December 30, 2025 • 39 mins
Bradley Jay Fills In On NightSide with Dan Rea:
Our shared scientific reality is what unites us as humans, but over time, some scientific truths have fallen out of public favor. Misinformation abounds, and many can’t tell scientific facts from fiction anymore. Bradley talked with Doug Arion, Prof. Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at Carthage College, about 10 scientific truths that somehow became unpopular in 2025.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you, Emma.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
It is a WBZ and that side with Dan Ray
and Bradley Jay in for Dan, and at ten o'clock
we're gonna talk about Italian cooking and we're gonna teach
you actually how to cook a couple of fancy dishes
and also how to make handmade pasta. I know that's
kind of simple for some, but I've tried it and
failed a lot, and I'd like to really know how
to do it. Yes, I know it's just flour and eggs,
(00:29):
put this is more to it than that. Also a
saltan buca, do you know what that is? We're going
to learn how to make that, and some real tiara massou.
That will be at ten with a fifth generation local
North End cook. And at nine o'clock we're going to
talk about the history of public transportation in Boston, way
(00:54):
back to the very first. Do you know what the
very first form of public transportation was in Boston.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Which allowed folks to avoid a two day walk around
around the peninsula. So that was the very first thing.
We will take it from that point all the way
up to this point with the guy who runs the
an MBTA shop over a mass out between Harvard and
Heard and Porter. He's all about the NBTA, he's all
(01:23):
about public transportation. He's going to be fun as well.
But now we're going to talk with Doug Arian, director
of Mountains of Stars, and a physics professor about ten
scientific theories that somehow became unpopular in twenty twenty five.
I shouldn't say theories, I should say truths. Ten scientific
truths that somehow in the last year became increasingly unpopular,
(01:47):
and we're going to go through them and explain why
they really are true.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Doug, thanks for being with us. He's calling from.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Probably from Twin mountains in New Hampshire with lots of
stars up there.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Hi, Doug, I'm bradly great to chire with you again.
And yes we have well we'd have stars if it
worn't cloudy, but we have snow, so it's a nice
winter up here in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Now, tell me before we started about Mountains of Stars, so.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
That I run called Mountains of Stars is a public
science education program where we try to connect people with
the environment through astronomy. Because if you look up and
understand where we fit into the very big picture of
the whole universe we look at. So we do programs
all over New England, language on programs for over seventy
five thousand people to try to improve the way we
(02:41):
work with our environment here and connect people with stars
and planets and all the other things in the universe.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
And you're a physics professor, so you're able to explain
things and explain.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Why they're important. Let's get since we have only one.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Yeah, that's very important.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Let's get to the top ten. Truth is the it
became unpopular this year twenty twenty five. Number one truth
that became unpopular. It was already sort of unpopular, but
I guess it became increasingly unpopular.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The germ theory of disease.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The germ theory of disease is real and vaccination is
the safest, most effective strategy to combat these deadly pathogens,
according to.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The article in Apple News. And that is still true.
It's still true.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
That the germ theory of disease is real and vaccination
is the safest, most effective strategy. Is it true that
there are people that don't believe in that the diseases
are caused by germs.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Yeah, there are still folks out there who who don't
recognize that, and even more who don't realize how effective
vaccination is to either reduce the effective disease or prevent
it from happening in the first place. And we've actually
been doing vaccinations for hundreds of years, believe it or not.
If you go back to say, for ticonder Roga during
(04:04):
the Revolution, they actually intentionally applied smallpox to soldiers in
small amounts that they wouldn't get the big disease. So
this is not a new thing. It's not like we
just invented it. The technology is the better, we've gotten
better ways of doing it, but we've been doing it
a very long time.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Is it the people don't believe in vaccination, or is
it that they don't believe in the new kind of
fast track vaccination that was a COVID vaccination, or is
it more than.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
We're concerned about the fact that that happened so quickly,
but it didn't actually happen as quickly as pink RNA
based vaccines mr quork have been going on for many years.
So everybody was really spun up and ready to develop
something to target at the COVID virus pretty quickly. So
(04:55):
it was a trendous accomplishment to make that work, and
it certainly did.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Are you enough are.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You smart enough and enough of a professor to explain
to me how the RNA vaccinations work or is that
that's not really your ball your bailiwick, but can you
explain it?
Speaker 4 (05:14):
It's not my specialty. The basic concept is you you
introduce something into the body that the body recognizes the
same way it would recognize the virus, and it builds
up cells coils that are capable of destroying that by
triggering that. When you then get exposed to the real virus,
(05:36):
these t cells come up there enough up before it
can affect you, and it really works. It's amazing stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, I knew, I knew that body.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I mean is like way way back in Benjamin right
back in Cotton Mather times. Weren't they doing a little
bit of that vaccination cowpox type of scratching and it
worked right right?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
But that was actually using live virus, right and just
give you at to build up. Now you know, subsequently
we use what was called killed virus viruses that have
been modified that they wouldn't make you sick but would
create the reaction. And mr NA as a whole other
technology using RNA as opposed to DNA to generate it.
(06:22):
And I'll admit I don't know the details of it,
but that's the that's the basic process.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
There are side effects that do we have to respect
the people who are concerned about the side effects, Like
some code vaccines, you'd hear reports of enlarged heart and
other side effects. Why is that not a legitimate concern.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, there are legitimate concerns for everything. But but it's
also the matter of risks and what you do. So,
for example, we all drive cars. Even though death by
cars not all that unlikely, right, it's sufficiently unlikely that
you're willing to travel by car. And so when we're
working with things like vaccines, they work for almost everybody.
(07:10):
And yes, there are who will have a bad reaction
to it, but as a whole, it is beneficial to
vaccinate as many people as possible because that prevents the
transmission of disease.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Mandatory to vaccinate kids to go to school.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I think yeah, for for the primary diseases, because it
has been extremely ect Polio, small, all these different they
they've basically been wiped out because we've been assured of
basically eliminating characters who could carry it have been protected,
and so those diseases have basically been eliminated. And if
(07:52):
we can do that for everything consistently makes us all
safer and healthier.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
You know, I want to be fair to people that
are concerned about something. I try to put myself in
an anti vaxxer's place, a person that did not want
to be forced to.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Have a vaccine or have the kid have a vaccine.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And I was thinking, what if I truly believed from
false information that it was dangerous, or even from real information,
if I truly believed that as jamming something in my
body would hurt me, I too would probably not be
(08:34):
too thrilled about that. I would probably revolt against that.
I think somehow the problem is that there's a there's
an unfounded fear, or the fear is too much. I mean,
when when people hear hard enlargement, they don't know that
it's like three of those per one hundred thousand, whereas
(08:56):
the exactly where and I just use as an example,
they don't know that the risks from long COVID far
out weigh that if there's anyone who wants to take
either side of this vaccination topic, I'm happy to entertain
both sides, and I'll tell you why. Honestly, I know
the vaccination's work. I know that's why measles, smallpox, polio,
(09:19):
et cetera are virtually non existent. On the other hand,
do I trust big government? Do I trust big pharma?
