August 24, 2021 • 51 mins
Daniel and Jorge consider how the Universe would be different if our particles had different properties
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Daniel, do you worry at all about answering listener emails? Now?
What do I have to worry about? You know, you're
offering secrets of the universe for free to anyone on
the internet. What's wrong with that? That's kind of my job.
I mean, how do you know what they're gonna do
with that information? Oh? I see You're worried someone out
there is sitting in their underground layer, stroking a white
(00:29):
cat in their lap and looking for physical advice about
how to build a doomsday device a little bit. Yeah, well,
so far nobody has asked me how to build a
nuclear warhead. Wait didn't we answer that in a podcast already? Oh? Yeah, Oops,
we did to give away those secrets. You know, maybe
you'ld have the government filtering your emails, Daniel say, if
(00:50):
they're not already listening, if you're hearing this, it means
they let this one through. Hi, I am more handmade
(01:10):
cartoonists and the creator of PhD comments. Hi. I'm Daniel.
I'm a particle physicist, and I don't have any actual
useful practical knowledge. But you do have a white cat
that you're stroking right now. I don't anymore. I don't anymore. No,
I have a beautiful pandemic puppy that we adopted, but
he's not part of my doomsday plan to take over
(01:31):
the world, right right. You never see any villains supervillains
having a dog, right, It's always like a cat or
some kind of lizard, some kind of dangerous animal. That's
because dogs are inherently good and sympathetic. I can't imagine
evil person having a pet dog, right right. I guess
they would make the supervillain turn good, probably exactly exactly,
whereas cats, on the other hand, they were happy to
(01:51):
snuggle up to an evil dude. Lower standards cats, But
welcome to our universe. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
a production of I Heart Radio in which we explain
the universe to us, to you, two cats and two dogs.
We talk about everything that's out there, including all the
pets in the universe, and all the crazy things that
we see, the things we hear, and the things that
(02:12):
we can just barely detect with the most powerful scientific
instruments ever devised. We try to weave it all together
to you into a tapestry of understanding, so that you
can grasp what we do and what we don't know
yet about the universe, because it is a pretty big
carpet of a universe, filled with small details and large
amazing facts for us to discover. And Daniel, do you
(02:34):
think we have pet listeners? I think we probably do. Yeah,
I'm sure there are folks out there who listen with
their pets, and so their pets are sort of like
you know, second hand listeners, and they're absorbing physics. Oh
my gosh, what if we give rise to like the
first dog genius, some dogs out there taking notes right like,
turn that on. I gotta learn exactly how that works,
(02:56):
like the tail wax every time we say a banana
joke or something. Maybe or when the dogs take over,
maybe at least they'll give us credit, you know, for
teaching them some secrets of the universe that were critical
to their coup and when they are just gonna turn
to its owner and be like, hey, I think I
figured out how to imagine quantum mechanics and relativity. Also
I need more. Yeah, Well, if the only expense to
(03:17):
solving the deepest questions in the universe were more dog treats,
and I think we could get the National Science Foundation
to cover that I know who needs an LHC particle collider.
You spend all those billions of dollars in dog treats,
that's right, we need like a Chihuahwa thick tank. Yeah,
you know what they say, like the monkeys and typewriter,
Let's just get a bunch of dogs, play them all
of our podcasts and see what happens. You know, I've
(03:38):
been to the dog park in our neighborhood. It's something
like a collider. You see dogs running in circles like
crazy and sometimes bouncing into each other. But I never
see like new weird kinds of dogs created in high
energy dog collisions. You just got to crack up the energy, Diniel. Obviously.
If there's one thing I learned in this podcast is
more energy, more magic. That's right. I guess we just
need to double the treats and see what happens. Do
(03:59):
you have a special name for your dog, like Cork
or Metrino or you know, strong dog or something. No. No No,
Our dog is a rescue from Insanata and he came
with a name. His name is Pepito, and he is
a wonderful member of the family. Now, Pepito, that does
sound like a particle to be named that you discover
one day, you can name it the Pepito. Yeah, exactly.
(04:20):
But it is a wonderful universe that we like to
talk about, the one that we have, I guess I
mean the universe that we know and that we love,
that we live in, that we seem to be studying
and learning more about. But we sometimes wonder if it's
the only universe out there. That's right, There's a lot
of things in our universe that we don't understand that
seems sort of arbitrary, like why does the electron have
(04:42):
the mass that it does, and why is the speed
of light the number that it is. This is just
like list of numbers that describe and define our universe,
and if those numbers were different, the way everything worked
would be totally different. So we wonder sometimes is this
the only set of numbers there going to be? Are
there other universe is with different numbers or the control
(05:02):
rule of that universe has different settings on their knobs?
Right right? With Pepito? Have more energy at the dot
park impossible, He's already going maximum dog speed. He's reached
the limit of the universe. But it is sort of
like the universe has like a serial number, right. I
was trying to think of a good example of to
illustrate this, But it's sort of like the universe has
(05:22):
a serial number, and you look at the serial number
and you think, like, oh, where did that number come from?
There must be other universes with maybe a different serial number. Yeah,
And it's not just that we have arbitrry numbers. When
physicists look at these numbers, they think sometimes the numbers
look weird, like unusual, Like if you randomly pick these numbers,
these would be rare. And that makes people think like, wow,
(05:45):
maybe there's a lot of universes, so many that you
even have weird and rare numbers. That's kind of a
weak argument because even if there are lots and lots
of universes, we have no real reason to understand why
some numbers are preferred or some numbers are not or
what would be rare. But physicists they like numbers like
one or zero or pie. They don't like numbers like
(06:06):
one divided by a hundred and thirty seven. So when
they see a number like that, they go, that's weird.
I wonder why. It's like looking at your serial number
and seeing it that it's like three three, You're like,
that's weird. We must have gotten like a weird, crazy
coincidence number in our serial number. Yeah, but maybe not,
And maybe all the numbers are out there and only
the people with three three are the ones going, Oh,
(06:29):
that's weird. I wonder what that means? Am I special?
Or maybe there's a reason. Maybe it's the only number
that works. Maybe there's some underlying idea that restricts what
these numbers can be that says, the electron mass has
to be this, and the speed of light has to
be that, and the strength of gravity has to be this.
We just haven't figured it out yet, right. It could
be that they only made one universe and they happened
(06:49):
to put the serial number three three through three, right,
Like who knows, right, Yeah, But these are really fun
questions because they make you like totally blow up your
mind and think about the whole context, not just of
the human experience, but of the universe. Like if the
whole universe, with its billions and trillions of stars, is
just one of many universes, it's just like blowing your
(07:12):
mind at the next level. Right, that's this idea of
the multiverse, which we've talked about here in our podcast,
and we've talked about how there are different flavors of
the multiverse. But I think the basic ideas that made
there are other universes out there, and one possible version
of the multiverse is that it's like a version of
our universe, but with different properties or like different values
(07:32):
for different physical things. Right, yeah, precisely, that's one idea
of a multiverse, and it's really not too far fetched.
You might be thinking a whole lot of seconds. The
laws of physics are the laws of physics, and you know,
across the metaverse there should be one set of rules
that tells everything how it works. Right, Well, there might
still be, But what we're talking about here are not
like the deepest, truest laws of physics, but sort of
(07:55):
the ones we observe in our experiments. These are what
we call effective theory is because they don't describe like
the universe at its smallest and deepest level. They just
describe what we have been able to see so far.
The way, for example, like describing the motion of a
ball as the parabola isn't a fundamental property of the universe.
It's just something that kind of works. Well, the same
(08:15):
is true of our laws. Even like the standard model
of particle physics, this quantum field theory that's like a
crowning intellectual achievement of humanity. We think it's mostly an
effective theory and it's controlled by deeper parameters we don't understand.
So it's possible that in the multiverse, even if there
is like a single coherent theory across the multiverses, it
(08:35):
can appear different in different universes because of how those
universes break out. For example, of the Higgs field ends
up at a different value than all the particles have
different masses, and we just don't really understand that deeper
theory yet, So we don't really understand how many universes
there can be and how it can translate into different theories.
But in the end, it is possible that there are
(08:57):
other universes out there with different laws of physics because
their parameters are different values. Right, I guess you can
have multiple universes, some with different laws and some with
different values. But I think the one that we're going
to tackle today is this possibility of a multiverse multiple
universes with the same laws but maybe different values for like,
you know, some of the fundamental physical properties, right. Yeah,
(09:20):
and this comes to us from a future scientist who's
inspired to ask us questions because he read a really
fun book. Yeah, we have some great questions from Thomas
from Ontario who is nine years old and best part,
he's a fan of our book. We have no idea
a guide to the unknown universe. That's right. His mom
wrote to us saying that he really enjoyed reading the book,
(09:40):
that it's stimulated his deep thoughts about the nature of
the universe, and that he had some questions for us
that he wanted to answer. Yeah, so kudos to Thomas
for reading the book. I have yet to read our book, Daniel. No,
I'm just kidding. I had to read it many times
in writing it. But kudos to Thomas for reading the
book and for being a fan of physics. It's never
too early to start. So here is Thomas asking his questions. Hi.
(10:05):
My name is Thomas. I'm from thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,
and I'm nine and I have some questions for you,
Daniel Hawaii. Can you do an episode about what would
happen if the photon had as much mass as a
top quok and another question, what if the neutrino felt
strong force? And and my last question, what if the
neutrino photo electromagnetism. Whoa it was like a question machine.
(10:27):
I know. Let's just hope he doesn't have a white cat,
not yet. At least he's gonna listen to this episode
and we realize, oh, that's the next step and becoming
a super villain. Great, great, get him a dog, put
tepedo and a create and ship him over. He could
still become a superhero, not a supervillain. Wow, we could
intervene and save the planet by turning him to use
(10:48):
his powers for good. Yes, at least in this multiverse,
in this timeline, Thomas, there is still good in you.
I feel the bright side of the force. Now. I'm
sure Thomas is an awesome kid, and he just wants
to know more about the universe. I imagine he read
our book and he saw all of these particles that
we talked about and how things could be different, and
he probably wondered, like what if they were not what
(11:10):
they are right now? Like how would the universe be different?
Like would it be totally different? Would it even be possible?
Would we all collapse into a black hole or something.
That's kind of a big question. Yeah, there's a lot
going on there. You know. It's fascinating how the properties
that we rely on, the things that make up our existence,
come down to these numbers, and if they were different,
the universe would feel so different. That's really fun to
(11:33):
think about, how the things that are important to us
are not really fundamental to the universe itself even if
we rely on them. Right, And then the deeper question,
you know, of could those numbers be different? Should they
be different? Do we know why they are the way
they are? Should they be different? That's a meta question,
like if we could design the universe, what would it
be like? Now you're trying to think like a super villain, Daniel. Yeah, well,
(11:55):
you know, there's a lot of debate inside particle physics
about whether the equation of the universe should be beautiful.
Should we be seeking out a theory that hasn't like
an aesthetic appeals that when we really we go, oh
my gosh, that's incredible. I love it? Or does it matter?
You know, maybe we just need something that works. Even
if people are like, jeez, that's kind of a clue.
But I guess that's just the way the universe is
(12:17):
a bit ugly, but it works. And if it's not beautiful,
can we give it a makeover? Can we, like, you know,
do a little plastic surgery? Maybe? I see you want
to give some notes to the creator, some notes. I
don't know love what you did here, but yeah, there
you go. Now you're thinking, like a supervillain or an
(12:39):
executive producer, rewold the universe according to what we think
it should be. I see. So supervillains are just like
executive producers on the Universe project. All right, well, thank
you Thomas for your questions. We'll start with your first
one here. What if the photon had the mass of
a top quark. Now, that's a pretty cool question. First
of all, like what if the photeson had mass in
(12:59):
the first place? Right, Like, that's already a big one.
