Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions #48

Transcript

Listener Questions #48 · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: When a meteor makes a fireball in the sky, is
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: it possible to hear it when it's up so high?
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: People have a lot of crazy ideas and thoughts. What
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: are Dnk's favorites from their inbox? Daniel, I don't know
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: if thoughts an inbox rhyme?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: How old is the tree, the stone, the air, the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: atoms in each one? What's the oldest thing that's anywhere
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: beneath the stars and the sun.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: answers will make it right.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Listener.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Universe, episode number forty eight. Hello, I'm Kelly Wadersmith. I
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: study erites and space and we've got a lot of
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: great questions today and they're all Daniel questions. This is
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a Daniel run episode. Hi.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist who loves to think
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about aliens and answer questions from listeners. And I'll say
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Kelly that I chose some that also ask for your input.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. That was nice of you. And so
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I see that we have a question about what are
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: some of our favorite sort of conspiracy theories. Let's say
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that come across our email box, and so what I
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: want to know from you is what is your favorite
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: question period? Not a conspiracy theory, what question like just
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: lit you up when you read it?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Ooh, that's tough. I can remember lots of moments when
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I saw a question in my inbox and I thought,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, what a fun question. Most often these
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: are questions from kids, you know, like seven year olds
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: with parents who listened to the podcast or something and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: they asked a question that the parents couldn't answer, and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: so then they ask us to step in. That's like
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite moments. But in terms of a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: specific question, just last week, I got a question from
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a nine year old who thought they had the solution
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to quantum gravity. Oh, they heard us discussing Hawking radiation
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and they were like, wait a second, that's a quantum
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: effect and it's gravity. Isn't that quantum gravity? Can't you
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: start from there and build a whole theory of quantum gravity?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Wow, this nine year old isn't
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: really paying attention.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Nah, holy cow. I feel like that. I mean, that
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: is a great question, but I also feel like it's
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: a question where at the end you're like, I'm not
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: doing enough. I wasn't that smart as a nine year old.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: This kid is going to be like President slash Emperor
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of the Universe and what am I doing over here?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Well, only because you didn't have the benefit of this
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: amazing podcast to stimulate your mind.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Right, you're right, You're right.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So what is your favorite question you've gotten over email Kelly?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I get a lot of questions where at the end
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I realize either whoh, I don't know the answer and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I should have. Or I get a lot of questions
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: that I love that are like, hey, you know what
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: banana slugs? I want the Kelly version of banana slugs.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, man, I appreciate that you thought,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: you know X topic is something I want to know
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: more about, but particularly I want to know, you know,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: how's Kelly going to connect that to diarrhea?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I want the Kelly over research treatment of this question? Yeah?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, yeah. So I mean those are always like
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: they're exciting for me because usually I don't know the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: answer and so it's an excuse to like dive in
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: and do a ton of research. But also it's just
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: very flattering that someone thought I need to know what
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Kelly thinks about banana slugs and that always, I don't know,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: makes me feel great.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: All right, well, let's hear some questions from listeners. Our
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: first question is from John mick Jenkin, who seems to
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: be having a debate with a friend and wants us
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to weigh in.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's always a little bit dangerous. At least it's
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: not a bait with a partner. Let's go ahead and
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: sear the question.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Daniel and Kelly, I'm John mcjunkin and old guy
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: in Arizona with over forty years in the music and
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: audio engineering biz, and I think a lot about sound.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I was once told by a friend that some meteors
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: have enough mass and energy to create sound that is
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: audible at ground level. He said he'd heard a meteor
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: once make a fizzy, whooshy sound.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Does this ring true to you? It sort of seems plausible.
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  Speaker 3: The eighteen eighty three eruption of Krakatoa is said to
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: have been audible thousands of miles away. But there's no
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  Speaker 3: way that a meteor could produce anywhere near the same
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: massive force as a huge volcano eruption, And considering that
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: it would take sound something like five minutes to travel
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: from the Mazo sphere down to ground level. It could
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: be a bit of a challenge to correlate a specific
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: whoosh with a specific meteor. It would be super cool
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: if meteors actually are audible, but I have my doubts.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: What do you think if meteors are audible at ground level?
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Maybe we could hear the Doppler shifting rock and roll
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: played by aliens as they zoom by if they have
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: their windows rolled down.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you both so much for all you do.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Oh this is fun. On the one hand, I think
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: it would have been really interesting to have been present
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: for the what is it tunguskamm?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Was that a meteor which flattened all those trees in Siberia?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, to be able to like have heard
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: that or been far enough away to have like felt
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: a little bit of the pressure wave but not been
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: so close that you got like absolutely decimated. But yeah,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I totally loved this idea of imagining or knowing, like
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: what would it be like? Yeah, this thing that I'll
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: never see, tell me what it might be like.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that we don't live in interesting times when
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: it comes to things from space, you know, it's fun
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to imagine and to wonder what that would be like,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: but boy, could be really catastrophic.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: So yeah, instead we live in ai and geopolitical interesting times. Yeah,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I guess time will tell which one we prefer.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: But mostly we can go about our days without worrying
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: about death from above due to falling rocks.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But John is asking a really fun question and it
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: turns out to have a fascinating and subtle answer. Basically,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: he's asking, can you hear a meteor? And so let's
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: first remind ourselves, like what is hearing all about? How
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: does that all work? Remember that sound is pressure waves, right,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: So things moving through the air change the airflow and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: make waves. The way that you are hearing me right
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: now is some speaker is vibrating and that is pushing
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: physically mechanically on some air. Even if you're getting like
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a digital signal and it seems all fancy, in the end,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: there's a speaker with a drum that's vibrating according to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: those digital signals and pushing the air, and your ear
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: is hearing it because it's receiving those pressure waves in
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the air. So all sound is pressure waves and it
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: travels it around eight hundred miles per hour twelve hundred
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: kilometers per hour.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: It still blows my mind that, like something that's vibrating
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: in my headphones is able to both make the sound
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: of Daniel and the sound of Kelly, Like, yeah, I
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: don't know, I'm impressed.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Well. I think we had an episode on sound recently
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and we talked about how you know, voices are a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: mixtures of different frequencies, and like the thing that makes
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you recognize my voice or your voice is that particular
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: mixture of frequencies. Did I tell you about getting recognized
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: by my voice?
