Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Is the universe left-handed?

Transcript

Is the universe left-handed? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Jorge, remember when we talked about particles spin trying
0:13
Speaker 1: not to remember you mean, you mean the spin that
0:16
Speaker 1: isn't really a spin. Yeah, And then we talked about
0:19
Speaker 1: particle color. Huh, the color that isn't actually a color.
0:24
Speaker 1: And particle flavors. You mean the flavor that doesn't actually
0:29
Speaker 1: taste like anything. That's the one. Well, I got some
0:32
Speaker 1: news for you. Turns out particles can be left handed
0:37
Speaker 1: or right handed. Hi am orhandmade cartoonists and the creator
0:57
Speaker 1: of PhD comics. I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and
1:01
Speaker 1: I'm mostly right handed. And welcome to our podcast Daniel
1:05
Speaker 1: and Jorge give weird names to particle properties in the Universe,
1:10
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio, in which we do
1:12
Speaker 1: our best to connect the weird, the strange, the amazing,
1:16
Speaker 1: the bonkers universe that we find ourselves in. Two things
1:19
Speaker 1: that actually do make sense to you, that are familiar
1:21
Speaker 1: in every day Yeah, Because I think sometimes the universe
1:24
Speaker 1: does feel really familiar, you know, and relatable, and I
1:27
Speaker 1: feel like I understand it. But sometimes I feel like
1:30
Speaker 1: the universe is this crazy, unknowable, confusing and totally unintuitive
1:36
Speaker 1: thing that we're all living in. I mean, every time
1:39
Speaker 1: you leave your house, every time I turn on the news.
1:42
Speaker 1: If I just stay in my living room, everything feels
1:44
Speaker 1: so familiar. Why do I have to go outside? Yeah,
1:48
Speaker 1: but I guess. I mean, you know, sometimes the universe
1:51
Speaker 1: and you know, particles and stars and black holes behaving
1:55
Speaker 1: ways that really are don't make a lot of sense
1:58
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, and it's fast dating. How as humans
2:01
Speaker 1: we try to make sense of them in terms of
2:03
Speaker 1: things that we do understand, Like we talk about the
2:06
Speaker 1: life cycle of stars, even though of course stars are
2:09
Speaker 1: not alive, but you know, they begin and they burn
2:12
Speaker 1: and then they die spectacularly, Like I hope I will
2:15
Speaker 1: die spectacularly one day. I think most people wish for
2:19
Speaker 1: quiet death. Daniel not a spectacular who wants to go
2:24
Speaker 1: out with a whimper man. I want to end with
2:26
Speaker 1: a supernova that sounds just like a physics super villain
2:32
Speaker 1: Daniel in a comic book. Look, my budget from my
2:35
Speaker 1: funeral is not like all coffins and flowers and stuff.
2:38
Speaker 1: It's all sticks of dynamite. Great, I'll be sure to
2:42
Speaker 1: turn on that invitation, all right, um, But the point
2:47
Speaker 1: is that we do our best to understand this weird,
2:50
Speaker 1: cold lifeless, dramatic world in terms of things that do
2:54
Speaker 1: make sense to us. You know, we think of particles
2:56
Speaker 1: as little balls. We think of photons is like waves
2:59
Speaker 1: in the ocean. We think of things as having a
3:01
Speaker 1: life cycle. What else can we do? We try to
3:03
Speaker 1: map the universe into things that we know. Yeah, and
3:06
Speaker 1: so today we'll be talking about a particular property of
3:09
Speaker 1: the universe, or I guess particles in particular. Is that
3:12
Speaker 1: a good way to say it? Say it, um, particular
3:16
Speaker 1: particle property. Oh my goodness, I feel like we're I'm
3:20
Speaker 1: talking to my kids and they're giving me a riddle.
3:22
Speaker 1: Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. Peter Piper
3:27
Speaker 1: picked a pack of pickle particles. Yeah, we'll be talking
3:29
Speaker 1: about a really amazing particle property that we might not
3:32
Speaker 1: even discovered if it didn't turn out that the universe
3:35
Speaker 1: preferred one kind rather than the other. Yeah, sometimes the
3:39
Speaker 1: universe has a preference. You know, it's just, um, it's
3:42
Speaker 1: just the way it is. Is it just the way
3:44
Speaker 1: it is? It the kind of thing that makes us wonder, like,
3:46
Speaker 1: why is the universe this way and not the other way?
3:48
Speaker 1: Every time the universe has to make a choice and
3:50
Speaker 1: it chooses one direction over the other, um one place
3:54
Speaker 1: over another, makes us wonder why this and not something else. Yeah,
3:58
Speaker 1: So usually is as physicists, we like when the universe
4:01
Speaker 1: is balanced, when it's symmetric and it doesn't make a preference,
4:04
Speaker 1: because then we don't have to know why. But every
4:07
Speaker 1: time it does make a choice, that's a clue. It
4:09
Speaker 1: tells us there's something weird in particular about our universe.
4:12
Speaker 1: It could have been different, right, and so to be
4:14
Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be talking about is the universe
4:23
Speaker 1: left handed? M hm? Why didn't we say is the
4:27
Speaker 1: universe right handed? Yeah? Well, because the universe does have
4:30
Speaker 1: a preference, and it turns out it's not the same
4:33
Speaker 1: as a biology interesting, so meaning that the universe is
4:38
Speaker 1: maybe not the perfect symmetrical, un judgmental thing that we
4:43
Speaker 1: kind of wish it were, right, I mean, you wish
4:46
Speaker 1: it weren't. Well, we're always looking for symmetries in the
4:48
Speaker 1: universe and wondering what those means. We have lots of
4:51
Speaker 1: really deep symmetries, like we don't think it matters where
4:54
Speaker 1: in the universe you are. The laws of physics should
4:57
Speaker 1: be the same if you're here or if you're there
4:59
Speaker 1: or you're somewhere else the same way, there's no preferred
5:02
Speaker 1: direction in the universe, no up and down. That sort
5:05
Speaker 1: of makes sense to us, right. We like to think
5:07
Speaker 1: of the universe is like democratic in that way, right,
5:10
Speaker 1: But really it's more of an electoral college kind of thing,
5:15
Speaker 1: which is the source of all of our problems. You know,
5:18
Speaker 1: that's a fascinatingly accurate description because the universe is dominated
5:23
Speaker 1: by mostly empty space. Empty space that contributes most of
5:27
Speaker 1: the energy of the universe, because that's where all the
5:28
Speaker 1: dark energy is. So you no, we we are trying
5:31
Speaker 1: really hard to stay a political on this show. We
5:34
Speaker 1: are applying you know, reason and logic to trying to
5:38
Speaker 1: understand the universe, but of course we have to map
5:40
Speaker 1: it sometimes too, things that make sense to us. Right,
5:43
Speaker 1: So it turns out that the universe is not perfectly symmetrical.
