Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions 44: Deep questions from listeners like you!

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Listener Questions 44: Deep questions from listeners like you! · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, are you happy with quantum mechanics?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: You mean, like, do I understand it well enough?
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Well? Has had nobody understood it? But I guess I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: asking if you think it was a good idea, you know, like,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: if you were designing the universe, would you have made
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: it quantum mechanical?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Oh that's hilarious. I mean, I'm pretty happy with our
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: universe and all of it's weird, glorious beauty. I hate
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to give that up.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But wouldn't be cooler if it made more sense? You know,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: if like electrons were really tiny little balls of stuff
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: instead of fuzzy on certain random things.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: It might be easier, but it might also be less interesting.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I wonder if people would find it
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: more interesting if it was easier to understand.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: We might have more particle physicists in that case. Would
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: that be good or bad? No?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: No, No, you had have fewer, right, because it'd be easier
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: to understand. You could be doing something.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Else, like hosting a podcast.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: There you go, a real job. Hi am Jorgemy, a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: cartoonist and the author of Oliver's Great Big Universe.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel, and I'm a professor at u c
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Irvine and a particle physicist. But it's been a long
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: time since I had a real job.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Or really, they've all been imaginary.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I think my last real job was working in the
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: kitchen at McDonald's.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I see, what did you consider both jobs to be
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: kind of the same. You're making hamburgers, You're making physics theories.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It's all very high in calories, a lot of additives.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: One of them is brain food. The other ones got food.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It's sort of food, right.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: There's a little more creativity involved in one of these
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: jobs than the other one.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: MM, which one.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I'll leave that as an ex size to the listener.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Well, at least you did the experiment. But anyways, welcome
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: A grand experiment to see if we can explain everything
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: in the universe to you. All the stuff that we
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: understand about how things work at the smallest scale, to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: everything we don't understand about the little bits and the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: big bits and everything in between about the universe. This
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: joyous adventure, the exploration of everything we do and do
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: not know, we think should be shared by everybody out there.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Everybody who has that curious itch to understand the nature
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: of the universe, to zoom forward to the forefront of
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: human knowledge and understand what we do and do not know.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: The tread because it is an amazing universe full of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: fast foods, slow foods, medium speed foods, all kinds of foods,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: food for thought, food for your belly, food for your
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: soul as well. Do you consider physics to be sole food? Perhaps?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I think it nourishes philosophy, which is definitely soul food.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: You know, all the big questions and physics in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: end have philosophical implications. Phys tells you, oh, the universes
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: this way, and philosophy wonders, well, why and why isn't
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: it that other way? And what does it mean anyway?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Well, sounds like we need to have an episode about
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the physics of the soul. Perhaps we'll be very soulful.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of what we call the soul
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: is the spirit of humanity, and that's where our curiosity
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: comes from, our desire to understand our context, why we live,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: to motivate the choices we make. I think a lot
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: of that can be informed by physics and what it
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: reveals about the nature of the universe we live in.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Nice, that's a great McDonald's answer. You spun that around
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: really fast.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Would you like fries with that?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yes? Can you supersize it? It is a pretty amazing
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: universe out there, full of mysterious things and things that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: we've learned and things that we have yet to learn
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and figure out. And it all starts with having questions
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: about all of these things.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And you can ask questions that are big, huge, Thanksgiving
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: meal sized, or you can ask little questions, little snacks,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: individual French fries kinds of questions. We encourage you to
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: ask all of them, and we're here on the pot
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Pod to try to help you answer them. All of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: our episodes are designed to scratch a piece of curiosity
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: inside your mind. But it's not possible to cover every
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: possible thing anybody could imagine, and so we want you
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: to write to us with more questions the things that
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: you wonder about the nature of the universe.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: That's right, because everyone can have questions about the universe.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: You can be a professor of physics, you can be
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: a philosopher. You can even be someone who works in
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the fast food industry, or maybe someone with a real
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: job like being a podcast host. Anyone can have questions
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: about the universe.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or you can be a combination professor, philosopher, podcast
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: hosts and McDonald's fry cook.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: That's right, Well, accept a cartoonist. Cartoonists know all the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: answers already.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm terrified to ask you. Is being a cartoonist
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: a real job.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: No, it's not a real job. Getting big to have
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: fun and doodle things. I don't know. I don't know
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: if that counts as real. It's certainly a dream come true.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: It's a scam, folks. You heard it here on the podcast.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: No, No, I mean it's a dream. Oh, I see come true.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: I think Ponzi had some dreams.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Also, didn't he had dreams of getting other people's money.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I just have dreams of drawing for fun.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of people out there dream
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: about understanding the universe and getting their questions answered, having
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: that experience when things click into place and you go, oh, yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: now I get it. So if you have questions about
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the nature of the universe, for example, how you could
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: get paid to be a cartoonist or a physics professor,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: then please write to us to questions at Danielandjorge dot Com.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Mmmm, has this become a career advice podcast that might
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: actually make this more of a real job.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I think both of us have very odd and unusual
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: career paths.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, I don't think anybody went to advice in terms
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of to make money or not make money, I guess.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: But I do hope that people will write to us
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: with their questions.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so today on the podcast, we'll be tackling
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: listener questions number forty four. This is our forty fourth
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: episode answering listener questions, Daniel, is there a theme to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: these questions?