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you didn't tell me the whole story. Tell me
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: the whole story.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I was on vacation in Yosemite, walking across the parking
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: lot talking to Katrina, and somebody stopped me and said,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: excuse me, are you Daniel? And I was like, do
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I know you? And he was like no, But I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: listened to your podcast and this guy like drives across
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  Speaker 1: the country in a van and listens to us and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: knows our voices. My man, I know, and his brain
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: was just like, wait a second, I know that voice.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And he said to me, it's so weird to hear
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: your voice coming out of your mouth, and I was like,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that's how it happens.
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  Speaker 4: Man.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: All right, so you know you can hear things that
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: happen near you, but the farther away something is the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: more deluded the power is. It's just like lots of
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: other stuff. You have a flashlight, the intensity of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: light goes like one over distance squared. It's the same
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: with sound. Somebody claps their hands, then the loudness of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that sound decreases with distance, actually with distance squared. So
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: for example, if you're standing next to an airplane, it
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: sounds really really loud. If you have an airplane flying overhead,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you can hear it, but it's not as loud. If
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you see an airplane flying over you at like thirty
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: thousand feet or whatever, you can't hear it. It's too
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: far away. I mean, technically if you had a super microphone,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: maybe you could hear it, but the sound is really
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: dispersed because of the distance.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, got it, all right.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: But we're not interested in hearing airplanes. We want to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: hear about meteors, right, So what are meteors and how
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: do they make sound? Meteors are just rocks hitting the atmosphere. Remember,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: stuff in the Solar System is moving, and the typical
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: orbital speed is like thirty kilometers per second. That's the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: speed at which the Earth is going around the Sun.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So if you have something floating in the Solar System
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: or moving in the Solar System and the Earth runs
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: into it, or equivalently, it runs into the Earth, you
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  Speaker 1: can expect it to impact at around thirty kilometers per second,
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  Speaker 1: maybe more if they're heading towards each other, or a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: little bit less if it's a glancing blow. But that's
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the order of magnitude. And what happens when rocks hit
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere at thirty kilometers per second, right, is that
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: you get a collision. And people think about this in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: terms of friction, but actually what's happening is that the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: air in front of the meteor gets so rapidly compressed
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that it turns into plasma. Just like how in the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Sun you're compressing gas and it gets hot because of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the pressure and it starts to glow. That's what's happening
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: in front of the asteroid. The gas in front of
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  Speaker 1: it gets super duper compressed and it starts to glow.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Then that heat disintegrates the.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Asteroid that is fascinating but has no connection to why
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: you hear sound, is that right? That's just like an
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: ill stration of how fast it's going.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So that's what creates the visible signature, right, is the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: glowing light. But the plasma and the disintegration of the
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: asteroid also creates sound, right, because it's basically an explosion, Right,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you have this like plasma being created, and just like
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: how you create high density, high temperature, high pressure when
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you set off a bomb, and the same thing is happening,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and the scale of the effect depends entirely on the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: size of the object. And so what you typically see,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: like if you're looking up at night and you see
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: a shooting star, you're probably seeing an object that's between
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a millimeter and a centimeter in size, and it streaks
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: across the sky, yes, and makes a visible track, and
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't make it to the ground. It disintegrates before it
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: hits the ground.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I was sure that shooting stars were like a meter
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: or something, and yes, they disintegrated before they hit the ground,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: but like bigger than a centimeter or a millimeter, Like
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the fact that you could see something from so far
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: away that was a centimeter bit's huge. Yeah, that's amazing.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It's not huge, it's tiny.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, we should be very glad that we're not seeing
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: multiple meter size impactors every night, because a meter sized
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: impactor leaves about the energy of a nuclear bomb and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: when it disintegratees that's so good.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So, like a centimeter is a shooting star. Up to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: like ten centimeter we call a fireball, and some of
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: those fragments even make it down to the ground to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: give you like meteorites, right, those fragments of these rocks
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: left on the ground. If you're up to like a meter,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: then you can get ground impacts, like the whole thing
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: can actually hit the ground, like meteor crater in Arizona.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Up to twenty meters wide was the size that the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: rock that caused the event in Cheliabinsk. Basically the energy
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of a nuclear bomb. If you go up to fifty meters,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: then you get maybe city scale devastation. Something one hundred
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: meters wide can wipe out a whole region, like you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: New England. If it's a kilometer wide, you're getting global
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: effects mass casualties. If it's ten kilometers wide, then you
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: have a mass extinction event. Something like the dinosaurs bigger
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: than that, and you're talking danger to the structure of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the Earth itself.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not sleeping well tonight.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, exactly. But fortunately the tiny ones are very
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: common and the big ones are very very rare. So
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a millimeter across is very common. We're talking like millions
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: are hitting the earth every day at a millimeter or smaller,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and as it gets bigger, it gets very very rare.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: But the question we're asking today is can you hear them? Right?
