Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions 9
Transcript
- 0:09Speaker 1: Hey, Jorney, Maybe you're not aware of you recently coined
- 0:12Speaker 1: a word that I now use all the time. Oh yeah,
- 0:15Speaker 1: I've been in his movies. Know. The word that you
- 0:17Speaker 1: made up that I really like is the word engineeringly.
- 0:21Speaker 1: That was pretty a pretty good word. But how do
- 0:24Speaker 1: you use it in a sentence. Let's say you could say,
- 0:26Speaker 1: for example, a warp drive is physically possible, but engineeringly impossible.
- 0:32Speaker 1: That just sounds to me like you need better engineers.
- 0:35Speaker 1: We definitely need better engineers, and I hope that they're
- 0:38Speaker 1: out there in our audience listening today because we have
- 0:42Speaker 1: some engineeringly very challenging projects on the docket. Ye hi,
- 1:02Speaker 1: am orhammy cartoonists and the creator of PhD comments, Hi,
- 1:05Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm happy to
- 1:08Speaker 1: put off my problems onto engineers, even your personal problems.
- 1:12Speaker 1: There does seem to be a proliferation of engineers. You know,
- 1:15Speaker 1: back in the day that was mechanical electric. You make
- 1:19Speaker 1: it sound like we're a pest or, but you know,
- 1:21Speaker 1: now you've got the software engineers, you've got social engineers,
- 1:25Speaker 1: You've got every kind of engineer. It's crazy. So yeah,
- 1:28Speaker 1: maybe Daniel's personal problem engineers, I supposed to physicists who
- 1:32Speaker 1: there's only one kind. There are only a few of us. Yeah,
- 1:36Speaker 1: that's true. There's like solid state matter, wet matter, dark matter.
- 1:41Speaker 1: It's been a while since we invented a new kind
- 1:42Speaker 1: of physicist. Yah, maybe it's time. Maybe it's time. Yeah,
- 1:46Speaker 1: Daniel's personal problem physicists. I don't think any of my
- 1:50Speaker 1: personal problems can be solved with physics. That there's learnal
- 1:53Speaker 1: laws there to be found. But welcome to our podcast.
- 1:57Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explained the Universe State production of Hard Radio,
- 2:01Speaker 1: in which we focus on the questions that can be answered,
- 2:04Speaker 1: the questions that might one day in the future be answered,
- 2:07Speaker 1: questions about how the world works, about what the universe
- 2:10Speaker 1: is like, how it will end, and how it is
- 2:13Speaker 1: put together on the smallest scale. Yeah, we love questions,
- 2:17Speaker 1: and we love questions for which we know the answers
- 2:19Speaker 1: and we know the question. We love the also questions
- 2:21Speaker 1: for which we don't know the answers, because there are
- 2:24Speaker 1: still a lot of questions out there in the universe
- 2:27Speaker 1: that nobody knows the answer to, and often on this
- 2:30Speaker 1: podcast we take a tour of some of those questions.
- 2:33Speaker 1: We show you what's in the mind of scientists at
- 2:36Speaker 1: the forefront of knowledge is they try to peel back
- 2:39Speaker 1: a layer of reality and expose the universe as it
- 2:42Speaker 1: really is. And sometimes we take you on a tour
- 2:45Speaker 1: of the minds of our listeners, thinking about what everybody
- 2:48Speaker 1: out there is wondering about. Yeah, and we love taking
- 2:51Speaker 1: lists questions from listeners because they really sort of give
- 2:54Speaker 1: us an insight into what people are thinking and what
- 2:57Speaker 1: they're what our podcast is kind of make them think about.
- 3:00Speaker 1: That's right, and not just because they give us sort
- 3:02Speaker 1: of like a checkpoint so that we understand what listeners
- 3:06Speaker 1: are getting and what they're confused about. But sometimes listeners
- 3:09Speaker 1: questions really put their finger on something amazing about the universe.
- 3:13Speaker 1: When I teach, you know, freshman physics here you see Irvine,
- 3:16Speaker 1: it's when they ask a question that it makes me
- 3:19Speaker 1: think about a topic in a new way, makes me
- 3:21Speaker 1: explain in a new way, and then it really makes
- 3:24Speaker 1: me understand it. So listener questions are really a source
- 3:27Speaker 1: of insight. Yeah, And let's face it, we have I
- 3:29Speaker 1: think the best listeners in the universe Daniel Podcast on Earth,
- 3:35Speaker 1: and I would say in anywhere else in the universe,
- 3:37Speaker 1: I think we have the best listeners. That's right, And
- 3:40Speaker 1: we're talking specifically about you. You know who you are.
- 3:43Speaker 1: We're talking about you right there listening to us right now.
- 3:46Speaker 1: You're the best. You're our favorite listen. You're the best looking,
- 3:49Speaker 1: you smell great today, and you ask awesome questions and
- 3:53Speaker 1: tell my kids that all the time. I'm like, you're
- 3:55Speaker 1: my favorite daughter, and she's like, I'm your only daughter
- 3:58Speaker 1: that I know of. Daniel and Jorge dig Into or
- 4:05Speaker 1: his sort of past. Hey, you know, if this is
- 4:07Speaker 1: going to be Daniel and Jorge starting to tell a novella,
- 4:10Speaker 1: then you're going to have some sort of you know,
- 4:12Speaker 1: other family show up at some point in season seven.
- 4:14Speaker 1: My evil twin twins genetically the same. Does that mean
- 4:20Speaker 1: their kids are sort of also like your kids? Boy? Interesting,
- 4:24Speaker 1: he's had a great listener question. Yeah, Or does that
- 4:26Speaker 1: mean if you can have, if you can be twins
- 4:28Speaker 1: and one of you is evil, does that mean that
- 4:30Speaker 1: evil is not genetic? Or maybe you are evil but
- 4:33Speaker 1: you do you don't know it. There are no good twins,
- 4:36Speaker 1: is that what you're saying? Well, they should either both
- 4:40Speaker 1: be good or both be evil. I'm sure that all
- 4:42Speaker 1: the twins listening right now are both good? Well, anyways,
- 4:45Speaker 1: we do have the best listeners and they do ask
- 4:47Speaker 1: the best questions that they send us through Twitter or
- 4:50Speaker 1: Facebook or Instagram or by email. And if you're out
- 4:54Speaker 1: there listening to this podcast and you have a question
- 4:56Speaker 1: about the universe, you can also write it to us
- 4:59Speaker 1: and we will eventually get to it on the podcast.
- 5:02Speaker 1: That's right, And we answer all of our listener emails
- 5:05Speaker 1: pretty promptly. Sometimes people writing asking a good physics questions.
