Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / 4 ways physics could end the world

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4 ways physics could end the world · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you enjoy watching disaster movies? You mean,
0:12
Speaker 1: do I like watching billions of people parish on screen?
0:17
Speaker 1: Now you're making me feel bad about enjoying Titanic, But
0:20
Speaker 1: I guess I mean, do you like the physics of
0:22
Speaker 1: those disaster movies? So? Do you feel like it's always
0:24
Speaker 1: implausible or impossible? Well? I feel like the solution in
0:28
Speaker 1: those movies is always either nuke it or send Bruce Willis.
0:34
Speaker 1: What's wrong with sending Bruce Willis? Is that physically impossible?
0:37
Speaker 1: He's basically the human nuke. What about a cosmic space bananas?
0:41
Speaker 1: Suddenly Korean stots Earth and crashes into our planet. Well,
0:45
Speaker 1: I think then we have to send Bruce Willis with
0:47
Speaker 1: a nuke to blow that thing up to make a
0:49
Speaker 1: cosmics smoothie. Well, okay, So if you were in Hollywood
0:52
Speaker 1: and you were pitching physics space disaster movie, what would
0:56
Speaker 1: you pitch? Oh? Man, we have so many good ways
0:59
Speaker 1: to end the world with physics. That doesn't make me
1:02
Speaker 1: feel good. Hi am horror had made cartoonists and the
1:21
Speaker 1: creator of PhD commist. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist,
1:25
Speaker 1: and I think about how the world might end. He's
1:27
Speaker 1: an optimist, folks, I'm a planner. Is there such a
1:31
Speaker 1: thing as an optimist physicist or are they all pretty
1:34
Speaker 1: pretty down at the end of the university. No, we're
1:36
Speaker 1: all optimistic because, you know, we're relying on society to
1:39
Speaker 1: fund our abstract thinking about the nature of reality, the
1:43
Speaker 1: universe and stuff. So you gotta believe in a sort
1:45
Speaker 1: of educated, optimistic, forward thinking society for physics to even
1:49
Speaker 1: be a thing. Always believe in other people's money. Yes,
1:52
Speaker 1: you're optimistic. Model. If the world ends or society crumbles,
1:57
Speaker 1: there's not going to be a lot of openings for
1:59
Speaker 1: physics fessors in the end days. All right, Well, welcome
2:03
Speaker 1: to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a
2:06
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio, in which we talk about
2:09
Speaker 1: all the amazing and crazy and silly and bonkers things
2:13
Speaker 1: space cheetos and giants, space bananas and talk about it
2:16
Speaker 1: in a way that we hope you understand and enjoy.
2:19
Speaker 1: And Bruce Willis, let's not forget Bruce Willis. He's in
2:22
Speaker 1: the category of giantspace bananas, right, He's a kind of banana. Yeah,
2:25
Speaker 1: we talked about all the amazing things we know and
2:28
Speaker 1: all the amazing things we don't know about the universe,
2:31
Speaker 1: including some of the things we covered in our book
2:33
Speaker 1: We Have No Idea A Guide to the Unknown Universe, Yeah,
2:37
Speaker 1: in which we talk about all the crazy open questions
2:40
Speaker 1: of the universe, basic stuff that we should know about
2:43
Speaker 1: our cosmic neighborhood and our place in the universe, but
2:46
Speaker 1: physics still hasn't figured out. Yeah. It's a book that, too,
2:49
Speaker 1: I think, up until recently, has not been translated to
2:52
Speaker 1: over twenty languages. So those of you out there listening
2:55
Speaker 1: across the world, I'm sure there is a book version
2:58
Speaker 1: of this book in your languae. Have you read it
3:01
Speaker 1: in any of the other languages. I've read them on
3:03
Speaker 1: in all the different languages. I don't understanding of it,
3:06
Speaker 1: but I think I had a pretty good idea of
3:07
Speaker 1: what we wrote. I just wonder how all of our
3:09
Speaker 1: bad puns were translated, like to Korean. Seems to me
3:13
Speaker 1: like an impossible tath does yeah does graphical puns? I
3:19
Speaker 1: think that's what you mean. No, it's a fun book,
3:21
Speaker 1: and it talks about all the things that we don't
3:23
Speaker 1: know about the universe and the ways we might figure
3:25
Speaker 1: them out. One thing we didn't talk about in the book, though,
3:29
Speaker 1: is how humanity might end. That's what we talked a
3:31
Speaker 1: bit about, how the universe might end. But there's a
3:34
Speaker 1: lot that can happen before the universe ends. You're thinking
3:37
Speaker 1: they're not the same thing. You don't think humans are
3:39
Speaker 1: gonna make it all the way. I'm thinking that when
3:42
Speaker 1: we end, the universe ends for us, because we're going
3:45
Speaker 1: to cause the end of the universe, nothing else matters.
3:50
Speaker 1: That's right. I wouldn't put it past physicists to sort
3:53
Speaker 1: of converge to those two things. I knew you were
3:55
Speaker 1: going to paint it on physicists. You know, if somebody's
3:57
Speaker 1: going to cause the end of the universe, I'm gonna
3:59
Speaker 1: blame politicians, not physicists, really not physicists. It's not going
4:03
Speaker 1: to be a physicist pressing that big red button you
4:06
Speaker 1: know that launches the death device, the doomsday device that
4:10
Speaker 1: creates the cosmic instability that you know, ruins the structure
4:13
Speaker 1: of space, time or whatever. Yeah, you're right, I'll give
4:16
Speaker 1: you that. It's probably going to be the physicist grad
4:19
Speaker 1: student prescent accidentally putting their coffee down on the button. Oops,
4:23
Speaker 1: what was that? But yeah, today's podcast, we'll be getting
4:27
Speaker 1: into a topic that a little bit dark about the
4:31
Speaker 1: outlook for humanity. Yeah, we pay attention to our listeners
4:34
Speaker 1: and we read everything you guys write to us on
4:36
Speaker 1: email and on Twitter. So if you have a question
4:39
Speaker 1: about the universe or how humanity might end, or something
4:42
Speaker 1: you heard about you didn't understand, please send it to us.
4:45
Speaker 1: But this episode is in response to a very specific
4:47
Speaker 1: question that came in from listeners about different ways that
4:51
Speaker 1: physics might kill you, and not just from boredom, right,
4:53
Speaker 1: not just from just kidding. No, physics is very exciting,
4:58
Speaker 1: and Jason had a very interest think question here because
5:01
Speaker 1: he envisions four ways in which physics could possibly end
5:06
Speaker 1: the world as we know it and possibly the universe.
5:09
Speaker 1: Do you think or just just the Earth? I think
5:10
Speaker 1: probably just the Earth or just humanity. I think in
5:13
Speaker 1: all these four scenarios, the universe will truck on even
5:15
Speaker 1: if humanity is extinguished. And what do you think Jason
5:19
Speaker 1: is thinking here? Do you think he's worried about these
5:21
Speaker 1: things happening? Do you think he is trying to cause
5:24
Speaker 1: these things to happen? Perhaps hopefully not. Yeah, this is
5:27
Speaker 1: a similar quanity. Um, I'm not sure if in answering
5:30
Speaker 1: his question, we are enabling a super villain who's making
5:34
Speaker 1: plans to sort of ring humanity, or maybe somebody who's
5:38
Speaker 1: like planning to protect humanity against the coming of potential supervillains.
5:42
Speaker 1: This classic question in philosophy. You know, by creating technology
5:46
Speaker 1: and spreading knowledge, are you enabling war or preventing it?
5:51
Speaker 1: Do you think Jason might be the Bruce Willis of
5:53
Speaker 1: Twitter or he might be the lex Luthor right, one
5:57
Speaker 1: of those two. Either way, we're gonna answer your question,
6:01
Speaker 1: Jason and Hope for the best and so to be.
6:03
Speaker 1: On the podcast, we'll be asking the question, what are
6:11
Speaker 1: four ways which physics could end the world? And we've
6:16
Speaker 1: got more than four ways, we only have time, right,
6:20
Speaker 1: we're under we're only explaining four of them today. That's right.
6:24
Speaker 1: This is the top four of a very very long
6:26
Speaker 1: list of ways to kill everybody on Earth using physics.
6:29
Speaker 1: These are the top just because these are the ones
6:31
Speaker 1: Jason picked. Or do you do you think Jason nailed
6:34
Speaker 1: the four most concerning ways that physics could end the world. Oh,
6:38
Speaker 1: I think it's like a thousand way tie for first place.
6:40
Speaker 1: But these are the four of the Jason thought about.
6:42
Speaker 1: I guess I guess if it ends the world, it's
6:45
Speaker 1: they're all equally bad, right, right, We're equally good for somebody,
6:49
Speaker 1: not us. No, but these are four very creative ways
6:53
Speaker 1: to potentially kill off humanity, and they probe sort of
6:56
Speaker 1: an understanding of the nature of matter and gravity and
6:59
Speaker 1: electron on and all that stuff. So I thought it
7:01
Speaker 1: would be a lot of fun to go through them
7:02
Speaker 1: and really think about the physics of what would happen
7:04
Speaker 1: in each scenario. So this is what Jason wrote in
7:07
Speaker 1: his tweet. He wrote, rate these events from most catastrophic
7:11
Speaker 1: to least. Number one, gravity turns off for three seconds
7:16
Speaker 1: and then back on. Number two, the Earth suddenly starts
7:19
Speaker 1: spinning backwards. Number three, every electron within one light year
7:25
Speaker 1: of Earth suddenly disappears. Number four the Sun shuts down
7:30
Speaker 1: for two weeks, and then he later clarified that it's
7:33
Speaker 1: still there, but it's just sort of turned off and
7:36
Speaker 1: went dark. It winks for two weeks. That's a long week, man,
7:42
Speaker 1: it's very specific to two weeks. It's like, you know,
7:45
Speaker 1: not you know, three weeks, not you know, sixteen days.
7:49
Speaker 1: He's like, it sounds like he's planning for this. Yeah,
7:52
Speaker 1: he's making some specific plans. These are not just arbitrary numbers,
7:55
Speaker 1: you know. I think he's really tuned. These catastrophic events
7:59
Speaker 1: makes me wonder about how much planning he's done. Well.
8:01
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty cool that one of our listeners
8:03
Speaker 1: sort of sat around, you know, and thought of all
8:05
Speaker 1: these all the things that could happen in the universe,
8:08
Speaker 1: and wondered what how these things were possible and how
8:12
Speaker 1: they would affect us. Yeah, and I think a lot
8:15
Speaker 1: of these have sort of physics implications that you might
8:17
Speaker 1: not think of when you first hear it. There's an
8:20
Speaker 1: initial idea and then there's some subtlety to each one.
8:24
Speaker 1: So they're awesome not just because they might cause the
8:26
Speaker 1: death of billions of people, but they might along the
8:28
Speaker 1: way teach those billions of people something about physics. They
8:31
Speaker 1: all sound pretty I'm not sure how to say this,
8:34
Speaker 1: were you gonna say plausible? That sounds uh, It sort
8:39
Speaker 1: of sounds like the plot of a of a spy
8:41
Speaker 1: movie or a disaster movie, you know. Yeah, a lot
8:44
Speaker 1: of these movies start off with some catastrophic event or
8:46
Speaker 1: some dramatic event that makes you wonder like, oh, how
8:49
Speaker 1: did that happen? Or how did the aliens get control
8:52
Speaker 1: of gravity, or you know, who's who's deleting all these
8:55
Speaker 1: electrons from the universe or something. But most of these
8:58
Speaker 1: movies end up unsatisfying, and they're like, Oh, it's the
9:00
Speaker 1: infinitely folding proton, they can do anything or something. Oh
9:04
Speaker 1: I see or dark matter. Always go with dark matter
9:06
Speaker 1: or quantum realm. That's matter. Oh man, don't get me
9:11
Speaker 1: started on the science fiction novels that lean on dark matter.
9:16
Speaker 1: You go to a dark place, do I recently read
9:19
Speaker 1: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and it basically has nothing
9:22
Speaker 1: to do with dark matter. You think he just meant
9:24
Speaker 1: like matters that are dark. I don't know what he meant.
9:27
Speaker 1: It's really more about the quantum multiverse. It's like the
9:30
Speaker 1: many worlds theory. So dark matter. I think it was
9:33
Speaker 1: just like random clickbait physics title. Maybe we should. This
9:38
Speaker 1: is not fair though, for me to criticize him. Blake Crouch,
9:40
Speaker 1: if you're a listener, please come on the podcast and
9:42
Speaker 1: argue with me about the science in your novel. Invitation
9:45
Speaker 1: extended today, we'll uh it's going to be a little
9:49
Speaker 1: bit of a different episodes, so we're going to tackle
9:50
Speaker 1: each of these possible scenarios that Jason came up with,
9:53
Speaker 1: and we're going to ask people on the street what
9:56
Speaker 1: they think of it, and we're going to try to
9:57
Speaker 1: explain what would happen if these things actually happened. That's right.
10:01
Speaker 1: So I had the hilarious and enjoyable task and walking
10:04
Speaker 1: around campus that use the irvine and asking people what
10:07
Speaker 1: they thought would happen in these catastrophic scenarios. And the
10:11
Speaker 1: people look at you with a fear in their eyes,
10:14
Speaker 1: or were they amuse they run away. They didn't look
10:18
Speaker 1: at me the way we sort of mentally looked at
10:21
Speaker 1: Jason for posing these questions. They weren't worried that I
10:24
Speaker 1: was planning to enact any of these scenarios. Um. I
10:26
Speaker 1: think they enjoyed thinking about them. Yeah. All right, well
10:29
Speaker 1: let's tackle these one at a time. And so we'll
10:31
Speaker 1: start with Jason's number one on the Liz, which is
10:34
Speaker 1: what would happen if gravity turns off for three seconds
10:38
Speaker 1: and then it turns back on. Here's what people had
10:41
Speaker 1: to say, what do you think would happen if a
10:43
Speaker 1: gravity just shut off for like three seconds? People, I
10:47
Speaker 1: think would be flying up the buildings. I think like
10:52
Speaker 1: if their foundations are strong enough, they would stay here
10:55
Speaker 1: on the Earth. But the people would like fly up
10:57
Speaker 1: for a little bit and then when the gravity is
11:00
Speaker 1: back on, they'll fall down. If there's no gravities, that
11:03
Speaker 1: means the Earth cannot held us everyone. Maybe we'll just
11:08
Speaker 1: fly to the sky and three seconds and after Suicidon
11:13
Speaker 1: gras back, we will just about what do you think
11:17
Speaker 1: it's pretty realistic with people envision. Yeah. Mostly I think
11:21
Speaker 1: people think about the immediate thing that they are being
11:24
Speaker 1: held to the Earth, and then that would stop if
11:27
Speaker 1: gravity was turned off, And then they're worried about, you know,
11:29
Speaker 1: like how high up are you going to get? And
11:32
Speaker 1: how catastrophic would it be a gravity turned back on. Well,
11:35
Speaker 1: this is an interesting scenario, I guess. I guess we
11:37
Speaker 1: all sort of wonder what would happen if gravity didn't exist.
11:41
Speaker 1: But I think he's he's asking what would happen if
11:44
Speaker 1: it's suddenly turned off, Like one second we have gravity
11:49
Speaker 1: and the next millisecond we don't have gravity. Yeah, because
11:52
Speaker 1: we wouldn't even be here without gravity, right. Gravity is
11:54
Speaker 1: the reason why we have the Earth. It's the reason
11:56
Speaker 1: why we have any sort of structure anything going on.
11:59
Speaker 1: Without gravity, stuff would still be floating out their dilute
12:02
Speaker 1: in space. So you need gravity to make the Earth
12:05
Speaker 1: and people and the Sun and all that stuff. And
12:07
Speaker 1: this question is about what happened if somebody like bumped
12:10
Speaker 1: against the gravity light switch accidentally in the Universe control room.
12:14
Speaker 1: That's right, God, she she accidentally, you know, leaned against
12:18
Speaker 1: the wall, hit the switch. Yeah, you put her coffee
12:20
Speaker 1: down on the wrong spot or something. Right. A lot
12:22
Speaker 1: of people said that you would fly up right, and
12:25
Speaker 1: you know, gravity is holding us down. That's certainly true.
12:29
Speaker 1: But if gravity disappeared, you wouldn't immediately fly up. Oh interesting, Well,
12:33
Speaker 1: I guess my first question before we get into the effects,
12:36
Speaker 1: is this even possible? Could gravity just tron off for
12:38
Speaker 1: three seconds and then back on? Not that I'm aware of.