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And so absolutely these make shockwaves, right, because we're looking
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: at a collision, and a collision is going to create
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: shockwaves in the air. The amount of energy released by
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: like a twenty centimeter impactor at like twenty kilometers per
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: second carries like tens of tons of T and T
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of energy. You know, you can measure energy in terms
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: of like jewels or kilo calories, but those are ridiculous
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about explosion. So they have this unit
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of tons of T and T, which I think is
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: kind of hilarious and steampunk as a unit, but it's cool,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: And whether you can hear it on the ground depends
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: on a lot of things. It depends on like the speed,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the altitude that trajectory, and also the composition of it.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: It depends on like whether it explodes high in the atmosphere,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: does it survive down to the ground like a denser
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: iron meteor of the same size survives to lower altitudes,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: which creates a stronger shockwave at the surface. So in
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: order to make something that you can hear on the ground,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you probably need something like between ten centimeters and a
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: meter what they call a fireball, that kind of thing
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that will leave stuff that makes it all the way
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to the ground. But here's the key thing about John's
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: question is that remember that sound is delayed relative to light,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So if you see the thing streaking across the sky,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: then you would probably hear it much later because it's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: still like tens of kilometers up in the atmosphere. It's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: pretty far away.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: And this is like lightning and thunder, right Like, you
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: exactly see the lightning, and then you count to see
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: how long it is till you hear the thunder to
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: figure out how far away that lightning strike was.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Exactly, the light and the sound are created at the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: same time, but light travels much much faster than sound,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: almost instantaneously across these distances, and sound travels pretty fast
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: but much slower than light, and so by measuring the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: difference in the arrival times, you can actually tell how
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: far away it is, because if it's really close to you,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: they arrive at the same time. So when you see
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: lightning and hear thunder at the same time, like uh
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: oh something close by, it has been zad And if
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: there's a big gap, it means it took a while
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: for the sound to get there. So same story here.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: This is pretty far away. It's tens of kilometers up,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and so if you see something in the atmosphere that's
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: very bright, you should expect to hear it quite delayed.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: We're talking like minutes later, right, So the sound and
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the lights should not be synchronized. And John is asking
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: about hearing a fizzy, wooshy sound that's correlated with the light,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Like you're looking up at the sky and you see
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a streak and at the same time you hear something. Okay,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and that sounds improbable, right, because of this whole issue
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of the speed of sound and the speed of light.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Sounds like John wins.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: No, But actually it turns out this can't happen and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: not by sound, like breaking the laws of physics. When
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: this plasma is produced, it can also generate low frequency
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: electromagnetic waves so not visible light, way too low frequency
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: for us to see. But those travel also at the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: speed of light, and then they can hit stuff nearby,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: things like leaves or hair or glasses and induce vibrations
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: in them.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Oh no, John is wrong.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: So these things can act like tiny speakers. So essentially
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the information is transmitted at the speed of light, just
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: like if you're sending it along wires, and then stuff
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: around you acts like speakers. And so this is called
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: electro fl phonic sounds. It's rare and it's hard to study,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: but experts now generally accept that this is a real phenomenon.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: In order to generate these kind of electrophonic sounds, you'd
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: need an impactor that's like probably several tens of centimeters across,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: so a pretty big one. Okay, So it's rare, it's unusual,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: but it's not impossible.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: John, WHOA. All right, Sorry, John, that's probably not the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: answer you were hoping for, but it's an interesting one.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So let's hear what John has to say.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Daniel and Kelly.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: So I'm okay with the answer, Kelly, because I learned
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: something I had never heard of, electrophonic sound, and it's
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: certainly not a phenomenon that would typically come up in
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: conversations with my music producer and audio engineer colleagues. We
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: tend to talk about things like the inverse square law
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: and sound propagation and the effect of things like temperature,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: atmospheric pressure, and humidity.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: On the speed of sound.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: But you can bet that now I'll tell my advanced
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: live sound students about electrophonic sound. It's a treat for
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: this extraordinary time to get a carefully measured response from
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: his absolute favorite podcast.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: Thanks so much, and we're back and the next question
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: is a very fun question from Grant.
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: Hello, Daniel and Kelly. I grew up in a scientist
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: and science communicator household, and my dad gives some popseye
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: interviews in the seventies on topics like animal cognition and
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: magnetic field sensing that brought out the weirdos. As such,
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: nut letters were a regular part of our family life
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: through the eighties, with the best of America's exuberantly amateur
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: theoreticians writing to us to explain why quantum magnetic esp
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: is being suppressed by fluoride. I've always had an nostalgia
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: for that age of more innocent crack pottery. Do you
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: have favorite crackpot theories? The ones that are just too
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: much fun to get upset at? Is Daniel secretly rooting
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: for the electric universe cranks? Or is Kelly an unacknowledged
• 18:14
  Speaker 6: enthusiast of deep hot biasphere a biogenic oil?
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Is the next podcast?
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: Gas going to be gen Ray or Ludwig von Plutonium?
