Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Is the Universe made of waves (Part 2)

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Is the Universe made of waves (Part 2) · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone. Quick note that this episode is part two
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of my conversation with theoretical physicist Matt Stressler about his
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: new book Waves in an Impossible Scene. If you haven't
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: yet heard part one, pause this episode and go back
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: listen to the first part. This stuff is hard enough
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: without listening to it backwards, so do the first things first.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Pause this episode and come right back. We'll wait for you. Hi.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: UC Irvine, and welcome to the podcast. Daniel and Jorge
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: explain the Universe, in which we dig deep into the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: nature of space and time and particles, in which we
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: want you to understand our new ideas about how the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: universe works and be bewildered with us about everything we
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: don't understand about the universe. Today we have an unusual episode,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and then it's part two. This is the second half
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of my conversation with Professor Matt Stressler. In the first
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: part of the conversation, we reviewed relativity. How waves travel
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: through media, but light waves seem to travel through empty space.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: How you can measure the speed of most waves like sound,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: relative to their medium, but you can't measure the speed
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of light relative to space, only to other things in space.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Matt is painting us a careful and insightful picture of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: how everything is made out of waves, and why that's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: crucial to understanding the last, the craziest, the most recent
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: wave to be discovered, waves in the Higgs field. So
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: here is part two of my conversation with Matt. Give
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: us a glimpse of how your mind works, how you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: see the universe as being built out of waves, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: why you think this is so important for understanding the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Higgs field.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I'll take you through that in a few steps, but
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the most important to start with is we have to
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: deal with words. And this is a theme of the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: book because I think it's a theme of human affairs
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: in general, and it's certainly a theme of scientific communication.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And physics is terrible about words. I mean,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: we use names for things totally inappropriately. Quarks have color
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and flavor, Like, what are we talking about here? Why
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: don't we just invent new words to describe new things? Right?
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: And we used to? I mean, you know, this is
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: in some sense of mid twentieth century development. But that said,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: in order to think about things ourselves, we often borrowed
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: words from English, and particle is one of them. Wave
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: is another force, even theory. We have lots of words
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that are part of physics dialect that we have taken
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: from English. And we humans, just in ordinary language, are
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: spectacularly good at using a single word with many definitions,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: right we all know. You go to the dictionary and
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: you look up simple words and there's twelve definitions of
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: the same word. And yet in language we communicate with
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: each other switching definitions all the time. We may use
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the same word in one sense in two different ways
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't bother us. Well, this is true of
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: physicists as well. We have our dialect, some words have
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: multiple meanings. We switch back and forth without a problem.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: But of course, when you are switching dialects, when you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: are trying to communicate physics to a non physics speaking
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: English speaker, just as when you try to switch from
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: French to English and you're trying to use words that
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: have multiple meanings without even thinking about it, you may
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: easily confuse your listener. And we do this all the time.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: So they are famous phrases like an electron is part particle,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: part way, it's a wave, part of the time, and
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: it's a particle part of the time. And aside from
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the fact that that could mean many different things, and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: over history it has meant at least two different things
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: to two different classes of people. It's really problematic that
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the word particle has multiple meanings and the word wave
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: has multiple meanings, and the most common meanings in English
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: are not the ones that we are using here. So
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: we will not get anywhere if I don't spend a
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: minute on those definitions. So I'll start with wave. We'll
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: talk about waves for a while, because waves are such
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: a wonderful phenomenon. They underlie so many aspects. Obviously, I'm
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the sound I'm using to communicate and the radio waves
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: that we're using to send all this information back and forth.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And also they're the fundamentals in music, just surrounded by
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: music in our modern world in the best and we're
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: senses and we should take a moment to think about
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: what we mean. And one thing we do not mean
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: is the thing that everybody means when they go to
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the beach. Right, you go to the beach, Oh, that
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: is a great wave. I want to serf that one. Ooh,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: here comes a big wave. Okay, what do we mean.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: We mean, here comes a big crest in the water,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a big high point in the water, and it is
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: separated from the next high point by two low points,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: and we call that crest a wave. That is not
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: what we are talking about here. We are not made
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: from single wave crests. No. Yet, the word wave as
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: used in science is a rich concept. There are waves
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: of many different shapes and sizes. For example, I'm speaking
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: now making sound waves, or if you're a recording engineer,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: you will say I'm making a sound wave singular. So
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: a wave can be a very complicated shape. But to
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: keep things focused, let's talk about the simplest waves. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the simplest waves are the ones that you make when
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: you sing. You sing a note, or you make a
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: pure tone on a musical instrument, and then you are
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: making a wave which consists of a whole bunch of
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: high points and a whole bunch of low points, a
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: whole bunch of crests and troughs equally spaced, and it
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: may be a long series of them.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So imagine like a sine wave extending all the way
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: from negave infinity to positive infinity along the x axis
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: If you like your tenth grade, eleventh grade math, Yes exactly,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: or if you don't, it's just the ripples that you
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: would make in a pond. If you put your hand
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: in the water and moved it up and down regularly,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: you would get a set of ripples. It would move outward.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: That's a wave in science rather than a set of waves.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So it's more what a beach gore would call a
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: wave set or a wave train. And now even that
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: has a subtlety which I'll come back to you. But
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: of the types of waves that we encounter which scientists
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: talk about, there are two types, both of which are
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: really important and which have slightly different properties. And the
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: first one is the one that you would talk about
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: when you're talking about sound waves most of the time
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: from my voice to your ears. Those are traveling waves,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: traveling meaning, as you would guess, they're moving in a