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: The themes of these questions is that they come after
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: the forty third episode and before the forty fifth episode.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Mmmmm. Does that make it like a special like numerical
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: magical number.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: These questions all came in within the same week, and
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I thought, ooh, these are interesting questions, and so we're
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: going to answer them today. That's the theme.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I see. The theme is that Daniel was too lazy
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: fine questions with a real theme. It's all chronological, you mean,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: like all this time we've been answering questions chronologically as
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they come in.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I mean it's roughly chronologically. I try to answer people's
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: questions within a reasonable timeframe. You know, they send me
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the questions that go on the list, we record the episode,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: it gets edited. It can be a few months between
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: asking the question and getting the answer, so I try
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: to shorten that. But then I also try sometimes to
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: group the questions by theme when possible, but it's not
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: always possible.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I guess it's more like a true representative sample of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: how we get the questions right.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are core sample our listener's brains.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Today, metaphorically philosophical in a cartoony kind of way, auditorially. Well,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: we have three great questions here today from our listeners.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: One of them is about the weather and the tilt
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of our planet. The other one is about the structure
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: of the atom, and the last one is about the
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: fundamental nature of reality itself.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And radical angles.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, we have radicalized questions, right, Well, let's jump into
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: our first question. The first one comes from Chris Hi, Dangel.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: And Jorge What would weather be like on Earth if
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: we rotated around a horizontal axis rather than the readly
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: vertical access we rotate around. Also, how would that weather
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: differ if our access pointed either toward the Sun or
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: in line with our orbital path. Thanks for the great podcast.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: All right, awesome question though I'm confused, Like, is there
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a horizontal and vertical in space?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Well, there's horizontal and vertical relative to the Sun, right.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: The Sun sort of defines the axis of the Solar system.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It spins around that has a north and a south
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: pole of that spin. And then most of the planets
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: orbit in a plane that's perpendicular to that axis, and
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: so the Earth tilts relative to that plane of the Sun.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: WHOA, but are they I wonder if they're exactly the same.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Like the axis of spin of the Sun is the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: same as the axis of spin of the whole Solar system,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Like exactly the same or has it changed a little bit?
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these are great questions. It's not exactly the same.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Like some of the planets do not orbit in that plane, right,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: or they orbit a little bit off from it. It's
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the complex system with lots of things tugging on it,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: so it becomes chaotic. As other stars come nearby, they
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: give little tugs to Jupiter andto Saturn. All these things
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: accumulate over millions of years and make it so that
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: everything is not perfectly aligned.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, So then if the axis of rotation of the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Sun is the perfect vehicle, it's say, in our solar system,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the Earth is sort of aligned to that, but not
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: exactly right.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Earth's angle is tilted relative to the angle
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: of the Sun by what seems like kind of a
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: big number. It's like twenty two twenty three degrees, where
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: you know, ninety degrees be totally tilted over and zero
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: degrees would be perfectly aligned with the Sun. I was
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: sort of surprised to look that number up. It seems
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: kind of big.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like a lot.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: It seems like a lot, And it's the reason why
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: southern California is such a wonderful place to live, because
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: we don't have winters. Winters are the direct cause of
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the Earth's axis being tilted.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean If we didn't have the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: axis tilted, we wouldn't have winter, or we would have winter.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: If we didn't have an axial tilt. If the Earth
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: rotated along exactly the same axis as the Sun, then
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: parts of the Earth wouldn't get more or less sun
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: during different parts of the year.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Doesn't Our orbit sort of brings us closer and a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: little farther from the sun anyways.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, there's also that effect that you get a little
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: bit closer and a little bit further. Most of the
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: reason we have seasons is because the axial tilt.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So if we didn't have the tilt, we wouldn't have seasons.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we wouldn't have seasons, or we'd have much much
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: milder seasons. It would be due to smaller effects like
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Although I didn't know we had seasons California. Here, do
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you have seasons where you lived three hours away?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: We had a hurricane two weeks ago.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: That's not a season, that's a weather event.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Now we have a hurricane season.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it happens once three hundred years.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Or something something like that. No, of course, things are
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: very mild, and as you get towards the equator, things
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: get milder and milder. These seasons are more dramatic at
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the axis where the tilts has a bigger impact.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Well, no, actually it's more dramatic. If you're closer to
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the poles, then the seasons are more dramatic due to
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the tilt.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you're right, it's mild. Or if you're near
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the equator, and more dramatic if you're near either of
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the poles, which is why, for example, at the North
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Pole the Sun goes down in the winter and doesn't
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: come up for months, and in the summer you can
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: see the Sun four months. Right, These effects are more dramatic,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: and they're all due to the axial tilt.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Right. So now Chris's question is, like, what if that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: tilt of the Earth of its spin axies was not
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: just twenty sixty degrees, what if it was ninety degrees?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So like, what if our spin axes was kind of
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: in the same plane as the disk of the Solar System.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be awesome and strange, but first of all,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: it'd be very weird from a physics point of view. Like,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: it's not a coincidence that all the planets are orbiting
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: around the same plane and that happens to line up
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: with the axis of the Sun. It's because of conservation
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: of angular momentum. The original blob of stuff that formed
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the Sun and the planets had a single overall spin,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: and that spin can't go anywhere. It has to stick around,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So everything that forms from it eventually has that spin.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So anything that's spinning in a different way is due
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: to something happening, like a big event. For example, Urinus
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: has an axial tilt of ninety seven degrees, and we
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: think it's probably due to some huge collisions. Something came
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: in balked Urinus and gave it a different kind of tilt.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: That's the kind of thing that needs to happen to
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: have a big tilt.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, like Urinus has a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: tilted spin axis kind of like Chris is asking about, right,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Like Urinus is flying through space kind of like a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: football in some cases, right, like an American football.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, spinning along the direction of its motion, whereas the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Earth is spinning more like a basketball on the fingertip
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of a harlem lobe trotter as walks across the basketball court.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Now it urinus spin axis is pointing towards where it's
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: moving sometimes of the year, right of its ear, like
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it's always pointing towards like let's say, the center of