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: Yours in not taking anything too seriously ground.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay, where do we start. Let's start
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: by talking about how much we love getting emails.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I do love getting emails, you know. I think that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: science is by the people and for the people, and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it's especially important now to emphasize that. And I think
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: that academics shouldn't be walled off in universities and unavailable,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and so I think it's important that we break down
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: these barriers and that everybody feels like they can access
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and a little bit participate in science at the very
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: least communicate with people who are being paid by them
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: through their tax dollars to do science. So I love
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: getting emails, not just from listeners, but from anybody out
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: there who's thinking about the universe and wants to, in
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: good faith participate in this joyful exploration of how things
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: work right?
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Well that can I ask you a kind of killy
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: is grouchy question?
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: So do you have another kind?
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: No?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: So here it goes. So I've been seeing an uptick
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: in emails from high school students. And I love getting
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: emails from high school students out of the blue, but
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I've been seeing an uptick in emails from students who
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: essentially say, I am required to write an essay on
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: whatever I want, and part of my requirement is I
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: have to interview an expert and it needs to be
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: a zoom call. Can I have an hour of your time?
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Have you been getting those kinds of what? And what
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: do you think of those? Because I can I real quick.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: What I think of those is that I feel like,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: if you're trying to teach students how to do research,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: having them learn that it's okay to reach out to
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: experts is good. But I don't think that the system
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: can handle. I don't want to call it a burden,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: because again, I love talking to high school students, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: every once in a while I have a high school
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: student say, I read your book, I've got some questions.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Can we have a zoom call? Absolutely, I would love
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: to talk to you. But I get students who definitely
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: don't care about the topic but have to have a
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: thirty minute Well, you know they shouldn't read the book. Clearly, yes,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: this is an assignment they have to do. There's really
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: no joy you can see in their eyes when you're
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: talking about this topic. And so, yeah, what do you
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: think about that being an assignment? Because I do want
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: people to feel like they can reach out to us.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: But I also can't say yes to every invitation like
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: this I get because I wouldn't be able to write
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: my next book.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you. I don't say yes to
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: those I offer an email exchange. I say, send me
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a list of questions. I'll write back to you. Because
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: face to face chats take a lot of time, they're
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: hard to schedule, they're very inefficient, and I prefer asynchronous
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: stuff that I can squeeze in responses whenever I have
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: a moment. You know, I use email, especially with the public,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: as a break. I'm working on something. It's hard, my
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: brain is tired. Oh, let's see what's in the inbox,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and there's always something fun in there to read, and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: so I try to answer every email. And I also
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: get a lot of random theories. You know, here's my
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: theory of how physics went wrong in the beginning of
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century. And I read all of those and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I know this question from Grant is in
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: good faith. And there are folks out there who are
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: crack pots, but they don't always know that there are
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: crack pots. You know, they're operating in good faith. They're
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: trying to explore the universe. They're trying to figure it out.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And as long as it's in good faith, and like,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I welcome it. And so I give everybody, you know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: fifteen to thirty minutes. I'll read your theory. I'll write
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: back and I'll tell you what I think and here
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: are the flaws and here's what you might work on.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And often people are not happy to get that feedback
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: because it's not always you're right and let's meet in
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Stockholm to chat with the King of Sweden about it.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: It's often like, oh, you didn't think of this, or
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: here's a concern or whatever. But I think that there's
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: an important role for outsiders. But I want to clarify
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: this question of being in good faith. You know, there
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: are definitely lots of people out there who want to
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: understand the universe and want to come up with a
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: theory or find the current theories of physics unsatisfactory, you know,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: like I don't like that there's no local realism, or
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I don't like this idea of the fabric space time.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And that's cool and it's totally valid if you go
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: off and then build your own theory. But there's also
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a growing population with an unfortunately large platform that I
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: think is not operating in good faith. You know, people
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: who are out there and are pushing conspiracy theory, spreading
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: misinformation for clout, trying to convince to you that academics
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: are fraudsters and we're just wasting your time and tax
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: dollars while patting our fat wallets and everything we're doing
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: is nonsense, and like yeah, and then we're laughing with
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: fat wallets, right. But there's a lot of people out
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: there who are very receptive to the message that like
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: elites are dumb actually and or lying to you, and
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: here's the secret truth which you can know, and even
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: if those theories really make no sense and don't survive
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: any level of scrutiny. You know, I'm talking like Terrence
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Howard's total nonsense one times one equals two level stuff.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: There's a big audience for it, and a lot of
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: people buy it because they're primed to believe that elites
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: are dumb. Actually, and so that's what I mean when
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I say like people not operating in good faith. Yeah,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you know folks we've talked about on the pod before,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you know, Ashton Forbes and this whole crowd of folks
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: who are out there just to build clout and get
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: your attention and your clicks and your ad dollars, not
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: really trying to figure out how the universe works.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: My equivalent is that it seems to me like there's
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: more people out there these days trying to sell remedies
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: for parasitic infections, and in order to sell those in
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the United States, where there's not a lot of parasitic infections,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: you need to convince people that they're infected but they
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: don't realize it, and that they could be feeling better.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: And the reason that they're tired isn't that you got
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: five kids or you know, like in kids, and plus
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: work is exhausting, it's because of the parasites. And so
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I'm getting more and more not through the DKAU email,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: but I'm getting more and more folks reaching out saying
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: like I found this in my body, and what do
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I do? And it used to be that I would say, hey, look,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I'm really sorry. I can't. Yeah, I can't try to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: diagnose based on a picture like that doesn't look like
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: a parasite to me. Very often it will be like,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: it looks pretty clear to me that it's a piece
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: of thread or microp plastics or something, but it looks
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: nothing like any parasit I've ever seen. But on the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: other hand, I don't know what their other symptoms are.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: And I'm not a medical doctor, and so I always
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: tell them, like, you should talk to a doctor, and
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: maybe you should be open to the idea that it
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: might be helpful to talk to another kind of medical professional.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: It might be helpful to talk to someone with you know,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: an emphasis and mental health, which is, you know, like
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the nicest way to say, like, look, we all have times.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, the number of times I've thought I had
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: cancer almost crazy.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I diagnosed myself with toe cancer so many times.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, and the solution for me I needed to
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: go on anxiety medications for a little while and talk
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to a therapist. And I think for some people, their
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: stress manifests as maybe I'm infected by a parasite, and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: that's what they focus on instead of do I have cancer?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And so anyway, it used to be that I would
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: tell people, I'm sorry, I'm not the right kind of
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: medical professional. It's not ethical for me to tell you
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: what I think based on a photo. You need to
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: talk to someone. But now the responses that are coming
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: back aren't okay, Well thanks for at least responding. The
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: responses are your community is suppressing the fact that there's
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: a lot more parasites. Oh no, And so now I'm
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: getting these conspiracy theory.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Are you in bed with big parasite killing?