And then what if it had the mass of the
top cork, which is kind of one of the heaviest particles, right, Yeah,
the top cork is the heaviest fundamental particle we have
ever found. It's the cousin of the up cork, which
has almost no mass, but it weighs as much as
a hundred and seventy five protons, So this tiny little
particle has more mass than like a gold atom. So
(13:22):
it's really incredible and sort of like at the extreme,
which is I think why Thomas is asking, like what
if the lightest particle, the one with no mass, had
as much mass as the most massive particle? Nice? Alright,
so Daniel remind us here, the photon is massless, right,
it doesn't have any mass, It doesn't weigh anything. That's right.
The photon has no mass, which gives it incredible powers.
It means that it can travel at the speed of light,
(13:45):
and then it has to travel at the speed of light.
You can't ever catch up to a photon. Everybody who's
measuring the speed of a photon is going to measure
to be the speed of light. And that's because a
photon is nothing because it has no mass other then motion.
So you can't catch up to it because if you did,
there would be nothing there. There's no like frame of
(14:05):
reference of the photon because there's nothing there but it's motion.
So it's sort of a really awesome special case. And
it's also really cool because it's in contrast to other
very very similar particles that do have mass like the
w and the z bosons. These to play the same
role as the photon except for the weak fource, but
(14:25):
they do have mass. So we actually have an example
in our universe of like a massive version of the photon.
And I guess I'm just going back to what you
said the photon. Because it has no mass, it has
to go at the speed of light, right, Like, that's
one of the rules of the universe. Anything without mass
has to go at the speed of light. Yea, and
not just photons, gluons for example, are any particle that
has no mass has to always go at the speed
(14:47):
of light and nothing else can, right, And is there
sort of an explanation as to what it has to
go at the speed of light because it has no mass,
it has to go to the speed of light, or
because it has to go at the speed of light
it can't have any mass. It has to go at
the speed of light because it doesn't have mass. Yeah,
because anything with mass will travel at the maximum speed,
and because you can never catch up to it, and
(15:08):
so it will always travel at some speed you can't
ever gain on it. Right, You'll always be measuring travel
at the same speed because there's nothing there, it's just
motion and that's because it has no mass. So I
would say, because it has no mass, therefore it travels
at the speed of light. Right, and the photon and
remind me, it's like the force transmitting particle for the
(15:29):
electromagnetic force. Right, that's right. The way like electrons push
against each other is that they pass photons back and forth.
You can think of photons is like ripples in the
electromagnetic field. And when an electron pushes against another electron
is doing so using its field. But you can also
think of those fields effectively is like a bunch of
photons added up. So yeah, you can think of photons
(15:51):
is like a way to transmit the electromagnetic force. Right.
And so the photon is doesn't have any mass, which
I guess means it doesn't interact with the Eiggs field
or does, but it has no effect. That's how things
have mass in the first place. Right, they interact with
the Higgs field. Yeah, the photon does not interact with
the Higgs field. And it's sort of really interesting and
super awesome because the photon actually is part of this
(16:13):
group of particles, the W particles and the Z and
the photon. They make a quadruplet. They're like all linked
together because the electromagnetic force is really connected to the
weak force. It's in one force called the electro weak force,
and this quadrupletive particles. They all do interact with the
Higgs field, and if the Higgs wasn't around, they would
all be massless, they would all be zero mass. But
(16:34):
the Higgs makes three of them heavy. It turns the
Z and the two ws into heavy particles. But then
it's sort of used up. It can only make three
of them heavy, and so the photon escapes and remains
massless and the other ones get really really massive, and
that is why the weak force is weak. Whoa wait, wait,
wait wait, So the photon is part of it, like
a family, like there are other versions of the photon. Yeah,
(16:56):
the Z is very very similar to the photon. It's
exactly like the photon, and except that it's part of
the weak force and it has more mass. Oh I see,
It's like the electromagnetic fource and the weak force are related.
But all of the forces, all of the force particles,
and the weak force half mass. That's what makes it weak.
That's why we call them weak. Yeah, so the photon
is just like our name for the one out of
(17:18):
the four particles that stayed massless. Whoa, and I guess
then the weak force is sort of like light almost
like these other particles are also light, but they're like
massive lights. Yeah, exactly, they are like heavy light. And
the reason that the weak force is weak is that
these particles are so massive, so they like they don't
go very far before they decay. A photon can travel
(17:39):
across the whole universe. It's totally stable. But these particles,
because they're massive, they break down into other stuff and
that limits the weak forces strength. So like back in
the early days of the universe, before the Higgs field
broke this symmetry, all these particles were basically equivalent and
the weak force was as powerful as electro magnetism. But
then the universe cooled and the Higgs field condensed, and
(18:02):
it made these particles heavier, and it left the photon massless.
And so now the photon is like it's original version.
It can go through the whole universe and its infinite extent.
Electromagnetism is a very powerful force, and the weak force
is like a thin shadow of what it used to be.
I'm also a thin shadow what I used to be,
and I'm more massive and slower than I was when
I was younger. All right, well, let's get into the
(18:24):
consequences now of Thomas's question of what happens that the
photon had more mass, specifically the mass of the top cork.
And I imagine it's not a light consequence. Big things
will happen. It's gonna be heavy duty. It's not gonna
be weak, it's gonna be mass. All right, we'll get
into that, but first let's take a quick break. Al Right,
(18:55):
we are considering multiverses, different universes in which the laws
of physics worked the same, but maybe the values of things,
of particles and certain properties are different. And this came
to us from Thomas from Ontario, who is nine years old,
and he's curious about, first of all, what happens if
the photon had the mass of the top court. It
would be a pretty weird universe if that happened. And
(19:18):
the weird or you mean weird, although I guess beings
that arose that universe would think this is totally natural.
How could it be any other way? Yeah? Also, what
would the Thomas and that universe be curious. What if
the photon were massless? What would happen? Yeah, that would
be as strange to them as the counterpartist to us. Yeah,
exactly right. So now let's so let's give the photon mass, Daniel,
(19:41):
what would happen if we give mass to the photon? So,
if you give mass to the photon, for example, you
have like a more complicated Higgs boson that has the
capacity to make more particles massive, and that's not too
much of a stretch, Like supersymmetric versions of the Higgs
boson could do this, and we talked about in a
recent podcast episode, like how many kinds of Higgs boson
are there? So if you have more Higgs bosons, you
(20:02):
could give the photon mass. If that happened, then electromagnetism
would be much weaker than it is today. Like the
relative power between electromagnetism and the weak force is a
huge number. It's like more than a factor of a
hundred and so if the photon had mass, then electromagnetism
would get weakened just like the weak force has. Right,
(20:22):
but would it be weaker or just like shorter range
do you know what I mean? Like, would it be
I still have the same strength, but just I mean
not work as well up close or far away when
things are far away, or would it actually like decrease
in strength. Both the range is shortened by the mass
because the particles decay, but also the strength of the
particles effectively depends on the mass of them, because like
(20:45):
one over the mass of the particles, and so for example,
neutrinos don't interact with most of the Earth because the
weak force is weak, not because neutrinos don't get like
close enough to the nucleus. Even if they fly right
through the nucleus of an atom, have a very small
chance of interacting because it's like you roll a die
every time it happens, and the die for the weak
(21:06):
force is just much bigger, and so you very rarely
hit the right number? Is it? Because like once things
have mass and harder to make, Like it's harder to
make photons that they were massive. Yeah, you need more
localized energy. It's just less quantum probability to sort of
fluctuate that out of the vacuum to create a heavy particle.
Heavy particles are just rarer less likely, it's less likely
(21:26):
to happen, which means it's a weaker force, right, Yeah,
I guess there's are masses. They wouldn't be as free,
like they would cost you more just to shine a light.
Yeah exactly, all right, and then they have shorter range
because I guess they're going slower than the photon, and
so therefore they give them more of a chance for
them to like decay, right or change. Yeah exactly, because
(21:47):
remember that heavy things decay into lower mass things, just
like boulders roll down hills, and our universe energy likes
to spread out and equalize, so really heavy particles decay
into lighter particles, and so the photon, you know, it
is massless though it can't decay into other stuff, but
if it was heavier than it could decay into lower
(22:07):
mass particles, it would prefer to. And so if you
turn it on a flashlight, you couldn't send your photons
all the way to Alpha Centauri. They would like peter
out before they got there. Would be like yeah, it'd
be like like shooting. Now now you're like shooting stuff
more like a flashlight with way more and you would
feel more of a recal when you turn it off. Yeah,
I'm not sure if the momentum would be different. You know,
(22:28):
a flashlight does impart momentum, Like if you hit somebody
with a flashlight, you're giving them a very very gentle push.
It's sort of like shooting them with a very gentle gun.
And also when you turn on a flashlight, there's a
very gentle recoil, right Like if you fire a big gun,
you feel the pushback on your shoulder. The same thing
is true with a flashlight. You just can't feel it
because the momentum is so so tiny, but it is true,
(22:50):
all right. So then what would happen if the electromagnetic
force was weaker? What kind of what kinds of consequences
would it have in our universe? Well, electromagnetism is what
organizes matter into at a right, the electron is captured
by a proton to make hydrogen, and it's captured by electromagnetism,
and that happened when the universe was cooling a right,
Imagine particles are flying around. You have protons and you
(23:12):
have electrons and they're all flying around. You have a
lot of energy because the universe is young and it's
hot and everything is zooming around. So we have a plasma.
Now the universe then expands and everything cools down and
sort of slows down, and eventually things cool down so
much that the proton, the electron, their electromagnetic force attracts
each other. They're not too fast to get captured, so
(23:35):
they fall into these atoms. That that depends on the
strength of the electromagnetic force. So if electromagnetism is now
weaker because photons are more massive, that just doesn't happen.
At the same time, the universe forms atoms much much
later in its history because it has to wait until
everything is so slow and so cold. So even this
(23:56):
weekend electromagnetism could capture the electron inform atoms. So the
whole history of the universe would be different, Like would
we still be in a plasma right now or would
we have settled already. I don't think any of the
elements we know now would be around. Like the version
of hydrogen in that universe would be really different. It
would have totally different energy levels. And you know, the
(24:18):
very nature of the universe we experience depends on chemistry,
which depends very very sensitively on how electron orbitals are
structured around nuclei. You know, whether something is metallic or not,
whether something is active or not, whether you know something
conducts the electricity or not, depends entirely on those electron orbitals,
and now we're totally changing those. So I think we
(24:39):
should expect to have completely different chemistry, which means basically
everything would be different. I don't even know if we
would have stars in the same way. I don't know
that we would have planets. I don't know that we
would have the same sort of set of materials. Yeah,
it would be a totally different universe because I guess
you know, an electron in and atom is throwing full
(25:00):
tons back and forth with the nucleus, right, That's how
it stays in orbit, So the photon had ass it
would be like a totally different relationship there, right, Yeah,
And we don't know if chemical bonds could be formed,
Like the way that to oxygen come together to make
O two is that they are like sharing electrons between
two nuclei, and that depends on the strength of electromagnetism.
(25:20):
It might be that in Thomas's universe, with really really
massive photon than a weakened electromagnetism, you can get a
different kind of bond. It might also be that you
just can't get bonds right that you all you have
our individual atoms and no molecules, which completely changes the
way all of chemistry works. Yeah. I kind of need
those molecules just to get up in the morning. Yeah,
(25:43):
and you're telling me it also it also has sort
of more fundamental consequences, right, Like it actually affects kind
of like the overall electrical charge of the universe. Yeah,
it's really interesting that the photon was left massless because
that means that its symmetry wasn't broken. We talked on
the podcast a lot about how all conservation laws things
that are like preserved in the universe, Like if you
(26:04):
do an interaction and nothing changes, that's the conservation law.
We talked about how those conservation laws all come from symmetries. So,
for example, the fact that momentum is conserved, you know
that if you collide to particles together, the same amount
of momentum exists after as it did before, comes from
a symmetry of the universe. That symmetry is translational symmetry.
That it doesn't matter if you did that collision over
(26:27):
here or ten miles to the right. The universe doesn't
have a preferred location in space. Well, there's a symmetry
of the photon. It's called electromagnetic gauge symmetry, and the
consequence of that is that electric charge is conserved, and
that gauge symmetry can only exist if the photon is massless.
So the photon becomes massive, then electromagnetic symmetry is broken,
(26:49):
which means electric charge is no longer conserved, which means
you can do things like create charges out of nothing.
You can destroy electric charges, which is not something that
happens in our universe currently, right, And that could be
weird because like maybe suddenly most of the universe is
has a plus charge on it or has a negative charge. Right,
there's nothing kind of controlling that anymore. Yeah, exactly, it
(27:09):
could go up and down, It could change with time.
It could all get super positively charged. You know. You
could have photons turned into two electrons. Currently, a photon
can turn into like an electron and its anti particle,
and there's a symmetry there because of conservation of charge.
You have to create a plus and a minus at
the same time. But if that's no longer true, then
photons could turn into like two electrons or two positrons
(27:31):
are all sorts of crazy stuff. And when you change
these fundamental rules, the very very foundations of everything, then
it's pretty hard to predict what things are going to
look like at the larger scales. I guess you could
say there are plusants and minus or there could be
a lot of plusses and a lot of minuses. The
pluses and minuses are going to be out of control. Yeah,
all right, that's pretty deep. And then also it has
(27:52):
some consequences for super conductivity, right yeah. I think something
that people don't really realize is that particle physicists didn't
invent the idea of a Higgs field like. It didn't
actually come from particle physics. We borrowed it from another field.
We borrowed it from the guys who study superconductivity. Because
what happens in a material when things are super conductive
(28:16):
is that the electrons do this very special thing. You know,
Electrons don't like to be like on top of each
other their fermions, they don't like to be in the
same quantum state. So to get superconductivity, what happens is
you get electrons forming these little pairs two electrons together
because when they come together, they turn into bosons and
they can do all sorts of crazy stuff they can't
otherwise do, and that's how super conductivity works. Well, these
(28:38):
bosons do weird things to the photons that are in
that material, and what they do to the photon in
that material is exactly the same thing that the Higgs
field does to most particles. So what that means is
that inside a superconductor, photons are massive, like photons have
mass inside superconductors, because these electrons create the same conditions
(29:01):
necessary to give a photon mass. Right, they sort of
like act like they slow down photons, right, they like
absorb and re emit them, and in a way it
sort of acts like the molasses in their material, not
in a way in exactly the same way. And so
when we discovered the Higgs boson, it was also sort
of like a triumph for condensed matter physics because we
realized this is like a general idea. It doesn't just
(29:22):
happen for fundamental particles in the Higgs field. It also
happens to like emergent phenomena for like photons interacting with
these cooper pairs inside super conductivity. So there are cases
in our universe where photons do have mass inside a superconductor.
Photons have mass, So then what would happen if you
actually give them mass? With that whole super connectivity is
(29:43):
still work. Yeah, that's a great question. It would totally
upset that apple cart as well. Probably you can still
make super connectivity work. Do you have to start from
a completely different place? I mean everybody else would have
to start all over. Biologists, chemists, everybody would have to
start from scratch if we change this basic parameter. And
also light would be slower to right, like, maybe the
(30:04):
universe would feel smaller as well. Yeah, and we might
not even see as much of the universe. If photons
don't last forever, they're not stable, if they decay, then
we can't rely on them to travel for billions and
billions of years across the universe and bring us secrets
from the most distant objects because they would turn into
other particles on the way. So the night sky would
(30:24):
be much much darker because we wouldn't be getting these
messages from far away. So I kind of like our universe.
I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, let's keep
the photon in a diet. Let's not getting pot any
mass I think the lesson is things would be very
different Thomas. But yeah, so the universe would be very
different than the photon had mass, right, it would have
much weaker like promgnatic force, and and things just wouldn't
(30:45):
be the same. We might not even be in a
like here in universe. Who might be still in the
plasma universe. And the crazy thing is that it's not
that far from our universe, Like it could happened here
if the Higgs field was more complicated, if there are
supersymmetric Higgs out there, it's possible this could have happened.
And so it's not a big jump from here to there,
Like the universe looks totally different, but it doesn't take
(31:07):
that much of a change in the underlying laws of
physics to get from here there. So it's sort of like,
you know, our neighboring universe in the multiverse. Well, hopefully
the n s A edited out that last statement in
case that encourages anyone to try to change our universe.
All right, Well, let's get to thomas the second question,
because he had three, and this one is pretty interesting
as well. Kudos to Thomas for thinking it up. Yes,
(31:29):
what if the netrino felt the Strong Force. Yeah, whoa Wow,
I guess it's whoa Because first of all, the neutrino
is kind of an exotic particle, or I guess it's
not your your typical particle. It doesn't make up anything
about what we are. And also the strong Force is
kind of a special force, right, So yes, So you're
taking like the most elusive particle that hardly interacts with
(31:52):
anything and interacts most weekly when it does, and then
you're throwing it into the mix with the most powerful,
the strongest, the we weird ist force we know about
in the universe. So you're like promoting the introvert that
hardly ever interacts with the party. You put them up
on stage and you're making them the center of the action.
I feel like you're describing a recurring dream that you
(32:13):
have to and then I wake up screaming, and then
you burst into a ball of light massless photons. I hope. Yeah.
So remember that the new trino is. It's weird little particle,
And you're right, it's weird because it doesn't exist in
our form of matter. Like, you don't need the neutrino
to make up the atom. You just need electrons and corks.
(32:35):
But there are lots of neutrinos out there in the universe.
The Sun makes a huge number of them. There are
natural product of fusion. So there's like billions of neutrinos
passing through your fingernail every second. They're just not sort
of like part of our tactile universe. They're like this
parallel universe almost that's right on top of us. So
I think this question sort of gets to, like, what
(32:56):
if we can interact with more of the universe. What
if we were like force to what if it became
part of the structure of the stuff that we are
made out of? Right, Because neutrinos are you know, they're
elusive and they're not that famous, but there's a lot
of them, Like through all my fingertips right now. Are
are billions of neutrinos passing through right, Yeah, because the
Sun is a huge neutrino factory. Yeah. So they're one
(33:18):
of the particles that can be made, and so they
are made in big reactions like in the Sun. But
right now they don't feel any force except the weak force, right,
that's right. They have no electric charge and we'll get
into that later. That's his third question. They don't feel electromagnetism,
and they have a very very very small mass, so
they do feel gravity, but it's almost negligible. But most
importantly for this discussion, they don't feel the strong nuclear force.
(33:41):
This is the force that holds the nucleus together, you know,
that's mediated by gluons. It's what makes corks come together
into a proton or into a neutron, and then even
enough residual strong force left over to pull those positively
charged protons together into a nucleus. So the strong force
is really what dictates the whole structure of the nucleus,
(34:02):
which is what controls everything. So usually only courts feel
the strong force. Right, Yeah, we have this weird division,
like there are six corks up down charm strange top bottom,
and then there are six particles we call leptons. There's
electron mu on too, and the three neutrinos. For reasons
we don't understand, only the corks feel the strong force,
and none of the other ones. The electron, the mu on,
(34:24):
the tow and the neutrinos, none of them feel a
strong force. They just totally ignore it. All right, So
then what would happen if one of the neutrinos or
that nutrino felt the strong force, how would it break things. Yeah,
so in order for that to happen, you'd have to
give these neutrinos the equivalent of electric charge for the
strong force, and we call that color. So that's sort
of what it means to have a color charge. It
(34:46):
means that you do feel the strong force. And so
if neutrinos feel the strong force, then they no longer
just like pass through material. Like we say the neutrinos
passed through the Earth without hardly noticing, that would no
longer be true. If they felt the strong force, it
would smash into the nucleus and they would interact. It
would be just like if you sent a proton into
the nucleus, Like when that happens, it sometimes breaks the
(35:08):
nucleus up right, So they would feel the strong force,
so they would have a color charge. And so if
you shoot them through a material, they would probably mostly
not do anything right, they would just fly through. But
if they happen to fly close to the nucleus, then
they would interact with the courts inside of the nucleus.
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, that's true, but materials
are pretty dense, and so for example, if you shoot
a proton into a block of copper, you're very likely
(35:31):
going to interact with something, unless it's a very very
thin sheet. And you know, we measure these things. It's
like you know the interaction length of an object as
it flies into material. You fly into anything with their
reasonable nuclear density, you're going to interact. And so as
you shoot neutrinos with a strong force into a rock,
for example, then they're not going to come out the
other side. It's because there are so many nuclear and
(35:52):
courts in that rock. But I guess what I'm saying
is that the strong force this in like long range, right,
like it usually only kicks up if you're really close
through the courts. That's right, because the strong force is
super duper strong, and it's super duper strange. It's strange because,
unlike the other forces, it actually gets stronger as the
objects get further apart. Like we know that gravity gets
(36:14):
weaker as things get further apart. You feel gravity from
the Sun, you feel gravity from the Earth because they're
relatively close. You don't feel gravity from Andromeda the whole
galaxy because it's super far away. Even though it's really massive.
The strong force is the opposite. As things get further apart,
the strength of the force gets larger. What that means
is that things with a strong chart this color can't
(36:35):
be really really far apart because the forces we would
be so strong that things would snap together. So basically
everything in the universe is balanced, has no effective color
chart because if it did, then like a huge amount
of energy would be devoted to fixing that, to sort
of smoothing it out. And so the strong force also
has sort of a short extent because it's all sort
of neutralized already, right, So then what would happen to
(36:58):
our universe if neutrinos has you know, color, and they
could feel the strong force? Would we just be obliterated
right now by all the neutrinos coming from the Sun,
you know, like what they just totally destroy us? Or
you know, would would even that meaning neutrinos be formed
in the sun, It's a great question. Neutrinos are mostly
formed in the internal part of the Sun, right like
(37:18):
where the fusion is actually happening. And so if neutrinos
have felt the strong force and they hit Earth, yeah,
that would be a big deal, and it would like
sterilize all life on Earth and kill everybody. Not a
happy ending and not a happy ending. But it also
means that the Sun wouldn't make as many neutrinos because
the neutrinos wouldn't be able to escape the Sun because
(37:40):
instead of like being created and then flying off through
a sun, which is to them transparent, the Sun would
be suddenly opaque. It would be a huge barrier. So
they would just be like reabsorbed, or they would trigger
more nuclear fusion, or they would form balanced crazy states.
And so probably the Sun just wouldn't produce as many neutrinos.
It would still have all that energy, and it would
(38:02):
get hotter, and it might really more photons because it
gets hotter, but it wouldn't produce as many neutrinos, but
it would still produce some. And when those neutrinos hit
the Earth, it would be bad news. Right, we would
in our atmosphere protect this. Maybe our atmosphere does protect
us from cosmic rays. Like there are particles that feel
the strong force effectively that hit the atmosphere, like protons.
(38:22):
Sometimes they're really high energy, but you know, you can't
really evade them. What happens when they hit the atmosphere
is they create this big shower of particles cosmic rays,
and those cosmic rays get down to Earth and they cause, like,
you know, changes in our DNA. It's actually important part
of our evolution that sometimes errors in DNA are created
from cosmic radiation. And so what you're talking about is
(38:45):
increasing the amount of cosmic radiation doesn't mean we'll all
instantly get cancer, but it does mean that there'll be
a lot more DNA errors, and that means that you know,
the next generation would be pretty weird or has superpower.
This could be a great origin story. Everyone bitten by
a radioactive neutrino. Yeah, you get all the powers of
the neutrino. All right, Well, it sounds like maybe the
(39:06):
consequences are not as dramatic as in our first question.
But because you know, neutrinos are more dangerous, but they're
also maybe wouldn't we wouldn't see as many of them, right,
because they're harder to make, and they would also do
other weird stuff. Like the reason we have protons and
neutrons and other particles made of quarks is because those
quirks like to group together and make interesting things. And
(39:26):
there's lots of different ways to put quirks together. You
can make pions and chaons. These are all just different
combinations of the same lego particles. Now in that universe
and Thomas's universe where the neutrino feels a strong force,
it's another lego piece you can use to make these
weird particles. So now you can have like I don't know,
two quirks and a new trino making some new kind
of particle, or just like you know, a bound state
(39:48):
of a bunch of neutrinos could build something. You can
have all sorts of new forms of matter made out
of either combinations of quirks and neutrinos or just neutrinos. Whoa,
you could have like more atoms than what we have
in the periodic table. You could have like a whole
separate table or more multiple table. You would be a
whole other dimension to the periodic table, you know, where
you have a hydrogen with more or fewer neutrinos inside
(40:11):
the nucleus. Wow, that's pretty cool. It's like getting more
pieces for your lego said of the universe. So things
would maybe be very different, right, there would be more
types of matter. Yeah, exactly, it would be much more
diverse the kinds of things you could build out of
the strong force. All right, well, hopefully that answer is
Thomas the second question, and so let's get to his
last question, and this one is pretty killer, but first
(40:35):
let's take another quick break. All Right, we're answering questions
from Thomas, who's nine years old from Ontario. Please read
our book We Have No Idea, a Guide to the
(40:55):
un Universe. And he has questions about what if the
universe was different, what if we were actually in a
different universe in our multiverse where things had different values
or things at different properties. And so his last question
is what if the neutrino felt the electromagnetic force? Yeah,
(41:16):
and I love this series of questions because it connects
to this like series of inclusion, Like the strong force
only touches quarks. That's interesting, it's weird. We don't understand why.
Then there's electromagnetism. It touches quarks like quarks have charges,
they can create photons, all this kind of stuff. But
also electrons, muans, and taws feel electromagnetism. So of the
(41:39):
twelve particles, only six of them feel the strong force.
Electromagnetism is more inclusive, Like nine of those twelve particles
feel electromagnetism, but then the last three particles, these neutrinos, right,
they don't feel either the strong force or electromagnetism. So
it's really fun to think about, like what the universe
would be like if that were different. These neutrinos are
special and crazy because they don't feel either of the
(42:00):
more powerful forces. Yeah, I mean these are definitely not
random questions. I feel like Thomas really sort of looked
at the table of fundamental particles and he saw the
gaps and like, what wasn't connected? And he's liked, what
if we connect these two things? Yeah, And I think
the other side of these questions is not just what if,
but why, right, because the implication is maybe this doesn't
make sense, maybe it doesn't work, and that's why the
(42:22):
neutrino doesn't feel a strong force, it doesn't feel electromacticism,
because if it did, the universe would be incoherent or something,
you know. I think that's sort of the way we
are all thinking about is sort of in the field,
trying to ask these what if questions? All right, Well,
his whatef question is what if the neutrino felt the
electromagnetic force. So right now, we know that the neutrino
doesn't feel the electromagnetic force, which is why it like
(42:42):
flies through us and doesn't kill us and doesn't do
anything to us even though there are a ton of
them flying through us. So I guess if they felt
the electromagnetic force and we would feel them to right,
we might even be toast. We would definitely be toast exactly.
It's very similar to what would happen if neutrinos felt
a strong force. Right right now, Neutrinos mostly ignore the universe,
but the universe is built out of the strong force
(43:03):
and electromagnetism. So now, if a neutrinos feel electromagnetism, that
means that when they pass through matter, they interact with
everything that has an electric charge. Right, That's what it means.
To feel electromagnetism means to have a charge and to
interact with things that do have charge. That's really what
electric charge is. When we say, like the electron has
electric charge, what we mean is that when you put
(43:26):
it in an electric field, it gets accelerated, so that
has zero charge. We mean it ignores electromagnetism. For a
neutrino to feel electromagnetism, it would have to have electric
charge to it that have to be like a positive
neutrino and a negative neutrino. And then as it flies
through matter, it would interact with electrons and the nuclei
and do exactly the same stuff that other charge particles do.
(43:48):
It would cause crazy havoc, right, Yeah, I guess you
would have to make two kinds of neutrinos, right, if
you give them charge, you'd have to give them You
have to make up the plus and the minus type. Yeah,
because every particle that has a plus also has a minus.
There's the antiparticle. One of the really interesting things about
the neutrino is that we don't know if it is
its own antiparticle or if there's a separate anti neutrino. Like,
(44:10):
we can't tell the difference between neutrinos and anti neutrinos
because they don't have electric charge. Most particle antiparticle pairs,
like the one of them is positive, one of them
is negative, So we put them in a magnet. They separate.
Neutrinos have no charge, and so we can't tell are
they their own antiparticles there's just one kind or are
there two kinds? And we just sort of can't tell
(44:31):
the difference. It's one of the deepest questions about neutrinos.
But if they had electric charge, they would definitely have
to be two kinds. And in fact, I think their
name comes from the fact that they don't have any charge, right,
neutral neutrino comes from the word neutral. Right, so you've
given charge. You would have to change its name, Yeah, exactly.
No trino means little one in Italian, right, little neutral
(44:51):
one in Italian, sort of like a little cute particle
with no charge. You would have to call the positive
one like the pepito, and maybe the negative one the
nepedo may Yeah exactly, that would be the most important
consequence in the universe. Again, but I guess what I
mean is that they wouldn't be called to Trina's right, absolutely,
(45:12):
their most fundamental property would be different. And neutrinos were
hard to discover. We didn't even know about them until
fairly recently. And the reason is that they are neutral.
They hardly ever interact. We only know the neutrino exists
because we saw a momentum sort of disappear and without
wait a second, momentum can't disappear. And so somebody said, well,
maybe it didn't disappear, maybe some weird and almost invisible
(45:33):
particles carrying it off, and that's how the name came about.
Somebody said, oh, that would be fun. But if there
was a little neutral particle carrying it off, so we
would have discovered the neutrino much much sooner. If it
did have electric charge, it would have been much more obvious, right,
all right, So then if it's not neutral, if it
does feel the electromagnetic force, it would interact with us,
and so we would be toast right because we're getting
(45:53):
showered by them right now, a ton like ten billion
per square centimeter, and so each one of those would
basically you know, push us, or interact with us, or
knock an electron off or you know, maybe change our DNA.
We'd be toast right to be a ton of energy
showering us right now. Yeah, we basically all be in
a particle accelerator all the time, and that's not recommended,
(46:14):
you know, like to have all those particles ripping through
your body, ionizing things, basically causing cancer, damaging your cells.
It's like being shot by billions of tiny, tiny bullets
all the time. So yeah, we wouldn't survive very long.
But again, just like in the case with the neutrinos
feeling the strong force, fewer of them would come to
Earth than now, because the Sun would also absorb a
(46:35):
lot of them internally, and so it would radiate more photons.
The Sun would be brighter, it would heat up, and
we'd all get like hotter from the temperature of the Sun,
but would feel fewer neutrinos, but still a lot of them,
and those would cause damage. Right, This is interesting that
you said that the sun would be brighter like it
would make the same amount of neutrinos. Wouldn't the neutrinos
be harder to make? And if you make them, then
(46:56):
how does it make the sun brighter? Yeah, that's a
great question. I haven't thought about whether fusion is more
or less likely to make more neutrinos. But assuming that
the same number of neutrinos are made, they don't escape
the sun right now. The sun again is opaque to them.
It's a barrier. It's not transparent. You know, Neutrinos are
super cool because when you make them inside a star.
That star is like glass to the neutrinos, they just
(47:16):
fly right out of it. It's super interesting. For example,
when we observe supernova in the sky, we see neutrinos
from the supernova before we see photons from the supernova.
And you might think a whole lot of second. Photons
travel the speed of light, right, shouldn't they always get
here first? Yes, But neutrinos come from the heart of
the supernova, so they're the first thing that's created, and
(47:37):
the photons come when the shock wave reaches the outside
of the supernova. So neutrinos actually get here first because
they started first, and they travel almost the speed of light.
It's like the trailer for the main feature. Yeah, exactly,
were like, watch out, you're about to be zapped. Well,
if they had charged, they would zappas the trailer would
be just as good as the Yeah, So if they
had charged, they wouldn't be able to escape in those
(47:58):
first moments. They would be reabsorbed. All the other particles
just contributing to the overall temperature of the Sun. That
would cause the sun to glow brighter if it's hotter,
so would heat up the sun and the sun will
also be shorter lived, right, it wouldn't last for so
many billions of years alright, so we'd be toast and
maybe not live as long. But would we even be here,
Like if you gave charge to the neutrino, would the
(48:20):
universe form the same way? Or will we also have
like interesting new kinds of matter. It would be totally different,
where the stable forms of matter would be really different,
and you would probably have like neutrinos in bound states
around protons. Right, you could form atoms with neutrinos, not
just with electrons, And maybe you could have atoms that
have like some neutrinos and some electrons, And again the
(48:40):
orbitals would be really weird, and chemistry would be much harder.
Like you think organic chemistry is hard now, whow with
neutrinos in there, it would be even more complicated. So
I wouldn't even deign to predict what it would look like.
But I'm sure that the very structure of matter would
be very different if neutrinos had electric charge and could
participate in the forming of atoms. All right, Well, I
(49:02):
think maybe the main lesson from all of these questions
from Thomas is that like the universe could be very different,
and it wouldn't take that much for things to be
totally different and maybe even feels like a totally different universe.
That's right, So Thomas, if you wander into the control
panel of the universe, please take care before you play
with somebos not. Ye I know, I know you're nine
(49:23):
and you want to touch things and pull pushing buttons,
but you know, think about it for a second. And also,
if you're a dog listening to this, also, you know,
restrain yourself. Don't turn into a super doogulin. All right, Well,
thank you Thomas for these awesome questions about what would
happen if things were a little bit different in our universe.
It sounds like things would be a lot different, Daniel,
things would be a lot different, And it just goes
(49:43):
to show you that the universe that we exist in
now really rest on like a very finely balanced set
of stuff, and if you change any of that, then
the downstream effects are very dramatic and very hard to predict.
All right, Well, let's be grateful that we have the
universe that we have with the pretty is that it has,
because otherwise we wouldn't be here to ask these awesome questions.
(50:04):
That's right, and thank you very much to Thomas his
mom for encouraging his curiosity. And thank you to all
the parents out there who fan the flames of curiosity
and wonder in your children. Those are future scientists who
I hope are going to solve the big problems of
the day. You just don't get him a cat, just
to make sure it's a nice, friendly dog. All right. Well,
(50:25):
thanks for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,
and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is
a production of I Heart Radio. Or more podcast from
my heart Radio visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(50:46):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, Daniel, do you worry at all about answering listener emails? Now?
What do I have to worry about? You know, you're
offering secrets of the universe for free to anyone on
the internet. What's wrong with that? That's kind of my job.
I mean, how do you know what they're gonna do
with that information? Oh? I see You're worried someone out
there is sitting in their underground layer, stroking a white
(00:29):
cat in their lap and looking for physical advice about
how to build a doomsday device a little bit. Yeah, well,
so far nobody has asked me how to build a
nuclear warhead. Wait didn't we answer that in a podcast already? Oh? Yeah, Oops,
we did to give away those secrets. You know, maybe
you'ld have the government filtering your emails, Daniel say, if
(00:50):
they're not already listening, if you're hearing this, it means
they let this one through. Hi, I am more handmade
(01:10):
cartoonists and the creator of PhD comments. Hi. I'm Daniel.
I'm a particle physicist, and I don't have any actual
useful practical knowledge. But you do have a white cat
that you're stroking right now. I don't anymore. I don't anymore. No,
I have a beautiful pandemic puppy that we adopted, but
he's not part of my doomsday plan to take over
(01:31):
the world, right right. You never see any villains supervillains
having a dog, right, It's always like a cat or
some kind of lizard, some kind of dangerous animal. That's
because dogs are inherently good and sympathetic. I can't imagine
evil person having a pet dog, right right. I guess
they would make the supervillain turn good, probably exactly exactly,
whereas cats, on the other hand, they were happy to
(01:51):
snuggle up to an evil dude. Lower standards cats, But
welcome to our universe. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
a production of I Heart Radio in which we explain
the universe to us, to you, two cats and two dogs.
We talk about everything that's out there, including all the
pets in the universe, and all the crazy things that
we see, the things we hear, and the things that
(02:12):
we can just barely detect with the most powerful scientific
instruments ever devised. We try to weave it all together
to you into a tapestry of understanding, so that you
can grasp what we do and what we don't know
yet about the universe, because it is a pretty big
carpet of a universe, filled with small details and large
amazing facts for us to discover. And Daniel, do you
(02:34):
think we have pet listeners? I think we probably do. Yeah,
I'm sure there are folks out there who listen with
their pets, and so their pets are sort of like
you know, second hand listeners, and they're absorbing physics. Oh
my gosh, what if we give rise to like the
first dog genius, some dogs out there taking notes right like,
turn that on. I gotta learn exactly how that works,
(02:56):
like the tail wax every time we say a banana
joke or something. Maybe or when the dogs take over,
maybe at least they'll give us credit, you know, for
teaching them some secrets of the universe that were critical
to their coup and when they are just gonna turn
to its owner and be like, hey, I think I
figured out how to imagine quantum mechanics and relativity. Also
I need more. Yeah, Well, if the only expense to
(03:17):
solving the deepest questions in the universe were more dog treats,
and I think we could get the National Science Foundation
to cover that I know who needs an LHC particle collider.
You spend all those billions of dollars in dog treats,
that's right, we need like a Chihuahwa thick tank. Yeah,
you know what they say, like the monkeys and typewriter,
Let's just get a bunch of dogs, play them all
of our podcasts and see what happens. You know, I've
(03:38):
been to the dog park in our neighborhood. It's something
like a collider. You see dogs running in circles like
crazy and sometimes bouncing into each other. But I never
see like new weird kinds of dogs created in high
energy dog collisions. You just got to crack up the energy, Diniel. Obviously.
If there's one thing I learned in this podcast is
more energy, more magic. That's right. I guess we just
need to double the treats and see what happens. Do
(03:59):
you have a special name for your dog, like Cork
or Metrino or you know, strong dog or something. No. No No,
Our dog is a rescue from Insanata and he came
with a name. His name is Pepito, and he is
a wonderful member of the family. Now, Pepito, that does
sound like a particle to be named that you discover
one day, you can name it the Pepito. Yeah, exactly.
(04:20):
But it is a wonderful universe that we like to
talk about, the one that we have, I guess I
mean the universe that we know and that we love,
that we live in, that we seem to be studying
and learning more about. But we sometimes wonder if it's
the only universe out there. That's right, There's a lot
of things in our universe that we don't understand that
seems sort of arbitrary, like why does the electron have
(04:42):
the mass that it does, and why is the speed
of light the number that it is. This is just
like list of numbers that describe and define our universe,
and if those numbers were different, the way everything worked
would be totally different. So we wonder sometimes is this
the only set of numbers there going to be? Are
there other universe is with different numbers or the control
(05:02):
rule of that universe has different settings on their knobs?
Right right? With Pepito? Have more energy at the dot
park impossible, He's already going maximum dog speed. He's reached
the limit of the universe. But it is sort of
like the universe has like a serial number, right. I
was trying to think of a good example of to
illustrate this, But it's sort of like the universe has
(05:22):
a serial number, and you look at the serial number
and you think, like, oh, where did that number come from?
There must be other universes with maybe a different serial number. Yeah,
And it's not just that we have arbitrry numbers. When
physicists look at these numbers, they think sometimes the numbers
look weird, like unusual, Like if you randomly pick these numbers,
these would be rare. And that makes people think like, wow,
(05:45):
maybe there's a lot of universes, so many that you
even have weird and rare numbers. That's kind of a
weak argument because even if there are lots and lots
of universes, we have no real reason to understand why
some numbers are preferred or some numbers are not or
what would be rare. But physicists they like numbers like
one or zero or pie. They don't like numbers like
(06:06):
one divided by a hundred and thirty seven. So when
they see a number like that, they go, that's weird.
I wonder why. It's like looking at your serial number
and seeing it that it's like three three, You're like,
that's weird. We must have gotten like a weird, crazy
coincidence number in our serial number. Yeah, but maybe not,
And maybe all the numbers are out there and only
the people with three three are the ones going, Oh,
(06:29):
that's weird. I wonder what that means? Am I special?
Or maybe there's a reason. Maybe it's the only number
that works. Maybe there's some underlying idea that restricts what
these numbers can be that says, the electron mass has
to be this, and the speed of light has to
be that, and the strength of gravity has to be this.
We just haven't figured it out yet, right. It could
be that they only made one universe and they happened
(06:49):
to put the serial number three three through three, right,
Like who knows, right, Yeah, But these are really fun
questions because they make you like totally blow up your
mind and think about the whole context, not just of
the human experience, but of the universe. Like if the
whole universe, with its billions and trillions of stars, is
just one of many universes, it's just like blowing your
(07:12):
mind at the next level. Right, that's this idea of
the multiverse, which we've talked about here in our podcast,
and we've talked about how there are different flavors of
the multiverse. But I think the basic ideas that made
there are other universes out there, and one possible version
of the multiverse is that it's like a version of
our universe, but with different properties or like different values
(07:32):
for different physical things. Right, yeah, precisely, that's one idea
of a multiverse, and it's really not too far fetched.
You might be thinking a whole lot of seconds. The
laws of physics are the laws of physics, and you know,
across the metaverse there should be one set of rules
that tells everything how it works. Right, Well, there might
still be, But what we're talking about here are not
like the deepest, truest laws of physics, but sort of
(07:55):
the ones we observe in our experiments. These are what
we call effective theory is because they don't describe like
the universe at its smallest and deepest level. They just
describe what we have been able to see so far.
The way, for example, like describing the motion of a
ball as the parabola isn't a fundamental property of the universe.
It's just something that kind of works. Well, the same
(08:15):
is true of our laws. Even like the standard model
of particle physics, this quantum field theory that's like a
crowning intellectual achievement of humanity. We think it's mostly an
effective theory and it's controlled by deeper parameters we don't understand.
So it's possible that in the multiverse, even if there
is like a single coherent theory across the multiverses, it
(08:35):
can appear different in different universes because of how those
universes break out. For example, of the Higgs field ends
up at a different value than all the particles have
different masses, and we just don't really understand that deeper
theory yet, So we don't really understand how many universes
there can be and how it can translate into different theories.
But in the end, it is possible that there are
(08:57):
other universes out there with different laws of physics because
their parameters are different values. Right, I guess you can
have multiple universes, some with different laws and some with
different values. But I think the one that we're going
to tackle today is this possibility of a multiverse multiple
universes with the same laws but maybe different values for like,
you know, some of the fundamental physical properties, right. Yeah,
(09:20):
and this comes to us from a future scientist who's
inspired to ask us questions because he read a really
fun book. Yeah, we have some great questions from Thomas
from Ontario who is nine years old and best part,
he's a fan of our book. We have no idea
a guide to the unknown universe. That's right. His mom
wrote to us saying that he really enjoyed reading the book,
(09:40):
that it's stimulated his deep thoughts about the nature of
the universe, and that he had some questions for us
that he wanted to answer. Yeah, so kudos to Thomas
for reading the book. I have yet to read our book, Daniel. No,
I'm just kidding. I had to read it many times
in writing it. But kudos to Thomas for reading the
book and for being a fan of physics. It's never
too early to start. So here is Thomas asking his questions. Hi.
(10:05):
My name is Thomas. I'm from thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,
and I'm nine and I have some questions for you,
Daniel Hawaii. Can you do an episode about what would
happen if the photon had as much mass as a
top quok and another question, what if the neutrino felt
strong force? And and my last question, what if the
neutrino photo electromagnetism. Whoa it was like a question machine.
(10:27):
I know. Let's just hope he doesn't have a white cat,
not yet. At least he's gonna listen to this episode
and we realize, oh, that's the next step and becoming
a super villain. Great, great, get him a dog, put
tepedo and a create and ship him over. He could
still become a superhero, not a supervillain. Wow, we could
intervene and save the planet by turning him to use
(10:48):
his powers for good. Yes, at least in this multiverse,
in this timeline, Thomas, there is still good in you.
I feel the bright side of the force. Now. I'm
sure Thomas is an awesome kid, and he just wants
to know more about the universe. I imagine he read
our book and he saw all of these particles that
we talked about and how things could be different, and
he probably wondered, like what if they were not what
(11:10):
they are right now? Like how would the universe be different?
Like would it be totally different? Would it even be possible?
Would we all collapse into a black hole or something.
That's kind of a big question. Yeah, there's a lot
going on there. You know. It's fascinating how the properties
that we rely on, the things that make up our existence,
come down to these numbers, and if they were different,
the universe would feel so different. That's really fun to
(11:33):
think about, how the things that are important to us
are not really fundamental to the universe itself even if
we rely on them. Right, And then the deeper question,
you know, of could those numbers be different? Should they
be different? Do we know why they are the way
they are? Should they be different? That's a meta question,
like if we could design the universe, what would it
be like? Now you're trying to think like a super villain, Daniel. Yeah, well,
(11:55):
you know, there's a lot of debate inside particle physics
about whether the equation of the universe should be beautiful.
Should we be seeking out a theory that hasn't like
an aesthetic appeals that when we really we go, oh
my gosh, that's incredible. I love it? Or does it matter?
You know, maybe we just need something that works. Even
if people are like, jeez, that's kind of a clue.
But I guess that's just the way the universe is
(12:17):
a bit ugly, but it works. And if it's not beautiful,
can we give it a makeover? Can we, like, you know,
do a little plastic surgery? Maybe? I see you want
to give some notes to the creator, some notes. I
don't know love what you did here, but yeah, there
you go. Now you're thinking, like a supervillain or an
(12:39):
executive producer, rewold the universe according to what we think
it should be. I see. So supervillains are just like
executive producers on the Universe project. All right, well, thank
you Thomas for your questions. We'll start with your first
one here. What if the photon had the mass of
a top quark. Now, that's a pretty cool question. First
of all, like what if the photeson had mass in
(12:59):
the first place? Right, Like, that's already a big one.
And then what if it had the mass of the
top cork, which is kind of one of the heaviest particles, right, Yeah,
the top cork is the heaviest fundamental particle we have
ever found. It's the cousin of the up cork, which
has almost no mass, but it weighs as much as
a hundred and seventy five protons, So this tiny little
particle has more mass than like a gold atom. So
(13:22):
it's really incredible and sort of like at the extreme,
which is I think why Thomas is asking, like what
if the lightest particle, the one with no mass, had
as much mass as the most massive particle? Nice? Alright,
so Daniel remind us here, the photon is massless, right,
it doesn't have any mass, It doesn't weigh anything. That's right.
The photon has no mass, which gives it incredible powers.
It means that it can travel at the speed of light,
(13:45):
and then it has to travel at the speed of light.
You can't ever catch up to a photon. Everybody who's
measuring the speed of a photon is going to measure
to be the speed of light. And that's because a
photon is nothing because it has no mass other then motion.
So you can't catch up to it because if you did,
there would be nothing there. There's no like frame of
(14:05):
reference of the photon because there's nothing there but it's motion.
So it's sort of a really awesome special case. And
it's also really cool because it's in contrast to other
very very similar particles that do have mass like the
w and the z bosons. These to play the same
role as the photon except for the weak fource, but
(14:25):
they do have mass. So we actually have an example
in our universe of like a massive version of the photon.
And I guess I'm just going back to what you
said the photon. Because it has no mass, it has
to go at the speed of light, right, Like, that's
one of the rules of the universe. Anything without mass
has to go at the speed of light. Yea, and
not just photons, gluons for example, are any particle that
has no mass has to always go at the speed
(14:47):
of light and nothing else can, right, And is there
sort of an explanation as to what it has to
go at the speed of light because it has no mass,
it has to go to the speed of light, or
because it has to go at the speed of light
it can't have any mass. It has to go at
the speed of light because it doesn't have mass. Yeah,
because anything with mass will travel at the maximum speed,
and because you can never catch up to it, and
(15:08):
so it will always travel at some speed you can't
ever gain on it. Right, You'll always be measuring travel
at the same speed because there's nothing there, it's just
motion and that's because it has no mass. So I
would say, because it has no mass, therefore it travels
at the speed of light. Right, and the photon and
remind me, it's like the force transmitting particle for the
(15:29):
electromagnetic force. Right, that's right. The way like electrons push
against each other is that they pass photons back and forth.
You can think of photons is like ripples in the
electromagnetic field. And when an electron pushes against another electron
is doing so using its field. But you can also
think of those fields effectively is like a bunch of
photons added up. So yeah, you can think of photons
(15:51):
is like a way to transmit the electromagnetic force. Right.
And so the photon is doesn't have any mass, which
I guess means it doesn't interact with the Eiggs field
or does, but it has no effect. That's how things
have mass in the first place. Right, they interact with
the Higgs field. Yeah, the photon does not interact with
the Higgs field. And it's sort of really interesting and
super awesome because the photon actually is part of this
(16:13):
group of particles, the W particles and the Z and
the photon. They make a quadruplet. They're like all linked
together because the electromagnetic force is really connected to the
weak force. It's in one force called the electro weak force,
and this quadrupletive particles. They all do interact with the
Higgs field, and if the Higgs wasn't around, they would
all be massless, they would all be zero mass. But
(16:34):
the Higgs makes three of them heavy. It turns the
Z and the two ws into heavy particles. But then
it's sort of used up. It can only make three
of them heavy, and so the photon escapes and remains
massless and the other ones get really really massive, and
that is why the weak force is weak. Whoa wait, wait,
wait wait, So the photon is part of it, like
a family, like there are other versions of the photon. Yeah,
(16:56):
the Z is very very similar to the photon. It's
exactly like the photon, and except that it's part of
the weak force and it has more mass. Oh I see,
It's like the electromagnetic fource and the weak force are related.
But all of the forces, all of the force particles,
and the weak force half mass. That's what makes it weak.
That's why we call them weak. Yeah, so the photon
is just like our name for the one out of
(17:18):
the four particles that stayed massless. Whoa, and I guess
then the weak force is sort of like light almost
like these other particles are also light, but they're like
massive lights. Yeah, exactly, they are like heavy light. And
the reason that the weak force is weak is that
these particles are so massive, so they like they don't
go very far before they decay. A photon can travel
(17:39):
across the whole universe. It's totally stable. But these particles,
because they're massive, they break down into other stuff and
that limits the weak forces strength. So like back in
the early days of the universe, before the Higgs field
broke this symmetry, all these particles were basically equivalent and
the weak force was as powerful as electro magnetism. But
then the universe cooled and the Higgs field condensed, and
(18:02):
it made these particles heavier, and it left the photon massless.
And so now the photon is like it's original version.
It can go through the whole universe and its infinite extent.
Electromagnetism is a very powerful force, and the weak force
is like a thin shadow of what it used to be.
I'm also a thin shadow what I used to be,
and I'm more massive and slower than I was when
I was younger. All right, well, let's get into the
(18:24):
consequences now of Thomas's question of what happens that the
photon had more mass, specifically the mass of the top cork.
And I imagine it's not a light consequence. Big things
will happen. It's gonna be heavy duty. It's not gonna
be weak, it's gonna be mass. All right, we'll get
into that, but first let's take a quick break. Al Right,
(18:55):
we are considering multiverses, different universes in which the laws
of physics worked the same, but maybe the values of things,
of particles and certain properties are different. And this came
to us from Thomas from Ontario, who is nine years old,
and he's curious about, first of all, what happens if
the photon had the mass of the top court. It
would be a pretty weird universe if that happened. And
(19:18):
the weird or you mean weird, although I guess beings
that arose that universe would think this is totally natural.
How could it be any other way? Yeah? Also, what
would the Thomas and that universe be curious. What if
the photon were massless? What would happen? Yeah, that would
be as strange to them as the counterpartist to us. Yeah,
exactly right. So now let's so let's give the photon mass, Daniel,
(19:41):
what would happen if we give mass to the photon? So,
if you give mass to the photon, for example, you
have like a more complicated Higgs boson that has the
capacity to make more particles massive, and that's not too
much of a stretch, Like supersymmetric versions of the Higgs
boson could do this, and we talked about in a
recent podcast episode, like how many kinds of Higgs boson
are there? So if you have more Higgs bosons, you
(20:02):
could give the photon mass. If that happened, then electromagnetism
would be much weaker than it is today. Like the
relative power between electromagnetism and the weak force is a
huge number. It's like more than a factor of a
hundred and so if the photon had mass, then electromagnetism
would get weakened just like the weak force has. Right,
(20:22):
but would it be weaker or just like shorter range
do you know what I mean? Like, would it be
I still have the same strength, but just I mean
not work as well up close or far away when
things are far away, or would it actually like decrease
in strength. Both the range is shortened by the mass
because the particles decay, but also the strength of the
particles effectively depends on the mass of them, because like
(20:45):
one over the mass of the particles, and so for example,
neutrinos don't interact with most of the Earth because the
weak force is weak, not because neutrinos don't get like
close enough to the nucleus. Even if they fly right
through the nucleus of an atom, have a very small
chance of interacting because it's like you roll a die
every time it happens, and the die for the weak
(21:06):
force is just much bigger, and so you very rarely
hit the right number? Is it? Because like once things
have mass and harder to make, Like it's harder to
make photons that they were massive. Yeah, you need more
localized energy. It's just less quantum probability to sort of
fluctuate that out of the vacuum to create a heavy particle.
Heavy particles are just rarer less likely, it's less likely
(21:26):
to happen, which means it's a weaker force, right, Yeah,
I guess there's are masses. They wouldn't be as free,
like they would cost you more just to shine a light.
Yeah exactly, all right, and then they have shorter range
because I guess they're going slower than the photon, and
so therefore they give them more of a chance for
them to like decay, right or change. Yeah exactly, because
(21:47):
remember that heavy things decay into lower mass things, just
like boulders roll down hills, and our universe energy likes
to spread out and equalize, so really heavy particles decay
into lighter particles, and so the photon, you know, it
is massless though it can't decay into other stuff, but
if it was heavier than it could decay into lower
(22:07):
mass particles, it would prefer to. And so if you
turn it on a flashlight, you couldn't send your photons
all the way to Alpha Centauri. They would like peter
out before they got there. Would be like yeah, it'd
be like like shooting. Now now you're like shooting stuff
more like a flashlight with way more and you would
feel more of a recal when you turn it off. Yeah,
I'm not sure if the momentum would be different. You know,
(22:28):
a flashlight does impart momentum, Like if you hit somebody
with a flashlight, you're giving them a very very gentle push.
It's sort of like shooting them with a very gentle gun.
And also when you turn on a flashlight, there's a
very gentle recoil, right Like if you fire a big gun,
you feel the pushback on your shoulder. The same thing
is true with a flashlight. You just can't feel it
because the momentum is so so tiny, but it is true,
(22:50):
all right. So then what would happen if the electromagnetic
force was weaker? What kind of what kinds of consequences
would it have in our universe? Well, electromagnetism is what
organizes matter into at a right, the electron is captured
by a proton to make hydrogen, and it's captured by electromagnetism,
and that happened when the universe was cooling a right,
Imagine particles are flying around. You have protons and you
(23:12):
have electrons and they're all flying around. You have a
lot of energy because the universe is young and it's
hot and everything is zooming around. So we have a plasma.
Now the universe then expands and everything cools down and
sort of slows down, and eventually things cool down so
much that the proton, the electron, their electromagnetic force attracts
each other. They're not too fast to get captured, so
(23:35):
they fall into these atoms. That that depends on the
strength of the electromagnetic force. So if electromagnetism is now
weaker because photons are more massive, that just doesn't happen.
At the same time, the universe forms atoms much much
later in its history because it has to wait until
everything is so slow and so cold. So even this
(23:56):
weekend electromagnetism could capture the electron inform atoms. So the
whole history of the universe would be different, Like would
we still be in a plasma right now or would
we have settled already. I don't think any of the
elements we know now would be around. Like the version
of hydrogen in that universe would be really different. It
would have totally different energy levels. And you know, the
(24:18):
very nature of the universe we experience depends on chemistry,
which depends very very sensitively on how electron orbitals are
structured around nuclei. You know, whether something is metallic or not,
whether something is active or not, whether you know something
conducts the electricity or not, depends entirely on those electron orbitals,
and now we're totally changing those. So I think we
(24:39):
should expect to have completely different chemistry, which means basically
everything would be different. I don't even know if we
would have stars in the same way. I don't know
that we would have planets. I don't know that we
would have the same sort of set of materials. Yeah,
it would be a totally different universe because I guess
you know, an electron in and atom is throwing full
(25:00):
tons back and forth with the nucleus, right, That's how
it stays in orbit, So the photon had ass it
would be like a totally different relationship there, right, Yeah,
And we don't know if chemical bonds could be formed,
Like the way that to oxygen come together to make
O two is that they are like sharing electrons between
two nuclei, and that depends on the strength of electromagnetism.
(25:20):
It might be that in Thomas's universe, with really really
massive photon than a weakened electromagnetism, you can get a
different kind of bond. It might also be that you
just can't get bonds right that you all you have
our individual atoms and no molecules, which completely changes the
way all of chemistry works. Yeah. I kind of need
those molecules just to get up in the morning. Yeah,
(25:43):
and you're telling me it also it also has sort
of more fundamental consequences, right, Like it actually affects kind
of like the overall electrical charge of the universe. Yeah,
it's really interesting that the photon was left massless because
that means that its symmetry wasn't broken. We talked on
the podcast a lot about how all conservation laws things
that are like preserved in the universe, Like if you
(26:04):
do an interaction and nothing changes, that's the conservation law.
We talked about how those conservation laws all come from symmetries. So,
for example, the fact that momentum is conserved, you know
that if you collide to particles together, the same amount
of momentum exists after as it did before, comes from
a symmetry of the universe. That symmetry is translational symmetry.
That it doesn't matter if you did that collision over
(26:27):
here or ten miles to the right. The universe doesn't
have a preferred location in space. Well, there's a symmetry
of the photon. It's called electromagnetic gauge symmetry, and the
consequence of that is that electric charge is conserved, and
that gauge symmetry can only exist if the photon is massless.
So the photon becomes massive, then electromagnetic symmetry is broken,
(26:49):
which means electric charge is no longer conserved, which means
you can do things like create charges out of nothing.
You can destroy electric charges, which is not something that
happens in our universe currently, right, And that could be
weird because like maybe suddenly most of the universe is
has a plus charge on it or has a negative charge. Right,
there's nothing kind of controlling that anymore. Yeah, exactly, it
(27:09):
could go up and down, It could change with time.
It could all get super positively charged. You know. You
could have photons turned into two electrons. Currently, a photon
can turn into like an electron and its anti particle,
and there's a symmetry there because of conservation of charge.
You have to create a plus and a minus at
the same time. But if that's no longer true, then
photons could turn into like two electrons or two positrons
(27:31):
are all sorts of crazy stuff. And when you change
these fundamental rules, the very very foundations of everything, then
it's pretty hard to predict what things are going to
look like at the larger scales. I guess you could
say there are plusants and minus or there could be
a lot of plusses and a lot of minuses. The
pluses and minuses are going to be out of control. Yeah,
all right, that's pretty deep. And then also it has
(27:52):
some consequences for super conductivity, right yeah. I think something
that people don't really realize is that particle physicists didn't
invent the idea of a Higgs field like. It didn't
actually come from particle physics. We borrowed it from another field.
We borrowed it from the guys who study superconductivity. Because
what happens in a material when things are super conductive
(28:16):
is that the electrons do this very special thing. You know,
Electrons don't like to be like on top of each
other their fermions, they don't like to be in the
same quantum state. So to get superconductivity, what happens is
you get electrons forming these little pairs two electrons together
because when they come together, they turn into bosons and
they can do all sorts of crazy stuff they can't
otherwise do, and that's how super conductivity works. Well, these
(28:38):
bosons do weird things to the photons that are in
that material, and what they do to the photon in
that material is exactly the same thing that the Higgs
field does to most particles. So what that means is
that inside a superconductor, photons are massive, like photons have
mass inside superconductors, because these electrons create the same conditions
(29:01):
necessary to give a photon mass. Right, they sort of
like act like they slow down photons, right, they like
absorb and re emit them, and in a way it
sort of acts like the molasses in their material, not
in a way in exactly the same way. And so
when we discovered the Higgs boson, it was also sort
of like a triumph for condensed matter physics because we
realized this is like a general idea. It doesn't just
(29:22):
happen for fundamental particles in the Higgs field. It also
happens to like emergent phenomena for like photons interacting with
these cooper pairs inside super conductivity. So there are cases
in our universe where photons do have mass inside a superconductor.
Photons have mass, So then what would happen if you
actually give them mass? With that whole super connectivity is
(29:43):
still work. Yeah, that's a great question. It would totally
upset that apple cart as well. Probably you can still
make super connectivity work. Do you have to start from
a completely different place? I mean everybody else would have
to start all over. Biologists, chemists, everybody would have to
start from scratch if we change this basic parameter. And
also light would be slower to right, like, maybe the
(30:04):
universe would feel smaller as well. Yeah, and we might
not even see as much of the universe. If photons
don't last forever, they're not stable, if they decay, then
we can't rely on them to travel for billions and
billions of years across the universe and bring us secrets
from the most distant objects because they would turn into
other particles on the way. So the night sky would
(30:24):
be much much darker because we wouldn't be getting these
messages from far away. So I kind of like our universe.
I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, let's keep
the photon in a diet. Let's not getting pot any
mass I think the lesson is things would be very
different Thomas. But yeah, so the universe would be very
different than the photon had mass, right, it would have
much weaker like promgnatic force, and and things just wouldn't
(30:45):
be the same. We might not even be in a
like here in universe. Who might be still in the
plasma universe. And the crazy thing is that it's not
that far from our universe, Like it could happened here
if the Higgs field was more complicated, if there are
supersymmetric Higgs out there, it's possible this could have happened.
And so it's not a big jump from here to there,
Like the universe looks totally different, but it doesn't take
(31:07):
that much of a change in the underlying laws of
physics to get from here there. So it's sort of like,
you know, our neighboring universe in the multiverse. Well, hopefully
the n s A edited out that last statement in
case that encourages anyone to try to change our universe.
All right, Well, let's get to thomas the second question,
because he had three, and this one is pretty interesting
as well. Kudos to Thomas for thinking it up. Yes,
(31:29):
what if the netrino felt the Strong Force. Yeah, whoa Wow,
I guess it's whoa Because first of all, the neutrino
is kind of an exotic particle, or I guess it's
not your your typical particle. It doesn't make up anything
about what we are. And also the strong Force is
kind of a special force, right, So yes, So you're
taking like the most elusive particle that hardly interacts with
(31:52):
anything and interacts most weekly when it does, and then
you're throwing it into the mix with the most powerful,
the strongest, the we weird ist force we know about
in the universe. So you're like promoting the introvert that
hardly ever interacts with the party. You put them up
on stage and you're making them the center of the action.
I feel like you're describing a recurring dream that you
(32:13):
have to and then I wake up screaming, and then
you burst into a ball of light massless photons. I hope. Yeah.
So remember that the new trino is. It's weird little particle,
And you're right, it's weird because it doesn't exist in
our form of matter. Like, you don't need the neutrino
to make up the atom. You just need electrons and corks.
(32:35):
But there are lots of neutrinos out there in the universe.
The Sun makes a huge number of them. There are
natural product of fusion. So there's like billions of neutrinos
passing through your fingernail every second. They're just not sort
of like part of our tactile universe. They're like this
parallel universe almost that's right on top of us. So
I think this question sort of gets to, like, what
(32:56):
if we can interact with more of the universe. What
if we were like force to what if it became
part of the structure of the stuff that we are
made out of? Right, Because neutrinos are you know, they're
elusive and they're not that famous, but there's a lot
of them, Like through all my fingertips right now. Are
are billions of neutrinos passing through right, Yeah, because the
Sun is a huge neutrino factory. Yeah. So they're one
(33:18):
of the particles that can be made, and so they
are made in big reactions like in the Sun. But
right now they don't feel any force except the weak force, right,
that's right. They have no electric charge and we'll get
into that later. That's his third question. They don't feel electromagnetism,
and they have a very very very small mass, so
they do feel gravity, but it's almost negligible. But most
importantly for this discussion, they don't feel the strong nuclear force.
(33:41):
This is the force that holds the nucleus together, you know,
that's mediated by gluons. It's what makes corks come together
into a proton or into a neutron, and then even
enough residual strong force left over to pull those positively
charged protons together into a nucleus. So the strong force
is really what dictates the whole structure of the nucleus,
(34:02):
which is what controls everything. So usually only courts feel
the strong force. Right, Yeah, we have this weird division,
like there are six corks up down charm strange top bottom,
and then there are six particles we call leptons. There's
electron mu on too, and the three neutrinos. For reasons
we don't understand, only the corks feel the strong force,
and none of the other ones. The electron, the mu on,
(34:24):
the tow and the neutrinos, none of them feel a
strong force. They just totally ignore it. All right, So
then what would happen if one of the neutrinos or
that nutrino felt the strong force, how would it break things. Yeah,
so in order for that to happen, you'd have to
give these neutrinos the equivalent of electric charge for the
strong force, and we call that color. So that's sort
of what it means to have a color charge. It
(34:46):
means that you do feel the strong force. And so
if neutrinos feel the strong force, then they no longer
just like pass through material. Like we say the neutrinos
passed through the Earth without hardly noticing, that would no
longer be true. If they felt the strong force, it
would smash into the nucleus and they would interact. It
would be just like if you sent a proton into
the nucleus, Like when that happens, it sometimes breaks the
(35:08):
nucleus up right, So they would feel the strong force,
so they would have a color charge. And so if
you shoot them through a material, they would probably mostly
not do anything right, they would just fly through. But
if they happen to fly close to the nucleus, then
they would interact with the courts inside of the nucleus.
Is that what you're saying, Yeah, that's true, but materials
are pretty dense, and so for example, if you shoot
a proton into a block of copper, you're very likely
(35:31):
going to interact with something, unless it's a very very
thin sheet. And you know, we measure these things. It's
like you know the interaction length of an object as
it flies into material. You fly into anything with their
reasonable nuclear density, you're going to interact. And so as
you shoot neutrinos with a strong force into a rock,
for example, then they're not going to come out the
other side. It's because there are so many nuclear and
(35:52):
courts in that rock. But I guess what I'm saying
is that the strong force this in like long range, right,
like it usually only kicks up if you're really close
through the courts. That's right, because the strong force is
super duper strong, and it's super duper strange. It's strange because,
unlike the other forces, it actually gets stronger as the
objects get further apart. Like we know that gravity gets
(36:14):
weaker as things get further apart. You feel gravity from
the Sun, you feel gravity from the Earth because they're
relatively close. You don't feel gravity from Andromeda the whole
galaxy because it's super far away. Even though it's really massive.
The strong force is the opposite. As things get further apart,
the strength of the force gets larger. What that means
is that things with a strong chart this color can't
(36:35):
be really really far apart because the forces we would
be so strong that things would snap together. So basically
everything in the universe is balanced, has no effective color
chart because if it did, then like a huge amount
of energy would be devoted to fixing that, to sort
of smoothing it out. And so the strong force also
has sort of a short extent because it's all sort
of neutralized already, right, So then what would happen to
(36:58):
our universe if neutrinos has you know, color, and they
could feel the strong force? Would we just be obliterated
right now by all the neutrinos coming from the Sun,
you know, like what they just totally destroy us? Or
you know, would would even that meaning neutrinos be formed
in the sun, It's a great question. Neutrinos are mostly
formed in the internal part of the Sun, right like
(37:18):
where the fusion is actually happening. And so if neutrinos
have felt the strong force and they hit Earth, yeah,
that would be a big deal, and it would like
sterilize all life on Earth and kill everybody. Not a
happy ending and not a happy ending. But it also
means that the Sun wouldn't make as many neutrinos because
the neutrinos wouldn't be able to escape the Sun because
(37:40):
instead of like being created and then flying off through
a sun, which is to them transparent, the Sun would
be suddenly opaque. It would be a huge barrier. So
they would just be like reabsorbed, or they would trigger
more nuclear fusion, or they would form balanced crazy states.
And so probably the Sun just wouldn't produce as many neutrinos.
It would still have all that energy, and it would
(38:02):
get hotter, and it might really more photons because it
gets hotter, but it wouldn't produce as many neutrinos, but
it would still produce some. And when those neutrinos hit
the Earth, it would be bad news. Right, we would
in our atmosphere protect this. Maybe our atmosphere does protect
us from cosmic rays. Like there are particles that feel
the strong force effectively that hit the atmosphere, like protons.
(38:22):
Sometimes they're really high energy, but you know, you can't
really evade them. What happens when they hit the atmosphere
is they create this big shower of particles cosmic rays,
and those cosmic rays get down to Earth and they cause, like,
you know, changes in our DNA. It's actually important part
of our evolution that sometimes errors in DNA are created
from cosmic radiation. And so what you're talking about is
(38:45):
increasing the amount of cosmic radiation doesn't mean we'll all
instantly get cancer, but it does mean that there'll be
a lot more DNA errors, and that means that you know,
the next generation would be pretty weird or has superpower.
This could be a great origin story. Everyone bitten by
a radioactive neutrino. Yeah, you get all the powers of
the neutrino. All right, Well, it sounds like maybe the
(39:06):
consequences are not as dramatic as in our first question.
But because you know, neutrinos are more dangerous, but they're
also maybe wouldn't we wouldn't see as many of them, right,
because they're harder to make, and they would also do
other weird stuff. Like the reason we have protons and
neutrons and other particles made of quarks is because those
quirks like to group together and make interesting things. And
(39:26):
there's lots of different ways to put quirks together. You
can make pions and chaons. These are all just different
combinations of the same lego particles. Now in that universe
and Thomas's universe where the neutrino feels a strong force,
it's another lego piece you can use to make these
weird particles. So now you can have like I don't know,
two quirks and a new trino making some new kind
of particle, or just like you know, a bound state
(39:48):
of a bunch of neutrinos could build something. You can
have all sorts of new forms of matter made out
of either combinations of quirks and neutrinos or just neutrinos. Whoa,
you could have like more atoms than what we have
in the periodic table. You could have like a whole
separate table or more multiple table. You would be a
whole other dimension to the periodic table, you know, where
you have a hydrogen with more or fewer neutrinos inside
(40:11):
the nucleus. Wow, that's pretty cool. It's like getting more
pieces for your lego said of the universe. So things
would maybe be very different, right, there would be more
types of matter. Yeah, exactly, it would be much more
diverse the kinds of things you could build out of
the strong force. All right, well, hopefully that answer is
Thomas the second question, and so let's get to his
last question, and this one is pretty killer, but first
(40:35):
let's take another quick break. All Right, we're answering questions
from Thomas, who's nine years old from Ontario. Please read
our book We Have No Idea, a Guide to the
(40:55):
un Universe. And he has questions about what if the
universe was different, what if we were actually in a
different universe in our multiverse where things had different values
or things at different properties. And so his last question
is what if the neutrino felt the electromagnetic force? Yeah,
(41:16):
and I love this series of questions because it connects
to this like series of inclusion, Like the strong force
only touches quarks. That's interesting, it's weird. We don't understand why.
Then there's electromagnetism. It touches quarks like quarks have charges,
they can create photons, all this kind of stuff. But
also electrons, muans, and taws feel electromagnetism. So of the
(41:39):
twelve particles, only six of them feel the strong force.
Electromagnetism is more inclusive, Like nine of those twelve particles
feel electromagnetism, but then the last three particles, these neutrinos, right,
they don't feel either the strong force or electromagnetism. So
it's really fun to think about, like what the universe
would be like if that were different. These neutrinos are
special and crazy because they don't feel either of the
(42:00):
more powerful forces. Yeah, I mean these are definitely not
random questions. I feel like Thomas really sort of looked
at the table of fundamental particles and he saw the
gaps and like, what wasn't connected? And he's liked, what
if we connect these two things? Yeah, And I think
the other side of these questions is not just what if,
but why, right, because the implication is maybe this doesn't
make sense, maybe it doesn't work, and that's why the
(42:22):
neutrino doesn't feel a strong force, it doesn't feel electromacticism,
because if it did, the universe would be incoherent or something,
you know. I think that's sort of the way we
are all thinking about is sort of in the field,
trying to ask these what if questions? All right, Well,
his whatef question is what if the neutrino felt the
electromagnetic force. So right now, we know that the neutrino
doesn't feel the electromagnetic force, which is why it like
(42:42):
flies through us and doesn't kill us and doesn't do
anything to us even though there are a ton of
them flying through us. So I guess if they felt
the electromagnetic force and we would feel them to right,
we might even be toast. We would definitely be toast exactly.
It's very similar to what would happen if neutrinos felt
a strong force. Right right now, Neutrinos mostly ignore the universe,
but the universe is built out of the strong force
(43:03):
and electromagnetism. So now, if a neutrinos feel electromagnetism, that
means that when they pass through matter, they interact with
everything that has an electric charge. Right, That's what it means.
To feel electromagnetism means to have a charge and to
interact with things that do have charge. That's really what
electric charge is. When we say, like the electron has
electric charge, what we mean is that when you put
(43:26):
it in an electric field, it gets accelerated, so that
has zero charge. We mean it ignores electromagnetism. For a
neutrino to feel electromagnetism, it would have to have electric
charge to it that have to be like a positive
neutrino and a negative neutrino. And then as it flies
through matter, it would interact with electrons and the nuclei
and do exactly the same stuff that other charge particles do.
(43:48):
It would cause crazy havoc, right, Yeah, I guess you
would have to make two kinds of neutrinos, right, if
you give them charge, you'd have to give them You
have to make up the plus and the minus type. Yeah,
because every particle that has a plus also has a minus.
There's the antiparticle. One of the really interesting things about
the neutrino is that we don't know if it is
its own antiparticle or if there's a separate anti neutrino. Like,
(44:10):
we can't tell the difference between neutrinos and anti neutrinos
because they don't have electric charge. Most particle antiparticle pairs,
like the one of them is positive, one of them
is negative, So we put them in a magnet. They separate.
Neutrinos have no charge, and so we can't tell are
they their own antiparticles there's just one kind or are
there two kinds? And we just sort of can't tell
(44:31):
the difference. It's one of the deepest questions about neutrinos.
But if they had electric charge, they would definitely have
to be two kinds. And in fact, I think their
name comes from the fact that they don't have any charge, right,
neutral neutrino comes from the word neutral. Right, so you've
given charge. You would have to change its name, Yeah, exactly.
No trino means little one in Italian, right, little neutral
(44:51):
one in Italian, sort of like a little cute particle
with no charge. You would have to call the positive
one like the pepito, and maybe the negative one the
nepedo may Yeah exactly, that would be the most important
consequence in the universe. Again, but I guess what I
mean is that they wouldn't be called to Trina's right, absolutely,
(45:12):
their most fundamental property would be different. And neutrinos were
hard to discover. We didn't even know about them until
fairly recently. And the reason is that they are neutral.
They hardly ever interact. We only know the neutrino exists
because we saw a momentum sort of disappear and without
wait a second, momentum can't disappear. And so somebody said, well,
maybe it didn't disappear, maybe some weird and almost invisible
(45:33):
particles carrying it off, and that's how the name came about.
Somebody said, oh, that would be fun. But if there
was a little neutral particle carrying it off, so we
would have discovered the neutrino much much sooner. If it
did have electric charge, it would have been much more obvious, right,
all right, So then if it's not neutral, if it
does feel the electromagnetic force, it would interact with us,
and so we would be toast right because we're getting
(45:53):
showered by them right now, a ton like ten billion
per square centimeter, and so each one of those would
basically you know, push us, or interact with us, or
knock an electron off or you know, maybe change our DNA.
We'd be toast right to be a ton of energy
showering us right now. Yeah, we basically all be in
a particle accelerator all the time, and that's not recommended,
(46:14):
you know, like to have all those particles ripping through
your body, ionizing things, basically causing cancer, damaging your cells.
It's like being shot by billions of tiny, tiny bullets
all the time. So yeah, we wouldn't survive very long.
But again, just like in the case with the neutrinos
feeling the strong force, fewer of them would come to
Earth than now, because the Sun would also absorb a
(46:35):
lot of them internally, and so it would radiate more photons.
The Sun would be brighter, it would heat up, and
we'd all get like hotter from the temperature of the Sun,
but would feel fewer neutrinos, but still a lot of them,
and those would cause damage. Right, This is interesting that
you said that the sun would be brighter like it
would make the same amount of neutrinos. Wouldn't the neutrinos
be harder to make? And if you make them, then
(46:56):
how does it make the sun brighter? Yeah, that's a
great question. I haven't thought about whether fusion is more
or less likely to make more neutrinos. But assuming that
the same number of neutrinos are made, they don't escape
the sun right now. The sun again is opaque to them.
It's a barrier. It's not transparent. You know, Neutrinos are
super cool because when you make them inside a star.
That star is like glass to the neutrinos, they just
(47:16):
fly right out of it. It's super interesting. For example,
when we observe supernova in the sky, we see neutrinos
from the supernova before we see photons from the supernova.
And you might think a whole lot of second. Photons
travel the speed of light, right, shouldn't they always get
here first? Yes, But neutrinos come from the heart of
the supernova, so they're the first thing that's created, and
(47:37):
the photons come when the shock wave reaches the outside
of the supernova. So neutrinos actually get here first because
they started first, and they travel almost the speed of light.
It's like the trailer for the main feature. Yeah, exactly,
were like, watch out, you're about to be zapped. Well,
if they had charged, they would zappas the trailer would
be just as good as the Yeah, So if they
had charged, they wouldn't be able to escape in those
(47:58):
first moments. They would be reabsorbed. All the other particles
just contributing to the overall temperature of the Sun. That
would cause the sun to glow brighter if it's hotter,
so would heat up the sun and the sun will
also be shorter lived, right, it wouldn't last for so
many billions of years alright, so we'd be toast and
maybe not live as long. But would we even be here,
Like if you gave charge to the neutrino, would the
(48:20):
universe form the same way? Or will we also have
like interesting new kinds of matter. It would be totally different,
where the stable forms of matter would be really different,
and you would probably have like neutrinos in bound states
around protons. Right, you could form atoms with neutrinos, not
just with electrons, And maybe you could have atoms that
have like some neutrinos and some electrons, And again the
(48:40):
orbitals would be really weird, and chemistry would be much harder.
Like you think organic chemistry is hard now, whow with
neutrinos in there, it would be even more complicated. So
I wouldn't even deign to predict what it would look like.
But I'm sure that the very structure of matter would
be very different if neutrinos had electric charge and could
participate in the forming of atoms. All right, Well, I
(49:02):
think maybe the main lesson from all of these questions
from Thomas is that like the universe could be very different,
and it wouldn't take that much for things to be
totally different and maybe even feels like a totally different universe.
That's right, So Thomas, if you wander into the control
panel of the universe, please take care before you play
with somebos not. Ye I know, I know you're nine
(49:23):
and you want to touch things and pull pushing buttons,
but you know, think about it for a second. And also,
if you're a dog listening to this, also, you know,
restrain yourself. Don't turn into a super doogulin. All right, Well,
thank you Thomas for these awesome questions about what would
happen if things were a little bit different in our universe.
It sounds like things would be a lot different, Daniel,
things would be a lot different, And it just goes
(49:43):
to show you that the universe that we exist in
now really rest on like a very finely balanced set
of stuff, and if you change any of that, then
the downstream effects are very dramatic and very hard to predict.
All right, Well, let's be grateful that we have the
universe that we have with the pretty is that it has,
because otherwise we wouldn't be here to ask these awesome questions.
(50:04):
That's right, and thank you very much to Thomas his
mom for encouraging his curiosity. And thank you to all
the parents out there who fan the flames of curiosity
and wonder in your children. Those are future scientists who
I hope are going to solve the big problems of
the day. You just don't get him a cat, just
to make sure it's a nice, friendly dog. All right. Well,
(50:25):
thanks for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,
and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is
a production of I Heart Radio. Or more podcast from
my heart Radio visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(50:46):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Whiteson
Kelly Weinersmith
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