12:41
Speaker 1: I mean, we have no way to manipulate gravity or
12:44
Speaker 1: understand the structure of spacetime. We don't even really know
12:46
Speaker 1: what gravity is, you know, Is it just like the
12:48
Speaker 1: way that space is bent by having mass and energy around?
12:52
Speaker 1: Is it a force like the other ones? Um? But
12:55
Speaker 1: of course we don't have an understanding of the quantum
12:57
Speaker 1: nature of it, so we don't really understand what gravity
13:00
Speaker 1: is and how it works. So we definitely don't know
13:03
Speaker 1: how to turn it on and off. We even talked
13:05
Speaker 1: on a podcast about like anti gravity devices. Yeah, I guess.
13:08
Speaker 1: I mean, do you know of any situation in physics
13:11
Speaker 1: in the universe in which gravity doesn't work? You know,
13:15
Speaker 1: like we talked once about like anti gravity particles. Maybe
13:20
Speaker 1: could we somehow some suddenly be washed over by anti
13:23
Speaker 1: gravity particles or you know, is it even possible for
13:26
Speaker 1: gravity to suddenly not work? I don't think you could
13:30
Speaker 1: turn off gravity. The thing you might be able to
13:33
Speaker 1: do is counteracted. Like if you ranked up dark energy.
13:38
Speaker 1: Right here at the Earth, dark energy is basically doing
13:41
Speaker 1: the opposite of gravity, right It's stretching space and moving
13:44
Speaker 1: things further apart. So if you somehow we're able to
13:48
Speaker 1: manipulate dark energy in a way to like expand space
13:51
Speaker 1: to change its curvature locally, then you could effectively have
13:55
Speaker 1: the opposite effective gravity, canceling it out, so you might
13:58
Speaker 1: be able to balance. I mean, this is really a stretch.
14:02
Speaker 1: We don't even know what dark energy is. But if
14:04
Speaker 1: I had to go somewhere, I would instead of turning
14:06
Speaker 1: off gravity, I would try to balance it with dark energy.
14:09
Speaker 1: But that's maybe with a maybe with a maybe on
14:12
Speaker 1: top of it. So, if I was writing the Tom
14:14
Speaker 1: Hanks down Brown novel, I would have the evil Zelad
14:19
Speaker 1: create a dark energy bomb a dark gable. Yeah, that's
14:23
Speaker 1: somehow I'm just I'm just bit balling here. Uh and
14:26
Speaker 1: and there's not a suggestion for anyone out there. Um,
14:29
Speaker 1: but in the movie, you might create a bomb that suddenly,
14:32
Speaker 1: uh you know, gives off a lot of dark energy
14:34
Speaker 1: which cancels gravity for three seconds. Here, and what do
14:37
Speaker 1: you think would have the most sort of first weekend
14:39
Speaker 1: ticket sales? A dark energy bomb or a dark energy
14:42
Speaker 1: laser or dark energy gun. As long as it's called
14:46
Speaker 1: dark energy, I think the name will totally just sell it.
14:49
Speaker 1: Then the title of Blake Crouch's next novel that has
14:52
Speaker 1: nothing to do with dark energy. All right, Well, it
14:56
Speaker 1: sounds like, you know there, it's not impossible. There there's
15:00
Speaker 1: you know that you could envision a movie using this
15:02
Speaker 1: plot device, and like now you call it not impossible,
15:05
Speaker 1: which makes it sort of we sort of suggest that
15:08
Speaker 1: maybe it's possible, but like in the same way, like
15:10
Speaker 1: it's not impossible that we could be the number one
15:13
Speaker 1: podcast in the world. Wait, we're not. It could happen
15:18
Speaker 1: we need the dark podcast bomb to go off for
15:21
Speaker 1: that to happen. It's right, and boost boost our ratings.
15:25
Speaker 1: At least in my universe, we're number one, Daniel, We're
15:28
Speaker 1: the number one podcast that I listened to. All right,
15:30
Speaker 1: so let's get into what would happen if you actually
15:32
Speaker 1: turned off gravity for three seconds and then turn it
15:34
Speaker 1: back on. First, let's take a quick break, all right, Daniel,
15:51
Speaker 1: walk us through this scenario. So paint us the picture
15:53
Speaker 1: if I turned off gravity for three seconds, what would happen? Well,
15:56
Speaker 1: the first thing would happen is that you would fly
15:59
Speaker 1: off the Earth, but not straight up. Well, I can't
16:02
Speaker 1: fly down. Um, I'm guessing you mean like I would
16:05
Speaker 1: fly in the direction that i'm the Earth is rotating. Yeah,
16:08
Speaker 1: you can think of yourself as sort of orbiting the
16:10
Speaker 1: Earth just above the surface. Think about what would happen
16:14
Speaker 1: to the moon if gravity turned off? The Moon would
16:17
Speaker 1: not fly straight away from the Earth. It would keep
16:19
Speaker 1: going the direction it's going. It would shoot off in
16:21
Speaker 1: a line tangent to the circle it's moving in, right,
16:25
Speaker 1: because what gravity is doing is it sort of bending
16:27
Speaker 1: it in a circle. So gravity disappears, the Moon shoots
16:30
Speaker 1: off sort of sideways. So if you're like a little
16:33
Speaker 1: moon of the Earth, everybody is their own little tiny moon.
16:36
Speaker 1: Then what happens is that you shoot off sort of
16:39
Speaker 1: at an angle to the surface. Oh, I see, like
16:42
Speaker 1: it's tangent to the circle to right. Yeah, precisely, it's tangent.
16:45
Speaker 1: Just keep going. It would no longer be reined into
16:48
Speaker 1: an orbital circle. I would just it's like you cut
16:51
Speaker 1: the string that is tying it to the Earth. Yeah,
16:54
Speaker 1: and remember, when gravity turns off, there's nothing like pushing
16:57
Speaker 1: you away from the Earth. It's not like you're getting
17:00
Speaker 1: forced away. I've seen a lot of science fiction movies,
17:03
Speaker 1: you know that when gravity, when you get into space
17:05
Speaker 1: or whatever, things sort of automatically float away from you.
17:08
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily unless you give them a push. But
17:11
Speaker 1: in this case, you're already moving away from the Earth,
17:14
Speaker 1: and it's gravity that keeps you on the Earth. So
17:16
Speaker 1: when you turn that off and you sort of keep
17:19
Speaker 1: going in the direction you were going, so everybody would
17:21
Speaker 1: float up. Yeah you wouldn't. I guess you wouldn't float
17:24
Speaker 1: technically away from the Earth. But to us here on
17:27
Speaker 1: Earth where I'm standing, it would seem like I'm floating
17:29
Speaker 1: up because the Earth is rotating under you, right, Yeah,
17:32
Speaker 1: Like the house will keep moving around the Earth, but
17:34
Speaker 1: I am sort of now going tangent to the Earth,
17:37
Speaker 1: but it's also moving with me. So it will seem
17:39
Speaker 1: like I'm floating up. Yeah, it will. But eventually, if
17:42
Speaker 1: it's for long enough, then the Earth will curve away
17:44
Speaker 1: from you, and you no longer be directly above your
17:47
Speaker 1: house or your garden or wherever you stood. Like if
17:49
Speaker 1: you painted an X under you and then gravity turned off,
17:53
Speaker 1: the X would seem to be under you for a
17:55
Speaker 1: little while, but then it would no longer be right
17:58
Speaker 1: under you because the curve of the Earth. So would
18:00
Speaker 1: this happened suddenly or slowly? You know, like let's say, boom,
18:03
Speaker 1: I turned off gravity. Am I now like falling up?
18:07
Speaker 1: Or am I? You know, be like, wait, what what's
18:09
Speaker 1: going on? Would it be slow or fast? It wouldn't
18:12
Speaker 1: be too fast. You'd be floating up because the curverage
18:14
Speaker 1: of the Earth is pretty small and so you're mostly
18:18
Speaker 1: already going in the right direction. Oh I see. It
18:20
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like I was falling up. It would be
18:23
Speaker 1: more like detaching from the Earth. Yeah, and the Earth
18:26
Speaker 1: would continue to curve sort of away under you, and
18:30
Speaker 1: you keep going in the same direction, and so the
18:34
Speaker 1: distance would increase a sort of a nonlinear rate. But
18:37
Speaker 1: the very first few seconds you wouldn't get that high.
18:39
Speaker 1: How high would you actually get if if gravity turned
18:42
Speaker 1: off for three seconds and I started floating up, how
18:45
Speaker 1: high do you think I would would I get? It's
18:47
Speaker 1: a great question. I actually had to sit down and
18:49
Speaker 1: do this calculation because I wasn't sure. And the way
18:52
Speaker 1: to think about it is that the Earth is sort
18:53
Speaker 1: of rotating out from under you. Remember you're still moving
18:56
Speaker 1: in the straight line, and the Earth is rotating out
18:59
Speaker 1: from under you. I'm now heading straight to the Moon
19:01
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, you're being shot out into space. It's
19:04
Speaker 1: a massive slingshot, you know, or like to think about
19:06
Speaker 1: the Earth is a big merry go round and you
19:08
Speaker 1: suddenly let go and then getting flung out into space.
19:12
Speaker 1: But the Earth is really big and really round, and
19:15
Speaker 1: the curvature, as you know, is not that easy to spot.
19:18
Speaker 1: So the only reason you're leaving the surface of the
19:20
Speaker 1: Earth is because of that curvature. And so in three
19:23
Speaker 1: seconds you would actually only float up about fourteen centimeters.
19:27
Speaker 1: So if Garty turned off for three seconds, I would me, elephants, girafbs,
19:33
Speaker 1: cars out there would float for about fourteen centimeters and
19:36
Speaker 1: then come back down. Yeah, so it's like you take
19:38
Speaker 1: a little hop, right. It's big enough for you to notice,
19:41
Speaker 1: but not big enough to really be dangerous. But I
19:43
Speaker 1: would feel it, right like, probably a lot of a
19:45
Speaker 1: lot of people would throw up that feeling of free
19:49
Speaker 1: fall for three seconds if you suddenly floated a foot
19:52
Speaker 1: into the air. Yes, I'm pretty sure you would notice that.
19:54
Speaker 1: And if it continued, you know, if like the person
19:56
Speaker 1: who turned off gravity was sort of like fumbling for
19:59
Speaker 1: the switch and it took longer, then he gets more
20:01
Speaker 1: dramatic pretty quickly. After thirty seconds, you'd be like fourteen
20:05
Speaker 1: meters above the ground. Oh that's not good. That's not
20:08
Speaker 1: that one. You don't recover from easily. No, unless you're
20:11
Speaker 1: wearing a lot of protective gear. All right, So, and
20:13
Speaker 1: so I would fly. That doesn't sound too bad. It
20:15
Speaker 1: sounds at least before the world ends. I want to
20:18
Speaker 1: get to fulfill my dream of flying and floating in space. Um,
20:23
Speaker 1: and so what else would happen besides me floating? Well,
20:26
Speaker 1: he talked about gravity turning off, and he didn't limit
20:29
Speaker 1: it to Earth's gravity. He was just like gravity period
20:32
Speaker 1: in the universe, whole universe, universe. And most importantly, that
20:38
Speaker 1: means that like all the Earth's gravity is gone and
20:41
Speaker 1: the Sun's gravity is gone, and that has some consequences,
20:45
Speaker 1: like if we would shoot off into space, Yeah, just
20:47
Speaker 1: like we would float off of the Earth's orbit, the
20:50
Speaker 1: Earth would fall out of its orbit and keep going
20:53
Speaker 1: for three seconds out of its orbit. Oh, and then
20:56
Speaker 1: when it turns back on, we would be in a
20:57
Speaker 1: totally different orbit. Yeah, and we might have the wrong trajectory.
21:01
Speaker 1: We might not any longer be in a stable orbit,
21:04
Speaker 1: and so we might sort of get kicked out of
21:05
Speaker 1: the Solar System. That doesn't sound good. It does not
21:08
Speaker 1: sound good. There's lots of ways to move around the Sun,
21:10
Speaker 1: and only a few of them are a stable orbit.
21:12
Speaker 1: And so if you just sort of all of a
21:14
Speaker 1: sudden drift out to a larger radius, but you haven't
21:16
Speaker 1: picked up any speed, then you're not in a stable
21:18
Speaker 1: orbit anymore. With the Earth crack or anything like that,
21:20
Speaker 1: like with our atmosphere suddenly proof away, what are some
21:23
Speaker 1: of the things physically that would happen to our planet. Yeah,
21:26
Speaker 1: the atmosphere also is held to the Earth by gravity,
21:30
Speaker 1: and so the atmosphere would float away from the Earth
21:33
Speaker 1: the same way because it's spinning. Just dissipate. Yeah, it
21:36
Speaker 1: would just dissipate out into space um. But you know
21:39
Speaker 1: three seconds is not that long, so you wouldn't lose
21:41
Speaker 1: a whole lot of atmosphere. Oh, I see three seconds? Okay,
21:45
Speaker 1: got it. Got It would dissipate a little, but then
21:47
Speaker 1: it might come back. Now, but by then we will
21:49
Speaker 1: will be in a different orbit, will be in the
21:50
Speaker 1: wrong orbit, and then the Earth, you know, it will
21:52
Speaker 1: get sucked back by the Earth Sun's gravity when it
21:55
Speaker 1: turns back on. But it might then get sucked into
21:58
Speaker 1: something that's not a stable orbit. It could like whizz
22:00
Speaker 1: around closer to the Sun and then get thrown into
22:02
Speaker 1: interstellar space. But that's not even the worst part. Okay,
22:07
Speaker 1: what's the worst? What's the worst that could happen? The
22:09
Speaker 1: biggest deal, the cataclysmic end to your Michael Bay movie
22:13
Speaker 1: is that. Remember that gravity plays a really important role
22:16
Speaker 1: in holding the Sun together. It's the only reason it's
22:19
Speaker 1: a ball of fire, right otherwise, I mean it's a
22:22
Speaker 1: constant explosion being held by gravity. Yes, it's being pinned
22:25
Speaker 1: down by gravity. And so if you turn gravity off,
22:28
Speaker 1: then it like unleashes the Sun's fury for three seconds,
22:32
Speaker 1: and the Sun would basically explode. I mean, it's a
22:34
Speaker 1: huge meal in your bomb being held together by gravity.
22:37
Speaker 1: In three seconds, that would be enough to to explode
22:40
Speaker 1: the Sun. It would definitely explode. What would happen when
22:43
Speaker 1: you turned it back on, I don't know, like could
22:45
Speaker 1: he gather it back together. It would definitely change the
22:48
Speaker 1: dynamics of the Sun, And so it might be a
22:51
Speaker 1: very different star when you turn it back on. It
22:53
Speaker 1: might be burning at a different temperature, or have a
22:56
Speaker 1: different radius or a different opacity. You know. Oh, I see,
22:59
Speaker 1: it's like the stable little um cycle. And you will
23:03
Speaker 1: be totally disrupting that. Yeah, you like kick the fire,
23:06
Speaker 1: you know, and then you gotta try to get it
23:07
Speaker 1: going again, and it might, you know, sputter out or
23:10
Speaker 1: flame up, or do something totally crazy. So for three seconds,
23:13
Speaker 1: we would see the Sun suddenly get bigger for three seconds,
23:17
Speaker 1: and then gravity turns back on, and then it something
23:20
Speaker 1: else will happen. Something else will happen, and it's not
23:23
Speaker 1: easy to figure out what you know, we don't understand
23:25
Speaker 1: the way a lot of these stars work anyway, So
23:28
Speaker 1: you know, nobody has done this kind of simulation. To
23:30
Speaker 1: figure out, like in detail what would happen. You need
23:32
Speaker 1: to run a massive simulation of of the sort of
23:35
Speaker 1: hydrodynamics of inside the star, and nobody has done that calculation.
23:39
Speaker 1: It's not something you can sit down and do with
23:41
Speaker 1: a pencil and paper. And in those three seconds, is
23:43
Speaker 1: it possible where the sun grows, is possible that it
23:45
Speaker 1: will fry us? Or you know, like if it sort
23:48
Speaker 1: of explodes for three seconds, is that, you know, a
23:50
Speaker 1: shower of energy going to fry the planet? Probably not.
23:55
Speaker 1: Remember that the Sun is light minutes from the Earth,
23:57
Speaker 1: so really far away from the Sun, and so three
24:00
Speaker 1: seconds is a tiny fraction of that. And you know
24:03
Speaker 1: there might be like a pulse of energy which gets
24:05
Speaker 1: shot out. But then remember gravity turns back on and
24:08
Speaker 1: so any of that plasma is going to get slowed
24:11
Speaker 1: down and dragged back into the Sun. I bet you
24:13
Speaker 1: get like an enhanced solar wind. But we still have
24:17
Speaker 1: a magnetic field to protect us from that solar wind.
24:19
Speaker 1: All right, So I think that paints, uh are not
24:22
Speaker 1: a great picture, which is that you know, we might
24:25
Speaker 1: get kicked out of the solar system. We might ruin
24:29
Speaker 1: the sun um but here on Earth will will float
24:32
Speaker 1: for three seconds and then come back down. So a
24:34
Speaker 1: lot of cars maybe you know, might float and then
24:37
Speaker 1: crash back down. That wouldn't be too bad, But the
24:39
Speaker 1: worst is that we might get kicked out or the
24:41
Speaker 1: Sun would explode. The overall pretty bad. I rate this
24:45
Speaker 1: on the on the badness scale as pretty bad scenario
24:48
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Especially the range of your scale here does
24:52
Speaker 1: it go from pretty bad too utterly terrible, or from
24:56
Speaker 1: don't worry about it to keep listening because some of
24:59
Speaker 1: the scenarios get pretty nasty. All right, Let's get into
25:02
Speaker 1: the second one here. Jason writes what would happen if
25:05
Speaker 1: the Earth suddenly starts spinning backwards? So I walked around
25:10
Speaker 1: campus again and I asked people this insane question, what
25:13
Speaker 1: do you think it would be like on Earth if
25:14
Speaker 1: there if the Earth suddenly started rotating the other direction?
25:18
Speaker 1: I think everything would go insane, Like the probably seats
25:22
Speaker 1: would just in the way to go the opposite direction,
25:24
Speaker 1: and tsunamis would happen, and probably storms. I've never thought
25:29
Speaker 1: about it because I just haven't really come with I mean,
25:33
Speaker 1: you just hear how it goes and like, okay, what
25:36
Speaker 1: does what it does? But I've never thought what happens, Well,
25:39
Speaker 1: it does opposite so much say, alright, bad stuff, bad stuff.
25:44
Speaker 1: None of this was supposed to be sort of cozy scenarios.
25:46
Speaker 1: It's supposed to make anybody smile and cuttle up with
25:49
Speaker 1: a book and a cup of tea or anything. Uh
25:52
Speaker 1: do you think he means like if you you know,
25:54
Speaker 1: the Earth is spinning right now and we're all very comfortable,
25:57
Speaker 1: but suddenly the spinning in Earth, what do you think
26:01
Speaker 1: he means, Like it stops and then it starts spinning
26:03
Speaker 1: the other way. Yeah, it's a critical difference because if
26:06
Speaker 1: you could sort of snap your fingers and all of
26:09
Speaker 1: a sudden everything is going in the other direction, that's
26:11
Speaker 1: not actually that big a deal. I mean in that scenario, like, yeah,
26:15
Speaker 1: the sun is like everything, like the oceans. You mean,
26:18
Speaker 1: if we're you know, suddenly we're spinning moving the other way,
26:22
Speaker 1: not much would happen. Not much would happen. Yeah, and
26:25
Speaker 1: the sun would rise and set on the other side. Right. Um,
26:30
Speaker 1: But but a lot of things about the Earth are
26:32
Speaker 1: pretty symmetric. Would it change, like the magnetic poles? It
26:35
Speaker 1: certainly might It might flip the magnetic field, you know,
26:39
Speaker 1: because the magnetic field is generated by what's going on
26:42
Speaker 1: inside the Earth, the rotation of like that that hot
26:44
Speaker 1: magnetic liquid inside the Earth, And so if you're flipping that,
26:47
Speaker 1: then you're flipping the magnetic field. But that just makes
26:50
Speaker 1: north into south. Right, things still work. You still have
26:53
Speaker 1: a magnetic field to protect you from solar flares, um
26:56
Speaker 1: and cosmic radiation. Everything still sort of holds together. Doesn't
26:59
Speaker 1: mean break everything. It just sort of puts a minus
27:02
Speaker 1: one in front of a lot of stuff. Okay, I think,
27:05
Speaker 1: I think I get it. I think if you define
27:08
Speaker 1: the Earth as the brock and everything on it, including
27:12
Speaker 1: us and the satellites, then not much what happened, and
27:14
Speaker 1: the atmosphere yeah, and the atmosphere not much with Heaven.
27:18
Speaker 1: But if you maybe define the Earth is just the
27:20
Speaker 1: ball of rock, then things might get bad. Right. Oh man,
27:24
Speaker 1: if just the Earth started going in the other direction
27:26
Speaker 1: and we were still going this way, yeah, that would
27:29
Speaker 1: be very bad because how fast How fast am I
27:33
Speaker 1: technically going sitting here on Earth? Yeah, you're going pretty fast.
27:35
Speaker 1: I mean, the Earth's circumference is what miles and it
27:39
Speaker 1: does that in a day, and so it's a thousand
27:42
Speaker 1: miles per hour is the Earth's surface is moving. So
27:45
Speaker 1: if all of a sudden it's moving the other way
27:47
Speaker 1: basically two thousand miles per hour, that would be pretty bad.
27:52
Speaker 1: That's like going in a car at a two thousand
27:55
Speaker 1: miles per hour and then suddenly the car stopped, were
27:59
Speaker 1: crashing to a wall, right, Yeah, not not recommended. Not
28:02
Speaker 1: We would all just get smushed or we would get
28:06
Speaker 1: you know, if you're outside, you would just certainly be
28:09
Speaker 1: flung at two thousand miles per hour. Yeah, and also
28:12
Speaker 1: be crazy winds, right, because the atmosphere is also rotating
28:15
Speaker 1: with the Earth, So just the Earth started going to
28:17
Speaker 1: the other direction, basically all the air and Earth would
28:20
Speaker 1: have a wind speed of two thousand miles per hour.
28:23
Speaker 1: That's like much stronger than any hurricane. So it would
28:26
Speaker 1: basically flatten every city, right, but me included would also
28:29
Speaker 1: be going at two thousand miles per hours, So I
28:31
Speaker 1: would m I guess I would get thrown if I
28:34
Speaker 1: was outside. This is the best case scenario. I'm outside,
28:37
Speaker 1: the Earth changes direction, You're wearing a lot of protective gear.
28:41
Speaker 1: I hope I'm wearing a lot of an insulated lab coats. Yeah,
28:46
Speaker 1: I get flung off into the sky two thousand miles part,
28:49
Speaker 1: but the wind is also going with me at two
28:51
Speaker 1: miles per hour, So I think for a few short
28:53
Speaker 1: seconds I would be flying again until you hit something,
28:57
Speaker 1: until I hit something right, like the Earth or your
29:00
Speaker 1: house or something. Oh, I see, all right, But there's
29:04
Speaker 1: another scenario. When I read this, I thought of something else.
29:06
Speaker 1: I thought, what does it take to to flip the
29:09
Speaker 1: Earth to go the other way? I thought, you know,
29:11
Speaker 1: maybe you like stop that, you slow down the Earth
29:14
Speaker 1: and get it going the other way, and you do
29:16
Speaker 1: that in a very short amount of time, You like
29:18
Speaker 1: actually apply the brakes and then give it a push
29:20
Speaker 1: the other direction. Because you know, in physics, nothing gets
29:23
Speaker 1: accomplished instantaneously. You can't be going a hundred miles an
29:26
Speaker 1: hour in one direction and then instantly the other direction. Right,
29:30
Speaker 1: that's an acceleration, that's a change of velocity, and that
29:33
Speaker 1: only happens with a huge force. Can it happen with
29:36
Speaker 1: the giant dark energy bomb? I think it'd be more
29:39
Speaker 1: a dark energy laser, you know, you fire at the surface.
29:44
Speaker 1: I'll make a note, But that's an even worse scenario
29:46
Speaker 1: because if you apply an enormous acceleration to the whole earth,
29:50
Speaker 1: that would break a lot of stuff. Well, it's kind
29:53
Speaker 1: of like, um, the opposite. It's just a milder version
29:56
Speaker 1: of the instantaneous flip of the rock. Right. The instantaneous
29:59
Speaker 1: flip is actually easier because you don't have to go
30:01
Speaker 1: through the transition. You don't have to feel the acceleration.
30:04
Speaker 1: Acceleration is what's really bad. It's like if you're in
30:08
Speaker 1: a fighter jet, going at zero miles per hour is
30:10
Speaker 1: no big deal. Going at five thousand miles per hour
30:14
Speaker 1: also not that big a deal because velocity is not
30:16
Speaker 1: an issue. But the acceleration from zero to five thousand,
30:19
Speaker 1: those g's you would feel them. It would like pulverize
30:22
Speaker 1: your insides. Humans can't survive more than a few gees
30:27
Speaker 1: liquefying our organs. So it sort of depends on a
30:29
Speaker 1: lot of things. It depends on whether Jason meant the
30:32
Speaker 1: ball of rock or everything on it, and also how
30:35
Speaker 1: quickly this operation happens. Yeah, because if you actually do
30:39
Speaker 1: it physically correctly and accelerate the earth the other direction
30:42
Speaker 1: to get it spinning that way, then you have to
30:44
Speaker 1: be really careful. If you don't include the oceans, for example,
30:47
Speaker 1: then you're gonna get like ridiculous tsunamis like miles high
30:51
Speaker 1: waves slashing around. You gotta do it carefully because you
30:56
Speaker 1: gotta get every everything on board. If you're change a direction. Yeah, chaos.
31:01
Speaker 1: Do you ever feel just like a pan of water
31:03
Speaker 1: and try to walk it across your kitchen? It's almost
31:06
Speaker 1: impossible to not have that water like slosh around and
31:08
Speaker 1: splash on your toes. Now, imagine you have like oceans
31:12
Speaker 1: on the Earth and you're spitting it the other way.
31:15
Speaker 1: You are going to drown Tokyo and everything else. Oh man, alright,
31:20
Speaker 1: So then how would you rate this potential physics disaster?
31:24
Speaker 1: Is this? Is it too dependent on the specifics or
31:27
Speaker 1: do you think we should it's clearly bad in any case, Um,
31:30
Speaker 1: I'd say it's less catastrophic than turning off gravity. I'm
31:33
Speaker 1: pretty worried about the Sun being unleashed for three seconds
31:37
Speaker 1: and being kicked out into a different orbit. So if
31:40
Speaker 1: I had to pick, I would say gravity turning off
31:43
Speaker 1: is more catastrophic. That's the champion so far. Okay, So
31:46
Speaker 1: what's below pretty bad? Pretty bad, but not as bad
31:51
Speaker 1: A bad idea not recommended. Is there physics rating system
31:58
Speaker 1: like you know, G good to go PG physics good
32:07
Speaker 1: not recommended without the supervision of a physicist, especially with
32:13
Speaker 1: the supervision physicists. Don't offer this option to any physicists,
32:16
Speaker 1: you know, they can resist pushing the button Candy. Whenever
32:22
Speaker 1: I'm in front of a big red button, my fingers
32:23
Speaker 1: just crawl on it. I'm gonna touch it, Like, what
32:26
Speaker 1: does I feel like depressing? What would happen? I'm gonna
32:29
Speaker 1: create a button, Daniel that transfer transfers all your money
32:33
Speaker 1: to my bank account, and I'm going to leave it
32:35
Speaker 1: into your front door. No, that's my personal Twilight Zone episode.
32:41
Speaker 1: It's like your nighmer as a house full of red buttons?
32:44
Speaker 1: Is that what it is? That's your twilight Zone episode?
32:46
Speaker 1: And one of them kills everybody on earth. Oh that
32:50
Speaker 1: is a good plot idea. Oh man, we are pitching
32:54
Speaker 1: so many good movies today. I know it's like Saw,
32:57
Speaker 1: but for physics. There we go. All right, let's get
33:00
Speaker 1: into the last two scenarios that Jason imagine that the
33:03
Speaker 1: Livy came up with. But first let's take a quick break.
33:20
Speaker 1: All right, Daniel, we have two more potentially catastrophic scenarios
33:24
Speaker 1: for Earth and humanity and potentially the universe that one
33:28
Speaker 1: of our listeners here, Jason, came up with, and so
33:31
Speaker 1: we we need to rate them, we need to explain
33:34
Speaker 1: them and see how bad they are. So the third
33:37
Speaker 1: idea that Jason had was, Yeah, he asked, what would
33:40
Speaker 1: happen if every electron within one light year of Earth disappeared?
33:45
Speaker 1: Is it for three seconds you think? Or forever? It
33:47
Speaker 1: just says gone, Yeah, we're not getting these electrons back,
33:50
Speaker 1: you know, they have just been deleted from the universe.
33:53
Speaker 1: Could we survive? But but only within one light year?
33:57
Speaker 1: He's very specific. He's at one point zero. Like I
34:00
Speaker 1: think he's trying to include like our entire cosmic neighborhood,
34:03
Speaker 1: you know, the sun planets that may be word cloud,
34:07
Speaker 1: but not the whole universe. He's not building to speck here.
34:11
Speaker 1: He's just curious, right, I hope not alright. So the
34:19
Speaker 1: scenario is that every electron that we know that's inside
34:21
Speaker 1: of my body, the Earth, the Sun, the planet, all
34:25
Speaker 1: the need I guess nearby solar system right now. The
34:29
Speaker 1: nearest star is three light years away, three or four
34:31
Speaker 1: light years away, so there are no other stars involved.
34:34
Speaker 1: So basically just our solars and every electron suddenly disappear
34:38
Speaker 1: in the solar system. And so let's preface this by
34:41
Speaker 1: reminding people sort of how important and ubiquitous electrons are. Okay,
34:45
Speaker 1: They're not just something in batteries, right there, not just
34:48
Speaker 1: the thing that you juice up your iPhone with. Everything
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, everything you see, everything you have ever eaten,
34:55
Speaker 1: everything you are made of has electrons in it and
34:58
Speaker 1: needs those electrons, right, And in a way, it's almost
35:02
Speaker 1: they're almost um it's like one third of all matter,
35:05
Speaker 1: isn't it technically kind of yeah, Like you take an
35:08
Speaker 1: atom and it has protons and neutrons and electrons. Now,
35:11
Speaker 1: the electrons are very very light where they don't have
35:13
Speaker 1: a lot of mass, but they are responsible for balancing
35:16
Speaker 1: the electric charge of the atom. You know, there's the
35:18
Speaker 1: positive proton and then there's the negative electron, and so
35:22
Speaker 1: it's pretty key. I'm thinking this is not good. But
35:25
Speaker 1: let's see what people had to say on the street. Yeah,
35:28
Speaker 1: so I walked around and I asked people what they thought.
35:31
Speaker 1: Here's what they had to say. What do you think
35:32
Speaker 1: would happen if all of the electrons, like within a
35:35
Speaker 1: light year just suddenly disappeared. I don't think that'd be
35:38
Speaker 1: good or bad. It was simply destroyed out, So kind
35:43
Speaker 1: of considering an electrical engineer, that'd be probably pretty bad.
35:50
Speaker 1: I like like this last one, that last one where
35:55
Speaker 1: the engineer is worried about his career. That's his main procopation.
35:59
Speaker 1: I know. I was like, dude, you're gonna have to
36:01
Speaker 1: become a proton engineer instead of electron engineer. That's what
36:05
Speaker 1: I was thinking. How would you what would any career
36:08
Speaker 1: be called pro protonical engineer, per tonical engineer? Yeah, I
36:12
Speaker 1: suppose so, although you know, if this happens, we're not
36:15
Speaker 1: going to be around to be hiring anybody. Okay, So
36:17
Speaker 1: you think it's pretty catastrophic if all electrons suddenly disappear. Yeah,
36:22
Speaker 1: Every atom, all of a sudden gets a positive charge. Right,
36:25
Speaker 1: you have a hydrogen atom, you delete it to electron.
36:28
Speaker 1: You got a proton. And if you had a gas
36:30
Speaker 1: of hydrogen atoms, which we do in lots of places
36:32
Speaker 1: like the Sun, then you deleted all those electrons. All
36:36
Speaker 1: of a sudden. You have all these positive protons, and
36:39
Speaker 1: they're not gonna be happy just hanging out. They're gonna
36:41
Speaker 1: push against each other. Oh, I see. If I have
36:44
Speaker 1: a canister of hydrogen and I take away the electrons,
36:47
Speaker 1: suddenly have I just have protons? Yeah, and those protons
36:50
Speaker 1: feel a very powerful force against each other, are they?
36:53
Speaker 1: Is it my canister going to explode or is it
36:55
Speaker 1: just gonna feel pressure? It's gonna explode. Your canister also
36:58
Speaker 1: used to have electrons in it. It doesn't anymore. You
37:02
Speaker 1: used to have electrons and it doesn't anymore. That's what
37:04
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Like, electrons are everywhere we are. We
37:09
Speaker 1: are made of electrons. The sun, Earth is made of electrons.
37:13
Speaker 1: So you delete electrons all of a sudden, every atom
37:17
Speaker 1: you know within a light year hates every other atom
37:19
Speaker 1: and wants to be really far away from me. Do
37:22
Speaker 1: you think maybe Jason would just think, like, hey, what
37:24
Speaker 1: if we didn't have electricity for a little while. I
37:25
Speaker 1: don't know what you're thinking, but Jason, please do not
37:28
Speaker 1: do this. Everything would explode. The Earth would explode, the
37:33
Speaker 1: Sun would explode. You would explode, My brain would explode,
37:35
Speaker 1: Your career would explode. I sensed real fear in your
37:39
Speaker 1: voice here, Daniel. I feel like you're we're actually touching
37:42
Speaker 1: something that makes you afraid. At a very core level. Yeah. Also,
37:46
Speaker 1: I take this one a bit personally. I mean, I'm
37:48
Speaker 1: a particle physicist. I feel something for particles. You can't
37:51
Speaker 1: just delete electrons, man, I mean it's so cruel, like
37:55
Speaker 1: they've been doing so much for you for years orout anythings,
37:59
Speaker 1: and then you're just gonna raise them literally erased them
38:01
Speaker 1: from the universe. It's like, don't cancel, don't cancel the election.
38:05
Speaker 1: This cancel culture has gone too far people. If you're
38:08
Speaker 1: canceling particles now, people want to cancel the electron, And
38:12
Speaker 1: how come nobody ever wants to cancel proton? So it's
38:15
Speaker 1: always the electrons right right. It sounds like you're you're
38:18
Speaker 1: pretty afraid of this scenario, like it would be bad.
38:20
Speaker 1: There's no recovering from it, right. If you have no electrons,
38:23
Speaker 1: then there's no way to balance the charges. I mean,
38:26
Speaker 1: there are other particles in the universe that have negative charges,
38:29
Speaker 1: like the W minus and some quirks have fractional negative charges.
38:35
Speaker 1: So you might be able to assemble some other hadrons
38:38
Speaker 1: to give you negative charges and make really weird chemistry.
38:42
Speaker 1: You know, you can make like an a mega minus
38:44
Speaker 1: particle to balance a proton and make a whole new
38:47
Speaker 1: kind of atom. But who knows what kind of thing
38:49
Speaker 1: you could build out of that, certainly not me or
38:51
Speaker 1: you or anything you're familiar with. So it's like you're
38:55
Speaker 1: rewriting the laws of the universe. It would be totally catastrophic.
38:59
Speaker 1: One second would be sitting here talking. In the next second,
39:01
Speaker 1: we're just exploding, flying through space and this massive protons
39:05
Speaker 1: floating out there in the universe. Yeah, exactly. We'd be
39:08
Speaker 1: a plasma of protons pushing away from each other really
39:11
Speaker 1: really hard. Because remember, electromagnetism is a powerful force and
39:16
Speaker 1: it has an infinite extent, and so everything within our
39:19
Speaker 1: light year would become a dilute gas of protons eventually.
39:23
Speaker 1: All right, so I think you would rate this is
39:24
Speaker 1: not just pretty bad, but like maybe ultimately bad. This
39:28
Speaker 1: is this is up there, This is up there. This
39:29
Speaker 1: is sort of like saturate the scale, you know, this
39:32
Speaker 1: like red lines at it as maximum e catastrophic Like
39:35
Speaker 1: this one terrifies me. I see, this is the stuff
39:38
Speaker 1: physicist nightmares are made up. That and red buttons, rooms
39:41
Speaker 1: with red buttons. One of these buttons will delete electrons
39:48
Speaker 1: and the other might transfer all your funds to Horne. Alright,
39:54
Speaker 1: so I'm pressed that Jason saturated your disaster scale, Like
39:58
Speaker 1: you don't you would any want to see this movie? No?
40:01
Speaker 1: I mean, what's going to happen? Everything blows up in
40:03
Speaker 1: the first moment, boom would be over, Like there's no
40:06
Speaker 1: drama there, just building anything. All right, Well, let's get
40:10
Speaker 1: into his fourth scenario here, maybe that will have a
40:12
Speaker 1: little bit more drama. So Jason writes, what would happen
40:16
Speaker 1: if the Sun shuts down for two weeks but the
40:20
Speaker 1: mass is still there. He's very cautious about that. It's
40:23
Speaker 1: just he's saying, like, what if it's stuff stops giving
40:26
Speaker 1: off light for two weeks? Right, Yeah, the Sun basically
40:29
Speaker 1: goes dark or winks at us in you know, technical terms,
40:32
Speaker 1: m But it's still there. It's still making the planets
40:35
Speaker 1: go around. Um, but it's just not giving off any
40:39
Speaker 1: light or particles. Like imagine if the Sun became a
40:42
Speaker 1: black hole. It's effectively, what would happen for two weeks?
40:46
Speaker 1: For two weeks, but then it came then it comes
40:47
Speaker 1: back from vacation. Yeah. So I walked around and I
40:51
Speaker 1: asked folks, were they worried about the sun shutting down?
40:54
Speaker 1: And what do they think would happen in that scenario?
40:56
Speaker 1: What do you think would be like on Earth? If
40:58
Speaker 1: the sun shut down for like two weeks? I don't
41:00
Speaker 1: think there would be life, But they're like, we'd all
41:04
Speaker 1: die in within two weeks. I think so, plus like
41:06
Speaker 1: then there'd be like no gravity. I don't know, It's like,
41:10
Speaker 1: I don't think there would be life at all. So
41:12
Speaker 1: what happened and the only one person was willing to
41:14
Speaker 1: talk to you at this point? Everyone else right away?
41:17
Speaker 1: After you ask people about electrons disappearing and all sorts
41:20
Speaker 1: of stuff. Um, yeah, they sort of like I had
41:23
Speaker 1: somewhere else to be. Do you made them rethink their
41:25
Speaker 1: lives and what they're doing with their precious time that
41:28
Speaker 1: we have here? Yeah, I hope they ran off at
41:30
Speaker 1: to tell all their loved ones how important they are
41:31
Speaker 1: to them. He's envisioning what would happen to if the
41:33
Speaker 1: sun suddenly turned off, and but I guess physically we
41:38
Speaker 1: wouldn't feel it right. Things would just go dark. Yeah.
41:41
Speaker 1: First of all, the sun would keep burning for eight minutes,
41:44
Speaker 1: apparently in the sky, because remember it takes time for
41:47
Speaker 1: light to get here from the sun. So in the
41:49
Speaker 1: first eight minutes or so this two week hiatus, things
41:53
Speaker 1: would seem normal and then all of a sudden, boom,
41:55
Speaker 1: the sun would go black and it's basically like nighttime
41:59
Speaker 1: for two weeks. Astronomers would be very excited. They can
42:02
Speaker 1: actually work for two weeks to weeks straight without sleeping.
42:06
Speaker 1: Do you think they would be excited. They're brewing a
42:08
Speaker 1: big pot of coffee and anticipation. Astronomers basically lose half
42:12
Speaker 1: of their observing time because of the Sun. It just
42:14
Speaker 1: blots out everything in the sky. So we would get
42:17
Speaker 1: great views of the stars, right, and it sort of
42:21
Speaker 1: blocks telescopes also, just from like light pollution to right.
42:25
Speaker 1: It's not just the direct sunlight. It's also just like
42:29
Speaker 1: light in our solar system. Yeah, and the heats of
42:32
Speaker 1: the atmosphere and makes it wiggly, and so it makes
42:34
Speaker 1: it harder to see that starlight that's sort of limped
42:37
Speaker 1: across the universe for billions of years and finally gotten
42:40
Speaker 1: here has to go through a wiggly atmosphere gets all
42:43
Speaker 1: smeared out, and so the Sun is sort of the
42:45
Speaker 1: enemy of astronomy. It's not particle physicists, it's the sun.
42:50
Speaker 1: Particle physicists always beat astronomy. So we don't even think
42:54
Speaker 1: I think we do bring an astronomy here to have
42:57
Speaker 1: an arm wrestling fight with you here, intellectual arm wrestling. No.
43:02
Speaker 1: We we love astronomers, and we feel a kinship of
43:04
Speaker 1: course with all of physics, but especially with astronomers and cosmologists,
43:08
Speaker 1: because we're all wondering about the big questions of the universe.
43:12
Speaker 1: All right, well, it doesn't sound too catastrophic. It sounds
43:14
Speaker 1: like we just get a too night, a two week night,
43:19
Speaker 1: which sounds great to me because I can sleep the
43:20
Speaker 1: whole catchup of my sleep, your sleep, you mostly work
43:23
Speaker 1: on that. I get emails from you like three in
43:25
Speaker 1: the morning, so you would get so much done if
43:28
Speaker 1: the sound disappeared for two weeks, if me and thistronomers
43:31
Speaker 1: would die from exhaustion, assuming your kids sleep for two weeks, right, yeah,
43:37
Speaker 1: it'd be pretty hard though. You know, I don't think
43:39
Speaker 1: it's very fun to endure two weeks of night. But
43:41
Speaker 1: you know they're parts of the early that don't see
43:44
Speaker 1: the sun for weeks and months at a time, right, yeah.
43:47
Speaker 1: People are like near the North Pole. The sun sets
43:51
Speaker 1: you know in whatever October November, depending where you are,
43:54
Speaker 1: and then it just doesn't come up again in February
43:57
Speaker 1: until February one. Depending on when it happens, some people
44:00
Speaker 1: might not even notice. In the wintertime, folks would be like,
44:05
Speaker 1: what are you talking about the sun? Is the sun
44:07
Speaker 1: turned off? There's no sun anyway? Yeah, and it would
44:11
Speaker 1: be more than just two weeks of night because we
44:13
Speaker 1: rely on sort of the reheating of daytime, and so
44:16
Speaker 1: eventually the earth we get pretty chilly. And the thing
44:19
Speaker 1: I wonder about is like plants. You know, could plants
44:22
Speaker 1: go for two weeks without any sun and then just
44:24
Speaker 1: sort of like snap back into health two weeks later? Right? Yeah,
44:29
Speaker 1: I can't plants. Would plants just kind of go into
44:31
Speaker 1: hibernation or something? Yeah, it might like kill off agriculture
44:35
Speaker 1: for a whole cycle, so we might all be hungry
44:37
Speaker 1: for a year. Um. But you know, that's a sort
44:40
Speaker 1: of for biologists, like if you shut down sunlight the
44:43
Speaker 1: plants for two weeks, would they die or they come back?
44:45
Speaker 1: I'm I'm guessing would all die, but you get definitely
44:49
Speaker 1: reduced yields, so you have less food for that next winter.
44:52
Speaker 1: Oh boy, so our culture or society might collapse. Yeah,
44:57
Speaker 1: you know, I like reading science fiction novels that highlight
45:00
Speaker 1: the sensitivity of our entire civilization. You know, like we
45:04
Speaker 1: are all three days away from total riots. Like if
45:07
Speaker 1: the trucks stopped driving and the supermarket shells were no
45:10
Speaker 1: longer filled with food, were like three days away from
45:13
Speaker 1: total chaos. Better stuck up on those lentils. It's right,
45:17
Speaker 1: lentils exactly. Everybody should have lentils in their basement. Yeah,
45:21
Speaker 1: all right, But then you're saying that the earth might
45:23
Speaker 1: get colder, Like how much colder? Would we suddenly be
45:26
Speaker 1: thrown into like a two week winter, or would it
45:30
Speaker 1: we see it sort of slowly get chillier. It would
45:33
Speaker 1: be sort of like a two week winter because you
45:35
Speaker 1: get the dips for a nighttime, and then you wouldn't
45:37
Speaker 1: come back up again during the day, and so you
45:39
Speaker 1: just keep cooling off and getting colder and colder and colder,
45:43
Speaker 1: and eventually if the sun was out for months or
45:46
Speaker 1: weeks or years, and then you get a new ice
45:48
Speaker 1: age and the earth would really frost over. On the
45:50
Speaker 1: plus iby would solve global warming. On the negative side,
45:54
Speaker 1: society might collapse. You forgot to add more astronomy and
45:58
Speaker 1: cartoons to the plus est, right, more creativity for nighttime artist.
46:05
Speaker 1: That's another I think that. I think that justifies the rest.
46:07
Speaker 1: To be honest, maybe we should think about actually doing this. Yeah,
46:12
Speaker 1: maybe Jason already thought about it, and that's why he's asking.
46:17
Speaker 1: Jason's like using the other scenarios to make this one
46:20
Speaker 1: sound reasonable. Right, He's worked it all out. He just
46:23
Speaker 1: wants to make sure. I was thinking he was more
46:25
Speaker 1: of the Calvin and Hobbs strategy, you know, the like,
46:27
Speaker 1: hey mom, can I have a flamethrower? No? Well can
46:29
Speaker 1: I have a cookie? Sure? He's like, can I turn
46:32
Speaker 1: off all the electrons? No, don't do that. Can I
46:34
Speaker 1: just turn off the sun for two weeks? All right?
46:36
Speaker 1: That seems reasonable? Well, he I guess he has my permission.
46:40
Speaker 1: If his options are trying to disappear electrons or turn
46:43
Speaker 1: off the sun for two weeks, I would say, um,
46:47
Speaker 1: turn off the sun. Yeah. So my vote for most
46:50
Speaker 1: catastrophic would be turn off the electrons, then probably turning
46:54
Speaker 1: off gravity, then the Earth spinning backwards, and then shutting
46:58
Speaker 1: off the sun for two weeks. That would be the
47:00
Speaker 1: least catastrophic in my book. All right, And that's that
47:03
Speaker 1: covers the range from not so bad too ultimately bad too.
47:08
Speaker 1: Please please please don't even think about this. Don't start
47:11
Speaker 1: doing research on it, but don't imagine what would be
47:14
Speaker 1: like or how much fun it would be. Let's just
47:15
Speaker 1: avoid the topic. Wow, this really you don't even want
47:18
Speaker 1: to talk about it, Daniel, let's wrap up the podcast.
47:21
Speaker 1: I'm not Let's just thank you. This is triggering you.
47:25
Speaker 1: I feel in ways that are making you uncomfortable. You know,
47:29
Speaker 1: every time somebody has a crazy sounding idea that seems impossible,
47:32
Speaker 1: somebody out there starts thinking about it and maybe that
47:35
Speaker 1: isn't impossible. I have a few ideas, and that's how
47:37
Speaker 1: research gets started. Man oh man, all right, let's let's
47:41
Speaker 1: end the podcast then, before we before we go too far,
47:46
Speaker 1: it might already be too late. All right, Well, I
47:48
Speaker 1: think thinking about these scenarios is pretty interesting because, first
47:51
Speaker 1: of all, it makes you think about how precious we
47:53
Speaker 1: life is and here on earth. And also it kind
47:56
Speaker 1: of makes you think about how at the whim of
47:58
Speaker 1: these physical laws were you know, if if things change,
48:03
Speaker 1: we might not be here. Yeah, we are in a
48:05
Speaker 1: delicate balance, and the universe is this way which allows
48:08
Speaker 1: for our life and our and our loves and everything
48:11
Speaker 1: we enjoy about the universe, but if it was slightly different,
48:14
Speaker 1: then we wouldn't be able to survive. And one of
48:16
Speaker 1: the deepest questions in physics is could it be slightly different?
48:20
Speaker 1: Why is it this way? Is this the only way
48:22
Speaker 1: that the universe could be so we are a natural consequence?
48:26
Speaker 1: Or are there billions of ways to have universes and
48:28
Speaker 1: we just happen to be in this one. We don't
48:31
Speaker 1: know the answer to that really basic question about our
48:33
Speaker 1: own existence. And I like these questions because they sort
48:36
Speaker 1: of make you think about all of those issues. Yeah,
48:38
Speaker 1: the big question, like what would happen if we didn't
48:40
Speaker 1: have Bruce willis who would go and nket that cosmic
48:44
Speaker 1: banana if you couldn't call Bruce? All right, thank you
48:47
Speaker 1: so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed that.
48:49
Speaker 1: And if you have a question you'd like to hear
48:51
Speaker 1: us talk about in a silly manner, please send it
48:53
Speaker 1: to us at Questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
48:57
Speaker 1: See you next time. Before you still have a question
49:07
Speaker 1: after listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line.
49:10
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
49:12
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49:16
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49:20
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49:23
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