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Will the Large Hadron Collider destroy the Earth? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
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  Speaker 1: Charles W. Bryant, as well as our producer Jerry. You
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  Speaker 1: can just call me Boson Higgs Boson. No one's going
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  Speaker 1: to call you that. It would be a great name, though, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Higgs Boson. What up pigs. I wonder if that thing
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  Speaker 1: is discovered, if somebody will name their kid Higgs Boson,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Michael Wits or whatever. Well, if someone names
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  Speaker 1: her kid yet Detroit. I think someone could potentially name
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  Speaker 1: the kid Nigs Boson. There's a there's even a comma
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  Speaker 1: I think in there and there and yet Detroit. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I don't remember an exclamation point. Yeah, there's some sort
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  Speaker 1: of punctuation. When you get punctuation into your name. Your
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  Speaker 1: parents were messed up. Yes, Chuck's talking about a theoretical
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  Speaker 1: article called the Higgs Boson, and we'll talk about it
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  Speaker 1: in a minute, but first we're going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: the place where they're hoping to find proof positive that
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  Speaker 1: the Higgs Boson particle exists, yes, Josh. And this is
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  Speaker 1: very science heavy, super science heavy, because it's about science,
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  Speaker 1: so science heavy that Chuck and I um are a
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  Speaker 1: little nervous about this one. I'm not afraid you have
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  Speaker 1: dark matter using out of my ears, which is proof
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  Speaker 1: that it exists. Exactly. You just you just amended the
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  Speaker 1: standard model. Chuck. All right, let's talk about this, dude.
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  Speaker 1: What what what is this? We're talking about the large
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  Speaker 1: Hadron collider. Right, but you may have heard about, you
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  Speaker 1: may know a lot about, and if you do, I
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  Speaker 1: imagine we'll probably get some angry emails from you when
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  Speaker 1: we mess it up. And right, but on the border
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  Speaker 1: between Switzerland and France. Yes, a hundred meters underground, beautiful country. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: that's a good skiing out there. Sure, Um. There is
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  Speaker 1: a facility with track that's what seventeen miles long, think
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  Speaker 1: seventeen point seven sixteen points, we'll just call it seventeen
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  Speaker 1: seventeen Uh and around this track, Uh, they shoot beams
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  Speaker 1: of light. Pretty simple, It is pretty simple. And we
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  Speaker 1: stop now, Yes, we can that there there's a large
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  Speaker 1: had round collider, everybody, that's what it's called. It's called
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  Speaker 1: the Large had dron collider. Um it's been built. I
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  Speaker 1: think they started in the twenty first century and finally
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  Speaker 1: went online for the first time in two thousand and eight.
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  Speaker 1: So far, it's cost six billion dollars to construct. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I've heard any up to ten even depending on who. Yeah. Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of countries involved. There's thousands of
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  Speaker 1: scientists who are going back to their home countries and
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  Speaker 1: saying we need more money, we need more money. Um
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  Speaker 1: and uh the the but yeah, France and um Switzerland
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  Speaker 1: to run in the show there. Ye. CERN is the
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  Speaker 1: name of the company we should point out right well,
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  Speaker 1: the organizations the European Organization for Nuclear Research abbreviated en
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  Speaker 1: Francais CERN. Okay, I was about to say those letters
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  Speaker 1: don't match up something here, So what is it, chuck?