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: certain direction at a certain speed. And traveling waves include sound,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: they include ocean waves, they include the seismic waves which
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: across the earth. They include light waves which cross the universe,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: and they include the things we call particles and when
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: they're moving around. And the other type of wave that
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: we encounter is standing waves and standing waves have crests
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: and troughs that don't go anywhere. They just sort of
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: vibrate in place. So a classic example would be the
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: way in which a guitar string or a violin string
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: vibrates pluck it. It goes up and down and up
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: and down and up and down. There's a crest where
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: it bends upward, and then a moment later it's a
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: trough where it bends downward, and it goes up and
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: down and up and down and up and down. Or
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: maybe the air vibrating in an organ pipe. When you
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: make the organ pipe sound, what you're doing is you're
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: making the air inside ripple back and forth where it's
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: more dense in one place and then less dense, and
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: it goes back and forth and back and forth in
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a regular repeating fashion. But it's not actually moving outside
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: the organ pipe. It's staying in the organ. OK. So
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: we have these two different types of waves, traveling waves
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: which move around, standing waves which they put and in
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the case of traveling waves, as I described, it's not
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: a single wave crest, it's a whole set of them.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: With standing waves, it can be any number of crests,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: including just one. So it's still not a wave at
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the beach because the wave of the beach is moving.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: But it can be as simple as a wave at
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: the beach in the case of a guitar string, for example.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So we have these distinctions, which we're gonna have to
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: keep track of for a minute, between traveling waves and
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: standing waves. And what I want to emphasize is how
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: important both types of waves are in music. You can't
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: have music without both of them. And the reason is
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: that what you do when you play the guitar, or
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: play a piano or play an organ is you're creating
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: a standing wave somewhere on the instrument. You're making a
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: wave in a part of the instrument that doesn't have
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to move anywhere. It's staying on the instrument. The instrument
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: is not moving. There's a piece of it that's vibrating
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: back and forth, but it's vibrating in place.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So the guitar string has a standing wave on it exactly.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: But that standing wave then creates traveling waves in the air,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: and those sound waves then move outward a wave from
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: the instrument and eventually reach the ears of listeners. So
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: you need both of them. You need something to happen
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: on the instrument, and then you need that whatever it
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: is to create waves that can go somewhere and be heard.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And this brings up the most important distinction between these
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: two types of waves for the purposes of particle physics,
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  Speaker 2: aside from the fact that one of them goes somewhere
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  Speaker 2: the other doesn't, which is that traveling waves can vibrate
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: at any frequency you like, standing waves cannot. So what
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: do I mean by that, Well, when you pluck a
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: guitar string, assuming you're not putting your hands on it anywhere,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: just you just take the guitar string as it is
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: and you pluck it. Where you take a violin and
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: string and you pluck it, or you take a string
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: on a piano and you hammer it, you will get
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: one tone and it's the same tone every time. And
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: so a musical instrument like a piano or like a
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: guitar piano is a better example because with guitars, we
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: put our hands on the instrument shortened the strings of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: it gets complicated, and a piano, we just hit the strings.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: We only get the notes we get. We can't get
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: notes in between, because each string gives you a particular note,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: and so you know there are eighty eight notes on
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: a piano keyboard, and we have eighty eight sets of strings,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: one for each.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Note, and each one is a different length, etc. And
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: that's what gives them the different.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Notes, different length and tension. But yes, each one has
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: a particular frequency associated with it, and the reason for
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: this is a phenomenon known as resonance. It's the same
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: reason that when we strike a pendulum or make a
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: pendulum swing back and forth, as in the old pendulum
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: clocks of previous generations, they vibrate with a predictable frequency.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And this predictability and this single mindedness, this resonance phenomenon,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: is what allows us to make musical instruments of most types,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: because most musical instruments, the human voice being an exception,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: are not designed to make all possible notes. They're designed
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: to make some set of them. But fortunately this is
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: not true of traveling waves, which can have any frequency.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And if you think about it, that's essential in music.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Suppose that air and its waves could only carry specific frequencies, well,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: then you'd have to match your instrument to the air
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: or the sound just wouldn't go anywhere. Whereas in fact,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: musical instruments of any frequency, or if you sing a note,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: no matter what note you see, it will always travel
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: through the air because traveling waves are free to go out,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: they're flexible. So that's a key distinction that standing waves
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: have to do with resonance and traveling waves have to
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: do with non resonant phenomena and can have any frequency
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: they like. OK, this is as I said, It's key
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: for music, but it's also key for the.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Universe connected to us. For the universe, how do this
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: concept of standing waves and traveling waves help us understand
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: what we're made out of and how everything works.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: There's certain things about light and light waves, which are
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: essential features of all the waves of the universe, but
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: there's also a thing they don't have. Light waves are
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: always traveling waves, or precisely, lightwaves in empty space are
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: always traveling waves. You can do things in materials to
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: make them do other things, but that's not really critical.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to focus our attention on what happens in
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: empty space, and lightwaves can cross empty space just fine,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: no matter what their frequency. Radio waves, microwaves, gamma rays,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: X rays, and visible light. They all cross the universe
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: at the speed of light, and they have no problem
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: with that, and they can have any frequency you like,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: all the colors that we can see, and then all
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the other frequencies that our eyes cannot detect, but our
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: scientific instruments can. So light waves are of a certain sort,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: and there are a couple of other types of waves
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that are part of the cosmos. Gravitational waves are another
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: example that have this property. They're only traveling lives. But
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: the waves that we are made from that ultimately we
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: call electrons or the quarks out of which protons and
