Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Listener Questions 17: hamsters, black holes and higgs fields!

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Listener Questions 17: hamsters, black holes and higgs fields! · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I've been thinking about black hole. Watch out.
0:11
Speaker 1: That's a real rabbit hole. Yeah, I'm definitely stucked in.
0:15
Speaker 1: But here's my question. Can you make a black hole
0:17
Speaker 1: out of anything? Like? Even rabbits? Theoretically you can, but
0:22
Speaker 1: that's a lot of rabbits. But you don't actually need
0:24
Speaker 1: a lot of rabbits, right, Like you can just take
0:26
Speaker 1: a few rabbits and squeeze them together a lot, right,
0:29
Speaker 1: as long as they started a release of liability, I
0:32
Speaker 1: suppose anything is possible. Well, I got their pop prints.
0:35
Speaker 1: I think that counts right, But I guess my bigger
0:37
Speaker 1: question is does that mean you can make a black
0:39
Speaker 1: hole out of anything? Yeah? I think so, even dark matter? Yeah,
0:43
Speaker 1: anything with energy? About a black hole out of photons? Absolutely?
0:47
Speaker 1: And you know the truth is, I'd rather you sacrificed
0:50
Speaker 1: photons than rabbits. What if they're light rabbits. I am
1:09
Speaker 1: or hammy cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi,
1:12
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at
1:15
Speaker 1: UC Irvine, and I'm at least forty seven rabbits. You
1:18
Speaker 1: wave forty seven rabbits or you own forty seven rabbits,
1:21
Speaker 1: or you are forty seven rabbits in the costume of
1:23
Speaker 1: a human. I think philosophically, I'm somewhat equivalent to forty
1:27
Speaker 1: seven rabbits and intelligence, civil arm or ability to eat carrots. Yeah,
1:34
Speaker 1: you know, you link two rabbit brains together, you get
1:36
Speaker 1: something which is much smarter than just two rabbits. So
1:39
Speaker 1: now you have forty seven rabbits. It's like rabbits to
1:41
Speaker 1: the power. Oh my goodness, that is one massive bunny brain.
1:46
Speaker 1: But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain
1:49
Speaker 1: the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in which
1:52
Speaker 1: we apply our human brains and our bunny brains and
1:54
Speaker 1: our hamster brains to the deepest and biggest questions of
1:58
Speaker 1: the universe. We don't hold. We tackle questions like how
2:01
Speaker 1: did the universe get here? And where is it going?
2:04
Speaker 1: What's it made out of? And how does it all work?
2:07
Speaker 1: Because we think the universe is comprehensible. We don't know why,
2:10
Speaker 1: but human brains have somehow managed to chisel into the
2:13
Speaker 1: mysteries of the universe and gain little shards of understanding.
2:17
Speaker 1: And our goal on this podcast is to take those
2:19
Speaker 1: and explain all of them. To you, as well as
2:22
Speaker 1: the deepest, biggest open questions that remain for humans and
2:26
Speaker 1: bundies to unravel. Yeah, because it is a pretty mysterious
2:29
Speaker 1: universe full of questions and things that we have yet
2:32
Speaker 1: to discover, from what is most of the universe made
2:35
Speaker 1: out of to what is the fundamental units of space
2:40
Speaker 1: and time and matter in this cosmos? Or is there
2:44
Speaker 1: even a fundamental unit of space and time in this cosmos?
2:48
Speaker 1: Or is it just rabbits all the way down? One
2:51
Speaker 1: of my favorite things about asking questions of the universe
2:54
Speaker 1: is that anybody can do it. You look around you
2:57
Speaker 1: in this weird, wild, crazy, violent, do full universe, and
3:01
Speaker 1: so many things are puzzles. So many things beg you
3:04
Speaker 1: to ask questions about them. Yeah, daniel A re allowed
3:07
Speaker 1: also hair brained questions was in Rabbits. Sorry, I just
3:11
Speaker 1: had to get that in because I realized after we
3:14
Speaker 1: had our earlier exchange that that was such a little
3:16
Speaker 1: hanging fruit for a pun and a joke. I know,
3:18
Speaker 1: I can't believe you didn't hop up to that joke earlier.
3:20
Speaker 1: I'll keep my ears out for funnier jokes, But yeah,
3:23
Speaker 1: it is an interesting universe full of questions. And full
3:26
Speaker 1: of inquisitive minds with questions about the universe, because I
3:29
Speaker 1: think we all look out there into the cosmos, into
3:32
Speaker 1: the night sky, and we look at ourselves, and we
3:34
Speaker 1: we gotta wonder, like, what's going on? How does it
3:36
Speaker 1: all work? What's it all made out of? That's right,
3:39
Speaker 1: and we are not the only ones actually thinking about
3:42
Speaker 1: the overlap between cosmic questions and small furry creatures. Last
3:47
Speaker 1: night I got a fun question over email from a listener,
3:49
Speaker 1: Evan Cleave, who wanted to know something deep and important
3:53
Speaker 1: about the universe. But really, what was the question? Well,
3:56
Speaker 1: I have to read it to your word for word,
3:57
Speaker 1: because otherwise you won't believe it. It says how Low Daniel.
4:00
Speaker 1: I have a very serious and important question. How many
4:04
Speaker 1: hamsters floating in space would it take to have enough
4:08
Speaker 1: mass to come together gravitationally to achieve nuclear fusion and
4:13
Speaker 1: become a star? The world needs to know. Well, that's
4:17
Speaker 1: the kind of world I want to live in, where
4:19
Speaker 1: everybody needs to know how many hamsters you need to
4:22
Speaker 1: make a hamster sun? Is that what you would call it?
4:25
Speaker 1: A hamster star? A hamstar, a hamstar exactly? Yes, But
4:29
Speaker 1: I swear that we had written this cold open about
4:31
Speaker 1: rabbits and black holes before we got this important question
4:34
Speaker 1: from Evan about hamsters and stars. It just goes to
4:37
Speaker 1: show you how there's some sort of connection between rodents
4:41
Speaker 1: and massive space objects. Science needs to probe this a
4:45
Speaker 1: little more deeply. I think, Yeah, who knows how many
4:48
Speaker 1: flying hamsters are there are out there in space? Right? Like,
4:51
Speaker 1: we literally don't know. There could be a lot that's
4:53
Speaker 1: true beyond the observable universe. It could be just all
4:56
Speaker 1: hamsters to the edge of the universe. Most of the
5:00
Speaker 1: universe could be hamsters. You're saying, yeah, we could be
5:03
Speaker 1: living in a hamstar. We don't know. I think we're
5:06
Speaker 1: all hamstars. Really, it's a pretty hammy podcast for sure.
5:10
Speaker 1: Do you have an answer? Did you calculate how many
5:12
Speaker 1: hamsters you need to achieve fusion or is that even possible?
5:15
Speaker 1: Can you make a star out of hamsters? Oh? I
5:17
Speaker 1: have an answer, and you know, given the urgency and
5:20
Speaker 1: clear importance of this question, I cleared my afternoon and
5:23
Speaker 1: shared an emergency task force just to address this question.
5:26
Speaker 1: I pulled in international experts of planetary scientists, fusion professors,
5:30
Speaker 1: hamster owners, you know, and we've met for an entire afternoon,
5:34
Speaker 1: did some calculations, and you know, essentially to make a
5:37
Speaker 1: star that achieves fusion, all you really need is enough stuff.
5:42
Speaker 1: You get enough mass together and gravity will pull it
5:45
Speaker 1: together and create the conditions you need for fusion. And
5:48
Speaker 1: the minimum threshold there is about eighty times the mass
5:52
Speaker 1: of Jupiter, which is about one point six times ten
5:56
Speaker 1: to the twenty nine kims. So it's a big mass. Wow.