- 5:09Speaker 1: Sometimes people writing asking sort of off the wall questions. Uh,
- 5:13Speaker 1: nobody so far is asking for marriage advice. But here's
- 5:16Speaker 1: a question we got last week which sort of made
- 5:19Speaker 1: me chuckle. It's from Gridget saying and here's what he
- 5:22Speaker 1: had to say. He wrote, if we assume the world
- 5:25Speaker 1: is a simulation, do you think there's only one conscious
- 5:28Speaker 1: being and the rest of the world are just biological zombies?
- 5:32Speaker 1: Or everyone is conscious? I love this question. It's like
- 5:37Speaker 1: am I playing a video game? Or are we all
- 5:39Speaker 1: playing a video game together? It's like are you a
- 5:41Speaker 1: non player? Yeah? Yeah? Or is there somebody really in there? Interesting? Well,
- 5:47Speaker 1: it just gets to the bottom of consciousness, right, like
- 5:49Speaker 1: kind of machine be conscious, kind of machine be conscious. Yeah,
- 5:54Speaker 1: and maybe this guy spends a lot of time in
- 5:56Speaker 1: video games wondering if those other players are real or not.
- 5:59Speaker 1: But a fun question, but not one that I, you know,
- 6:02Speaker 1: necessarily have any expertise or ability to answer. So I
- 6:06Speaker 1: could pontificate as a physicist, but I think the physicists
- 6:09Speaker 1: spend too much time talking about things outside their area
- 6:12Speaker 1: of expertise. So I'm gonna have to point on that one.
- 6:17Speaker 1: Maybe you've noticed that what if? What if you're playing
- 6:19Speaker 1: a bit of games where you have to kill zombies,
- 6:22Speaker 1: then technically are those zombies? But are those zombies conscious?
- 6:25Speaker 1: But they can't because there's zombies? Yeah, well you could
- 6:28Speaker 1: be committing digital moral crimes. But we love answering listener
- 6:32Speaker 1: questions and sometimes we have episodes where we ask to them,
- 6:35Speaker 1: and so today is what are those episodes? So today
- 6:37Speaker 1: on the program, we'll be tackling listener questions about the universe.
- 6:46Speaker 1: That's right. We'll be touching on exotic matter, will be
- 6:49Speaker 1: building roads that span the Earth, and we'll take our
- 6:52Speaker 1: minds to other galaxies and wondering what life is like
- 6:56Speaker 1: out there aliens. Basically, we're feel I feel like we
- 7:00Speaker 1: can have a listener questions episode without touching the hitting
- 7:04Speaker 1: the alien button. Are you saying that's because our listeners
- 7:07Speaker 1: are fascinated with aliens? Are you suspecting that I'm picking
- 7:10Speaker 1: the alien questions out of the slush pile. I feel
- 7:13Speaker 1: like there's a Van diagram there listener questions and things
- 7:19Speaker 1: Daniel loves to talk about. If you have a question
- 7:21Speaker 1: about anything, dear listeners, just put the word alien in
- 7:24Speaker 1: it and it will increase your chances that we'll talk
- 7:27Speaker 1: about it. That's fair, that's good advice. Yea, I have
- 7:30Speaker 1: a question about dark matter. Just wonder if dark about
- 7:33Speaker 1: her could be made by aliens? And well, I'm sure
- 7:36Speaker 1: we'll consider it. My kids know that already. They're like, hey, Dad,
- 7:38Speaker 1: can I have ten bucks? It's for aliens? Yeah, sure,
- 7:41Speaker 1: here we go. All right, So today we have three
- 7:43Speaker 1: questions from listeners from all around the world, and so
- 7:46Speaker 1: we'll be tackling each of these questions one by one.
- 7:49Speaker 1: And so the first question comes from Maria from Canada
- 7:52Speaker 1: and she has a question about exotic matter. Here's your question. Hi,
- 7:57Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorgey. My name is Maria and I'm a
- 7:59Speaker 1: listen from Victoria, Canada and I was wondering what's exotic matter,
- 8:05Speaker 1: how is it different from dark matter or antimatter? And
- 8:08Speaker 1: how many different kinds of matter even are there? Anyways,
- 8:10Speaker 1: thank you so much, awesome questions. I feel like she's
- 8:13Speaker 1: sort of get throwing little shaded physicists. I felt that,
- 8:17Speaker 1: I felt that shade, like, hey, get this under control,
- 8:20Speaker 1: Like people are ridiculous, Yeah, that this matter naming is
- 8:24Speaker 1: getting out of control. It's we have as many kinds
- 8:27Speaker 1: of matter as there are like fields of engineering, and
- 8:29Speaker 1: that's absurd. We we need a new feel for every
- 8:31Speaker 1: kind of matter you guys come up with. So it's
- 8:33Speaker 1: not our fault. We need exotic physics and exotic physicists.
- 8:38Speaker 1: We're just trying to plug the holes of physicist are creedive.
- 8:41Speaker 1: Thank you, by the way for your tireless work plugging
- 8:43Speaker 1: our holes. We just need to have a lot of
- 8:45Speaker 1: kinds of matter in our universe. There's, for example, baryonic matter, antimatter,
- 8:51Speaker 1: dark matter, exotic matter, supersymmetric matter. Yeah. Yeah, the list
- 8:55Speaker 1: goes on. And this is a totally great question, and
- 8:59Speaker 1: it's a fair question also because this term is used
- 9:01Speaker 1: in lots of different ways. In a very general way,
- 9:04Speaker 1: people use the phrase exotic matter to me literally, just
- 9:07Speaker 1: that like matter that seems kind of weird, like exotic,
- 9:11Speaker 1: something different from the every day you know, the everyday
- 9:14Speaker 1: matter is made of quarks and electrons, and so from
- 9:18Speaker 1: that definition, exotic matter could be like dark matter, you know,
- 9:22Speaker 1: or other weird stuff that's out there. Oh boy, now
- 9:25Speaker 1: you're just making it worse, Daniel. Now you're like overlapping
- 9:28Speaker 1: all these matter designations. We're not great at that. In
- 9:31Speaker 1: particle physics, you know, matter could just be any matter
- 9:34Speaker 1: that is against something. Yeah, it could be. So it's
- 9:37Speaker 1: it's a different opinion. It's a very vague tournament. And
- 9:39Speaker 1: it could even be weird forms of familiar matter. Like
- 9:44Speaker 1: if you take atoms and you cool them down and
- 9:46Speaker 1: make weird quantum states like Bose Einstein condensates, some people
- 9:50Speaker 1: would call that exotic matter. Or if you make super fluids,
- 9:54Speaker 1: you could call that exotic matter. Well, well, let's take
- 9:56Speaker 1: it's a step back here. You're saying that the word
- 9:59Speaker 1: exotic matter is not well defined in physics. Yeah, if
- 10:03Speaker 1: you just google what is exotic matter? For example, you
- 10:06Speaker 1: will see articles physicists discover exotic matter, but then it
- 10:09Speaker 1: turns out it's actually about super fluids, or physicists use
- 10:13Speaker 1: exotic matter to communicate quantum mechanically and then it turns
- 10:16Speaker 1: out it's just bosion stain content. States m hmmm. So
- 10:19Speaker 1: you're saying, just like in our culture, the word exotic
- 10:23Speaker 1: is sort of outdated and inappropriate. Yeah, it's a little bit.
- 10:27Speaker 1: It's been a bit abused. But there is also sort
- 10:30Speaker 1: of a narrower version of exotic matter that has a
- 10:33Speaker 1: very specific, fascinating meeting in particle physics that I think
- 10:36Speaker 1: we could dig into. Oh I see, all right, So
- 10:39Speaker 1: in general, it can just mean any kind of non
- 10:43Speaker 1: normal matter, weird, spooky Halloween matter in the loose sort
- 10:48Speaker 1: of definition of yes, spooky Halloween matter, or you know
- 10:52Speaker 1: matter from the Orient, which is that racist. Yeah yeah, yeah,
- 11:00Speaker 1: extern centric and but um no, you're saying, and in
- 11:04Speaker 1: general sense it just means weird matter. But there's also
- 11:08Speaker 1: sort of maybe a hardcore group of physicists who are like, hey,
- 11:11Speaker 1: this means something very specific. Yeah, they rock out the
- 11:14Speaker 1: heavy metal and they talk about this kind of matter.
- 11:16Speaker 1: They are hardcore, and that's matter with negative mass. So
- 11:20Speaker 1: in particle physics we talk about exotic particles or exotic
- 11:24Speaker 1: matter and what we mean are particles that have negative mass,
- 11:28Speaker 1: Like you know that mass is something we attached to particles,
- 11:31Speaker 1: and I have mass and you have mass, And a
- 11:33Speaker 1: fascinating thing about mass is that it seems to always
- 11:36Speaker 1: be positive. So we've invented this idea. Maybe there are
- 11:40Speaker 1: particles out there with the other kind of mass and
- 11:42Speaker 1: negative kind of mass. Mm hmmm, because right, because mass
- 11:46Speaker 1: is just kind of a label, right, it's not actually
- 11:48Speaker 1: like stuff. It's just kind of a like an electric
- 11:51Speaker 1: charge can be positive or negative. Yeah, we don't really
- 11:54Speaker 1: understand it. And if you zoom down to an individual particle,
- 11:57Speaker 1: particles have no volume. They're just points and base with labels, right,
- 12:01Speaker 1: like electric charges, you said, And mass is another property,
- 12:04Speaker 1: and mass is a property that these particles get from
- 12:07Speaker 1: interaction with the Higgs field. But the fascinating thing about
- 12:10Speaker 1: mass is that it always seems to be positive. Right.
- 12:12Speaker 1: We measure the mass of all of these particles and
- 12:15Speaker 1: we see that they have positive mass, and that has
- 12:17Speaker 1: fascinating consequences because the Higgs field always gives these particles
- 12:22Speaker 1: positive mass, or like the interaction is always positive, like
- 12:25Speaker 1: I has anyone had a bad experience with the Higgs field?
- 12:27Speaker 1: I guess it only has five star reviews on Yelp.
- 12:31Speaker 1: So yeah, in the Higgs field widely loved, would recommend yes,
- 12:37Speaker 1: Higgs field good. Um, But did you know what I mean? Like,
- 12:40Speaker 1: if something has negative masses, that mean that when it
- 12:43Speaker 1: interacts with the Higgs field it gets the negative mass
- 12:45Speaker 1: or what does that mean? Well, if a particle had
- 12:47Speaker 1: negative mass, we don't know how it would get that mass.
- 12:50Speaker 1: One way to get mass is to interact with the
- 12:52Speaker 1: Higgs field. We think there might be other ways for
- 12:54Speaker 1: particles to get mass too, but we've never seen one
- 12:57Speaker 1: like that, So there could be various ways for articles
- 13:00Speaker 1: to get mass. It doesn't just have to be the
- 13:02Speaker 1: Higgs field. The Higgs field just kind of determs how
- 13:05Speaker 1: it moves in the universe. Right, But you can still
- 13:08Speaker 1: have mass independent of the Higgs field. Yes, you can
- 13:11Speaker 1: get mass without getting it from the Higgs field. We
- 13:13Speaker 1: haven't ever done that, but like, we don't know neutrinos,
- 13:16Speaker 1: do they get mass from the Higgs field or not?
- 13:18Speaker 1: Do they get mass in this other weird way And
- 13:20Speaker 1: we can dive into that and a whole other podcast,
- 13:23Speaker 1: But I think the important concept to remember is what
- 13:25Speaker 1: you just said is that it changes how you move
- 13:27Speaker 1: through the universe. Often, when we talk about mass, we
- 13:29Speaker 1: really mean two different things. One is inertia, like you
- 13:33Speaker 1: give something a push. It takes a push to move something,
- 13:36Speaker 1: to change something's momentum, to get it started, takes a push.
- 13:40Speaker 1: We call that inertia. Really, that's mass, right, and that
- 13:43Speaker 1: comes from the formula F equals M. A force is
- 13:46Speaker 1: mass times acceleration. To accelerate something, you have to apply
- 13:50Speaker 1: a force, and the mass is the relationship between those two.
- 13:53Speaker 1: So that's mass. Concept Number one is inertial methods. How
- 13:56Speaker 1: hard it is to push? Yeah, how hard is it
- 13:59Speaker 1: to push to get it going? And also how hard
- 14:01Speaker 1: is it to slow it down? Like a semi truck
- 14:04Speaker 1: has a huge amount of mass, takes a huge force
- 14:06Speaker 1: to slow it down. Can something have negative inertial mass?
- 14:09Speaker 1: Is that possible where you like, you push it and
- 14:12Speaker 1: it goes faster, or you know, like it pushed you
- 14:16Speaker 1: push it and it actually pulls you or something, and
- 14:18Speaker 1: you know what, that's what would happen if you gave
- 14:19Speaker 1: it a push to the left and it had negative
- 14:22Speaker 1: inertial mass, it would move to the right, it would
- 14:24Speaker 1: push you, push you back. Yeah, so the force would
- 14:27Speaker 1: be the opposite direction of the acceleration. So the weird
- 14:30Speaker 1: thing about negative mass is like, it seems weird. It's
- 14:33Speaker 1: totally counterintuitive, but mathematically it kind of hangs together, like
- 14:37Speaker 1: we don't have a reason to believe it doesn't exist.
- 14:40Speaker 1: You could fit it into all of our equations. We've
- 14:42Speaker 1: just never seen an example of it. That kind of
- 14:45Speaker 1: weird example could happen where you like push it one
- 14:47Speaker 1: way with the with the force field or something, but
- 14:50Speaker 1: it goes the other way. Yeah, you could do that
- 14:53Speaker 1: in theory. It's possible. We've never seen it, but you
- 14:56Speaker 1: can work out all the equations of motion and it works.
- 14:59Speaker 1: So you push into the left and it moves to
- 15:02Speaker 1: the right. But that's only one way of thinking about mass.
- 15:05Speaker 1: Is a whole second concept of mass, which is mass
- 15:09Speaker 1: in gravity. Like two objects that have mass feel gravity
- 15:13Speaker 1: and attract each other. So so if something has negative mass,
- 15:16Speaker 1: it could maybe repel another thing, would mass. Yeah, the
- 15:20Speaker 1: fascinating thing about positive mass and gravity is that gravity
- 15:24Speaker 1: is one of the only forces that so far seems
- 15:26Speaker 1: to be just attractive. Right, you get pulled in by
- 15:29Speaker 1: the sun, you get pulled in by the moon. There's
- 15:31Speaker 1: no way, you get pushed by gravity, whereas like electromagnetism,
- 15:35Speaker 1: there's a positive and negativity, and if you have the
- 15:37Speaker 1: same charges you get repelled and gravity it is only
- 15:41Speaker 1: positive and it seems to only be attractive. So if
- 15:45Speaker 1: you add negative mass, then yeah, you could get repulsive gravity.
- 15:49Speaker 1: Or I guess maybe in like the Einstein space bending picture,
- 15:53Speaker 1: it would be sort of bend space the other way. Yeah,
- 15:56Speaker 1: instead of having like a dent down into space, it
- 16:00Speaker 1: would be like a like an explosion of space a
- 16:02Speaker 1: little bit. So things like slide away from you like
- 16:04Speaker 1: a z in space, like a like a bump a space.
- 16:10Speaker 1: Don't pop at ZiT. That's like a gravity bomb. Yeah,
- 16:14Speaker 1: you have a negative experience. Don't do it. It's weird though,
- 16:17Speaker 1: because this is a little counterintuitive. You know that positive
- 16:20Speaker 1: mass of course attracts other positive mass. It would also
- 16:24Speaker 1: attract negative mass, and negative mass would repel negative mass
- 16:29Speaker 1: and also positive masses. Wait what, it wouldn't be like
- 16:32Speaker 1: electrical charges. It's not like electrical charges because you just
- 16:36Speaker 1: said that. We don't think of gravity as a force.
- 16:39Speaker 1: We think as a bending of space. So positive mass
- 16:42Speaker 1: makes like a dent in space like a whole in
- 16:45Speaker 1: space for things to fall into regardless of their mass,
- 16:48Speaker 1: and negative masses make space zits. That was actually Einstein's term,
- 16:52Speaker 1: and is it z it's their spation and now that's
- 16:59Speaker 1: a joke. But a negative mass make these would make
- 17:02Speaker 1: these like you know, or I'm gonna say zits in
- 17:04Speaker 1: space because regardless of the mass of the other thing. Right, So,
- 17:11Speaker 1: positive masses attract other positive or negative masses, and negative
- 17:16Speaker 1: masses repel negative or positive masses. It's like the opposite
- 17:20Speaker 1: of a black hole. Yeah, and it's weirdly sort of asymmetric, right.
- 17:24Speaker 1: You like to think about the forces as being symmetric,
- 17:27Speaker 1: so like it depends on the product of the charges
- 17:29Speaker 1: or something, but it wouldn't be. And that means if
- 17:32Speaker 1: you have like a positive mass and a negative mass
- 17:35Speaker 1: next to each other, then the positive masses pulling on
- 17:38Speaker 1: the negative mass, but the negative mass is pushing on
- 17:41Speaker 1: the positive mass. Um what would happen? They would actually
- 17:45Speaker 1: just like lead to this runaway motion because the positive
- 17:48Speaker 1: masses pulling on the negative the negative is trying to
- 17:52Speaker 1: repel the positive. Attraction of the negative actually pushes the
- 17:56Speaker 1: other direction, right because of negative and inertial mass, And
- 18:00Speaker 1: it would just skip out of town. Let's skip out
- 18:02Speaker 1: of town for real. Well, we don't know, Like this
- 18:07Speaker 1: is the idea, so we've never seen this stuff. It's
- 18:10Speaker 1: just sort of an idea, and and it would be
- 18:12Speaker 1: pretty helpful because if we did have exotic mass, we
- 18:15Speaker 1: could use it to, for example, stabilize wormholes and travel
- 18:19Speaker 1: through the galaxy and this kind of stuff. But we've
- 18:21Speaker 1: never seen any of it. It's just sort of like, yeah,
- 18:24Speaker 1: I guess that's in the lad. The next question, which
- 18:26Speaker 1: is is this even real or is it just theoretical.
- 18:29Speaker 1: It's just theoretical, but it's important to recognize these sort
- 18:32Speaker 1: of theoretical opportunities. Some of these other kinds of matter
- 18:36Speaker 1: we talked about, like antimatter. They started out it's theoretical,
- 18:39Speaker 1: and somebody noticed, hey, the equations also work if you
- 18:42Speaker 1: flip all these signs and make this other weird kind
- 18:45Speaker 1: of matter. So maybe that's real, and it turns out
- 18:47Speaker 1: it's true. So seeing these mathematical symmetries are often guides
- 18:51Speaker 1: actually binding stuff in reality, and that will tell us
- 18:54Speaker 1: more about the universe. Yeah, but the universe is asymmetric sometimes,
- 18:58Speaker 1: like there's a lot of matter out there, very very
- 19:01Speaker 1: little antimatter, if any. We don't know why that is.
- 19:04Speaker 1: So there's a lot of positive matter out there, none
- 19:07Speaker 1: or maybe very little negative matter. Why is that right?
- 19:11Speaker 1: Fascinating questions? Yeah, maybe not all the matter matters. All
- 19:15Speaker 1: matter matters, man, but all right, so, um, it seems
- 19:18Speaker 1: like to answer Maria's question, exotic matter. Um can mean
- 19:22Speaker 1: a lot of things, but it generally it's terribly used
- 19:25Speaker 1: just to me, like not normal matter, meaning the matter
- 19:28Speaker 1: you and I are made out of. It's kind of
- 19:30Speaker 1: weird or unusual. Some physicists call that exotic matter. But
- 19:35Speaker 1: there's also sort of the hardcore definition, which is that
- 19:38Speaker 1: it means matter with negative mass, which is theoretically fascinating,
- 19:42Speaker 1: totally possible, but never been seen. But you know, she
- 19:45Speaker 1: also asked another question, which is how many different kinds
- 19:48Speaker 1: of matter are there? Anyway? And that's such a good question.
- 19:52Speaker 1: It's a question that I have also because we see
- 19:55Speaker 1: these symmetries in nature. We see like, oh, there's matter
- 19:58Speaker 1: and antimatter, there's maybe positive matter and negative mass matter,
- 20:02Speaker 1: and there's other symmetries like we talked about supersymmetry on
- 20:05Speaker 1: this program, like maybe every spin half particle has a
- 20:09Speaker 1: spin one particle that that balances it, and vice versa,
- 20:13Speaker 1: and all these symmetries tell us something deep about the universe,
- 20:16Speaker 1: about the way it's put together, about what it reflects
- 20:19Speaker 1: that its deepest level, And we don't know what the
- 20:21Speaker 1: answers are. But every time we find a symmetry, I
- 20:24Speaker 1: feel like it's revealed something about the universe that we've
- 20:27Speaker 1: been desperate to find out. Every time you find a
- 20:29Speaker 1: new kind of matter or think up but you kind
- 20:32Speaker 1: of matter, it kind of pushes your definition of what
- 20:35Speaker 1: can exist. Yeah, and these symmetries are really important. You know.
- 20:38Speaker 1: We talked also on this program about how the universe
- 20:41Speaker 1: is left handed. It prefers particles that spin in a
- 20:45Speaker 1: certain way relative to their motion. We don't know why
- 20:47Speaker 1: that is, and so people suggested and maybe there's another
- 20:50Speaker 1: kind of matter called mirror matter, where it's the opposite.
- 20:54Speaker 1: And every time you have these symmetries, you have to ask,
- 20:56Speaker 1: why is it this way and not the other way?
- 20:58Speaker 1: Why is the universe sort of by furcated into two options.
- 21:01Speaker 1: What does that mean about the nature of the universe
- 21:04Speaker 1: At some higher temperature earlier in the universe, was this
- 21:07Speaker 1: all unified into something beautiful? And crystalline, and then it's
- 21:09Speaker 1: just sort of cracked and fell apart. We don't know.
- 21:12Speaker 1: I think my favorite kind of matter are the matters
- 21:15Speaker 1: of the heart. Daniel. All right, well, we hope that
- 21:19Speaker 1: answered your question, Maria, thanks so much for asking the question.
- 21:22Speaker 1: And so let's get into our two other questions for
- 21:24Speaker 1: the episode, and these are about the biggest road ever
- 21:28Speaker 1: built and also about intergalactic aliens. But first let's take
- 21:33Speaker 1: a quick break. Alright, we're answering listener questions today. Answer
- 21:49Speaker 1: Our next question comes from Rahul from India, and so
- 21:52Speaker 1: he has a question about an interesting idea for an
- 21:55Speaker 1: infinite road. Here is so, imagine you start building a
- 22:00Speaker 1: bridge or a highway above the surface, and it goes
- 22:03Speaker 1: all the way around the earth and meets each other.
- 22:06Speaker 1: Now you have this one long, continuous bridge. So obviously
- 22:11Speaker 1: those bridges have pillars, and now you decide to bomb
- 22:16Speaker 1: all the pillars that supposed the bridge at the same
- 22:19Speaker 1: exact time. So what would happen to the bridge? Will
- 22:22Speaker 1: it stay floating above the surface or will it fall down?
- 22:26Speaker 1: And at which direction? Or will it hoholla hoop the earth?
- 22:30Speaker 1: And the second condition is what would happen if the
- 22:33Speaker 1: Earth was perfect sphere. So I think this one might
- 22:37Speaker 1: be more in your alley because it's kind of a
- 22:40Speaker 1: question about, you know, whether something is engineeringly possible. You're like,
- 22:45Speaker 1: this is not interesting to me, or hey, you can
- 22:47Speaker 1: take this one. It's just about building a road. Now,
- 22:50Speaker 1: if aliens built a road, that's just positive that. Let's
- 22:55Speaker 1: just let's imagine we're in an alien planet. But the
- 22:58Speaker 1: question is kind of interesting, and I have to say
- 23:00Speaker 1: it took me a second to sort of get it.
- 23:02Speaker 1: So he's he's asking, what if you build a road
- 23:05Speaker 1: all around the Earth, like a suspended road, right, and
- 23:11Speaker 1: it goes you know, from it starts here in California,
- 23:14Speaker 1: goes through the US, crosses the Atlantic, goes over Europe Asia,
- 23:18Speaker 1: and then it comes back around and connects in a
- 23:21Speaker 1: perfect circle to where we started the road. And then
- 23:25Speaker 1: so you build this road, it rings the earth and
- 23:27Speaker 1: then you take out all the columns, the pillars that
- 23:29Speaker 1: supported simultaneously with bombs. Right. I like that detail. Yeah,
- 23:35Speaker 1: that would probably the funnest part actually, But you remove
- 23:39Speaker 1: the pillars, all of a sudden, does the bridge stay
- 23:41Speaker 1: up floating or does it all fall down? Yeah, And
- 23:44Speaker 1: it's a fun question because you imagine you build a road,
- 23:47Speaker 1: you support it with pillars, you knock the pillars down,
- 23:49Speaker 1: the road falls down. But in this scenario, you've made
- 23:52Speaker 1: it go all the way around the earth. And so
- 23:54Speaker 1: then he's wondering, like, is it possible for a road
- 23:57Speaker 1: to float in the air? Would it be in orbit, Daniel?
- 24:00Speaker 1: Would it just be sort of like a pula who
- 24:02Speaker 1: held around your waist. Let's answer this from a physics
- 24:05Speaker 1: point of view, which means we have to like simplify
- 24:07Speaker 1: things a little bit, and then we'll make it a
- 24:09Speaker 1: bit more practical. So first let's start with the let's
- 24:12Speaker 1: hear answer A from Daniel. First, is a perfectly spherical earth,
- 24:17Speaker 1: like very smooth, no deformities, etcetera. And so the road
- 24:21Speaker 1: is like a hundred meters or a hundred feet or
- 24:23Speaker 1: whatever above the surface all the way around the Earth.
- 24:26Speaker 1: Now that scenario you knock out all the pillars. Think
- 24:30Speaker 1: about the gravitational force on this thing. It's going to
- 24:33Speaker 1: be balanced, Like the Earth is pulling on one part
- 24:36Speaker 1: over California, but it's also pulling on another part over China,
- 24:39Speaker 1: and those two things are going to balance. And if
- 24:42Speaker 1: the road really goes all the way around the Earth.
- 24:45Speaker 1: Then for every part of the road there's a counterpart
- 24:47Speaker 1: that's balancing its force, and so it should just hover there.
- 24:51Speaker 1: So that's your answer that it would stay up floating.
- 24:54Speaker 1: If it's a perfectly spherical Earth and a perfectly circular road,
- 24:57Speaker 1: it would stay up there floating. You don't believe it, well, Um,
- 25:01Speaker 1: so I have an engineering answer, but I'll just keep
- 25:05Speaker 1: going with your physics answer here for a bid. The
- 25:07Speaker 1: other way to think about it, it's just by symmetry,
- 25:09Speaker 1: like if it goes in one direction, which direction could
- 25:11Speaker 1: it go? You have to choose a direction, And if
- 25:14Speaker 1: the Earth is a perfect sphere, then there's no preferred direction,
- 25:17Speaker 1: so it can't go in anywhere any direction. So it
- 25:19Speaker 1: would keep rotating with the Earth. It would keep rotating
- 25:22Speaker 1: with the Earth, Yes, but it wouldn't have to rotate either.
- 25:24Speaker 1: What if something knocks it off of alignment a little bit,
- 25:28Speaker 1: Like what if the wind blows an in on one
- 25:30Speaker 1: side of the Earth and not the other, and now
- 25:33Speaker 1: it's a little bit closer to one side than it
- 25:36Speaker 1: is to the other side of the Earth. Yeah, so
- 25:38Speaker 1: we're leaving the world of perfect physics scenario and we're
- 25:41Speaker 1: adding things like wind and disturbances, And you're right that
- 25:45Speaker 1: it would be very unstable because if it moves like
- 25:48Speaker 1: one foot closer to the Earth here, then so I'll
- 25:51Speaker 1: foot further from the Earth on the other side. So
- 25:53Speaker 1: now the force is stronger on this side and weaker
- 25:56Speaker 1: on the other side. So it's unstable. It's when does
- 26:00Speaker 1: it deviates from this sort of like perfect spot it's in,
- 26:03Speaker 1: it's going to come crashing down. Oh, I see it
- 26:05Speaker 1: moves a little bit, and so now let's say it
- 26:08Speaker 1: moves down here in California, so it's closer to the Earth,
- 26:11Speaker 1: and now the center of the mass of the whole
- 26:14Speaker 1: thing is a line with the center of the Earth.
- 26:18Speaker 1: Wouldn't that just make it come back to the center
- 26:20Speaker 1: of the earth realign I'm pretty sure it's unstable. And
- 26:24Speaker 1: the reason is that the mass of the Earth is
- 26:26Speaker 1: distributed as a function of the radius. So you can't
- 26:29Speaker 1: just think of the motion of the center of massive
- 26:31Speaker 1: two objects. These are two large distributed objects, and as
- 26:36Speaker 1: one side of it gets closer to the Earth and
- 26:38Speaker 1: the other side gets further that you're gonna get a
- 26:40Speaker 1: relative force difference on the whole thing that's going to
- 26:42Speaker 1: push it further from stability instead of closer to stability.
- 26:46Speaker 1: But I haven't done the simulations. So maybe we should
- 26:49Speaker 1: actually build this thing and find out to answer the
- 26:54Speaker 1: Rahul's question. Let's spend a trillion dollars. Why not? You
- 26:57Speaker 1: got something better to spend it on. So it sounds
- 27:01Speaker 1: like a plan. Let's crowdsource it. Everybody's send in ten
- 27:03Speaker 1: bucks to build Rahul's road. Okay, So you're saying that
- 27:08Speaker 1: from a physics point of view, it is possible for
- 27:10Speaker 1: this thing to exist if nothing touches it or knocks
- 27:13Speaker 1: it out of bound, or moves it at all a
- 27:15Speaker 1: little bit, it would just float above the earth, certainly
- 27:18Speaker 1: the Earth, like a like a ring, like a hula. Yeah,
- 27:20Speaker 1: And I think the key there is that as soon
- 27:22Speaker 1: as you build something that's the size of the Earth,
- 27:25Speaker 1: you can no longer apply the rules of your intuition
- 27:28Speaker 1: that you apply to things that are the size of you,
- 27:30Speaker 1: or your house or even your city. Right, Like, things
- 27:33Speaker 1: can float up in space in orbit. That seems weird.
- 27:36Speaker 1: Why don't they fall? Right? That's because they're largely moving
- 27:40Speaker 1: at cosmological astronomical speeds. And so here's an object really
- 27:44Speaker 1: of astronomical scale, and so it wouldn't necessarily fall into
- 27:47Speaker 1: the earth. It's like an object that spans both sides
- 27:51Speaker 1: of the Earth, of the center of mass of something big. Yeah,
- 27:56Speaker 1: and this actually appears in a novel. I mean, not
- 27:58Speaker 1: as a road, but in Neil Stevenson's recent novel seventives.
- 28:02Speaker 1: Earth becomes uninhabitable because of X y Z plot devices
- 28:05Speaker 1: that won't spoil, and humanity builds a huge ring around
- 28:09Speaker 1: the Earth, like a mechanical ring, and actually live on it. Well,
- 28:12Speaker 1: that that, I think that's the physic times for I guess,
- 28:15Speaker 1: you know, as an engineer, when I saw this question,
- 28:17Speaker 1: I didn't, you know, sit down and make the calculations,
- 28:19Speaker 1: but I think right away my thought was that no,
- 28:21Speaker 1: it would it would fall apart right away. You mean,
- 28:24Speaker 1: because you couldn't build something that big, that was rigid.
- 28:26Speaker 1: I think I was thinking, you know, the limitations of
- 28:29Speaker 1: whatever you build it out of, you know, would collapse
- 28:33Speaker 1: like nothing. I don't think anything that we know of
- 28:35Speaker 1: can withstand those kinds of forces, and so we just
- 28:38Speaker 1: crack and fall apart. You mean, forces from like an
- 28:41Speaker 1: entire four thousand mile road segment pulling on individual piece. Yeah,
- 28:46Speaker 1: you know, like there's a reason you can't just make
- 28:48Speaker 1: a suspended bridge without any columns. Like if this was possible,
- 28:52Speaker 1: then you could just build a bridge, and if you
- 28:54Speaker 1: make it the curvature of the Earth, then it would
- 28:56Speaker 1: just stay up, wouldn't it if we just hold both ends. Yeah? Well, uh,
- 29:00Speaker 1: not an expert on mechanical engineering, So I'll take your
- 29:03Speaker 1: word for it that I think you're right, And I
- 29:05Speaker 1: think there are also other practical issues also, you know,
- 29:08Speaker 1: like you have to have it at the same height
- 29:10Speaker 1: above the earth all the way around, but of course
- 29:13Speaker 1: there isn't a constant height above the earth. You know,
- 29:15Speaker 1: you have to clear mountains and all sorts of stuff,
- 29:18Speaker 1: and so that would throw the whole thing off balance.