Do I think they're above convincing me that I need
something that I don't need.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
No, I don't think that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I think that the dollar rules, and they would act.
They would absolutely try to convince me to do this
and take advantage of a situation to convince me to
do it. So, of course I get the vaccines because
the science says I should.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But not you know, I'm not hook line and sinker.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I do it because the risk reward tells me I
should do it, And so I've gotten them all.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I'm all right, Yeah, I totally agree. You know. It's
the thing about vaccines that I don't think was well
explained during COVID was part of getting a vaccine was
a matter of protecting you, but also kept you from
(10:19):
being a carrier to spread it to multiple people. So
part of being vaccinated isn't just protecting yourself. It's protecting others,
and so it reduces cheap things from becoming epidemics. It's
not just a matter of and so there's a bigger
(10:40):
societal aspect of it that I don't think is well explained.
It's not just oh, well, I've decided I don't want
to take it. It's like, well, that means you could
be a care and you could infect a lot of
other people.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
All right, we need to take a break now, that's.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Something you want to do.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We need to take it break now.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And in the meantime it is kind of a glitchy
connection that we have.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It comes in and out.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I don't know if there's anything you can mcgiver together
on your end or r end to make it a little better.
If there is, let's try to do that during the break.
If not, we'll continue as is. And the next thing
is about the fact that it was SARS of COVID
was not a result of the Wuhan wet market.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I guess it was.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Not a conspiracy, but somehow in twenty twenty five that
conspiracy theory kind of kind of moved in again. We'll
talk a bit about that on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Radio, Bradley J F.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Dan, We're around with Doug Arian, a physics professor, my
favorite physics professor. By the way, if you don't you
don't know this, then you probably don't. Doug makes his
own telescopes there. He makes big ones. He grinds his
own glass. He has a little servo motor it so
they follow the stars as they move across the sky
or appear to move across the sky. And in his
(12:05):
little observatory, it's like a garage with a roof that retracts,
and its way up in the middle of the White
Mountains in Twin Mountain on a road which probably doesn't
have landline service, and that's why I guess the sell
service is a bit spotty. But you know, we'll try
to continue here. Now we're talking about ten scientific truths
(12:28):
that somehow became unpopular in twenty twenty five. We started
out with basically fear of vaccines and folks not really
believing in germ theory.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And if you have an.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Anti vaxxer, I want to give you a platform because
I don't want to be one sided here. On the
night side, happy to talk about that. I kind of
feel your pain. I'm personally gonna get every vaccine.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Except I will tell you my doctor.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Told me that he did not recommend the RSV vaccine
and I asked him why, and I didn't really understand.
And later he goes, I guess you know, it's okay,
But now I still have a little doubt about that.
So I still haven't gotten that one, but I got
everything else. I got them all. I'm you know, if
(13:19):
you're going all in, go super all in. I'm vaccinated
to the teeth. Now we'll talk about COVID again. And
this is the scientific truth that lost popularity in twenty
twenty five, that it was not a conspiracy theory. And
this is reading from the article in the Apple News article.
(13:41):
In the spring of twenty twenty, infections from a novel
coronavirus began to spike in country DECREEA. We get that
Asia Americans, Tens of thousands died, hundreds of thousands, we
got long COVID and really bad side effects. And around
the same time, a dishonest narrative no basis in science,
began appearing that the virus was not a result of
(14:03):
the natural spillover from nature to humans, but came as
a result of work that was conducted, Oh I see,
perhaps in secret at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
So what is that?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
How do we know that it's natural and natural spillover?
And what is a natural spillover? How do we know
that it did not come from a secret lab in
Woo in China.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
So we'll talk about with spillovers is that many viruses
are carried by various creatures. In fact, right now we're
having bird flu, which is a virus is carried through birds,
for example. And there are many many creatures that are
carrying viruses around to which they either have no reaction
(14:53):
or little reaction. But if if virus gets spilled out
and gets in, we have a bad reaction to it.
And this has happened on numerouss and things that we
get are from viruses that had their origins with other species.
Remember we share the planet with hundreds of millions of
other species. You know, things happen. So the way you
(15:14):
can tell what comes from where and how it's connected
is something that we've been able to do anolgately recently,
which is to actually sequence the DNA in them, and
so you can tag each virus and each kind of
virus with where it came from. So even during COVID,
you may remember, there were all these different variants that
(15:36):
came out. There was the alpha version, and there was
this version, then the omicron version was the really bad one.
Each of us is the same kind of virus, was slow,
different DNA in it. And because of that, they were
able to actually sequence which versions were affecting which people
in which places, so you can actually map out ones
(16:02):
were particularly bad, which ones were easy to transmit, which
ones made people the sickest, because each of them behaved.
So that lets you actually start mapping back to what
the original virus must have looked like because you can
see each of the variations as they popped up on
So this incredible ability to do DNA sequencing, which is
(16:24):
why you can get, you know, do the twenty three
and me thing, you know, and find out where you
came from, and all of that, that same technology let
us understand each virus, what that virus came from, what
the variations are, and what the sequence is. So really
amazing chunk of science that lets you work that out
(16:46):
to determine what the sources of these viruses are. And
so there's real science, there's really lab work you can
do to figure this just a matter of well, I
think it just came from there, and I'm just going
to say, and that's the difference between science and rumor.
So so that sequencing technique was very in understanding and
(17:10):
then managing what happened with COVID and any other major
widespread viruses.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Is that a little bit like when you do the
genetic testing to see about your ancestry, they they.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Can track exactly it's the same same exact thing, the
same kind of chemistry.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, and it didn't come from Wuhan, China, came from
some spill over.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Well, it did come from it. I mean, it did
come from China, but it came from animals in China.
It did not come from somebody trying to make that
virus in a lab. It came from an animal source,
and that animal source virus then through passing through various humans,
(17:59):
we got all these differ, diferent variations. Those variations all
travel around very very quickly, and there were some outstanding
studies back there. It's just reading about one today which
talked about the different kinds of people and the amounts
of liquids that have you when you're speaking right, the
little droplets that come out, and how those carried the virus,
(18:21):
and which ones carried the virus farther that allowed it
to reach to more people, and then those people became
carriers to further people. In each of those versions was
a different, slightly different version of the virus, and we
can map all of that wicked coold.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But do you believe that countries do manufacture viruses? Though
I would think they would. Chemical warfare, viral biological warfare,
that does happen.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Right, Things get sequenced, things get put together. I'm I'm
not aware of folks making actual viruses, which are more
than just a DNA strand, Right, You've got to build
the appropriate DNA and RNA combinations. They then have to
(19:08):
go into the right protein. There's a lot of stuff
that goes into actually making a virus that's different than
making parts that go into it. And I'm not a biologist,
so I'm not a specialist at doing that kind of science.