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  Speaker 1: They shoot beams of like. It's a particle accelerator and
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  Speaker 1: it is the largest and most badass particle accelerator in
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  Speaker 1: the history of particle accelerators. True that that's the easiest
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  Speaker 1: way to say. We've got particle accelerators that look like um,
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  Speaker 1: old donkeys pulling carts with square wheels compared to this thing. Seriously,
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  Speaker 1: this is as big as it gets. It's as ambitious
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  Speaker 1: as it gets um. And basically, what they're trying to
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  Speaker 1: do our several fold. They're trying to prove the existence
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  Speaker 1: of the Higgs Boson particle, the god particle. Well, let's
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  Speaker 1: talk about this. Why why would anyone want to prove
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  Speaker 1: the existence of a theoretical particle? Should we go back
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  Speaker 1: to the standard model? Yeah? Should we back into this,
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  Speaker 1: let's do it. Basically, it tries to define the fundamental
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  Speaker 1: particles that make uh, the universe, the forces, the forces, right,
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  Speaker 1: You've got strong nuclear force, strong like bull, weak nuclear force,
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  Speaker 1: electromagnetic force. So the standard model, which combines um Einstein's
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  Speaker 1: theory of relativity with quantum physics I believe um theory
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  Speaker 1: and all that other stuff you just said. It combines
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  Speaker 1: those two, uh, and it proves the existence that it
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  Speaker 1: counts for those three forces. The problem is gravity still
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  Speaker 1: remains unaccounted for. That's the fourth fundamental force, Like we
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  Speaker 1: can account for theoretically, but we can't say, yes, this
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  Speaker 1: is why gravity exists, and this is all the stuff
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  Speaker 1: gravity does. We're still with with strong nuclear force, weak
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  Speaker 1: nuclear force, and electromagnetic force. We've advanced leaps and bounds
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  Speaker 1: beyond classical physics, Newtonian physics. But we're still at the
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  Speaker 1: apple falling off the tree level. Uh, as far as
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  Speaker 1: this goes when it comes to gravity. So the Higgs
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  Speaker 1: Boson particle, if we find it, if we detect it um,
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  Speaker 1: it will fill out the standard model exactly. And it's
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  Speaker 1: a theoretical particle at this point that we're looking for, right,
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  Speaker 1: And they they think that it exists and that basically
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  Speaker 1: it's responsible for giving mass or matter mass right right,
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  Speaker 1: which is important, they say, because not all matter has mass,
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  Speaker 1: things called neutrinos, delicious and nutritious. Neutrinos do not have maths.
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  Speaker 1: I've practiced that one did. It's actually written down. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: So not everything has mass. And and the idea is
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  Speaker 1: that if you explain uh the existence of mass using
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  Speaker 1: the Higgs mechanism, we'll all be better for it and
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  Speaker 1: understand our origins. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to,
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  Speaker 1: is where like theory, theory is not good enough, we
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  Speaker 1: have to know, you know. So the Higgs Boston particle
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  Speaker 1: is one of the bigger ones named after Peter Higgs.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, physicists who theorized it um. How do
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  Speaker 1: you how do you know a theoretical particle when you
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  Speaker 1: see it. That's a good question. Do you know? This
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  Speaker 1: is what I understand, Um that you can't just say, oh,
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  Speaker 1: there must be this particle out there and name it
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  Speaker 1: after me. By the way, I think Peter Higgs went
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  Speaker 1: a little further and said, this particle must exist, and
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  Speaker 1: if it does exist, this is basically this is its
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  Speaker 1: um energy, it's mass, So find this name it after me,
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  Speaker 1: right exactly? And uh so if they what's going to
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  Speaker 1: happen when they when they turn the large Hadron collider
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  Speaker 1: on what this Christmas? Right? I think it begins the
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  Speaker 1: process which will take several months after that to collide. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they'll they'll have their sensors looking for particle that's created
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  Speaker 1: that has that I guess mass, that energy, that that whatever,
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  Speaker 1: um however, it's described mathematically. My stuff. It's coming out
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  Speaker 1: of my ears right now. So darker matter is another
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  Speaker 1: one that they're hoping to find, right. Uh, yeah, you've
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  Speaker 1: got to coming out your ears tell us about it, Chuck. Well, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: here's the deal. Dark matter is. Right now, humans can
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  Speaker 1: observe about four of all the matter that must exist
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  Speaker 1: in the universe. That's all we can account for. That's
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  Speaker 1: not very much. Uh, there's a theory that um dark
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  Speaker 1: matter is this undetectable matter and that coupled with the
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  Speaker 1: matter that we can detect, makes up only about which
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  Speaker 1: is still not much. And the other three quarters is
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  Speaker 1: what they think might be a force called dark energy, right,
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  Speaker 1: which UM. Scientists have become alarmed over the last few
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  Speaker 1: decades when they've detected that the universe is actually expanding
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  Speaker 1: and they don't know why well, and they think that
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  Speaker 1: dark energy may be the reason. Right, So they're looking
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  Speaker 1: for that too. UM. A lot of once you again,
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  Speaker 1: once you theorize something, you kind of have to back
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  Speaker 1: it up with, and this is what it's going to
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  Speaker 1: look like, right, and so that you you sense for it, right. Sure.
