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Could dark matter be made of quarks? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you know what dark matter is? Meet us?
0:11
Speaker 1: Oh man, I wish I did. Are you sure it's
0:14
Speaker 1: not something simple like what, you know, like a bunch
0:18
Speaker 1: of rocks painted black. Maybe yeah, okay, it's not that,
0:23
Speaker 1: or you know, just a huge ginormous black hole that
0:26
Speaker 1: would be awesome, but it's not that either, or maybe
0:30
Speaker 1: it could be. Uh, don't go there, space banana. I
0:34
Speaker 1: knew you were going to go there. I have to.
0:37
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you know it's not a space banana? Daniel?
0:58
Speaker 1: I am poor hammy cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi,
1:02
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I don't believe
1:05
Speaker 1: in space bananas. Would you mean you don't believe in space?
1:09
Speaker 1: You don't believe bananas can be in space? Or you
1:11
Speaker 1: don't believe that space can have bananas. I don't believe
1:15
Speaker 1: that particles randomly bouncing around in space will spontaneously form bananas.
1:20
Speaker 1: That's sort of like the Relateman bananas hypothesis. Not even
1:23
Speaker 1: in an infinite universe where anything that's probable happens. Well,
1:28
Speaker 1: you know, in an infinite universe, there actually must be
1:31
Speaker 1: a space banana out there. So and I do think
1:33
Speaker 1: the universe is probably infinite, So you know what, I'm
1:37
Speaker 1: a convert now and now in space. But welcome to
1:41
Speaker 1: my cult, and welcome to all of you to our podcast,
1:44
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I
1:47
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, in which we talk about all the amazing
1:50
Speaker 1: things that are out there and all the amazing things
1:52
Speaker 1: that are in here, and how it all connects and
1:54
Speaker 1: how it all fits together and explain it to you
1:57
Speaker 1: in a way that you can understand and hopefully makes
2:00
Speaker 1: you chuckle. Yeah. We talked about all of the things
2:05
Speaker 1: that are out there that we know about and all
2:06
Speaker 1: the things out there that we don't know about, and
2:09
Speaker 1: not just space bananas. Maybe space bananas made out of
2:12
Speaker 1: dark matter. That's right, because one of the most exciting
2:16
Speaker 1: things about science is not just getting answers and figuring
2:19
Speaker 1: stuff out, but asking questions. So our goal is to
2:22
Speaker 1: take you to the forefront of those questions, to show
2:25
Speaker 1: you what scientists are thinking about, what are the possibilities
2:28
Speaker 1: for some of the answers to those biggest questions, and
2:31
Speaker 1: explain them to you. Yeah, because I think for scientists
2:34
Speaker 1: it's not just enough to know that something is out
2:36
Speaker 1: there and to classify it and to kind of catalog it.
2:39
Speaker 1: But yeah, it seems you guys really want to know
2:42
Speaker 1: what things are made of, you know, you want to
2:44
Speaker 1: keep drilling down until you get to what like mathematics.
2:49
Speaker 1: Well that's my goal. I mean, I don't want to
2:51
Speaker 1: just know that something is there. I want to know
2:53
Speaker 1: is it made out of the same stuff as you
2:55
Speaker 1: and I are. Can we explain all of the crazy, beautiful, amazing, hasty,
3:00
Speaker 1: weird stuff in the universe in terms of the same
3:03
Speaker 1: basic building blocks or do we need to add another
3:05
Speaker 1: building block? So to me, it's it's really interesting just
3:08
Speaker 1: to know, like what is it made out of? Right?
3:11
Speaker 1: Like what what would a space banana be made out of?
3:13
Speaker 1: Ben ainos or bars, bananatons, whatever they're made out of,
3:20
Speaker 1: you will get to name them good and taste them, hopefully.
3:23
Speaker 1: But the question is if we find space bananas, are
3:26
Speaker 1: they made out of the same particles that normal bananas
3:29
Speaker 1: are made out of? Or they made out of something
3:30
Speaker 1: new and weird and different, which might mean that you
3:32
Speaker 1: can't eat them. Oh, I see, they wouldn't taste the same,
3:37
Speaker 1: not if they're made out of some new, weird kind
3:38
Speaker 1: of particle right exotic space bananas, They might not even
3:41
Speaker 1: be digestible by your system. They might pass right through you.
3:44
Speaker 1: That would be weird, oh man. And but then begs
3:47
Speaker 1: the question are they still bananas? And then we have
3:50
Speaker 1: to go through the department of banana philosophy to answer
3:54
Speaker 1: that question. But yeah, we often talk about what things
3:58
Speaker 1: are made of. And one of the biggest questions is
4:00
Speaker 1: not just for us and humans, but in all of
4:03
Speaker 1: the human history, maybe is what is this twenty five
4:08
Speaker 1: of the universe made out of that scientists have discovered.
4:12
Speaker 1: That's right. We spent a lot of time understanding the
4:14
Speaker 1: kind of matter that's around us, bananas and people and
4:17
Speaker 1: toes and ferret and lava, and discovered that all of
4:20
Speaker 1: it's made out of these tiny little particles, quirks and
4:23
Speaker 1: electrons mostly. But then we found that a huge chunk
4:26
Speaker 1: of the universe, twenty of all the energy budget of
4:30
Speaker 1: the universe, is this other kind of matter, this dark matter.
4:34
Speaker 1: And so, of course, as particle physicists, we want to
4:37
Speaker 1: know what is it made out of? Is it made
4:39
Speaker 1: out of particles? If so, is it one particle, is
4:41
Speaker 1: it a familiar particle that we've seen before, or something
4:44
Speaker 1: totally new and weird and different. And I'm used to
4:47
Speaker 1: sort of hyperbolizing this problem. Is saying it's not just
4:49
Speaker 1: the biggest question in physics, it's the biggest question in science.
4:52
Speaker 1: But you just went even further. You're like, this is
4:54
Speaker 1: the biggest question in human history regarding physics. I think
4:59
Speaker 1: that's what. Oh you're qualifying it now, all right, it's
5:02
Speaker 1: too late, man, it's too late. Were already number one question? Ever,
5:06
Speaker 1: m uh, it doesn't. Isn't dark wood? Is dark energy bigger? Okay?
5:11
Speaker 1: Number two question? Ever, is still pretty good? And um
5:15
Speaker 1: so yeah, so it's it's pretty big. I mean it's
5:18
Speaker 1: it's of the universe. And like we the regular matter
5:22
Speaker 1: is only five percent, So this is not like a
5:24
Speaker 1: small question. It's it's um it's like, what is most
5:27
Speaker 1: of the stuff in the universe made out of? Yeah,
5:30
Speaker 1: we're kind of the little detail, right. We thought for
5:32
Speaker 1: a long time that we had figured out mostly what
5:34
Speaker 1: matter was made out of, and then we tried to generalize.
5:37
Speaker 1: You said, well, it must be that the rest of
5:38
Speaker 1: the universe is also made out of similar kinds of stuff.
5:41
Speaker 1: But if the rest of the universe is more then
5:44
Speaker 1: we're sort of the rest of the universe, and that's
5:46
Speaker 1: the normal stuff, and so it's really important that we
5:49
Speaker 1: figure out what that dark matter is made out of.
