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What is the real charge of the electron? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Orry, remember a few weeks ago when we criticized
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Albert Einstein. I remember you criticize Einstein. Well, you know
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: he added a big fudge factor to his theory just
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to make it work. Yeah, it was a pretty big
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: fudge factor. I guess it was a little bit embarrassing
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for the old genius. It was sort of a universe
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: size fudge factor. Well, you know, it turns out maybe
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been so critical because particle physics has
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: some fudge factors of its own. Particle physicist shouldn't be
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: throwing stones at glass theories. That's right, we got some
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: whoppers of fudge factors. Are they Einstein size? Are they
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: really big? Well? Does an infinity count is really big?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Does nothing count as really small? I think so. I
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: am more handy cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle of physicist, and I'd just
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: like to point out that Jorge is not just a cartoonist.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: He also has a PhD from a famous university. Thank you.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you think it's a famous university, you being
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the Bay Area. It's famously
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the second best university in the Bay Area, even enough
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to Santa Clara University. I think that's probably true. But
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: welcome anyway to our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Media in which we take
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you on a tour of all the incredible, amazing bunker
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: stuff in the universe, from tiny little particles that don't
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: really spin too enormous galaxies that spin mysteriously. Yeah. We
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: go from the crazy maybe ideas that physicists have about
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the universe to the actual nitty gritty theories that they have.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Because everybody is curious about our universe. How does it work?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: What's really happened? The search for truth and understanding is
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: as old as human consciousness. And here we take you
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: on some of the last steps and we try to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: bring you up to speed to what scientists are thinking
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: right now. What model is in the head of particle
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: physicists when they think about a particle. How does a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: cosmologists think about the whole universe? Yeah? And are they
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: right or are they just making it up as they
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: go along? And doesn't make any sense? And what does
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it mean if the universe doesn't actually make sense? Oh? Boy,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: now you got me worried. Well, after today's episode, you'll
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: discover that it's all sort of well. These days, the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: universe doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. But
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: fortunately that's what we're here for, and that's what physicists
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: are here for, to try to put some order into
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the universe. And so today on the program, we'll be
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: talking about a particular I don't know what do you
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: what would you call it a whole in your theory
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: of the universe or a hole in your theory of matter.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: It's sort of like a shift in your perspective. We're
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: used to thinking about particles in one certain way. What
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is their spin, where is their mass, what is their charge?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But we discover that didn't really make a lot of sense,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and what we had to do was think about particles
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: in a totally different way. I see. So when something's
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: wrong or there's a big hole in it, you just
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you just call it need to shift our perspective. That's right,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: let's just sweep all that under the rug and then
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: called the rug our new idea. That's essentially what's happening here.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But that's you know, that's an important part of physics
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: when you have a model and you push on it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and push on it, you discover it doesn't actually quiet work,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and then you have to accept something counterintuitive, something new,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a new perspective on the universe, but one that actually
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: does work mathematically. That's right, and so to be on
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the program, we'll be tackling the question what is renormalization.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Is it just a fancy physics word for making stuff
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: up and pushing all the infinities under the carpet, or
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: are we going to talk about when things will go
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: back to normal in this crazy world we live in
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: right now? That's what I was hoping for, or when
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I saw the title, Daniel, I would not rely on
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: particle physics to make things normal. It reveals the bonkersness
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: of the universe. It reveals how the universe is so
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: hard to grasp, and we're in this constant journey of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: trying to map our understanding of the universe onto the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: microscopic to think about these little objects electrons and photons
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: in terms of quantities that we find familiar, you know,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: mass or charge or spin. But it's a struggle, I see.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: You have to sort of assume the opposite when a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: particle physics is walks in you're like, let's throw normal
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: out the door. It's buckle up and get ready for
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a journey to the weird, because that's where we all live.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, this is a pretty interesting idea, and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: it has to do with your theories about particles and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: matter and that they sort of don't always work or
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: there's holes about them. Yeah, it's sort of akin to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: how if you try to describe particles in terms of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: particles like tiny little dots of stuff, that doesn't always work. Right.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: We see particles sometimes having produce like waves, right, they interfere,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and so we have a broader sense of these things.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: They're not just little dots of stuff. They're these weird
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: quantum mechanical objects. It can be like waves and like particles.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So that's an example of how you might have to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: broaden your concept of a particle. And today we're gonna
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: have to broaden it again, sort of in a different direction,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: because the idea we had about particles carrying these little
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: numbers with them doesn't actually quite work when you sit
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: down to do the man. I was just wrapping my
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: head around that idea. Daniel, you're saying it doesn't apply
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: or doesn't quite tell me, what's happening in the universe? Yeah,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And you know what we do is we have this idea.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: We say, let's give these little dots in space, these labels,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: these numbers will say charge mine is one mass of whatever,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: spin of a half, and then let's see if it works.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: And when you run the numbers and try to compare
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it to what we see in experiments, it doesn't actually work.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And it tells us something sort of deep and weird
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: about what the particles are and what they aren't. Sounds
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: interesting and I want to know more. But at first,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: as usual, Daniel went out there into the wilds of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the internet to ask people if they knew what renormalization was.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That's right, So thank you to everybody who volunteered to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: answer a random person on the internet questions. Before you
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: listen to these answers, think about it. Have you heard
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of the term renormalization or would you even know or
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: guess what it could mean. Here's what people had to say. Um,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: maybe something happened to you and you are becoming normal again.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I do not know, no clue. I my guests would
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: be to bring something back to normal after a change.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure when something goes normal again. What happens
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: if you don't know what any of the words. I
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: really don't know. It's not a term I've heard before.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: My guess is it has something to do with phenomen
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of maintaining order in the universe. We've learned something new
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: about space or um, so, whether that's on a cosmic
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: scale or a particle scale, and we need to change
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: our assumptions that go into our equations based on the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: nearing side. Well, it seems like some people have the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: same idea you did, are going to go back. I
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: think getting back to normal is probably high on people's
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: mind right now. But I like, yes or there where
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the person just said doesn't mean becoming normal. Well, I've
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: never been normal, so I can't really speak to them.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, this sounds like a normal word, renormalization,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: but I'm guessing it has some pretty deep mathematical consequences here.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: For particle physics, it comes from the word normalization, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: normalization is just to make something normal. But in mathematics,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: when we say making something normal, we don't mean make
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: it usual or typical, or you know, like when you
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: were a kid it. What we mean is that we
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: make it all add up to one or fix it
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to some specific number, right to sort of calibrate it
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: almost in a way. Yes, calibration exactly. And so renormalization
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: is like, oops, something went wrong and now we need
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to do it again. It's like, you know, you thought
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you had your spendometer working correctly on your ferrari, and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: then it turns out you were going one sixty when
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you thought you were only going eighty. So you gotta
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: recounty account. You gotta renormal make it normal again, make
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: it normal again, make it the old familiar ferrari or
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: electric charge that you knew when you were a kid. Okay,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly the issue here is that we ran
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: into a problem when we were trying to calculate the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: electric charge of the electron. It sounds pretty basic, isn't
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the electron something we've known for a long time and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: know what the charges? You think? So, right, it's sort
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of like how we defined electric charge. It's like, you know,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Ben Franklin or whoever you know first identified this as
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: moving charges. Define charges to be plus and minus, and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: that's where the electron charts comes from, right. It's the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: carrier of the minus one charge, is like the definition
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of what the charge is, right right? Oh, I see,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: So an electron has a negative charge one, it's sort
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: of the definition of charge. What are the units electronus? Well,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it's defined in terms of cool ombs, but
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it's a crazy number in terms of cool ombs, and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: so we just in particle physics, we'd like to drop
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: all the units and redefined everything, and so we just
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: call it one e like one electron charge. That's the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: unit alright, So it's kind of like the standard. It's
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: kind of like the standard. But the problem is if
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you say, okay, I have a little particle and I'm
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: gonna put a minus one charge on it, and then
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you put that into an experiment and try to measure
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the charge of it, you would actually measure zero. Like
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: you shot other electrons at it, you would measure almost
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: zero charge. It sounds like a big area here. You're
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: expecting minus one and you got zero. Yeah. So the
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: electron can't have charge minus one because if it did,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: we would measure zero. And the reason is that the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: electron is never just by itself, right, It's not like
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a whole universe populated by just an electron. Instead, the
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: electron is surrounded by space and space is never empty.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: We've talked to this podcast a lot of times how
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: space is not just the backdrop of the universe. It's
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: this crossing quantum mechanical weirdness that can do stuff we
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: don't understand, like expand and wiggle and stretch, and their
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: deep theories about space that people are working on. We
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: talked about Steve Wolfram's idea about space and quantum foam
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: space and like it's a huge question marks empty space
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: is not empty. Empty space is not empty space. Sometimes
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that space out when I think about it, but there's
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of it. That's the one thing that's still true.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: There's something to it, and somehow that's affecting what we
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: measure about the electron. Yeah, because space is filled with energy,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: and energy can turn into virtual particles, particles that pop
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: in and out of existence really briefly. And when that happens,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: usually you get a pair of the particles like a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: plus one and a minus one that pop out together
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: because it has to balance out, like you can't just
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: introduce more negative charge into the universe. You kind of
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: have to balance it out. That's right, There still follows
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: some rules, right, Virtual particles are not a total free
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: for all. They still have to observe the rules of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the universe, and one of those is that the pluses
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: in the minuses have to balance out. And so essentially
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: any electron is surrounded by a bunch of positive negative
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: charged particles. So then the electrons field, the electric field
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: that it creates, it pulls on the positive part of
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: those virtual particles, and it pushes on the negative part
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: of those virtual particles. But they don't exist. They do exist, though,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: they do exist briefly, right and constantly. It is a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: frowthing swarm of these particles. And so what it does
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: is it like polarizes the vacuum. It pulls the positive
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: part of these virtual particles closer, and it pushes the
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: negative ones away, and it has the effect of essentially
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: shielding the charge of the electron. Oh, I see, But
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: they don't exist, though, do they They actually pop into existence?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: They do exist, They actually do pop into existence. Yeah,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: And you know, this is the kind of effect that's
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: very familiar. Like the reason you can't use your cell
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: phone inside an elevator is that electromagnetic field can't penetrate
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: very well through metals because metals are filled with little
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: charge carriers electrons, and when electric field passes through metal,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the electrons will like rearrange themselves to cancel out any field.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It's called a Faraday cage. Okay, So then if you
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: have an electron, it's gonna pull these virtual plus particles
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to it, which then cancel it it out. Is that?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: What is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, but
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: these per virtual particles are also like possetrons or are
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: they you know, imaginary? Are they actual like you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: ions or muans or what are they? They're actually all
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: kinds because you can have any kind of virtual particle.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: You can have virtual particles that are pairs of electrons
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and positrons, like you said, you could also create muons
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and anti muon. You can create quarks and antiquarks. You
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: can create anything you like out of the vacuum as
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: long as you observe the conservation laws, and then most
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: likely you're going to create the lowest mass particles. So
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: usually you're going to get things like electrons and positrons. Okay,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: but they're sort of virtual because they're popping into existence
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and popping out of existence. But there's enough of them,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and there's a constant popping in and out of existence.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: That effectively they are real. They count as if they
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: were there. And so what happens is that you you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: shield the true charge of the electronic it reduces it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It like screens the charge sort of like if you
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: want to know how cold it is in your freezer,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: but all you can do is measure on the outside. Well,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: you're not really measuring the true temperature inside your freezer, right,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: You're shielded by all the insulation, and so that's essentially
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: what's happening here. So then if all electrons then are shielded,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: how do they even work? Yeah, Like if I have
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: two electrons in space and they're shielded, then they wouldn't
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: repel each other. That's true if electrons charge is actually
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: minus one, But it's not. That's the kicker, that's the renormalization.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: The charge we measure is minus one. Right, electrons do
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: repel each other. You're right, electricity is real. Right, we're
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: not repealing electricity today in the podcast, which is canceled
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the electricity exactly. But what we've discovered is what we've
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: been measuring for more than a hundred years is not
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the true charge of the electron. It's this shielded charge.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: We're measuring the electron on the outside of the freezer.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: That charge is minus one. What is the electrons true
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: charge behind all that shielding? That was the new question. Oh,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I see it's in the freezer, and we didn't really
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: know how cold it is or how electrically charge it is. Yeah,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and we sat down to do these calculations. We realized, wait,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: isn't there a big effect from this freezer, from this shielding,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: from the screening, from all these virtual particles. And people
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: started calculating. The realized, yeah, there is. So if electrons
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: had charge actually minus one, we should be measuring zero
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: charge experiments, but obviously we're not. So they went back
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and they said, how much do we have to dial
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: up the charge of the electron before we get a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: measure charge of minus one to extrapolate through this cloud
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of particles and say, what's really going on in there?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So what we see of the electron when we measure
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: as its charge is what we measure through the installation,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: this virtual installation that that you're talking about. That's right,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and so the question is what's its true value inside?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: That's right. Let's pull back a layer of reality and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: say what is really happening. Okay, it's not just minus too.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess you know it's gonna be totally unsatisfying
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and frustrating, like usual with particle physics. Great, well, I'm
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: looking forward to Daniel. So let's get into it, and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: what does a real charge means of the for the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: electron and for mass and for the entire universe. But
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Al Right, So an
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: electron doesn't have the charge of an electron apparently depends
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: what you mean by an electron. Up is not up,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and the electron doesn't have electron on an electron. No,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: it's really it's about definitions, and that's where we're gonna
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: end up today, is talking about like what it means
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to be an electron. Because the thing we measure you
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: call that an electron. You know, some weird quantum dot
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: with all of its shielding and fuzziness and virtual particles
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: all around it. That thing has charged minus one. But
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: if you try to penetrate that cloud and say this
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: bit at the core, the true electron, the fundamental electron.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Because we're interested in understanding the deep nature of the universe,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: not like the effective, messy, sloppy things we can actually measure.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: We want to, you know, penetrate all the way in
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: and see what's really happens to see it's not I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: guess celebrity. You know, they're surrounded by all this hype
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and people and you never know really who they are
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: on the inside. And so that what we're doing today,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: we're peeling back the layers of stuff to get a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: real sneak pick at the electron inside. That's right, So
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: what what is the real charge in of the elector
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: when you get through the electrons entourage? What you discoverage
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: is to make the measure charge minus one, you have
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to set the true charge. And particle physics we call
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: this the bare charge, like an electrono by itself to
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: minus infinity, like what the bare minimum? You know, just
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a small thing like minus infinity. I know. I remember
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: learning about this and thinking, oh, renormalization. Okay, so you
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: gotta adjust the charge of it's going to go down
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to one and a half or two or whatever, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: then discovering you gotta minus infinity. What that doesn't even
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: make any sense? That's great. You can't call that renormalization.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: How can how can you say that an electron has
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a negative charge of negative infinity. What does that even mean?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: It's hard to understand, and you know mathematically what happening
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: is that the more the electron is charged, the more
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it gets shielded. Like, the more powerful its charges, the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: more it polarizes the vacuum around it. If you crank
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: it up to minus two, you don't get much measured charge.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: You've got to really crank it up incredibly just to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: get any measured charge because it works against you. There's
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: no limit to these virtual particles. I mean space is
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: full of them. And then what does it mean, like
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: whenever you discover an infinity and particle physics, space is
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: full up to infinity, Like space has an infinite number
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of virtual particles all the time everywhere. Yeah, an infinite
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: number of virtual particles. That is true, it's not an
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: infinite amount of energy. So there's an infinite number virtual particles.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: The number of them increases as their energy decreases. So
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it's rare to get a high energy virtual particle or
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: a high mass virtual particle. It's totally common to get
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: an almost zero energy particle. That the smaller the energy,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the higher the probability and so as that goes to zero,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you literally get infinite numbers of particles. But anytime you
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: get infinity in a particle physics, like you say, okay,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: this particle has minus infinity charge, that tells you you're
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: doing something wrong, not just this particle. Imagine it then
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: applies to all particles. Yep, this does actually apply to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: every single charge particle in the universe. That's right. So
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty big problem. And you know, we should
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: not be throwing stones at Einstein when it comes to like,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you know, by making big corrections to basic facts about
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: particles in the universe. So so my intuition tells me
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: that it's it seems implausible, if not impossible, for every
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: particle in the universe who have a infinite charge. So
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I guess, step me through what's going on, Like, where
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: does our model of the universe break that we have
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to do this fudge? If it is a fudge, No,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's sort of a fudge. But what you have
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to do is renormalize your theory of a particle, your
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: idea of what a particle is. Like we've been thinking
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: about electron as a tiny individual dot, like a basic constituent.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: You know many lego brick out of which stuff in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the universe is made out of, right, But instead that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't physically make sense. It has to have negative infinity charge. Instead.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: You need to think about the electron, not by itself.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: The whole concept of an electron only makes sense together
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: with this virtual swarm of particles. So that's not separate
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: from the electron. It's not just an electron in the freezer.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: The freezer is part of the electron. Oh I see.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Just gonna pull back your definition and ignore what's inside
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of the freezer is kind of what you're saying. That's right.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: It's like you say, hey, I'm not going to clean
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: up my living room. Messiness is my new living room,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and that's just you know, this is how I live now.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: This is the new clean. Right, that's a renormalization. Oh
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I see, okay, God, messiness is a new clean, Infinite
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: particles is a new emptiness, and negative charge isn't a
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: new minus one? Right, and space is the new not nothingness.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Trust me, this all makes sense. Okay, got it? Got it?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: So I think that's kind of what you're saying is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: just ignore what's inside of the freezer and just don't
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: open the freezer. Don't even think about what could be
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in there, growing you know, who knows what. Just lock
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the freezer, throw away the key, and just deal with
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the freezer. Yeah, And the thing to remember is that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: when you get an infinity to the answer to a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: physics question, it tells you that you're asking a question
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that doesn't really make sense or that isn't really logical.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Here is another simple example. Say you wanted to know
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: what's the force on my head from all the stuff
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: in the universe that's on my left. Well, the universe
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: is infinite, then there's literally an infinite force of gravity
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and electromagnetism and all that stuff on your head from
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that side of the universe. Now there's a whole other
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: side of the universe that also has an infinite force
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: from the right side of the universe, right, and and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: they cancel each other out to get basically zero force.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So asking that kind of question just means there's an
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: artificial distinction that you've introduced. The infinity comes only because
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the question you're asking doesn't really make sense, like what
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: is the left side of the universe or the right
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: side of the universe. In the same way, trying to
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: separate the electron from the rest of the universe and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: asking what is its charged all by itself, that doesn't
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: really make sense. You have to think about the electron
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: as part of an interaction. I mean, the electron has interactions.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It It sends off photons constantly. It's not doesn't really
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: make sense to sort of draw a dotted line just
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: around it and say, only think about this bit. I
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: think I understood that a negative infinity amount. I feel
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: like what I feel like you're saying, that's just ignore
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: this little weird fact and just not think about it
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and just go with the flip. No, don't ignore it,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: but just redefine the question you're asking. It's just like
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in Douglas Adams. You know, if you ask a question
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and get a nonsense answer, you have to go back
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and think about maybe I should ask a better question.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: In this context, asking what is the charge of the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: bare electron doesn't really make sense because that's not a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: physical thing. You will never have a bare electron. There
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: will never be an ale tron without its entourage. That's right,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: only in a universe in which there is only electrons
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and there are no interactions at all, which can't exist.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So I guess you're saying that what's inside the freezer
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter because we'll never open the freezer, or they'll
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: never be something without a freezer, that's right, And we
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: can't open the freezer. So even though you would predict
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: that there's negative infinity charge inside of the freezer, that's
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: probably not what's going on because we don't really know
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: when we never will open that freezer. Yes, except we
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: have ways to partially crack open the freezer. Yeah, all right,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: because this is a virtual cloud of particles, right, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: we can penetrate it. Like if you shoot an electron
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: at another electron really hard, it will get through more
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of that virtual cloud. Then if you shoot an electron
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: at it really gently. And so it turns out that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the harder you shoot one electron at another, the stronger
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the charge you measure. So the charge of the actron
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: depends on the energy of the particle you're using to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: measure it. So the electron doesn't just have a charge
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of minus one that you measure or minus infinity inside
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the freezer. The answer depends on how much you've cracked
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: open the freezer, how much the entourage gets out of
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the way, or something. Yes, so you can get through
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: this virtual cloud of particles partially. You can never get
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: all the way, but the more you probe in there,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the stronger the charge of electron that you measure. So
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it's sort of is like a real physical thing. You
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: can poke at the freezer and kind of take a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: peek inside, and it does look like it's almost negative affinity.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Is that kind of what you're saying. Yeah, you can
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: never get to negative infinity, but the higher energy you
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: probe with, the stronger the charge you measure. And so
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that's also sort of like, you know, a bit of
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a brain scramble. You're used to thinking of the charge
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: of the electron as a basic fundamental constant, right, Well,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: it turns out it's not constant. It depends on the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: energy at which you're probing the electron. So the charge
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of an electron is not then one of the fundamental constants. No,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: it's not, or basic constants not. And we talked about
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: this on a podcast recently, how there's a different constant.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It's called the fine structure constant that includes the charge
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of the electron and the speed of light and planks
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: constant because those things themselves are not actually fundamental constants.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Only in combination the ratio especial ratio of those things
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: are fundamental constants. I see. So I guess what you're
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: saying is that if I shoot an electron with a
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: fast enough electron, I would maybe measure it's charged to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: be negative infinity. Yeah, it had to be infinitely fast
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: electron that you're shooting. The faster the electron that you're
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: using in your gun, the stronger the charge you measure
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: on the electron. Well, I feel like we're throwing infinities
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: all around, So why not let's just throwing infinite a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: number of infinitely fast electrons. Now there's just no rules, right,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It's like whatever anything can happen doesn't even matter. All right. Well,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that that's pretty wild to know that the electron has
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: this kind of hidden and maybe infinite charge. And so
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I guess the question is, how does that affect what
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: we thought about the universe or how we look at
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: things like mass or you know, effic goes to me
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So let's get into it, But
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Al Right, So apparently
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the electron has possibly a negative infinity charge if you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: can get to it, if you can get past a
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: cloud of virtual particles that surrounded and protected and kind
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of shielded from the rest of the universe. And so
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that's a wild concept, Daniel. Now, what doesn't mean about
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: what we know about the electron? Well, it's not just
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the electron. Remember, all charged particles have the same property
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that they shield themselves. And what we're measuring is really
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the variable strength of the electromagnetic interaction. And the higher
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the energy you have, the stronger this interaction is. And
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: so what it tells us is that the particles by
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: themselves is unique. This bare particle, the stripped of all interactions,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: is not a physical thing that we should be thinking about.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And we need to renormalize our idea and think about
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the particle together with its entourage. That really defines who
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: it is. Because you know, if you met a celebrity
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: without their entourage, they probably wouldn't seem that famous either,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: would they. It seemed normal and down to earth. I
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: don't know, you tell me you've met me in person, Daniel,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: what is that? I had to fight my way through
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: your entourage? Um? All right, So so that's kind of
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: what this renormalization means. It's like kind of like getting
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: used to the entourage of particles, and it doesn't just
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: apply to the charge. It turns out that most of
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the fundamental characteristics of the particles have this same property,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: that they have a measured value and then a weird
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it's sometimes non physical sort of bear true value. I mean,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: like some of the other quantum charges like color and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: spin and things like that. Just like that. Yeah, the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: strong nuclear force also has its strength vary with the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: energy of the particles that are shooting at it. But
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I think one of the weirdest things is the particle mass.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Like we think about mass and sort of like a
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: defining characteristic of a particle, like what's the difference between
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: an electron and muant while a muan is heavier, right,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And we identify particles by their mass, But it turns
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: out that what we measure, and we measure the mass
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of the particle is not actually like the true fundamental
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: mass of the particles, not the mass the particle would
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: have if it was all by itself in the universe
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: with no interactions, right, because instead of virtual particles that
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it interacts with, it interacts with something else, the Higgs field. Right,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that's right, all particles moving through the universe are interacting
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: with all the quantum fields that are around them, and
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: what happens when they interact is that you know, those
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: fields amid little particle for them to interact with. And
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: so you can imagine like an electron flying through the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: universe and it can emit the Higgs boson and then
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it can reabsorb that Higgs boson. That's effectively what's happening
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: when it's interacting with the Higgs field. It emits a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: virtual Higgs boson and then re absorbs it. And it
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: can do that, or it can do admit to Higgs bosons,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: or that Higgs boson can split into other particles and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: then come back together. There's millions of different possible things
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that could happen as an electron is moving from A
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: to B. And so we've talked before on the podcast
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: about how the Higgs boson gives particles mass, and we
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: say this this field that fills the universe, and interacting
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: with that field gives those particles masses. But we sort
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: of dot dot dotted over that critical bit, like how
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: does interacting with a quantum field give a particle mass?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: What does that mean? Right? Well, there's the analogy of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: like moving through a crowded party or something, right, Like
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you're trying to move, but the field is throwing particles
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: at you, and you're throwing particles at and that's kind
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of what inertia sort of is. That's exactly right. And
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: if you want to go from A to B and
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: you talk about a particle having mass, then it takes
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: energy to speed it up as it's going from A
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to B, or it takes energy to slow it down,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and it turns out that's inertia, right, And that can
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: be exactly modeled as a particle interacting with the field
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: because as it goes along, you can admit a particle,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you can absorb a particle. There's all these complicated interactions
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that can happen, and those interactions have exactly the same
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: effect as if you just gave a particle inertia sort
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: of by hand. Those interactions all add up to create
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: this effect that we describe as mass. Like it again,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: this is a separation between like our macroscopic observations of
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: stuff and the microscopic explanation for what's really happening, and
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the macroscopic thing were familiar with is like, hey, stuff
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: seems to have inertia. You know, you push on a
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: heavy rocket, takes a while to get it going. You're
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: downhill from a heavy rock, you better move out of
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the way because it's hard to slow down, right, And
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: that macroscopic property turns out to be explained by all
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the little particles inside it interacting with the Higgs field,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: with virtual particles, with virtual particles exactly, that's the key,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: are you saying, sort of like all particles, and it's
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: not just their electrical charge, You're saying their mass. It's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: also kind of insulated by these virtual Higgs boson clouds.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I'm saying that what we call an electron that has
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: mass is actually an electron with a swarm of Higgs
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: bosons around it. That's what it means for an electron
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to have mass, is that it's sort of clouded by
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the Higgs field. And so an electron moving through universe
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: with no Higgs field would have no mass. Right, So
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: what we call the electron is not really just the electron.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Is the electron surrounded by this swarm of virtual particles
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: it's constantly interacting with. So in the same way we
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: renormalized our concept of the electron as the electron surrounded
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: by its virtual screen of particles shielding its charge, we
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: all also have to include for the electron when we
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: think about its mass, we have to think about this
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: virtual cloud of particles it's interacting with, because that's where
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: it gets. It's like, it's like kind of like what
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: you're saying is that all of these quantum fields and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the universe are all sort of connected to each other,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and so you can't really talk about one thing because
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it's it's all connected everything. Nothing can exist on its own.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: That's right. We've got pretty spiritual pretty quick there. Man.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're connect Man, it all is just a renormaliz
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: past that do be over here, man, I want to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: be normalize. Yeah, exactly. Got to smoke your banan appeals.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: And you've got to understand that these particles, they're not
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: on their own. They're just fluctuations of quantum fields, and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: these fields are all interacting with each other, and so
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really make physical sense to say, what is
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the mass of this one little particle, what is the
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: charge of this one little particle. You've got to think
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: about it together. But you're sort of saying that particles
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: don't have mass without the Higgs field, right, that's exactly right.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: If there was no Higgs field, these particles would all
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: have zero masses. And so the bare mass of these
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: particles in the limit where you think about the non
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: interacting is zero. All the particles in the Standard model
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: except for the Higgs boson, have bare mass of zero,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and they all get their masses through this virtual swarm
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: of craziness. And it's not just actually through interacting with
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the Higgs. Like the electron also gets more mass because
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: it emits photons. I know, that's especially weird because photons
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: have no mass. Right, in addition to interacting with the Higgs,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: they get mass from photons. That's right, they get mass
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: from photons. And now, if there wasn't the Higgs, the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: electrons would have no mass. But because they're the Higgs,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: photons can add mass to the electron. It's like multiplicative,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: like they make it have, you know, they multiply its
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: mass by a certain factor. If it was zero would
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: stave zero. But since the electron gets some mass from
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the Higgs, the photons boosted. Remember mass is also related
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: to energy, and in a sense, what we're talking about
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: is how the electron has a lot of self energy.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: It's constantly emitting and absorbing a swarm of photons, and
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: those contribute to its effective mass, which is what in
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the end we measure. We only measure, you know, physical things.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: We can't actually measure true things about the electron. If
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: it was all its only in the universe. I feel
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: like you guys wanted to call it naked charge, but
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you were, but you still have backed down. You're like
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: to naked charge, but we can't. It's called naked charge.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: It's called bear charge, and thus confusing everyone because they're
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: like bears. What do you mean, like like a bear? Exactly,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it's one of the bare necessities, you know, exactly, all right,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: But then does the electron then have a constant mass
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: or does it also vary like it's charge, It also varies. Yeah,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: all these quantities actually vary with the energy you're using
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to probe it. But last time we talked, that's in
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the mass of the particles were constant in the universe. No,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you're totally right, And what we actually mean when we
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: say those constants is we mean the strength of the
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: interaction with those particles and the Higgs field. That's what
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: controls the mass but the mass of you measure and
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: individual experiment does depend on the actual energy of that experiment. Wow,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: so now we also have to redefine mass mass um
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist. It seems it's inside the freezer. Yeah, everything's
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: inside the freezer. This is something that helps you also
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: understand how the universe could have been very different in
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: its early years, because in the very early moments of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the universe, Remember, things were hot and dense and nasty,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and all the particles had a lot of energy, and
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: all these forces charge, and the strong nuclear force and
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the weak nuclear force, all of them depend on the energy.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: And so back in the early days of the universe
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: we think that maybe all the forces had the same strength,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and that what's happened since then as things cool down
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and things got slower and calmer, is that these things
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: have different like variations with energy. You know, one of
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: them drops really quickly as things go to low energy,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: another one drops really slowly. But back in the early days,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: things were glorious and unifisity. Back then, thanks are normal
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Then we denormalize kind and now we've got a renormalize.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: You got a normalize. And but I have to say,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: none of this makes me feel normal at all, Daniel,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you just told me that the electron doesn't have a
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: charge and it doesn't have mass, so it's not easy
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: also for particle physics to accept this. There are a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: lot of years when after people made this discovery that
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you have these weird infinities in the theory, that they thought, well,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the theory must just be wrong, right, there must be
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a problem with the theory. And then people realized, oh, well,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you just redefine what you mean by an
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: electron and then you don't have to worry about those infinities.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people objected. They were like, you
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: can't just do that. You can't just define your living
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: room to be clean now, but if you don't have
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: any better ideas that you can. But but but it
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: turns out you can. If yours is the only house
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: in the universe and you're the only one person living there,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you didn't define it however you want. But then there
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: was a guy Ken Wilson, who is sort of an
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: underappreciated genius, who sort of made a deeper point about
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the whole nature of the universe, and he said, you know,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: nothing is really constant. Everything depends on energy the physics
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: you measure depends on the energy you're using to measure it,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: so it's totally natural for things to vary. In fact,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the mistake was to expect anything to be constant. So
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: he said that the grandest renormalization of them all. I see. Wow,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: he like dropped the mic. He's like, bam, I just
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: redefined normal exactly. He redefined what success was. All right, Well,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I think it's pretty interesting and mind blowing to like
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: think about what happens when you actually get down to
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: that level. You know, when you try to get down
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to the zero size of the electron, what happens and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: how things kind of blow up mathematically. Yeah, and we'll
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: always struggle to explain the microscopic in terms of ideas
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: we invented as macroscopic meanings, and there's no guarantee that
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: we're going to succeed. But when those ideas break down
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: is when I think we get the greatest insights into
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: what's really happening down there. We know that there's not
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: really particles, they're not really ways, they're weird quantum fluctuations
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and fields, and they're not just isolated little dots. And
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: so that's I think when physics has to confront our priors.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Are assumptions, are basic instincts, and discovery that they're wrong
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: are when we can make a big step forward in
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: our sort of intuitive understanding. Well, thank you, Daniel. I
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: feel like that for the rest of to day, I'm
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: going to be thinking about naked electrons, naked higsons. This
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: is all cleared by the Emotion Picture Association of America.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: That's right to this rated P for physics, some naked
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: particles may appear. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: that discussion and learn a little bit more about what's
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: really the charge of the electrons and what's really the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: massive things and what happens when you get down to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: where things are not normal. That's right, and I hope
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that this podcast on renormalization has renormalized everybody else out
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: there to be an at home particle physicist. Thanks for
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: joining us, See you next time. Thanks for listening, and
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.