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  Speaker 1: They're also looking for anti matter, which is matters hated
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  Speaker 1: foe and they like to cancel each other out. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's how it supposedly worked, is that there was more
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  Speaker 1: anti matter matters, right, more matter than antimatter when the
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  Speaker 1: Big Bang happened, which is how we're here. But they
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  Speaker 1: don't know why, and they're hoping and that is um,
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  Speaker 1: that is the hook, Chuck, what they're going to do.
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  Speaker 1: They want to find all this stuff and more, um
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  Speaker 1: by recreating the Big Bang, that the the what the
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  Speaker 1: universe looked like a trillionth of a second after the
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  Speaker 1: Big Bang? Right right, because we think what happened was
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  Speaker 1: the universe expands and cools and all these particles floating
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  Speaker 1: around join up together and form larger particles and then
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, what do you what do? What's
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  Speaker 1: what's the word evolution? Sure it starts rolling if you
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  Speaker 1: believe in that kind of thing, right, Um. They're also
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  Speaker 1: looking for some other stuff, um, slightly stranger stuff than
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  Speaker 1: you know, dark matter and anti matter. They're looking for
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  Speaker 1: evidence well, adherence of string theory. Are looking for evidence
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  Speaker 1: of string theory, which would we mean another dimension several
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  Speaker 1: up to eleven. I believe who I think theorized eleven.
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  Speaker 1: I don't buy string theory. Yeah, and you've always I have.
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  Speaker 1: I have a real problem, and it's most likely I
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  Speaker 1: just don't understand it. But from what I understand, very
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  Speaker 1: very smart people don't understand it either. Well, there's no
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  Speaker 1: compression that Kiku is like this is what he didn't
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  Speaker 1: come up with the measurements to back it up, you know,
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  Speaker 1: But you're on the same page as a lot of scientists,
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  Speaker 1: though they also say that it's it's a philosophy. It's
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  Speaker 1: not a science, right under his theory or under his philosophy,
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  Speaker 1: however you want to say it. Um, there's up to
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  Speaker 1: eleven different dimensions. We're currently aware of four um height,
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  Speaker 1: with depth and time. Yes, those are four dimensions that
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  Speaker 1: we exist in UM. Under k KU there's eleven total,
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  Speaker 1: so there's another eight that are unaccounted for UM, and
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  Speaker 1: that all matter in the universe is made up of
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  Speaker 1: tiny vibrating strength. Some are closed like little rubber bands,
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  Speaker 1: some are open like little um oh, I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: tape worms, like a cut rubber band, right, sure, And
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  Speaker 1: these strings can vibrate and like a guitar string, and uh,
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  Speaker 1: one vibration might make it look like an electron. One
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  Speaker 1: might make it look like a neutrino, delicious and netritious neutrino.
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  Speaker 1: And that's string theory and it's most simplest form. But
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: even still, the strings are highly hypothetical UM, and even
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: if they were created, we apparently wouldn't be able to
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  Speaker 1: sense them. What they're looking for the string theorists is
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  Speaker 1: evidence of supersymmetry, right, and supersymmetry is you have a
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  Speaker 1: particle and it has a UM an opposite particle like
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  Speaker 1: a neutron, and a positron positive and negatively charged an antiparticle.
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  Speaker 1: Sure right, Um, even further those are superpartners, even further
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  Speaker 1: into supersymmetry. And this will somehow, I guess, prove string theory.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I don't understand how it will. But um, and oh
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: my god, can you imagine the length of the emails
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  Speaker 1: we're going to get from people who explain how this
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  Speaker 1: proves string theory. I'm already uh, suffering from brain melt.