- 29:20Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think that's maybe whose question answer,
- 29:23Speaker 1: which is that it's sort of would be possible, and
- 29:27Speaker 1: it would hang there floating above the earth if nothing
- 29:30Speaker 1: touched it or nothing perturbed it at all, no weather,
- 29:35Speaker 1: and if it was made from like this incredible material
- 29:38Speaker 1: that that would would stand these incredible forces, which um,
- 29:42Speaker 1: I'm not sure we have. That we definitely don't, because
- 29:45Speaker 1: if we did, we could build a space elevator, which
- 29:48Speaker 1: is sort of weird. And similar ways, something hanging out
- 29:51Speaker 1: there in space you can actually climb up. And one
- 29:53Speaker 1: of the limitations there is just building a rope. They
- 29:56Speaker 1: could even hang That's that that is that long? Right? Yeah,
- 30:00Speaker 1: something I can that wouldn't just crack under under all
- 30:02Speaker 1: those forces. It's under but definitely cool and fun to
- 30:06Speaker 1: think about. Thanks for Hull for sending in your crazy question. Alright,
- 30:09Speaker 1: are we ready to talk about aliens? Because I'm ready,
- 30:12Speaker 1: You're always ready, Daniel. All right, let's talk about aliens,
- 30:15Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Al Right. Our
- 30:31Speaker 1: last question comes from Nanu from Argentina, and she has
- 30:34Speaker 1: a question about life from other galaxies. So here's Nanu.
- 30:39Speaker 1: Why wouldn't we talk about life in other planets? Do
- 30:41Speaker 1: we always talk about it in terms of our own galaxy?
- 30:44Speaker 1: Do we not consider life in other galaxies because they're
- 30:46Speaker 1: so far away it would be inconsequential for us. I
- 30:49Speaker 1: still have hard time figuring out distances, So I am
- 30:52Speaker 1: wondering could it be possible for millions of years old
- 30:55Speaker 1: alien race to take up into galactic trouble and arrive
- 30:57Speaker 1: to our own galaxy? All right, Daniel, did you just
- 31:00Speaker 1: get really excited when you opened up your in Boston
- 31:02Speaker 1: saw this question. Your hearts start racing a little bit.
- 31:05Speaker 1: You get excited. I got excited, and then I got
- 31:07Speaker 1: a little offended. You know. She said, what do you mean? Well,
- 31:10Speaker 1: she said, how can we never think about intergalactic aliens?
- 31:13Speaker 1: And I was like, what are you talking about? I
- 31:14Speaker 1: think about intergalactic aliens all the time, and it's one
- 31:17Speaker 1: of my favorite things to think about. I think maybe
- 31:21Speaker 1: she thinks she's talking culturally, the culture and in general
- 31:25Speaker 1: or responsible scientists rarely talk about intergalactic aliens. Yeah, I guess,
- 31:30Speaker 1: and it's that true. Do I guess? Do most people
- 31:32Speaker 1: think of aliens is coming from this galaxy? I think so.
- 31:35Speaker 1: Even in science fiction, often the drama takes place across
- 31:39Speaker 1: the galaxy or in one galaxy. And there's a reason
- 31:43Speaker 1: for that. The reason is that galaxies are huge, right there,
- 31:47Speaker 1: big enough to span enormous space operas and lots of
- 31:50Speaker 1: different empires and thousands and billions of stars. Plus they're
- 31:54Speaker 1: super far apart, so it's like each galaxy is an
- 31:58Speaker 1: island and all the other galaxies they're so far away
- 32:01Speaker 1: they're almost irrelevant. It's almost impossible to think about communications
- 32:05Speaker 1: between galaxies, or to travel between galaxies, or travel between galaxies.
- 32:09Speaker 1: You know, not to mention like intergalactic marriages. You know
- 32:12Speaker 1: all the problems that would raise a long distance I know,
- 32:15Speaker 1: you've got the kids over there for one weekend. I
- 32:17Speaker 1: got the kids over here for another weekend. It's a nightmare.
- 32:19Speaker 1: But let's give them a sense of scale, right, Like
- 32:22Speaker 1: the Milky Way is like a hundred thousand light years across.
- 32:26Speaker 1: That's already like, it's incredibly big. Even if you were
- 32:29Speaker 1: going at the speed of light, it would take you
- 32:31Speaker 1: a hundred thousand years, Yeah, to go from one end
- 32:34Speaker 1: to the other. Yeah, exactly. So it's hard to even
- 32:37Speaker 1: imagine having like an empire that spans the galaxy because
- 32:41Speaker 1: you send people a message like all right, let's raise
- 32:43Speaker 1: taxes one percent, and it doesn't get there for a
- 32:45Speaker 1: hundred thousand years. It's impossible to coordinate. That's why people invent,
- 32:49Speaker 1: you know, faster and light travel and faster than light
- 32:51Speaker 1: communication just to get stuff done within one galaxy in
- 32:56Speaker 1: novels and movies and hopefully one day in reality, but yes,
- 33:00Speaker 1: mostly novels and movies. Yes, you seem to mention it
- 33:02Speaker 1: like because we had, we already have that. People are
- 33:05Speaker 1: working on it. People are working on it. Hey, we
- 33:08Speaker 1: were talking about wormholes a minute ago, right, So yeah,
- 33:11Speaker 1: but you were saying, so the galaxy at typeople of
- 33:14Speaker 1: galaxy is a hundred thousand light years wide, and but
- 33:18Speaker 1: the distance between galaxies is you know, many times that
- 33:22Speaker 1: over by several orders of magnitude. Yeah, like the nearest
- 33:26Speaker 1: galaxies Andromeda, and that's two and a half million light
- 33:30Speaker 1: years away, right, it's and a half million years light
- 33:33Speaker 1: years years. It's twenty five times as why is the
- 33:36Speaker 1: whole galaxy? It's like if you have a house and
- 33:39Speaker 1: the neighbor's house is like, you know, blocks and blocks
- 33:43Speaker 1: away from you. So we're basically living in the middle
- 33:46Speaker 1: of the woods. So maybe that would explain why we
- 33:48Speaker 1: don't see it much in movies and novels because you know,
- 33:52Speaker 1: the plot logistics, which is be too much but um,
- 33:56Speaker 1: and also I think maybe it's also kind of recent.
- 33:58Speaker 1: You know, this idea that there are other galaxies. It's
- 34:01Speaker 1: kind of new, isn't it In the last fifty to
- 34:03Speaker 1: sixty years or something like that. Before that we thought
- 34:06Speaker 1: like our galaxy was it. Yeah, it's about a hundred
- 34:08Speaker 1: years old. It originates with Hubble. He's the guy who
- 34:11Speaker 1: measured how far away these little smudges in the sky
- 34:13Speaker 1: where he thought maybe they were nebula, they were gas clouds.
