know,
41:52
Speaker 1: they say exactly how well they know things and how
41:55
Speaker 1: well they don't know things. And then the theorists also
41:57
Speaker 1: pretty well behaved. They were just like suggesting and I dea.
42:00
Speaker 1: They're not claiming to discovery the parallel universe. They to say,
42:03
Speaker 1: here's a possible fun explanation, and then you know, it
42:06
Speaker 1: trickled out in the mainstream press and they're hitting the
42:08
Speaker 1: parallel universe button a little too hard, all right, But um,
42:12
Speaker 1: I guess what's interesting is that it might be possible, right,
42:15
Speaker 1: this could be how we discovered a parallel universe. It's
42:18
Speaker 1: definitely something interesting. At the most boring end of the spectrum,
42:21
Speaker 1: we've learned something interesting about Antarctic ice. You know. More
42:24
Speaker 1: interesting is like, hey, maybe there is some weird new
42:27
Speaker 1: kind of particle, or maybe there is some new source
42:30
Speaker 1: of really high energy to trinos out there we've never
42:32
Speaker 1: seen before, or maybe it's something crazy in bonkers, right,
42:36
Speaker 1: We can't rule out the parallel universe scenario. It is
42:38
Speaker 1: one explanation for these particles I see. And so this
42:43
Speaker 1: parallel universe, it is one word. Time flows backwards too,
42:47
Speaker 1: It's not just like a copy of ours. It's also
42:49
Speaker 1: running backwards. Yeah, time flows backwards and antimatter dominates, and
42:54
Speaker 1: that provides a nice symmetry, you know. It's like it
42:57
Speaker 1: answers the question of why does time flow forwards and
42:59
Speaker 1: why we have matter or not antimatter. And it doesn't
43:01
Speaker 1: tell you why did the universe split, but it tells
43:03
Speaker 1: you at least it covered both of its basis. It
43:05
Speaker 1: doesn't have like a preference for forward flowing time or
43:09
Speaker 1: for matter over antimatter. And that just feels somehow more natural.
43:13
Speaker 1: Maybe twitter and that universe is like full of positivity
43:16
Speaker 1: and well meaning people. Yeah, then maybe I prefer that universe. Yeah,
43:23
Speaker 1: let's move to that one. I think there's a portal
43:27
Speaker 1: at the center of the Earth. Oh, there you go.
43:29
Speaker 1: You just gotta get past those having neutrinos and step through.
43:33
Speaker 1: That's right. Effectively, there are bouncers to the parallel universe,
43:35
Speaker 1: or maybe we can take a balloon or like an
43:37
Speaker 1: anti balloon, take an anti balloon to the center of
43:40
Speaker 1: the Earth and then you step through. Well, would you
43:43
Speaker 1: call a balloon that floats below the south pole and
43:45
Speaker 1: anti balloon anyway? Because it's going down. Oh, you're right,
43:51
Speaker 1: you're right. You just turn it on me. Yeah, all right.
43:55
Speaker 1: So I guess the very take is interesting results, solid signs,
44:00
Speaker 1: interesting results. But maybe the science journalism they're got a
44:03
Speaker 1: little too excited, a little too excited. I love the
44:05
Speaker 1: enthusiasm of science journalism, but please let's keep it realistic,
44:09
Speaker 1: all right. Well, they did say in the headline, we
44:11
Speaker 1: may have spotted a parallel universe. They did add the
44:14
Speaker 1: main Yeah. May it may covers everything, right, I might
44:18
Speaker 1: have an unicorn right here next to me. I may
44:21
Speaker 1: be totally lying to you, all right. Hopefully that covered
44:24
Speaker 1: the questions that our readers had about these headlines, and
44:27
Speaker 1: maybe I got you to think a little bit about
44:29
Speaker 1: what could be out there and not out there. And
44:31
Speaker 1: if you see something in the science headlines that you
44:33
Speaker 1: don't understand and you'd like to hear about, please send
44:36
Speaker 1: it to us. Two questions at Daniel and Jorge dot Com.
44:39
Speaker 1: We'll break it down for you. Thanks for joining us,
44:42
Speaker 1: see you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that
44:52
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of
44:55
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