5:46
Speaker 1: It does have kind of a preference for one direction
5:48
Speaker 1: or another, and so that's what we'll be talking about
5:51
Speaker 1: here today. We're talking about the property of particles called
5:56
Speaker 1: handedness right left and right handedness of particles which I
6:00
Speaker 1: don't actually have any hands. Well, I'll give you a
6:03
Speaker 1: hand for that one. Particles, As we know don't have hands,
6:07
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean we can't talk about handedness, right,
6:10
Speaker 1: and like we call it handedness because it's a property
6:13
Speaker 1: we first noticed of our hands. Like if you look
6:15
Speaker 1: at your hands, the two are not the same. Right,
6:18
Speaker 1: your left hand your right hand are not the same.
6:20
Speaker 1: And even if you put them next to each other,
6:22
Speaker 1: is no way to like rotate your left hand to
6:24
Speaker 1: make it look just like your right hand. They really
6:27
Speaker 1: are differently. The pattern, the order of the fingers is
6:30
Speaker 1: just different from one to the other. Right, there's a
6:33
Speaker 1: our hand. My hand, right hand is not the same
6:35
Speaker 1: as my left hand. It's like a mirror image. That
6:39
Speaker 1: would be word if both my hands looked exactly the same.
6:41
Speaker 1: Though that's kind of a disturbing saying you like symmetry,
6:45
Speaker 1: would you prefer to have two identical hands? Um, well,
6:50
Speaker 1: that's different than symmetry because I feel like it hands
6:52
Speaker 1: are symmetric, but there it's like mirror symmetry. Right, there's
6:55
Speaker 1: a difference between merror symmetry and like exact exactness. That's right,
7:00
Speaker 1: and that's the property we're interested in here today. Things
7:03
Speaker 1: that have a handedness that have a mirror symmetry, like
7:05
Speaker 1: your hand if you put up your left hand in
7:06
Speaker 1: the mirror, it looks just like your right hand does
7:09
Speaker 1: in real life, but the mirror turns left handedness into
7:13
Speaker 1: right handedness and the other way around. Right by the way,
7:16
Speaker 1: like a sphere. A sphere doesn't have a handedness because
7:18
Speaker 1: it looks the same in the mirror. But your hand
7:20
Speaker 1: it does have a handedness because it looks like the
7:23
Speaker 1: other one in the mirror. And so we're interested in, like,
7:27
Speaker 1: all right, here's a symmetry, here's a property. Does universe
7:29
Speaker 1: prefer one or the other. And we know, for example,
7:31
Speaker 1: in people, that there are more right handers than left
7:35
Speaker 1: handers and you and you have to wonder, like why
7:37
Speaker 1: is that? What does that mean about biology or evolution
7:40
Speaker 1: or something? And now we can ask that same kind
7:42
Speaker 1: of question about particles, right, and it turns out that
7:45
Speaker 1: the particles have a handedness and that the universe kind
7:48
Speaker 1: of prefers one over the other. Yeah, it's kind of fascinating.
7:53
Speaker 1: All right, we'll get into that, but first we want
7:54
Speaker 1: to give a quick shout out to Chris McKinnon in England.
7:58
Speaker 1: That's right, we gotta request from your partner, Georgia Arnold,
8:01
Speaker 1: who says thanks for listening to the podcast and for
8:04
Speaker 1: teaching science to others. So Chris apparently is a fan
8:07
Speaker 1: of our podcast in England. So happy holidays, Chris, and
8:11
Speaker 1: happy birthday coming up in January. Yeah, happy birthday, and
8:15
Speaker 1: to everyone whose birthday is coming up in the next year,
8:17
Speaker 1: which I guess includes everybody except for those four and
8:21
Speaker 1: enough every right, I guess that's that's right. We want
8:24
Speaker 1: to be inclusive, but we also want to be accurate, right,
8:27
Speaker 1: And happy holidays to everyone out there, and happy non
8:30
Speaker 1: holidays to all the atheists as well. Are you saying
8:33
Speaker 1: atheists don't know holidays? I think by definition they don't
8:36
Speaker 1: have holidays. Oh man, I don't know this is the
8:40
Speaker 1: topic we should dive into. But um, but yeah, thanks,
8:43
Speaker 1: And if you are interested in writing to us and
8:45
Speaker 1: let us us know what do you think of the podcast,
8:48
Speaker 1: please follow us on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. All right, well,
8:51
Speaker 1: let's get back on the topic here of the handedness
8:55
Speaker 1: of the universe, and so we might say, to the
8:57
Speaker 1: topic at hand, let's get back to the do the
9:00
Speaker 1: bad puns? Guys, we trailed off into some holiday cheer.
9:04
Speaker 1: We forgot to get to all out the bad puns.
9:07
Speaker 1: But as usually what we were wondering how many people
9:09
Speaker 1: out there knew that the universe or that particles have
9:12
Speaker 1: a preference, or even an idea or or a property
9:17
Speaker 1: called handedness. Yeah, so I walked around campus that you
9:20
Speaker 1: see Irvine, and I asked books if they knew what
9:23
Speaker 1: it meant for a particle to be left or right handed.
9:27
Speaker 1: So think about it for a second. If you were
9:28
Speaker 1: approached by a physicist on a holiday morning and you
9:33
Speaker 1: were asked if you knew whether particles can be left
9:36
Speaker 1: or right handed? What would you answer? Here's what people
9:38
Speaker 1: had to say. Do you know what it means to
9:40
Speaker 1: say a particle can be left handed or right handed? No? No,
9:44
Speaker 1: they don't have hands? Well is isn't it talking about
9:46
Speaker 1: the movement of the current? Um So that's where I
9:50
Speaker 1: can remember from physics I took on the micro level,
9:54
Speaker 1: there's certain orientations and movements happen, and do there are
10:00
Speaker 1: going too one way or the other way? But I'm
10:02
Speaker 1: not superfamulate with outwards unfortunately, not now doing particles with hands? Well, well,
10:09
Speaker 1: I would guess that it has something to do like
10:12
Speaker 1: we're like the electrons around it, maybe more to the
10:15
Speaker 1: blaster to the writer or something all right. Not a
10:18
Speaker 1: lot of people knew that particles have handedness. No, No,
10:21
Speaker 1: it a little bit of pushback, like, nope, particles do
10:24
Speaker 1: not have hands. I thought as well, I'm gonna give
10:27
Speaker 1: a hand to this person here. No. So not a
10:31
Speaker 1: lot of familiarity with this concept. Yeah, which is uh,
10:35
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess I know. I knew about this
10:37
Speaker 1: idea just from talking to you, Daniel another physicists, because
10:42
Speaker 1: I know that it's related to like the spin of particles, right,
10:46
Speaker 1: and how they look at each other in the mirror. Yeah,
10:49
Speaker 1: and it's related to parody. And we did a whole
10:51
Speaker 1: fun video with Derek Mueller of Veritassium about parody and
10:56
Speaker 1: charge parody and its impact on time with particles. It's
11:00
Speaker 1: a gorgeous video. Folks out there really interested in this
11:03
Speaker 1: concept of symmetries and particles, go check it out. I
11:06
Speaker 1: think it's called do Particles Tell Time? On YouTube? And
11:10
Speaker 1: so so, just to clear things up, particles don't have hands.