5:51
Speaker 1: Is it made out of our kind of particles or
5:53
Speaker 1: is it made out of something else? Yeah, And so
5:55
Speaker 1: we have I think a couple of episodes about dark matter,
5:58
Speaker 1: and maybe if you even go back to some of
6:00
Speaker 1: our first podcast episodes, so it's you know, about when
6:03
Speaker 1: we were younger, before the virus, where we talked about
6:07
Speaker 1: what dark matter is, what scientists think it is, what scientists,
6:12
Speaker 1: how scientists know that it's there. And so if you're
6:14
Speaker 1: curious and or catching up about what dark matter, please
6:17
Speaker 1: go through our archive and check those episodes out. But
6:20
Speaker 1: the big question about dark matter is what is it
6:23
Speaker 1: made out of? So we it's this weird matter out
6:25
Speaker 1: there in the universe, right Daniel, that is pulling on
6:29
Speaker 1: stars and keeping galaxies together, But nobody knows what it's
6:33
Speaker 1: made out of because it's not made out of stuff
6:35
Speaker 1: that you can see or touch. Yeah, And for a
6:38
Speaker 1: long time, we thought that dark matter couldn't be made
6:41
Speaker 1: out of corks, and it couldn't be made out of
6:43
Speaker 1: the kinds of stuff that's around us, that it had
6:46
Speaker 1: to be some new, weird, exotic kind of particle. And
6:49
Speaker 1: so we've had lots of ideas for what kind of
6:52
Speaker 1: particle dark matter could be mad at of, and maybe
6:54
Speaker 1: you've heard of them. There's the weakly interacting massive particle
6:58
Speaker 1: the WIMP. Then there's theme macho massive astronomical compact halo objects,
7:04
Speaker 1: and then there's other weird stuff like axions. But the
7:07
Speaker 1: sort of the scientific mainstream is to think that dark
7:10
Speaker 1: matter is probably may have something new and weird, and
7:13
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. That's an amazing opportunity because if you discover
7:16
Speaker 1: this new kind of particle that gives you like a
7:19
Speaker 1: whole new Lego block, a whole you know, it opens
7:21
Speaker 1: up this whole new place to play, this new area
7:24
Speaker 1: of physics that we can explore. Yeah, it's like that
7:27
Speaker 1: time you figure out you can combine Lincoln logs and
7:30
Speaker 1: legos and it's like, WHOA, what can I build now?
7:33
Speaker 1: Or it turns out most of the world is not
7:35
Speaker 1: built out of Lincoln logs or legos, right, and you
7:38
Speaker 1: learned how to use actual concrete to make buildings. This
7:42
Speaker 1: just this just took an engineeringly turn. But so that
7:47
Speaker 1: that was the sort of the thinking about dark matter.
7:49
Speaker 1: But recently in the news, there's a lot of attention
7:53
Speaker 1: being paid to a new paper that just came out.
7:56
Speaker 1: Then maybe answers this question whether or not dark matter
7:59
Speaker 1: is may it out of courts? Yeah, it's really sort
8:01
Speaker 1: of a fun question to just ask. Hold on a second,
8:05
Speaker 1: maybe dark matters actually just made out of something simple,
8:08
Speaker 1: something familiar, in a new arrangement. Maybe it's found way
8:12
Speaker 1: to hide from us, and so it's worth examining, like
8:15
Speaker 1: why don't we think dark matter is made out of
8:17
Speaker 1: quarks and and could those assumptions be wrong? Okay, so
8:21
Speaker 1: there's a new paper, right you were telling me that
8:24
Speaker 1: has a new idea for how you can maybe use
8:26
Speaker 1: corks old regular quirks, uh and use them in a
8:30
Speaker 1: new way to make dark matter. Now, is this a
8:32
Speaker 1: theoretical paper or is this an experimental they saw something. Well,
8:36
Speaker 1: the paper is theoretical, but it touches on experimental work.
8:40
Speaker 1: Is from the University of York, and it's by a
8:42
Speaker 1: couple of guys who came up with a new way
8:44
Speaker 1: to five quirks together um that could explain dark matter.
8:49
Speaker 1: And so it's a theoretical paper, but it references experimental
8:52
Speaker 1: work like it talks about this thing called a hexa cork,
8:55
Speaker 1: which combines six corks into a weird particle, and it
9:00
Speaker 1: about how maybe if you put those quirks together, it
9:03
Speaker 1: could look like dark matter and it could like evade
9:06
Speaker 1: all the arguments against why quarks can't be dark matter.
9:10
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of like theoretical, like can we
9:12
Speaker 1: make this work? And then they rounded up I think
9:15
Speaker 1: in a cool way by suggesting some ways to check
9:18
Speaker 1: their idea. Well, interesting, it's a pretty cool idea. And
9:21
Speaker 1: so today on the program, we'll be asking the question
9:28
Speaker 1: could dark matter be made out of hext of cords?
9:32
Speaker 1: And several listeners had a question about this paper, so
9:34
Speaker 1: they sent it to us. Jeff Sagar and Geal Turner
9:38
Speaker 1: will send us this paper and staid, could this be right?
9:40
Speaker 1: Could dark matter just be made out of quirks? So
9:43
Speaker 1: we thought it would be fun to talk about. I
9:46
Speaker 1: feel like I like how people sometimes treaty like the
9:48
Speaker 1: you know how you have a medical doctor relative. Sometimes
9:51
Speaker 1: you're like, I got this itch here in the back
9:53
Speaker 1: of my neck. Can you check it out and tell
9:55
Speaker 1: me if this is something I should be concerned about.
9:58
Speaker 1: I feel like you're sort of like in and it's
10:00
Speaker 1: now physicist uncle, I'm happy to be your on call physicists.
10:05
Speaker 1: Or because your dark matter has a rash, then please
10:08
Speaker 1: don't take it to the e er. You just needed
10:10
Speaker 1: to rest at home, that's right. Do not apply dark
10:13
Speaker 1: energy to it or antimatter might be might have a
10:18
Speaker 1: secondary consequences, that's right. But if you do have a
10:21
Speaker 1: question about something you see online that you think is
10:24
Speaker 1: probably bunked or you don't understand it, send it to us.
10:27
Speaker 1: We'll have to dive into it, maybe give you a
10:29
Speaker 1: short answer over email, or devote an entire episode to
10:32
Speaker 1: it like this one. Yeah, and so as usual, we
10:34
Speaker 1: were curious to see how many people had heard of
10:36
Speaker 1: these HEXA works and how far has the news about
10:41
Speaker 1: them spread into the public. So, as usual, Daniel went
10:44
Speaker 1: out there and ask people this question, have you heard
10:47
Speaker 1: of hexachords? Now? Daniel, because of the situation we're in
10:50
Speaker 1: with the virus coronavirus, how did you did you approach
10:53
Speaker 1: people this time? Or did you did you a person
10:56
Speaker 1: from twenty feet away? How did you record these answers? Um,
11:00
Speaker 1: I have a massive bubble that has six foot diameter
11:03
Speaker 1: and I just walk around inside that bubble and people
11:06
Speaker 1: you normally have that just avoid people open. Now it
11:09
Speaker 1: comes in handy. It's usually a natural effect of my
11:12
Speaker 1: odor and my hairstyle. I see, it's a virtual bubble,
11:16
Speaker 1: I see, which is naturally stay away for it's an
11:17
Speaker 1: effective bubble. Now, these recordings were done last week in advance,
11:21
Speaker 1: and so this was pre pandemic, when people were still
11:24
Speaker 1: walking around in the world and talking to strangers. And
11:27
Speaker 1: I was letting strangers breathe on my phone, which is
11:30
Speaker 1: maybe not a great idea. And I have since disinfected it.