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: the Milky Way or something like that, even as it
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: goes around the Sun exactly.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: And that was the other part of Chris's question, whether
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: the axis would always be towards the Sun or along
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the orbital path or what and conservation of angl momentum
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: tells us that it always points in the same direction.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: You can't have like a spin that follows your orbit
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: perfectly like a football, because then the direction that spin
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: would be changing as you go around the Sun, and
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: that takes a tork. It takes some kind of external force.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: There's nothing to apply that. So as the Earth goes
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: around the Sun, the direction of its axis doesn't change, right,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: which is why the North pole sometimes further from the
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Sun and sometimes closer to the Sun. And the same
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: is true for Uranus. It's always pointing in the same
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: direction as it goes around the Sun. The direction of
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: its spin. Its axis doesn't change, so neither is always
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: pointing towards the Sun or always pointing along its orbit.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: As you say, it's always pointing in the same direction.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and in fact, sort of I imagine the spin
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of Urinus actually sort of keeps. That helps keep that
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: axis from moving or changing, right, because then you have
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: angler momentum pointing in one way, and so as it
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: goes around the Sun it tries to stay in the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: same direction.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's like a big gyroscope, like a huge
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: planet sized gyroscope always keeping its spin pointing in the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: same direction.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: All right, So then the question is what would the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: weather be like if the Earth was spinning sideways, kind
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: of like uranus.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: It would be more severe seasons, right, It'd be warmer
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: summers and colder winters.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Mmm, what do you mean?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: The Earth rotates every twenty four hours, right, And if
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: the Earth axis is aligned with the Sun axis, that
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: means you see the Sun every twenty four hours because
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: the Earth turns and you get a view of it.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: But if the Earth axis is tilted, then its rotation
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: can't show you the Sun, or there's no way for
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the Earth to rotate to show you the Sun. The
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: only way to see the Sun is to wait for
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the Earth to go around the Sun. So you are
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: now on the sun side of the Earth.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: That's only if you're like in the north pole of
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: this tilted Earth, right. But if, like, if you're in
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the equator of the tilted Earth, some parts of the year,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you would see the Sun every day, right.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I think half of the Earth would be in
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: darkness and half the Earth would be in sun, and
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: the equator would be the dividing line between.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Those, right, Like, if your spin axis was pointing directly
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: at the sun or directly away from the sun, then yeah,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: half of the earth would always be in darkness, half
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: of the Earth would be in daylight no matter how
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: it spins. But then that's the axes is pointing directly
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the sun. But on the other parts of the times
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of the year, right then everyone sees a day, right.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So you have very dark winters and
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: then in spring and in fall you do have daytime
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and nighttime, and then it's summer it's one hundred percent sun.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: So the effect is more dramatic seasons.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so like, never mind the seasons, Like your day
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to day would totally vary depending on the year, right,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Like in some parts of the year, six months a year,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: everyone would have like a twenty four hour day. But
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: then the other parts of the year, you'd it'd be
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: like living in the North or South Pole, like you
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: never get sunlight or you would never get nighttime exactly.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: You'd have continuous daylight for months and continuous nighttime for months,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: and then periods in between where you had short days
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: or short nights, So it would be very dramatic'd be
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: like currently living at the North Pole, or the south pole.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: But then that would be sort of your daytime experience
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: or what I wonder Chris's question is what would the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: weather be like like? Would the weather be different, would
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: we get like super crazy storms, would everyone fry on
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: one side of the Earth? Would you get no weather
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: at all? What would that be like?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: So it would mean more severe seasons, which probably means
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: more storms, right, Hotter summers, more energy in the oceans,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: more storms being formed, deeper winters, more snowfalling, which means
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: more dramatic melt off, which means more flooding. So I
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: think it means more dramatic weather events.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Hmm, right. I guess like if the spin axis is
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: facing the sun right, and like the top half of
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: the spinning Earth gets sun twenty four hours a day,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: then things would sort of overheat, right, I guess, like
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: if there wouln't be any poles, maybe things wouldn't be melt,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: But then when it gets to the other side, things
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: will probably freeze on that part of the Earth.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, exactly. But in order for the Earth itself
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: to like freeze and form ice sheets and ice ages
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: requires cool summers. So when you have less severe seasons,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: when you have cool summers and mild winters, Like if
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: the Earth had less tilt, you would actually get more
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: ice build up. And if you have more severe seasons,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: warmer summers, even if you have colder winters, you don't
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: build up that ice because the warm summer obliterates it.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So then here you what would happen just be more extreme,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Like you would freeze half of the year and you
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: would roast the other half of the year.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So you'd have to get more into extreme sports,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: more surfing and snowboarding.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if we would even be alive, Like,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: what could life evolve in a planet like that?
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I think that some kind of life certainly could. I mean,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: even our situation is kind of weird if you approach
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: it with no priors, but some kind of life could evolve.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: It would have different strategies and different rhythms for sure,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: and that would be fascinating. And we've looked actually at
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: exoplanets to try to understand how common is our kind
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: of tilt, what kind of tilts are out there. We'd
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: love to know that about exoplanets to get some sort
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: of context for what's happening. But it's very difficult to
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: measure the spin of exoplanets.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Although just from our Solar system, it seems like having
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a spin aligned with your son is the norm, right.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the normal thing, if there are no collisions, is
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: to be aligned with your son. But how likely is
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: it to have no collisions In our solar system? Venus
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: is spinning like the wrong way, Urinus is tipped over,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: So it seems also not unusual to have big events
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: and weird spins, though this is just from the one
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: example of our Solar system. We do know, however, that
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: the Earth spin is changing. It's around twenty three degrees now,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: but it's not constant.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Wait, what what do you mean?
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So it changes because the Moon pulls on it and
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: other planets pull on it. Again, the Solar system is
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: a chaotic place. Nothing is a simple two body system
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: with a stable orbit. And over the last five million years,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the Earth tilts has varied between twenty two and twenty
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: four degrees. It goes back and forth with a period
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: of like forty thousand years.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Whoa like it has a wobble to it?
