February 25, 2020 • 40 mins
Which of these four physics adventures would you prefer?
- Visit the Quantum Realm
- See inside a Black Hole
- Travel faster than light
- Meet intelligent aliens
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Daniel, if you could pick one physics puzzle for
it to be solved, which one would it be? Oh?
My gosh, off the top of my head. Yeah, I
mean like, if a physics genie suddenly pops up in
front of you and offers you to answer one question
about the universe, what would it be? Oh? Wow, I
should have been prepared for this. Maybe you should think
about it in case like this actually happens to me,
(00:29):
Like there are physics genies. Yeah, maybe maybe I maybe
I'm a genie, Daniel, or maybe you'll meet aliens, or
maybe I am a native You never know, maybe I'll
ask the physics genie about whether there are aliens. Hi
(00:59):
am Horri. I'm my cartoon and the creator of PhD Comics. Hi,
I'm Daniel Whitson. I'm a particle of physicist. But I
wish I was a physics genie. And Welcome to our podcast,
Daniel and Jorge Explained the Universe, a production of I
Heart Radio in which we take trips around the universe
and explain to you all the amazing facts the hard
one slowly learned things we've discovered about the universe not
(01:22):
through physics genies, but through hard fought science. Is that
something that physicists really wish they could have, like a
physics genie would just answer all your questions with the
snap of a finger or the the rub of a laptop.
I do sometimes fantasize about that because I feel like
the answers are out there, Like, you know, there is
a truth about the universe. All the questions we have
(01:42):
about the universe have answers, and those answers, in principle,
can be discovered, which means they're just sort of out there.
And some days I just want to fast forward to
figure it all out, and like, what are the answers
to these questions? Just tell me, tell me, tell me.
And so I wish there was a like a shortcut,
you know, to getting secrets in the universe. You're right,
it's it's all right there. In fact, it's like it's
on our fingertips. Right, It's like literally around us. You know,
(02:06):
questions that ancient humans had about the universe. We have
discovered answers to those questions literally by looking at the
invisible radiation that surrounds us. And so it might be
that answers to questions we have are literally surrounding us.
In ways we can't yet understand. Yeah, they're right there
waiting for us to discover them, to see them, to
hear them. They're all just sitting there, yep. And those
(02:29):
people will look back at us and I think, ha ha,
how silly they were. They didn't there's right on their fingertips.
They said to look at their finger and that there
there was the answer to the universe. Or sometimes I
imagine instead of just like jumping instantaneously to the answer,
which is cheating, imagine like what if I went five
years in the future and learned all that physics, How
quickly could I rediscover that now? Like what is the
(02:51):
shortest number of the experiments you need to do to
discover the answers today? Because that's actually possible physics genies aside.
If you knew exactly how to build these experiments, you
could learn the secrets of the universe. Yeah. So in
this podcast, we talk a lot about all the amazing
things we can find out about the universe through physics,
but we also sort of talk about all the ways
(03:12):
that physics can kill us. And we don't want to
give you the impression that physics is a dangerous activity.
Most people who went to physics survive just fine. Yeah,
look at Daniel, I'm not sure which lesson you should
draw from my experience, but it's sort of fun to
think also about the positive side of physics, and physics
doesn't just potentially squeeze you and burn you up on reentry.
(03:36):
It also potentially delivers secrets of the universe. That's a
real thing. Yeah, physics can be a real adventure and
a journey of discovery as well, that's right. And so
on today's episode, we thought we would take a tour
or some sort of potentially fun physics adventures that you
might be able to take. And so this was a
suggestion from a Twitter user who sent out this question.
(03:59):
He he or she gave us um four interesting physics
adventures that you could potentially go on, you know, um,
you know, journeys into answering four basic questions that physicists
have no idea about. And so today we're gonna do
something a little bit interesting, which is we're gonna be
running a pole. So Daniel a few minutes ago posted
this poll on Twitter, and I think by the time
(04:21):
that this podcast come out, you will still have the
chance to participate in this pool. But in this pool.
We're asking, um, we're posing four different physics adventures or
discoveries or you know, answers that you can find out there,
and we're asking what of these four would you prefer
to know? And all of these are things that most
(04:42):
physicists would be desperate to do with scramble for an opportunity.
And so one of the challenges here is like just
picking one because frankly, I'd like to do them all.
You're like, I'll take answer for five, all of the above, right,
I'll do them in that order or take It's like
when I see a dessert menu and I go, I'll
(05:02):
take one of everything. Your answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
and double for the for the last one. And so
to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling the question
which of these four physics adventures would you prefer? And
so we have here here for interesting physics adventures. I
(05:25):
guess is I guess their their journeys you could take
on that would basically answer a basic and core question
about the universe that we don't know. Each one sort
of pushes you past a threshold of human knowledge or
takes you somewhere humans have not yet been able to
visit and hopefully reveals a deep inside into the nature
of the universe and what it means to be human. Yeah,
(05:46):
and so the four physics adventures that we are going
to be discussing today are number one, visiting the quantum
realm with or without Paul Rudd. You are Paul Rudd
in the quantum rail everyone is Paul. Everybody looks good
at forty five in the quantum lee that's number one,
(06:07):
and so number two. Number two is seeing the inside
of a black hole bring a flashlight. I guess number
three going faster than light or number four visiting a
planet with intelligent alien life. And so once again, we
just posted this poll on Twitter, so check it out
and cast your vote. But at the end of this podcast,
(06:30):
we are going to reveal the running totals for this poll.
And I guess I should tell which tell us which
one people prefer, And if you don't like the answer,
I guess you should go on Twitter right now and
follow us in and uh and and to meet your answer.
We are crowdsourcing this question because you know, Twitter tells
the truth. And so, as usual, Daniel couldn't wait, and
(06:52):
so he was curious and so he went out into
the streets and asked people on the street which of
these four adventures they would rather go on. Think to
yourself for a moment, which of these would you prefer,
and then listen to these answers. Would you prefer to
visit the quantum realm, see inside of a black hole,
go faster than light, or meet intelligent aliens. Here's what
people had to say. Going faster than the speed of
(07:13):
light seems pretty cool. Inside a black hole would be
pretty interesting. I feel like it would be cool to
see some aliens because I like to see how they
would teach physics, source chemistry or whatever. If you try
to fasten in the speed of fact, you can have
a back and forth in dimas. I would choose the
black hole. That's the one that interests me the most,
just because I feel like I don't know much about
(07:37):
black holes or anything like that. Cool. Either one I
want to see what happens, or I want to know
what happens. You won't try to fast in the speed
of light just to see what happens. Yeah, or the
black hole one. Let's say faster the speed of light. Yeah,
let's just see what happens. Yeah, just seems like the
craziest one to aliens, because that seems like the most fun.
(07:58):
I feel like Interstellar already tackle too, so like I'm
not as interested. Three is definitely I think that would
be the coolest. Yeah, intelligently, Yes, what would you talk
to them about? Man, I don't even know. I'd probably
just be like, can I even talk to them? That's
the first thing. Can I have any kind of meaningful
exchange of information? If I could even do that? That
it's crazy. I think I want to see what's inside
a black hole, going to a planet to see alien life?
(08:20):
All right? What was that? I think it would be
amazing to think that there would be all the living
things in the universe. It's scared to think that there
are others, and it's scary to think that we all.
I have no idea what the quantum realm even is,
so I wouldn't necessarily choose that one. Intelligent life sounds
pretty awesome, although it could be also a dangerous and
(08:42):
hostile place, but if I was guaranteed of some safety,
that would be an interesting one. Al right. Not a
lot of fans with the quantum realm, not that many.
They're like, we saw that movie already there was a sequel.
It wasn't that good. I don't want to I don't
want to go back. And you know, they did a
pretty good job in that movie. So maybe people feel like, yeah,
that one sort of scratched off the list. I think
(09:03):
the biggest takeaway from these is that people had a
hard time choosing because they all just did sound attractive.
People like, what, what? What have to choose? One? Just one?
Are you sure? And that's to visit the black Hole,
going faster than light through the quantum realm with an
alien next to me? That is the dream come true?
Or did I just make you? Did I just make
(09:26):
you palpatate a little bit? That's the deep fried banana
Sunday of options with a snicker bar, Nickers barn. You know,
there's this story I remember in Chicago which will deep
fry anything for a dollar? And really, yeah, you can
bring m giving your I phone, they'll fry it. They
will for a dollar. You can bring a Snickers bar,
(09:49):
you can bring a pair stuffed in gorgons ola, cheese
or whatever you like. One dollar. They'll fry anything, all right.
So we're gonna talk about each of these four possibilities.