6:01
Speaker 1: I'm glad that was a productive afternoon and you didn't
6:04
Speaker 1: just sit there spinning your wheels in a hamster wheel. No,
6:07
Speaker 1: I didn't just weasel out of this question. I really
6:09
Speaker 1: took it seriously. But you're saying that if I had
6:11
Speaker 1: an eighty jupiter's worth of hamsters, it would become a son.
6:14
Speaker 1: It would become a son. Now, technically that calculation is
6:17
Speaker 1: done assuming that you have eighty jupiter's worth of hydrogen,
6:21
Speaker 1: and you know, hamsters are made of heavier elements. That's
6:24
Speaker 1: carbon in there other stuff. But mostly the same calculations
6:27
Speaker 1: will work. Really, you can, like, if you had, you know,
6:30
Speaker 1: eighty jupiter's worth of carbon, it would turn into a star.
6:33
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily the same, is it. It's not exactly
6:36
Speaker 1: the same but approximately as long as it's lighter than iron,
6:39
Speaker 1: then gravity can do its thing and compress it. It
6:42
Speaker 1: won't burn for nearly as long as a massive hydrogen will,
6:46
Speaker 1: but carbon and oxygen will still fuse, and you'll get
6:48
Speaker 1: further up at the periodic table. I see you need
6:51
Speaker 1: gassy hamsters, not iron hamsters. You can't have tony star hamsters.
6:57
Speaker 1: That wouldn't work. Hamster iron man would be a different.
7:00
Speaker 1: So you need about eighty Jupiter's worth of hamsters to
7:03
Speaker 1: ignity hamster. That's right. And since hamsters are about thirty
7:07
Speaker 1: grams each, averaging over the various kinds of hamsters, that
7:11
Speaker 1: means it requires about five times ten to the thirty hamsters.
7:15
Speaker 1: That's five point three million YadA hamsters. M that's a lot.
7:21
Speaker 1: You know, you'd be counting them and then you'd be like, YadA, YadA, YadA.
7:25
Speaker 1: It's a YadA hamsters for sure. All right. Well, um,
7:27
Speaker 1: I guess that's good that there aren't hamidy hamsters on Earth,
7:30
Speaker 1: because then we'd be toast or the hamsters would literally
7:33
Speaker 1: be on five. Well, those are the kinds of questions
7:35
Speaker 1: you get on the internet, and Daniel, you get those
7:38
Speaker 1: a lot, right, and you always answer them. That's right.
7:40
Speaker 1: We answer every question you send us, the serious ones,
7:42
Speaker 1: the deep ones, the silly ones. We write all our
7:45
Speaker 1: listeners back because we think that science is just part
7:48
Speaker 1: of being human and we want everyone to get to participate.
7:51
Speaker 1: So if you have a question about the nature of
7:54
Speaker 1: the universe or how many rabbits it takes to form
7:57
Speaker 1: a black hole, please write to us to questions at
8:00
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge dot com. Yeah, and Daniel always ask
8:04
Speaker 1: for this emails. But sometimes we answer those questions here
8:07
Speaker 1: on the podcast live in front of thousands and thousands
8:10
Speaker 1: of people. Yeah. Sometimes people ask the question and I think, oh,
8:13
Speaker 1: I bet a lot of folks would have that question,
8:15
Speaker 1: let's dig into it on the podcast, or it just
8:18
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of fun, and so we select
8:20
Speaker 1: some subset of those questions to be explored right here
8:23
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Yeah, so today we're gonna go full
8:26
Speaker 1: hamster on three pretty interesting questions we got over the
8:29
Speaker 1: internet about electrons and when they radiate light, about the
8:34
Speaker 1: curvature of space and equals mc squared, and also about
8:37
Speaker 1: the Higgs field and how long has it been around.
8:40
Speaker 1: That's right, and these are just questions from people being
8:42
Speaker 1: curious people trying to fit together their pieces of understanding
8:46
Speaker 1: into a larger mosaic so they can have in their
8:49
Speaker 1: minds the entire universe. And when two pieces don't quite
8:53
Speaker 1: fit together or don't give you that satisfying click, that's
8:56
Speaker 1: when you're doing physics, when you're applying your knowledge and
8:59
Speaker 1: trying to understand the whole universe at once. So if
9:01
Speaker 1: you get stuck in that situation, please write to us
9:04
Speaker 1: so to be on the podcast. We'll be answering listener
9:12
Speaker 1: questions number seventeen. So we've done seventeen of these listener
9:16
Speaker 1: questions podcast, Daniel, that's about something like fifty something listener
9:21
Speaker 1: questions we've answered live. Yeah, that's right exactly. And I'm
9:24
Speaker 1: really glad that the listeners get to hear their questions
9:27
Speaker 1: get answered, and they get to participate in the science
9:29
Speaker 1: process because this right here, this is science happening. I
9:33
Speaker 1: feel like you just demoted science, Like if this counts
9:35
Speaker 1: as science, it's a big tent, man, it's a big,
9:38
Speaker 1: big tent. We're way in the outskirts of the tent,
9:40
Speaker 1: like halfway in getting wet on one side of our body.
9:44
Speaker 1: I'm not about science gates keeping man science is for everyone.
9:47
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's crash the gates and let's go
9:50
Speaker 1: full science here and well, the first question will tackle
9:52
Speaker 1: here is from Tim who has a question about electron radiation. Hello,
9:57
Speaker 1: Daniel and Johe love podcas casts. You're doing great work.
10:01
Speaker 1: While discussing a listener question, you mentioned that electrons moving
10:05
Speaker 1: up and down antenna generate photons. That sent me down
10:09
Speaker 1: a Google rabbit hole where I found that syncotron's use
10:13
Speaker 1: electrons going around in a circle to generate X rays.
10:16
Speaker 1: Similar concept, but it got me thinking why do electrons
10:21
Speaker 1: bound to atoms going around in a circle not produce
10:25
Speaker 1: photons as well? Can't wait to hear the answer and
10:28
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing from you. Keep up the good work.
10:31
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for that awesome question. I'm not
10:34
Speaker 1: quite sure I understand the question though, Daniel. The question
10:36
Speaker 1: is about when electrons give off light, and we did
10:40
Speaker 1: a fun episode with listener questions where we talk about
10:43
Speaker 1: essentially how electrons make photons. Like, somebody asked how you
10:48
Speaker 1: get an electron to shoot off a photon? What makes
10:50
Speaker 1: that happen? And when answering that question, we explained that
10:53
Speaker 1: the way you get an electron to radiate is essentially
10:57
Speaker 1: you accelerated, you wiggle it like the pick. Sure I
11:00
Speaker 1: have in my mind is that the electron is surrounded
11:03
Speaker 1: by an electric field. An electronic tracts positrons and it
11:07
Speaker 1: repels other electrons, and it does so using its electric field.
11:11
Speaker 1: So it's electric field sort of fills space around it.
11:15
Speaker 1: What happens when you wiggle that electron is that the
11:17
Speaker 1: electric field also wiggles. Is like a ripple in that
11:21
Speaker 1: electric field isn't change instantaneously, and so that's what we
11:24
Speaker 1: call a photon. So the answer we gave there was
11:27
Speaker 1: that to generate a photon, to get an electron to
11:29
Speaker 1: radiate a photon, to shoot off a little piece of light,
11:32
Speaker 1: all you have to do is accelerated. But his question is,
11:35
Speaker 1: what about electrons and atoms? Aren't they moving in a circle,
11:39
Speaker 1: which is acceleration, So why aren't those electrons just shooting
11:43
Speaker 1: off photons all the time? Right, Okay, I think I
11:46
Speaker 1: got it. So you're saying electrons generally, if you wiggle them,
11:50
Speaker 1: if you accelerate them, they give off light. And then
11:53
Speaker 1: is that just electrons or anything that you know electromagnetic,
11:56
Speaker 1: anything that has electric charge will give off a photon
11:59
Speaker 1: if you accelerated, so amuan or any other particle that
12:03
Speaker 1: has electric charge, if it accelerates, it will give off
12:06
Speaker 1: a photon because it's acceleration changes the electromagnetic field and
12:11
Speaker 1: the information moving through that field. That's what a photon is, man, right,
12:15
Speaker 1: And then it loses some energy or is it always
12:18
Speaker 1: just giving off photons in every direction forever? No, it
12:21
Speaker 1: loses some energy exactly. That's how an electron essentially breaks. Right.