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not even sure I understand what the argument is.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Why would I mean, the parasitologists are always complaining there's
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: not enough jobs for us. We should be trying to, like,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you know, get the word out that there's everyone's affected
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: by parasites. You need to hire us to solve all
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: these problems. But like, anyway, I'm getting a lot more
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: people who are aggressively responding to me saying that I
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: am part of a movement to cover this stuff up.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Those are my least favorite emails.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Those conspiracy theories never make any sense to me, and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: they strike me as odd because they don't survive, you know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: even just like meeting one scientist, like the ones where
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: they tell you physicists are suppressing the truth. They don't
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: want to change the textbooks, or like archaeologists don't want
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to rewrite the narrative, Like have you met an archaeologist,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Have you met a scientist? You can't get them to
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: shut up about their new ideas how everybody's wrong and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I have a theory or whatever, and like that's the dream,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: that's what everybody's trying to do. I want to disprove
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the standard model more than anything else. My personal scientific
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: fantasy is to find something that makes no sense and
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: requires us to throw everything away and start over. And
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that's not unique, Like everybody feels that way. So there's
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: something pervasive and sinister about these conspiracy theories because they
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: mean that the people who are hearing them have no
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: contact with scientists. And that's one reason why I want
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: to be available. I want to be like, hey, look,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I'm just a person being curious about the world like
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you are.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely same.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: I've seen an uptake in a new kind of communication
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: which isn't too surprising, which is AI assisted theories of everything.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: It used to be people would write to me and say,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I have this idea, this intuition, but I don't know
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: how to express it with the math. Can you help me?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And now instead it's I have this idea, I feed
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: it into Claude. Here's what Claude wrote. I don't understand it.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Can you read it?
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: And that's not something I'm interested in doing. I'm interested
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: in talking to people about their good faith ideas. I'm
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: not so excited about talking to people's AIS about the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: AI's expression, because if people produce something with AI they
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: can't read and they don't understand, then they can't tell
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: whether it's nonsense. And nine to nine percent of the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: time it is. It's shiny nonsense that the AI produced
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: to satisfy the user and makes no sense, and so
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it's unfortunate. But I'm not interested in reading other people's
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: AI output.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm not getting I don't get a lot
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: of AI output okay, thankfully. But I have friends who
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: have gotten literal bags of feces sent to them in
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the mail, which, wow, maybe is worse.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I think that's definitely worse. Yeah, I can just hit
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: delete and it's cleaned up, so.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Right right, I know this mess took a little bit
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: more cleaning up afterwards, and it was, you know, came
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: with a note like I think I have parasites? Can
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: you take a look? It was like, oh, absolutely not, friends,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: absolutely not.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: So back to Grant's question, what are the favorite categories
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: of theories? So I happen to be spending this week
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: at the Aspen Center for Physics and beautiful Colorado. I
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: come here every summer. It's wonderful. It's me and a
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: bunch of theorists and we all talk about crazy ideas
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and whatever. And so I did a little informal survey
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and I asked folks like, hey, what kind of emails
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: do you get? What theories do people tell you? What
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: are your favorites? And unfortunately, most of them said, I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: don't read them. I just delete them. They're all the same. Yeah,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: and I understand that, like a lot of academics, you know,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: are overwhelmed by email and they don't respond to emails
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: from colleagues. I have lots of colleagues, so I will
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: email and I never hear back from and what's wrong
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: with you? But if they can't even respond to emails
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: from like other physicists they're working with actively, then you know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: how could they respond to the public. So I think
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: there's not a broad appetite among physicists for these theories.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And it's true, we get a lot that are very similar.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: You know, physics took a wrong turn in the beginning
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, Einstein was wrong, this kind of stuff.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: So there's a commonality to them and definitely patterns, and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: so I think a lot of physicists just don't read them.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: To be fair to your colleagues, So like I we
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: you and I both got an email once that was
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: really long. It connect and it contained a long PDF,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: and I looked at it and I immediately was like,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: this would take me hours. I can't I don't have hours.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to do. And I wrote to
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: you and I was like, I want to respond, but
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I don't have time. What do we do? And you
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: had a really good response, which was what you give
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: everything fifteen Any email you get gets fifteen minutes, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you give your initial response based on fifteen minutes. And
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I thought that was really nice because, like, you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: fifteen minutes is actually still a lot of time from
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: someone who gets a lot of emails. And you then I,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: you know, we share the same email box, and so
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I saw what your response was and you gave a
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: like thoughtful response based on those fifteen minutes, and I
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: thought that was really nice. And so I don't I
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: wonder if maybe if everybody had like a policy where it's, like,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: you know, on month, I'm willing to spend an hour
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and however many emails are in the box I'll get to,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: you know, I'll give each of them fifteen minutes, and
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: some might have to wait till the next month, or
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Like, yeah, some way to respond I
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: think would be nice if you can.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I hope that people prefer an imperfect
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: response to no response, because those are the options, right,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: because I can't spend a week on every single one