I understand the sequencing process, the ability to create individual molecules,
(19:35):
but actually building a virus from scratch and putting that
out into the environment. That would take a lot.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
All right, well, let's take a break and talk about
one thing that I noticed in twenty twenty five people
used peer review or passing peer review or not passing
peer review a reason to doubt science. And that needs
some explanation and hopefully you'll give it to us after
this break on w b Z.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Let's continue with Doug Arion, professor of physics and astronomer
and much more. And being a scientist, he's very familiar
with a thing called peer review, and peer review is
something that has been used by science doubters and conspiracy
theorists to discredit scientific theories and even settled science. Can
(20:39):
you explain what peer review really is and how it's
used to buy sort of anti science people to discredit
scientific theory and fact.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Sure, So I'm a scientist. I do research. When I
come to some conclusion that I will to publish, I
write up a paper and I submit that to a journal.
And what that journal editor then does is send that
paper with your name removed, so it's cold blind, so
nobody knows who wrote it. And that is sent out
(21:15):
to several other people who are researchers in a similar field.
They read the paper and they critique it. They'll look
at it and say, okay, does the method seem reasonable
to the conclusions that the author thinks they lead to?
Did the steps seem to be taken correctly? And if
(21:35):
they agree to that, then the paper gets published. Find
problems with it, which is most of the time, they'll
send questions back to the author and say, well, you know,
could you please explain step two over here? It seems
like that'slishenable, and you would edit the paper and this
might go back and forth three, four, five times, and
if you meet reviewers think needs to be fixed, the
(21:58):
paper then gets published. That then makes it available to everybody,
to the entire side of the community, who will then
read that paper and will consider it as part of
the literature and say, okay, what does this mean? Is
this right? Can I use this in my research? And
so on? Now, the process of sciencespecch that with each
(22:21):
step we thought things that we thought were right but
turn out not to be right. We say, okay, this
is going on, this is what I published. Somebody does
some more work on it and comes back and goes, well,
that's what you thought, but this is actually what's better,
and they publish a paper that advanced as the science.
And this is what goes on over and over and
over again.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Review is let me see if I understand sure, a
scientist comes up with a theory and a method of
testing the theory, and before actually doing the real testing,
he he or she writes it up, sends it out
to their years to say, look, does this look kind
of reasonable? Is this is this crazy? H does this
(23:06):
method of researching it look right? And in no way
has anyone decided that that is now scientific fact. It's
just checking up on It's like it's like openers in
a card game, or it's like probable cause? Is there
enough cause, probable cause to go forward with this? And
what happens is people just because enough legitimacy was found
(23:32):
to go forward with that, and they if they do
go forward with it and find out, well, the theory
didn't really work out we tested it. It really was wrong. Naysayers.
Scientific naysayers will use that as an example of science
is wrong. You can't depend on science. Science is wrong
when that's really not has not been established as a
(23:57):
scientific fact, yet it's not wrong. That's part of the
process of deciding if it's wrong. But they're using that
process in an early step to say science is no
good anymore. Really, and that's not a that's not and
an inflation. That's true. They don't want they don't like
the scientific method anymore. And that's something that a belief
(24:18):
that increased in the last year twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Do I have that kind of correct.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Well, yeah, that's the basic idea. You know, this idea
of peer review goes back hundreds of years with the
Royal Society four hundred years ago. That you know, research
we represented and people would critique it before it would
be published, and that it's an important step and that
(24:44):
the method of science works even though each of the
things we discover improves upon or even invalidates a prior idea.
I mean, everything we know from Isaac Newton, everything Isaac
Newton did, is actually wrong right because they now but
it works. I mean your tennis player, basketball player only
(25:05):
needs to use Newton to put the ball in the
right place, but once you go into spaceflight you need
what Einstein did. Newton is wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That'd be this would be great for you to do.
How was Newton wrong about everything?
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Well, Newton's theories work if you're not moving too fast.
If you move fast, and this gets into complicated things.
Ogine showed is, for example, distances and masses and time change.
When you're moving very fast, it's called relativity. But if
you're not moving that fast, and it's fast, we're talking
(25:40):
about compared to the speed of light, so crazy fast.
If you're not moving that fast, you can use a
simpler explanation, the explanation that Newton had, and it works
just fine. It's just once you start moving faster, or
you're in very strong gravity, like around a black hole,
or you're looking at things on the scale of galaxies.
If you calculate it using Newton's theory, you get close,
(26:03):
but not quite. If you use Einstein's theory, you get
the right numbers. And so we know that Einstein's explanation
of special and general relativity is a more accurate description
of how the universe works than Newton's description. So the
fact that Newton's worked for hundreds of years until we
(26:23):
discover like, oh, wait a minute, if you go fast enough,
you're oh, Einstein figured out what you do under those sences.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Are there any examples of in real life where we
have done anything that went fast enough so that Newton's
theories did not work? Do you have we gotten close
to a black hole so that Newton's science didn't work anymore,
or were still in the in the theoretical stage.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
You don't even You don't even have to go that extreme.
Everybody uses GPS, which is like the tool that everybody
uses to get everywhere. Right, You use maps on your
phone or in your car to get someplace. The JEEP
satellites actually have to use their computers when they send
signals down, actually use Einstein's equations and not Newton's equations.
(27:13):
If you don't use Einstein's equations, your airplane misses the runway.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
That's no good.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
So you actually use it every single day. You just
don't know it. It's being done for you because those
satellites are in gravity and they're traveling for that. So
if you don't correct for that, you don't get the
right position, all right, So you actually use it every day,
you just don't know it.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Speaking of satellites, another truth which became I guess less
popular in twenty twenty five is that Earth's orbit has
a finite carrying ability for satellites.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
In other words, in the orbit orbital.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Altitude that satellites work in, there's only so much room
and you can and we're approaching the maximum satellites that
you can put.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
In there, and once you exceed that, you could.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Run into something called the Kessler syndrome, which is a
disastrous thing. Can you elaborate on that and talk about
what happens if there are too many and the Kessler
syndrome kicks in?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Sure, So just envision highways that you drive on all
the time. When you have highways that don't have a
lot of tram cars on them, but they're not all
they're near each other traffic moodally, there's no real problems
and accidents. A lot of cars in a smaller road,
or too many cars on a road, the probability of
(28:42):
having an accident gets through pretty high. And if things
are moving fast enough and two cars at each other,
that tends to create a chain reaction because other cars
run into them. And you've seen accidents like that all
the time. Well, the same thing's happening in space. And
so these large groups of satellites that are being flown
(29:02):
to supply Internet, so Starlink, one web Kuyper, all these
different satellites, the narrow band of altitude, they're filling that
up with satellites and we only have right now and
up there we're looking at maybe one hundred to one
hundred and fifty thousand satellites up there. Remember they're all
(29:23):
moving seventeen thousand miles an hour. So the two of
these things happened, that'll create debris. The same way when
you have two cars at each other and you have
a lot of stuff spread all over the road. Well,
thing that comes along smashes into that debris and gets broken,
and the next one smashes into it and gets broken,
(29:45):
and all of a sudden you have one of these
catastrophic collections of accidents. Well that's what the Kesseler syndrome is.
It says, well, if you have a collision and it
creates a field of broken parts, and the next thing
that comes through hits that and that breaks up. That
makes the con parts even bigger. And that just aids
until the point is that you start descrying all the
satellites so you can.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Have a multic You could have a multi car pile
up out in space. Where satellites study crashing into each
other in a chain reaction.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Exactly, and so already, believe it or not, the satellites
up there have to maneuver. There are hundreds of maneuvers
a day every day. Right now, what are satellites we
have there? Where satellites have the moves, they don't hit,
So imagine what happens when we jam that up, Like
you know ninety three in Boston in the tunnel, when
(30:38):
you put too many cars, it happens. That's what's happening
up there. So there are a lot of concerns about it. Unfortunately,
there isn't a really good set of regulations or treaties
for dealing with this. And I'm actually on a major
international committee that's working on this, and there's a big
(31:00):
group that is approaching you say, look, we need to
start putting some rules and REGs together, basically creating traffic laws.
Like we have other highways, you know, like who has
right way and how do you enter a highway and
how do you exit a highway. We don't have that
for space. We need to have that for space.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Do you have any hope that you can defeat big money,
that you can defeat the elon musks who control the government.
When big money is at stake, can an organization like
the one you're a part of.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Really do anything.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Don't you know in the back of in your heart
that they're just going to keep doing it and tell
the Kessler effect until it takes place, until there's a
huge crash up there.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
I guess, unfortunately, I don't have a lot of hope
for actually solving these things. In fact, there are more
companies that are planning to put up more different kinds
of things. So there's a company that's looking to fly
a whole series of huge mirrors, and they're going to
fly them so that they can bounce sunlight onto solar
(32:09):
arrays even during the dark, to keep solar arrays going.
Is that if you're happen to be under where one
of these things is, you're going to be in blinding
bright light in the middle of the.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Night twenty four to seven. It's going to hap.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
You think that's a great idea, But there's a company
and right now we don't have any rules to stop
somebody from doing that. So that there are all these
different things, not just the stabber communications, but all these
other things that people are trying to do that have
major environmental implications on the ground and in space.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
One quick question, what is that altitude range for that
satellites can be effective in? How many feet is the
is the bottom and how many feet is the ceiling?
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Well, the bottom is it's a range of several hundred
miles a couple hundred miles up, so from you know,
one hundred and fifty to five hundred miles something like that.
It is a range through which most of these things go.
But you know, the two hundred two hundred and fifty
mile range is pretty common. So it's in that range
of a couple hundred miles, which sounds like it's big,
(33:21):
but when you're moving seventeen thousand miles an hour, that's
not that far.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And how many of them are already up there? And
what percent of that is the max? Like how many
can what is the max that can fit up there?
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Well, that's a good question. I'm not sure that number offhand.
There are experts in that who work that out right now,
I believe, Well, there's about fourteen thousand active satellites. There
are some sixty thousand pieces of satellite and satellite debris
that are being tracked. So it's not just the satellites.
When you have old satellites, you have dead birds, you
(34:03):
have debris from launching things, launch vehicles. There's a lot
more up there than just these satellites, which makes the
problem even worse as you can imagine. So I'm not
sure what the total number, what that capacity really is,
but with all the maneuvers we have to have and
(34:28):
what the projected number of spacecraft is is pretty scary.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
One quick one more question about that before the break,
and that is if there is one of these Kessler
effect chain reaction satellite collisions, like a big pile up
on a winter highway in Colorado, and if airlines depend
on that GPS to hit the runway, could that cause
a catastrophic group of airline crashes if the Kessler effects
(34:57):
comes to pass.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I have to look at what the altitude is for
all the GPS satellites. I believe the GPS satellites are
operating in a way that would not be affected by
that directly. Now, depending on how big that cloud a
debris is, that could spread out and start taking out
(35:22):
all sorts of things. So it depends how big that
cloud would be. But it's ps, then all sorts of
things become a problem.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm surprised we haven't.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
It's just radio interference.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm surprised that we haven't had satellite warfare yet. So
much so much is increasingly depending on satellites and navigation
for drone use, which is increasingly popular. I'm surprised we
haven't seen more killer satellites or attempts to kill satellites.
I don't need you to answer that, and.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Let well we have. We actually have. We actually have
not directly against other country satellites, but launched and destroyed
one of their own satellites a year ago last October,
an anti satellite weapon, which by the way, created a
(36:13):
big cloud of broken satellite parts, attributing factor to the
space debris problem. The Chinese also did one, so countries
are demonstrating that they have the ability to launch something
and take out a satellite pretty sooner.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I have to have a satellite.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's a real one satellite weapon band treaty, just like
we had a nuclear test band treaty. Let's take that
break I've been promising, and we'll finish up with Doug
in a moment on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio WBZ.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Where with Doug Arion, a physics professor, we're kind of
talking about we've been going through ten scientific facts that
started to be doubted, it became unpopular in twenty twenty five,
and the conversation led to the glut, the dangerous glut
(37:11):
of satellites we have and what can happen as a
result if we keep introducing more up there, and we
do take we do always encourage callers, and so Ed, Doug,
Ed and Wooster is going to join us.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Hello, Ed, Hi Bradley. I had heard you guys discussing COVID,
and I just had a few points I jotted down
that I think I'm right about. I wasn't really paying
attention during COVID, and I didn't have consider myself strongly
aligned with either the pro or anti VACS people. But
(37:46):
there were some things, some things that caused me to
sort of doubt a lot of the stuff I was
hearing from the from the government slash the scientific side. Okay,
and I just want to see if these are right,
if I'm understanding of these, Okay, I can run through
a few. First thing, Sweden, my understanding of Sweden basically
did nothing, and at least I think, but I have
(38:08):
heard they had fewer excess deaths than we had with
all the different things we did. A second thing was
I had thought under President Biden, the SDI concluded that
it was more likely than not that it didn't but
COVID didn't have a natural origin. Then another thing is
that I had thought the vaccine, actually we found out
(38:30):
it didn't prevent a vaccinated person from being a carrier.
And then just one more, although I have a two
or three more. You know, the American Society Pediatrics at
one point came out and said, during the pandemic said
we think it's okay for I can't remember what age,
but young kids, elementary school kids to go back to school.
Then like within a week, President Trump, this was during
(38:52):
Trump's first term, said yeah, I think elementary school kids
can go back to this. And then the American Society
pedi Arctis immediately reversed themselves on the other side, I mean,
this is not and then I don't even want to
get into the whole. You know how doctor Fauci and
Francis Collins dealt with the Great Barrington people. This does
not inspire a lot of confidence.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
That's true. This is a good one. Our hour was over,
and I'm glad you brought those points up. Doug.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
We don't even really have a chance to respond other
than i'd say, ed, tell you what if you're If
you're still around at eleven, I'm when I have opened lines,
and I'd be happy to discuss that with you. If
you called earlier, I guess would have had a chance
to address that, but I'm happy to entertain what you're
saying if you call back after eleven. WBZ News Radio
(39:41):
ten thirty. Now we're gonna talk to the guy who
owns the MBTA store and talk about the history of
public transit in Boston.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Coming up on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you, Emma.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
It is a WBZ and that side with Dan Ray
and Bradley Jay in for Dan, and at ten o'clock
we're gonna talk about Italian cooking and we're gonna teach
you actually how to cook a couple of fancy dishes
and also how to make handmade pasta. I know that's
kind of simple for some, but I've tried it and
failed a lot, and I'd like to really know how
to do it. Yes, I know it's just flour and eggs,
(00:29):
put this is more to it than that. Also a
saltan buca, do you know what that is? We're going
to learn how to make that, and some real tiara massou.
That will be at ten with a fifth generation local
North End cook. And at nine o'clock we're going to
talk about the history of public transportation in Boston, way
(00:54):
back to the very first. Do you know what the
very first form of public transportation was in Boston.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Which allowed folks to avoid a two day walk around
around the peninsula. So that was the very first thing.
We will take it from that point all the way
up to this point with the guy who runs the
an MBTA shop over a mass out between Harvard and
Heard and Porter. He's all about the NBTA, he's all
(01:23):
about public transportation. He's going to be fun as well.
But now we're going to talk with Doug Arian, director
of Mountains of Stars, and a physics professor about ten
scientific theories that somehow became unpopular in twenty twenty five.
I shouldn't say theories, I should say truths. Ten scientific
truths that somehow in the last year became increasingly unpopular,
(01:47):
and we're going to go through them and explain why
they really are true.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Doug, thanks for being with us. He's calling from.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Probably from Twin mountains in New Hampshire with lots of
stars up there.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Hi, Doug, I'm bradly great to chire with you again.
And yes we have well we'd have stars if it
worn't cloudy, but we have snow, so it's a nice
winter up here in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Now, tell me before we started about Mountains of Stars, so.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
That I run called Mountains of Stars is a public
science education program where we try to connect people with
the environment through astronomy. Because if you look up and
understand where we fit into the very big picture of
the whole universe we look at. So we do programs
all over New England, language on programs for over seventy
five thousand people to try to improve the way we
(02:41):
work with our environment here and connect people with stars
and planets and all the other things in the universe.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
And you're a physics professor, so you're able to explain
things and explain.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Why they're important. Let's get since we have only one.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Yeah, that's very important.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Let's get to the top ten. Truth is the it
became unpopular this year twenty twenty five. Number one truth
that became unpopular. It was already sort of unpopular, but
I guess it became increasingly unpopular.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The germ theory of disease.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
The germ theory of disease is real and vaccination is
the safest, most effective strategy to combat these deadly pathogens,
according to.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The article in Apple News. And that is still true.
It's still true.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
That the germ theory of disease is real and vaccination
is the safest, most effective strategy. Is it true that
there are people that don't believe in that the diseases
are caused by germs.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Yeah, there are still folks out there who who don't
recognize that, and even more who don't realize how effective
vaccination is to either reduce the effective disease or prevent
it from happening in the first place. And we've actually
been doing vaccinations for hundreds of years, believe it or not.
If you go back to say, for ticonder Roga during
(04:04):
the Revolution, they actually intentionally applied smallpox to soldiers in
small amounts that they wouldn't get the big disease. So
this is not a new thing. It's not like we
just invented it. The technology is the better, we've gotten
better ways of doing it, but we've been doing it
a very long time.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Is it the people don't believe in vaccination, or is
it that they don't believe in the new kind of
fast track vaccination that was a COVID vaccination, or is
it more than.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
We're concerned about the fact that that happened so quickly,
but it didn't actually happen as quickly as pink RNA
based vaccines mr quork have been going on for many years.
So everybody was really spun up and ready to develop
something to target at the COVID virus pretty quickly. So
(04:55):
it was a trendous accomplishment to make that work, and
it certainly did.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Are you enough are.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You smart enough and enough of a professor to explain
to me how the RNA vaccinations work or is that
that's not really your ball your bailiwick, but can you
explain it?
Speaker 4 (05:14):
It's not my specialty. The basic concept is you you
introduce something into the body that the body recognizes the
same way it would recognize the virus, and it builds
up cells coils that are capable of destroying that by
triggering that. When you then get exposed to the real virus,
(05:36):
these t cells come up there enough up before it
can affect you, and it really works. It's amazing stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, I knew, I knew that body.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I mean is like way way back in Benjamin right
back in Cotton Mather times. Weren't they doing a little
bit of that vaccination cowpox type of scratching and it
worked right right?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
But that was actually using live virus, right and just
give you at to build up. Now you know, subsequently
we use what was called killed virus viruses that have
been modified that they wouldn't make you sick but would
create the reaction. And mr NA as a whole other
technology using RNA as opposed to DNA to generate it.
(06:22):
And I'll admit I don't know the details of it,
but that's the that's the basic process.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
There are side effects that do we have to respect
the people who are concerned about the side effects, Like
some code vaccines, you'd hear reports of enlarged heart and
other side effects. Why is that not a legitimate concern.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, there are legitimate concerns for everything. But but it's
also the matter of risks and what you do. So,
for example, we all drive cars. Even though death by
cars not all that unlikely, right, it's sufficiently unlikely that
you're willing to travel by car. And so when we're
working with things like vaccines, they work for almost everybody.
(07:10):
And yes, there are who will have a bad reaction
to it, but as a whole, it is beneficial to
vaccinate as many people as possible because that prevents the
transmission of disease.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Mandatory to vaccinate kids to go to school.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I think yeah, for for the primary diseases, because it
has been extremely ect Polio, small, all these different they
they've basically been wiped out because we've been assured of
basically eliminating characters who could carry it have been protected,
and so those diseases have basically been eliminated. And if
(07:52):
we can do that for everything consistently makes us all
safer and healthier.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
You know, I want to be fair to people that
are concerned about something. I try to put myself in
an anti vaxxer's place, a person that did not want
to be forced to.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Have a vaccine or have the kid have a vaccine.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
And I was thinking, what if I truly believed from
false information that it was dangerous, or even from real information,
if I truly believed that as jamming something in my
body would hurt me, I too would probably not be
(08:34):
too thrilled about that. I would probably revolt against that.
I think somehow the problem is that there's a there's
an unfounded fear, or the fear is too much. I mean,
when when people hear hard enlargement, they don't know that
it's like three of those per one hundred thousand, whereas
(08:56):
the exactly where and I just use as an example,
they don't know that the risks from long COVID far
out weigh that if there's anyone who wants to take
either side of this vaccination topic, I'm happy to entertain
both sides, and I'll tell you why. Honestly, I know
the vaccination's work. I know that's why measles, smallpox, polio,
(09:19):
et cetera are virtually non existent. On the other hand,
do I trust big government? Do I trust big pharma?
Do I think they're above convincing me that I need
something that I don't need.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
No, I don't think that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I think that the dollar rules, and they would act.
They would absolutely try to convince me to do this
and take advantage of a situation to convince me to
do it. So, of course I get the vaccines because
the science says I should.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But not you know, I'm not hook line and sinker.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
I do it because the risk reward tells me I
should do it, And so I've gotten them all.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I'm all right, Yeah, I totally agree. You know. It's
the thing about vaccines that I don't think was well
explained during COVID was part of getting a vaccine was
a matter of protecting you, but also kept you from
(10:19):
being a carrier to spread it to multiple people. So
part of being vaccinated isn't just protecting yourself. It's protecting others,
and so it reduces cheap things from becoming epidemics. It's
not just a matter of and so there's a bigger
(10:40):
societal aspect of it that I don't think is well explained.
It's not just oh, well, I've decided I don't want
to take it. It's like, well, that means you could
be a care and you could infect a lot of
other people.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
All right, we need to take a break now, that's.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Something you want to do.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We need to take it break now.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And in the meantime it is kind of a glitchy
connection that we have.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
It comes in and out.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I don't know if there's anything you can mcgiver together
on your end or r end to make it a little better.
If there is, let's try to do that during the break.
If not, we'll continue as is. And the next thing
is about the fact that it was SARS of COVID
was not a result of the Wuhan wet market.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I guess it was.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Not a conspiracy, but somehow in twenty twenty five that
conspiracy theory kind of kind of moved in again. We'll
talk a bit about that on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Radio, Bradley J F.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Dan, We're around with Doug Arian, a physics professor, my
favorite physics professor. By the way, if you don't you
don't know this, then you probably don't. Doug makes his
own telescopes there. He makes big ones. He grinds his
own glass. He has a little servo motor it so
they follow the stars as they move across the sky
or appear to move across the sky. And in his
(12:05):
little observatory, it's like a garage with a roof that retracts,
and its way up in the middle of the White
Mountains in Twin Mountain on a road which probably doesn't
have landline service, and that's why I guess the sell
service is a bit spotty. But you know, we'll try
to continue here. Now we're talking about ten scientific truths
(12:28):
that somehow became unpopular in twenty twenty five. We started
out with basically fear of vaccines and folks not really
believing in germ theory.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And if you have an.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Anti vaxxer, I want to give you a platform because
I don't want to be one sided here. On the
night side, happy to talk about that. I kind of
feel your pain. I'm personally gonna get every vaccine.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Except I will tell you my doctor.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Told me that he did not recommend the RSV vaccine
and I asked him why, and I didn't really understand.
And later he goes, I guess you know, it's okay,
But now I still have a little doubt about that.
So I still haven't gotten that one, but I got
everything else. I got them all. I'm you know, if
(13:19):
you're going all in, go super all in. I'm vaccinated
to the teeth. Now we'll talk about COVID again. And
this is the scientific truth that lost popularity in twenty
twenty five, that it was not a conspiracy theory. And
this is reading from the article in the Apple News article.
(13:41):
In the spring of twenty twenty, infections from a novel
coronavirus began to spike in country DECREEA. We get that
Asia Americans, Tens of thousands died, hundreds of thousands, we
got long COVID and really bad side effects. And around
the same time, a dishonest narrative no basis in science,
began appearing that the virus was not a result of
(14:03):
the natural spillover from nature to humans, but came as
a result of work that was conducted, Oh I see,
perhaps in secret at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
So what is that?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
How do we know that it's natural and natural spillover?
And what is a natural spillover? How do we know
that it did not come from a secret lab in
Woo in China.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
So we'll talk about with spillovers is that many viruses
are carried by various creatures. In fact, right now we're
having bird flu, which is a virus is carried through birds,
for example. And there are many many creatures that are
carrying viruses around to which they either have no reaction
(14:53):
or little reaction. But if if virus gets spilled out
and gets in, we have a bad reaction to it.
And this has happened on numerouss and things that we
get are from viruses that had their origins with other species.
Remember we share the planet with hundreds of millions of
other species. You know, things happen. So the way you
(15:14):
can tell what comes from where and how it's connected
is something that we've been able to do anolgately recently,
which is to actually sequence the DNA in them, and
so you can tag each virus and each kind of
virus with where it came from. So even during COVID,
you may remember, there were all these different variants that
(15:36):
came out. There was the alpha version, and there was
this version, then the omicron version was the really bad one.
Each of us is the same kind of virus, was slow,
different DNA in it. And because of that, they were
able to actually sequence which versions were affecting which people
in which places, so you can actually map out ones
(16:02):
were particularly bad, which ones were easy to transmit, which
ones made people the sickest, because each of them behaved.
So that lets you actually start mapping back to what
the original virus must have looked like because you can
see each of the variations as they popped up on
So this incredible ability to do DNA sequencing, which is
(16:24):
why you can get, you know, do the twenty three
and me thing, you know, and find out where you
came from, and all of that, that same technology let
us understand each virus, what that virus came from, what
the variations are, and what the sequence is. So really
amazing chunk of science that lets you work that out
(16:46):
to determine what the sources of these viruses are. And
so there's real science, there's really lab work you can
do to figure this just a matter of well, I
think it just came from there, and I'm just going
to say, and that's the difference between science and rumor.
So so that sequencing technique was very in understanding and
(17:10):
then managing what happened with COVID and any other major
widespread viruses.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Is that a little bit like when you do the
genetic testing to see about your ancestry, they they.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Can track exactly it's the same same exact thing, the
same kind of chemistry.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, and it didn't come from Wuhan, China, came from
some spill over.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Well, it did come from it. I mean, it did
come from China, but it came from animals in China.
It did not come from somebody trying to make that
virus in a lab. It came from an animal source,
and that animal source virus then through passing through various humans,
(17:59):
we got all these differ, diferent variations. Those variations all
travel around very very quickly, and there were some outstanding
studies back there. It's just reading about one today which
talked about the different kinds of people and the amounts
of liquids that have you when you're speaking right, the
little droplets that come out, and how those carried the virus,
(18:21):
and which ones carried the virus farther that allowed it
to reach to more people, and then those people became
carriers to further people. In each of those versions was
a different, slightly different version of the virus, and we
can map all of that wicked coold.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But do you believe that countries do manufacture viruses? Though
I would think they would. Chemical warfare, viral biological warfare,
that does happen.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Right, Things get sequenced, things get put together. I'm I'm
not aware of folks making actual viruses, which are more
than just a DNA strand, Right, You've got to build
the appropriate DNA and RNA combinations. They then have to
(19:08):
go into the right protein. There's a lot of stuff
that goes into actually making a virus that's different than
making parts that go into it. And I'm not a biologist,
so I'm not a specialist at doing that kind of science.
I understand the sequencing process, the ability to create individual molecules,
(19:35):
but actually building a virus from scratch and putting that
out into the environment. That would take a lot.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
All right, well, let's take a break and talk about
one thing that I noticed in twenty twenty five people
used peer review or passing peer review or not passing
peer review a reason to doubt science. And that needs
some explanation and hopefully you'll give it to us after
this break on w b Z.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Let's continue with Doug Arion, professor of physics and astronomer
and much more. And being a scientist, he's very familiar
with a thing called peer review, and peer review is
something that has been used by science doubters and conspiracy
theorists to discredit scientific theories and even settled science. Can
(20:39):
you explain what peer review really is and how it's
used to buy sort of anti science people to discredit
scientific theory and fact.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Sure, So I'm a scientist. I do research. When I
come to some conclusion that I will to publish, I
write up a paper and I submit that to a journal.
And what that journal editor then does is send that
paper with your name removed, so it's cold blind, so
nobody knows who wrote it. And that is sent out
(21:15):
to several other people who are researchers in a similar field.
They read the paper and they critique it. They'll look
at it and say, okay, does the method seem reasonable
to the conclusions that the author thinks they lead to?
Did the steps seem to be taken correctly? And if
(21:35):
they agree to that, then the paper gets published. Find
problems with it, which is most of the time, they'll
send questions back to the author and say, well, you know,
could you please explain step two over here? It seems
like that'slishenable, and you would edit the paper and this
might go back and forth three, four, five times, and
if you meet reviewers think needs to be fixed, the
(21:58):
paper then gets published. That then makes it available to everybody,
to the entire side of the community, who will then
read that paper and will consider it as part of
the literature and say, okay, what does this mean? Is
this right? Can I use this in my research? And
so on? Now, the process of sciencespecch that with each
(22:21):
step we thought things that we thought were right but
turn out not to be right. We say, okay, this
is going on, this is what I published. Somebody does
some more work on it and comes back and goes, well,
that's what you thought, but this is actually what's better,
and they publish a paper that advanced as the science.
And this is what goes on over and over and
over again.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Review is let me see if I understand sure, a
scientist comes up with a theory and a method of
testing the theory, and before actually doing the real testing,
he he or she writes it up, sends it out
to their years to say, look, does this look kind
of reasonable? Is this is this crazy? H does this
(23:06):
method of researching it look right? And in no way
has anyone decided that that is now scientific fact. It's
just checking up on It's like it's like openers in
a card game, or it's like probable cause? Is there
enough cause, probable cause to go forward with this? And
what happens is people just because enough legitimacy was found
(23:32):
to go forward with that, and they if they do
go forward with it and find out, well, the theory
didn't really work out we tested it. It really was wrong. Naysayers.
Scientific naysayers will use that as an example of science
is wrong. You can't depend on science. Science is wrong
when that's really not has not been established as a
(23:57):
scientific fact, yet it's not wrong. That's part of the
process of deciding if it's wrong. But they're using that
process in an early step to say science is no
good anymore. Really, and that's not a that's not and
an inflation. That's true. They don't want they don't like
the scientific method anymore. And that's something that a belief
(24:18):
that increased in the last year twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Do I have that kind of correct.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Well, yeah, that's the basic idea. You know, this idea
of peer review goes back hundreds of years with the
Royal Society four hundred years ago. That you know, research
we represented and people would critique it before it would
be published, and that it's an important step and that
(24:44):
the method of science works even though each of the
things we discover improves upon or even invalidates a prior idea.
I mean, everything we know from Isaac Newton, everything Isaac
Newton did, is actually wrong right because they now but
it works. I mean your tennis player, basketball player only
(25:05):
needs to use Newton to put the ball in the
right place, but once you go into spaceflight you need
what Einstein did. Newton is wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That'd be this would be great for you to do.
How was Newton wrong about everything?
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Well, Newton's theories work if you're not moving too fast.
If you move fast, and this gets into complicated things.
Ogine showed is, for example, distances and masses and time change.
When you're moving very fast, it's called relativity. But if
you're not moving that fast, and it's fast, we're talking
(25:40):
about compared to the speed of light, so crazy fast.
If you're not moving that fast, you can use a
simpler explanation, the explanation that Newton had, and it works
just fine. It's just once you start moving faster, or
you're in very strong gravity, like around a black hole,
or you're looking at things on the scale of galaxies.
If you calculate it using Newton's theory, you get close,
(26:03):
but not quite. If you use Einstein's theory, you get
the right numbers. And so we know that Einstein's explanation
of special and general relativity is a more accurate description
of how the universe works than Newton's description. So the
fact that Newton's worked for hundreds of years until we
(26:23):
discover like, oh, wait a minute, if you go fast enough,
you're oh, Einstein figured out what you do under those sences.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Are there any examples of in real life where we
have done anything that went fast enough so that Newton's
theories did not work? Do you have we gotten close
to a black hole so that Newton's science didn't work anymore,
or were still in the in the theoretical stage.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
You don't even You don't even have to go that extreme.
Everybody uses GPS, which is like the tool that everybody
uses to get everywhere. Right, You use maps on your
phone or in your car to get someplace. The JEEP
satellites actually have to use their computers when they send
signals down, actually use Einstein's equations and not Newton's equations.
(27:13):
If you don't use Einstein's equations, your airplane misses the runway.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
That's no good.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
So you actually use it every single day. You just
don't know it. It's being done for you because those
satellites are in gravity and they're traveling for that. So
if you don't correct for that, you don't get the
right position, all right, So you actually use it every day,
you just don't know it.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Speaking of satellites, another truth which became I guess less
popular in twenty twenty five is that Earth's orbit has
a finite carrying ability for satellites.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
In other words, in the orbit orbital.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Altitude that satellites work in, there's only so much room
and you can and we're approaching the maximum satellites that
you can put.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
In there, and once you exceed that, you could.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Run into something called the Kessler syndrome, which is a
disastrous thing. Can you elaborate on that and talk about
what happens if there are too many and the Kessler
syndrome kicks in?
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Sure, So just envision highways that you drive on all
the time. When you have highways that don't have a
lot of tram cars on them, but they're not all
they're near each other traffic moodally, there's no real problems
and accidents. A lot of cars in a smaller road,
or too many cars on a road, the probability of
(28:42):
having an accident gets through pretty high. And if things
are moving fast enough and two cars at each other,
that tends to create a chain reaction because other cars
run into them. And you've seen accidents like that all
the time. Well, the same thing's happening in space. And
so these large groups of satellites that are being flown
(29:02):
to supply Internet, so Starlink, one web Kuyper, all these
different satellites, the narrow band of altitude, they're filling that
up with satellites and we only have right now and
up there we're looking at maybe one hundred to one
hundred and fifty thousand satellites up there. Remember they're all
(29:23):
moving seventeen thousand miles an hour. So the two of
these things happened, that'll create debris. The same way when
you have two cars at each other and you have
a lot of stuff spread all over the road. Well,
thing that comes along smashes into that debris and gets broken,
and the next one smashes into it and gets broken,
(29:45):
and all of a sudden you have one of these
catastrophic collections of accidents. Well that's what the Kesseler syndrome is.
It says, well, if you have a collision and it
creates a field of broken parts, and the next thing
that comes through hits that and that breaks up. That
makes the con parts even bigger. And that just aids
until the point is that you start descrying all the
satellites so you can.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Have a multic You could have a multi car pile
up out in space. Where satellites study crashing into each
other in a chain reaction.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Exactly, and so already, believe it or not, the satellites
up there have to maneuver. There are hundreds of maneuvers
a day every day. Right now, what are satellites we
have there? Where satellites have the moves, they don't hit,
So imagine what happens when we jam that up, Like
you know ninety three in Boston in the tunnel, when
(30:38):
you put too many cars, it happens. That's what's happening
up there. So there are a lot of concerns about it. Unfortunately,
there isn't a really good set of regulations or treaties
for dealing with this. And I'm actually on a major
international committee that's working on this, and there's a big
(31:00):
group that is approaching you say, look, we need to
start putting some rules and REGs together, basically creating traffic laws.
Like we have other highways, you know, like who has
right way and how do you enter a highway and
how do you exit a highway. We don't have that
for space. We need to have that for space.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Do you have any hope that you can defeat big money,
that you can defeat the elon musks who control the government.
When big money is at stake, can an organization like
the one you're a part of.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Really do anything.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Don't you know in the back of in your heart
that they're just going to keep doing it and tell
the Kessler effect until it takes place, until there's a
huge crash up there.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
I guess, unfortunately, I don't have a lot of hope
for actually solving these things. In fact, there are more
companies that are planning to put up more different kinds
of things. So there's a company that's looking to fly
a whole series of huge mirrors, and they're going to
fly them so that they can bounce sunlight onto solar
(32:09):
arrays even during the dark, to keep solar arrays going.
Is that if you're happen to be under where one
of these things is, you're going to be in blinding
bright light in the middle of the.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Night twenty four to seven. It's going to hap.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
You think that's a great idea, But there's a company
and right now we don't have any rules to stop
somebody from doing that. So that there are all these
different things, not just the stabber communications, but all these
other things that people are trying to do that have
major environmental implications on the ground and in space.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
One quick question, what is that altitude range for that
satellites can be effective in? How many feet is the
is the bottom and how many feet is the ceiling?
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Well, the bottom is it's a range of several hundred
miles a couple hundred miles up, so from you know,
one hundred and fifty to five hundred miles something like that.
It is a range through which most of these things go.
But you know, the two hundred two hundred and fifty
mile range is pretty common. So it's in that range
of a couple hundred miles, which sounds like it's big,
(33:21):
but when you're moving seventeen thousand miles an hour, that's
not that far.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And how many of them are already up there? And
what percent of that is the max? Like how many
can what is the max that can fit up there?
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Well, that's a good question. I'm not sure that number offhand.
There are experts in that who work that out right now,
I believe, Well, there's about fourteen thousand active satellites. There
are some sixty thousand pieces of satellite and satellite debris
that are being tracked. So it's not just the satellites.
When you have old satellites, you have dead birds, you
(34:03):
have debris from launching things, launch vehicles. There's a lot
more up there than just these satellites, which makes the
problem even worse as you can imagine. So I'm not
sure what the total number, what that capacity really is,
but with all the maneuvers we have to have and
(34:28):
what the projected number of spacecraft is is pretty scary.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
One quick one more question about that before the break,
and that is if there is one of these Kessler
effect chain reaction satellite collisions, like a big pile up
on a winter highway in Colorado, and if airlines depend
on that GPS to hit the runway, could that cause
a catastrophic group of airline crashes if the Kessler effects
(34:57):
comes to pass.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I have to look at what the altitude is for
all the GPS satellites. I believe the GPS satellites are
operating in a way that would not be affected by
that directly. Now, depending on how big that cloud a
debris is, that could spread out and start taking out
(35:22):
all sorts of things. So it depends how big that
cloud would be. But it's ps, then all sorts of
things become a problem.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm surprised we haven't.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
It's just radio interference.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm surprised that we haven't had satellite warfare yet. So
much so much is increasingly depending on satellites and navigation
for drone use, which is increasingly popular. I'm surprised we
haven't seen more killer satellites or attempts to kill satellites.
I don't need you to answer that, and.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Let well we have. We actually have. We actually have
not directly against other country satellites, but launched and destroyed
one of their own satellites a year ago last October,
an anti satellite weapon, which by the way, created a
(36:13):
big cloud of broken satellite parts, attributing factor to the
space debris problem. The Chinese also did one, so countries
are demonstrating that they have the ability to launch something
and take out a satellite pretty sooner.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I have to have a satellite.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's a real one satellite weapon band treaty, just like
we had a nuclear test band treaty. Let's take that
break I've been promising, and we'll finish up with Doug
in a moment on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio WBZ.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Where with Doug Arion, a physics professor, we're kind of
talking about we've been going through ten scientific facts that
started to be doubted, it became unpopular in twenty twenty five,
and the conversation led to the glut, the dangerous glut
(37:11):
of satellites we have and what can happen as a
result if we keep introducing more up there, and we
do take we do always encourage callers, and so Ed, Doug,
Ed and Wooster is going to join us.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Hello, Ed, Hi Bradley. I had heard you guys discussing COVID,
and I just had a few points I jotted down
that I think I'm right about. I wasn't really paying
attention during COVID, and I didn't have consider myself strongly
aligned with either the pro or anti VACS people. But
(37:46):
there were some things, some things that caused me to
sort of doubt a lot of the stuff I was
hearing from the from the government slash the scientific side. Okay,
and I just want to see if these are right,
if I'm understanding of these, Okay, I can run through
a few. First thing, Sweden, my understanding of Sweden basically
did nothing, and at least I think, but I have
(38:08):
heard they had fewer excess deaths than we had with
all the different things we did. A second thing was
I had thought under President Biden, the SDI concluded that
it was more likely than not that it didn't but
COVID didn't have a natural origin. Then another thing is
that I had thought the vaccine, actually we found out
(38:30):
it didn't prevent a vaccinated person from being a carrier.
And then just one more, although I have a two
or three more. You know, the American Society Pediatrics at
one point came out and said, during the pandemic said
we think it's okay for I can't remember what age,
but young kids, elementary school kids to go back to school.
Then like within a week, President Trump, this was during
(38:52):
Trump's first term, said yeah, I think elementary school kids
can go back to this. And then the American Society
pedi Arctis immediately reversed themselves on the other side, I mean,
this is not and then I don't even want to
get into the whole. You know how doctor Fauci and
Francis Collins dealt with the Great Barrington people. This does
not inspire a lot of confidence.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
That's true. This is a good one. Our hour was over,
and I'm glad you brought those points up. Doug.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
We don't even really have a chance to respond other
than i'd say, ed, tell you what if you're If
you're still around at eleven, I'm when I have opened lines,
and I'd be happy to discuss that with you. If
you called earlier, I guess would have had a chance
to address that, but I'm happy to entertain what you're
saying if you call back after eleven. WBZ News Radio
(39:41):
ten thirty. Now we're gonna talk to the guy who
owns the MBTA store and talk about the history of
public transit in Boston.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Coming up on WBZ News Radio ten thirty
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.