12:25
Speaker 1: An electron changes direction by like pushing off a photon
12:28
Speaker 1: in the other direction. Like, how can an electron turn, Well,
12:31
Speaker 1: the only way for it to like change its trajectory
12:34
Speaker 1: is the same way you would in space, which is
12:36
Speaker 1: throwing something out the back. An electron turns in space
12:40
Speaker 1: changes direction, which is essentially acceleration by tossing a photon away. So,
12:45
Speaker 1: for example, if you want electrons to move in a
12:47
Speaker 1: circle the way we have and some accelerators like singletrons,
12:51
Speaker 1: for that to happen, electrons have to constantly be radiating
12:54
Speaker 1: off photons to push them in the circle. And you're saying,
12:58
Speaker 1: that's kind of how antenna work, because there's electrons wiggling
13:02
Speaker 1: inside of an antenna, and that gives off the photons
13:05
Speaker 1: and the electrical signal. Yeah, in both directions. You can
13:08
Speaker 1: generate photons using electrons by taking them and using current
13:12
Speaker 1: from your signal to wiggle the electrons, and that generates photons.
13:17
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what an antenna is. That's how, for example,
13:20
Speaker 1: those tall towers from radio stations generate radio waves as
13:24
Speaker 1: they have like electrons moving up and down those antennas,
13:27
Speaker 1: and the frequency of the electrons motion is the frequency
13:30
Speaker 1: of the photon that they generate. It's very simple and
13:33
Speaker 1: direct connection between the motion of the electron, the motion
13:36
Speaker 1: of the electric field that it's connected to, and the photon,
13:39
Speaker 1: which is just wiggling of that electromagnetic field. All right,
13:44
Speaker 1: So I guess the question is that if a wiggling
13:46
Speaker 1: electron gives off a photon, then wouldn't electrons wiggling around
13:51
Speaker 1: an atom also be giving of photons all the time? Yes,
13:55
Speaker 1: And it's actually a really deep and important question about
13:59
Speaker 1: how atoms were and something that people struggled with for
14:02
Speaker 1: decades in the early part of the century because remember
14:05
Speaker 1: that the first picture of atoms, and the one that
14:08
Speaker 1: Tim describes, is sort of of electrons moving around the
14:12
Speaker 1: nucleus like in a little orbit. The sort of Neil's
14:14
Speaker 1: bore picture of the atom was that it was sort
14:17
Speaker 1: of like a little planetary system. You have these electrons
14:19
Speaker 1: whizzing around like little classical objects, like tiny little balls,
14:24
Speaker 1: moving around in a circle around the nucleus. And if
14:26
Speaker 1: that were true, if electrons actually were moving in those
14:29
Speaker 1: little circles around the nucleus, they should be radiating, they
14:32
Speaker 1: should be losing energy, should they should be giving off photons,
14:36
Speaker 1: And if they would, then they should just fall right
14:38
Speaker 1: into the nucleus and they should collapse. So if you
14:41
Speaker 1: do the calculation, is suggests that like the hydrogen atom
14:43
Speaker 1: should only last for like ten to the negative twelve seconds.
14:46
Speaker 1: But of course we see that hydrogen is stable. Electrons
14:49
Speaker 1: can hang out in these atoms and they don't collapse
14:52
Speaker 1: and tend to the negative twelve seconds. So this was
14:54
Speaker 1: a big puzzle in physics, not just for tim but
14:57
Speaker 1: for like the brightest minds in physics for many years. Right,
15:00
Speaker 1: because that's the classical view of the atom. Right, It's
15:03
Speaker 1: like you imagine, or you draw a little dot, and
15:05
Speaker 1: then you draw some electron dots like whizzing around in
15:08
Speaker 1: like elliptical orbits around the nucleus of the atom, right,
15:12
Speaker 1: And so if that picture is true, then you're saying
15:15
Speaker 1: that that would not be sustainable because you know, the
15:18
Speaker 1: electrons are moving in a circle, which means we're accelerating
15:21
Speaker 1: and decelerating, and that means that they should be giving
15:24
Speaker 1: up light all the time exactly. And this is just
15:26
Speaker 1: what I was talking about earlier. You like take your
15:28
Speaker 1: understanding of something and you apply the rules to you said, well,
15:31
Speaker 1: if this picture is true, then why doesn't this happen
15:34
Speaker 1: or why doesn't that happen? Right? That's the core of
15:37
Speaker 1: doing physics, of doing science, of trying to link together
15:40
Speaker 1: all of your understanding and make sure that it all
15:42
Speaker 1: like fits together in a way that makes sense, because
15:45
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have different rules for different situations. And so
15:47
Speaker 1: that's the fundamental question that Tim is asking is why
15:50
Speaker 1: doesn't the electron essentially collapse into the nucleus instantaneously? M alright,
15:56
Speaker 1: So then what's really going on here? Why don't the
15:58
Speaker 1: electrons moving and on the nucleus of the atom give
16:01
Speaker 1: up light? The reason is that they are not really
16:04
Speaker 1: little classical objects. They're not really tiny little balls in
16:07
Speaker 1: orbits that are moving with circular motion the way that
16:10
Speaker 1: we imagine them in that picture of the atom. They
16:13
Speaker 1: are fundamentally very, very different and strange objects. There are
16:17
Speaker 1: quantum mechanical objects that don't have a path. Like an
16:21
Speaker 1: electron is not like a tiny little object that really
16:24
Speaker 1: is moving along some path in space and time. We
16:27
Speaker 1: just don't know exactly what it is. It doesn't have
16:30
Speaker 1: a path, that doesn't have a well defined location as
16:34
Speaker 1: a function of time. It's a quantum object. It's fundamentally
16:38
Speaker 1: very different, right. I think you're saying that the electron
16:41
Speaker 1: orbiting around the nucleus of the atom is not really orbiting, right,
16:44
Speaker 1: like the center of mass or the center of the electron.
16:47
Speaker 1: It's not really like going in a circle. It's more
16:50
Speaker 1: like kind of stationary, right, Or it just has sort
16:52
Speaker 1: of a mathematical equivalent of orbiting. Yeah, it's not even
16:56
Speaker 1: really mathematically equivalent to orbiting. It's like not really orbiting.
17:00
Speaker 1: Act all. The way to think about it is not
17:02
Speaker 1: as a tiny little grain of matter in motion around
17:06
Speaker 1: the nucleus. It's something really totally different. It's a quantum object.
17:10
Speaker 1: What you should think about is that the electron is
17:12
Speaker 1: a tiny little packet of energy you know, just the
17:15
Speaker 1: same way the photon is a little packet of energy
17:17
Speaker 1: in the electromagnetic field. The electron is a little packet
17:20
Speaker 1: of energy in the electron field. So what you should
17:23
Speaker 1: think about it instead is like a little blob of stuff.
17:26
Speaker 1: And as you said, it's in a stationary state. It's
17:30
Speaker 1: like in a stable configuration. It's like if you've trapped
17:32
Speaker 1: this little thing in a container. It's just hanging out
17:35
Speaker 1: in there. It's not actually in motion. So the best
17:38
Speaker 1: way to think about this is a little pack of
17:39
Speaker 1: energy in its lowest possible state. So then I guess
17:44
Speaker 1: why do we always use the word orbiting and like,
17:47
Speaker 1: you know, when we talk about electrons and then the
17:49
Speaker 1: end we always say, you know, the electron is orbiting?
17:51
Speaker 1: Is it? Because it's sort of like an analogy, you know,
17:54
Speaker 1: like an orbit is kind of like a stable energy level. Yeah.
17:58
Speaker 1: I think we probably shouldn't use the word orbit because
18:00
Speaker 1: it's very misleading, but I think it's historical. It shows
18:03
Speaker 1: the sort of the development of our thinking. We've started
18:06
Speaker 1: from a classical idea and we've been gradually moving more
18:09
Speaker 1: and more towards these quantum ideas. So now we talk about,
18:12
Speaker 1: you know, orbit tolls which represent like energy densities. Still
18:16
Speaker 1: that this sort of suggestive because you're suggesting the electron
18:19
Speaker 1: has a location, it just has like a probability to
18:21
Speaker 1: be here in a probability to be there, when really
18:24
Speaker 1: the location of the electron and its motion is not
18:26
Speaker 1: well defined until something actually interacts with the electron. And
18:30
Speaker 1: so often these classical analogies are easier to understand, but
18:33
Speaker 1: they're often misleading as well. All right, well, then it
18:38
Speaker 1: sounds like the answers to the question is that electrons
18:41
Speaker 1: in atoms don't radiate photons because they're not really accelerating, right,
18:45
Speaker 1: they're not really moving, and so nothing would sort of
18:48
Speaker 1: prop them to shoot off a photon. That's right, and
18:50
Speaker 1: sometimes they do shoot off a photon. Remember that there
18:52
Speaker 1: are electrons in like higher energy states. There's a ladder
18:56
Speaker 1: of states there, and if you're in a higher energy state,
18:58
Speaker 1: then you can actually move down onto a lower energy state,
19:01
Speaker 1: and the way you do that is you shoot off
19:03
Speaker 1: a photon. So, for example, anytime you see a gas
19:06
Speaker 1: that's like glowing, you know that's gas that's been energized.
19:09
Speaker 1: The electrons have extra energy and they give off photons
19:12
Speaker 1: and go down to a lower energy, but most atoms,
19:15
Speaker 1: the electrons are at their lowest energy level. And one
19:18
Speaker 1: really interesting thing about quantum objects like an electron is
19:21
Speaker 1: that they have a minimum energy level. Like the electron
19:25
Speaker 1: can't go into the nucleus. They can't like settle down
19:27
Speaker 1: to a zero energy state, because there's a minimum energy
19:31
Speaker 1: to every quantum field. This is called the quantum zero
19:34
Speaker 1: point energy. So the electron can't collapse into the nucleus
19:37
Speaker 1: because it's already at the lowest possible energy level. I see.
19:41
Speaker 1: All right, So then electrons and atoms can radiate photons,
19:44
Speaker 1: but it's not because of the wiggling or the exploration.
19:47
Speaker 1: It's because they jump from one energy state to another. Yeah,
19:50
Speaker 1: all right, Well, hopefully that answer is Tim's question, and
19:53
Speaker 1: so let's get into our two other questions for the episodes,
19:56
Speaker 1: one about the curvature space and the equals mc square
19:59
Speaker 1: and the other one about the Higgs field and whether
20:01
Speaker 1: or not we can live without it. But first let's
20:03
Speaker 1: take a quick break. All right, we are answering listener
20:17
Speaker 1: questions today, and our next question comes from Pete, who
20:21
Speaker 1: has a question about energy and the curvature of space. Hi,
20:26
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge my name is Pete. I have a
20:28
Speaker 1: question about spacetime curvature. According to the general relativity, we
20:32
Speaker 1: know space curves in the presence of matter or energy density.
20:37
Speaker 1: But can we detect the curvature of space or ripples
20:40
Speaker 1: in spacetime from just energy density alone and not through
20:43
Speaker 1: the effects of matter like black holes and neutron stars
20:46
Speaker 1: and stuff. Given that E equals mc squared, you would
20:49
Speaker 1: think that energy has tremendously more influence throughout the universe
20:53
Speaker 1: than just matter. But can we detect gravity waves from
20:56
Speaker 1: things like supernova or quasars? Thanks very much, I love
21:00
Speaker 1: your podcast. Awesome, Thank you, Pete Daniel. I feel like
21:02
Speaker 1: I need an episode that explains these questions much less
21:07
Speaker 1: trying to answer. I feel like I need a listener
21:09
Speaker 1: questions questions episode about this one. You picked some pretty
21:13
Speaker 1: tough ones today. Did you do that on purpose? Yeah?
21:16
Speaker 1: I thought you needed a challenge. No, I just thought
21:18
Speaker 1: these were fun. Some of these made me go off
21:20
Speaker 1: and do some research, which is always something I enjoyed doing.
21:23
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things about this podcast is that
21:25
Speaker 1: it gives me an excuse to go off and read
21:27
Speaker 1: about areas of physics I've always been interested in but
21:29
Speaker 1: never had time to dig into m All right, well,
21:32
Speaker 1: let me see if I can interpret this question. So
21:34
Speaker 1: I think Pete is saying that we know that gravity
21:38
Speaker 1: and mass bend space and curve space, right, and we
21:42
Speaker 1: also know that energy does that too. So I think
21:45
Speaker 1: this question is can we detect this bending of space
21:48
Speaker 1: from just energy, because there should be a lot of
21:50
Speaker 1: energy in the universe, especially if the equals empty squared,
21:54
Speaker 1: because that means that the energy is much more powerful
21:56
Speaker 1: than matter. Yeah, exactly. I think that's the question because
22:00
Speaker 1: general relativity doesn't just say that mass bend space. Mass
22:03
Speaker 1: does bend space, but mass is just an example of
22:06
Speaker 1: the category of stuff that can bend space, which is
22:09
Speaker 1: anything essentially with energy density. And it's actually, for those
22:12
Speaker 1: general relativity nerds out there, a little bit more complicated.
22:16
Speaker 1: There's a stress energy tensor, so it's also dependent on
22:19
Speaker 1: how that stuff is arranged, but it's close enough to
22:21
Speaker 1: say that anything with energy can change the shape of space,
22:25
Speaker 1: and not just matter. Matter is an example of energy.
22:28
Speaker 1: So I think his question is why don't we see
22:30
Speaker 1: space being bent by energy because equals mc squared suggests
22:33
Speaker 1: that energy should be super powerful in the universe, right,
22:37
Speaker 1: meaning like, if I see a neutron star giving off
22:40
Speaker 1: a lot of light, do I see space bending because
22:43
Speaker 1: of all that light coming out of it? And I
22:45
Speaker 1: think it's useful to sort of dig into the second
22:47
Speaker 1: part of his question first, like this question, but E
22:49
Speaker 1: equals mc squared and what that means. It's certainly true
22:53
Speaker 1: that mass contains a lot of energy. Right, equals mc
22:56
Speaker 1: squared means that mass is very dense with energy because
23:00
Speaker 1: the C squared is a big number, right, ce is
23:03
Speaker 1: the speed of light, which is three million meters per second.
23:07
Speaker 1: So you take a little bit of mass and you're
23:09
Speaker 1: multiplied by a big number squared to get how much
23:12
Speaker 1: energy is stored inside that mass. And we know that,
23:15
Speaker 1: for example, because you can make like a huge bomb
23:18
Speaker 1: with a tiny little bit of fuel by getting that
23:20
Speaker 1: energy out of mass. That's how nuclear weapons work. Right,
23:24
Speaker 1: So we know that mass is very very dense with energy, right.
23:27
Speaker 1: And I know from our conversation is that basically you
23:30
Speaker 1: can also say that mass is just energy, right, or
23:33
Speaker 1: in a way, mass is just like a measure of energy. Yeah,
23:36
Speaker 1: So it's all sort of the same thing anyways, Exactly.
23:39
Speaker 1: That's the point I want to make, is that what
23:40
Speaker 1: is that mass anyway, It's really just the energy inside
23:44
Speaker 1: the object. Like most of your mass doesn't come from
23:47
Speaker 1: the stuff that makes you up, the little corks and
23:49
Speaker 1: the electrons. It comes from the energy of those objects
23:52
Speaker 1: being held together. So your mass, how much your bending
23:56
Speaker 1: space is actually just from your internal energy. Like the
23:59
Speaker 1: bond between your objects is what gives you mass and
24:02
Speaker 1: helps you bend space. So even if you're just looking
24:05
Speaker 1: at a neutron star or a black hole, the reason
24:08
Speaker 1: it has mass is because it contains a lot of energy.
24:11
Speaker 1: So basically, every time you're seeing space bend, it's just
24:14
Speaker 1: because of energy. Right. Well, I think most of my
24:17
Speaker 1: mass comes from French fries. But there's a different topic altogether.
24:21
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a term in Einstein's equation for
24:23
Speaker 1: French fries, but maybe you should have added one. Well,
24:26
Speaker 1: he was German, so I think he's worn too sausages
24:28
Speaker 1: or something. What is the French friese density of the
24:31
Speaker 1: universe anyway, another deep question of physics we can't answer.
24:35
Speaker 1: I mean, French fries do you need to make a star?
24:37
Speaker 1: I don't know your star. How many French fries have
24:39
Speaker 1: you eaten? That's probably more than the number of hamsters
24:43
Speaker 1: in the universe more than the number of hamsters you've eaten.
24:45
Speaker 1: I hope somethings that even with him. Then then we
24:48
Speaker 1: get a black hole. But I think what you're saying
24:50
Speaker 1: is that mass is energy, and so you know energy
24:54
Speaker 1: is causing the bending of space out there. But I
24:57
Speaker 1: think maybe Pete's question is born like can we see
25:00
Speaker 1: the bending of space just from energy that's not associated
25:04
Speaker 1: with mass, right, because there is energy that's not related
25:07
Speaker 1: to mass too, right, Yeah, there is absolutely. Like you
25:09
Speaker 1: take a photon, A photon is just energy. It has
25:12
Speaker 1: no mass, right, So lots of radiation can be massless,
25:16
Speaker 1: like gravitational waves are also a form of radiation. They
25:20
Speaker 1: have no mass, but there's a lot of energy there.
25:23
Speaker 1: And so I think his question really is like, can
25:25
Speaker 1: you just take photons or gravitational waves massless energy and
25:30
Speaker 1: use that to bend space? Whoa wait, so it's not
25:32
Speaker 1: a gravitational wave was a bending of space. You're saying
25:36
Speaker 1: that the bending of space can cause the bending of space. Yeah. Absolutely,
25:39
Speaker 1: That's the crazy thing about gravity that's sort of nonlinear
25:42
Speaker 1: that way, right, sort of keys off of itself, and
25:45
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that makes it so difficult
25:47
Speaker 1: to develop a quantum theory of gravity, like gravitons would
25:51
Speaker 1: interact with other gravitons, and you know the way that
25:54
Speaker 1: like photons don't write, photons don't interact with other photons.
25:57
Speaker 1: That's one reason why electromagnetism is easier to calculate and
26:01
Speaker 1: think about, and then other theories like the strong force
26:04
Speaker 1: where gluons interact with other gluons or gravity where things
26:07
Speaker 1: get nonlinear for similar reasons. M M all right, Well
26:10
Speaker 1: then Pete's question I think is can we detect the
26:13
Speaker 1: bending of space from just photons and or all that
26:16
Speaker 1: energy flying around the universe or is that somehow in
26:19
Speaker 1: a different category of space bending. Yeah. I think there's
26:22
Speaker 1: two different answers here. One is like is it possible?
26:25
Speaker 1: Could you do this? And the other is like why
26:27
Speaker 1: don't we see it more happening in the universe today?
26:30
Speaker 1: And to answer the first one, we think that you
26:33
Speaker 1: could in principle, if you took enough lasers that were
26:37
Speaker 1: powerful enough and you focused them on a single point
26:40
Speaker 1: so you overlapped huge number of photons in a tiny
26:44
Speaker 1: little space, then you would create a black hole. Mmmmm wait, wait,
26:49
Speaker 1: if you shoot enough photons into one space, you might
26:51
Speaker 1: create a black hole. That sounds crazy, right, nobody would
26:54
Speaker 1: ever try to do that. Would day supervillains out there?
26:57
Speaker 1: Take note in your layers underneath volcano. We are giving
27:00
Speaker 1: the prescription today for how to create a black hole.
27:04
Speaker 1: At the Large Hadron Collider, we shoot protons together a
27:07
Speaker 1: very high energy. The idea is the same. If you
27:10
Speaker 1: have enough energy in those collisions, you might have enough
27:13
Speaker 1: energy density to create a miniature black hole. Same idea
27:17
Speaker 1: with photons, just different kind of particle. If you build
27:20
Speaker 1: enough big lasers and overlap their beams in one tight
27:23
Speaker 1: little spot, you could create a black hole. That people
27:26
Speaker 1: have done the calculation, and you'd need to have like
27:29
Speaker 1: a single laser pulse have the same amount of energy
27:32
Speaker 1: that the Sun produces in a tenth of a second.
27:35
Speaker 1: So we're not talking about like the kind of lasers
27:37
Speaker 1: that humans can build currently. We're talking about like enormous
27:41
Speaker 1: alien terra scale projects lasers to build a black hole.
27:45
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Well, first of all, I feel like you
27:47
Speaker 1: just admitted to being a supervillain, Daniel. No, no, no,
27:50
Speaker 1: I'm a consultant for supervillain. Isn't that what all these
27:52
Speaker 1: listener questions are really about you're just a betting the
27:56
Speaker 1: villains right for money. I'm just a scientist answering hypoth
28:00
Speaker 1: medical questions about how to build a Doom's Day device.
28:02
Speaker 1: That's all. That's right. You're just asking for a friend
28:05
Speaker 1: while stroking a cat in their lap, all right. So
28:07
Speaker 1: it is possible to bend space with just energy, with
28:10
Speaker 1: just photons, and you can even make a black hole
28:13
Speaker 1: if you overlap enough photons in one spot. Now, the
28:15
Speaker 1: other part of Pete's question was why don't we see
28:18
Speaker 1: more of that in the universe, because like there's a
28:19
Speaker 1: lot of light in the universe, there's a lot of
28:21
Speaker 1: you know, radiation being admitted and sing everywhere. Do we
28:24
Speaker 1: see a general bending of space from that energy? So
28:27
Speaker 1: the answer is that radiation does contribute to the overall
28:31
Speaker 1: general bending of space. Like when we measure the curvature
28:35
Speaker 1: of the whole universe, we measure how much energy density
28:38
Speaker 1: there is, like per volume, and that affects the whole
28:42
Speaker 1: bending of space. And part of that budget is radiation
28:46
Speaker 1: is like includes the photons and the gravitational waves and
28:49
Speaker 1: all the other kinds of radiation that are in every
28:52
Speaker 1: unit of space. So the answer is Yes, that happens,
28:54
Speaker 1: and we can measure it. We can measure the radiation
28:57
Speaker 1: component of the universe, and we know it does contribute
29:01
Speaker 1: to the bending of space. But there isn't very much
29:04
Speaker 1: radiation in the universe. Like if you look at the
29:07
Speaker 1: pie chart of the energy budget for the universe per
29:10
Speaker 1: like unit of space, it's mostly not radiation. Most of
29:14
Speaker 1: the energy in the universe is dark energy. Some other
29:17
Speaker 1: fraction of the energy and universe is matter. Very very
29:21
Speaker 1: tiny sliver of the energy of the universe is in
29:24
Speaker 1: the form of radiation. So it's there. It contributes, we
29:28
Speaker 1: can measure it, but there's just not very much radiation
29:30
Speaker 1: in the universe right now. I see. So you're talking
29:34
Speaker 1: about like a specific type of energy, which is like
29:37
Speaker 1: light or radiation. You're saying, that's a pretty small percentage
29:40
Speaker 1: of the matter and energy, right except the non dark
29:44
Speaker 1: energy stuff in the universe. Yeah, exactly what you have
29:46
Speaker 1: to include the dark energy. Dark energy also contributes to
29:49
Speaker 1: the overall curvature of the universe. And you know that's
29:51
Speaker 1: super interesting, Like we have just about as much energy
29:55
Speaker 1: per unit volume as you need the universe to keep
29:58
Speaker 1: the universe to be flat. So the overall curvature is
30:01
Speaker 1: basically zero. That's something we don't even really understand very well.
30:05
Speaker 1: All the energy adds up to like exactly the right
30:07
Speaker 1: number to make the universe have like flat curvature, which
30:10
Speaker 1: is weird. But photons and gravitational waves and other kinds
30:14
Speaker 1: of radiation are a tiny little sliver of that. But
30:17
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that that didn't used to be
30:19
Speaker 1: the case. There was a time in the history of
30:22
Speaker 1: the universe when radiation dominated the energy budget right at
30:27
Speaker 1: the beginning of the universe, right, that's right, very early on,
30:30
Speaker 1: the universe was like crazy lousy with photons, Like photons
30:34
Speaker 1: were everywhere. It was mostly photons. They were bouncing around,
30:37
Speaker 1: they were being created. The place was hot and dense.
30:40
Speaker 1: So the first like fifty thousand years of the universe
30:44
Speaker 1: we think was radiation dominated. Then of course things cooled down,
30:48
Speaker 1: and when things cooled down, that radiation turns into matter
30:52
Speaker 1: and then doesn't oscillate back into radiation. So for example,
30:55
Speaker 1: a photon whizzing around becomes an electron and oppositron, and
30:59
Speaker 1: maybe those guys go off in opposite directions and don't
31:01
Speaker 1: recombine to make an electron. And because the universe is
31:05
Speaker 1: cooled and more dilute. There aren't like other particles for
31:08
Speaker 1: them to annihilate into, so instead of matter and antimatter
31:11
Speaker 1: annihilating each other, they just sort of like go their
31:14
Speaker 1: own ways. And then we have the universe being matter
31:16
Speaker 1: dominated for like ten billion years, So the universe was
31:21
Speaker 1: radiation dominated, but only for a very short while in
31:24
Speaker 1: the early universe, right, I think you're saying that right now,
31:27
Speaker 1: like where we are now in the history of the universe,
31:29
Speaker 1: the universe is too cool or not bright enough to
31:33
Speaker 1: really see the effects of like right energy space bending. Yeah,
31:37
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. But there is dark energy, but that's
31:40
Speaker 1: kind of a different kind of energy, Like we don't
31:42
Speaker 1: love dark energy in with all of the other types
31:44
Speaker 1: of energy. Yeah, exactly, even though it has the word
31:46
Speaker 1: energy in the name. Well, it is a kind of energy,
31:50
Speaker 1: but it's not a kind of radiation or a kind
31:52
Speaker 1: of matter as far as we know. So if you
31:54
Speaker 1: have those categories, dark energy is most of the energy,
31:57
Speaker 1: and the universe is like the rest of it is
32:00
Speaker 1: matter and radiation, but of the matter and radiation portion,
32:03
Speaker 1: most of that is matter. So yeah, there is radiation
32:05
Speaker 1: in the universe, but it's a tiny sliver, and the
32:08
Speaker 1: history I think is super fascinating. In the first fifty
32:10
Speaker 1: thousand years it was all radiation, then the next ten
32:13
Speaker 1: billion years was matter dominated, and the last four billion
32:17
Speaker 1: years or so have been dark energy dominated. So we've
32:19
Speaker 1: seen like these different phases of time where different components
32:22
Speaker 1: are dominating the energy budget of the universe, until we
32:26
Speaker 1: expand our serviable universe, and then it's hamster dominated universe. Right,
32:31
Speaker 1: the hamsters belong in the matter of category, the radiation category,
32:35
Speaker 1: or are they their own kind of energy? All of
32:38
Speaker 1: the above. It's a hamster powered universe or none of
32:41
Speaker 1: the above. It's right, We're all just the giant wheel
32:44
Speaker 1: spinning because of the hamsters. Feels like it sometimes. All right, well,
32:48
Speaker 1: I think that answers Pete's question. Can we detect the
32:50
Speaker 1: curvature space from just energy? And the answer is yes,
32:53
Speaker 1: But right now it's pretty faint, although it used to
32:56
Speaker 1: be much more significant. So let's get into our last
32:59
Speaker 1: question of the EPISO. So this one's about the Higgs
33:02
Speaker 1: field and whether or not we can live without it.
33:04
Speaker 1: So let's get into that. But first let's take another
33:06
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, we're answering listener questions, and we're
33:22
Speaker 1: at our last question of the episode. This one is
33:25
Speaker 1: from Alex and Ward from Belgium, who are a father
33:29
Speaker 1: and son question asking team, or maybe they're a hamster
33:33
Speaker 1: and rabbit, but who knows talking hamster and rabbit. Do
33:36
Speaker 1: you think they're eating French fries, Daniel or Belgium fries?
33:39
Speaker 1: What do they call them in Belgium? I think they
33:41
Speaker 1: call them palm freed. And if they're eating them, they're
33:43
Speaker 1: probably eating them with mayonnaise, which is awesome. I am
33:47
Speaker 1: definitely in the mayor with fries camp. What about you?
33:49
Speaker 1: Oh my god, are you serious? Wow, We're gonna have
33:51
Speaker 1: to revaluate his entire friendship. Yeah, I love it. And
33:56
Speaker 1: if that's the end of our friendship, then I'll stand
33:58
Speaker 1: by that line in this thing. It's delicious. Mayo is
34:02
Speaker 1: delicious and basically everything I like mixing them together. Actually
34:05
Speaker 1: a little mayo, a little catch up. I think you're
34:08
Speaker 1: a magic thought. That's right. I mixed the light and
34:11
Speaker 1: the dark sides of the force, the matter and the
34:14
Speaker 1: antimatter of condiment. All right, Well, Alex and White have
34:17
Speaker 1: a question about the Higgs Field. Hi, Daniel and j
34:21
Speaker 1: you'r Alexander and what's two huge fans from Belgium. We
34:26
Speaker 1: love your book and podcasts. Alexander, who is twelve years old,
34:30
Speaker 1: read in a science magazine that the Higgs field was
34:32
Speaker 1: created sometime after the Big Bang, and you asked me
34:35
Speaker 1: the following question about us. If the universe started expanding
34:40
Speaker 1: at at a big bang, and the Higgs field was
34:43
Speaker 1: created after the Big Bang, and the information cannot go
34:46
Speaker 1: faster than speed of light, and the expansion of space
34:49
Speaker 1: goes faster than light, then shouldn't there be a place
34:53
Speaker 1: in the universe where there's no Higgs field even today?
34:56
Speaker 1: A really hard question and I really have no maybe
35:01
Speaker 1: you can help, thank you. All right, I agree, it's
35:05
Speaker 1: a pretty tricky question, and I'm glad we're here to
35:08
Speaker 1: answer father's questions. Should we tackle purity next? And that's right.
35:14
Speaker 1: We are the backup parents online and the Birds and
35:17
Speaker 1: the Bees and the Hamsters. I think that's a different
35:19
Speaker 1: podcast though, we should, you know, stick to our specialty. Yeah,
35:22
Speaker 1: you should go listen to Creature feature for that one.
35:25
Speaker 1: All right. Well, the question I think here is I'm
35:27
Speaker 1: trying to wrap my head around it because it's it's
35:29
Speaker 1: a little tricky. I think I think he's saying that
35:32
Speaker 1: if the Higgs field was created after the Big Bang,
35:35
Speaker 1: shouldn't there be a part of the universe with no
35:37
Speaker 1: Higgs field, Because I think he's thinking that maybe there
35:39
Speaker 1: was a big emptiness, or there was larger universe, and
35:42
Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle there was a big bang which
35:44
Speaker 1: started the creation of the Higgs field, and so shouldn't
35:46
Speaker 1: there be parts of the universe without the Higgs field.
35:48
Speaker 1: Do you think that's what's going on in his head. Yeah,
35:50
Speaker 1: I think that's the question. And so there's a bunch
35:52
Speaker 1: of interesting stuff there, like this idea that the Higgs
35:55
Speaker 1: field is created after the Big Bang and where it
35:58
Speaker 1: was created and then how it spreads out through the universe.
36:01
Speaker 1: Has a bunch of fun ideas there to disentangle. All right, Well,
36:05
Speaker 1: let's recap really quickly. What is the Higgs field in
36:08
Speaker 1: the first place. Yeah, So the Higgs field is this
36:10
Speaker 1: thing we discovered about ten years ago. We suspected it
36:14
Speaker 1: existed for like fifty years, but it only found confirmation
36:17
Speaker 1: at the Particle collider in twelve. And if a field
36:20
Speaker 1: that we think fills the whole universe and interacts with
36:23
Speaker 1: particles in a way, that gives them mass. So the reason,
36:26
Speaker 1: for example, an electron doesn't have zero mass is that
36:29
Speaker 1: it flies to the universe and interacts with the Higgs field,
36:32
Speaker 1: which changes the way it moves so that it looks
36:34
Speaker 1: like it has some inertial mass. It means that it
36:37
Speaker 1: takes a force to push the electron to speed it up,
36:40
Speaker 1: or also forced to slow it down. So the Higgs
36:42
Speaker 1: field affects how particles move in a way that gives
36:45
Speaker 1: them mass. Cool, and we knew about it for a
36:48
Speaker 1: long time, but we discovered that recently. So that's the
36:51
Speaker 1: Higgs field. But what does it mean that it was
36:53
Speaker 1: created after the Big Bang? Like it wasn't always there,
36:57
Speaker 1: or was it there but not active? This is actually
36:59
Speaker 1: a really anxiest and deep question that goes to like
37:02
Speaker 1: how we think about our physics. You know, we are
37:04
Speaker 1: trying to find the deepest rules of the universe. We
37:07
Speaker 1: think that maybe, as you were saying before, there are
37:10
Speaker 1: like fundamental rules to the universe, like the equations that
37:13
Speaker 1: cover everything. Now we don't think we have found those equations.
37:17
Speaker 1: We have a standard model of particle physics that works
37:19
Speaker 1: really really well, but we don't think that the equations
37:21
Speaker 1: we have are like the ones that are really fundamentally true.
37:25
Speaker 1: We think the equations we have sort of work for
37:27
Speaker 1: the conditions that we have studied, and we don't think
37:29
Speaker 1: that they're like the deep and true equations. So what
37:32
Speaker 1: that means is that the laws we're talking about, including
37:35
Speaker 1: like the existence of the Higgs field, are really just
37:37
Speaker 1: like effective laws. It's sort of like if you are
37:40
Speaker 1: living in ice and you've been studying the way ice works,
37:43
Speaker 1: the crystal structure of it, and how it moves, and
37:46
Speaker 1: how energy moves through it. The laws of how the
37:48
Speaker 1: ice works are not like fundamental to the universe. They're
37:51
Speaker 1: just descriptions of how the ice works, the physics of
37:54
Speaker 1: that ice. And so in the same way, we suspect
37:56
Speaker 1: that the universe used to be hotter, used to be denser,
38:00
Speaker 1: and so it's effectively different laws of physics were at play.
38:03
Speaker 1: So when we say the Higgs field was created, what
38:06
Speaker 1: we really mean is that the universe cooled down to
38:09
Speaker 1: a point where it makes sense to talk about the
38:11
Speaker 1: Higgs field. Where the Higgs field is like a useful
38:14
Speaker 1: mental idea for doing physics. I see, It's just we
38:18
Speaker 1: don't know if the Higgs field is a fundamental thing.
38:21
Speaker 1: You're saying, like there may be like higher laws or something,
38:23
Speaker 1: But at least from what we know and what we
38:26
Speaker 1: can see around, the Higgs field is a pretty good
38:28
Speaker 1: description of what's going on. But that's not always the
38:30
Speaker 1: case exactly. We're pretty sure that it isn't the case. Like,
38:33
Speaker 1: if you try to take our theories and apply them
38:36
Speaker 1: to really really crazy scenarios at the very beginning of
38:39
Speaker 1: the universe, they just don't work. So we're pretty sure
38:42
Speaker 1: that our laws, including the Higgs field, are not the
38:44
Speaker 1: true laws of the universe. They're just the ones that
38:47
Speaker 1: we have found that describe the situations we've been able
38:50
Speaker 1: to explore. So if somebody says the Higgs field was created,
38:53
Speaker 1: I think that's a little bit misleading. What they really
38:55
Speaker 1: mean is that the universe cool to a point where
38:57
Speaker 1: the Higgs field makes sense as a way to think
39:00
Speaker 1: about the universe. M But I guess the weird thing
39:03
Speaker 1: about it is that the Higgs field feels really fundamental, right.
39:06
Speaker 1: It gives things mass. So does that mean that at
39:09
Speaker 1: some point we didn't have mass? It like mass didn't
39:11
Speaker 1: make sense in the universe. It could be It could
39:13
Speaker 1: also be that there are just different rules, different ways
39:16
Speaker 1: to get mass, or it could be like mass is
39:18
Speaker 1: not an important concept. You know, everything that we're talking
39:21
Speaker 1: about in the universe, we don't know if they are fundamental,
39:24
Speaker 1: like essential elements of the universe or just emergence stuff
39:29
Speaker 1: that like comes out of the complexity of the universe.
39:32
Speaker 1: And you know, that's easy to think about for some things,
39:34
Speaker 1: like for example, we have ice cream in the universe.
39:37
Speaker 1: Ice Cream feels important, especially in a hot summer, but
39:40
Speaker 1: it's not fundamental. You can imagine there could be universes
39:42
Speaker 1: without ice cream, right, no big deal. Well, I beg
39:46
Speaker 1: to different Daniel, what's the universe without ice cream? It
39:49
Speaker 1: might not be worth living in. But you know there
39:51
Speaker 1: are other things to difference rise into. But you can
39:53
Speaker 1: also think that same logic and applies to other things
39:56
Speaker 1: in the universe, like the Higgs field or even like
39:59
Speaker 1: space it's self. Right, we talked in the podcast about
40:02
Speaker 1: whether space itself is actually fundamental to the universe or
40:05
Speaker 1: if you could have a universe without space. And we
40:08
Speaker 1: physicists feel like, well, we don't really know the true
40:10
Speaker 1: nature of the universe. We've just been studying this one
40:13
Speaker 1: particular slice of the universe in a certain energy range,
40:16
Speaker 1: a certain temperature range, because that's the one we live in,
40:19
Speaker 1: and we know that our theories we try to do
40:21
Speaker 1: calculations don't work at higher temperatures, and so we suspect
40:25
Speaker 1: that some of the stuff that seems fundamental is actually
40:28
Speaker 1: just emergent. It's just like an interesting property that comes about,
40:32
Speaker 1: but isn't like deeply true about the universe. I guess,
40:36
Speaker 1: going back to Alex's question, you're saying that the universe
40:39
Speaker 1: at some point cooled down enough to where the Higgs
40:41
Speaker 1: field came into effect, basically, and so I think his
40:44
Speaker 1: question is like, did that happen everywhere at once or
40:48
Speaker 1: did the universe sort of cool differently in different places,
40:51
Speaker 1: and so what does that mean? Or is it cooling
40:53
Speaker 1: right now in different places differently. So it's that there
40:56
Speaker 1: are spots with the Higgs field and spots without the
40:58
Speaker 1: Higgs field. Yeah, that is a really cool question. I
41:01
Speaker 1: think the origin of his confusion is that he imagines
41:04
Speaker 1: that the Higgs field was created in one place and
41:06
Speaker 1: then would have to spread out through the universe. And
41:08
Speaker 1: he's right that because information travels at the speed of light,
41:12
Speaker 1: and space expands faster than the speed of light that
41:15
Speaker 1: if that were the case, then the information wouldn't be
41:17
Speaker 1: out through the whole universe, and there would be parts
41:20
Speaker 1: of the universe without the Higgs field. But as you say,
41:23
Speaker 1: we don't think the Higgs field was created just in
41:25
Speaker 1: one place. The universe cools simultaneously everywhere. Remember, the Big
41:29
Speaker 1: Bang is not like the explosion of a tiny, little
41:32
Speaker 1: dense blob of matter in the early universe. It's the
41:35
Speaker 1: expansion of the entire universe simultaneously. It happened everywhere at
41:40
Speaker 1: the same time, and it's happening still. This expansion, this dilution,
41:44
Speaker 1: this cooling of the universe, still happening everywhere. And so
41:48
Speaker 1: we think that the whole universe cooled at once, and
41:51
Speaker 1: this like moment when the Higgs fial was relevant probably
41:54
Speaker 1: happened all over the universe. Now, it may have happened
41:57
Speaker 1: at slightly different times. There were different quantum fluctuary sations
42:00
Speaker 1: in the early universe, so some bits were a little
42:02
Speaker 1: hotter and some bits were a little cooler. So some
42:05
Speaker 1: parts of the universe probably got the Higgs field before
42:07
Speaker 1: other parts of the universe, as we say, but what
42:10
Speaker 1: probably wasn't a very big difference. But you're saying there
42:12
Speaker 1: was a moment in time in the universe where there
42:15
Speaker 1: were spots like patches of Higgs field. Some places had it,
42:17
Speaker 1: in some places maybe didn't. Yeah, and I can remember
42:20
Speaker 1: we're not talking about like the physical creation of something.
42:23
Speaker 1: We're talking about the universe transitioning from sort of a
42:26
Speaker 1: phase where you can talk about the Higgs field where
42:28
Speaker 1: it makes sense, to a phase where it doesn't. And
42:30
Speaker 1: we don't really know what those phase transitions are alike.
42:33
Speaker 1: You know, is it like going from a solid to
42:36
Speaker 1: a liquid where it's really sudden and in one moment
42:38
Speaker 1: at one set of rules applies, like motion through a crystal.
42:41
Speaker 1: In another moment you're doing fluid dynamics, or is it
42:44
Speaker 1: very gradual, the way like gases turned into plasmas. So
42:47
Speaker 1: we really just don't know what that transition is like
42:50
Speaker 1: we do, I have no idea what the physics was
42:52
Speaker 1: like on the other side. That's one reason we want to,
42:54
Speaker 1: for example, build bigger particle colliders to recreate those conditions
42:58
Speaker 1: and like see the physics and those scenarios. Does the
43:00
Speaker 1: Higgs field still work? What kind of theory do we
43:03
Speaker 1: need to describe super duper high energy scenarios We just
43:06
Speaker 1: don't know. Man, you just have to work in a
43:08
Speaker 1: commercial for your job, like more funding to find out
43:12
Speaker 1: the answer. Look, if we're talking to supervillains that have
43:15
Speaker 1: the capacity to build planet busting black holes, and yes,
43:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to pitch of twenty billion dollar project. Excuse me, great,
43:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, I was thinking that the universe
43:24
Speaker 1: sort of all cooled everywhere at once, and so maybe
43:28
Speaker 1: there was a time from what we know that there
43:31
Speaker 1: were patches of Higgs field or no Higgs field. But
43:34
Speaker 1: now as what we know what we can see, it's
43:36
Speaker 1: all pretty cool down and everywhere that we know has
43:39
Speaker 1: the Higgs field. Yeah, everywhere in the universe, the big
43:41
Speaker 1: variations of temperature from here to the center of the Sun,
43:44
Speaker 1: for example. But we think that all those places are
43:47
Speaker 1: still described by the same physics where the Higgs field
43:49
Speaker 1: is important. So we think that there's the Higgs field
43:52
Speaker 1: all the way through the whole universe as far as
43:54
Speaker 1: we are aware. I guess we have to add that
43:56
Speaker 1: caveat like it's there as far as we know. It's
43:58
Speaker 1: as far as the observable universe, right, Like they could
44:00
Speaker 1: be that maybe our observable universe is in a patch
44:03
Speaker 1: of cooler universe, and there might be patches of horder
44:05
Speaker 1: universe elsewhere without a Higgs field. Yeah. If past the
44:09
Speaker 1: edge of the observable universe it's really hot and dense,
44:11
Speaker 1: crazy with hamsters eating French fries, then possibly the Higgs
44:15
Speaker 1: field does not apply. Yeah. Wow, So I guess the
44:18
Speaker 1: answer for Alex is that there are no patches of
44:21
Speaker 1: no Higgs field as far as we know in the
44:23
Speaker 1: observer world universe. But you know, who knows what's out
44:25
Speaker 1: there beyond the observable universe, That's right? Who knows what
44:28
Speaker 1: those hamsters are dipping their French fries into mayonnaise, ketchup
44:32
Speaker 1: ice cream, some weird combination. They're crazy and no coincidence.
44:37
Speaker 1: Both hamsters and Higgs started with an age, So I'm
44:40
Speaker 1: sensing some sort of connection here. Maybe that's right. Maybe
44:43
Speaker 1: it was a hamster field all along, that's right. Yeah,
44:46
Speaker 1: twist ending called en Knights Shimelan, that's right. It's not
44:49
Speaker 1: about the journey, it's about the hamsters you made along
44:52
Speaker 1: the way. Al Right. Well, I think that answers Alex
44:56
Speaker 1: and Ward's question. There might still be parts of the
44:59
Speaker 1: universe without a field, in which case nobody has any
45:02
Speaker 1: mass there, and so you can eat all the French
45:03
Speaker 1: fries you want. That's right, you have the physicist approval
45:08
Speaker 1: to eat all the French fries you want. No, technically speaking,
45:10
Speaker 1: if there are portions of the universe too hot for
45:12
Speaker 1: a Higgs field to apply, that we have no idea
45:15
Speaker 1: what mass even means out there, So be careful and
45:18
Speaker 1: stick to your diet. All right. Well, that answers all
45:21
Speaker 1: three listener questions. Thanks again for sending in your questions
45:24
Speaker 1: and sharing your curiosity with us and with everybody else. Yeah,
45:28
Speaker 1: we think that everybody should be asking questions about the universe,
45:31
Speaker 1: and everyone's questions deserve answers. So don't be shy. Unleash
45:35
Speaker 1: your intellect upon the cosmos and wonder if things fit together,
45:40
Speaker 1: if things make sense to you. Because you might ask
45:42
Speaker 1: a question that cracks open everything. You might ask a
45:46
Speaker 1: question that breaks the hamster wheel off the universe. Well,
45:49
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. We hope you enjoyed that. See
45:51
Speaker 1: you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel
46:02
Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I
46:05
Speaker 1: Heart Radio or more podcast from my heart Radio. Visit
46:08
Speaker 1: the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
46:12
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. Ye