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: neutrons are made. These waves can both travel and stand,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: and that's connected with the fact that the particles that
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: we call electrons can move and they can also stop,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: whereas the particles that are associated with light, which we
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: call photons, they cannot stop in empty space. They always
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: are traveling.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: So we talk about this on the podcast sometimes and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: we say that particles can have energy of motion, the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: kinetic energy they're moving through the universe, but they can
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: also have energy in their mass. Right so electron just
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: sitting there has energy inside of it. It's equals mc squared,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: but that photons only have energy of motion.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: For example, right now, we have to be careful about
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: language again because the word mass is also ambiguous. We
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: are specifically talking about what scientists referred to as rest mass,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: which is the mass that's intrinsic to an object. You
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: will also hear people say that mass increases with speed.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: They are talking about a different type.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Of mass, right, And we had a whole podcast episode
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: about relativistic mass and why it's actually just to stand
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in for energy, and so people should go dig into
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that if they're curious. But here we're talking about mass
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: as being the energy of an object at rest.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: That's right, And so photons don't have any and effectively
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: that's why they can never stop. But electrons and quarks
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and most of the different types of particles that we
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: know about so far in the universe, most of them
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: do indeed have the ability to be at re and
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: they have a certain amount of energy even when they're
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: at rest, and that energy, via equals mc squared, translates
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: into what we call their mass, which is the difficulty
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: for anyone to make them go from at rest to
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: moving at a certain speed. It's a form of stubbornness.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: If a rock has mass, it's the statement that you're
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: going to have to make an effort if you want
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: to throw it across the room.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I hear you trying to avoid using the word inertia.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: You're explaining all the same concepts where you're not using
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that word.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Why is that, Well, inertia has, like most words in English,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: has a couple of different meanings. Right, Inertia is certainly
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: a notion of the difficulty of making something stop in English, Right,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: if something has inertia, you mean that I'm not going
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: to be able to change its direction or slow it
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: down very much. It's going to continue doing what it's
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: doing via inertia. But what scientists mean by inertia is
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: subtly different from that. It's not exactly the same. So
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: it's another word which requires a discussion. And the unnecessary
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: discussions are ones that I don't I don't avoid because
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: they're not worth having. But we only have so much time,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: and there's only so many pages in a book. We
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: have to pick our battles carefully, so I decided not
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: to pick that one.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: All right. I have a bunch more questions for Matt
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: about how the universe works and how we can really
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: understand the Higgs field correctly. But first, let's take a
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: quick break. Okay, we're back and we're talking to Professor
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Matt Stressler, author of the new book Waves in an
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Impossible See, who wants us to really understand how the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: universe is all made of waves and how that's crucial
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to understanding how particle physics and the Higgs Boson works.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: All right, so now you've described the universe to us
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: in terms of waves, and you're saying that particles that
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: have mass are little standing waves, and particles in motion
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: are traveling waves. And this is kind of re utionary
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: way to think about the universe, but it's also something
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: we hear about sometimes, like particles are ripples and quantum fields,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: they're not actually little dots of stuff. And so I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: went out there and I asked our listeners to give
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: us their sort of mental image of these things, because
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I wanted us to be able to calibrate this conversation,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: and also I was curious your reaction to some of
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: these thoughts. So I asked our listeners to give us
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: their mental picture of an electron, and then I also
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: asked them to give us their mental picture of a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: ripple in a quantum field, which was a little bit
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of a trick question because you know, we think of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: an electron as a ripple in a quantum field. I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: was curious if listeners had the same mental picture for
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: these two or not. So here's what listeners had to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: say for the mental picture of an electron, and those
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of you out there listening, pause for a moment and think,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: what is your mental picture of an electron.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: My mental image of an electron is probably still from
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: back in my Navy days when I learned electronics, a
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: group of a small little marbles surrounded by a one
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: or more spinning marbles in an orbit around the center,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: looking more like a nuclear power plant logo or something.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: I see an electron as kind of like a ripple,
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: almost like in space itself, in a certain way that
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: you can squeeze closer together in anyone direction, so you
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: can look at it closer and closer in anyone direction,
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: but as you squeeze it, it gets bigger in the
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: other directions, keeping you from like localizing it. I used
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: to think of it as a particle, but that didn't
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: super make sense to me, because you can always localize
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: it down smaller, so it would have no volume. So
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: I think of it as a ripple in something though
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: I'm not really sure what.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't know, like a little fuzzy blob that's
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: right where I see it, except it's not where I
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: see it, because something about observing something changes it. But
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: it's not really there anymore.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And here's what people say when I asked them what
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: they thought about a quantum field ripple.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: I would have to say the best way to describe
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: for me is like looking at a piece of lasagna
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: with ripples in at lengthwise. That's the only thing I
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: can think of, like a.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Wave in a pond, but without the vertical more of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a horizontal side side.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: In a lot of ways, it's the same thing as
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: a particle to me. It's really just a wave that's
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: sort of localized in one space.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: When I think about a quantum field, I see the
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: image of a three dimension of great space moving.
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: Like a wave.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: It's like the geometry of existence shifts. It doesn't look
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: like it normally does, and you can almost see through
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: to the other side of it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 7: Pretty much. I think as you would have a ripple
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: in a pond if you threw a stone in so
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: concentric series of waves heading away but getting less in magnitude,
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: but trying to imagine that is going out in three
• 20:00
  Speaker 7: dimensions as opposed to two.