11:14
Speaker 1: We we've established that, at least we don't think that
11:17
Speaker 1: we've seen, right, they could have point hands, that's right.
11:21
Speaker 1: We have to qualify what we understand here. We have
11:24
Speaker 1: not seen particles hands. It doesn't mean they don't have them.
11:27
Speaker 1: They could be super duper tiny cute, little tiny particle hands. Yeah,
11:33
Speaker 1: that's how they that's how they hold on to each other,
11:35
Speaker 1: they do how they make those bonds. Right, that's how
11:39
Speaker 1: the universe is connect the tiny little hands. That's right.
11:42
Speaker 1: But you know, you can have handedness even if you
11:46
Speaker 1: don't have hands, and let's get into it. But I
11:49
Speaker 1: feel like even if particles were a little spherical balls,
11:51
Speaker 1: which I know they're not, it seems weird that they
11:54
Speaker 1: would have like a preference between right and left, because
11:57
Speaker 1: what's the right and left of a perfect sphere? You're
11:59
Speaker 1: exactly right, and um, if you had a perfect sphere,
12:02
Speaker 1: it's perfect sphere is not handed. Right. To have something
12:05
Speaker 1: be handed you need at least two different directions that
12:08
Speaker 1: you can compare. And so a perfect sphere, however, can spin,
12:12
Speaker 1: and when it spins, the axis along which it's spinning
12:16
Speaker 1: gives you one direction, and then you can compare that
12:20
Speaker 1: spin direction to something else, like the direction it's moving,
12:23
Speaker 1: and you can ask, like, do those two directions line up?
12:25
Speaker 1: This kind of stuff. So particles can have handedness because
12:30
Speaker 1: it's built on top of other properties they have. But
12:33
Speaker 1: You're right, a sphere that has no handedness, it looks
12:36
Speaker 1: the same in the mirror by itself. And and as well,
12:39
Speaker 1: I guess a point as well, right, Like a point
12:42
Speaker 1: would have even less of a less of a hand
12:44
Speaker 1: unless it has plenty point hands right, which is not
12:49
Speaker 1: really the matter at hand. But you're saying that handedness
12:52
Speaker 1: for particles is related to you get like you got
12:55
Speaker 1: to throw in another property into the conversation in order
12:59
Speaker 1: to have handedness in a point particle. Yeah, And here's
13:03
Speaker 1: where we get into murky territory, because handedness it's a
13:08
Speaker 1: quantum property with particles. It's like an intrinsic property. It's
13:12
Speaker 1: like charge right, or it's like spin it's not physically spinning,
13:16
Speaker 1: or there is no place where the charge is. It's
13:19
Speaker 1: just like a label we put on a particle. And
13:22
Speaker 1: so these particles have this intrinsic leftiness or rightness really,
13:26
Speaker 1: and we can make it connected to this other physical thing,
13:29
Speaker 1: but in the end it really is deeply, fundamentally just
13:32
Speaker 1: sort of an internal quantum label that we can never
13:35
Speaker 1: really truly understand. Really, because I've never seen handedness in
13:39
Speaker 1: any of the you know, posters or graphics for the
13:42
Speaker 1: standard model of physics. You know, I see spin, I
13:44
Speaker 1: see charge, I see color, but I never see like
13:47
Speaker 1: left ear righty. You know. Yeah, Well it's mostly connected
13:51
Speaker 1: to the weak force, because the weak forces what revealed
13:54
Speaker 1: to us that handedness was a thing we had to
13:57
Speaker 1: think about and that it was actually important. So I
14:01
Speaker 1: guess we should call it quantum handedness because that's the
14:06
Speaker 1: that's the solution to any confusion in physics is just
14:10
Speaker 1: at a at a word that says you're right. It
14:12
Speaker 1: is confusing, It's okay, don't try to understand it at
14:16
Speaker 1: an intuitive level. It's weird. No, you're right. Quantum X.
14:20
Speaker 1: What we mean when we say that in physics is like, well,
14:23
Speaker 1: this is like some other weird version of X. We're
14:26
Speaker 1: using X because it's similar kind of in some way
14:29
Speaker 1: to the thing you're familiar with. There's an analogy that
14:31
Speaker 1: that's maybe helpful, but it's not really the same thing. Right.
14:34
Speaker 1: It's kind of like how our podcast is known for
14:37
Speaker 1: quantum humor. That's right, only particles get it. It's neither
14:43
Speaker 1: here nor there, but just still try to understand it.
14:46
Speaker 1: That's right. That's what we're getting a lot of quantum
14:48
Speaker 1: clasks and making a lot of quantum bucks. It's it's
14:52
Speaker 1: all theoretical, Daniel. No. But in the case of particles,
14:57
Speaker 1: you can sort of define this handedness by saying, let's
15:00
Speaker 1: look at the direction it's moving, and then let's look
15:03
Speaker 1: at the axis around which it's spinning, and ask are
15:06
Speaker 1: those two things pointing in the same direction or not?
15:10
Speaker 1: And so we call it right if they're in the
15:12
Speaker 1: same direction, and left handed if they're in opposite directions.
15:15
Speaker 1: But that's arbitrary. We could have just labeled them any way.
15:18
Speaker 1: You know. We can call them alpha and beta, or
15:21
Speaker 1: blue and red, or left and right or right and
15:23
Speaker 1: left right. These are just labels we deside. Oh, I see.
15:26
Speaker 1: It'd be like saying, like, some particles like to be
15:28
Speaker 1: positive and green, and some particles like to be negative
15:32
Speaker 1: and blue, and you might call that handedness or some
15:36
Speaker 1: other property. Yeah, some of the properties, but this particular
15:39
Speaker 1: one that we found, it turns out the universe cares about.