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  Speaker 1: I can't imagine anymore. So you've got the neutron and
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  Speaker 1: the positron, yes, and those are superpartners. But each of
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  Speaker 1: those have a UM positive partner to rather than an opposite,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: they have one that's like them as well. Each one
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: has their own partners, So each particle will have three
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  Speaker 1: partner particles, three counterparticles, counterparticles, perfect chutes. So that would
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  Speaker 1: be supersymmetry. And apparently if they find evidence of supersymmetry,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: then but a boom, but a being string theory is right, right,
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  Speaker 1: and it also helps to explain dark matter, Yes it does,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: so wow, is anyone still out there? Yes? Sticks like this, everybody.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: We're muddling through this part, but it's about to get
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a little more interesting. There's like ten nerds that are like,
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  Speaker 1: this is the best thing ever know. They're like carving
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  Speaker 1: their knives. Yeah, ready to slice us up? Yes, um,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: so that's what they're looking for. And also I think
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  Speaker 1: this is what I find most fascinating about at it.
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  Speaker 1: Most of the scientists out there, I think there are
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  Speaker 1: very few who are looking for evidence at back up
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  Speaker 1: their theories. Most of them are actually hoping to learn
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: like everything they know is wrong and there's all this
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  Speaker 1: new stuff so that they can go out there and
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  Speaker 1: figure out what how this fits here and all that.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I find that very interesting. It's a very ambitious project.
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  Speaker 1: And as Strickland points out in this article, very comprehensive article.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, um there is no practical application for this. Yeah,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: it's all just to see what happens. Yeah, which is
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: pretty cool to sink six to ten billion into you know. Well,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and if you've ever seen the thing, I mean, the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: pictures of this, the hay drunk glider is just unbelievable.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: It's ginormous. It's ginormous. So what are they going to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: be doing, Chuck, how does this thing work? Uh? Well, Josh,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: there are eight sectors at the hay Drunk collider, and um,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: they basically use magnets to steer these beams of light,
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  Speaker 1: these protons in a circle, because otherwise it's just straight right.
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  Speaker 1: Do you love that part? Well? Yeah, because that's the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: only part that makes sense, right, Um, the the magnets
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  Speaker 1: are actually super cool, the right chuck. Yeah, Well, there's
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  Speaker 1: ninety magnets. If you want a little uh status statuts,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: this one stat heavy. So ninety magnets. Many of them
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: weigh several times which is pretty uh, pretty big, pretty big.
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  Speaker 1: And they are cool Josh to one point nine degrees kelvin,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: which is negative to seventy one celsius or negative fahrenheit,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: which is just above absolute zero. Yeah. And the reason
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: why they would want to cool and electro magnet um
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  Speaker 1: to just above absolute zero is there's very little electrical
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: resistance when you turn that thing on, so it can
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: operate smoothly, exactly ideally, right, because it's it's um. It's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: purpose isn't to, like, you know, to a jokey attract
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: all of the pots and pans at a certain facility
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  Speaker 1: to it. I mean it has a purpose. It's steering
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  Speaker 1: beams of light, which is much more difficult. You go
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: out there trying to steer a beam a light. I've trying. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's tough. Okay, So well how do they cool it though?
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: That's a pretty cool staff. They cool at using liquid
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: hydrogen and helium, right, liquid nitrogen. Yeah, that stuff burns
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: ten thousand, eight hundred tons of liquid nitrogen and sixty
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: tons of liquid helium to to finish up right, that's
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  Speaker 1: pretty hardcore. Um. Okay, So you've got these magnets, and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: actually inside the magnets are pipes which are vacuumed. Yeah,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: we gotta have a vacuum. So basically, if you hear
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: you've heard vacuum and almost absolute zero. Um. This sounds
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: an all awful lot like outer space, like deep space exactly. Yes, Um,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So they're they're creating a vacuum um to keep any
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: particle outright, any particle could screw this whole thing up.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So imagine that there's inside this almost seventeen mile track,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: there's nothing. They're creating deep space threet below the Earth's
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: crust without the space jump. That's okay, So chuck a
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: long this and also those UM the eight sectors. Each
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: one is an arc, like you said, so it's basically
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: one big circle. And along UM along this big circle
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: are six stations basically, and each one of these is
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: outfitted with you know, tons of centers is a hundred
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and fifty million centers I think UM throughout the whole
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: collider um. And so each station is basically working to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: UM measure one thing or another. Right, And we could
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: go into detail here, but this is really when people
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: would tune out, but just suffice to say there are
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: eight main stations where they're looking for or six of them.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Six main stations, four of which are really ginormous collecting
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: lots of info, and then two kind of smaller ones, right,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and remember these they're they're collecting things like UM, information
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: about radiation, sudden changes in mass, gravitational fields, electromagnetic fields,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and then it's going to sort through.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And actually, another interesting thing about CERN is that it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: getting something like fifteen petabytes of data gathered every year,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: which is a fifteen million gigabytes, that's and they're constantly
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the sensors are constantly feeding back information. Yeah, would they
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: say that was enough information to fill one thousand DVDs,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: which is not as impressive as I would have thought.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty impressed. Okay. Um, and they're actually using a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: grid computing, using off the shelf computers, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: they just linked them together. Why they do that? Uh,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it's more efficient from what I understand. Yeah, and it's cheaper, right, Um,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: they're saving Speaking of cheap, you know what's not cheap
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: their power bill? Did you see that unbelievable thirty million
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: dollars per year just to power this thing after they've
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: already sunk between six and ten billion into it. And
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: once this once this thing it's revved up. What they're
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: going to do first? The first step, chuck, and this
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: is like the big experiment. Basically, they're just shooting beams
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of light and then smashing them into each other. Okay,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: So what they're gonna do first is they're going to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: take hydrogen atoms. They're gonna strip them of their electrons, right, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which produces protons. They're gonna take the protons and they're
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: going to send them through a machine that fires them
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  Speaker 1: as beams. The PS booster, that's the accelerator, right. I
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: think that's what gets there's a bunch of them, but
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that's what gets it going, right, So it's just a
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: beam and then it's a right right okay, chuck. So
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: when they get these beams ready, right, when the when
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is ready to go online for the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: big experiment, uh sometime early next year hopefully. So the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: first step is to take hydrogen atoms and strip them
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: of their electrons, which makes protons, right, and there we
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: have our protons because this is ultimately as a proton accelerator, right. Um.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: What they do is they feed these into a machine
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  Speaker 1: called the line Nex two, which fires the beams of
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  Speaker 1: protons into the accelerator, which is the PS booster. Yes,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and dude, that uses radio frequency electric field to push
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the protons along and kind of get them started on
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: their journey to uh just below light speed. Right. It's like, yeah,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: get along a little proton, right, and well you're gonna
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: meet some other guys later that are gonna whip you
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  Speaker 1: even harder. Right. Yeah. That PS booster makes them go
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: from you know, a beam of light to a beam
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of light right right, Okay, it's a good way to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: say thank you very much. Um. And the magnets are
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: going to come in. Now they're keeping these proton beams
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: on track and the things going along pretty quick, pretty quick,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and then the PS booster injecton into another accelerator called
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the super Proton Sinco tron. Hey, it sounds like a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: children's toy, it does. It's very expensive one. So the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: beams are now really picking up speed and they're divided
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: into bunches. Okay, so you have just imagine one beam
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: and it's divided um into I think hundred bunch and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: eight per beam per beam. Uh, and each bunch has
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: one point one times ten to the eleventh power protons.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And this is important to say that they shoot one
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: counterclockwise and one clockwise in two different two different tunnels.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, they're going different directions, but they're getting faster
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and faster, and they're actually coming very very close to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the speed of light. At one point, remember this is
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a seventeen mile track. At one point is these beams
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: are getting to their their top speed. They make eleven thousand,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty five trips around the track per second.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Stat of the year that it may be, dude, it's
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: what is this mid November and that's the stat of
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the year. Yeah, more than eleven thousand trips around a
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: sixteen mile track per second. If you ever wondered how
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: fast the speed of light is, that's nine nine percent there. Yeah,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: but you gotta you gotta admit that, um hundredth of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a percent is pretty substantial. I wonder how many any
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: trips they make at the speed of light. Yeah. The
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: fact that we have figured out how to do that's
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: not h and I obviously humans have figured out I
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: do this is pretty amazing. It works amazing or terrifying,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a minute. Yes, and then Josh,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: you know what happens? Then they converge. Yeah, they direct
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: these bunches of beams of protons and to each other
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and kaboom, six hundred million collisions per second at that point.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And I get the impression also that um it wasn't clear,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: but the beams can be directed towards one another at
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: each of the six censor stations. Okay, I think so,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: because I think you have to have your centers right there,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: right right. We'll see that makes sense, we'll find out.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So we're going by the way, I already booked as
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: a trip. Um So what happens, Josh, is they theoretically
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: they're gonna collide and they're gonna break up into small
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: particles like quarks, and there their accompanying energy called gluon.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: You know, one keeps it all together, which is why
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: it's called glue on. Is it really? Of course not.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: But quarks are really unstable and they will decay in
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: just like a fraction at the second. But we have
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: all these sensors to pick up what happens exactly exactly. Um.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's part of the problem with why
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: we can't detect this stuff in the universes. It's already happened, right,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and we're witnessing its effects, were part of its effects,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: right right. Um, So they want to recreate the beginning
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: of the universe to see if these things really exist
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and what their effects are, etcetera, etcetera. Um, there's possibly
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: going to be some other things that are created, uh inadvertently, Yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: photons and muans and black holes chuck. Yeah, that's possible.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It's very possible. Actually, even certain said it was possible.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: That's one of the critics. Uh. One of the things
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: that critics point out is you may create a black
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: hole and you may destroy the earth so much so
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: that sue dudes sued them basically to try and stop it.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And not just two dudes, um, a guy named Walter
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Wagner and Luis Sancho. Walter Wagner was the former nuclear
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: safety officer for the large Hay Drunk Collider. He was
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: like the guy who was in charge of safety, and
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: he filed the lawsuit in the U. S. District Court
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii to to file an injunction to create an
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: injunction to stop that thing from being turned on. Because
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you know what a black hole is. It's a bad
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Mama jamas where it's h I love. How Strickland puts it,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: black holes are regions in which matter collapses into a
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: point of infinite density. Not good, No, it's not. And
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: uh again, as Chuck said, Cerin has said, yeah, maybe
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: they may create some black holes, but really teeny ones.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Well that's what they're saying. They're saying, Yeah, the black hole,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and love is a star collapsing on itself.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: We're talking about um sub atomic particles collapsing on themselves.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: So it's a black hole, but you know it's gonna
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: be tiny. Um. One of the Uh. The concerns that
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Wagner in Sancho have is that, sure, it may be tiny,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: but no one's ever done this before. And you guys
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: have no idea whether this is safe or not. Just
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: too much unknown, right. And they're like, no, no, our
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: magnets are safe. They're they've been tested. They're like, we're
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: not talking about the magnets, we're talking about all this stuff.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: You have no idea what's going to happen. And they
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: also said, I love the response. One of certain's response
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: was and there's no one allowed down in there while
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: it's going on, right, And they're like, um, dude, what
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: about the Earth? Yeah, being swallowed up into a black hole? Sure,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: forget the one scientist that's you know, wants to watch
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the explosion, forget him. Yeah he can write out of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the black hole what's going on down there? You know? Yes?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Uh Josh, And you know what, you know what else
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: they think they might produce the strange lit Yeah, yeah,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: these things are a little scary. Yeah, it could be worrisome. Uh,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: strangelets could possess a gravitational field that could convert them
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and the entire planet Earth into a lifeless hulk. Right,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They think that strangelets have this um they have. They're
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: very dense. I think they're theoretical as well, right, Yeah,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the hypothetical um they they apparently have the property of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: lending their incredible density to any other particle it touches
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: and setting off a chain reaction, kind of like rogue
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: from X Men, kind of. I think there's a lot
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: of quantum physics and the X Men in my p brain.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna think. So, um, they're worried that
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: if a strangelet is created, it could set off a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: chain a chain reaction that turns all matter on Earth
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: into this ultra dense, dead like lifeless hulk, including us
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: on Earth because we're on Earth. Yes, but certain dismisses
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: that for a few reasons. They say, Um, first of all,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that it's hypothetical, so we don't even know that, so
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: don't get your panties in a wide yet. Um. I
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: believe that's what the memo said, actually, And then they said, actually,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: there's an electromatic field that would really pell normal matter
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: instead of changing it, so don't sweat it. Then they say,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: even if it does exist, it would be really unstable
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and would probably just decay like instantaneously, like those black holes. Right.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And then the final thing they say is that high
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: energy cosmic rays would produce this stuff naturally anyway and
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: should be hitting the Earth already, and we're still here,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: so don't worry about it. The one that I have
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the real problem with was the third one that should
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: decay almost instantaneously. Should Does it really do well? No?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, does it really take a very long time
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: for a strangely to transfer that to set off an inaction?
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: That's true, We'll find out if the world's a lifeless
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: hulk this uh, this February. Sweet. Um, there's a couple
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of guys, remember that Higgs boson particle that we talked
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: about at the beginning, right, Um, there are a couple
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of guys who are actually very well respected physicists, right, chuck. Uh,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm told, who have um come up with
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a couple of papers that they basically say, and these
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: are real physicists, These are real respected physicists, and they're
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: not joking. They're saying that the Higgs boson has already
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: been created in the future at CERN at the Large
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Hadron Collider. And it was so abhorrent that it rippled
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: back in time and sabotaged itself so that it could
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: never be created, sabotaged the LHC so it can never
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: be created. So what's what's the analogy they're liking it too?
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Coming back from the future to kill your father so
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you will never be born your grandfather's whatever. That's actually
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a paradox. You can't do that, or else you never
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: would have been born in the first place, exactly. But
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: they make the case that it's not a paradox to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: travel back in time to push your grandfather out of
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the path of an oncoming bus, which is they're what
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: they're saying the Higgs boson is doing. And the reason
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: they say this is because it has failed on a
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: spectacular level so far. Has there's some strange things, you
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: could say, well, for there have been some strange ones.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: The first one wasn't that strange. It was a coolant leak,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and uh, it destroyed a lot of the magnets, which
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: was pretty expensive to fix. So that knocked it off
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: track for quite a while, off track literally, and um
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: then Josh, you know what happened last week? A bird
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: dropped a baguette, a piece of bread into this thing. Yeah,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: into one of the magnets. This is really what happened. Yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Can you believe that? I can because I'm kind of
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: with the two physicists who think that the boson has
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: been created and traveled back in time. Yeah. So this
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: bird drops us into a piece of the outdoor machinery
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and uh overheated the parts of it, and it was
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: not operational at the time, but they said that it
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: produced such a spike that if it had been turned on,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: that dropping this bread would have enabled the automatic fail
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: safe and it would shut it down. Piece of bread
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: from a bird. That's a little hinky, it is, But
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: at the same time, if you think about it, it's
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: not really that hinky. But this everyone is so everyone
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: paying attention is so like this could be really great
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: or it could conceivably end life as we know it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: And see what happens. So anything that happens to it,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: um is just hugely under the microscope. Yes, yes, um,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: And I just realized that I was agreeing with the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: string theorist. One of the physicists is Holger beck Nielsen
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and his um compatriot Japanese physicistem say Oh Nino Mia.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And these are the two that are saying that the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Higgs boson was created and traveled back in time. They
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: have a very easy way of solving whether or not
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the LHC should be put online. How's that a card game? Really? Yeah?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: They want to come up with basically, let's say a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: hundred million cards and million thousand and ninety nine of
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: these cards say go ahead, right, and then one card
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: says shut it down. And obviously this is all software,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: not actual cards. And then you ask the LHC to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: pick one, and if the LHC picks the one that
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: uh says shut it down, then we should shut it down.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Shut it down. Then it's fine. Wo Yeah. Are they
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: actually gonna do this? I don't think I don't think so,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: because they have no say over certain anyway. You know,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: they don't. They're they're not related to Swart, but like
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I said, they are both respected physicists and the physics community.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: When they first heard about this, for like, and then
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: they read it and they're like, yeah, yeah, because it
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: is possible hypothetically, and if the LHC is involved in anything,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it's hypothesis and theory big time. And until it proves
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: everything or destroys the universe. We should say to that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this uh baguette in the works has not thrown it
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: off schedule. Apparently this time just shut it down for
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the time being, the chilling schedule. Like you said, I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: think they're gonna start cranking it up sometime this winter
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and then they're gonna break for Christmas and come back
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and then booms. See what happened, Chuck. I propose and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I also proposed this to all of our listeners having
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: a big old party on the day that they do this,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: because it could be our last could be. I also
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: want to point out that I just saw this in
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the news today. One of the scientists was arrested in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: France as an al Qaida suspect. Mhm. Is that weird?
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And of course they're saying that this has nothing to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: do with al Qaida trying to get their hands on
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the LHC or anything like that. It was just kind
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: of one of those things. And there's I think seven
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: thousand scientists working on it, so you know, it's not
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: that big of a deal. Oh, I guess it is
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: for him. He's in big trouble. Yeah. So that's the LHC,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the Large hay Drown Collider yeah, and probably talk about
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: it again at some point in time, don't you think. Yeah,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: we should follow up when it happens. If it happens,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and uh, I will probably read one of the emails
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: from one of the physicists that write in and let
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: us know how per symmetry could prove string theory, right, yeah,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I look forward to that. Yeah. So if you want
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to read this article, I strongly recommend it. We didn't
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: cover all of it's good good article written by Strickland.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: You can type in large hay drawn collider in the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com and bring
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: your drip pan to catch the melting brain the anti
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: matter that it's dense and uh, I guess it is
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: now Chuck, it's time for a listener mail, right, yes,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: it is, Josh. My favorite portion of today's show. We're
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: gonna call this um a response to my my admission
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: that Emily and I fight before every plane trip. When
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I said that, so we have someone out there that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: agrees that are not agrees, but it happens to her
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: in her husband as well. They've been married for sixteen
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: years and every time before we take a trip, my
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: husband has a major anxiety attack. And acts like a
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: total a hole. I know that's what it is, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I am pretty tolerant, But until he's on the plane
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: or in the car, he refuses to acknowledge the reason
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: for his tension or even that he's particularly grouchy, which
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: is what I do. So a few days before we
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: travel are always fraught and we always end up fighting
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: about the only time we do fight. Once we're on
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: our way, he's fine. I'm still totally aggravated though, from
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: him being such a jerk earlier. This snivid married sixteen
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: years and it's not just talking. Earlier this year we
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: went to Chile for a month, and when I booked
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the flights, I seriously considered getting separate seats. I threatened
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: it next time, I'm booking my flight a few days
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: earlier than his. Anyway, just wanted to share this so
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you know you're not alone. That's night. As always, thanks
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: for the great podcast. The site is great in general.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Searching for unicorns linked me to some information on hardy roses,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: which I had actually recently been looking for, and that
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: is from Anne in New York City, and A says,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: as a ps, I could not find your team on Kiva.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: How do I find it well, and you can find
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it ask by going into the U R O bar
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: of your web browser and typing w w W dot Kiva,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: dot org, slash team slash stuff you should know and Chuck, Uh,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: there's all the more reason. By the way, I wanted
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to say, I could not be prouder of our team, Chuck.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: The stuff you should know Army is awesome. We're at
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: straight up a more, are we really? Yeah? Something like
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: seven d fifty members and seven loans were in four weeks.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Everybody we donated twenty thousand dollars. That's phenomenal. And Colbert
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: has already been left in the dust. His his his
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: leaky team is is donating like eight grand. I think
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: they might be at nine grand so far. Chuck and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I actually issued a video challenge to Mr Colbert. We did.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: We want to see who can be the first two
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: what we decide on um a hundred thousand dollars. I
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: think that's a pretty pretty big undertaking, I would say,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: but I think we can do it. So everybody, we
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: have challenged Colbert's team to see who can get to
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: a hundred thousand. Yeah, and you know he's ignored it
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: so far. So if anyone knows Mr Colbert, or if
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: anyone has any connection with this show or you're a fan,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: go smack him on his big fat head and tell
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: tell him about the little challenge. Damn right, That's what
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I said. So again, that's www dot kiva dot org,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: slash team slash stuff you should know, And if you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: have an email for Chuck or Me or Jerry or
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the large Hadron Collider, you can send it to Stuff
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on
• 34:34
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• 34:36
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• 34:40
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• 34:45
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• 34:48
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