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has a wobble. It has a big wobble
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: over forty thousand years, and then a smaller wabble every
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: like nineteen years. They call it a nutation, and that's
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: due to the orbit of the Moon not being aligned
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: with the orbit of the Earth. It's like tilted a
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: little bit relative to the plane of the Solar System,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: so it tugs on the Earth a little bit differently
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: as it goes around, and this tweaks the Earth a
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: little bit, so there's like a big wiggle and then
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: a little wiggle inside it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder how we've measured that, Like, how do we
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: know that the tilt is changing over forty thousand years?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: So we've been making these measurements over about the past
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: thousand years, and then we can project back using our
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: model the Solar system. So a lot of this is speculative.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It's like understanding the gravitational effects and projecting it backwards.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We can model these things. We can also project it forwards.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: We know that the Moon is drifting away from the Earth,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: which means it's going to have a weaker and weaker
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: effect gravitationally on the Earth, and a lot of the
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: models I was reading about suggest that the Moon has
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: a stabilizing effect on the Earth's tilt, like it does
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: cause it to wiggle, but it prevents it from getting
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: pushed out by even larger forces like Jupiter or Saturn
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: or other orbital resonances. So it sort of like stabilizes
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: the Earth, which means as it drifts away, it's less
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: and less able to stabilize the Earth. One paper I
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: read suggested that if the Moon drifted away, if we
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: didn't have a moon, then within a few million years,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the Earth's axis would be ninety degrees. It would be
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: knocked totally over by orbital resonances and chaotic behavior in
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the Solar system.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yikes, it's a good thing we have.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: The moon then, exactly, think you moon.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know how we even got this tilt in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the first place, the twenty three degree angles, because of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the impact we had maybe when the moon was formed.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a leading theory. It has to come from
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: outside the angular momentum of the Solar system to get
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: that kind of tilt. And we think the moon was
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: formed by a big collision with a proto planet, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: so that might have done it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think that answers the question for Chris,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: what would the weather be like? It'd be pretty extreme, Like,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: first of all, your day to day would be really different.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Like sometimes of the year you would have a day cycle,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: but then the other half of the year you would
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: have either complete darkness or complete daylight all the time,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and then that would make the weather more extreme.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Maybe McDonald's would be open twenty four hours a day,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: giving lots of young people jobs.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Or maybe closed twenty four hours a day, letting people
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: eat more healthy perhaps.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or stay at home and develop their cartooning skills.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: That's right, then they get a smarter All right, let's
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: tackle these other questions about quantum mechanics, the structure of
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the atom, and also the fundamental nature of the universe.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, we're
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: answering listener questions here today, and our next question comes
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: from josh Hi Daniel Mjorge.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: I'm a big fan of the show. I know that
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: quantum mechanics is necessary to describe our universe and the
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: way Adams form, but it has of course been a
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: somewhat unsatisfying theory to many, including that guy Einstein, given
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: how strange and unintuitive it is. That got me wondering
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: would it be possible to engineer a different atomic structure?
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Governed only by classical mechanics rather than quantum mechanics, that
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: would look roughly the same when zoomed out. So could
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: there theoretically be a different universe that looks similar to ours,
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: governed only by classical mechanics. Thanks so much for considering
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: this question.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Hmm, interesting question, Thank you, Josh. All Right. I think
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: he's saying that he doesn't like the universe and he
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: wants to change.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: He's got notes.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got opinions about the structure of the universe.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, I like what you've done here. Mostly
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: I just have a few thoughts about what's going on
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: inside the atom.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I wonder if he's more asking like, could you change it?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Could the nature of the universe be different and not
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and not be noticeable.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's wondering if behind the curtain of atomic structure,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: we could like re engineer it to be classical, to
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: not follow the quantum rules and still reproduce the world
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: that we experience. It's a really cool question, because you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: one hundred years ago, that's the direction we were headed.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: We thought we understood physics, the way things move, the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: way things spun, and we thought as we zoomed in
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: on matter, we would find the same rules apply, that
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: the atom really would be like a tiny solar system.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So that's sort of what physics expected to find up
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: until about one hundred years ago.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Right, and then he said, we got quantum mechanics, and
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: not even Einstein seemed to like even Eistein gave it
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a bad review.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it certainly was not what we expected. It
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: was counterintuitive. We discovered that electrons are not tiny little
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: dots of stuff moving in smooth classical paths the way
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: other stuff does. It follows a different set of rules.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And we discover that because we saw things operating in
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: ways that classical physics just could not explain. So I
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: love the part of his question where he says when
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: zoomed out, like he gives up explaining the atomic structure,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: when you zoom in and examine the quantum nature of
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the universe directly in the eye. But he wants to
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: zoom out and say, could we build our classical world
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: without quantum mechanics as an underpinning?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Right? Well, it's interesting I think he said first of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: all that he finds quantum mechanics unsatisfying and unintuitive. I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: wonder if you feel the same way. Do you find
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: it unsatisfying when.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: You're first learning quantum mechanics. He certainly find it frustrating
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: because it doesn't give you the kind of answers you're
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: used to getting. What it teaches you, though, is you
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: have to ask different kinds of questions, and in the end,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: getting a different kind of answer is really teaching you
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: more about the nature of reality. Things that are weird
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and counterintuitive and surprising are always more informative, right, That's
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: how you're learning. You're updating your model about the way
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the universe works. In the end, I just want to
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: know what the universe is. I accept it, you know,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Universes are universes.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he also said he finds it unintuitive. You know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that's a kind of an interesting statement, you know, because
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: intuition kind of depends, right, and your intuition can change
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's certainly true, and eventually, if you play with
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: quantum mechanics long enough, you can develop a quantum intuition.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: But most of us have a classical intuition. We imagine
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: that things move smoothly, that they always have a location
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and velocity. So the idea that things can have like
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: only probabilities, and those probabilities can interfere in weird ways
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: and they follow fundamentally different rules. It's definitely unintuitive.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: When you develop that intuition. Do you call it quintuition?