15:41
Speaker 1: So you could construct all sorts of things and column handedness,
15:46
Speaker 1: but the universe might be like, yeah, that's fine, I
15:47
Speaker 1: don't care about that doesn't matter to me. But this
15:50
Speaker 1: one is interesting because the universe does seem to care
15:53
Speaker 1: it is something that is important. It changes the way
15:56
Speaker 1: the universe treats these particles, and so it really does matter. Okay,
16:00
Speaker 1: so you're saying that handedness in a particle means that
16:03
Speaker 1: the spin of the particle is sort of a line
16:06
Speaker 1: to its motion. Yeah, And it's a bit confusing to
16:10
Speaker 1: think about the direction of spin because it's going in
16:13
Speaker 1: every direction. Right, it's a spinning thing. It's turning and
16:15
Speaker 1: turning and turning. What if I just turned my head
16:17
Speaker 1: upside down, wouldn't it flip it on its head? Well,
16:20
Speaker 1: it wouldn't change the direction of spin. Right, But so
16:23
Speaker 1: you use your right hand, and if your fingers are
16:25
Speaker 1: curling the direction the particle spinning, your thumb tells you
16:29
Speaker 1: where we sort of define the direction of the spin vector,
16:33
Speaker 1: and it's along the axis of spin. It's kind of
16:35
Speaker 1: like a top if you're spinning a top. M I
16:39
Speaker 1: guess you can spin a top both ways. But it's
16:41
Speaker 1: kind of a screwdriver, I guess, or like a screw
16:44
Speaker 1: it's like clockwise versus counterclockwise. Right, you have to define
16:47
Speaker 1: one direction or the other. And we say that the
16:50
Speaker 1: direction that you're the fingers curl on your right hand
16:53
Speaker 1: is a certain way, and that helps us define a
16:55
Speaker 1: certain direction. And so if the particle is moving in
16:59
Speaker 1: the same same direction that this spin is pointing, where
17:02
Speaker 1: again the spin comes from your thumb. If your fingers
17:04
Speaker 1: curl the way the spear is spinning, we call that
17:07
Speaker 1: a right handed particle. Really. Yeah, So parts of particles
17:12
Speaker 1: don't have the option of moving either way, like they
17:15
Speaker 1: always either move in the direction of spin or not
17:18
Speaker 1: in the direction of spin. Oh, that's fascinating question. Remember
17:21
Speaker 1: spin is quantized, right, and so you measure spin along
17:24
Speaker 1: any axis. And because it's quantized either along that axis
17:28
Speaker 1: or in the other direction, spin is not a infinitely
17:32
Speaker 1: valued quantity. It has to be either positive or negative.
17:35
Speaker 1: It's quantitied. It's this quantum spin. Like let's say that
17:38
Speaker 1: spinning and the spinning direction is up. You're saying that
17:41
Speaker 1: particles can move up and down. They have to move
17:43
Speaker 1: up or down. You can't say the particle is spinning
17:46
Speaker 1: and its spinning direction is up. That's quantum mechanically impossible
17:49
Speaker 1: to know the complete spin direction, right, because there's three
17:53
Speaker 1: different axes, and you can't know spin along three axis simultaneously.
17:56
Speaker 1: Because the Heisenberg is certain principle. Oh, boy, the you
18:00
Speaker 1: have to go the other direction. You say, all right,
18:02
Speaker 1: which direction is my particle moving? All right? That define
18:05
Speaker 1: some direction. Now I can ask is it spinning along
18:08
Speaker 1: that direction or in the opposite direction? I see, And
18:11
Speaker 1: that what I get if I ask it if is
18:14
Speaker 1: it spinning in the direction of moving or not? Is
18:17
Speaker 1: something that particles Some particles will always give you the
18:21
Speaker 1: one answer, and other particles will always give you the
18:23
Speaker 1: other answers. Or is it random? Like a particle can
18:26
Speaker 1: be moving either aligned or not aligned with its spin.
18:29
Speaker 1: That's what we call handedness. If a particle is right handed,
18:32
Speaker 1: then it's moving with its spin. If it's left handed,
18:35
Speaker 1: it's moving away from its spin. Now, some particles, like neutrinos,
18:38
Speaker 1: you only ever see left handed neutrinos. Right handed trinos
18:42
Speaker 1: do not exist. Other particles you can have both a
18:45
Speaker 1: right handed version or a left handed version. Oh, I see, alright.
18:50
Speaker 1: So some particles are ambidexterous. They can right with the
18:54
Speaker 1: right or left hand. But some particles in nature are
18:57
Speaker 1: definitely lefties or right ease. Yeah, And it's it's a
19:00
Speaker 1: little bit more subtle than that. It's like, do you
19:02
Speaker 1: think of the electron and the positron is different particles
19:06
Speaker 1: or sort of two sides of the same coin in
19:09
Speaker 1: the same way. Do we think of like the left
19:11
Speaker 1: handed electron and the right handed electron is two different
19:14
Speaker 1: particles or just sort of like two different versions of
19:17
Speaker 1: the electron, because it turns out nature sees them as different.
19:21
Speaker 1: So the electron can be right or left handed, or
19:24
Speaker 1: you could say it that there are right handed electrons
19:27
Speaker 1: and left handed electrons. Oh, I see, but is it
19:29
Speaker 1: like fifty fifty or what is it? Um? The universe
19:32
Speaker 1: prefers left handed electrons. You mean meaning there are more
19:36
Speaker 1: of them, There are more left handed electrons. Yes, wow,
19:40
Speaker 1: huh so it's kind of the opposite of people. No,
19:43
Speaker 1: that's right. And also for our DNA, you know, our
19:45
Speaker 1: d N A has a handedness to it also, and
19:47
Speaker 1: it's also right handed. All of our organic molecules in
19:50
Speaker 1: our body are right handed molecules. Uh. Interesting, alright, So
19:55
Speaker 1: that's kind of what handedness is is um, do particles
19:58
Speaker 1: like to move into direct in which they spin or
20:01
Speaker 1: do they not? Or that they like to move in
20:02
Speaker 1: the direction which they not spin. So that's a handedness
20:05
Speaker 1: in particles. And so let's get into what that means
20:08
Speaker 1: for the universe is prospects in Major League Baseball, whether
20:15
Speaker 1: there are going to be drafted early or not, and
20:19
Speaker 1: why it matters maybe to you and me. But first,
20:22
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break, all right, Danniel. So you're
20:37
Speaker 1: saying that some particles in nature, like the electron, can
20:40
Speaker 1: be right or left handed, meaning they can move. You
20:44
Speaker 1: see them moving in the direction that they're spinning, and
20:46
Speaker 1: some of them you see them moving not in the
20:47
Speaker 1: direction they're spinning. But some particles, like the neutrino, do
20:51
Speaker 1: have a preference. That's exactly right. Neutrinos are only left
20:54
Speaker 1: handed and anti neutrinos are only right handed. And this
20:58
Speaker 1: is a really fascinating thing that we discovered only about
21:01
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, that this concept of particle handedness is
21:05
Speaker 1: a real thing in the universe. And you know, we've
21:08
Speaker 1: been like over the history of science adding labels to
21:11
Speaker 1: particles as we discover them, we'll we'll see something happen
21:15
Speaker 1: and we're like, well, we can't explain that with the
21:17
Speaker 1: labels we currently have. So maybe particles are a little
21:20
Speaker 1: bit more complicated, like we have to add spin to them,
21:23
Speaker 1: or we have to add flavor or color or whatever
21:26
Speaker 1: to sort of have our theory have enough wrinkles in
21:29
Speaker 1: it to describe all the weird effects that we observe,
21:32
Speaker 1: and so handedness is like one of the latest ones.
21:35
Speaker 1: In the late fifties, people saw these really strange experiments
21:38
Speaker 1: where it looked like the universe didn't work the same
21:42
Speaker 1: in the mirror as it does not in the mirror,
21:44
Speaker 1: and to explain them, they had to add this new
21:46
Speaker 1: property to particles called handedness. Oh, I see, Like, if
21:50
Speaker 1: every particle in nature was right and left handed, we
21:53
Speaker 1: wouldn't even have a name for it. It could just
21:56
Speaker 1: be like, you know, it wouldn't matter. But you're saying
22:00
Speaker 1: it's sort of does matter in the universe. Yeah, we
22:02
Speaker 1: wouldn't know if it was real. Like you and I
22:04
Speaker 1: could right now invent a new particle label right, call
22:08
Speaker 1: its strip nous And all right, the electrons we're gonna
22:11
Speaker 1: say are blue stripe and with red, and those electrons
22:13
Speaker 1: are green striped with white or whatever I'm gonna go with.
22:15
Speaker 1: Bananan is banan is. But if the universe treats particles
22:19
Speaker 1: the same, whether or not johe has labeled them to
22:21
Speaker 1: be banana equals one or banan equal zero, then it
22:24
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's not a physical thing, right, It's just
22:26
Speaker 1: like an idea in your mind. It's like literally another thing.
22:29
Speaker 1: Like you would say, that's not a thing, dude, but
22:32
Speaker 1: nobody cares. But let's say somebody doesn't experiment one day
22:36
Speaker 1: and they just and they realize, you know what particles
22:38
Speaker 1: that Joe has little labeled having banan equals one, the
22:41
Speaker 1: universe treats differently than we'd be like, the universe is
22:44
Speaker 1: not symmetric to banananus, and then it would be a
22:47
Speaker 1: real physical thing. That's exactly what happened in physics. People
22:50
Speaker 1: had this idea of handedness, but they thought that's ridiculous.
22:54
Speaker 1: How could the universe prefer one to the other. Clearly
22:57
Speaker 1: it's symmetric. There's two options there. It's just a thing
23:00
Speaker 1: in your head. And they didn't experiment. That proved them wrong.
23:04
Speaker 1: It was like in Clueless, where one of them the
23:07
Speaker 1: other stopped trying to make it a thing. It's not
23:09
Speaker 1: a thing, but it turns out it is a thing.
23:11
Speaker 1: It turns out it is a thing. And you know,
23:14
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really interesting deep philosophical questions. They're like,
23:17
Speaker 1: how many other things are there? Of particles? That are
23:21
Speaker 1: really exists, but we just haven't figured out either the
23:24
Speaker 1: way the universe prefers one to the other or an
23:26
Speaker 1: even deeper question is what if there are particle things
23:30
Speaker 1: that the universe is just totally symmetric to so we
23:32
Speaker 1: will never discover them, Like it is a thing, but
23:35
Speaker 1: we can't tell a thing. Yeah, in which case is
23:37
Speaker 1: it really a thing? I think that's what's happening with
23:40
Speaker 1: the banana is of particles. You guys just can't see it,
23:44
Speaker 1: but I know it's there. Maybe we just need a
23:46
Speaker 1: really big accelerator once you raise fifty dollars and we'll
23:50
Speaker 1: discover bananan this. You wouldn't go to a circle. We're
23:52
Speaker 1: just going to half circle. That's right. We need to
23:57
Speaker 1: sort about elliptical accelerator, you know the been and a curve. Yeah,
24:01
Speaker 1: and forget and forget those cryogetic magnets. We would just
24:05
Speaker 1: use banana appeals to lubricate the particles. It's not a
24:11
Speaker 1: particle accelerator. It's a particle slipper. There you go. Comedy
24:16
Speaker 1: would be a plentiful in this accelerator. Yeah. Okay, so
24:21
Speaker 1: particles have a handing this and so what does that mean?
24:23
Speaker 1: What does that mean that the universe has the preference
24:27
Speaker 1: in some cases or not you saying You're saying it's
24:29
Speaker 1: related to the weak force. Yeah, Well, we have all
24:32
Speaker 1: these fundamental forces of physics, you know, the weak force,
24:35
Speaker 1: the strong force, electromagnetism, and gravity, and they all are
24:39
Speaker 1: different forces. Were trying to understand, of course, how they're related.
24:42
Speaker 1: But they have different effects, and most of them don't
24:46
Speaker 1: care one whit about whether a particle is left handed
24:49
Speaker 1: or right handed. But the weak force is weird, Like
24:52
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic force doesn't care if an electron is right
24:56
Speaker 1: handed or or left handed. It's democratic. It treats those
24:59
Speaker 1: two the same, and the strong force treats left handed
25:02
Speaker 1: corks and right handed corks the same way. It's like,
25:05
Speaker 1: I see you both the same, I am handedness blind.
25:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna attract you or force you to do something,
25:11
Speaker 1: and I don't care. That's right. If you didn't experiment
25:14
Speaker 1: with the strong force, and you had it set up
25:17
Speaker 1: next to a mirror, and you watch the experiment unfolding
25:20
Speaker 1: in the mirror, you could use the exact same laws
25:22
Speaker 1: of physics that we have in our universe to describe
25:25
Speaker 1: what you see in the mirror. Because in the mirror universe,
25:28
Speaker 1: all the handednesses are flipped, but the strong force doesn't care.
25:31
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, left handed corks now are now right
25:33
Speaker 1: hand corks? I treat him the same. Oh I see
25:36
Speaker 1: the equations kind of work out. The same equations are
25:39
Speaker 1: perfectly symmetric, and the effects are perfectly symmetric, so flipping
25:42
Speaker 1: them does nothing, Like what do you see in the mirror?
25:44
Speaker 1: Could may as well not be in the mirror? Yes,
25:47
Speaker 1: or you can't do an experiment to tell are you
25:50
Speaker 1: in the mirror world or not? As the results of
25:54
Speaker 1: the same interest. But that's not true of the weak force. Okay,
25:59
Speaker 1: so the weak force, it's different different. It does affect
26:02
Speaker 1: particles differently depending on this idea of handedness. That's right.
26:06
Speaker 1: And it was in the fifties of people realized nobody's
26:09
Speaker 1: ever checked to see if the weak force breaks this
26:12
Speaker 1: rule or not. People just sort of assumed it's such
26:14
Speaker 1: a deeply ingrained assumption, like, of course the universe doesn't
26:18
Speaker 1: prefer one or the other. And then the theorists went
26:21
Speaker 1: through and said, well, has anybody ever checked? And people
26:23
Speaker 1: had checked for a electro magnetism and for the strong
26:26
Speaker 1: force and all that stuff, but nobody had checked for
26:28
Speaker 1: for the weak force, and if physicist did it, well,
26:32
Speaker 1: I feel like there are two ways in which handedness
26:36
Speaker 1: can matter. Like one is which are the right or
26:39
Speaker 1: lefties do we see more of? And that's kind of interesting,
26:43
Speaker 1: Like the fact that we see more left handed new
26:45
Speaker 1: trinos and right handed new trinos is sort of one
26:49
Speaker 1: way that the universe is a preference. But then you're
26:51
Speaker 1: you're I feel like there's also another way in which
26:53
Speaker 1: the universe has a presence, which is in through the forces.
26:56
Speaker 1: Like the laws of physics actually applied differently to the
27:00
Speaker 1: lefties or right easy, but those are the same concepts.