Um and visiting the quantum realm. Go this going inside
a black hole going faster than light or meaning intelligent aliens,
and then at the end we'll reveal the running results
of the Twitter poll. So number one visiting the quantum
(10:09):
realm Daniel. First of all, why would you want to
visit the quantum realm? Well, I think this one is
attractive because quantum mechanics is so weird, and there's so
many things about quantum mechanics. The way particles don't really
have a path, they don't like fly through space, the
way they can do things that balls and ships and
planes can't do. That makes people want to go there
(10:32):
and see it and visualize it, right, because um, I mean,
we all live in a quantum universe, but those quantum
effects don't really you can't really see them or experience
them unless you are sort of at that size, really
really small. Yeah, So what do we mean by the
quantum realm? You know these rules about quantum mechanics, like
you can't know the position of a particle and its
(10:54):
speed at the same time, or particles can be on
one side of a barrier and then all of a
sudden on the other side without going through the wall.
All these things apply only to the microscopic particles like
electrons and photons and stuff like that. They don't apply
to the things in our world, and so it feels
like there's a different set of rules. So we call
(11:15):
the quantum realm. For me, what it means is the
place where those different rules apply. And that's fascinating because
I'm a physicist. I want to understand how the universe works.
And so if I can go visit a place where
the different rules apply and sort of like get an
intuition for it, that would be totally fascinating, because intuition
is something we really lack when it comes to the
quantum realm. Right, But I guess my question is what
(11:36):
does it mean to visit the realm? Is it like
you shrink down like Atman and you're like seeing an
electron in front of you the size of your own size,
or doesn't mean like, you know, existing your mind existing
in that sort of same sort of quantum fuzziness where
you're sort of multiple things are happening at the same time.
It sounds like you want to go to the quantum
(11:57):
realm and figure it out. I guess you just smoke something,
and I'm truly it will be a similar that's a
different realm, I think, But it's not even really clear.
The question makes sense if you want to be strict
about it, because how do you experience the quantum realm?
How do you go down there and and become part
of that world? Because you are a macroscopic object, you
(12:19):
are a big collection of tend to the thirty protons
and electrons and stuff. How could your consciousness exist at
that scale? What would it be like to experience it?
I think that's why I think the heart of the
question really is to get an intuition for the quantum realm,
to like see its inner workings and how it makes
sense to me, that's what going to the quantum realm means.
(12:40):
I don't know how you do that, or if it's
actually possible, or if humans will ever do that ever
outside of Marvel cinematic universe, but it certainly is appealing,
right So to you it means sort of like existing
in that quantum state, like you are your multiple realities
at the same time. Yeah, I'd like to live I'd
like to have an experience of being in the universe
where the quantum will supply and the large scale. Yeah, well,
(13:02):
either I'm shrunk down to the quantum realm or blow
the quantum realm up to make it apply to big stuff.
You know, Like I have an intuition for what happens
when I throw a ball in the air. I have
that intuition, not my physics knowledge, my intuition because I've
done it and I see what happens. And as a kid,
you throw a ball into an air a thousand times
and you know what's going to happen. I don't have
that same intuition for what happens when electrons bounce around
(13:26):
around hydrogen atoms because I haven't seen it. I haven't
experienced it. I've only calculated it. So I'd love to
spend time with an electron enough to like get familiar
with it, so I like have a sense for what
the rules are for that they make sense to me. Instead,
you want to ride an electron, like you want to
be like next one and be like, hey, wait, so
we're here. No, No, it's o're there kind of thing. Yeah,
(13:47):
you just proposed the world's smallest amusement park right now,
standard line for my hydrogen item. What already has an
amusement park named the Electron Hydrogen Mountain. Yeah, I want
to an ELECTRONO want to get down in there. I
want to see what it's like. I want to really
understand it so that when we talk about quantum mechanics,
I can feel like, oh, yeah, I've been there, I
(14:08):
know how that works. That totally makes sense to me.
I see, because this idea of like um the cat
being a dead and alive at the same time ensure
the anger is box is sort of counterintuitive and it
doesn't drive with our experience of the physical world. So
you want to be in a world where you can
experience the cat being alive and dead at the same time. Yeah,
(14:29):
I want to live in that world, so I get
used to it, so that doesn't sound crazy to me
when we do these calculations, because currently the way we
grapple with quantum mechanics is we just sort of follow
the math. We found these rules that applied to quantum mechanics,
quantum field theory, and quantum mechanics, and we can turn
the crank and say, if you do this experiment, that
(14:49):
this other thing is going to happen. But it's not
like you can really understand it. You just sort of
follow the math and believe it and say, well, the
universe follows this math. So I guess that's correct, and
we can test it. We do the experiments, but it's
not like it still makes sense to me in any
reasonable way. Right, but I thought you hated cats, Daniel.
(15:09):
I love cats. It's just that my daughter's allergic. All right, Well,
let's um. Let's see how visiting the quantum realm is
doing on our Twitter poll. Hold on, all right, right now,
visiting quantumwell is in third place, third place? All right,
what's the percentage of response response of people are into
visiting the quantum realm? Currently number one is meeting intelligent
(15:31):
aliens up at thirty six, up at Bernie Sanders levels.
So quantum realm not doing so good. Less I want
to go visit the quantum Yeah, quantum realm is sort
of the tom sty or physics options. All right, Well,
let's get into visiting inside of a black hole and
traveling faster than light and talking to aliens. But furs,
(15:53):
Let's take a quick break, all right, Daniel, we are
going down through our list of physics adventures that people
might choose to go on or not. So the next
(16:15):
adventure we have here is seen inside of a black hole? Again, Daniel,
why would you want to do that? Why wouldn't you
want to do that? Oh my gosh, why do I
get to come back out? I guess it's my question. Okay,
this is a one way fair. Okay, return trips are
not guaranteed. Oh I see, so that maybe we should
have a caveat like see inside of a black hole
(16:36):
and never leave again. And how that be the last
thing you ever see. I think it would probably be
be less popular. No, this is not for trick questions.
I guess you know, what's the point of going inside
a black hole if you can't then come back out
and win five Nobel Prizes because your discovery of quantum
grounds your friends about it. Yeah, yeah, so I guess
return trips should be guaranteed. But right, so, so we
(16:57):
get to go inside of a black hole, have that experience,
look around, see what the physics are like, and then
come back out. Yeah. And to me, that's fascinating because
black holes are they're like a hidden, little secret corner
of the universe. They hold the answers to some of
the deepest questions in physics, but they're frustratingly impossible to penetrate.
And well, it's not like they're hiding it. It's just that, uh,
(17:20):
inside of a black hole are conditions which sort of
like break all of our physics laws, right, And so
you want to go in there and see what's going on. Yeah, Like,
let's say I devised an experiment that would reveal the
deepest nature of the universe, all the way down to
the smallest elements, and then I locked it in a
room that and threw away the key, and I said, oh, yeah,
the answers they're in there, but nobody can ever go inside.
(17:44):
That's basically what's going on with the black hole. You know,
like if you went in there, would you able to
It's not like you would find a paper with the
answers to the universe or they'd be written on the
walls of the black hole. It'd be like a whole
bunch of crazy stuff going on in there. Would you
even like be able to piece it together? Yeah, you'd
have to do some experiments, but we have to do
some science. Yeah, just like in our universe, you know,
(18:06):
the laws of the universe and not just written on
the walls. The physics is an actual job. You know um,
and you have to do some experiments, but very quickly
you could learn some things. For example, you know, we
have two different theories of how the universe works, and
they disagree deeply about what's happening inside a black hole.
For example, most people are probably familiar with the description
(18:29):
of the inside of a black hole that comes from
Einstein's theory of general relativity that says that there's like
a singularity at the heart of a black hole, a
point of infinite density. Wouldn't you like to see that? Like,
if that's truth, that's real of Einstein was right, what
would that look like? And so if you enter the
black hole, you could boom, you'd be there with it.
You could hang out with the singularity. You could ask
(18:49):
you what it had for lunch. Oh, I see you
want to go in there? And actually I go up
to the center of it and see it's like, oh,
it is a singularity. It's not a little fuzzy blob
as quantum mechanics would imply. If I'm going all the
way inside a black hole, I'm not going to be
shy to go to the core. You know, I'm going
all in. Yeah, if you're visiting the house of your
favorite science, which you're not just staying in the living room,
(19:12):
You're going all the way inside. I'm sleeping in their bed. Yeah, no, exactly,
because quantum mechanics and general relativity, these two pillars of physics,
they disagree about what happens when gravity gets really strong.
And the only place where gravity is strong enough to
reveal what actually happens when gravity gets really strong is
(19:32):
inside a black hole, which is frustratingly impossible to visit
except on the mental journey of this podcast. Well, I
guess my my my question is um. So I guess
it would tell you whether general relativity or quantum mechanics
is right or whether there's something else going on. Uh.
And you would learn also about quantum gravity, right, whether
or not it's possible. Yeah, we think that probably gravity
(19:54):
is a quantum theory, but you know, we don't know
is gravity of force that transmits quantum particles and we
can't tell because it's so weak that we can't see
those particles, or is it not? Is it just a
curature space and time? And you quantize it by quantizing
space itself, like making a little space pixels, and so
we could see that if we were near enough the
(20:16):
center of a black hole to understand, like, you know,
is general relativity correct and space itself is quantized um?
Can we see gravitons inside the black hole? Like? People
have been looking for theories of quantum gravity that actually
work for since we've had quantum mechanics and since we've
had gravity. It's been about a hundred years, which is
a long time in physics. You don't just want to
(20:38):
go in there and experience it yourself. You want to
go in there with a whole like lab and grad
students and like instruments. I want to build a lab
inside a black hole. Yeah, I want that is my lab.
You know, Like at the particle collider, we have created
on purpose conditions that don't exist anywhere else, smashing particles
together very high energy because those that can stands that
(21:00):
are going to reveal the secrets of the universe. And
so a black hole is like that to the bagiliant power.
And so yeah, that's where you see what's right and
what's wrong. Um, I guess the question is how could
you even do it? Because if you try to get
near a black hole you kind of get shredded to pieces. Right,
So is this even possible or is this totally wishful thinking?
(21:22):
I think it's pretty much totally impossible. I mean, we
if you get anywhere near a black hole, then the
tidal forces will tear you apart because gravity is so strong,
but its strength depends on the distance. And so when
you get close to a black hole, gravity is tugging
on your feet much more strongly, for example, and it's
tugging on your head, which means that it's literally pulling
(21:43):
your head off of your body. And that's not a
good thing. I don't know who you are. I frowned
upon that kind of thing happening to me. Um. And
the closer you get to the black hole, the stronger
that effect is. So anything that gets near the black
hole just gets shredded. And then of course, if you
actually do somehow arrive at the event horizon, you're just
(22:04):
going to be squished by the incredible forces. Um. You know,
but we did, I mean, I want to leave a
threat of tendrib possibility here. We did once talk about
whether you could destroy black holes, and there was this
idea that if you like added enough spin to the
black hole, you might delete the event horizon while leaving
the singularity in there, and that's not going inside it,
(22:26):
but it's sort of like exposing opening it, opening a
window into a black hole. Yeah. Um, so that could
be fascinating, but that wouldn't really be a black hole.
You'd be deleting the event horizon and revealing a naked singularity,
which would be awesome and fun and probably really dangerous,
but not technically going inside a black hole. So this
one's on the wish list, but the probably not ever
(22:47):
actually possible. This well, let's see how going inside of
a black hole is doing on our Twitter poll. It says, um,
the inside of a black hole? Is that respondence, So
seventy percent of people are picking going inside of a
black hole? Also not not doing so well. Not doing
so well. It's surged ahead of quantum realm, but points
(23:09):
since we last talked about it. Maybe people are listening
to the podcast through time traveling. Maybe they're inside of
black hole and they get to do what really want exactly,
because you know, an interstellar when you go inside a
black hole, time is a dimension you can talk to
your children from from beyond the grave dot dot dot
dot dot nonsense. Well, so far we have three D
(23:29):
and forty four votes, which is a lot of friendies.
Having posted it a few minutes ago, and again a reminder,
if you're listening to this podcast, the poll is probably
still open, and so you can go check it out
and place your vote. You can sway the results because
you know, one of these things, Jorge will actually fund
this to happen, depending on what it means, I will
I will actually do it, and this will be the
(23:50):
last episode of Daniel and Lain the Farewell Tour. All right, Well,
the third option in our poll is to travel faster
than light, and so we had isn't in the phantom
realm seeing side of a black hole and going faster
than light? And this one is doing pretty good on
the pool. A lot of people are picking this one.
And you know, this one surprises me a little bit
because to me, this one is the least appealing. Really,
(24:13):
I mean, this is my favorite, this is your favorite? Okay, well,
I would be picking this around and you why do
you want to go faster than the speed of light?
Is because you want to make moose noises and say
warp speed nine make it so um well, I guess
you know it goes to that, you know, desire to
travel and visit other planets, you know, like right now,
the problem is that everything is too far away, right,
(24:35):
and so it'd be cool to like, you know, get
on a spaceship, fly out out of the galaxy and
look at the Milky Way. So is it that you
want to get places that you can't get right now
because of the speed limit, or you actually want to
have the experience of going faster than the speed of light?
Would you prefer a wormhole or FTL travel? I really
just want to travel places, and so if you have
(24:55):
a wormhole, sure I'll take that. But also travel fasting
faster than light just sounds cooler, you know. I think
a lot of people reacted to that. It just sounds cool,
Like they want to see what it feels like, and
it feels illegal and super zoomy, and so they want
to go out there and you know, stick their head
out the window while going fast speed of light and
see what it feels like. Probably as good as going
(25:16):
into a black hole. I imagine, probably hands in the vehicle.
People keep your hands in the vehicle. So you think
there's something um illicit about going faster than light like
that appeals to people. Yeah, I guess it sounds exciting,
but I can't really imagine what it would that would
be that exciting, because, you know, traveling really fast in
(25:36):
a airplane doesn't feel that exciting. You know, it feels
kind of boring. I've flown at six dred miles an
hour from here to Hong Kong or whatever. It's not
super exciting. I'm not sticking my head out the window
and going we But imagine where you would be. You know,
if you could travel to Hong Kong and in less
than a second, that would be kind of cool. Oh yeah,
(25:56):
I mean not right now, maybe, but totally. If the
question was would you like to teleport to an arbitrary
place in the universe, totally I would do that the second.
And I got a list of places I want to go, right,
But do I really want to go there at some
super high speed. I don't even go skiing. I'm not
like a fast driver. I'm not that into speed. You're like, whoa, whoa, Well,
(26:16):
slow down, Why would you even want to go that fast?
I don't really want to go at the speed of light.
Why would you want to go faster than the speed
of light? Exactly? Um, And you know I don't like
roller coasters, and so I guess that's what this one
doesn't appeal to me from this sort of advent your
excitement point of view either. But you would want to
travel to another star if it was convenient and easy. Sure,
I want to go visit other stars. I want to
(26:39):
go see what other planets. You're like. I want to
walk on the surface of other planets and moons. I
just want to see it on your TV, not actually
go there. I want other people to figure out how
to get there, figure it out and make it safe,
and then yeah, I want to teleport there while eating snacks.
But I guess my question is, you know you're going
faster than light, which the universe says is impossible. So
what weird things happen to you while you're sitting on
(27:01):
that plane going faster than light, Like would time go
backwards maybe? Or would things just go all wonky and
and break the universe? So that I think is an
interesting bit, right, It's not the excitement is seeing the
needle going all the way to three million meters per second.
It's I guess the excitement of seeing what breaks. And
you're right, you can't go faster than the speed of
(27:22):
light according to our understanding of the laws of physics.
And you know, people say, oh, time would go backwards
and stuff that's just sort of nonsense. It's another way
of saying, you can't do it because nonsensical stuff would
happen if you tried. This is one reason why you
can't do it, because it would require, you know, things
that don't make sense to happen. So what do you
(27:43):
think would happen? Would would time go backwards inside of
a like I would get on the plane and then
I would get there, and it was before I got
on the plane I think. I think the simulation that
is our universe would crash and somebody would have to
restart it. Or what I d age like, would I
would time run backwards inside of that airplane and then
(28:03):
I would get off younger? Well, you know, if you
extend our understanding of special relativity, time always moves forward
for you, and your clocks change based on other people's
observations of your speed. So if you're moving fast in
the speed of light, then I would look at your
clock and it would look like it was running backwards
to me, but to you, time would be moving forward.
(28:24):
So if I'm looking at your spaceship, you would be
d aging, I guess on the spaceship. But to you,
time is always just moving forward at one second per second.
So it sounds like weird stuff would happen. But it's
also impossible. You're saying, I think it's totally impossible. Um,
so that part doesn't excite me too much. But I
guess you know, if somebody said, all right, I've built
(28:45):
this machine can take you fasten the speed of light.
It actually does work, then yeah, you know what I
would get in it? And I would go on, turn
it on. Let's see what happens. Um, I would like
to know what it's like to go fasten the speed
of light. All right, I've changed my mom It is exciting. Well,
a lot of people need to agree it's gonna it's
It's pretty popular in our pool right now, a lot
(29:06):
of people would choose to go faster than light. And
so we have one more scenario here, which is to
talk to aliens, and so we'll get into that and
we'll see what people think about that. But first let's
take a quick break. Al Right, down there are last
(29:30):
scenario here in our Choose your Own Physics Adventure game
did you read those as a kid to choose your
own adventure books? I totally did. I like map them
all out on pieces of paper. I read every single
page and yeah, absolutely, Oh wow, you're trying to break it.
I was trying to solve it. Those are well, my
(29:50):
son recently got into those and I read them again.
I was like, these are kind of dark, like you
die a lot. You die a lot, but you are
there's always another path and which you win. Right, So
there's like a liberation there for the writer gets to
explore darker scenarios than otherwise because they can just balance
it out with positive endings. I guess if you go
do go to the quantum realm, I would that's the
(30:11):
kind of book you would want to take because then
you could read all the possibilities at the same time.
Maybe those were written in the quantum realm and that's
why they're so weird. All right. Well, our last scenario
here that we are pulling people to choose is whether
you want to talk to aliens or meet intelligent aliens.
And by this you mean like go to them or
(30:32):
they come to you, or you call them, or they
happen to be your neighbor. What do you mean dinner.
I don't mean you skype them, because you spend the
first ten minutes being like, can you hear me? What?
What your pictures present? And that's not the way to
have the first conversation with the intelligen them or give
them a hug. No, I think the question is visit
their planet, like, go to a planet with intelligent alien life.
(30:54):
And to me, this one is fascinating. This is absolutely
my number one choice by far. No surp Daniel, I'm not.
I'm not surprised at all, and not just because you've
had your hand over the alien blooded this whole hour
we've been talking. You're like kind of president. Yeah, accidentally
elbows a couple of times, and not just because meeting
(31:16):
aliens would be fascinating on its own, but also because, hey,
maybe they've solved some of these other problems, so maybe
you could like do the all the above right, Maybe
this is tell you what it's like inside of a
black hole, or to go faster than life without you
having to do it, yes precisely, Or maybe they give
you a ride on their faster than my black Home
(31:36):
Quantum realm Um roller coaster and then you get the
answers to all these problems. I guess you're assuming that
if we meet an alien civilization, they would be more
advanced than us. Well, that's a good question. If they
come to us, I think it's fair to assume that
they are more advanced than us, because we can't currently
do that if we go to them, if we meet
intelligent aliens on their planet, then you're right. There's no
(31:57):
guarantee that they have technology that's advanced further than us,
but at the very least they've advanced differently from us.
They have a different way of looking at the universe
and thinking about the universe, and that already will be insight, right,
They'll be unique experience and unique ideas and unique science. Right.
That would be good for the biologists, right, But maybe
(32:17):
not for the physicists. No. I think also for the physicists.
I think, for example, even if you just like ran
the human experiment over again from scratch up to this year,
you would get different physics every time because you'd have
different people having different ideas um and you would think
about the world differently. So I think the way we
have thought about the universe depends not just on being
(32:40):
humans and how the human mind works, but on the
particular human minds we've had. And so if you met
other intelligent aliens who are just as advanced as us
or nearby, they would have had different ideas and that
would be fascinating. Well, I said, you want to talk
to the alien philosophers too, Yeah, of course, alien philosophers
and physicists. Um. I mean, don't you want to meet
(33:02):
the alien cartoonists and things? I want to be like,
how do you make democracy work? Like? Oh, yeah, we
outlawed Twitter years ago. Yeah, that's the key. That's a
mouthstone in any civilization. Internet shutting down the Internet, that's
the next singularity. Outlowing Twitter. Um no, I think it'd
(33:24):
be fascinating. You've learned so much about what it's like
to be intelligent. Um. You know, for example, do they
even use mathematics? What kind of mathematics do they use?
Do they count our integers special to them? So many
questions just about the very basics of the way their
minds might work. You think some of the things we
think are fundamental, like numbers and integers, are maybe not
(33:47):
that fundamental. Maybe there's another way to think about math
and the universe. Yeah, because this is the only way
we've ever thought about it, because it's the only way
we can. And so seeing a new perspective, a new
way of thinking about things, will tell us exactly that.
It's like when you go on a trip and you discover, oh,
people don't eat cereal for breakfast everywhere around the world.
I thought that was a core part of the human experience. Nope,
(34:10):
it turns out, you know, quas songs are more fundamental
than checks, you know, in the human experience. And so
you learn about is a famous French particle, right Quastantino?
Actually cool? So so this is your favorite scenario talking
to aliens? Yeah, but you know, I seeing its praises
(34:31):
that make it sound like we'd show up and we've
learned the secret to the universe by early afternoon, and
we'd be sipping alien espresso and then you'll be out
of there, like that's enough talking to other living beings.
I am an introvert, after all, I'd be like, can
I get a break from on this conversation? Um? But
the reality, I think would be much more difficult. Even
if you assume that they're intelligent and they're alien, which
(34:53):
means they're similar in a biological way and in an
intellectual way for us to recognize their intellig as they
would still be huge hurdles to like basic communication before
we got to talking about mathematics and particle physics and
all sorts of cool stuff. And I guess, unlike the
other scenarios here today, this one could actually happen. It
(35:14):
might happen, This will happen, will happen, will happen unless
we kill ourselves and you know, or fry our planet
before we can manage it. I'm totally confident that eventually
humans will walk on a planet with intelligent alien life, eventually,
I guess, eventually about having to travel faster than light. Yes,
eventually eventually doing a lot of work there, because it
(35:37):
might take hundreds of years or thousands of years for
us to get off this planet and get to neighboring
um solar systems. But I can't imagine a galaxy in
which it's not just chalk filled with intelligent alien life.
And so I really hope, I guess it's a hope.
I don't really know. I really hope that some humans
someday has that experience of putting their foot down on
(35:58):
a planet with intelligent alien life. I really believe right
getting even that digested by that alien, but hopefully not,
hopefully not, and at least did they do if they
have a nice alien espresso to follow it up with. Well.
According to our Twitter pool, this is also everyone's favorite
option of our for physics scenarios. It's got the highest
(36:19):
number of votes on our Twitter pool. Good job, tweets,
I'm proud of you. Yeah, people would rather talk to alien.
I wonder if they're just trying to please you, Daniel.
If so, they've done it, but it seems like it
is sort of like a basic human curiosity. I mean,
(36:39):
more than any of the other things which sound cool
to people. Want to talk to aliens. Who doesn't want
to talk to aliens? I mean, I think a lot
of people think that aliens exist, and for good reason. Um,
I mean, not that we've been visited, or the area
fifty one is real, or any of those silly conspiracy
theories like Bobblazar, but that they're out there. And in
that same way, you know, if they're out there, if
(37:00):
they're real, if there's aliens out there right now having lunch,
then it's I'm desperately curious to know about them and
it's frustrating to imagine there's this barrier between us and
this knowledge, this knowledge which would change the way it
feels to be human and what it means to be human.
It's frustrating. Well, I have to say, um, it's not
my favorite, but it does sound pretty cool. So you'd
(37:22):
be willing if this was the only option available and
you would sign a future I would. Yeah, all the
other options are are filled up. I see you overslept
and by the time you showed up for the Physics
Adventure camp, I have to take this one. You know,
I have enough trouble avoiding real humans. Why it seems
(37:42):
like I don't need more more things to talk to. Well,
maybe you're an alien and this would be like going
home for you, where everybody just stays home and doesn't
talk to anybody. Well, I think it's interesting to think
about all of these possibilities and to think about which one,
you know, you would like to go on, because it
sort of tells you a little it about you know,
what we wish for deep down as humans. You know,
(38:04):
God places look inside of a hole that's a mystery,
you know, experience things that are totally different, and talk
to things that are in aliens that are totally different.
It's sort of like basic human response. Yeah, absolutely, I
think that that's why the universe is so fun to study,
because it has these mysteries, and those mysteries have answers.
You know. These are not like m questions like does
(38:26):
Heaven exist? Or what is the afterlife or things that
we might not possibly ever know the answer to. These
are questions that have real answers that we will eventually
figure out. And so that's why these mysteries are fascinating
because they're right there at our fingertips, and we never
know when the big breakthrough will happen. Maybe be tomorrow,
maybe in a hundred years, but some human will know
the answers to a lot of these deep open questions
(38:48):
about the universe. Yeah, and hopefully we will be alive
at that point, that's right, so we can sider in
our couch eating snacks and read all about it, reading
choose your own adventure books. Well, I just looked at
the Twitter poll again, Daniel, and it looks like Faster
than Light just went up a point and Visiting Aliens
went down a point. So who knows, maybe by the
(39:09):
time this podcast comes out, it will be totally different,
or maybe I can. Maybe by us talking about it,
we're influencing the poll quantum causality violation poll. Wait, Daniel,
are you saying you're gonna give a dollar for every
vote the talking to alien sk Is that true? Give
a plank dollar? Well, I guess if it sways anyone,
(39:34):
I would have to say, if you can go faster
than light, you might be able to visit aliens on
your travel. So it's like you can get both. Maybe
if you choose faster than light. All right, that's a
pretty good argument. I'll take it. All right. Well, the
Twitter poll is going to be up for a week,
So if you are listening to this podcast and you've
thought about it, and you are maybe interested in casting
(39:54):
a vote, go to our Twitter page or Twitter account
it's at Daniel and Jorge and follow us and cast
your vote and let us know which of these adventures
you would most like to sign up for. And be
quick because some of them are filling up fast. We
hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. Thanks for
tuning in. Before you still have a question after listening
(40:21):
to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd
love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or
email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart
(40:44):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Yea
Hey, Daniel, if you could pick one physics puzzle for
it to be solved, which one would it be? Oh?
My gosh, off the top of my head. Yeah, I
mean like, if a physics genie suddenly pops up in
front of you and offers you to answer one question
about the universe, what would it be? Oh? Wow, I
should have been prepared for this. Maybe you should think
about it in case like this actually happens to me,
(00:29):
Like there are physics genies. Yeah, maybe maybe I maybe
I'm a genie, Daniel, or maybe you'll meet aliens, or
maybe I am a native You never know, maybe I'll
ask the physics genie about whether there are aliens. Hi
(00:59):
am Horri. I'm my cartoon and the creator of PhD Comics. Hi,
I'm Daniel Whitson. I'm a particle of physicist. But I
wish I was a physics genie. And Welcome to our podcast,
Daniel and Jorge Explained the Universe, a production of I
Heart Radio in which we take trips around the universe
and explain to you all the amazing facts the hard
one slowly learned things we've discovered about the universe not
(01:22):
through physics genies, but through hard fought science. Is that
something that physicists really wish they could have, like a
physics genie would just answer all your questions with the
snap of a finger or the the rub of a laptop.
I do sometimes fantasize about that because I feel like
the answers are out there, Like, you know, there is
a truth about the universe. All the questions we have
(01:42):
about the universe have answers, and those answers, in principle,
can be discovered, which means they're just sort of out there.
And some days I just want to fast forward to
figure it all out, and like, what are the answers
to these questions? Just tell me, tell me, tell me.
And so I wish there was a like a shortcut,
you know, to getting secrets in the universe. You're right,
it's it's all right there. In fact, it's like it's
on our fingertips. Right, It's like literally around us. You know,
(02:06):
questions that ancient humans had about the universe. We have
discovered answers to those questions literally by looking at the
invisible radiation that surrounds us. And so it might be
that answers to questions we have are literally surrounding us.
In ways we can't yet understand. Yeah, they're right there
waiting for us to discover them, to see them, to
hear them. They're all just sitting there, yep. And those
(02:29):
people will look back at us and I think, ha ha,
how silly they were. They didn't there's right on their fingertips.
They said to look at their finger and that there
there was the answer to the universe. Or sometimes I
imagine instead of just like jumping instantaneously to the answer,
which is cheating, imagine like what if I went five
years in the future and learned all that physics, How
quickly could I rediscover that now? Like what is the
(02:51):
shortest number of the experiments you need to do to
discover the answers today? Because that's actually possible physics genies aside.
If you knew exactly how to build these experiments, you
could learn the secrets of the universe. Yeah. So in
this podcast, we talk a lot about all the amazing
things we can find out about the universe through physics,
but we also sort of talk about all the ways
(03:12):
that physics can kill us. And we don't want to
give you the impression that physics is a dangerous activity.
Most people who went to physics survive just fine. Yeah,
look at Daniel, I'm not sure which lesson you should
draw from my experience, but it's sort of fun to
think also about the positive side of physics, and physics
doesn't just potentially squeeze you and burn you up on reentry.
(03:36):
It also potentially delivers secrets of the universe. That's a
real thing. Yeah, physics can be a real adventure and
a journey of discovery as well, that's right. And so
on today's episode, we thought we would take a tour
or some sort of potentially fun physics adventures that you
might be able to take. And so this was a
suggestion from a Twitter user who sent out this question.
(03:59):
He he or she gave us um four interesting physics
adventures that you could potentially go on, you know, um,
you know, journeys into answering four basic questions that physicists
have no idea about. And so today we're gonna do
something a little bit interesting, which is we're gonna be
running a pole. So Daniel a few minutes ago posted
this poll on Twitter, and I think by the time
(04:21):
that this podcast come out, you will still have the
chance to participate in this pool. But in this pool.
We're asking, um, we're posing four different physics adventures or
discoveries or you know, answers that you can find out there,
and we're asking what of these four would you prefer
to know? And all of these are things that most
(04:42):
physicists would be desperate to do with scramble for an opportunity.
And so one of the challenges here is like just
picking one because frankly, I'd like to do them all.
You're like, I'll take answer for five, all of the above, right,
I'll do them in that order or take It's like
when I see a dessert menu and I go, I'll
(05:02):
take one of everything. Your answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
and double for the for the last one. And so
to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling the question
which of these four physics adventures would you prefer? And
so we have here here for interesting physics adventures. I
(05:25):
guess is I guess their their journeys you could take
on that would basically answer a basic and core question
about the universe that we don't know. Each one sort
of pushes you past a threshold of human knowledge or
takes you somewhere humans have not yet been able to
visit and hopefully reveals a deep inside into the nature
of the universe and what it means to be human. Yeah,
(05:46):
and so the four physics adventures that we are going
to be discussing today are number one, visiting the quantum
realm with or without Paul Rudd. You are Paul Rudd
in the quantum rail everyone is Paul. Everybody looks good
at forty five in the quantum lee that's number one,
(06:07):
and so number two. Number two is seeing the inside
of a black hole bring a flashlight. I guess number
three going faster than light or number four visiting a
planet with intelligent alien life. And so once again, we
just posted this poll on Twitter, so check it out
and cast your vote. But at the end of this podcast,
(06:30):
we are going to reveal the running totals for this poll.
And I guess I should tell which tell us which
one people prefer, And if you don't like the answer,
I guess you should go on Twitter right now and
follow us in and uh and and to meet your answer.
We are crowdsourcing this question because you know, Twitter tells
the truth. And so, as usual, Daniel couldn't wait, and
(06:52):
so he was curious and so he went out into
the streets and asked people on the street which of
these four adventures they would rather go on. Think to
yourself for a moment, which of these would you prefer,
and then listen to these answers. Would you prefer to
visit the quantum realm, see inside of a black hole,
go faster than light, or meet intelligent aliens. Here's what
people had to say. Going faster than the speed of
(07:13):
light seems pretty cool. Inside a black hole would be
pretty interesting. I feel like it would be cool to
see some aliens because I like to see how they
would teach physics, source chemistry or whatever. If you try
to fasten in the speed of fact, you can have
a back and forth in dimas. I would choose the
black hole. That's the one that interests me the most,
just because I feel like I don't know much about
(07:37):
black holes or anything like that. Cool. Either one I
want to see what happens, or I want to know
what happens. You won't try to fast in the speed
of light just to see what happens. Yeah, or the
black hole one. Let's say faster the speed of light. Yeah,
let's just see what happens. Yeah, just seems like the
craziest one to aliens, because that seems like the most fun.
(07:58):
I feel like Interstellar already tackle too, so like I'm
not as interested. Three is definitely I think that would
be the coolest. Yeah, intelligently, Yes, what would you talk
to them about? Man, I don't even know. I'd probably
just be like, can I even talk to them? That's
the first thing. Can I have any kind of meaningful
exchange of information? If I could even do that? That
it's crazy. I think I want to see what's inside
a black hole, going to a planet to see alien life?
(08:20):
All right? What was that? I think it would be
amazing to think that there would be all the living
things in the universe. It's scared to think that there
are others, and it's scary to think that we all.
I have no idea what the quantum realm even is,
so I wouldn't necessarily choose that one. Intelligent life sounds
pretty awesome, although it could be also a dangerous and
(08:42):
hostile place, but if I was guaranteed of some safety,
that would be an interesting one. Al right. Not a
lot of fans with the quantum realm, not that many.
They're like, we saw that movie already there was a sequel.
It wasn't that good. I don't want to I don't
want to go back. And you know, they did a
pretty good job in that movie. So maybe people feel like, yeah,
that one sort of scratched off the list. I think
(09:03):
the biggest takeaway from these is that people had a
hard time choosing because they all just did sound attractive.
People like, what, what? What have to choose? One? Just one?
Are you sure? And that's to visit the black Hole,
going faster than light through the quantum realm with an
alien next to me? That is the dream come true?
Or did I just make you? Did I just make
(09:26):
you palpatate a little bit? That's the deep fried banana
Sunday of options with a snicker bar, Nickers barn. You know,
there's this story I remember in Chicago which will deep
fry anything for a dollar? And really, yeah, you can
bring m giving your I phone, they'll fry it. They
will for a dollar. You can bring a Snickers bar,
(09:49):
you can bring a pair stuffed in gorgons ola, cheese
or whatever you like. One dollar. They'll fry anything, all right.
So we're gonna talk about each of these four possibilities.
Um and visiting the quantum realm. Go this going inside
a black hole going faster than light or meaning intelligent aliens,
and then at the end we'll reveal the running results
of the Twitter poll. So number one visiting the quantum
(10:09):
realm Daniel. First of all, why would you want to
visit the quantum realm? Well, I think this one is
attractive because quantum mechanics is so weird, and there's so
many things about quantum mechanics. The way particles don't really
have a path, they don't like fly through space, the
way they can do things that balls and ships and
planes can't do. That makes people want to go there
(10:32):
and see it and visualize it, right, because um, I mean,
we all live in a quantum universe, but those quantum
effects don't really you can't really see them or experience
them unless you are sort of at that size, really
really small. Yeah, So what do we mean by the
quantum realm? You know these rules about quantum mechanics, like
you can't know the position of a particle and its
(10:54):
speed at the same time, or particles can be on
one side of a barrier and then all of a
sudden on the other side without going through the wall.
All these things apply only to the microscopic particles like
electrons and photons and stuff like that. They don't apply
to the things in our world, and so it feels
like there's a different set of rules. So we call
(11:15):
the quantum realm. For me, what it means is the
place where those different rules apply. And that's fascinating because
I'm a physicist. I want to understand how the universe works.
And so if I can go visit a place where
the different rules apply and sort of like get an
intuition for it, that would be totally fascinating, because intuition
is something we really lack when it comes to the
quantum realm. Right, But I guess my question is what
(11:36):
does it mean to visit the realm? Is it like
you shrink down like Atman and you're like seeing an
electron in front of you the size of your own size,
or doesn't mean like, you know, existing your mind existing
in that sort of same sort of quantum fuzziness where
you're sort of multiple things are happening at the same time.
It sounds like you want to go to the quantum
(11:57):
realm and figure it out. I guess you just smoke something,
and I'm truly it will be a similar that's a
different realm, I think, But it's not even really clear.
The question makes sense if you want to be strict
about it, because how do you experience the quantum realm?
How do you go down there and and become part
of that world? Because you are a macroscopic object, you
(12:19):
are a big collection of tend to the thirty protons
and electrons and stuff. How could your consciousness exist at
that scale? What would it be like to experience it?
I think that's why I think the heart of the
question really is to get an intuition for the quantum realm,
to like see its inner workings and how it makes
sense to me, that's what going to the quantum realm means.
(12:40):
I don't know how you do that, or if it's
actually possible, or if humans will ever do that ever
outside of Marvel cinematic universe, but it certainly is appealing,
right So to you it means sort of like existing
in that quantum state, like you are your multiple realities
at the same time. Yeah, I'd like to live I'd
like to have an experience of being in the universe
where the quantum will supply and the large scale. Yeah, well,
(13:02):
either I'm shrunk down to the quantum realm or blow
the quantum realm up to make it apply to big stuff.
You know, Like I have an intuition for what happens
when I throw a ball in the air. I have
that intuition, not my physics knowledge, my intuition because I've
done it and I see what happens. And as a kid,
you throw a ball into an air a thousand times
and you know what's going to happen. I don't have
that same intuition for what happens when electrons bounce around
(13:26):
around hydrogen atoms because I haven't seen it. I haven't
experienced it. I've only calculated it. So I'd love to
spend time with an electron enough to like get familiar
with it, so I like have a sense for what
the rules are for that they make sense to me. Instead,
you want to ride an electron, like you want to
be like next one and be like, hey, wait, so
we're here. No, No, it's o're there kind of thing. Yeah,
(13:47):
you just proposed the world's smallest amusement park right now,
standard line for my hydrogen item. What already has an
amusement park named the Electron Hydrogen Mountain. Yeah, I want
to an ELECTRONO want to get down in there. I
want to see what it's like. I want to really
understand it so that when we talk about quantum mechanics,
I can feel like, oh, yeah, I've been there, I
(14:08):
know how that works. That totally makes sense to me.
I see, because this idea of like um the cat
being a dead and alive at the same time ensure
the anger is box is sort of counterintuitive and it
doesn't drive with our experience of the physical world. So
you want to be in a world where you can
experience the cat being alive and dead at the same time. Yeah,
(14:29):
I want to live in that world, so I get
used to it, so that doesn't sound crazy to me
when we do these calculations, because currently the way we
grapple with quantum mechanics is we just sort of follow
the math. We found these rules that applied to quantum mechanics,
quantum field theory, and quantum mechanics, and we can turn
the crank and say, if you do this experiment, that
(14:49):
this other thing is going to happen. But it's not
like you can really understand it. You just sort of
follow the math and believe it and say, well, the
universe follows this math. So I guess that's correct, and
we can test it. We do the experiments, but it's
not like it still makes sense to me in any
reasonable way. Right, but I thought you hated cats, Daniel.
(15:09):
I love cats. It's just that my daughter's allergic. All right, Well,
let's um. Let's see how visiting the quantum realm is
doing on our Twitter poll. Hold on, all right, right now,
visiting quantumwell is in third place, third place? All right,
what's the percentage of response response of people are into
visiting the quantum realm? Currently number one is meeting intelligent
(15:31):
aliens up at thirty six, up at Bernie Sanders levels.
So quantum realm not doing so good. Less I want
to go visit the quantum Yeah, quantum realm is sort
of the tom sty or physics options. All right, Well,
let's get into visiting inside of a black hole and
traveling faster than light and talking to aliens. But furs,
(15:53):
Let's take a quick break, all right, Daniel, we are
going down through our list of physics adventures that people
might choose to go on or not. So the next
(16:15):
adventure we have here is seen inside of a black hole? Again, Daniel,
why would you want to do that? Why wouldn't you
want to do that? Oh my gosh, why do I
get to come back out? I guess it's my question. Okay,
this is a one way fair. Okay, return trips are
not guaranteed. Oh I see, so that maybe we should
have a caveat like see inside of a black hole
(16:36):
and never leave again. And how that be the last
thing you ever see. I think it would probably be
be less popular. No, this is not for trick questions.
I guess you know, what's the point of going inside
a black hole if you can't then come back out
and win five Nobel Prizes because your discovery of quantum
grounds your friends about it. Yeah, yeah, so I guess
return trips should be guaranteed. But right, so, so we
(16:57):
get to go inside of a black hole, have that experience,
look around, see what the physics are like, and then
come back out. Yeah. And to me, that's fascinating because
black holes are they're like a hidden, little secret corner
of the universe. They hold the answers to some of
the deepest questions in physics, but they're frustratingly impossible to penetrate.
And well, it's not like they're hiding it. It's just that, uh,
(17:20):
inside of a black hole are conditions which sort of
like break all of our physics laws, right, And so
you want to go in there and see what's going on. Yeah, Like,
let's say I devised an experiment that would reveal the
deepest nature of the universe, all the way down to
the smallest elements, and then I locked it in a
room that and threw away the key, and I said, oh, yeah,
the answers they're in there, but nobody can ever go inside.
(17:44):
That's basically what's going on with the black hole. You know,
like if you went in there, would you able to
It's not like you would find a paper with the
answers to the universe or they'd be written on the
walls of the black hole. It'd be like a whole
bunch of crazy stuff going on in there. Would you
even like be able to piece it together? Yeah, you'd
have to do some experiments, but we have to do
some science. Yeah, just like in our universe, you know,
(18:06):
the laws of the universe and not just written on
the walls. The physics is an actual job. You know um,
and you have to do some experiments, but very quickly
you could learn some things. For example, you know, we
have two different theories of how the universe works, and
they disagree deeply about what's happening inside a black hole.
For example, most people are probably familiar with the description
(18:29):
of the inside of a black hole that comes from
Einstein's theory of general relativity that says that there's like
a singularity at the heart of a black hole, a
point of infinite density. Wouldn't you like to see that? Like,
if that's truth, that's real of Einstein was right, what
would that look like? And so if you enter the
black hole, you could boom, you'd be there with it.
You could hang out with the singularity. You could ask
(18:49):
you what it had for lunch. Oh, I see you
want to go in there? And actually I go up
to the center of it and see it's like, oh,
it is a singularity. It's not a little fuzzy blob
as quantum mechanics would imply. If I'm going all the
way inside a black hole, I'm not going to be
shy to go to the core. You know, I'm going
all in. Yeah, if you're visiting the house of your
favorite science, which you're not just staying in the living room,
(19:12):
You're going all the way inside. I'm sleeping in their bed. Yeah, no, exactly,
because quantum mechanics and general relativity, these two pillars of physics,
they disagree about what happens when gravity gets really strong.
And the only place where gravity is strong enough to
reveal what actually happens when gravity gets really strong is
(19:32):
inside a black hole, which is frustratingly impossible to visit
except on the mental journey of this podcast. Well, I
guess my my my question is um. So I guess
it would tell you whether general relativity or quantum mechanics
is right or whether there's something else going on. Uh.
And you would learn also about quantum gravity, right, whether
or not it's possible. Yeah, we think that probably gravity
(19:54):
is a quantum theory, but you know, we don't know
is gravity of force that transmits quantum particles and we
can't tell because it's so weak that we can't see
those particles, or is it not? Is it just a
curature space and time? And you quantize it by quantizing
space itself, like making a little space pixels, and so
we could see that if we were near enough the
(20:16):
center of a black hole to understand, like, you know,
is general relativity correct and space itself is quantized um?
Can we see gravitons inside the black hole? Like? People
have been looking for theories of quantum gravity that actually
work for since we've had quantum mechanics and since we've
had gravity. It's been about a hundred years, which is
a long time in physics. You don't just want to
(20:38):
go in there and experience it yourself. You want to
go in there with a whole like lab and grad
students and like instruments. I want to build a lab
inside a black hole. Yeah, I want that is my lab.
You know, Like at the particle collider, we have created
on purpose conditions that don't exist anywhere else, smashing particles
together very high energy because those that can stands that
(21:00):
are going to reveal the secrets of the universe. And
so a black hole is like that to the bagiliant power.
And so yeah, that's where you see what's right and
what's wrong. Um, I guess the question is how could
you even do it? Because if you try to get
near a black hole you kind of get shredded to pieces. Right,
So is this even possible or is this totally wishful thinking?
(21:22):
I think it's pretty much totally impossible. I mean, we
if you get anywhere near a black hole, then the
tidal forces will tear you apart because gravity is so strong,
but its strength depends on the distance. And so when
you get close to a black hole, gravity is tugging
on your feet much more strongly, for example, and it's
tugging on your head, which means that it's literally pulling
(21:43):
your head off of your body. And that's not a
good thing. I don't know who you are. I frowned
upon that kind of thing happening to me. Um. And
the closer you get to the black hole, the stronger
that effect is. So anything that gets near the black
hole just gets shredded. And then of course, if you
actually do somehow arrive at the event horizon, you're just
(22:04):
going to be squished by the incredible forces. Um. You know,
but we did, I mean, I want to leave a
threat of tendrib possibility here. We did once talk about
whether you could destroy black holes, and there was this
idea that if you like added enough spin to the
black hole, you might delete the event horizon while leaving
the singularity in there, and that's not going inside it,
(22:26):
but it's sort of like exposing opening it, opening a
window into a black hole. Yeah. Um, so that could
be fascinating, but that wouldn't really be a black hole.
You'd be deleting the event horizon and revealing a naked singularity,
which would be awesome and fun and probably really dangerous,
but not technically going inside a black hole. So this
one's on the wish list, but the probably not ever
(22:47):
actually possible. This well, let's see how going inside of
a black hole is doing on our Twitter poll. It says, um,
the inside of a black hole? Is that respondence, So
seventy percent of people are picking going inside of a
black hole? Also not not doing so well. Not doing
so well. It's surged ahead of quantum realm, but points
(23:09):
since we last talked about it. Maybe people are listening
to the podcast through time traveling. Maybe they're inside of
black hole and they get to do what really want exactly,
because you know, an interstellar when you go inside a
black hole, time is a dimension you can talk to
your children from from beyond the grave dot dot dot
dot dot nonsense. Well, so far we have three D
(23:29):
and forty four votes, which is a lot of friendies.
Having posted it a few minutes ago, and again a reminder,
if you're listening to this podcast, the poll is probably
still open, and so you can go check it out
and place your vote. You can sway the results because
you know, one of these things, Jorge will actually fund
this to happen, depending on what it means, I will
I will actually do it, and this will be the
(23:50):
last episode of Daniel and Lain the Farewell Tour. All right, Well,
the third option in our poll is to travel faster
than light, and so we had isn't in the phantom
realm seeing side of a black hole and going faster
than light? And this one is doing pretty good on
the pool. A lot of people are picking this one.
And you know, this one surprises me a little bit
because to me, this one is the least appealing. Really,
(24:13):
I mean, this is my favorite, this is your favorite? Okay, well,
I would be picking this around and you why do
you want to go faster than the speed of light?
Is because you want to make moose noises and say
warp speed nine make it so um well, I guess
you know it goes to that, you know, desire to
travel and visit other planets, you know, like right now,
the problem is that everything is too far away, right,
(24:35):
and so it'd be cool to like, you know, get
on a spaceship, fly out out of the galaxy and
look at the Milky Way. So is it that you
want to get places that you can't get right now
because of the speed limit, or you actually want to
have the experience of going faster than the speed of light?
Would you prefer a wormhole or FTL travel? I really
just want to travel places, and so if you have
(24:55):
a wormhole, sure I'll take that. But also travel fasting
faster than light just sounds cooler, you know. I think
a lot of people reacted to that. It just sounds cool,
Like they want to see what it feels like, and
it feels illegal and super zoomy, and so they want
to go out there and you know, stick their head
out the window while going fast speed of light and
see what it feels like. Probably as good as going
(25:16):
into a black hole. I imagine, probably hands in the vehicle.
People keep your hands in the vehicle. So you think
there's something um illicit about going faster than light like
that appeals to people. Yeah, I guess it sounds exciting,
but I can't really imagine what it would that would
be that exciting, because, you know, traveling really fast in
(25:36):
a airplane doesn't feel that exciting. You know, it feels
kind of boring. I've flown at six dred miles an
hour from here to Hong Kong or whatever. It's not
super exciting. I'm not sticking my head out the window
and going we But imagine where you would be. You know,
if you could travel to Hong Kong and in less
than a second, that would be kind of cool. Oh yeah,
(25:56):
I mean not right now, maybe, but totally. If the
question was would you like to teleport to an arbitrary
place in the universe, totally I would do that the second.
And I got a list of places I want to go, right,
But do I really want to go there at some
super high speed. I don't even go skiing. I'm not
like a fast driver. I'm not that into speed. You're like, whoa, whoa, Well,
(26:16):
slow down, Why would you even want to go that fast?
I don't really want to go at the speed of light.
Why would you want to go faster than the speed
of light? Exactly? Um, And you know I don't like
roller coasters, and so I guess that's what this one
doesn't appeal to me from this sort of advent your
excitement point of view either. But you would want to
travel to another star if it was convenient and easy. Sure,
I want to go visit other stars. I want to
(26:39):
go see what other planets. You're like. I want to
walk on the surface of other planets and moons. I
just want to see it on your TV, not actually
go there. I want other people to figure out how
to get there, figure it out and make it safe,
and then yeah, I want to teleport there while eating snacks.
But I guess my question is, you know you're going
faster than light, which the universe says is impossible. So
what weird things happen to you while you're sitting on
(27:01):
that plane going faster than light, Like would time go
backwards maybe? Or would things just go all wonky and
and break the universe? So that I think is an
interesting bit, right, It's not the excitement is seeing the
needle going all the way to three million meters per second.
It's I guess the excitement of seeing what breaks. And
you're right, you can't go faster than the speed of
(27:22):
light according to our understanding of the laws of physics.
And you know, people say, oh, time would go backwards
and stuff that's just sort of nonsense. It's another way
of saying, you can't do it because nonsensical stuff would
happen if you tried. This is one reason why you
can't do it, because it would require, you know, things
that don't make sense to happen. So what do you
(27:43):
think would happen? Would would time go backwards inside of
a like I would get on the plane and then
I would get there, and it was before I got
on the plane I think. I think the simulation that
is our universe would crash and somebody would have to
restart it. Or what I d age like, would I
would time run backwards inside of that airplane and then
(28:03):
I would get off younger? Well, you know, if you
extend our understanding of special relativity, time always moves forward
for you, and your clocks change based on other people's
observations of your speed. So if you're moving fast in
the speed of light, then I would look at your
clock and it would look like it was running backwards
to me, but to you, time would be moving forward.
(28:24):
So if I'm looking at your spaceship, you would be
d aging, I guess on the spaceship. But to you,
time is always just moving forward at one second per second.
So it sounds like weird stuff would happen. But it's
also impossible. You're saying, I think it's totally impossible. Um,
so that part doesn't excite me too much. But I
guess you know, if somebody said, all right, I've built
(28:45):
this machine can take you fasten the speed of light.
It actually does work, then yeah, you know what I
would get in it? And I would go on, turn
it on. Let's see what happens. Um, I would like
to know what it's like to go fasten the speed
of light. All right, I've changed my mom It is exciting. Well,
a lot of people need to agree it's gonna it's
It's pretty popular in our pool right now, a lot
(29:06):
of people would choose to go faster than light. And
so we have one more scenario here, which is to
talk to aliens, and so we'll get into that and
we'll see what people think about that. But first let's
take a quick break. Al Right, down there are last
(29:30):
scenario here in our Choose your Own Physics Adventure game
did you read those as a kid to choose your
own adventure books? I totally did. I like map them
all out on pieces of paper. I read every single
page and yeah, absolutely, Oh wow, you're trying to break it.
I was trying to solve it. Those are well, my
(29:50):
son recently got into those and I read them again.
I was like, these are kind of dark, like you
die a lot. You die a lot, but you are
there's always another path and which you win. Right, So
there's like a liberation there for the writer gets to
explore darker scenarios than otherwise because they can just balance
it out with positive endings. I guess if you go
do go to the quantum realm, I would that's the
(30:11):
kind of book you would want to take because then
you could read all the possibilities at the same time.
Maybe those were written in the quantum realm and that's
why they're so weird. All right. Well, our last scenario
here that we are pulling people to choose is whether
you want to talk to aliens or meet intelligent aliens.
And by this you mean like go to them or
(30:32):
they come to you, or you call them, or they
happen to be your neighbor. What do you mean dinner.
I don't mean you skype them, because you spend the
first ten minutes being like, can you hear me? What?
What your pictures present? And that's not the way to
have the first conversation with the intelligen them or give
them a hug. No, I think the question is visit
their planet, like, go to a planet with intelligent alien life.
(30:54):
And to me, this one is fascinating. This is absolutely
my number one choice by far. No surp Daniel, I'm not.
I'm not surprised at all, and not just because you've
had your hand over the alien blooded this whole hour
we've been talking. You're like kind of president. Yeah, accidentally
elbows a couple of times, and not just because meeting
(31:16):
aliens would be fascinating on its own, but also because, hey,
maybe they've solved some of these other problems, so maybe
you could like do the all the above right, Maybe
this is tell you what it's like inside of a
black hole, or to go faster than life without you
having to do it, yes precisely, Or maybe they give
you a ride on their faster than my black Home
(31:36):
Quantum realm Um roller coaster and then you get the
answers to all these problems. I guess you're assuming that
if we meet an alien civilization, they would be more
advanced than us. Well, that's a good question. If they
come to us, I think it's fair to assume that
they are more advanced than us, because we can't currently
do that if we go to them, if we meet
intelligent aliens on their planet, then you're right. There's no
(31:57):
guarantee that they have technology that's advanced further than us,
but at the very least they've advanced differently from us.
They have a different way of looking at the universe
and thinking about the universe, and that already will be insight, right,
They'll be unique experience and unique ideas and unique science. Right.
That would be good for the biologists, right, But maybe
(32:17):
not for the physicists. No. I think also for the physicists.
I think, for example, even if you just like ran
the human experiment over again from scratch up to this year,
you would get different physics every time because you'd have
different people having different ideas um and you would think
about the world differently. So I think the way we
have thought about the universe depends not just on being
(32:40):
humans and how the human mind works, but on the
particular human minds we've had. And so if you met
other intelligent aliens who are just as advanced as us
or nearby, they would have had different ideas and that
would be fascinating. Well, I said, you want to talk
to the alien philosophers too, Yeah, of course, alien philosophers
and physicists. Um. I mean, don't you want to meet
(33:02):
the alien cartoonists and things? I want to be like,
how do you make democracy work? Like? Oh, yeah, we
outlawed Twitter years ago. Yeah, that's the key. That's a
mouthstone in any civilization. Internet shutting down the Internet, that's
the next singularity. Outlowing Twitter. Um no, I think it'd
(33:24):
be fascinating. You've learned so much about what it's like
to be intelligent. Um. You know, for example, do they
even use mathematics? What kind of mathematics do they use?
Do they count our integers special to them? So many
questions just about the very basics of the way their
minds might work. You think some of the things we
think are fundamental, like numbers and integers, are maybe not
(33:47):
that fundamental. Maybe there's another way to think about math
and the universe. Yeah, because this is the only way
we've ever thought about it, because it's the only way
we can. And so seeing a new perspective, a new
way of thinking about things, will tell us exactly that.
It's like when you go on a trip and you discover, oh,
people don't eat cereal for breakfast everywhere around the world.
I thought that was a core part of the human experience. Nope,
(34:10):
it turns out, you know, quas songs are more fundamental
than checks, you know, in the human experience. And so
you learn about is a famous French particle, right Quastantino?
Actually cool? So so this is your favorite scenario talking
to aliens? Yeah, but you know, I seeing its praises
(34:31):
that make it sound like we'd show up and we've
learned the secret to the universe by early afternoon, and
we'd be sipping alien espresso and then you'll be out
of there, like that's enough talking to other living beings.
I am an introvert, after all, I'd be like, can
I get a break from on this conversation? Um? But
the reality, I think would be much more difficult. Even
if you assume that they're intelligent and they're alien, which
(34:53):
means they're similar in a biological way and in an
intellectual way for us to recognize their intellig as they
would still be huge hurdles to like basic communication before
we got to talking about mathematics and particle physics and
all sorts of cool stuff. And I guess, unlike the
other scenarios here today, this one could actually happen. It
(35:14):
might happen, This will happen, will happen, will happen unless
we kill ourselves and you know, or fry our planet
before we can manage it. I'm totally confident that eventually
humans will walk on a planet with intelligent alien life, eventually,
I guess, eventually about having to travel faster than light. Yes,
eventually eventually doing a lot of work there, because it
(35:37):
might take hundreds of years or thousands of years for
us to get off this planet and get to neighboring
um solar systems. But I can't imagine a galaxy in
which it's not just chalk filled with intelligent alien life.
And so I really hope, I guess it's a hope.
I don't really know. I really hope that some humans
someday has that experience of putting their foot down on
(35:58):
a planet with intelligent alien life. I really believe right
getting even that digested by that alien, but hopefully not,
hopefully not, and at least did they do if they
have a nice alien espresso to follow it up with. Well.
According to our Twitter pool, this is also everyone's favorite
option of our for physics scenarios. It's got the highest
(36:19):
number of votes on our Twitter pool. Good job, tweets,
I'm proud of you. Yeah, people would rather talk to alien.
I wonder if they're just trying to please you, Daniel.
If so, they've done it, but it seems like it
is sort of like a basic human curiosity. I mean,
(36:39):
more than any of the other things which sound cool
to people. Want to talk to aliens. Who doesn't want
to talk to aliens? I mean, I think a lot
of people think that aliens exist, and for good reason. Um,
I mean, not that we've been visited, or the area
fifty one is real, or any of those silly conspiracy
theories like Bobblazar, but that they're out there. And in
that same way, you know, if they're out there, if
(37:00):
they're real, if there's aliens out there right now having lunch,
then it's I'm desperately curious to know about them and
it's frustrating to imagine there's this barrier between us and
this knowledge, this knowledge which would change the way it
feels to be human and what it means to be human.
It's frustrating. Well, I have to say, um, it's not
my favorite, but it does sound pretty cool. So you'd
(37:22):
be willing if this was the only option available and
you would sign a future I would. Yeah, all the
other options are are filled up. I see you overslept
and by the time you showed up for the Physics
Adventure camp, I have to take this one. You know,
I have enough trouble avoiding real humans. Why it seems
(37:42):
like I don't need more more things to talk to. Well,
maybe you're an alien and this would be like going
home for you, where everybody just stays home and doesn't
talk to anybody. Well, I think it's interesting to think
about all of these possibilities and to think about which one,
you know, you would like to go on, because it
sort of tells you a little it about you know,
what we wish for deep down as humans. You know,
(38:04):
God places look inside of a hole that's a mystery,
you know, experience things that are totally different, and talk
to things that are in aliens that are totally different.
It's sort of like basic human response. Yeah, absolutely, I
think that that's why the universe is so fun to study,
because it has these mysteries, and those mysteries have answers.
You know. These are not like m questions like does
(38:26):
Heaven exist? Or what is the afterlife or things that
we might not possibly ever know the answer to. These
are questions that have real answers that we will eventually
figure out. And so that's why these mysteries are fascinating
because they're right there at our fingertips, and we never
know when the big breakthrough will happen. Maybe be tomorrow,
maybe in a hundred years, but some human will know
the answers to a lot of these deep open questions
(38:48):
about the universe. Yeah, and hopefully we will be alive
at that point, that's right, so we can sider in
our couch eating snacks and read all about it, reading
choose your own adventure books. Well, I just looked at
the Twitter poll again, Daniel, and it looks like Faster
than Light just went up a point and Visiting Aliens
went down a point. So who knows, maybe by the
(39:09):
time this podcast comes out, it will be totally different,
or maybe I can. Maybe by us talking about it,
we're influencing the poll quantum causality violation poll. Wait, Daniel,
are you saying you're gonna give a dollar for every
vote the talking to alien sk Is that true? Give
a plank dollar? Well, I guess if it sways anyone,
(39:34):
I would have to say, if you can go faster
than light, you might be able to visit aliens on
your travel. So it's like you can get both. Maybe
if you choose faster than light. All right, that's a
pretty good argument. I'll take it. All right. Well, the
Twitter poll is going to be up for a week,
So if you are listening to this podcast and you've
thought about it, and you are maybe interested in casting
(39:54):
a vote, go to our Twitter page or Twitter account
it's at Daniel and Jorge and follow us and cast
your vote and let us know which of these adventures
you would most like to sign up for. And be
quick because some of them are filling up fast. We
hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. Thanks for
tuning in. Before you still have a question after listening
(40:21):
to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd
love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one Word, or
email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart
(40:44):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Yea
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Whiteson
Kelly Weinersmith
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