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I will now yeah coin here on the podcast.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: But there is this part where he talks about being
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: zoomed out like how our world is. And I want
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: to make sure the listeners understand that most of the
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: structure of our world, what we do experience, the things
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: that developed our intuition, these aren't built on a quantum platform.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Like most to the nature of the world we experience
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: comes from the underlying quantum mechanics. When you zoom out,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: how the atom is formed, and how light gets emitted,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and whether things are transparent, and all of chemistry, all
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: these things are built on essentially quantum properties of the atom.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's this question is like, could you
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: have a universe that behaves that way at the macro level,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: but that doesn't have quantum mechanics at its core, Like
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: does zerover have to have to be random at the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: atomic particle level or could it be deterministic I for example,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and not be quantum.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Well, not all of quantum mechanics is random. There are
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: branches of quantum mechanics, like boemium mechanics, which are deterministic,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: so that's not actually even necessary to be fundamentally random.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: But there are essential elements of the atomic structure which
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: are quantum mechanical which are very challenging for any sort
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: of classical physics to reproduce. For example, even just the
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: structure of the atom. Like if you try to build
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: an atom as a tiny little electron orbiting in nucleus
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: like a little solar system, right, and you said, it
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: really has an orbit, it really has a lowcatetion and velocity,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: there's none of this uncertainty stuff. Everything is somewhere all
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the time. You would find that that is not a
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: stable orbit, the same way that, like the Earth eventually
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: will spiral into the Sun, that electron eventually would spiral
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: into the nucleus because everything that's in orbit radiates away
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: some of its energy and would eventually collapse. So the
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: simplest idea classical atom just doesn't work. Doesn't mean that
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: it's impossible to develop a classical atom, but there are
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: big challenges there.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: What if you adjust or add something new to classical
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: theory like that would be like an electron would fall
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: into the nucleus eventually if we only had certain the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: forces that we know about now. But what if there
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: was like another force that pushed the electron out or
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: prevented it from falling in.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Well, anything that's in orbit, anything that moves in that
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: pattern is accelerating, and it has to radiate any classical
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: object at least, that's pretty unescapable even if you add
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: another force. But you're on the right track. There is
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: actually an alternative theory of the electron that uses just
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: class waves. It gets around this problem with the electron
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: radiating away its energy by saying, maybe the electron isn't
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: a particle, it actually is just deeply a wave, and
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: it finds a wave solution to the atom. There's a
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: paper by Rishikovski in twenty sixteen. I remember reading it
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: when it came out, and it's a very radical reimagining
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: of how the atom works. And you give up both
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: quantum mechanics and the concept that the electron is a
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: particle at all. It's just like a wave solution. It
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: says the electron fundamentally is a wave, not a quantum wave,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: but a classical wave.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I guess maybe it would help to break down what
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: you mean by something being quantum, right, because quantum means
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: both it has a wave nature and also that it's
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: random in its fundamental nature. So are you saying, like,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: if you take out one of them, you could still
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: have a wavy electron.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I would say what makes something quantum is that it
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: obeys the Schrodinger equation. Instead of like classical equations, Shirtinger
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: equation is a fundamentally different equation. It says that the
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: laws of physics do not apply to a particle or
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to the wave itself, but to this other thing, the
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: wave function. You can then derive where things are likely
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: to be. It's really a very different way to start
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: your physics.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: You don't just say, like F equals M and from
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: that everything flows. You start with a completely different equation
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: and from that everything flows. And where does that equation
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: come from? You know, it just sort of came out
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: of Schrodinger's head and Heisenberg came up with another one,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: and we use it because it works because it reproduces
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: what's out there in the universe. So I would say
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: that's sort of what defines something as quantum mechanical, that
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: it deals directly with the wave function rather than with
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the actual motion of the object.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: But then you were saying, like, it might be possible
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: for an electron to be a wave but not be random.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So there are these classical wave theories, Like
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: the original theory of light was a classical wave theory
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: of electromagnetic fields that were oscillating. This was Maxwell's theory
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: before quantum mechanics came along, and it said that light
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: was a classical wave, that it operated the same way
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: that like waves in the ocean do that the fields
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: always has very specific kinetic energy and locations and all
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. So you can have a classical wave.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And there are some theories of the atom which are
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: built on classical waves, so they're not random, they're not
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: quantum mechanical, and they do have this alternative view, but
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of challenges there. It's not like they've
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: worked out a complete theory of physics using classical waves
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: for the atom. It's just really sort of a directionist start.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: People are saying, is this possible?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: So then you're saying, like, the main thing that would
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: not make the classical universe work is that the electron
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: would eventually lose its energy and fall into the nucleus.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But why doesn't that happen in quantum mechanics.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: So in quantum mechanics, that doesn't happen because those same
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: rules don't apply. The particle doesn't have an orbit. It's
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: not moving in a circle, it's not accelerating, so it
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to radiate. In quantum mechanics, the particle doesn't
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: have an orbit. It has a quantum state, which is
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: a solution to the Shronninger equation, and that quantum state
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: has a minimum value which is not add zero. Like
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: all quantum particles have a minimum energy to them. It's
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: impossible for a quantum particle to have zero energy. If
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: it had zero energy, it would be violate the Heisenberg
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: uncertainty principle, which tells you you can't know the position
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: and momentum simultaneously. Something is at zero energy. You know
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: where it is, and you know how much momentum it
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: has zero so boom, you violated the rules.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: But doesn't that mean that there's some sort of like
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: fundamental energy to the universe or force that's preventing all