27:02
Speaker 1: Right we interact with things using forces, so we only
27:07
Speaker 1: see left handed neutrinos because we interact with them. It's
27:10
Speaker 1: possible there are right handed neutrinos out there that we
27:13
Speaker 1: can't interact with because our forces don't touch them. We
27:16
Speaker 1: only see what we what it's visible and what we
27:18
Speaker 1: can interact with as a whole. You know, we won't
27:20
Speaker 1: recently discovered that there's huge parts of the universe. We
27:23
Speaker 1: barely have hints that actually exist, and so there could
27:26
Speaker 1: be other particles out there that are right handed neutrinos.
27:29
Speaker 1: We haven't seen because we can't interact with them. Oh
27:32
Speaker 1: I see, it's the same thing. It's the same thing.
27:35
Speaker 1: There could they have plot thickens or um passes throughs
27:42
Speaker 1: like neutrinos. We're not I'm not quite sure what how
27:44
Speaker 1: people are getting this, but we're just saying that there could.
27:48
Speaker 1: There isn't more of the left handed neutrinos in the universe.
27:51
Speaker 1: Is just that's the only kind we see. But we
27:53
Speaker 1: don't know if there are right handed neutrinos because we
27:55
Speaker 1: can't interact with them. Therefore, we can't prove whether or
27:57
Speaker 1: not they exist because what we us to interact with
28:00
Speaker 1: them has a preference. It's like a filter. Now, the
28:03
Speaker 1: other particles, electrons and quarks, we can interact with them
28:06
Speaker 1: in other ways that are democratic, right, because the strong
28:09
Speaker 1: force and electromagnetism doesn't prefer one or the other. Neutrinos,
28:14
Speaker 1: we can only interact with them via the weak force.
28:17
Speaker 1: Oh I see. It's the only way we can see
28:19
Speaker 1: them and they and it certainly does prefer it. So
28:22
Speaker 1: there could be as many right handed nutrinos out there
28:24
Speaker 1: in the universe as left handed neutrinos. We just can't
28:28
Speaker 1: see them because the weak force only lets us interact
28:31
Speaker 1: with left handed ones. That's right. And you know in
28:34
Speaker 1: the same way that like the space could be filled
28:36
Speaker 1: with invisible, imperceptible bananas, we can't see them, so are
28:41
Speaker 1: they really there? Well, we have to use the banana force,
28:46
Speaker 1: which I've yet to discover, but I'm sure it's it's
28:49
Speaker 1: on the horizon there. Yeah. And it's fascinating because this
28:53
Speaker 1: effect has to do also with charge, right, because the
28:56
Speaker 1: particle that mediates this thing from the weak force, the
29:00
Speaker 1: W particle, which carries electric charge. So you have W
29:05
Speaker 1: minuses can decay to left handed electrons and W plus
29:11
Speaker 1: is decay to right handed positrons. Okay, so what does
29:15
Speaker 1: that mean. It's relevant because the way we sort of
29:17
Speaker 1: patched up this symmetry is by adding charge to it.
29:20
Speaker 1: You can tell whether or not you're in the mirror world.
29:22
Speaker 1: By doing this experiment, um to see whether things are
29:25
Speaker 1: reversed right, whether the weak force is giving you left
29:28
Speaker 1: handed stuff or right handed stuff. But if you in
29:30
Speaker 1: the mirror you also flip the charge of everything, then
29:34
Speaker 1: the experiment looks exactly the same. Okay, Well, maybe step
29:37
Speaker 1: us through a little bit, like what does it mean
29:39
Speaker 1: that the weak force prefers left handed to right hand,
29:42
Speaker 1: like it only interact with left handed things as far
29:47
Speaker 1: as we know, or or like it only works with
29:51
Speaker 1: left handed things. Yeah. The w bosons in particular will
29:55
Speaker 1: only interact with left handed matter particles or right handed
29:59
Speaker 1: antimatter articles. So left handed electrons, left handed corks, left
30:04
Speaker 1: handed neutrinos, or right handed positrons, right handed anti neutrinos,
30:09
Speaker 1: right handed anti corks. The z the z boson, which
30:14
Speaker 1: is another particle that communicates the weak force, is even weirder.
30:17
Speaker 1: It will interact with both, but it prefers the left
30:20
Speaker 1: hand like interacts with the left lefties more than the rightings.
30:24
Speaker 1: Oh you're okay, now, I guess now. Now you're taking
30:26
Speaker 1: me through the particles that mediate that like helps us
30:31
Speaker 1: communicate these forces. Right, that's exactly right, because the weak
30:34
Speaker 1: forces three of them. Okay, you're saying that the particles
30:38
Speaker 1: that communicate the weak force, those are the ones that
30:41
Speaker 1: have the preference. It's not like the concept of the
30:43
Speaker 1: weak force as a preference, but the particles that communicated
30:47
Speaker 1: have a preference. Yeah. Well, the particles, they are the
30:50
Speaker 1: manifestations of the force. Right, we think about these particles
30:53
Speaker 1: as doing the duty of the force the Jedi does.
30:56
Speaker 1: The Jedi order exists without the Jedi, you know, they're
30:59
Speaker 1: carrying out the mark in orders, the Jedi hierarchy. So well,
31:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like saying like, it's not that
31:05
Speaker 1: the police force has a preference for left handed right
31:07
Speaker 1: hand the people. It's more like, you know, it's like
31:12
Speaker 1: parking offers have a preference, but uh, you know, detectives
31:16
Speaker 1: have a different preference. You know what I mean, Like,
31:17
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's different than saying that the whole
31:20
Speaker 1: thing has a preference. Yeah, and you're right. And there
31:22
Speaker 1: are three particles there, the media, the weak force, the
31:25
Speaker 1: W plus, the W minus, and the Z those are
31:27
Speaker 1: sort of like the analogies of the photon. But for
31:30
Speaker 1: the weak force and the W plus and the W
31:33
Speaker 1: minus they only interact with left handed particles or right
31:37
Speaker 1: handed antiparticles. I see. It's like that's how the preference
31:41
Speaker 1: manifests itself. It's like the messengers for this force have
31:45
Speaker 1: a preference. That's why we can't communicate with right hand
31:47
Speaker 1: the netrinos, because the messengers are kind of blinded to
31:50
Speaker 1: that the other kind. Yeah, and that's how they discovered it.
31:54
Speaker 1: They took a bunch of atoms and they lined up
31:56
Speaker 1: their spins in a certain direction, and then they saw
31:59
Speaker 1: which do direction do the particles shootout? Do the shoot
32:02
Speaker 1: out in the same direction of the spin, in which
32:03
Speaker 1: case they'd be right handed. Do they shoot out against
32:06
Speaker 1: the direction of the spin, in which case they'd be
32:08
Speaker 1: left handed. And they sort of expected it to be
32:10
Speaker 1: balanced so you couldn't tell, Like they expected to get
32:13
Speaker 1: the same number of right and left handed particles, so
32:16
Speaker 1: that you couldn't tell if you were in the mirror world.
32:18
Speaker 1: But what they saw was a total shocker. Not only
32:21
Speaker 1: was it not balanced, but it was totally unbalanced, like
32:25
Speaker 1: zero right handed particles a left handed particles were shot out.