11:33
Speaker 1: But in the future we may have to go to
11:35
Speaker 1: internet person on the street questions. So if you're interested
11:38
Speaker 1: in participating in future person on the street interview questions,
11:42
Speaker 1: send me a line and I'll send you our questions.
11:44
Speaker 1: Because everyone always dreams about being a person on the internet,
11:48
Speaker 1: well it's sort of inverting it, right. Instead of people
11:51
Speaker 1: on the Internet asking me physics questions, I'm asking random
11:54
Speaker 1: people on the internet physics questions. So it's only fair.
11:57
Speaker 1: I see. So you would ask maybe online hey have
11:59
Speaker 1: your to hex, of course, and you just get a
12:01
Speaker 1: bunch of recordings of people saying nope. Never. We've done
12:05
Speaker 1: this a couple of times though, with remote listeners who
12:08
Speaker 1: wanted to participate, and I would send them the questions
12:10
Speaker 1: in advance and tell them to record their answers with
12:12
Speaker 1: no googling. All right, well here here's what people have
12:15
Speaker 1: to say. So before you listen to these answers, just
12:17
Speaker 1: think about it. Have you heard of hexachords or have
12:20
Speaker 1: an inkling as to what they might be? Here's what
12:23
Speaker 1: people had to say. No, or do you guess they
12:27
Speaker 1: might be some kind of start? Nope? No, I have
12:30
Speaker 1: not heard her come up, but I don't know anything
12:33
Speaker 1: about it. No. No, al right, not a lot of
12:39
Speaker 1: positive recognition they're out there about hex of cords almost
12:43
Speaker 1: exactly zero. No. My favorite answer was hexa what hexa? Hood?
12:47
Speaker 1: Is it like a witchcraft thing? Like? Do you hex people? Well,
12:53
Speaker 1: what do you think? Do you think that's poorly named?
12:55
Speaker 1: Or you think it just hasn't penetrated. I'll look out there.
12:58
Speaker 1: I mean, if I asked you about hexacord, wouldn't you
13:00
Speaker 1: have thought, Oh, it's a particle with six corks in it.
13:03
Speaker 1: It seems very natural to me. Well, I guess, um,
13:07
Speaker 1: it depends on what it is, and I currently I
13:09
Speaker 1: don't I don't have a good sense of what it is.
13:11
Speaker 1: But if I had to bet whether it's physicists name
13:14
Speaker 1: something not in the best way possible, that's where my
13:17
Speaker 1: money would be. So you're like, hexa corks, it's probably
13:21
Speaker 1: a new kind of fruit. Yeah, I think hexachords. It's
13:25
Speaker 1: like it sounded like a good idea, but actually it
13:27
Speaker 1: doesn't help you. All right, Well, we'll explain what hexa
13:32
Speaker 1: corks are and how they might possibly but probably not,
13:37
Speaker 1: could explain what dark matter is. But first let's take
13:40
Speaker 1: a quick break. All right. Then we're talking about hexachords
13:56
Speaker 1: and it's a new idea that maybe physicist think that
14:00
Speaker 1: it could tell us what dark matter is made out of.
14:03
Speaker 1: So I guess maybe step us through here. First, we
14:08
Speaker 1: know sort of what dark matter is, and the question
14:11
Speaker 1: was before you thought that dark matter couldn't be made
14:14
Speaker 1: out of quarks, So maybe tell us a little bit
14:17
Speaker 1: about why we thought it couldn't be made out of corks. Yeah,
14:20
Speaker 1: this is an unusual idea to explain dark matter using quarks,
14:24
Speaker 1: because we thought that we had to rule that out.
14:26
Speaker 1: Most of mainstream science that dark matter has to be
14:28
Speaker 1: some new, weird kind of particle. So if we're gonna
14:31
Speaker 1: understand this new idea for how hex of quarks could
14:33
Speaker 1: be dark matter. It's really worth re visiting an understanding,
14:36
Speaker 1: like why did we rule out of quarks and how
14:39
Speaker 1: does this new idea maybe sort of evade those arguments.
14:43
Speaker 1: So number one thing is that corks have electric charge,
14:47
Speaker 1: and quarks interact with light. You know, if you shoot photons,
14:50
Speaker 1: it's something man out of quarks, it will react. You
14:53
Speaker 1: shoot light at protons, you shoot lights at atoms, it reacts,
14:57
Speaker 1: It shines, it absorbs, in admits. All the stuff out
15:01
Speaker 1: there in the universe does interact with photons. And so
15:05
Speaker 1: that's why that's kind of why we thought maybe dark
15:07
Speaker 1: matter couldn't be made out of quarks because regular quarks
15:10
Speaker 1: you can see, but dark matter you can't see. Yeah,
15:13
Speaker 1: it's dark, right, it doesn't give off light, it doesn't
15:16
Speaker 1: reflect light, it doesn't interact in any way with light. Right,
15:20
Speaker 1: it's invisible. It's invisible. Yeah, invisible matter would have been
15:23
Speaker 1: such a better name. Dark matter. It can sound like
15:25
Speaker 1: it's black, right, it's not. And and you might think,
15:29
Speaker 1: all there's ways to evade that, you know, what about
15:31
Speaker 1: neutral objects, And it's true that, like you know, photons
15:35
Speaker 1: don't interact with neutral objects, and we thought maybe dark
15:38
Speaker 1: matter was made of neutrinos or something else like that,
15:41
Speaker 1: or maybe neutral atoms. I guess maybe initially when you
15:45
Speaker 1: guys found dark matter, it's not that you knew it
15:47
Speaker 1: was invisible, and you just knew. You said it didn't
15:49
Speaker 1: emit light and you couldn't see it, right, So at
15:52
Speaker 1: that point when you found it and you named it,
15:54
Speaker 1: it could have just been dark or like painted black,
15:57
Speaker 1: right well, but then it would have obscured. If it
16:00
Speaker 1: was just black and and absorbed light but didn't admit it,
16:03
Speaker 1: then it would have obscured stuff, like there's so much
16:06
Speaker 1: of it out there. If you could see the dark matter,
16:08
Speaker 1: then the night sky would be a lot darker because
16:11
Speaker 1: we'd be shrouded in it, like our galaxy is in
16:15
Speaker 1: the middle of a huge dark matter halo. If it
16:18
Speaker 1: wasn't invisible, most of the universe would be invisible to us.
16:21
Speaker 1: We would just see darkness in the sky, right well,
16:24
Speaker 1: it could be like really small dense pellets of something,
16:28
Speaker 1: right and you we wouldn't see it, but it wouldn't
16:30
Speaker 1: be invisible. But we can see the effects of like
16:33
Speaker 1: gas and dust in the universe, like most of the
16:36
Speaker 1: stuff in the universe is gas and dust, and we
16:38
Speaker 1: can definitely see that it absorbs light. It blocks our view.
16:41
Speaker 1: The center of the galaxy, for example, is mostly obscured
16:43
Speaker 1: because of all the gas and dust. So even tiny pellets,
16:46
Speaker 1: if you've got zillions and zillions of them, they obscured
16:49
Speaker 1: a view. It's like a fog. Okay. So, so we
16:53
Speaker 1: didn't think it could be quarks because it's dark and
16:55
Speaker 1: it doesn't interact with the light, and we know quarks
16:57
Speaker 1: interact with light, and so is that the main reason
17:00
Speaker 1: didn't think that dark matter or we don't think dark
17:02
Speaker 1: matter could be made out of quirks. It's not because
17:04
Speaker 1: it's not that convincing an argument. There are ways to
17:07
Speaker 1: evade it, right, There is normal matter that's invisible to photons,
17:10
Speaker 1: like neutrinos and space space bananas are invisible to Yeah,
17:18
Speaker 1: ok right, as long as we're making up the things,
17:21
Speaker 1: I feel like I just entered the second level of
17:23
Speaker 1: this cult. Now I've been informed, and you read into
17:25
Speaker 1: the invisible he made he made it to a level three.
17:29
Speaker 1: So I'm saying things um and then you know, people
17:33
Speaker 1: wondered like, could you possibly have neutral atoms that don't
17:36
Speaker 1: interact with photons, etcetera, etcetera. So it turns out we
17:39
Speaker 1: have a much stronger argument for why dark matter can't
17:41
Speaker 1: be made out of quarks, and actually comes from calculations
17:44
Speaker 1: about the Big Bang. M So we we studied the
17:49
Speaker 1: Big Bang and we sort of see the remnants of
17:51
Speaker 1: the debris from the Big Bang, and that actually tells
17:54
Speaker 1: you that dark matter can't be made out of quarks. Yeah,
17:57
Speaker 1: what it does. That tells you how much stuff in
17:59
Speaker 1: the universe is made out of quarks, Because it turns
18:02
Speaker 1: out that the density of quarks in the very early
18:05
Speaker 1: moments of the universe controls how cork matter is formed.
18:08
Speaker 1: Quark matter being like hydrogen and helium and light elements
18:12
Speaker 1: me and you and all that stuff. The density of
18:15
Speaker 1: the quarks determines how much heavy elements you get. So
18:18
Speaker 1: if you have a huge density of quarks in the
18:21
Speaker 1: early universe, you get more heavy elements like lithium and
18:24
Speaker 1: carbon and oxygen. If you have fewer quirks, of the
18:28
Speaker 1: quirks aren't as dense than they don't combine to form
18:30
Speaker 1: as many heavy elements. And so we we measure how
18:34
Speaker 1: much hydrogen is there, how much helium is there, and
18:36
Speaker 1: we can tell from that sort of the density of
18:39
Speaker 1: quarks in the early universe, and that tells us just
18:42
Speaker 1: like how many quarks were there. But it's and I
18:46
Speaker 1: guess it's not just about quantities, because I mean you
18:48
Speaker 1: could imagine that maybe there there were a ton more
18:51
Speaker 1: corks than we think there were, and some of them
18:54
Speaker 1: just went on to make dark matter instead of hydrogen
18:57
Speaker 1: and helium. Well, that's sort of this idea, that sort
19:00
Speaker 1: of the idea from this paper. Yeah, Okay, sorry, we
19:04
Speaker 1: actual gating credit there and the noble price if it
19:07
Speaker 1: turns out to be true. Okay, so I see. So
19:10
Speaker 1: before we we didn't think that the Big Band made
19:13
Speaker 1: enough corks two make dark matter because it didn't make sense.
19:19
Speaker 1: But maybe there is a way for this to make sense. Yeah,
19:21
Speaker 1: And it's sort of a it's in a subtle argument.
19:23
Speaker 1: It's a subtraction, right saying, here's how much matters out
19:26
Speaker 1: there in the universe, and we know that by looking
19:28
Speaker 1: at how galaxy swirl and we can just see the
19:31
Speaker 1: gravitational effects of it. That's how much dark matter there is.
19:34
Speaker 1: And we know how much cork matter there is based
19:37
Speaker 1: on this Big Bang nucleosynthesis argument how much helium and
19:41
Speaker 1: lithium was made and so, and they don't add up,
19:43
Speaker 1: so that leaves a gap. So we can't explain all
19:46
Speaker 1: the matter in the universe using corks. But again, that's
19:49
Speaker 1: assuming that corks turned into the kind of familiar matter
19:52
Speaker 1: where we're we're familiar with, you know, hydrogen and atoms
19:56
Speaker 1: and protons and neutrons and stuff like like. It couldn't
19:59
Speaker 1: be that it turned into hydrogen helium and then some
20:01
Speaker 1: of that stuff turned into dark matter. That wouldn't That
20:04
Speaker 1: wouldn't work. No, that doesn't work. But if you could
20:07
Speaker 1: somehow siphon off a bunch of quarks into a new
20:11
Speaker 1: invisible kind of matter that then wouldn't interact with those
20:14
Speaker 1: hydrogen helium and stuff, then maybe that dark matter could
20:17
Speaker 1: be explained by those quirks and not mess up this
20:21
Speaker 1: early universe Big Bang nucleus and thisis stuff. But we're
20:24
Speaker 1: getting ahead of ourselves. No, I think we're here. I
20:27
Speaker 1: think we're here, right, I mean, that's that's what this
20:30
Speaker 1: idea of a hexa cork is, is that maybe it's
20:34
Speaker 1: something that that happened to all those corks at the
20:37
Speaker 1: Big Bang. Yeah, and there's a few steps you need there,
20:39
Speaker 1: You need to understand what hexa work is, and then
20:41
Speaker 1: the hexa corks have to sort of siphon themselves off
20:44
Speaker 1: into some state that wouldn't want to interact with the
20:47
Speaker 1: hydrogen and the helium that was happening around then, because
20:50
Speaker 1: remember it was a hot and nasty place the early universe.
20:53
Speaker 1: It's not like you made something and it just got
20:55
Speaker 1: to hang out for fourteen billion years. It was. It
20:57
Speaker 1: was really dense and there are photons everywhere, and so
21:00
Speaker 1: you need to somehow create this stuff and then also
21:02
Speaker 1: protected from the rest of the universe. I see, take it,
21:05
Speaker 1: like take it out of the craziness. Yeah, so that
21:08
Speaker 1: it can account for dark matter. Now, yeah, well, so
21:13
Speaker 1: step us through them. What is hectic coork? And is
21:15
Speaker 1: it a different kind of cork or is it like
21:17
Speaker 1: a poorly named constant physic. I'm feeling a little bit
21:23
Speaker 1: of judgment here, but I'm just gonna keep going because
21:26
Speaker 1: now I'm like, curse cork, you know, like I see, Oh,
21:30
Speaker 1: I get it. It's like a like a um like
21:33
Speaker 1: a witch's cork. Yeah, yeah, yes, boiled, boiled, toil and
21:37
Speaker 1: trouble through the eye of Newton. Hexa cork that sounds good. Um,
21:42
Speaker 1: you know, a hexa cork is not a new kind
21:44
Speaker 1: of cork, it's a new combination of existing corks. Oh,
21:49
Speaker 1: I see. And so corks are very familiar particles. They
21:52
Speaker 1: make up protons and neutrons and other exotic particles. And
21:56
Speaker 1: so there are up quarks and down corks inside me
21:59
Speaker 1: and you, non exotic mean particles. Right, they make up
22:03
Speaker 1: non exotic particles, but also you know, weird particles like
22:06
Speaker 1: pions and other kinds of masons they make up. You
22:11
Speaker 1: can rearrange these legos to make all sorts of different
22:13
Speaker 1: kinds of things. We had a whole episode about that
22:16
Speaker 1: how that works. Quirks are amazing little legos, right, and
22:19
Speaker 1: usually they're in pairs or in threes, right, that's right.
22:23
Speaker 1: And so there are a lot of rules for how
22:24
Speaker 1: you put these legos together. You can't just say I'm
22:27
Speaker 1: gonna put these seven quarks together, those nine quarks together,
22:30
Speaker 1: because they feel the strong nuclear force, the most powerful
22:34
Speaker 1: force in the universe, which is very particular about how
22:37
Speaker 1: you put them together. And the strong nuclear forces a
22:40
Speaker 1: different kind of way of arranging itself than any other
22:43
Speaker 1: kind of force, like electromagnetism has plus and minus. So
22:47
Speaker 1: if you want something that's neutral, you put a plus
22:49
Speaker 1: in a minus together. Right. That that one's simple to
22:52
Speaker 1: think about, because like two pluses can't go together because
22:55
Speaker 1: they repel each other, and two negatives can't go together.
22:58
Speaker 1: But the plus and minus they're be together, that's right,
23:01
Speaker 1: and they form a neutral atom and or a neutral system.
23:04
Speaker 1: In the case of the strong nuclear force. Though, there
23:07
Speaker 1: are three kinds of charges, and so we can't call
23:10
Speaker 1: them plus and minus because they don't sit nicely along
23:12
Speaker 1: one axis. So we give them the names red, green,
23:15
Speaker 1: and blue, because if you add them all up together,
23:18
Speaker 1: then you get a neutral atom, what we call a
23:21
Speaker 1: colorless atom. Right, Like if you take a red cork,
23:23
Speaker 1: green cork, and a blue cork, they you get sort
23:26
Speaker 1: of like a happy trio. Yeah, they're happy trio. So
23:29
Speaker 1: they're balanced out together, and that's sort of similar to electromagnetism.
23:33
Speaker 1: You take one of each of the kinds of charges,
23:35
Speaker 1: a plus anamnus, you add it together, you get neutral. Right.
23:38
Speaker 1: In this way, you get one of each of the
23:40
Speaker 1: kinds of colors. You add them together, you get white
23:43
Speaker 1: or colorless. So you can make triplets. You can also
23:46
Speaker 1: make pairs like you take a red cork and pair
23:49
Speaker 1: it with an anti red cork. That's what color is,
23:53
Speaker 1: anti red, like orange or like a c cyan. If
23:58
Speaker 1: only I knew a visual artist who was really well
24:00
Speaker 1: versed inside, what are you're talking to? Uh? Comics for parties,
24:06
Speaker 1: I only do black and white, Okay, I'll ask the
24:09
Speaker 1: Sunday cartoonist that question. Um, I don't know what the
24:13
Speaker 1: anti red is, but whatever it is, when you add
24:15
Speaker 1: it to red, you get white. And so a red
24:18
Speaker 1: and an anti red can sit happily together and be
24:20
Speaker 1: something what do you call that, like a bi cork
24:23
Speaker 1: or as called that's called a mazon, a mazon. All right, yeah,
24:29
Speaker 1: so you can. So you can start with two corks
24:32
Speaker 1: a cork and it's anti color cork. You can do
24:35
Speaker 1: three corks if you have like R G B and
24:37
Speaker 1: that's called a barryon. And examples are protons and neutrons, right,
24:41
Speaker 1: very familiar, mm hmm. And then you can get more complicated.
24:44
Speaker 1: And those are the most common particles in the universe,
24:47
Speaker 1: mazons and baryons. That's what we're made out of, right,
24:50
Speaker 1: We're like our protons and neutrons and your atoms are
24:53
Speaker 1: made out of threesomes of corks. That's right, these cork triplets.
24:57
Speaker 1: And but you can combine them in other ways, like
25:00
Speaker 1: you can take four quarks. If you have a red
25:03
Speaker 1: and a green and an anti red and an anti green, right,
25:06
Speaker 1: that also is color neutral, Yeah, because the antis cancel
25:10
Speaker 1: out the red and the green, and then they they
25:12
Speaker 1: can all sit happening together. And can you already guess
25:15
Speaker 1: what that's called? Uh, a quat cork A tetraquork a
25:20
Speaker 1: tetra oh right, yeah, tetra tetras. Sorry, And you can
25:25
Speaker 1: fit them together just like tetris pieces. So that's the
25:27
Speaker 1: four cork version. And so that's that's stable because you know,
25:31
Speaker 1: like a color and an anti cork, we're happy by
25:34
Speaker 1: them as a two zone. But you're saying you can
25:35
Speaker 1: get two couples and and they're also happy together they
25:39
Speaker 1: form a colorless object. Not all of these things are stable, right,
25:42
Speaker 1: Like the proton is stable. The proton will sit around.
25:45
Speaker 1: Proton by itself will sit around for billions of years
25:48
Speaker 1: and do nothing. A neutron is not stable, right, A
25:50
Speaker 1: neutron will turn into a proton and an electron. And similarly,
25:55
Speaker 1: the pairs the masons they're also not stable. So some
26:00
Speaker 1: of these things are colorless, like they're neutral, but they're
26:02
Speaker 1: not necessarily stable, all right, But that you're saying that
26:06
Speaker 1: they can fit together, they just won't fit together for
26:08
Speaker 1: very long. Yeah, And you can keep going, and you
26:11
Speaker 1: can make a combination of five corks. So here you
26:14
Speaker 1: would need like an R, A B, A G that's
26:16
Speaker 1: color neutral, plus maybe like an R and an anti R,
26:20
Speaker 1: so that gives you an overall particle that's a neutral
26:24
Speaker 1: and that's called a pent cork, right, not a sunk cork.
26:30
Speaker 1: And then finally we get to hexa corks. But wait
26:33
Speaker 1: to tell me about these weird particles with lots of
26:37
Speaker 1: quirks and it like do they do they act like
26:39
Speaker 1: regular particles or you know what I mean? Like do
26:42
Speaker 1: they just bounce around with the rest of us here
26:44
Speaker 1: or do they suddenly change or do something different. They're
26:49
Speaker 1: very short lived. We can make them only in special situations.
26:53
Speaker 1: In particle colliders, you smashing of quarks together for a
26:56
Speaker 1: very short amount of time. These particles can form, but
26:59
Speaker 1: they last like ten the mine is twenty three seconds,
27:01
Speaker 1: and then they fall apart and they turned into lighter,
27:05
Speaker 1: more stable particles and I see. But while they're alive,
27:08
Speaker 1: they're just like regular particles. They're just like regular particles.
27:12
Speaker 1: But you know that's a whole other question, like, well,
27:14
Speaker 1: what is a particle anyway? But they are the bound states, right,
27:17
Speaker 1: They moved together, and if you touch them with anything
27:20
Speaker 1: that has less energy than those bonds, then they react
27:24
Speaker 1: all as one. And so yeah, they act as as
27:27
Speaker 1: a particle, though it's very short lived, m all right.
27:30
Speaker 1: So then and then, but then you can get six
27:33
Speaker 1: quarts together. You can get six quarks together. And this
27:36
Speaker 1: is just sort of like a die barrion. It's like
27:39
Speaker 1: a red green and blue and then another red green
27:42
Speaker 1: blue or an anti red, anti green, anti blue. But
27:46
Speaker 1: isn't that the same as like a quark and an
27:48
Speaker 1: anti like a like a proton and an anti proton. Yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: like or like a proton and a neutron. Yeah, it's similar,
27:55
Speaker 1: but it's you know, they're compressed together. A proton and
27:58
Speaker 1: a neutron has the same quirk content as a hexa cork,
28:02
Speaker 1: but it's a different arrangement, you know, the same way
28:05
Speaker 1: that I have the same core content as you, but
28:07
Speaker 1: I'm a different arrangement. It's all about the arrangement. It's
28:10
Speaker 1: all about the bonds and how you fit them together.
28:12
Speaker 1: Like I could make a really ugly thing out of
28:15
Speaker 1: my legos and you could make something beautiful, and I
28:17
Speaker 1: could say, well, they're made of the same legos, but
28:21
Speaker 1: that doesn't take away from the beauty of your creation, right, Yeah,
28:25
Speaker 1: all right, So then, so you're saying these are six quarks,
28:28
Speaker 1: not just in like you know, three pairs or two
28:32
Speaker 1: three ors. There are actually like six of them or
28:33
Speaker 1: they're all interacting with each other, they're all sort of
28:35
Speaker 1: connected to each other. Yeah, And there's one in particular.
28:38
Speaker 1: It's called the d Star and it has a certain mass.
28:42
Speaker 1: It's just under two and a half times the mass
28:45
Speaker 1: of the proton and it was found in two thousand
28:48
Speaker 1: eleven and then confirmed in two thousand and thirteen again
28:50
Speaker 1: in particle collisions, and it lasts for ten to the
28:53
Speaker 1: twenty three seconds. And we think it's made out of
28:55
Speaker 1: three up quarks and three down corks all put together.
28:59
Speaker 1: So you've found this. This is something that you've seen
29:01
Speaker 1: in the particle collider, like, hey, this came out. Yeah,
29:04
Speaker 1: So hexic corks are real. They but we don't think
29:08
Speaker 1: they last very long. We think you can make a
29:09
Speaker 1: hex of cork, but then it's gone after ten of
29:12
Speaker 1: the minors twenty three seconds. Wow, which is like, like
29:16
Speaker 1: you know, SA many electron years, But it's much smaller
29:20
Speaker 1: than the amount of time we think dark matter has
29:21
Speaker 1: been around. We think dark matter lasts for billions of years. Right,
29:26
Speaker 1: So you start hexa works to explain dark matter, you
29:29
Speaker 1: have to explain how, for some reason it's lasting for
29:32
Speaker 1: billions of years. Oh, I see, all right, so this
29:35
Speaker 1: is the candidate for what dark matter might be made
29:39
Speaker 1: out of. It might be made out of these interesting
29:42
Speaker 1: and funny hexacorks. And so let's get into whether or
29:46
Speaker 1: not that's actually true and what this paper says about
29:49
Speaker 1: dark matter and what it's made up. But first let's
29:51
Speaker 1: take a quick break. All right, we're talking about the hexachorks,
30:08
Speaker 1: and you're telling me that there are just six quarks
30:10
Speaker 1: hell together. That's it, man, just six quirks hell together,
30:13
Speaker 1: like anybody could have done this at any time. Uh. Yeah,
30:17
Speaker 1: you seem kind of underwhelmed a little bit. I mean,
30:21
Speaker 1: you're expecting which is quarks and like spell quirks and
30:24
Speaker 1: magic works. I feel like you're using the word cork
30:27
Speaker 1: for two things. You're using it for the particle that
30:30
Speaker 1: are corks of fundamental particles that are quirks, and you're
30:32
Speaker 1: using it also for arrangements of quarks. You know what
30:36
Speaker 1: I mean, Like you strange cork. That's confusing. Well, I
30:40
Speaker 1: feel like it's strange quarks. It's like, Okay, that's a
30:43
Speaker 1: different kind of cord. But this is not a different
30:45
Speaker 1: kind of corks. This is just an arrangement of courts.
30:48
Speaker 1: It's like seeing a bananas a banana, and a bundle
30:51
Speaker 1: of bananas is a hex of banana. Actually, that sounds
30:54
Speaker 1: like a great idea to me. What would you like today, sir,
30:57
Speaker 1: I'll have a hex of banana. But I guess the
31:01
Speaker 1: idea is said. It's it acts like a particle, just
31:03
Speaker 1: like a like a bunch of bananas. Um, you can
31:06
Speaker 1: throw a bunch of bananas together because they're held together,
31:09
Speaker 1: but they're made out of individual bananas. Yes, they're made
31:13
Speaker 1: out of individual bananas. And so in this case, we're
31:16
Speaker 1: interested in this d star hexa cork not so much
31:19
Speaker 1: because we're interested in like how can you put corks together?
31:22
Speaker 1: At the whole field of quantum chromodynamics that people are
31:25
Speaker 1: interested in um. But here we're interested in, like, maybe
31:28
Speaker 1: could this possibly explain the dark matter m M and so,
31:33
Speaker 1: because maybe when you put these six corks together and
31:36
Speaker 1: they suddenly have special powers. Yeah, and so to get
31:40
Speaker 1: the star hexa co works to look like dark matter,
31:42
Speaker 1: you have to do a couple of things. First thing
31:44
Speaker 1: is you have to make it last longer than ten
31:47
Speaker 1: to the minus twenty three seconds, because we think dark
31:50
Speaker 1: matter exists on sort of cosmological time scales, that it
31:53
Speaker 1: was created in the early universe, and it's still around.
31:56
Speaker 1: So like decaying into normal matter into and just evaporate,
32:01
Speaker 1: doesn't just evaporate, It sticks around, right, It's otherwise there.
32:05
Speaker 1: It's still around. Yeah, it's been here for fourteen billion years.
32:08
Speaker 1: No reason to think it's going to disappear tomorrow, right,
32:11
Speaker 1: So you you would have to find a way for
32:13
Speaker 1: these hexachords to be stable to hang around. Yeah. And
32:18
Speaker 1: the idea is that maybe these d star of corks
32:21
Speaker 1: form some weird state of matter of Bose Einstein condensate
32:25
Speaker 1: where they all sort of grouped together and act like
32:28
Speaker 1: one big mega particle. Oh man, and let me get
32:33
Speaker 1: how you call that one omega cork. Now, that's the
32:37
Speaker 1: name of a transformer. I think you're thinking of omegatron
32:42
Speaker 1: um and Bose Einstein condensate is a weird quantum mechanical
32:46
Speaker 1: state of matter where you've got a lot of particles
32:48
Speaker 1: together that are bosons, things like photons or or other
32:52
Speaker 1: particles that can sit on top of each other, can
32:55
Speaker 1: be in the same quantum state with some particles fer
32:58
Speaker 1: meons that don't like to be in the same quantum state,
33:00
Speaker 1: like electrons. If you put two electrons around and atom,
33:03
Speaker 1: they don't want to be in the same energy level,
33:05
Speaker 1: but bosons they're happy to sit in the same place.
33:07
Speaker 1: You can have ten million photons all in the same
33:10
Speaker 1: state with the same energy. But if you get enough
33:13
Speaker 1: of these particles, enough of these bosons together, they have
33:15
Speaker 1: like a macroscopic quantity like a droplet. Then it forms
33:19
Speaker 1: the state called a Bose Einstein condensate, where it's macroscopically sized,
33:23
Speaker 1: but it behaves like a quantum object like one like
33:27
Speaker 1: they share the quantum uncertainty kind of in a way,
33:31
Speaker 1: it's a quantum wave function with like visible size is
33:34
Speaker 1: usually all the quantum effects are hidden away at the
33:36
Speaker 1: tiny scales where you can't see them, and they're averaged
33:38
Speaker 1: down to zero. But here's an object that actually you
33:42
Speaker 1: can see quantum mechanical effects. And we should do a
33:44
Speaker 1: whole podcast episode on Bose Einstein condensates. All right, So
33:49
Speaker 1: we think that maybe this hex a chord lives in
33:51
Speaker 1: a Bose Einstein contented state, and that's how it becomes
33:54
Speaker 1: dark matter. Yeah, they did this calculation and they showed
33:57
Speaker 1: that maybe if you could get enough and these together,
33:59
Speaker 1: they could form of Bose Einstein condensate, in which case
34:02
Speaker 1: maybe it would be stable. Like they wouldn't evaporate, they
34:06
Speaker 1: would just they would like being in a Bose Einstein condensate,
34:11
Speaker 1: and then they wouldn't they wouldn't disappear. And there's, you know,
34:14
Speaker 1: a good history here for this kind of idea of
34:16
Speaker 1: saying you have a particle which on itself is unstable,
34:20
Speaker 1: like the neutron, but you put it in a special
34:22
Speaker 1: situation like neutron stars, and it's stable. So like a
34:26
Speaker 1: huge pile of neutrons altogether, they stick around. A neutron
34:29
Speaker 1: star sticks around a single neutron will decay pretty quickly
34:33
Speaker 1: into other stuff. So maybe the same thing happens with
34:36
Speaker 1: these the star hex of corks. And they did some
34:38
Speaker 1: calculations in the paper that showed it it was plausible.
34:41
Speaker 1: It's not just like let's throw this banana against the
34:43
Speaker 1: wall and see if it sticks. Mm. So what do
34:46
Speaker 1: you think? It's a math? Right? Can you candy things
34:49
Speaker 1: sitting in Bose einst Einstein condesant. Well, it's pretty complicated
34:53
Speaker 1: stuff and it might be right. But you know, I
34:56
Speaker 1: don't see a flaw in it in that part of
34:58
Speaker 1: the calculation. Um. But you know, there are a lot
35:01
Speaker 1: of ideas that could be possible but that aren't real.
35:05
Speaker 1: You know, you have to not just say this might work.
35:08
Speaker 1: You have to see that it actually does work. Because
35:10
Speaker 1: we're interested in doing in this case is saying like,
35:12
Speaker 1: is it actually the dark matter? Not just couldn't may believe?
35:15
Speaker 1: Maybe be because the long list already of maybes for
35:19
Speaker 1: dark matter. I see, so it can exist, Um, but
35:24
Speaker 1: there's a question of does it happen in nature? And
35:27
Speaker 1: the second question, which is is it that what dark
35:29
Speaker 1: matter is made out of? Yeah, and there is one
35:32
Speaker 1: question to have about this paper that makes me very
35:34
Speaker 1: skeptical that these things could be produced and live long
35:38
Speaker 1: enough to become dark matter. Physics drama. Physics drama, And
35:42
Speaker 1: that's what you remember that in the early universe there
35:44
Speaker 1: was a lot of radiation, Like most of the energy
35:47
Speaker 1: the early universe were as photons and other things just
35:50
Speaker 1: like energy radiating around. It was a crazy time. A
35:53
Speaker 1: tiny fraction of the energy of the universe was matter
35:56
Speaker 1: back then. And you know, and since then things have
35:58
Speaker 1: cooled out a little bit and we have more matter, etcetera.
36:02
Speaker 1: But back then it was really hard for anything to
36:04
Speaker 1: stay together. You formed an atom five seconds after the
36:07
Speaker 1: universe was born, immediately was blasted apart by a photon.
36:11
Speaker 1: And so it's hard to imagine how these d star
36:13
Speaker 1: corks all survived that crazy photonic time with all this
36:18
Speaker 1: energy bouncing around. And in the paper, I don't see
36:21
Speaker 1: them doing a calculation to show that these things, somehow
36:24
Speaker 1: um will not interact with photons, because remember they're still
36:27
Speaker 1: made of quarks. Right, a photon hits one of these
36:29
Speaker 1: d star hexa corks, it should break it up, right. Well,
36:32
Speaker 1: I guess that that brings me to my question, which is,
36:34
Speaker 1: why do they think this might be dark matter? Like
36:37
Speaker 1: when you put six quarts together, does it become invisible
36:40
Speaker 1: suddenly and not react to light the way we know
36:43
Speaker 1: dark matter doesn't either well, that's a good question. I mean,
36:46
Speaker 1: these things are electrically neutral, right, and so in that
36:51
Speaker 1: way they could be, but a high enough energy photon
36:53
Speaker 1: will penetrate them. I think the core idea is that
36:56
Speaker 1: maybe this dark matter is made out of these quirks
36:59
Speaker 1: right in this configuration that allowed them to evade the
37:02
Speaker 1: sort of creation of light matter in the early universe.
37:05
Speaker 1: Remember we talked about how in the early universe most
37:08
Speaker 1: of the corks got together to make helium and hydrogen
37:11
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. And so we know
37:14
Speaker 1: how many corks were used to make all that stuff,
37:17
Speaker 1: and it can't explain the dark matter. So this is
37:19
Speaker 1: the way to like siphon off some of those corks
37:21
Speaker 1: into another kind of matter which could still exist in
37:24
Speaker 1: the universe. And so it's we've always assumed that dark
37:28
Speaker 1: matter couldn't be made of quirks for this reason, and
37:31
Speaker 1: the other arguments against dark matter being corks are a
37:34
Speaker 1: little looser. They're like, as you're saying, like what happens
37:36
Speaker 1: if you shoot a photon at it? And so if
37:38
Speaker 1: it's possible to have more corks in the early universe
37:41
Speaker 1: and siphon them off into this special kind of matter,
37:44
Speaker 1: then you know that gives you the license to add
37:47
Speaker 1: more quirks into the universe, which could then explain the
37:50
Speaker 1: dark matter. And it could be that that forms this
37:54
Speaker 1: boson set and condensate, and then we don't really know,
37:57
Speaker 1: Like it might be that that sensage to photons, like
37:59
Speaker 1: you small sho into it hard enough with the photon
38:01
Speaker 1: they can break it up, but that it's still transparent,
38:04
Speaker 1: So it could be like hanging out there in great
38:06
Speaker 1: ribbons and sheets and fogs made out of corks, but
38:09
Speaker 1: mostly invisible. I feel like you're sort of a little
38:11
Speaker 1: bit skeptical about this idea because you're saying that in
38:16
Speaker 1: something like that wouldn't survive the big the craziness of
38:18
Speaker 1: the Big Bang. Yeah, And they don't explain in the
38:21
Speaker 1: paper how it would survive the very intense photonic atmosphere
38:25
Speaker 1: just after the Big Bang, Like why does this thing
38:27
Speaker 1: last so long? Like they explain how you could make
38:29
Speaker 1: it stable, meaning if you left it by itself, it
38:32
Speaker 1: would last long enough, and if you bombard it with photons,
38:36
Speaker 1: it should break up in their in the universe, right,
38:38
Speaker 1: But what what if it's invisible to photons, then wouldn't
38:41
Speaker 1: it sort of sit outside of that crazy Big Bang explosion.
38:45
Speaker 1: But it's not invisible to photons. I mean, most low
38:48
Speaker 1: energy photons would pass through it because you pass If
38:50
Speaker 1: you bombard it with very high energy photons and there
38:52
Speaker 1: are corks inside of it, then the bonds between the
38:55
Speaker 1: corks are no longer relevant. If you shoot a photon
38:58
Speaker 1: is something that's made out of quarks, and the energy
39:00
Speaker 1: the photon is greater than the energy of the bonds
39:02
Speaker 1: between the corks, and the bonds to the corks don't matter.
39:05
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter anymore whether it's inside a proton or
39:08
Speaker 1: neutron or some other kind of cork matter Bose Einstein
39:12
Speaker 1: quantum wave unity doesn't matter either. It doesn't matter if
39:15
Speaker 1: you have high enough energy photons. And back in the
39:18
Speaker 1: Big Bang it was crazy high energy photons all the time.
39:22
Speaker 1: I feel like you're almost saying, like the Big Bang
39:24
Speaker 1: photons would poke a hole in this theory. Uh, they
39:29
Speaker 1: would shine a light on the flaws of this. Yeah,
39:32
Speaker 1: there you go, all right, Well that's but that's pretty interesting.
39:35
Speaker 1: And so this is a paper that and an and
39:38
Speaker 1: an idea that made a lot of the news because
39:41
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, maybe this is what dark matter is.
39:43
Speaker 1: Made out of but you know, it sounds like it's
39:46
Speaker 1: a weight and see kind of thing like there is not.
39:48
Speaker 1: It doesn't answer all the questions. It is something that
39:52
Speaker 1: possibly exists out there, but it's a bit of a stretch. Yeah,
39:56
Speaker 1: And as usual in science journalism, it was very it
39:59
Speaker 1: was hyped this life, maybe this explains dark matter, but
40:02
Speaker 1: really it's just like another idea. And it's great to
40:05
Speaker 1: have a breadth of ideas. We need a lot of
40:07
Speaker 1: ideas because we haven't found dark matter and we've been
40:09
Speaker 1: looking for a while, and so we got to be
40:11
Speaker 1: creative and think, oh, maybe it's this other thing we forgot,
40:14
Speaker 1: or maybe it could still be this thing we ruled out.
40:16
Speaker 1: That's very healthy and it's great that these guys are
40:19
Speaker 1: thinking about these new ideas. But right now it's just
40:22
Speaker 1: sort of like one more thing on the list of
40:24
Speaker 1: what dark matter could be, and it's got some question
40:26
Speaker 1: marks around it. Do you think it would be better
40:28
Speaker 1: if journalists just ignored science and not treated things as
40:33
Speaker 1: if there were more run of the mill. I think
40:36
Speaker 1: they would be better if they didn't act like every
40:39
Speaker 1: minor step forward was an incredible discovery that answered a
40:43
Speaker 1: big open question, because then the day we actually do
40:46
Speaker 1: answer those open questions, people will be like, whatever, you
40:49
Speaker 1: found dark matter fifty times in the last time ten years,
40:52
Speaker 1: what do I care? You know? So this should have
40:54
Speaker 1: been covered as like businists have new idea for dark matter,
40:58
Speaker 1: not like dark matter riddle have been solved? What have
41:01
Speaker 1: you put in? Like really for real this time, guys
41:04
Speaker 1: at the end of that news article, we'll save that
41:07
Speaker 1: code for when we actually discover it. But the thing
41:09
Speaker 1: one thing I really like and respect about this paper
41:12
Speaker 1: is that they also came up with a new way
41:14
Speaker 1: to look for this. They're like, Okay, if these things
41:16
Speaker 1: are real, how would we prove it. We can't just
41:19
Speaker 1: have this theoretical idea. They were wondering, like, how would
41:21
Speaker 1: we prove it? And so they thought about, like, if
41:24
Speaker 1: these the star Hexa corps were real, maybe there's some
41:27
Speaker 1: of them here on Earth, and maybe occasionally they sort
41:30
Speaker 1: of collapse and they create these big, crazy showers of
41:34
Speaker 1: cosmic rays, but they look different because they're going sort
41:37
Speaker 1: of up instead of down. Anyway, it's a fascinating idea,
41:41
Speaker 1: and kudos to them for coming up for a new
41:43
Speaker 1: theoretical idea that sort of breaks some of the existing
41:46
Speaker 1: rules and for coming up with an experimental way to
41:48
Speaker 1: look for their idea, right, because you're in experimentalism, and
41:51
Speaker 1: so you reacted to that, you're like, hey, I like
41:54
Speaker 1: that part. Yeah. Well, anytime you have a new theoretical idea,
41:58
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how to test it. You.
42:00
Speaker 1: Ideas are just ideas until they're proven to be reality.
42:02
Speaker 1: That's what experiments are for. Mm hmm, alright, well, I
42:07
Speaker 1: guess we'll see, Well they'll they'll do you think they'll
42:10
Speaker 1: do these experiments and figure out if if it could
42:12
Speaker 1: be dark matter or do you think this will sort
42:14
Speaker 1: of sit on a shelf for a while until there's
42:16
Speaker 1: more of a consensus or more of a appealing theoretical
42:20
Speaker 1: argument here. I think that it will generate some more
42:24
Speaker 1: work in the theoretical community to figure out how to
42:26
Speaker 1: answer some of these other questions and to see like
42:28
Speaker 1: can it really be dark matter? This is sort of
42:30
Speaker 1: like the first bide of the apple. There's a lot
42:32
Speaker 1: of details still left to figure out that we talked about.
42:35
Speaker 1: But also it's not that hard to do these experiments.
42:38
Speaker 1: It's just sort of like looking in the data of
42:40
Speaker 1: existing experimental facilities to see if you can see evidence
42:44
Speaker 1: for these things that we just haven't looked for before,
42:46
Speaker 1: So that's kind of exciting. You can you don't have
42:49
Speaker 1: to run any experiment, you can just look at the
42:51
Speaker 1: data from old experiments. Yes, all right, Well my last
42:55
Speaker 1: question is, Daniel, if you take six space bananas and
42:59
Speaker 1: tie them together, does that make them a hexta space banana?
43:03
Speaker 1: It makes him a heck of a tasty banana. Heck
43:05
Speaker 1: of whether I'll give you points for naming that one?
43:09
Speaker 1: All right, thank you? All right, Well, I hope that
43:12
Speaker 1: answered the question that a lot of you sent in
43:15
Speaker 1: as to what a hex of cork is and whether
43:17
Speaker 1: or not it can actually explain what dorc matter is.
43:20
Speaker 1: I think, as usual with science and physics in the universe,
43:23
Speaker 1: the question is let's wait and see. Thanks for sending
43:27
Speaker 1: your questions and thanks for tuning in. See you next time.
43:38
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43:41
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43:44
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