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of these particles from collapsing.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: It tells you the fundamental nature of these objects is
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: that they have to have a minimum energy. They just
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: cannot satisfy the equations we use to describe these physical
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: objects do not have solutions with zero energy. The universe
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: just does not do that. So, yes, it's a fundamental
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: property of the quantum nature of these objects.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: But I guess couldn't you have that in a classical theory,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Like you could have an electron orbiting the nucleus sort
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of like a little planet around its sun. But then
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: there's some rule to the universe. It says it has
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to have a minimum amount of energy, and so that
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: prevents it from collapsing.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: That's the direction this classical electron wave theory is going,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: is saying, let's avoid being a particle that has acceleration.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Let's just find solutions to the waves. Because in quantum mechanics,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the way you get around this is finding the solutions
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: to the shortening equation, which is a wave equation, and
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: so they're trying to build a classical wave equation that
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: has similar structure to it that avoids those minima in
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: the same way. The reason why maybe this classical wave
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: theory could ever work, right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: But I mean you're sort of basically saying the same
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: thing as quantum mechanics, right, Like quantum mechanics, you saying, no,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: you have to have a minimum, you can't collapse. Well,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: why if I make a classical universe where I say
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you can't collapse either.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can try to go that way. It's
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: going to be really challenging to reproduce all of the
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: features of quantum mechanics. Right in physics, it's easy to
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: sometimes pick at one particular theory say I have another
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: theory which explains that better. Yeah, that's cool, bro, But
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: we have lots of things that you have to explain.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Not only do you have to explain why the atom
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: is stable, you have to explain why there are quantized
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: energy levels to the nucleus. You have to explain why
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: we see spectral lines. You have to explain why some
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: things are transparent and why some things have certain colors.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: All of these things are due to the quantum nature
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: of the atom and the energy level. All of chemistry
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: comes out of this, so you have to explain much
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: more than just keeping the atom stable. So it's a
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: huge challenge.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bro, Yeah, Bro, I can't believe bro. I feel
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: like you've had this argument in your head now for
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: a long time.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: No, this is me picking up my daughter's slang. She
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: calls me bro Whenever I try to talk physics to her.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Did you inform her your her father, not her brother?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Whatever. I try to explain some physics to her, she says,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: cool story, Bro.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Now does she stud bro o or bru h? You
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: know that that's totally a different connotation.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to listen more carefully.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I think maybe I wonder if you should just stick
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: to Josh's question, Like, I know, it'd be really hard
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: to make all of the universe be explained without quantum mechanics.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: But let's say, like his question about the atomic structure,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: could you make an atomic structure that works without quantum mechanics?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And it seems like the answer is yes.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Maybe I think the answer is yes, it is possible.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but this classical wave theory, but you
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: can go much more baroque, you know, if you just
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: need to reproduce all of chemistry and the atomic structure
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: and the spectral lines and all these behaviors of the atom,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: you could engineer like a little machine that has really
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: complex interaction that does all this kind of stuff. It
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be simple in order to reverse engineer all this behavior.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: You have to fold it a lot of really complicated stuff.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: One of the beautiful things about quantum mechanics is that
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: it is pretty simple. You start from a single equation
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: and everything else flows from that, And as sort of
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: a ring of truth to it, you could always replace
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: physics with like a huge complicated Rube Goldberg like device
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: that does the same thing. It just wouldn't have the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: same explanatory power.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But I guess you also shouldn't be led by oakms
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: razors all the time, right, Like, just because something simpler
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: in it doesn't mean it's true.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. The universe could have been an incredibly complicated,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: steampunk engineered version of the universe, with like all sorts
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: of pulleys and things rolling down planes and bonking into
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: stuff and banging with themselves with rubber chickens in order
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: to release a little packet of energy which then goes
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: into your microscope. Like that certainly could explain the universe,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: And you could engineer a steampunk version of the atom
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: that gave you the same experience when zoomed out, and in.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: That universe, your daughter wouldn't say yeah, Bro, should say yeah, Baroke,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: which is which is a terrible joke.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I laugh at all your jokes, terrible or not.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Bro? All right, well I think that ANSWER's Josh's question.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Would it be possible to engineer a different atomic structure
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that doesn't follow quantum mechanics? Uh? Maybe, Yeah, it's possible,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I guess, but you're saying probably not because quantum mechanics
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: is so convincing, and not just in its simplicity, but
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: it's an ability to explain not just the atomic structure,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: but other things about the universe. All right, well, let's
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: get to our last question of the day, and this
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: one is pretty interesting. It's about the fundamental nature of
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: reality and also radical angles. So let's dig into that.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All Right, we're
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: answering listener questions. We've answered questions about the tilt of
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the earth and how different weather would be, and also
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: about the fundamental structure of the atom and quantum mechanics,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and now we are attacking something a little bit more radical,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And I have.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: A question that I hope you think is rad I
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: was wondering, when we analyze the universe using a spherical
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: coordinate system, would there be such thing as a plank angle,
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: That is, would there be such thing as an angle
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: below which we can't resolve the universe anymore? Finally, a
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: fundamental pixel of rat. Thanks, you guys are dope.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: You're dope, Bro, I canna say we're rat and dope
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and bro I like answing. I feel like he's our age.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: He's using the same lingo.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: I think his question is super awesome. I really love
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: this question.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Is it tubular? Totally tubular? Or is it ned? Oh?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I love it because it relates to the fundamental nature
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: of reality, but also to the systems we impose on
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: the way we think about it, Like does it matter
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: if you're thinking about the universe in xyz or in
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: polar coordinates and R data five? Does that have an
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: impact on the universe itself?