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: coming up with alternatives and etc. But you know, that's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the whole context. And Grant's question was really like, which
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: are your favorites and I'll say that, you know, I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: like any sincere, good faith attempt to understand the universe.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: If it came from your brain and it's really your
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: way of making sense of the cosmos and our experience
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: in it, I love to hear it. My favorites are
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: geometric ones, like I really like geometry. I like visual explanations.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I like things that click together. I'm the kind of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: person if you like, remember back when you're learning algebra
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and you're like solving a system of equations. I don't
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: like thinking about it as equations on the page. I
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: like thinking about it geometrically, because two linear equations are
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: the same as two lines, and the solution is where
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: they cross, And to me, that solution is much more
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: appealing than like substitution and you know, manipulating symbols on
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the page. So I like theories of everything that come
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: from geometry. Like people who think there's some hidden underneath
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: geometry and out of that comes the electron and all
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the quarks and whatever, and I think that's probably true. Cool,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I think there is something deep down out
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: of which comes all the complexity we see. So that's
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: my favorite category.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think I have a favorite category like I love.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I get a little bit intimidated sometimes when I get
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: asked a question, for example, about how the immune system works,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: and if I get a specific medical question, I have
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to pass on that I'm willing to give like broad
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: strokes about like yeah, this is what this parasite tends
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: to do. But I can't get into super specifics because
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I've just that does doesn't seem ethical to me. But
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know. In general, anytime anyone is like more
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: about banana slugs or more, you know, just I get
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of like, here's this natural thing I saw
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: or heard about. I want to know more about it,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: but I don't really know where to go. That is
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: like sort of trusted where I can be sure that
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I'm getting good information, So can you tell me about it?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: And I don't know. I love. I really appreciate the trust,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: and I really appreciate the opportunity to get to dig
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: into into more natural stuff because I love rating.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: About it well. I also consulted our informal third co
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: host Katrina Nice, and I asked her about it, and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: she said she really loves when listeners have like changed
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: their diet. For example, yesterday we got an email from
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: somebody who said that because the podcast, they're now a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: big fan of beans and they even joined the Rancho
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Gordo Being Club because of the podcast. And I'm thinking,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: all right, may the fiber be with you.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Oh no, that's do you really say that. I'm writing
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: down the name of the Rancho Gordo Bean Club because
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I've been meaning to ask you guys the name of
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: that so I can join it too. But anyway, absolutely yes.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: So we love emails from listeners. We love thoughts from listeners.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: We love theories from listeners. Please write to us. We
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: will write you back. We will, all right, Grant, I
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: hope that answered your question.
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: Thanks to that question, Grant, thank you, Daniel and Kelly.
• 34:23
  Speaker 8: That answer took an unexpected turn that really hit a
• 34:25
  Speaker 8: nerve for me.
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: Because thirty five years ago I was.
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: One of those kids emailing a prominent scientist with a
• 34:32
  Speaker 8: question for a high school research paper. I got a
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: cruel blowoff from the secretary that's still smarts, and I
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: ended up choosing engineering over physics shortly after. Thank you
• 34:43
  Speaker 8: for your heartfelt and frankly touching answers, and keep up
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: the good work, all right.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Next up, we've got a question from the United Kingdom.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Let's hear what Liam has to say.
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: Hi, Daniel and Kelly. My name is Liam and I'm
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: a research technician from the UK. My work takes me
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: to a lot of old growth forests and ancient woodlands,
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: and being around the old trees all the time kind
• 35:26
  Speaker 7: of got me thinking how old can something get? How
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: old can the trees get? How old could the carbon
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: the trees get? How old can the aptoms in the
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: trees get? What is the oldest something can be? Looking
• 35:40
  Speaker 7: forward to answer?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Wow, doesn't it sound like Liam has like the best job.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: I was just thinking that, like if I could, you know,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: roll back the tape of my life and start again.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Working in old growth forests and ancient woodlands is like
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: top tier awesomeness.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Being around old trees all the time. Gosh, it just
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: puts everything in perspective. It makes me wonder, like what
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: is this tree scene? You know, like my life is
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a blink. I was just in the redwood forests of
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: California and like saw the sequoias and like wow, it
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: just makes all your problems seemingly minor.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, that's right. You should live in a
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Sequoia Forest and then be constantly blissed out. That would
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: be great.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe, So Liam is asking about how old these trees
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: can get, and how old the stuff in them can get,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: and how old is everything? Anyway, wonderful question. And so
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I remember we have an episode from last year about
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: old trees, was from May twenty twenty five, and Kelly
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: did a great job researching it and of course acknowledging
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: that the best trees and the oldest trees are in California.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Goodness, I'm not sure I said that there were some competitors.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I don't remember exactly, but you're right. The Bristol Cone
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: pines are pretty old.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, they're amazing. They're like almost five thousand years old.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: It's really incredible. Though at risk of toppling California. I
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: will say that there is a contentious competitor, right, not
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: an individual tree, but there's this Pando network you've probably
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: heard of. These are forty seven thousand aspen trees in
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Utah that are connected by a single root system and
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: considered by some ecologists to be a single organism. And
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I think they have like a subtle genetic relationship. Do
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you know something about this?