32:29
Speaker 1: And so the weak force doesn't just prefer left handed particles,
32:32
Speaker 1: It like maximally prefers it as far as we know.
32:35
Speaker 1: I mean, could it be producing right hand at once
32:38
Speaker 1: that we just can't see or interact with. It could
32:40
Speaker 1: be there could be right handed particles that we don't
32:42
Speaker 1: interact with, but they don't interact with the weak force,
32:45
Speaker 1: so they have to be some other new force for
32:47
Speaker 1: us to interact with them. If they interacted via the
32:49
Speaker 1: weak force, we would see it. Well, but I mean,
32:51
Speaker 1: I guess one question is, how do we know it's
32:53
Speaker 1: the weak forces fault or those particles is fault? Like
32:57
Speaker 1: what if it's our fault? You know, like what if
32:59
Speaker 1: we were parents, it's always our fault. Yeah, what do
33:05
Speaker 1: you mean our faults? Well, I mean, like maybe maybe
33:09
Speaker 1: there's a new kind of boson we'll call it the
33:11
Speaker 1: ex boson, which does interact with the right ten particles
33:15
Speaker 1: through the weak force, but we just don't interact with
33:18
Speaker 1: the ex boson. Totally possible. Yeah, there could be a
33:21
Speaker 1: whole complicated sectors of particles out there that interact with
33:24
Speaker 1: each other but not with us, and we just haven't
33:27
Speaker 1: seen them or haven't yet discovered them. Nobody's invited us
33:30
Speaker 1: to the party. That's the whole hypothesis for dark matter, right.
33:33
Speaker 1: We know that there's a lot of dark matter out there.
33:35
Speaker 1: We don't know what kind of particle is it. We
33:37
Speaker 1: don't know if it feels forces with um among those particles,
33:41
Speaker 1: we don't know if there's like ten different dark matter
33:43
Speaker 1: particles are always changing into each other. So there could
33:46
Speaker 1: be a whole complicated sectors and oceans of physics there
33:49
Speaker 1: that we are not primy tune because we don't have
33:52
Speaker 1: like a portal into them, no way to interact with
33:55
Speaker 1: anything that's happening there. Right, If only we had that
33:58
Speaker 1: banana particle accelerator, it would open new doors to the
34:02
Speaker 1: universe for us. It would peel away the layers hidden
34:06
Speaker 1: from us. It would slip us into a new era
34:09
Speaker 1: of physics. Al Right, well, that's that. That makes it
34:13
Speaker 1: a bit clearer for me, and how the universe has
34:16
Speaker 1: this preference, and so let's get into why it matters
34:19
Speaker 1: to the universe and maybe to us. But first let's
34:22
Speaker 1: take a quick break, all right, Daniel, So the universe
34:37
Speaker 1: apparently prefers lefties. You know, I think left handed people
34:41
Speaker 1: always have felt pretty special, is my understanding. And now
34:45
Speaker 1: they know why, and now they know why the universe
34:48
Speaker 1: likes you better. Yeah, well, the weakest part of the
34:50
Speaker 1: universe at least likes them better. Oh no, that's not true.
34:55
Speaker 1: Gravity is the weakest force. Week the weak forse just
34:57
Speaker 1: sort of has that name. But it it's fascinating, you know,
35:01
Speaker 1: not only that the universe is asymmetric that seems to
35:05
Speaker 1: notice that there's a handedness, but that it prefers this one,
35:09
Speaker 1: and you can wonder, like, why don't we live in
35:11
Speaker 1: a universe that's asymmetric the other way that prefers right
35:15
Speaker 1: handed particles right where the weak force interacts only with
35:18
Speaker 1: the right handed particles. It's this kind of arbitrary seeming
35:22
Speaker 1: choice that makes us wonder about like the multiverse right, well, um,
35:27
Speaker 1: meaning like maybe it's weird that it has a preference,
35:30
Speaker 1: So there must be a twin out there who is
35:33
Speaker 1: right handed. Well, that's the symmetry in your brain screaming
35:35
Speaker 1: out for an explanation, right, I think there must be balanced,
35:39
Speaker 1: but there doesn't have to be. You know, imagine you're
35:42
Speaker 1: at the control panel of the universe in the first
35:44
Speaker 1: moment of the Big Bang, when the laws of physics
35:46
Speaker 1: are being set in stone, and you have to choose
35:48
Speaker 1: left handed or right handed universe. You know, how is
35:51
Speaker 1: that choice made? Are there a billion universes out there
35:53
Speaker 1: and it's randomly assigned for each one, or is there
35:57
Speaker 1: some deep underlying principle of physics that demand hands that
36:00
Speaker 1: the weak force be left handed? There could be no
36:02
Speaker 1: other way? Or could they could it just flip the coin?
36:06
Speaker 1: It could be We we don't know, Like according to
36:09
Speaker 1: our current understanding, you could write consistent laws of physics
36:12
Speaker 1: where the weak force um prefers them equally, or the
36:16
Speaker 1: weak force prefers only right handed particles, or were prefers
36:19
Speaker 1: one by a little bit. We don't understand why it
36:22
Speaker 1: is this way. Does it have to be this way?
36:25
Speaker 1: We have no reason to believe it has to be
36:27
Speaker 1: this way, and yet it is so. That seems to
36:29
Speaker 1: me like a clue. Right, do we know in people
36:33
Speaker 1: why some people are left handed or right handed? And
36:35
Speaker 1: does it depend on genes or is it just some
36:37
Speaker 1: random process um Well, based on my deep expertise in
36:40
Speaker 1: biology from being married to biologists, is she right handed
36:45
Speaker 1: or left hand? She's right handed, but we have some
36:47
Speaker 1: lefties in her family. There's actually two layers of answer there.
36:51
Speaker 1: One is people like what they prefer to write with,
36:54
Speaker 1: and we're mostly right handed. We don't know why, And
36:56
Speaker 1: it's again a great question, like was that just an
36:59
Speaker 1: arbitrary choice that the brain decided to specialize and this
37:02
Speaker 1: side of the brain is better at this, and the
37:04
Speaker 1: other side of the brain is better at that, And
37:06
Speaker 1: maybe there were equal populations at some point and then
37:08
Speaker 1: it just sort of randomly drifted in one direction. We
37:11
Speaker 1: just don't know. Um. And then there's this deeper question
37:14
Speaker 1: about the chirality of molecules in life. All the molecules
37:20
Speaker 1: in life, including d NA, have a corality that's right handed,
37:23
Speaker 1: which means they have the same sort of um orientation
37:27
Speaker 1: when you rotate the object right and like molecules have
37:31
Speaker 1: a mirror image version of themselves too. Precisely, every single
37:36
Speaker 1: organic molecules right handed. And if you were fed like
37:39
Speaker 1: food made out of left handed molecules, you couldn't eat it,
37:43
Speaker 1: like they die, you cannot process it. And so that's
37:48
Speaker 1: another just like seems like an arbitrary choice could have
37:51
Speaker 1: been something else. Um, we don't understand any of these things.