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because, as we just talked about, the universe is
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: quantum mechanical, which means there's a minimum amount of energy
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: like matter can have. And that's also made physicists think
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: that maybe this quantumness applies to space itself.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Quantum mechanics tells us that everything is discrete,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: nothing is continuous. There are no smooth pass or no
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: real numbers. You can have like one electron or two electrons,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: but not one point seven. That everything is like in
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: pixels or on a ladder. That things are chunked right,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: not smooth. And that makes people wonder if space itself
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: is pixelated, if you assume in far enough on the
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: screen of reality, you can actually see those quantum pixels.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a theory suggested by quantum mechanics and physicists,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: sort of a candidate for what that a minimum distance
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: in the universe can be, right.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Sort of. I think this is really over sold. I mean,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: we have like a back of the envelope sketch of
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: maybe the vicinity of the region in which that number
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: might fall, and we use it all the time because
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: it's the only estimate we have. But that doesn't make
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: it any good. You know, if we call this thing
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the plank length, and you arrive at the plank length
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: by taking all the constants that we know about gravitational constant,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the speed of light, these kind of things, and arranging
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: them in a way, multiplying them by each other, square
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: rooting them, et cetera. Et cetera. So you get something
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: with units of distance, and that's saying, well, maybe that's
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: a fundamental number in the universe. Maybe that distance means something. Oh,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and also maybe it means that this one particular thing
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: we're wondering about distance the shortest possible distance. It's very,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: very handwavy kind of an.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Argument, right, But it's called the plank length, right.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called the plank length. Or you can make
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: a version of it in time, which is the plank time,
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: where you can make a version of it in energy,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: which is the plank energy. So in general terms we
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: just call this the plank scale. It's a short distance,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: high energy, short amount of time. And I want to
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: really emphasis that this is simultaneously like a terrible estimate
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: of this distance. It's like saying, you know what is
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: horror salary as a cartoonist, Well, I know that answer
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: is in dollars per year, and then just doing any
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: random calculation that gives you an answer with the right
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: units and saying, oh, the GDP of the US is
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: three trillion dollars per year, so therefore that must be
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Horge salary because it has the right units.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I can't confirm or deny.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: That just having the right units doesn't mean you're the
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: right answer right. On the other hand, it's the best
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: estimate we have because we have no idea how to
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: do anything better. So that's why you hear it battered
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: around a lot, because it's the best terrible estimate we have.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called the cham salary. It's the minimum of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: money a human being can oh while still having fun
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, I want to alert IRS agents who I might
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: be listening to the podcast that Jorges Return will feature
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: three trillion dollars this year.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so we don't have any attorneys or CPA is.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Listening, right exactly. And that's a ridiculous example because it's
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: a terrible estimate, just like the plank length is.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: It's sort of a tourt way to get at it,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: but it's sort of like the idea is like, well,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: we have all these fundamental things in the universe. If
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: you mix them up, maybe it gives you sort of
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: a sense of the length of things, below which the
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: universe just doesn't make sense.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably correct to within a factor of ten
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: to the trillion. Yeah, there you go, by which I
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: mean ten and then the trillion.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Zeros like, sure, you don't know either way, right.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: No, you don't know either way. You really have almost
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: no information. It could turn out to be totally bang on,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: It could turn out to be close. It could turn
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: out to have nothing to do with the universe at all.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I see, I see how strong opinions about the plank length,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: like you have more than a plank length of thoughts
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: and apparently negative feelings about the plank length.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: I want our listeners to understand what we do know
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: and what we do not know. And I see in
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: popular science a lot that people refer to the plank
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: length as the minimum distance scale the universe. We don't
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: know if the universe has a minimum distance scale and
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: what it is, and if the planklength is anywhere close
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: to it.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: There's a lot we don't know. But I think the
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: idea is that maybe it's like it's like a big maybe,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: like maybe the universe has a minimum distance below which
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: things just don't exist or don't make sense, or it
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: things are fuzzy.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: M hmm, exactly.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: And you said that applies to distances and to time,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: And now I think ANSWER's question AS's radical, awesome, totally
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: tubular question is can that idea be applied to angles,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: like is there maybe a minimum angle to the universe?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's really sort of asking what is the
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: most natural set of units for the universe? Is it x, y,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: z or is it r A theta five? Where should
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: we apply this distance too, like what kind of unit?
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: An angle is particularly tricky because you know, if you
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: make a triangle and you make it really really long,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: the angles can get really really small. Imagine a triangle
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: it's like one millimeter on one side and a light
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: year on the other two sides, That angle would be pretty.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Tiny and so almost zero, right.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Almost zero exactly. And so I think the short answer
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: to his question is that there shouldn't be the shortest
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: angle because we think that the Cartesian coordinate system is
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: a natural way to describe the universe. And that's because
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: those are the directions along which momentum is conserved. And
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: it's this conservation momentum and the uncertainty of momentum position
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: together that gives you the Plank constant, which gives you
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: the Plank scale, and that's naturally described in linear coordinates
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: an x, y, and z.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: It sounds like you're leaning towards no. But like, what
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: if I I don't know. Just take some of these
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: fundamental things in the universe, like the plank length and
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: maybe the distance of the universe, and I make a
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: triangle or one side is the plank length and the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: other two sides are the width of the universe. Wouldn't
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I get maybe a minimum angle to the universe?