• 20:03
  Speaker 8: Well, actually it's a black space surrounded by a water
• 20:13
  Speaker 8: like wave small one.
• 20:16
  Speaker 9: That is, so if you imagine an infinite plane and
• 20:22
  Speaker 9: then someone takes I don't know around, you know, lollipopper sucker,
• 20:28
  Speaker 9: and this plane is somehow elastic, are made of rubber,
• 20:34
  Speaker 9: and you push up on that plane, except that it
• 20:38
  Speaker 9: only wants to deform locally. It doesn't stretch out evenly
• 20:42
  Speaker 9: across the width of the plane. I sort of envision
• 20:44
  Speaker 9: it as a large plane with like a sort of
• 20:50
  Speaker 9: three D parabolic shape pushed up into it.
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: I guess I kind of picture a sheet that you've
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: been pulled taut and then shake it like a salt shaker.
• 21:08
  Speaker 10: I picture a quantum field being kind of like a
• 21:11
  Speaker 10: transparent sphere, and then a ripple in it would be
• 21:16
  Speaker 10: like a little light bulb or something in the middle
• 21:19
  Speaker 10: flicking on.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So quite a variety of answers here, Matt, What do
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: you think about these mental pictures of electrons versus quantum fields.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Do any of these aligned with the way you think
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: about it?
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: Well?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: I love this range of answers because I think it
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: points out a range of fascinating challenges that both non
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: scientists have and trying to understand what physicists are saying,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: and physicists have and journalists are trying to convey the
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: stuff have in trying to come up with a language
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: that is clear enough, and of course some of the
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: things we've been talking about, the difficulty of understanding the
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: word wave as scientists use it and don't use it
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: is one of the difficulties because if your image of
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: an electron is as a single crest in water, well
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: that may or may not work very well. For example,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: if your image of a photon, a particle of light
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: is as a single crest. If your mental image somehow
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: takes a light wave that consists of many crests and
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: it divides it into its individual crests, well then it's
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: confusing because why would a photon if it's just a
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: single crest have a frequency or a wavelength. Wavelength has
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: to do with how far apart the crests are. You
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: end up in puzzles that you can't pull yourself out of.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: And then we have the problem of the word particle.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: We haven't talked about it yet. So let's spend a
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: moment on that. In English, we have all sorts of
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: things that we would refer to as a particle, a dust, particle,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: it's a tiny little thing that it looks a little
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: bit like a ball or something, you know, ball like
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: but small, A particle of sand, it's a grain, it's
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a little thing. You could put it in your hand,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: it'll just sit there. And that is a concept of
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: particle which is reinforced for those who do take physics
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: in freshman year, that's the way it's talked about. For
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: those who even go on to junior year quantum physics,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: that's still kind of the way it's talked about. Even
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: though there's some wavelike things that come in when we
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: talk about particle, we still sort of envision this thing
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: with a position. And if you've read about quantum physics
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: just as a layperson, and you read what Neils Bore,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: the great quantum physics pioneer, had to say about the electrons,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: he said, sometimes they're like particles, sometimes they're like waves.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: And what did he mean. He meant that it's an
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: object with a position. But come nineteen forties, nineteen fifties,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: slowly but surely, the math stopped talking about electrons that way.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: And the weird thing is that the language of physicists
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: it's took much longer to change, and even the way
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: I was taught, because first I learned junior quantum physics,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: in which we think of particles as things with positions
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: and moving around. Maybe you can't specify how they move
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: around as well as you did, but a particle is
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: an object with a position that moves around on some path.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: That is not what we mean when we talk about
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: elementary particles, not since the nineteen fifties or so, and
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: instead we mean something much stranger and much less familiar.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And so I'll come back to that, but you need
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: to step away from the notion of particle that's in
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: your head, and a notion which is hard to step
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: away from because, as a number of listeners sort of
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: referred to, there is this cartoon of an atom, which
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: is a part of our culture. It consists of a
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: blob at the center made of neutrons and protons, with
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: these electrons going around in orbits outside, and the electron
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: is drawn as a dot usually blue. Okay, it's not blue,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: but it's also not a ball or a dot. That's
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: not the right way to think about it, and this
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: is critically important if you want to understand why an
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: electron has mass. Why does an electron that is at
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: rest have any energy if it's just the dot, why
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: would there be any in there? Where would it come from?
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: You know, that's a fundamental puzzle, and understanding that electrons
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: are waves in the nineteen fifties language of what is
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: the math of what is known as quantum field theory
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: is where we get our modern notion of what electrons
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: are and what their mass consists of. And in that picture,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: electrons are not to be thought of as dots going
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: around on paths. Now, quantum physics of the nineteen twenties
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: already taught us that, but even the word particle as
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: we use it in quantum field theory should not be
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: thought of in that way. So let's now take a
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: step back with that rather cryptic remark and look at
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: what the language of quantum field theory really tells us
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: about electrons and photons, because we should kind of do
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: them in parallel. Remembering there's this difference that electrons can
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: be standing waves or traveling waves, but photons are easier
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to think about because we know something about them in life,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: and our eyes absorb them. Let's kind of do them
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: a little bit in parallel. So the real surprise about
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: light is that it doesn't behave like we'd expect waves
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: to behave. And yet another way, and one way to
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: talk about that is to talk about sound. We have
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: this naive notion which makes perfect sense that if you
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: speak at a certain volume, you could speak at half
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: that volume and then the sound would be quieter, or
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: you could speak at half of that volume and then
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: be even quieter, and half of that and be even quieter,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: and you could keep going, you know, sort of a
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: you know's paradox kind of thing. Divide in half and
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: then divide in half and find and you can just
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: speak in a quieter and quieter voice as far down
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: as you like. And you could have the same idea
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: about a beam of light like a laser, like a
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: laser pointer, that you could, you know, sort of turn
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: it down so it's half as bright, and turn it
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: down so it's half as bright again, and half is
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: bright again every time, we just get a dimmer beam,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: and you could go down as far as you like
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: to infinity. It's not true, and it's similar to the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: idea that if you were a person who'd never seen
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: paper before, and you were given a gigantic stack of
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: paper six feet high, you might not initially realize that, oh,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: this thing is actually made of a large number of
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: sheets of paper. It's so big you don't recognize it.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: But of course if you took the thing apart, you
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: would realize, oh, this stack of paper is made from
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: a huge number of individual sheets. In a similar non
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: obvious way, a light wave and again that's a series
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: of crests and troughs corresponding to a laser beam, can
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: be pulled apart into individual lit miniature waves and again
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: wave meaning a series of crests and troughs stacked together
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: to make something bright, but made from a huge number
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: of things that are extremely dim. And so you can't
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: take your bright thing and make it half as bright
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and half as bright and half as bright again, any
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: more than you could take your stack of paper and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: divide it in half, and divide it in half, and divide
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and half forever, you would eventually reach individual sheets, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: you couldn't go any further. Well, that's the way it
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: is with laser light. It's not obvious, but you can
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: break laser light up in half and again and again,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and you will eventually find yourself with something indivisible in
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: individual indivisible flashes of light, which we call photons. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: it was Einstein who proposed this without really fully understanding
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: yet how it would work. But he's responsible for this
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: idea too. So that's our first image of what photons are.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: But remember, particle physicists call them particles. But you see,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: they're not dots. They're like laser beams, only much dimmer.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Right, They're flashes. They're not dots.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: They are particulate in the sense of indivisible, but they
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: are not particle like in the sense of dust boats
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: or sand grains. They don't have that shape. That's really
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: critically important. And what I've just told you about photons
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: is also true of electrons. They are not dots. They
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: are waves of minimal height, minimal brightness, you could say.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: All of course, we understand the word brightness for light.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: The word we use is intensity. In the scientific context,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: we would say light has a certain intensity and there's
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: a minimum intensity that it can have, and electrons, in
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: a sense, are waves in something with a minimum intensity.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: And the question now, though, is all right, But the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: light waves they're always traveling. With electrons, they could be
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: traveling or they could be standing what's the difference. And
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: as you make an electron slow down, which you could
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: do with a battery nothing special, you can ask yourself, well,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: how is the electron changing shape? Does it still look
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: like a long series of crests and troughs. And the
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: slower it is, the more it looks like just one
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: or two crests and troughs. And by the time you
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: slowed it down, it really does look a lot like
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: the ripple on a guitar string, just one crest standing still.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: It's still vibrating, though like a guitar string, it's going
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: up and down. In some sense, it's diving back and forth.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: It's doing something that's i mean, exactly how you visualize
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: it is a bit of a matter of taste. But
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: what's for sure is it might be standing still, but
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: that doesn't mean it's not doing anything.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: It's a standing wave, it's a vibration.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: It's a standing wave. So standing waves don't go anywhere,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: but they're still doing something. And that picture an electron,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: rather than being a dot, is a vibrating thing is
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: critical to understanding what it is and how it works.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: And in particular, unlike a dot, which if it's moving,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: would have motion energy, but if it's stopped, doesn't seem
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: dive energy at all. A vibrating thing has energy even
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: when it's not going anywhere. Ah, that's where the E
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: comes from. That gives us the mass the mc squared,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: it's the energy of the vibration, and that's generally true.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: That's fundamentally how particle physics works. The particles that have
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: mass can be slowed to a stop, at which point
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: they are standing waves. But they are not standing and
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: doing nothing. They are standing and vibrating, and they have
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: a certain amount of energy associated with them. So that
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: is why the particles of nature have a variety of
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: specific masses. They're standing waves, and remember, traveling waves can
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: have any energy you like, but standing waves tend to
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: have a specific energy associated with the idea of resonance.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: So an electron is a little vibration of the electron field,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and when it's at rest, it's vibrating at the resinant
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: frequency of the electron field, and the muon fields has
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: its own resonant frequency, and the quark fields have their
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: own resonant frequency, and that's what gives all these particles
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: different masses.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: That's the bigger picture, right. So up to this point,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I've really only explained that the electron is a resonant,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: vibrating thing, but I haven't told you what it's a
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: vibration of. And that does bring us back to the
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: question at the very beginning when I suggested that you know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: we're made of waves, but I avoided the question of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: what we are waves in. Yeah, and I said, well,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: maybe we're waves of the universe in some sense, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: scientists don't know what we are waves in in some
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: sort of deep sense, but we do know something. We
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: understand how these waves work. And the language that we
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: use is the language of fields, which are things that
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: are present everywhere in the universe, the most famous being
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: the electric field or the magnetic field, which scientists put
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: together into the electromagnetic field that you treat them as