37:54
Speaker 1: And I don't know if the if the mystery of
37:56
Speaker 1: particle physics handedness is connected to those at all, because
37:59
Speaker 1: it's definitely the other direction, or if this is just
38:01
Speaker 1: sort of a mathematical connection where you can identify handedness
38:05
Speaker 1: and sort of see a similarity in the sort of question. Well,
38:08
Speaker 1: I see, huh, Like, um, like everything that might be
38:12
Speaker 1: possible would have a handedness preference or something like biology
38:17
Speaker 1: particles you know, like just a fundamental you know, property
38:22
Speaker 1: of of existing. Yeah, but it makes our universe interesting,
38:26
Speaker 1: and for example, the reason why the weak force is
38:29
Speaker 1: so weird and so left handed is one of the
38:33
Speaker 1: reasons why the Higgs boson is so fascinating. What do
38:36
Speaker 1: you mean, Well, the Higgs boson, what it does is
38:39
Speaker 1: it connects the left and right handed particles together to
38:43
Speaker 1: give them mass. It interacts with the left and the right.
38:45
Speaker 1: It touches, it talks to both of them, and to
38:49
Speaker 1: talking to them together is how it gives those particles mass.
38:52
Speaker 1: And neutrinos we don't know. We think they have mass,
38:55
Speaker 1: but we don't quite really know how much mass they
38:56
Speaker 1: have and how they get the mass, and do they
38:58
Speaker 1: get it from the Higgs boson or not. It's a
39:00
Speaker 1: whole bit complicated question. But the Higgs, it treats the
39:04
Speaker 1: left and the right totally equally and sort of combines
39:06
Speaker 1: them into one combined particle that has a specific mass. Right,
39:11
Speaker 1: But I guess the main point is that the universe
39:13
Speaker 1: has a preference for left or right hand. It is,
39:16
Speaker 1: it seems, but we don't know why it has that preference. Right,
39:20
Speaker 1: it's a big mystery. Right, And it's weird. Yeah, it
39:23
Speaker 1: is weird. And if it wasn't for this little effect
39:26
Speaker 1: in the weak force, which took a long time to discover.
39:29
Speaker 1: We wouldn't even know, so it could have been that,
39:32
Speaker 1: you know what if the weak force was totally symmetric
39:34
Speaker 1: for some weird reason. Particles have handedness, but we didn't
39:38
Speaker 1: even know, like that they have this property, Well, we
39:41
Speaker 1: wouldn't care, I guess, right, I care? I care. I
39:45
Speaker 1: want to know the truth, man, not just what's relevant
39:48
Speaker 1: for some excises. You want to see all the features,
39:50
Speaker 1: even if you can't see the features, of course. I
39:52
Speaker 1: want to know what does it mean to be a particle?
39:55
Speaker 1: All right? What are the number of labels you need
39:57
Speaker 1: to define a particle? Mass, spin, charged, color, flavor? Why
40:01
Speaker 1: all those things? What do they mean? Why this and
40:03
Speaker 1: why not that? Why not bananimists? To me, these are
40:06
Speaker 1: really deep, fascinating questions about like the very nature of
40:09
Speaker 1: the universe. So yeah, I want to know, Like if
40:11
Speaker 1: you found out half of all particles had an asterisk
40:14
Speaker 1: next appin to them, But no, it didn't matter at
40:17
Speaker 1: all for anything else, Like nobody would care, but you
40:20
Speaker 1: would care me and all the other particle physicists in
40:24
Speaker 1: the world, and anybody who cared about understanding the nature
40:28
Speaker 1: of reality. But yeah, you're right. Nobody else you like,
40:31
Speaker 1: why does that have an asterisk? I see, all right,
40:35
Speaker 1: well I want to know why the universe has an asterisk?
40:38
Speaker 1: All right? Well, I think this is all just a
40:40
Speaker 1: big lesson on ways in which we explore the universe.
40:43
Speaker 1: You know, we look for interesting phenomenon and interesting preferences
40:48
Speaker 1: that the universe has, and that tells us something about
40:50
Speaker 1: how it's all put together. Yeah, and we don't understand
40:53
Speaker 1: the importance um and the ramifications sometimes of these things.
40:57
Speaker 1: Like people thought about particle handedness as sort of an
41:00
Speaker 1: abstract idea a hundred years ago when particles were first
41:04
Speaker 1: being understood. They thought, now, whatever, it's just a mathematical curiosity.
41:07
Speaker 1: It's not relevant, and then later turned out to be relevant,
41:10
Speaker 1: and it might even turn out to be more relevant.
41:12
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll discover a new force that's very powerful and
41:15
Speaker 1: does prefers left to right or right to left or
41:18
Speaker 1: something like that. So it's it's worth just sort of
41:21
Speaker 1: like exploring and trying to understand because you never know
41:24
Speaker 1: where the next big discovery is going to be. Yeah,
41:27
Speaker 1: it would be pretty cool. Would you like Daniel to
41:29
Speaker 1: have a hand in that discovery? Only, but only if
41:34
Speaker 1: it's a left hand. I'd like to discover it. And
41:37
Speaker 1: then I've got like you to give me a hand
41:39
Speaker 1: when I did. You'd like to get both your hands
41:41
Speaker 1: on this discovery. I just want to get my hands dirty, okay.
41:47
Speaker 1: And that with that, we've exhausted all the bad puns, Daniel,
41:50
Speaker 1: so maybe we should wrap it up. That's right, we've
41:52
Speaker 1: done all the left handed punts and the right handed punts. Well,
41:55
Speaker 1: thank you all for listening to me. This is a
41:56
Speaker 1: fascinating question about the sort of deep nature of the universe,
42:00
Speaker 1: us in this stuff that makes it up, and how
42:02
Speaker 1: we understand it in terms of our macroscopic ways of thinking,
42:06
Speaker 1: flavor of color, spin, and now left handedness and right handedness. Yeah,
42:10
Speaker 1: so we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us.
42:13
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we're not done yet. We're gonna
42:15
Speaker 1: do the mirror mirror image of this podcast episode, but
42:19
Speaker 1: the whole thing backwards, the back course, and we'll say
42:23
Speaker 1: the universe has a preference for right handed particles. We've
42:27
Speaker 1: got to do it backwards and positively charged. And where
42:32
Speaker 1: the jokes are good this time, that's right, where I
42:37
Speaker 1: make the jokes and you laugh at them all right,
42:40
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for tuning in, and I hope that podcast
42:42
Speaker 1: reached a parody of our other ones and it's not
42:45
Speaker 1: a parody of itself. See you next time. Before you
42:55
Speaker 1: still have a question after listening to all these explanations,
42:58
Speaker 1: please drop us a line and we'd love to hear
43:01
Speaker 1: from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and
43:03
Speaker 1: Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or email
43:07
Speaker 1: us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks
43:11
Speaker 1: for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the
43:14
Speaker 1: Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
43:17
Speaker 1: podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
43:20
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.