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I love that construction. So you're imagining a
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: triangle one side is the plank length in like X,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: and then the other point of the triangles across the universe.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Would that effectively be a minimum angle? And the answer
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: there is yes. If the universe has a finite size,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: that would limit the size of your triangle in one direction,
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: and so it would be a minimum opening angle of
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: that triangle. But we don't know if the universe is
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: finite in size or if it's infinite. If the universe
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: is infinite in size, then there's no limit to the
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: size of your triangle. You can have a plank length
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: on one side and infinite lengths on the other side,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: making that angle zero.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you need an infinite universe to disprove
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: an infinitely small angle, like couldn't you have an infinite
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: universe but also have a minimum angle. Right, Like, you
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: can have an infinite universe and still have a minimum
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: distance or minimum time even though time might be infinite.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Couldn't that also apply to angles?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And I love this question because anytime I make
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: an argument, there's like two different possible loopholes. You can
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: go the other way and here there I think there
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: are really two different loopholes. One is you don't even
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: need an infinite universe. You just need like a curved universe.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Imagine a universe that's closed what it loops around on itself.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: And principle, you could draw a triangle that like loops
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: around on itself, like on the surface of a sphere
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: that's essentially infinite, right, And in that case you could
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: have an arbitrarily small angle. And the other side, I
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: think you're asking about whether angle itself could be fundamentally limited,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: not as a product of the limitation of space or time,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: but angle itself could be fundamentally limited, and it's a possibility.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: We know that quantum mechanics has a very strong relationship
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: to angles two rotations. For example, we know that angular
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: momentum how you spin is quantized whereas linear momentum like
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: how you move, is not quantized. I mean, you can
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: have any value of kinetic energy of velocity as you
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: fly through space, but there are certain limited values of
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: angular momentum that are allowed. So angles are in some
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: sense more naturally quantized than distances.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: But I think you're referring to quantum spin, right, are
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: you referring to quantum spin?
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Well, quantum spin is an example of Angler momentum, and
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: it's also quantized. But even just angular momentum is quantized,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: like the Angler momentum of the electron in its quote
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: unquote orbit around the nucleus is quantized for the same
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: reason that the electron energy levels themselves are quantized. That
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: it overlaps on itself. The electron state envelops the entire
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: atom and overlaps itself, and so it has to satisfy
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: certain boundary conditions, which is where quantization comes from. So
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: not just quantum spin. Even orbital angular momentum like the
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Earth going around the Sun, is quantized.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: But couldn't you say the same about its distance, like
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the width of its orbit, Perhaps that it's also quantized.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: In that way, you can always relate angular momentum to
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: linear momentum. That's true, right, Anglementum in the end is
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: just linear momentum around an axis, but the angler momentum
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: is quantized that the linear momentum is not. And that's
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: something we don't understand, I think, more deeply than what
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I've already explained. But it points to angles being important
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: to quantum mechanics. I've never seen a calculation directly of
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the plank angle. One issue is that radiance, for example,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: although they're super rad they really have no units other
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: than radiance. They're just numbers, and so it's not hard
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: to put together fundamental constants to just give you a number.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: But then interpreting as an angle is kind of a stretch.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: But I guess you know, just like you can't assume
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: that the universe has a minimum distance or pixel to
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: it just because electrons are quantized, you know, you also
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: can't assume that, just because angler momentum is quantized, that
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the universe itself has a minimum angle to it.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, you can't. It's just suggestive. It just tells
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: you that angles are kind of quantum mechanical. It's not
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: a concrete proof or even really a strong piece of
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: evidence that angles themselves are quantized, and if I had
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: to guess, I would guess that they're not. I think
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: probably the universe is infinite, and you can draw as
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: long a triangle as you want with the smallest angle possible.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Are you also guessing that it doesn't have a minimum distance.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Even if it does have a minimum linear distance. If
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: the universe is infinite, remember, you could make as long
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: a triangle as you want, and so as small as
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: angle as you want. I think that's probably the universe
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: that we.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Live in, if it's infinite. If the universe is infinite.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: If the universe is infinite, which again we don't know.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I wonder even if it's not infinite, like if you
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: start to get into limits of like just practicality, like
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: at some point it's so far away you can never
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: measure this triangle, right, Yeah.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: That's a good point. Because of relativity, the idea that
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: a triangle could exist across the universe is a fuzzy
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: notion because points separated in distance are not well defined
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: in time, and so like measuring a triangle across the universe,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: can such a triangle even really exist?
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: And I guess then in that case, and this gets
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: very philosophical the limitation is not like a fundamental property
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: of the universe. It's just like it's just not possible
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: to do it. But it might be there.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly the same way that like some of the
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: velocities we talk about with galaxies. We talk about those velocities,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: but you could never actually measure them. In the same way,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: it might be something you couldn't actually measure, even if
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: it isn't the fundamental property of the universe.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, then it sounds like the answer for
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Anson is that it possible that the universe has a
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: minimum rad angle to it. But Daniel the physicist says, no, bro,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's true, which is totally a bummer dude.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: But I do like the idea that there's a minimum
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: amount of rad in the universe. You know. It's just
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: sort of like relaxing to know that, no matter what
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you do, there'd be a minimum radness to the universe.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's rad everybody has a minimum amount of rad.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: If there's a minimum radness and the universe is infinite,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: that technically means it's an infinite amount of radness for
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: us all out there to enjoy.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. You just need to look closely, I guess,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: or keep asking questions.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: That's the recipe for a happy life.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now the big question is do you want fries
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: with that?
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Daniel?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Do you want fries with that?
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Bro depends? Is the cartoonist paying with this trillion dollar salary?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: No, there's a minimum amount of generosity that a cartoonists have. Okay,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: McDonald's are too expensive.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Apparently, all right, I know what our friendship is worth.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, that answers all of our questions for today.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: We'll be answering more questions in future episodes. If you
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: have a question, please send it in.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Write to me directly Daniel Whitson at gmail dot com,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: or write to us to questions at Danielanhorge dot com,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: or find us on Twitter just google us. We're not
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: hard to find and we really do answer all of
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: our emails.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: joining us, See you next time.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows,