Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / What is Supersymmetry?

Transcript

What is Supersymmetry? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, how do you convince the government to give
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: you ten billion dollars? Oh, you just have to promise
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: an aircraft carrier or two. I think that's right. That's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: about the cost of one. But it's also kind of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the cost of a big physics experiment, right, that's true.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Although I didn't personally get the check for ten billion
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: dollars for the large H. John collider. But you're write
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a bunch of world governments all chipped in and spent
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of money on a physics experiment, right, And
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and I imagined that in each of those countries there
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: had to be some physicists who went up to the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: government officials and said, hey, gave was this money to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: discover this thing or that thing? Right? Um? Yeah, Well,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: they don't send me to pitch these things to the government,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: probably very good reason. I'm unusual in particle physics. I
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: think most particle physicists like to make more concrete predictions
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: about what we might find. My view is that we
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: should just sell the exploration. But I think the one
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you're referring to is a kind of a famous area
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in particle physics about the storage for the search for supersymmetry.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly a lot of people thought we were going to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: find supersymmetry at the large a John Collider. So far nothing.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I think I saw that movie from the eighties, wasn't
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it called Despritley Seeking Susie. That's right, supersymmetry is short
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and sometimes as Susie Susie here, give me a billion dollars,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'll find her. Okay, Um, you start looking and I'll
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: send you a chet. Sounds good. I'll be right back. Hi.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I'm Organ and I'm Daniel, and welcome to our podcast,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio, in which we take things in the universe
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and explain them to you. Things that are super, things
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that are not so super, things that are symmetrical, and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: things that are asymmetrical, things that are antithetical to everything
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you believe in, but actually true. That's right. Today on
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the podcast, we're going to talk about a pretty kind
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: of it's kind of a corner of particle physics, right
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and it's it's probably not super well known, but it
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: is it can have incredible implications for our entire theory
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: about the universe. Right. Yeah, it's sort of like particle
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: physicists big hope. Right, it's like a beautiful idea that
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: everybody really really wishes were true. It's solve a bunch
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of problems. It would work really well, it would be gorgeous.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Everybody wants us to find it. Yeah, that's right. Today
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: on the program, we're going to talk about super symmetry.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: What is it? Not just everyday symmetry, not just good symmetry,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: not just extra symmetry, but super not just mild mannered Tonian,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: superpowered flying symmetry. That's right, supersymmetry. It's supposed to be
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the next big thing in physics. You know. It's motivated
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: by looking at the equations and thinking this doesn't quite
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: fit together. How can we make this prettier? How can
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: we find something that's simpler, that hangs together in a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: way that that satisfies us aesthetically. You know, that's sort
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: of surprising how much beauty we search for sometimes in physics. Yeah,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: that's it's kind of interesting that physicists think about beauty
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in their equations, right, Like, isn't that a subjective quality?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Completely subjective? Absolutely, But you know it's a very important
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: guiding principle, Like it goes all the way back to
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Acam's razor. We prefer simple explanations over complex ones. Right,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: If your theory has one moving part, it's simpler than
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: something that has two moving parts or ten moving parts. Right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Even also just in your life, right, you prefer simpler
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: explanations to answer the questions you have. Right, So is
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it more about elegant Do you think like that's an
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: elegant solution or an elegant answer in that it's it's
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: simple and directly to the point. Yeah, And I think
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: it goes to the questions we have as humans. You know,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I want to know how was the universe put together?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And I'd love if that answer was short, you know,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: if it was simple. If the answer to the question
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like how is the universe organized is like a huge
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: list of what every single particle in the universe is
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to do, then that's not really simplification. Right. In
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: some sense, the search for simplicity is inherent. It's core
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: to physics, right. That's what physics is is take everything
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: we observe and describe in terms of a few equations. Right. Well,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I mean you're you're basically looking for laws, right, I
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: mean that's the idea you know, the idea of a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: law is is something that's applicable to many situations and
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: not just specific situations, right, exactly. You want you want
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: rules that generalize, Right. You want to measure something here
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and know you can apply it later. You want to say, oh,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I studied this baseball's ocean, now I know how the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: next baseball is going to move. Right. You don't want
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to a rule that applies a different rule applies to
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: every baseball. Yeah, Like you can't have a government that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: runs with a huge book that says, all right, if
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a guy named Whorehead does a podcast and he does
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: this and that's not allowed, or if he does this,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that's not allowed. But then if it's a guy named Daniel,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: then he can't do this or that of that. You
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: sort of want rule that applies to a general rule
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that applies to everyone. YEA, Well, you know, I wouldn't
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: mind having special rule just for me. Daniel doesn't have
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to pay taxes, Daniel can drive as fast as he likes.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: That would be nice. But you're right, it's not a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: sustainable way to do it. And and it's not just
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: not sustainable, you know, I think the whole job of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: physics is to come up with generalizable laws. And so
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: we've done this a lot of times in physics. We've said, hey,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: look at this um electricity is kind of similar to magnetism.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Can we simplify things and describe it in terms of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: just one idea electro magnetism. Oh look, you know this
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: piece fits together with that piece. It turns out, you know,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: it's it's all part of the same thing, right, or
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: like a discovering F equals m A. And you find
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: that this lab applies to a whole bunch of things,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and it helps you in many many situations, right, yeah, exactly,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you know, and we do this a lot. We just
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: were stumbling over stuff in physics and we don't necessarily
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: know what connects to what. So, like, you know, it's
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: like finding the front of the elephant, and then a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: hundred years later you discover, oh, elephants have butts too,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: And then finally somebody says, wait, put them together. You
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: get a whole animal. Right, it makes much more sense.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Elephant heads and elephant butts are not separate ideas. Um,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I want to be the guy, the person who wins
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that Nobel prize the discovery of the elephant but yeah, exactly.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: You can put that on your tombstone. Um. But that's
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the idea, is like connecting different observations that happened to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you know, happen at different times or different places, and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: realizing they're part of the whole. And so that's the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: driving ideas. Let's look at what we know and look
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: for patterns, look for symmetry, symmetries that we can be
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: used to simplify things. So that's what this supersymmetry is
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: all about. It it's about simplifying the equations of the universe. Right.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: It's like finding like a finding a kind of another
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: set of patterns that make it easier to understand or
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: easier to um put together right exactly. And it's a
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: theoretical exercise, right you say, hey, I notice these patterns
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in the universe, and then you can test that. You
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: can say is this pattern real? Is it true? If
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it is, then I expect to find this new particle
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: for example. The patterns usually predict something new, and amazingly
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes that works, like that's exactly what happened with the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Higgs Boson. Higgs and other folks were like, hey, look,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the universe doesn't quite make sense. This is weird wrinkle
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: that wrinkled goes away if you add one more particle,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and then we actually found the Higgs boson. So like
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: this strategy has worked. It's not just like something we
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you know, enjoy doing that has worked, right, Well, it's
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a pretty cool word, supersymmetry. And and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: just to be sure, it is one word. Like you
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you don't write superspace symmetry. You write it like Superman.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It's like supersymmetry. Yeah, we have long meetings about punctuation
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and particle physics, you know, whether to hyphenate where a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: common goes. And because people come from all over the world,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: they have different ideas about how to do this kind
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: of stuff. But yeah, we all agree supersymmetry is one word.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And it's very commonly abbreviated as susie s U s
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: WA because supersymmetries were just way too long to say. Right. Well,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people know susie or two um,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: but we were wondering how many people out there had
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: heard of this word supersymmetry. I know, it's basically one
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of the most important motivators for governments to spend billions
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of dollars on an experiment. So you think maybe there
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: was a pr campaign, Maybe people know what this is,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: maybe they have an opinion about it. And so, as usual,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Daniel went out there and ask people in the street
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: if they knew what the word supersymmetry means. Here's what
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: people had to say. Yeah, I've heard about it, but
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. I've heard about it
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in some lectures I was listening to from from from
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Fineman I think, and Paul to Rock No no idea.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Who would you guess just from the name, I would
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: have to do something symmetrical, thanks very much from Big
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Bang Theory Ya from the TV show. Just heard it,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: but I don't really know what it means to be.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: To guess, what do you think big supersymmetry might be?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Probably has to do with symmetry and how you make
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: things easier in science, probably because usually like everything that
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: symmetrical makes it easier because you can divide and a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: half when it's too geometry, or it's just like easier
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to apply some rules and equations on it. So I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: guess it would just be like a simplification of something
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: really complicated. Okay, awesome, I don't know what that means.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: But my guess is like something about math, like thanks
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: very much, assumes something is symmetrical, or like something is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: like balanced, or even maybe no, no, never, no, I
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: don't have to guess what it might be. What do
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: you think it might be symmetrical? So, as usual, the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Big Bang Theory has educated Americans and what a word
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: is without explaining what it actually means. I bet you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: plus love and hate that show like you probably you
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: probably don't love the writing or the way that physicists
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: are portrayed. But at the same time, you know, it's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: sort of educated so many people in the words and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the kind of maybe a little bit of the concepts
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: in particle physics. Right right as they're laughing and making
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: fun of physicists, they accidentally learned a few pieces of vocabulary.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: There is a positive side of that. You're right, you
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: wouldn't You wouldn't let people laugh at you too if
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: they ended up learning something. Isn't that the premise of
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: this entire podcast? Listen laugh learn something? Anyway? Well, there
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you go. You're right up there with Sheldon and and
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I don't even even know the other characters. But no, no,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I would totally humiliate myself if everybody in the world
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: could learn a little bit more physics. Whatever you want,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you want to do a dunk tank, you want me
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: to wear a silly costume, sign me up on man.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: That should totally be our live traveling show for this podcast.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: You have a dunk tank with like if you answer
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a physics question correctly, you get the dunk Daniel with.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: You have like a short Anger's dunk tank. You know, oh,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: like is he dunked or is he not done? Behind
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: a cave with like a box and people throw things
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and then it's all connected to some quantum particle and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you may or may not get wet mm hmm. So
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I guess that will be my sacrifice for the art. Right,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: That's how I'm going to make sure that I'm suffering
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: for our art. Right. That's good because my creative partner
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is a joy to worker. Good. He sounds like a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: nice guy. He's an amazing, amazing um anyway. But yeah,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: so not a lot of people have heard of the concept.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, everyone knows what super beans, and I imagine
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of most people out there know what symmetry means.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But when you put it together, suddenly it's a it's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a new word, right. Yeah. You could hear people trying
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to figure it out on the fly, speculating what it
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: might mean based on zero knowledge and just the atomology.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so nobody had an idea supersymmetry needs to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: be better sold, right right, Well, let's get into it
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: all right, um, And for me, you know, I think
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: we just let's talk about what symmetry means in the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: first place. I mean, I know that in the common usage,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: symmetry just means that it's kind of like a like
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a mirror image, like something symmetrically something else. If it's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: if it looks the same as if you were looking
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: at it in a mirror. Right. Yeah. It's all about patterns, right,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: is can you do two things look similar? Right? And Um?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: For particles, we find a lot of these patterns among
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the particles. And what we do is we instead of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: thinking about the individual particles the way you were talking
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: about individual laws for each person, we try to think
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: about the particles together in groups. So for example, you
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: have the electron, and then you have the electrons, antiparticle,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the positron. Right, we don't really think about the electron
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and the positron is separate particles. We think about the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: we think of them as two sides of a coin, right,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the positive and negative version of this part particle, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: we think of it as one concept. It's kind of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: like a it's the same except you flip a sign
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: or you know. It's kind of like if you you
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: put them electron in front of the mirror, one of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: them would be spinning one way, either one would be
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: spinning kind of the other way. Right. Yeah, it's like
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you don't think about the heads separately from the tails
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of a coin, right, There just different sides of the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: same coin, literally, And we think about particles the same way.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And because every particle seems to have an antiparticle, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: with some funny exceptions like the photon, that it's a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: very useful strategy. We notice this relationship between positrons and electrons,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: between muans and anti muons, and so that's a really
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: important symmetry and it it helps us ask questions. Right,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: We're like, well, why is there this symmetry? What does
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: it mean? We think it reveals something deep about the universe.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: We still don't know the answer to that one, right,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Like why do particles have antiparticles. We have no idea,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: but I think it's an important clue about something fundamental
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: about the universe. So we're always looking for these patterns,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: not just because it helps us simplify and right thing
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: down more quickly, but because we were hopeful that their
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: clues about what's going on on the deeper level. Right. So, okay,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: so that's what symmetry means. It's it's kind of like
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: um an electron having a mirror image of itself called
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the anti electron. That's right. But symmetry works in lots
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: of different ways, like there are other symmetries in particle physics.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: If you remember the episode where we introduced sort of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the standard model, the electron has the anti electron, but
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: also has symmetries in other ways, Like there's the mun
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and the taw. These particles are exactly the same as
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the electron, but they're heavier, right, So the electron has
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: two kinds of symmetries. That's a symmetry as well, But
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: they're not they're not like they don't weigh the same,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: they just sort of act the same, that's right. There
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: is a difference, right, So they're not the identical particle.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: But there's a pattern there because the electron is not
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the only one with too heavier cousins, right, The neutrino
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: is too heavier cousins. The up coork has too heavier cousins,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the down cork is too heavier cousins. There's something going
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: on where every particle has two heavier versions of itself.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: We call the flavors. Sometimes, because we're not great in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: particle physics about coming with new names, adopt an existing word,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: which is very confusing. Wait, so that's that's a symmetry
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: as well, these kind of heavier versions of an electron.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Those are absolutely really what how is that symmetric? Because
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you know it imagine symmetry means like the same or
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: mirror image. Yeah, it's just you have to change your
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: definition of what the mirror means. Right. So in the
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: case of positive and negative electrons, your mirror is changing
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the charge, right, it's changing from positive to negative. But
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that mirror can have lots of different kinds of reflections.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Right in this case, an electron and a muon and
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a town. We think of its just different varieties of
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the same kind of particle. So sort of like a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: three way mirror. These particles are definitely related. Right, an
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: electron is much more close relationship with the muon than
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: it does with like corks. But why why do you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: call it a symmetry? Is it in the equation? Something
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: about the equations that somehow you know what I mean?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: You can write all those particles, all those particles have
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the same kinds of interactions, right, they interact with the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: same forces. Uh, they interact with the forces in very
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: similar ways. And so when you write down the equations,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: instead of writing down here, how here's how an electron works,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Here's how a mun works, Here's how a tow works.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Here the laws for those particles, we just write down
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: one set of laws because they follow the same laws.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: There's a little bit of a difference. Each one has
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a different mass, right, but the laws, the basic structure
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of how it works is the same. Is it kind
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of like different solutions to the same equation? Or Well,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: what we don't know is why we have them, right,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you're sort of suggesting like the reason we have three, right, Well,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: we don't know the answer to that. We don't know
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: why there is more than one at all, Like why
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: does this symmetry exist? And then we don't know why
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: there are three in a four or seven or two. Right,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: those are deep questions. When you discover symmetry, it's helpful because,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: as we said, it gives you a clue about some
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: deep questions, but doesn't always give you the answer, right,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: sort of raises the question. So in this case, when
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: when you say symmetry, you kind of mean like an
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: imperfect copy. Yeah, exactly, and the perfection there can vary, right,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Like the positron of the electron are really exactly the
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: same except for the charge um. In the case of
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the electron, the mu and the too, they're very similar.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: There are some differences, the most important one is the mass.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So you can have more or less perfect symmetries. None
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of these symmetries are exact, so just sort of like
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: guiding patterns that we used to organize how how we
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: write down the equations. Okay, so if you had to,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: if you had to christen this thing another name, would
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you still call it some symmetry or would you maybe
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: use another word? Oh? I think symmetry is a nice word.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: You know, symmetry shows like aesthetic purity, right, I mean,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: when you're looking at art, you like symmetry. But when
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: you look at a face. Scientists have like discovered right
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: that symmetric faces are considered the most beautiful. So I
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: think there's a connection between symmetry and beauty and simplicity.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: So I like the word symmetry. Yeah, No, I think
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: it's it's pretty nice. It's hard to spell for her
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: young students. I've I've seen a creatively spelled in lots
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of different way is. But it's a nice word. Well,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: hold on, I'm still stuck a little bit in symmetry.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: So why is symmetry Plano mild manner symmetry? Why is
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: that um important in the equations of physics because you
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: see it or it's it's something that helps you solve
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the equations. Well, it's for the same reason that you
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: um you said earlier about like writing laws. You wouldn't
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: want to write down a different law for everybody. You'd notice, Hey,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I'm rinning now all the same laws, except I'm just
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: substituting Jorge some places and Daniel in other places. Maybe
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I should just write one law for everybody, right, And
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: so that's what we're doing with symmetries, is we're trying
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to find these patterns to simplify things. We could say, hey, look,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the same laws apply to the electron and the muan
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and the tow. We just need to tweak this a
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: little bit, and the same rules apply. So that's what
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: we're going for. Maybe, Okay, So maybe when you when
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you say symmetry, you actually means like same rules apply. Yeah,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Or you could think of it like a pattern, right,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: all right, So it's kind of like you might say,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: like a living in the US is very symmetric to
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: living in Suitland in that blah blah blah blah blah
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: blah blah, and it's kind of like it's it's the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: magrick thing that it's sort of like the same rules apply,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: or there's some sort of pattern between living here in
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the vein in Switzerland. Yeah. I don't know if there's
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: much in common between living in Switzerland living in the US.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I've lived in both places. They're pretty different experiences. Um,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I guess they both eat yogurt. Super symmetric. It's not
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a super symmetric analogy, Daniel, Exactly right. That was not
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: a super analogy about symmetry. It's an underwhelming symmetry, yeah, exactly.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, you could look for example, what are
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the laws of different countries, And you might say, hey, look,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: there is these underlying things everybody wants to the value
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: of property and everyone who wants life, and everyone wants liberty,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and you could say those are inherent about being human.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Is something about forming a human society that makes people
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: want these things, and so we should encode those as
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the bedrock principles of humanity. Right, so we call those
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: human rights. You so and and and you've learned something
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: about humanity that way by identifying in these core principles. Right.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a perspective. It's like when
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you say you want the laws of physics to be symmetric,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: you're saying you want them to be kind of a universal,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and you want them to be applicable to many different things,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and you want them to not very on a Willie
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Neely basis, wanted to be kind of rock solid. Yeah, exactly.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Symmetries allow us to write these things more compactly, write
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: to write down fewer laws because we identify patterns and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: so the same laws can apply to different kinds of phenomena. Right, Okay,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of regular mild manner. Clark Kent glasses wearing.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Symmetry is some sort of like a perspective on the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: laws of physics that say that it's, um, it's sort
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of applicable everywhere. So then um, but now they're supersymmetry.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Are you ready to put spandex on the look like
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the clothes off and see what he's wearing underneath? When
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: making a family friendly podcast, Well, he's taking his clothes up,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: but he's got an outfit on underneath. Folks. Okay, well
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: it's get into supersymmetry, but first let's take a quick break. Okay,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: so that's a that's a pretty good breakdown of symmetry,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: which is, um, it's kind of like the perspective that
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: things should, um, they have a pattern in nature and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: things should have fundamental laws that don't change. Is because
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you move from one place to the other or from
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: one particle to the other. Right, Yeah, it's yeah exactly.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: It's like if you notice, hey, there's sort of two
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: different kinds of things. What can we find that relates them?
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: How can we think of them the same way? Right?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Do we have to have two different totally separate categories
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: or can we say there's a relationship between them and
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: understand them and sort of in the context of a
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: larger idea. Right, it's like, why do we have Democrats
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and Republicans? Oh, they're both just political parties, right, that's
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: sort of the symmetry between that. Okay, so then now
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: let's get into the topic of the podcast. Um supersymmetry.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: So that's like the regular symmetry, but more so or
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I guess the question is like, what are an all
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: symmetries super? Like? What's special about supersymmetries? Supersymmetry is called
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: super because the folks that named it were like grandiose
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in their ideas. Um, it's called super because it sort
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of encompasses the whole set of particles. Here's the idea.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: The idea is that we noticed that there are kind
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: of two kinds of particles out there that we've discovered.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: There's the particles that make up stuff, right, the matter particles,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: electrons and corks and all that kind of stuff. Those
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: particles have a technical name called fermions. Then there's a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: different kind of particle. These are These are particles that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: describe the forces. So the ones that like are responsible
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: for electromagnetism, the photon or the weak nuclear force the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: W and Z boson or the strong force the glue on.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: These particles are different. We call them bosons, and the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: difference between them is technical and we don't need to
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: get deeply into it. We have these two different kinds
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of particles, the fermions which are matter particles, and the bosons,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: which are the force particles, and I always get them confused.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So maybe for this podcast, let's just call the matter
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: particles and force particles. About that? Sure that sounds good,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a matter particles and force particles, And that's odd to
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: people who are like, that's weird that we have two
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: different kinds, And they thought, what if what if there's
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: sort of a symmetry, right, what if there's a connection,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Like what if every force particle had some sort of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: matter particle that was like its reflection, right, imagine like
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this is the mirror now, force versus matter. What if
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: every matter particle had a corresponding force particle and every
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: forest particle had a corresponding matter particle. Wouldn't that be
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: pretty right? Wouldn't that be a nice connection between these two?
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Otherwise just disparate groups of particles, These just two lists
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that we have. Yeah, well that's weird, isn't it, because
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: force and matter are so different. But you're saying that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in particle physics. In quantum physics, you just treat them
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: all a particles. We do treat them as particles. Yeah,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and forced particles and matter particles we treat them a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: little bit different in quantum field theory. Um. But we'd
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: like to see the connection between them, right. We have
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: like this one group of matter particles and this other
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: group of force particles, and we're wondering, like, why do
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we have two different kinds, and why is there this
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: one list longer than that other list? Is there a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: way we can sort of fit them all together into
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: one grand symmetry that I dare say a super symmetry? Right? Oh,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I see, So, like the matter particles are maybe symmetric
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: among themselves, and the forced particles are maybe symmetric among themselves.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And so you've always had these two groups, and so
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you're wondering, are they maybe just reflections of each other
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: across board? Yeah? Exactly the problem is that there isn't
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: really an easy way to make them correspond to each other.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Like there's no forced particle that corresponds to the electron
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and there's no like matter particle that corresponds to the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: photon for example. So if this is gonna work, you
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: have to invent a reflection particle for each one. Right,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: so the every matter particle have to invent a new
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: force particle that we haven't yet found, and for every
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: force particle you have to invent a new matter particle
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: that we haven't yet seen. Wait, so like, um, if
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I have a matter particle like the electron or like
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: a cork, you're saying that if there if there are supersymmetry,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: then that means that there's a forced particle that is
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: just like the cork or the electron, but it's a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: forced particle and something about a change that makes it
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: a forced particle and not a matter particle. Exactly, if
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you have that symmetry, there should be a reflection for
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: every particle, just like well, we know there are particles
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and antiparticles. So if there's some particle out there, you say, well,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it should have an antiparticle, right in the same way
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: we say, well the electron, there should be some forced
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: particle that corresponds to it, and there should be some
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: matter correspond particle that corresponds to the photon. Why couldn't
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: you have what couldn't the photon be the supersymmetric version
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of the electron? Do you know what I mean? Like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: why can't we just match them up? Well, we want
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: them to have the same mass, right, because that would
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: be the nicest symmetry. And so the photon of the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: electron have nothing like the same mass, and then what
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: would match up with the muan right, and what we
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: match up with the tow So we want sort of
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: all the symmetries in the matter particles to be reflected
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in the symmetries and the force particles, um. And then
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of other technical reasons why that just
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: can't work. Well, the important thing is that they have
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: really silly names, right, That's the away from this exactly.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So what they did was they saying, well, we can't
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: just invent a bunch of crazy new names for all
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: these particles, right, we need a name for the particle
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that's the force version of the electron, and the particle
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: that's the force version of the cork, and the particle
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that's the matter version of the photon. So they came
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: up with a rule for how to name the reflection particles.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And the rule is if you take a matter particle
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and you want to name its force reflection, right, the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: particle the force particle. That's it's sort of supersymmetric partner's hypothetical. Hypothetically,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: we haven't discovered them. Like if there's a Swiss version
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: of korhe, it would be named this. That's right. And
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: what you do is you put an S in front
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of the name, right, so you have a particle. The
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: super symmetric version is a sparticle. And so for example,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the electron, it's super symmetric version. The fourth version of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: it is the selectron. Why is it one s and
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: not two s? Is? You know, like supersymmetry should be
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: like this selectron. And that's why because we don't want
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: to be sounding like all the time in our meetings.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: It gets pretty silly, like we have the top cork
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and it's super symmetric version is the stop cork, right,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: or the bottom cork and it's verse. It's super symmetric
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: version is the spottom cork. Right. Wow, that sounds like
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: like an invitation for funny meetings exactly. Um, everybody who
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: learns these rules has a good giggle over it. For
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: a few weeks and then it just becomes a part
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of your day. Um and and and then in the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: other direction, if you have a force particle like the photon,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and you need a name for the matter version of it,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: you add eno to the end. So, for example, a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: photon is a force particle, it's a matter version would
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: be a photino. So if there's a Daniel in Switzerland
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and you're wondering, what would the Daniel be named in
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the US, it would be Daniel Leno. Daniel Leno, Yeah, exactly,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Daniel Leno and sorehe that's the super symmetric version of
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: this podcast Daniel universe. But can you can you just
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: do that? Can you just post the existence of a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: force particle you've never seen? Wouldn't that? Isn't that weird?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Isn't that like making up a whole new force in
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the universe? Exactly it is. But that's what you want
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to do, right when you make a when you observe
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a pattern, the next thing to do is to say, well,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: if this pattern holes, if it really is true, what
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: can I predict that hasn't been seen before. That's how
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you test it, right, That's how they That's how the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Higgs boson was verified, they saw this pattern. The pattern
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: is complete. Only of the Higgs boson exists, and they
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: looked for it found it. Boom pattern probably correct. In
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the case of supersymmetry. You say, well, what if every
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: particle has this supersymmetric reflection. If so, that all these
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: other particles should exist. And it's crazy because what you're
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: doing is doubling the number of particles. Right, you say, Okay,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: we have twelve matter particles and five for particles. Now
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say we have twenty four particles and
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: ten particles. Right, So it's um, it's a big prediction. Yeah,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: it's It's kind of like saying, hey, I have a theory.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I think that for every person in the US, there's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: an there's a Swiss version in Switzerland of that person.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Everyone in in Switzerland has a as version in the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: US and n't seen any of them yet. Yeah, they're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: all hidden somewhere underneath, underneath, and exactly. And when you
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: make a theory of physics, you have to explain all
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: of that. You have to say, here's something you could
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: do to prove my theory is correct. Here's a prediction
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I can make. You will go and find this particle,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and you also have to explain why we haven't seen
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: it yet, right, because if they're all these other particles
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: out there in the universe that the universe can make,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: you have to explain why we didn't see them yet.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: And the standard answer was, until very recently, the standard
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: answer was why they were a little too heavy. That those,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: for some reason, the supersymmetric version of our particles, were
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: all too heavy to just like hang out in the universe.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: They didn't last for very long because they were so heavy.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: So you have to give me ten billion dollars to
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: build a particle collider so I can create the energy
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: density needed to make these particles that would then prove
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: my crazy theory, right, which would then prove my crazy
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: theory if we had found it. Yeah, you're like, it's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: not my fault that you can't see them. They they're
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: just kind of a little overweight. Yeah, exactly, they're a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: little overweight. And that was the key that, right there
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: is the crux of it. We had to say, all right,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: if you give us ten billion dollars, will build a
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: collider that's such and such big that can search for
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: particles up to a certain energy, because remember, the bigger
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the collider, the more energy you're pouring into it, right,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: because you can push the particles faster and faster, which
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: means the heavier new particles you can make. It's directly correlation,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: like the more money you spend, the bigger the collider,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the heavier particles you can make. Than The question was,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: is this collider big enough to find supersymmetry? Is supersymmetry
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: sort of in the next chunk of unexplored territory that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: can be searched by this collider. Okay, so that that's
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: what supersymmetry is. It's the theory that all the particles
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: have these crazy twins hidden out there in the universe,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and so if you give me ten billion dollars, I'm
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: pretty I'm pretty sure I'm gonna find them. That's right.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And it was a fun idea, and it was invented
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties and played with and um
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: people thought, hey, this is kind of cool. It's cute mathematically,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of a big prediction, you know. But
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: then people notice that not only was acute mathematically, but
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: it actually solved a different problem we have in there
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: in physics. And so if it was true, it would
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: be like really nice. It would like tie up a
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: bunch of different loose ends all at the same time. Oh,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I see it's Um, it's a crazy theory, but it's
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the answer to more than one puzzle in physics. Yeah.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: For example, one puzzle we have in physics is like,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: why does the Higgs boson have the mass that it does.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: We don't know why. Um, we can calculate what massive
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: should have, and the calculation is kind of complicated. But
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the short version of the story is that force particles
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: make them make it push the mass in one direction,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and matter particles push in the other direction. And so
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and these and these are really big pushes right there,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: push it by by huge amounts. And so the fact
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: that the two sort of balance out to give us
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: a Higgs Boson that's not like ridiculously heavy. It seems
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: like a big coincidence. You know. It's like, Um, you
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: have two different numbers that happen to almost cancel out,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and you think, oh, there's no relationship between them. It's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a coincidence. Well, if every force particle has a matter particle,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: then it's very natural for them to cancel each other.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Out because there's a symmetry there, right, and everything that's
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: pushing one way, it gets automatically pushed the other way.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: So it would sort of solve that problem, like in
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a really nice, nice way. Like when I first heard
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: that idea of was like, Oh, that's clever, that's beautiful.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: That's like a really nice natural explanation, right, because a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: coincidence in the universe. You guys don't like coincidences, Yeah,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: coincidences beg the question You're like, is that really a
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: coincidence or is there an explanation? Right? Um, It's like
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: if you discover, hey, this supermarket seems to sell the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: same number of hot dogs and hot dog buns every year,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I wonder why. Right, Well, it turns out people buy
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: hot dogs and hot dog buns together for a reason, right,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: They're connected. Um, And so you want to discover these
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: apparent coincidences because they tell you something about the universe
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: or about hot dogs. It's kind of like if you
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: if you find a if you do find an identical
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Jorge in Switzerland, you'd be like, that's too much of
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: a coincidence. They must have there must be something going
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: on that somehow split them apart. And put them in
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: each country. Exactly. If I ever went to Switzerland and
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: met soorhe, then thank you, Um, yeah, exactly, I would
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: think that that's a clue. Right, there's something going on.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And so that's the idea of supersymmetry, and if it's
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: solved a bunch of problems, it might even explain dark matter, right,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And so it's a really it's a tantalizing idea because
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: they could they could kill a lot of birds with
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: one stone, kill a lot of matter and forces and
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: one Yeah, you can win five Nobel Prizes with one discovery. Wow.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into whether or not this is
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: actually real and if we you have found evidence for it.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. All right, So
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: that's supersymmetry. We um, we broke it down a little bit,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: and you said it might explain dark matter. What does
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that mean? Well, there's a particle. A one of the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: super symmetric particles is something that doesn't turn into anything else.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: It just sort of hangs out because it's the lightest
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: one can't turn into anything else. And so if it exists,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: it might be the dark matter particle. Right, So it
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: might be the dark matter is made of particles, and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: the particles is made out of might be super symmetric particles. Wow,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: is it the super symmetric version of the photon? Like
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that would be cool? Yeah, exactly. The opposite of light
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: is dark matter. Let's that's that's beautiful. We're writing right
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: there there you go. See you're searching for beauty in
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: your answers. Right. You don't want just any answer, you
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: want poetry, right, and that's what this is for us.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Symmetry is the physicist version of poetry, except it doesn't rhyme. Oh,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I know it doesn't rhyme because all the particles and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: with the same kenoes you write a pretty silly song
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: using only supersymmetric particle names. Yeah exactly. Okay, So let's
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: get into whether it's real or not. So is this
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: theory real? Have they found evidence for it? We have
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: exactly zero evidence that supersymmetry is really exactly we have
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: symmetric So in a way, you sort of confirmed the
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: beauty of the universe. No, the only thing supersymmetry has
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: going for it is its elegance. Is its beauty is
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: that it would solve these problems. But you know, nature
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: is not interested in the ideas that we think are beautiful.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: There are lots of gorgeous theories out there that turned
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: out to not be true. And so we you know,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of people said we would find supersymmetry and
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: we turned on the Large Change and collider um, but
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: we didn't. They thought you would find like these crazy
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: hypothetical particles to just start popping out of the collider. Yeah,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: and it's pretty exciting when you turn on a new collider,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a collider and an energy nobody has ever collided particles
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: that before. You could discover something in minutes, right, It
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: really is like landing on a new new planet that
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: nobody's ever been to before, nobody's ever created collisions of
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: this energy. So it could be the first time you
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: had enough energy to make these particles, and it could
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: be that they're just like you know, flew out of
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the collider like crazy. So the first few days the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Large Hadron Collider, everybody was very excited, Right, We're like,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: what's in the data, what's in the data? Did you
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: discover supersymmetry? Is it there? Is it there? And there
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: was a big community of theorists who really believed that
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: we would find it and that we would find it
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: very early on, but we didn't. So far. The only
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: thing we found that the large Hadron collider that we
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: didn't know about before was the Higgs boson. Huge triumph,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: but um. A lot of people sold supersymmetry as a
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: potential discovery of the large hGe On collider and so
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: far not there. Maybe they were just hedging in case
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: they didentified the Higgs. They're like, Wow, we might not
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: find the Higgs, but we might find Susie. Yeah, it
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: could have been that we didn't see the Higgs, right.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: We weren't guaranteed right, We didn't know um. And one
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: question is like how far away is Susie? How heavy
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: are these particles? Are these particles real and part of
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the nature, but the large hGe On collider is just
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: not quite big enough to find them? Right? Or is
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: it that there there's like super far away and you'd
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: have to build a collider the size of the Solar
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: System to make them. We don't really have a good
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: answer to that question. We don't really good theoretical clues
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that tell us how big the collider has to be.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: The theory doesn't tell you what's the maximum, Like you
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: can just keep going. The theory doesn't tell you, well,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: if you haven't found them by this mask, then they
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: probably don't exist. Right, the most beautiful version of supersymmetry
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: all the particles had the same mass as their super particles.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Now we know that's not true because there if the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: electron had a superparticle that had the same mass, we
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: would have found it already. I like how you say
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the most beautiful, Like you guys have beauty contest for theories, simplest,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: most poetic theories, right, Um, you know, and uh, some
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of these some of these series look great in the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: swimsuit competition. They stumble when they asked them of geopolitics,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: but you know, they do their best, and then the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: judges flip a sign saying ten seven. You can have
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: versions of supersymmetry where the supersymmetric particles are like, way, way,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: way too heavy for us to ever practically make them
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: in any collider we would build, So we're not guaranteed. Yeah,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: so there's different flavors of supersymmetry, and some of them
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: are more super than others. Yeah, there's a huge number
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: of supersymmetric theories, and we've ruled out a bunch of them,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: but there's a huge number left, so you can't really
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: kill supersymmetries. It's always got another rock for it itself
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: to hide under. Um. But as I was saying before,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: there was a controversy because people thought maybe the theory
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: community was too bullish on whether the LATEC was big
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: enough to find supersymmetry. And now that we didn't, like,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you know, should they rethink how they made those arguments
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: because we're in the beginning stages of arguing for the
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: next collider, right, and people are wondering, what this wouldn't
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: be big enough to find supersymmetry. How do you know
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: you were wrong last time? Should we believe you this time? Right? Well,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I told you, but I once
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: gave the keynote address at a supersymmetry conference. Did you
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: give us super talk? It was you give two super talks?
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: It was it was super ansymmetric. Did you give it
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: forward and then backwards? That's right? I walked down stage
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: and then I walked off stage. But no, yeah, yeah,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I talked a lot of physicists that they're physicists there,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and they were, you know a lot of them were
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: like really convinced that supersymmetry was is true, and and
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I was like, how do you what makes you so
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: confident or when? And it was really sort of came
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: down to a sense of faith or a sense of
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: like like you said, like the like this believe that
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the universe has to be beautiful and it has to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: be symmetric in this way. Yeah, a lot of people
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: who bought that story. Personally, me not interested. I think ridiculous.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I've never spent any of my professional scientific energy searching
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: for supersymmetry, and I have no interest in it. Really.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Why what makes you so down on it? There's a
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: few reasons. Um. One is it's a bit too complex
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: for me. I mean, you're predicting a lot of different particles, right,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: and it's sort of a big it's a big thing
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to predict. Um. I prefer a sort of simpler, more
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: compact answer. Um. And But I think more fundamentally, I'm
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: not into particle physics to confirm theoretical ideas. I'm not.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: My job is not to say yes or no to
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the ideas some folks have in their office. My interesting
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: particle physics is to explore my scientific fantasy, is not
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to discover something that Professor x y Z predicted, But
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: to discover something weird unanticipated, it's something that makes Professor
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: x y Z go what that can't happen? Um, That's
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: why I'm an experimentalist, because I think I see it
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: as a as an exploration, right, right, But you need
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the theories to tell you if what you're seeing is
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: weird or not. Right, Like, if there weren't any theories,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't know it is weird. Well, you can discover
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a particle that nobody's ever seen before, right and say, oh,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: what's this? How does it work? What does it do?
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: How heavy is it? How does it interact? Right? What
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: does that mean? And you know, then the theorists can
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: get started understanding how it fits into the other patterns.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: But you can definitely have experiment be the leader. Right.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: There was a period in particle physics earlier this century
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: where basically every time you turned on the collider you
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: found a new particle and nobody knew what they were
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and it was a it was a huge mess, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: it was called the particles Zoo And that one must
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: have been really fun, you know. Um, these days I
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: just want to just like fuzzy little particles actually I'm
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: totally anti zoo. Um things, those are crazy. They're locking
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: up these beautiful animals and cages. Um. That's the topic
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: of a different podcast. So my interest in particle physics
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: is more about looking for something unanticipated than box checking
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the ideas of other people. Um. But it's a huge area,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: like some big fraction of particle physicists search for supersymmetry. Right,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: But you're saying that you're telling me earlier that some
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: people a lot of people that are have given up.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: They're like, all right, forget it, it's not real. M. Yeah. Well,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of people feel like if supersymmetry is going
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: to be real and it's going to be natural and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: beautiful and explain all these things, it has to be
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: light that you can't have super duper heavy particles. They
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: don't like the versions of supersymmetry with the particles are
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: too heavy for us to have found them. Yeah. Um,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: And so I think a good number of people have
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: given up on it or are thinking about other ideas well.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I certainly hope that you guys find that the universe
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: is beautiful and has perfect facial structure, the symmetric and
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: wins A lot of beauty contests. Well, I'm sure that
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: whatever we find about the universe, it will be beautiful,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: and it will be symmetric, and it will be incredible.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: It just might not be the idea of beauty that
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: we went out looking for. You know, when we go
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: out and look for things on other planets, we expect
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: to find incredible, mind blowing things. We just don't predict
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: them in advance, right, and we embrace that. We look
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: forward to being surprised by nature. That's the whole idea
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of science. Yeah. I think what you're saying is giving.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: They should give you the billion dollars and not this theories.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: My checking account is open, so people free to send
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: me checks for billions of dollars. Yes, that's how you agree?
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: All right? What's our Veno account? Daniel Venoll and Daniel
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: and Jorge dot com. Yeah exactly, or you know, I
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: accept gold blue Yon also. You know that's fine. Great.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Do you accept menos and zenos? Exactly? Only a lot
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of them, though it takes a big pile and mean
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: a certain arrangement. All right, thank you very much. That's
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: a supersymmetry. I hope you guys learned what it is
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: and it's so super and it's something that we might discover.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: So maybe by the time this podcast comes out, we
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: will have a hint of supersymmetry. Or maybe it will
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: take another hundred years. Nobody knews until then, See you
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: next time. If you still have a question after listening
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. From
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: More podcast from my Heart Radio visit the I Heart
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.