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it always felt a little bit like cheating
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: to me. Yeah, because like, you know, the initial tree
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: could have long since died, but it spread out and
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: produced other trees that share the same root network. But
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: you know, trees have a totally different way of living
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: than humans do. That totally blows my mind. So maybe
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: this works for trees. But yes, I do know, And
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I've seen some patches of aspens, and holy cow, there
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: are fewer more beautiful things on this planet than looking
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: yes at a big patch of aspens, especially when they're
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: changing colors.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm like in Aspen this week, I'm like looking
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: out my window right now, I see the gorgeous so lucky,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and I love the idea that this community of trees
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: is the single biggest organism on the planet. That's amazing
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: as a name, right, they call it Pando, and they
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: think that it's fourteen to sixteen thousand years old. Why, right, So, like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: what has Pando seen?
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I thought that was a huge patch of fungus under
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Oregon or something that we thought was the biggest organism
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: on the planet.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: All right, I think we're going to have to do
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: a whole episode on what's the biggest organism on the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: planet or something a ranking.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And I think we should also answer the question what
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: counts as an organism? Like does the you know, forty
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: seven thousand trees that make up the aspen stand count
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: as one individual? Is that fair?
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly? Okay, And if we could connect humans by
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: root systems, would we all be one? No?
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Thanks, I'm going on record. Thanks, right.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: So, these are some examples of really old trees and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: more generally, as we talked about in that episode, there's
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: like twenty five species of trees that can live more
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: than a thousand years. Also, lots of trees that don't
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: live very long, like dogwoods live you know, twenty thirty
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: forty years. And the science is still out on this.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You know, why do some trees live really long and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: some don't? How is it an evolutionary benefit? Check out
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: that whole episode for a deep dive by Kelly as
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: usual on the age of trees.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: That was so fun to research.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Trees are fun to be around and think about, to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: sit under.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: And yes, so how old are carbon molecules?
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah? So, one of the most amazing thing about trees
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: is that they build themselves out of air.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: That's crazy, Yeah, right, like.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Think about how you plant a seed in the ground
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: and a tree grows out of it, and you might
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: think to yourself, well, where does the stuff to make
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the tree come from? And your first instinct might be
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: the ground. It's like pulling stuff out of the ground
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and assembling it. But no, it is pulling carbon out
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: of the air. Trees literally are biological machines to build
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: themselves out of air. It bloots me.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. Yeah, yep.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: We have a palm tree that we planted fifteen years ago.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: One time, we were going to go to cern for
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: like nine months and we had this potted plant that
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: we got from Akia, just like a little potted palm tree,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and we're like, oh, this is going to die. Let's
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: just put it outside. And we put it in a
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: corner of our yard and then we just left it
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: there and now it is taller than our house.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: And I look at the things sometimes I'm like, that's
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: just air. It's just air. It's unbelievable anyway. So the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: point is to answer Liam's question, like, trees have carbon
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: in them, and this carbon is in several forms, and
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: there's a very complex carbon cycle on Earth where you
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: have carbon in the atmosphere and then trees can take
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: that carbon in right to build themselves up. And trees
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: are about fifty percent carbon, often stored in cellulose, but
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: then they die and then those trees return that carbon
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: to the soil and it can get washed out into
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the oceans, where the carbon is mostly in the form
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: of like eight CO three and CO three, and sometimes
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: organisms can take that carbon in and make calcium carbonate,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and if enough of that builds up, then you can
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: get like limestone. So sometimes this carbon cycle can take
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: like ten or one hundred million years before the limestone
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: on the bottom of the ocean gets like subducted by
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: tectonic activity back into magma, melted, and then like burped
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: up back into the atmosphere by volcanoes. It's an incredible cycle.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: And I'll mention that our plant friend Manuel Lerdau wants
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: to come back on the show to talk about carbon
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: cycle and stuff. That's a lot of what he works on.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: So there'll be a lot more about this coming soon.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And you know, I have to throw space in there
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: whenever I can. Well, you know, one of my favorite
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: examples for why it would be hard to live on
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: the moon is that the moon doesn't even have a
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: lot of carbon. Yeah, and so it's like, how are
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: you going to imagine growing things when you just don't
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: even have carbon to start with. It's just so important. Okay,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: anyway back to trees.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: And so these cycles can be short, right, Like something
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: can and die and then decompose and then its carbon
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: is back in the atmosphere. Or if like a forest
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: fire comes through and burns the trees, the carbon is
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: released back from the atmosphere. So carbon can go into
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: trees and back into the atmosphere in years, or it
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: could be like two hundred million years, you know. And
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: a single bit of carbon can be like a hunk
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of coal for a long long time before it returns
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: to the atmosphere. So individual carbon molecule that now we're
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: talking about can be in one form for a long
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: time or a short time. This fascinating, many many loops,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm really looking forward to that episode digging into
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the carbon cycle.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: But so is this are we really answering Liam's question,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: because like it does it matter where the carbon has been?
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Like I guess he wants to know when did that
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: carbon start?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, right, so well I was thinking We talked
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: about the trees, and we talk about the molecules, and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: now let's take into the atoms, because you're right, if
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: it changes from CO two to calcium carbonate or whatever,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: it's the same carbon, right, Is it the same carbon?
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: And the answer is yes, that the out of are
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: not changing. Chemistry is mostly clicking together things but not
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: changing their elements. So the carbon and the oxygen, the nitrogen,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: all that stuff is just being rearranged. And that stuff
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: is very very old. It's all older than the Earth, right,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: because anything that's here on Earth could not have been
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: made on Earth. You cannot make carbon or oxygen or
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: nitrogen on Earth. It requires fusion at the heart of stars.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: So remember that the universe began and we mostly had
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: hydrogen and then a little bit of helium. So the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: universe begins almost entirely hydrogen. And then to make this
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: heavier stuff carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, you need fusion at the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: heart of stars, and we have it here on Earth
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: because it was fused at the heart of some earlier
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: star which then exploded and spread its ashes through space
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and that became part of the gas cloud which formed
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: our Solar system. And any carbon atom that's in you
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: or in a tree, created in that other star and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: survived that explosion and floated through space and survived the
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: formation of the Earth. Because none of these processes are
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: powerful enough to break up carbon, so it's been around
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: for billions of years.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: We are all star stuff.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: We are star stuff. Actually we're mostly Big Bang stuff, right,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: because the hydrogen that we're made out of is not
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: star stuff. It was made during the Big Bang. And
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: so like, if you get into the protons, right, all
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: these elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen are made of a bunch
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: of protons stuck together from the heart of stars. But
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: where do those protons come from? Those all come from
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the Big Bang? Right, So as the universe is cooling
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: we're talking thirteen point eight billion years ago, then quarks
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and gluons come together and cool and instead of being
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: a big soup, they fall together into mostly protons. And
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: protons are stable protons we think will live forever unless
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: you like mash them together at the large age on
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: collider or actually impact the Earth like a super tiny
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: little meteor, then they will live forever. Like you have
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: a proton just sitting in space, come back in a
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: hundred trillion years, we think you'll still have a proton.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: We don't know because we've only been able to measure
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: protons and look for them decaying for you know, a
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: little while. But best measurements are that protons have a
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: longer lifetime than the current age of the universe.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, first, I think we're all just bang stuff. Doesn't
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: have the same doesn't have the same flow as we're
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: all just star stuff. But I see your point, and
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you corrected me. But so when you are
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: working at the LHC and you're destroying protons that otherwise
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: would have lived forever, do you feel bad?
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Well? Is it a proton genocide? I don't think protons
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: have rights. No, so I don't think they have emotions.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: If they did, and they you know, if I was
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a pan psychic somebody who believed that like consciousness is
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: inherent in the universe, and the electrons have a little
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: bit of consciousness, then yes, I would feel bad. And
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: now I have to feel very, very bad because we're
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: doing it all the time, right, Like every twenty four
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: nanoseconds we smash together like ten to the twelve protons.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: So if I'm bad, I'm extremely bad.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: It would be a lot to weigh on your conscience.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, the protons are definitely not voting me
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: their favorite person, so, you know, to answer Liam's question,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: trees are thousands of years old. The carbon molecules that
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: are in them have probably been in that form for
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: maybe longer, you know, up to millions of years old.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: The carbon atoms that are in those carbon molecules are
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: definitely billions of years old. And the end everything is
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: made out of protons which have been around since the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: universe was very very young. It's all really really old stuff.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: We're talking about the very beginning of time.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: So even when you're not here anymore, the bits that
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: we're a part of you will go on living.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: No, they won't be in such a charming form again.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, you will have always been their best configuration. However,
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: they'll go on to do other things, all right, Liam,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: what do you think?
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: Hi, guys, thanks for answering my question. Well, it's not
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: too surprising that the molecules and particles in trees are
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: probably going to be around from much longer. It's pretty
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: cool to think about all the combinations and configurations they're
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: going to be in past the Earth cell by day
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: and beyond. I'm sad you think it's the best job
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: in the world.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: It really is the.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Best job in the world.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: I've just moved on to hydrography though, so less trees,
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: more water, but should still be quite exciting.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks for answer my question.
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: Also, I'm going to start a society for the Protection
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: of protons. Anyone is free to join, especially you, Daniel. Okay,
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: thanks guys.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: All right, thank you very much everybody for sharing your
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: curiosity with us. We really do love hearing from you.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: We love answering your questions. We mean it. Write to us.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts, share
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: your ideas, share your curiosity. You'll hear back from us.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, Daniel writes back in about thirty seconds. It takes
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: me about a week. Write to us at questions at
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly dot org. Or you can share your
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: questions with our amazing discord community by going to Daniel
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: and Kelly dot org and finding the link to our
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Discord channel.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks very much everyone, Thanks everybody for listening. Please go
• 48:31
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• 48:34
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• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is edited by the amazing
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Matt Kesselman.
• 48:42
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• 48:51
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• 48:52
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• 48:56
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• 48:58
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• 49:02
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• 49:05
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• 49:09
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• 49:13
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