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: a single unit. And waves in the electromagnetic field are
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: what we call light. And there are again these quote particles, namely,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: the dimmest possible wave in the electromagnetic field is what
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: we call a photon, a quote particle of light. So
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: that gives us a conceptual package where Okay, there's something
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: called the electromagnetic field that's an aspect of the universe.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: We don't really understand what it is, but we understand
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: how it works. We know that it has waves, and
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: those waves have the dimmest possible flash associated with them,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the dimmest possible wave, and those waves are what we
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: call particles. Although, as I emphasized the book, the word
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: particle is not a very good word, and there is
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: another word available, which once I reach that part of
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the book, I only use that word afterwards, which is
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: the word wavecle And I like it because it emphasizes
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: this thing is really wavelike and not dust particle like.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: But it also brings forth the notion that it's particulate.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: It's somehow a bit of a wave, and yet it's
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: sufficiently unfamiliar as a term that it carries less cultural
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: and conceptual baggage. It leaves your brain fear to understand
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: what it might actually be. And so this little bit
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: of a wave is a good concept, I.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Think, yeah, And I'll say that reading your book it
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: made it, at the same time easier to understand, because
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you invented some of your own words for clarity. It
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: also made it more of a challenge because it was
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: sometimes harder to connect it to existing established ideas and
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: concepts that people might have in their heads. But I
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: think it's beautiful as a sort of like standalone structure,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna start from nothing and build up a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: bunch of concrete ideas and piece them together for you.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You follow along that road, it really does all come together.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna get even deeper into this, but
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: first we're going to take a quick break. We're back
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and I'm talking to Professor Matt Strassler, author of Waves
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and an Impossible See. So bring it together for us now,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: because we could talk for hours, but I want to
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: get our listeners to a place where they can understand
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: how this wavecle picture of the universe and wavecles as
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: like either standing waves or traveling waves or both, helps
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: us understand the Higgs boson and then why this new
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: understanding can be consistent with the principle of relativity.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's summarize kind of where we've which is
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: a long way. We went from electrons being these blue
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: dots and now suddenly they are these standing vibrations. They
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: have energy associated with their vibration. And it's really important
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: to understand the electron is really the vibration. It's not
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: that an electron is vibrating. The electron is the vibration. Right.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: There is this thing which is a part of the universe.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: We don't understand it very well. We call it the
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: electron field. It's analogous to the electromagnetic field, whose ripples
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: are associated with photons. There is this thing we call
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the electron field. We understand good math for it, we
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: don't understand what it is, but its vibrations are what
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: we call electrons, and those electrons have a particular frequency
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: when they are standing. There is a resonance associated with
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: the electron field that determines how fast a stationary electron vibrates,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: and that in turn determines how much energy it has
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: and therefore determines how much mass it has. This connection
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: between resonant frequency, energy and mass, which comes out of
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Einstein's core ideas, is what gives us a link between
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: resonance and mass. But now, what about this resonance, What
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: is resonating? Well, again, what's resonating is the thing that's vibrating,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: the electron field itself. We don't understand what it is,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: but we understand what it's doing. It is vibrating in
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: a resonant way, somewhat as a guitar string, when plucked,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: will vibrate at a particular resonant frequency. So when you
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: take a guitar or piano and you play all its notes,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: you get various frequencies. When you take the universe and
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: you make it vibrate in all the ways it likes
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: to vibrate, you get the particle masses. There's a direct
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: link between the frequencies at which the universe likes to
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: vibrate and the masses of the elementary particles. And now
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: that gives us a chance to guess what the Higgs
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: field is actually doing. The Higgs field is changing the
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: frequencies of the other field. It's like tuning a guitar.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: It is able to change the electron field's resonant frequency,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: and therefore it can change the mass of the electron. Now,
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: a guitar player would be able to change all the
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: frequencies independently, right if you could tune anyone's string independently
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: of all the others. The Higgs field can't do all that.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: It just changes the frequencies of all of the elementary
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: particles together, starting from zero and moving them up to
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: where they are today.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: But they all get different values.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: They all get different values, and the key to why
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: they get different values is related to how strongly the
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Higgs field interacts with a particular field. So, for example,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: the electron field. The electron has a relatively small mass,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: and that reflects the fact that the electron field interacts
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: relatively weakly with the Higgs field, and so when the
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Higgs field does its thing, it doesn't change the electron
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: frequency that much. But the top quark, which is the
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: particle whose mass is largest among all the particles known
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: so far, that is a vibration of the top quark field.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: We're really inventive with our names, right. Top quark is
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: a vibration of the top quark field. The top quark
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: field interacts very strongly with the Higgs field, and therefore
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: the top quark field has a high resonant frequency, and
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: therefore the top quark has a high mass.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: So the Higgs is changing how all these fields vibrate,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: changing their resonant frequencies, which really changes the masses of
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: what we're calling particles or wavecles. There's no molasses or
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: snow involved at all.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: That's right. In fact, if you think about it, what
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: the Higgs field is doing is really not affecting particles directly, right.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It affects the other fields, changes their properties, and then
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: it's just a consequence of quantum physics that the waves
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: in those fields come in these unks that we call
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: quote particles or wavehicles. And then it's a consequence of
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: relativity that the energy of their vibration has something to
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: do with mass equals mc squared. The direct link between
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: the mass of the electron and the Higgs field doesn't
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: really exist. You have to go through these other pieces,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: and that is why in order to explain how the
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Higgs field works, I had to explain both quantum physics
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: to some degree and relativity to some degree in the
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: book before we could get to that. So, in a way,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: the book was about trying to make sure some aspects
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: of relativity were clear, some aspects of waves were clear,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: some aspects of quantum physics were clear, and then bringing
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: them all together so that we could understand what wavecles are.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: And at that point explaining what the Higgs field does
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: is not so difficult. Just change the frequency of a field.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Changes the frequency of a field, then it changes the
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: way it vibrates, and that's going to change the mass
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: of the corresponding particle. That's all. You have to first
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: understand that electrons aren't like dust particles, and they don't
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: get their mass through any mechanism that particles could possibly have.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: They have to be vibrating objects in order for that
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: to make any sense.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: And photons, you're saying, are just traveling waves, which means
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: there is no standing wave for a photon. Photons have
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: no resonant frequency because the Higgs doesn't interact with the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: electromagnetic field.
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be more precise, the electromagnetic field has no
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: resonant frequency, and correspondingly, it has no standing waves in
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: empty space, and therefore photons don't have any rest mass.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And yes, one reason for this, let's say, is that
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: the Higgs field does not directly interact with the electromagnetic field.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: But it's important that not only the Higgs field that
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: we know doesn't do that, but there aren't any other
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Higgs like fields that get in the way either. Now,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: why is this? Why is it that the electromagnetic field
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: has this property whereas the electron field doesn't. Why is
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: it that the electromagnetic field doesn't interact with the Higgs
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: field and its particles remain massless while the electron field does.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: We don't know. We don't have an understanding of the
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: pattern of which fields the Higgs field interacts with, or
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: more precisely, we have partial understanding. We understand why Higgs
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: field of the sort that we have in our universe
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: can't interact with the electromagnetic field, but we don't know
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: why we had to have a Higgs field of that
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: particular sort as opposed to Higgs field of some other sort.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: And we certainly don't know why the electron fields interaction
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: with the Higgs field is weak while the top quarnfield's
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: interaction with the Higgs field is strong. We don't understand
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: that pattern at all, and not that there haven't been
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: many attempts to understand it. I, as a theoretical physicist,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: have tried a few times, many others have, and we
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: have lots of great ideas, but we have no idea
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: which one of these ideas, if any, is correct, And
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: we keep hoping that particle physics garments will give us
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: some clues, and up to now Unfortunately they have not, and.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: It's really crucial because if the photon had even a
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: tiny amount of mass, it wouldn't have this property that
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: it's only a traveling wave, which would mean that you
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: could catch up to it. You could see photons at rest.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: You could have like a handful of photons, the way
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you could have a handful of electrons, and you could
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: have them at various velocities, which would mean that observers
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have to see the speed of light always as
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: the speed of light. It would feel like a very
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: different universe.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: It certainly would feel very different because there would be
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: situations in which light and radio waves from a single
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: event would arrive at different times. There would be distortions
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: of things that you see. I mean, you can sort
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: of imagine if sound waves didn't all arrive at the
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: same time, if the speed of sound weren't basically a constant.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Just think what would happen to music. You play a
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: piano and then the low notes arrive late and later
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: than the I mean, it would make a mess I.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Thing the cellists have to play ahead of the violinists.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Speaking would be tough, right, would be a very different world,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: and so it is an important feature of our world.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Not only that speeds of different frequencies of light would
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: be different, but there's another consequence which in a way
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: might be even more important depending on how much mass
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: photons would have, which is that the range of electric
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: and magnetic fields would not be as large. The connection
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: is not obvious, and the reason has to do with
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: the following that the way that the Higgs field changes
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: the resonant frequency of another field is it makes it stiffer.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: It makes it more difficult for it to vibrate, but
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: even more generally, it makes it more difficult for it
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: to change to vary. And so when you have an
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: electrically charged object, it can make in our universe an
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: electric field that goes out into the stars. A planet
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: can have a magnetic field that goes way out beyond
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: where the planet is, and that's very important for us
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: because the magnetic field off the Earth deflects particles from
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the Sun that are flung out during solar flares, and
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: it protects us from the damage that such particles would do.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: But if the photon had a mass, or more precisely,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: if the electromagnetic field had a resonant frequency, that in turn,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: would mean that the electromagnetic field would have more difficulty
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: spreading out, and magnetic fields wouldn't spread as far, and
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: so you could end up with a situation where the
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: magnetic field of the Earth might not reach out beyond
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: the surface of the Earth, and then we would not
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: be protected from these solar storms. So you know, we'd
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: survive because evolution is that way, right, Evolution would find
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: a way to create life that could survive all of that. Right,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't, but we are certainly dependent upon this particular
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: feature of the universe, and so you know that's one
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: of the many ways in which the details of particle
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: physics affect the universe on a macro scale.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Well, I think my last question for you is to
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: try to interpret what this all means. You've painted a
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: picture of the universe as field with waves, and in
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: your book, near the end, you write the universe rings
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: everywhere in everything, which I thought was very poetic. But
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: it makes me wonder, why is this, like, Why is
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: it that the mathematics of waves, which are very simple
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and beautiful, are everywhere. Why are waves all over our universe,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: both fundamental and emergent at so many different scales? What
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: does that say about the universe, that waves are everywhere?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I think maybe that question has two parts to it.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: The first is why are waves everywhere? Even in the
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: macroscopic universe? Why do we see ocean waves and seismic
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: waves and waves and rubber And if you look closely
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: as find waves in metal. If you strike a bell,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: there's waves inside. The why is that? And that turns
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: out to be a consequence of a simple idea, which
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: is that if I have a substance which is fairly
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: uniform and spread out like a chunk of metal, then
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: it is very easy to cause waves to occur. Let's
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: take the example of just water. Maybe that's simplest. If
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: you take a huge bucket of water or a big
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: pond or something, why is it so easy to get
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: ripples in it? Well, it's because it's so easy to
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: do something to one little piece of the water. Put
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: your hand in the water in one place, but that
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: is then going to have an impact on the bits
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: of the water right around it, which in turn is
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: going to have an impact on the parts of the
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: water right around them. You do something locally to the water,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: but then the water can bring that effect outward. Further
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: and further away from where you pressed on the water
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: or hit the water, whatever it is you did to it,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: And that propagation of an initial effect through this uniform
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: material almost automatically leads to waves. The math of waves
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: drops out of the equations, no matter what their details.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: So as long as you have a material where information
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't propagate instantly, then you're going to get propagation of
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: information and those are waves.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it needs to be a uniform material because
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: if it isn't uniform, if it's just an agglomeration of
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: lots of different things, then as things move out, they'll
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: move out of completely different speeds depending on exactly what
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: they run into. But when you have a single material
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: like water or air, the speed at which things propagate
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: is constant or mere constant, and so as things propagate out,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: they do so in a nice uniform way, and that
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: allows you to get ripples, where you get waves which
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: are simple and remain simple as they travel. So that's true.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: In any material that's uniform, you almost always can get
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: waves of a certain type. So that's why they're ubiquitous
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: around us in ordinary materials. Now, if you think the
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: universe is like a material, it's certainly a uniform leaving
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: aside places where there's actually stuck. But if you go
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: out into the deep space, you're surrounded by whatever space is.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: It's the same in all directions. It's the same in
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: all places. And we know this because we can measure
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: what the laws of nature are by looking at stars
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: or looking at other things in space, and the stars
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: are the same basically all across the universe. We don't
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: see big differences, so we know the universe is remarkably uniform,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: and so to the extent it's a uniform material like thing,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: the fact that it has waves in it is no surprise.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: But we don't know why it's a uniform thing, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: so at some level there's still plenty of why questions
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: that are out there for which we don't know answers.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: That's kind of where we.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Are, wonderful. Well, tell us again the title of your
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: book and where listeners can find it if they'd like
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to understand even deeper all of these concepts.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Well, the title I came up with, and I'm delighted
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: that the publisher accepted it is waves in an impossible see,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: beautiful waves being us the stuff we're made from and
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: the impossible see being this space we live in that's
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: kind of like a material and kind of isn't. And
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: the book is available at any of your independent local
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: bookstores and of course at Amazon and Barnes and Noble
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: and all the other monsters that are happy out there
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: to show you the full range of books that are
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: available in the world. But yes, it's going to be
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: widely carried in bookstores and you should definitely check it out.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Wonderful. Well, thanks again very much for coming on to
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: talk to us about all these incredible concepts and sharing
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: your particular view of the universe with all of us.
• 50:33
  Speaker 11: Thank you so much, Dan, It's been really fun, all right,
• 50:36
  Speaker 11: interesting conversation there, sort of like a new way to
• 50:39
  Speaker 11: look at the world and to look at physics and
• 50:42
  Speaker 11: the nature of reality. Almost.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I hope that it gives listeners and readers of the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: book a new way to think about these objects that
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: form the foundations of our whole world. That when you
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: take your body apart and imagine that it's made out
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: of atoms and protons and electrons, that you think about
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: those particles a little bit differently. Maybe you replace your
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: high school concept of an electron as a tiny little
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: blue ball with a little ripple in that electron field,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: and have a better understanding for what's rippling there and
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: why the electron has mass, and how it's all connected
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: to the Higgs boson.
• 51:14
  Speaker 11: Well, I was waving in and out of the interview
• 51:16
  Speaker 11: a little bit. So then the idea is that everything
• 51:20
  Speaker 11: is a wave. So it was wave, would you say
• 51:23
  Speaker 11: is a better word to describe what's going on at
• 51:25
  Speaker 11: the fundamental levels?
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Maths vision is that everything is a wave, a wave
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: in these things we call quantum fields that we don't
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: really understand. But if you dig into what it means
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: for a quantum field to do some waving, it can
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: give you a better understanding of what motion is, of
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: what mass is, of what energy is, and how the
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Higgs boson gives those particles mass, not by filling the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: universe with molasses that slows things down, but by changing
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: how those fields resonate, which really is what mass is
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: all about. So standing wave of resonance and a quantum field.
• 52:02
  Speaker 9: Mmm.
• 52:02
  Speaker 11: Interesting, Well, another cool idea out there, and it may
• 52:07
  Speaker 11: be a revolutionary way to look at the universe on
• 52:10
  Speaker 11: this journey to figure out how everything works.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: That's right. Matt Straussler is not just a super smart
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: theoretical physicist. He really does have a gift for accessible
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: explanations of deeply important concepts using intuitive ideas. Sometimes he
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: makes up his own words, like wavehicles because he wants
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: to avoid the baggage of words you've already heard. But
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: if you listen carefully and follow along, I really think
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: it can give you a deeper understanding of quantum fields.
• 52:36
  Speaker 11: All right, well, check out his book Waves in an
• 52:38
  Speaker 11: Impossible Scene. We hope you enjoyed that.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, See you next time. For more
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: science and curiosity, come find us on social media where
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, this
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: word instant and now TikTok. Thanks for listening and remember
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.