- 34:16Speaker 1: He measured their distance and found that they were crazy
- 34:19Speaker 1: far away. They were further away than all the other stars.
- 34:22Speaker 1: And that's what made him realize, oh, these are other galaxies,
- 34:25Speaker 1: and the whole universe just became much bigger in his mind.
- 34:29Speaker 1: So you're right. It's but we've had about a hundred
- 34:31Speaker 1: years to get used to this idea that the universe
- 34:33Speaker 1: is incredibly vast, but we haven't sort of mentally populated
- 34:37Speaker 1: it with aliens. And I think you're right. And one
- 34:40Speaker 1: reason is that they're just so far away it seems
- 34:42Speaker 1: almost irrelevant. We may never hear from them, or see
- 34:45Speaker 1: them or visit them. We may never that's true, but
- 34:48Speaker 1: we can still think about them. And I think a
- 34:51Speaker 1: really fun angle on this question is wondering, like is
- 34:54Speaker 1: life more likely to occur in those galaxies or in hours?
- 34:58Speaker 1: Is our galaxy unus usual? The same way we think
- 35:01Speaker 1: about is our solar system unusual in our galaxy? We
- 35:04Speaker 1: can ask is our galaxy unusual in the universe for
- 35:07Speaker 1: us to have developed here or evolved here? Like maybe
- 35:11Speaker 1: um most like maybe all other galaxies are too dangerous
- 35:15Speaker 1: for life to evolved in. Yeah, maybe we're in a
- 35:17Speaker 1: special place, right, or maybe we're in a totally vanilla galaxy,
- 35:21Speaker 1: and so we do know something about that, right. We
- 35:23Speaker 1: know that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, and
- 35:26Speaker 1: spiral galaxies are one of the most common kinds of galaxies.
- 35:29Speaker 1: We look out in the sky, we see lots and
- 35:31Speaker 1: lots of spiral galaxies. So there doesn't seem to be
- 35:34Speaker 1: anything particularly weird about our galaxy. It's not the smallest,
- 35:37Speaker 1: it's not the biggest, it's not the brightest or the darkest.
- 35:40Speaker 1: It has dark matter like other galaxies. So it's sort
- 35:43Speaker 1: of a generic galaxy. I mean, I love it. It's beautiful. Um,
- 35:48Speaker 1: I don't mean generic in a bad way. I mean
- 35:49Speaker 1: the generic in a totally vanilla way, by which I
- 35:54Speaker 1: mean that there's possibilities for life in other galaxies the
- 35:58Speaker 1: same way there is here. I wish you may And
- 36:00Speaker 1: it's the example by which all other galaxies are sparring too.
- 36:03Speaker 1: I mean, it's the role model galaxy. It's the exemplary
- 36:06Speaker 1: galaxy excisely, and it means that if there's life here,
- 36:10Speaker 1: there's no reason to believe there couldn't also be life
- 36:12Speaker 1: in those other galaxies? But could we able to find it?
- 36:15Speaker 1: Could we ever communicate with them? Could we ever shake
- 36:18Speaker 1: hands and spend time at a chalkboard, you know, revealing
- 36:21Speaker 1: secrets of the universe together. Oh boy, that's hard to imagine.
- 36:24Speaker 1: But but maybe not that hard to imagine. I mean,
- 36:26Speaker 1: if we can imagine us contacting aliens within this galaxy,
- 36:31Speaker 1: you know, them crossing the large amount of space between
- 36:36Speaker 1: us and them. You know, it's not that hard to
- 36:38Speaker 1: imagine doing that twenty times over to do it between galaxies. Right,
- 36:43Speaker 1: you won't drive an hour down here to Irvine to
- 36:45Speaker 1: hang out with me, but you'll drive twenty hours somewhere.
- 36:48Speaker 1: Is that you're saying. I'm saying if I really wanted
- 36:50Speaker 1: to see you, the difference between one hour and twenty
- 36:53Speaker 1: five hours wouldn't be because if I was an alien,
- 36:57Speaker 1: then you would drive twenty five hours to come back
- 36:59Speaker 1: to me. If it took twenty five seconds to go
- 37:02Speaker 1: see Daniel, I don't know if I still would. Oh no,
- 37:06Speaker 1: it's a good point. Um. You're right that if we're
- 37:08Speaker 1: going to explore our galaxy, we either need to do
- 37:11Speaker 1: it very very slowly, over sillions of years, or figure
- 37:14Speaker 1: out a way to overcome these distances which are already
- 37:17Speaker 1: an obstacle in our galaxy. And once we do that,
- 37:19Speaker 1: then maybe we could also hop to nearby galaxies. Yeah, right,
- 37:22Speaker 1: Like if you invent or you figure out how to
- 37:25Speaker 1: do wormholes or warp draws or suspended animation, what's the
- 37:29Speaker 1: difference between a year and twenty five years to go
- 37:31Speaker 1: to another galaxy? That's true. And you know, while we're
- 37:34Speaker 1: tossing our ridiculous ideas, remember our recent episode about stellar engines.
- 37:39Speaker 1: We could drive the Sun out of the Milky Way
- 37:41Speaker 1: and go visit another galaxy. We could like move galaxies
- 37:44Speaker 1: and go hang out in Andromeda. All right, Well, to
- 37:46Speaker 1: answer no question, I guess the answer is, we don't know.
- 37:51Speaker 1: We don't know why we don't think about any for
- 37:53Speaker 1: another galaxy, but maybe we should because it's not that
- 37:56Speaker 1: far off from aliens in our own galaxy. Yeah, and
- 38:00Speaker 1: it's true, none new that in millions of years, alien
- 38:03Speaker 1: racist could use intergalactic travel to to come here and
- 38:06Speaker 1: tell us all about what it's like to live in
- 38:08Speaker 1: another galaxy. And they'd be like, whoa, this is a
- 38:10Speaker 1: better galaxy. You're right, it has better reviews. I'm yelled.
- 38:15Speaker 1: So thank you to everybody for writing in those amazing questions,
- 38:19Speaker 1: and thank you to everybody else who's writing in questions
- 38:21Speaker 1: on a daily basis. We'll get to your questions as well,
- 38:24Speaker 1: and if you have a question, feel free to send
- 38:27Speaker 1: to us. Daniel likes to sit around and answer questions.
- 38:31Speaker 1: I like to be distracted from my real job by
- 38:33Speaker 1: thinking about your crazy ideas about physics. So thanks for listening.
- 38:37Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. If
- 38:47Speaker 1: you still have a question after listening to all these explanations,
- 38:50Speaker 1: please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
- 38:53Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
- 38:56Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or email us at
- 38:59Speaker 1: feed act at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening,
- 39:03Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is
- 39:06Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from
- 39:09Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 39:13Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah