June 28, 2023 • 39 mins
Dahlia Wilde and her Wonder Dog explore CERN and the LARGE HADRON COLLIDER.
Dahlia connects with her amazing CERN Mentor, Dr. Mark Kruse and Jon Rasmussen, an extra-special Genius Adviser. Dahlia and Jon ask Mark a lot of very cool questions about where particle physics and spirituality meet. Have a listen!
Please follow me at @DahliaWildeOfficial
The "OH MY GOD PARTICLE SHOW!" is Executive Produced by Dahlia Wilde and iHEART Media and is a part of the Seneca Podcast Network.
Audio Design by Paul Mercier.
Music by Ivo Moring.
Keep looking up! We are the stars!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome vin kommen yin venido juvenub binveanutiaduti, Welcome one and all,
Thank you for joining me. I'm Gallia Wild and this
is the Oh my God Particle Show where we talk
about science and art and music and good good good
vibrations and all matters near and far. So ready or not,
(00:33):
unpack your imaginations and get ready to rumble through the
universe that we are so so lucky to live in.
We are the Stars.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Quality standard statement.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The muons, gluons, and neutrons in this podcast are guaranteed
to be of the same quality and quantity as those
used in other productions of OMGPS Enterprises and their subsidiary.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Hi guys, guess where I am.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Me and my beloved dog Higgsy Bozani. We made it
to Geneva, Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
We accomplished our mission, the return to CERN.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I just love this place, especially all the flags at
the CERN visitor Center.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
It's his sight to see there are flags representing all
one hundred countries who got together and made this amazing
place happen.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Giggsy, can you smell it?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
The air is so clear, so silky, so quietly, so naturally,
so beautifully breathable.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And look over there. Cars are all plugged in and
they say, share me. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Let's go in aside. We'll get my Wi Fi set
up so we can have a wrong talk with my
wonderful sern mentor.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Doctor Mark Cruz.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
He originally took me underground into the Large Hadron Collider.
The LHC is now revd up again and running at
even higher energies, so all the researchers from all over
the world who work here can discover even more about
how our universe is created, sustained, and evolving. We are
(02:25):
also going to have another great human in our talk today,
John Nobel Rasmussen. John has studied and visited with indigenous
people all over the world. He helps me torture Mark
with all my questions about where does science and spirituality meet?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
What is energy?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
What are vibrations?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
How does it all work? Okay, stand by for these
two great guys. Thank you, gentlemen for joining me. We
had such a good time, didn't we.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
That.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Can you believe it was eight years ago when Mark
brilliant particle physicist.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Really eight years I can't believe it was that years.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Ago, twenty fourteen, right in like August and September, and
you took me and the great John Rasmussen and we
had our other visitors from Oxford came and that was
such a phenomenal time. So, Mark, could you tell our
nice listeners, who are a lot of enthusiastic girls and
(03:24):
women especially who might want to get into particle physics
what I can't say? The word todays particle physicists.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
One of those drunk words, right, physicists.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Can you tell that people? What the heck you do
at CERN? What is CERN? What is Large Hadron Collider?
And what do you do at Duke? I forgot?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Yes, I'm a professor at Duke in the physics department here,
and so my research group is in experimental particle physics,
and so experimental particle physics basically is trying to, you know,
understand the fundamental of the fundamental nature of the universe.
And the way we do that is we try to
collide particles together to try to sort of replicate what
(04:11):
happened in the literally the first trillionth of a second
of the universe. And so we do this at these
huge sort of collider experiments and So the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN, which is on the border of Switzerland France,
is one such colider. It's the highest energy collider right now.
And so at CERN, we what the Large Hadron Collider.
(04:34):
We collide protons together at extremely high energies, at the
sort of highest technologically available energies that we're able to create.
And the way we do that is in this twenty
seven kilometer tunnel underground, and we have these sort of
thousands of bunches of protons and we collide those together
at these enormous energies, which correspond to the energies that
(04:58):
particles had with the universe. Well, was literally about a
trend of a second old. So we're trying to replicate
those conditions to see, you know, what existed then and
how and why the universe evolved into you know what
I did, and why in fact, why we're here. You know,
ask these types of questions.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
There so amazing, so interesting, and how did you get
into particle physics?
Speaker 5 (05:20):
How did I get into it? So? I I grew
up in New Zealand, you know, so the suburb just
outside of Auckland, and my parents really didn't put any
pressure on me to do one thing or another, they
think both neither of my parents even finished high school,
so sort of a first generation scientist in some sense.
(05:42):
And so they you know, they didn't say you have
to be a doctor or you have to be a lawyer.
That they sort of let me sort of think and
do things fairly freely, and you know, particle phys itself.
I guess I sort of got more into philosophy first,
you know, just asking questions about what am I doing here,
you know, and looking, you know, looking up in the
(06:03):
night sky and saying, you know, what is my place
on this little rock that's you know, orbiting the star?
You know, it's any special in anything special about this place?
And in some sense, you know, early on, I guess
in my early teens it was a sort of obsession
or more I wouldn't have such more fascination with what,
(06:24):
you know, infinite means what do we mean by something's infinite?
What do we mean by the fact that the you know,
the universe will last forever? And here I am, you know,
definitely not going to last forever, you know, in a
universe that does last forever, I mean, But so that
those those sort of sorts of questions really bothered me
early on. I guess it's sort of a morbid sort
(06:46):
of fascination with death in some sense. I mean it
was like, you know what, you know, why am I
here for just a flicker of time compared to the
entire universe? And you know what am I doing here?
Trying to you know, explain my you know, my part
in this, and so you know that kind of naturally
used to particle physics, just particle physics is tempt at
(07:08):
fundamentally understanding the nature of the universe.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And that's sort of what John, what you do too,
isn't it?
Speaker 5 (07:16):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
John?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Well, let's see what I do?
Speaker 6 (07:19):
Is I drink as much coffee as possible to get
my energy high enough to collide a few neurons and
maybe I'll get an idea about it. But yeah, no,
I definitely started out very similarly in a way to Mark,
with the philosophical side of things and a lot of questions,
you know, why are we here?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
How do we get here? What is this?
Speaker 6 (07:39):
What is this thing called creation and consciousness and all
that kind of stuff? And I wanted to be an astronaut,
so I ended up studying electrical engineering, and and and
literature and things like that, and then moved on to
studying some of the ways the ancient cultures perceived the
(08:01):
world and how they use that in practical ways, you know,
to make the quality of life better, you know, for
their villagers and so on. And so I spent a
lot of years studying a couple of those cultures and
the visionaries you might call them. Of those cultures, they're
called shamans. But then that's one language, and many other
(08:23):
languages there it's another word.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Because you've been all over the world where Peru and
China and where you've been everywhere, right.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Yeah, Fortunately I had the opportunity when I was working
in the in the engineering world to travel a lot,
and on the evenings and weekends, I would seek out,
you know, the sort of healers, the cheekong masters, the
energy healers, the teachers and masters of all these traditions,
(08:51):
and I would you know, study and try practicing some
of these things, and a kind of in a truly
scientific method, you know, of if you ask one hundred
people to do the same thing, you know, focus on something,
meditate on something, what have you, and then you ask them,
you know, so that's the injunction, right, And then and
then the observation what did you notice? What did you see?
(09:14):
You know, did you have a vision of some sort
you know? Right, that's the sort of data and corroboration.
And then you know, if everybody sort of sees the
same thing or has a similar result, maybe you get
close to some some sort of proof.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Right.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
So it's just in a more mindful you know, it's
uh truly just kind of heart, mind and soul level
of exploration and uh and and trying things and seeing
what results you get. You know, it's only sort of
(09:51):
interesting to to folks like me and my teachers if
something produces a result in terms of how's your quality
of life?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
How is this improving? You know?
Speaker 6 (10:03):
So it's both philosophical, but there's sort of this practical,
pragmatic aspect of it, which I know is the same.
It's very similar obviously for a partner.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Mark, Yes, and both of you gentlemen are still extra special.
And I was telling Will Pearson, who's the head of
iHeart podcast, who he actually went to Duke where Mark
teaches and I was a student, and he created this
initiative to help amplify women's voices, and I was telling
(10:33):
him about how special you are, and even though this
is an initiative to help women's voices, I told him
how important it is to really pay honor to the
great men who are helping women. And so hopefully we
can create a model so that people know what it
looks like now when men help women and help every
diverse voice. So that's exciting and I love when out
(10:55):
because especially both of you guys have been very patient
with me, because I I know Mark says there are
no dumb questions in particle physics, but I really asked
him a lot, and Mark, you were so patient with me.
And also John, you've been really patient with my endless
spiritual slash physics questions. And then we tortured Mark a bit,
(11:16):
didn't we in twenty fourteen when we went to CERN
and I was asking like, who struck the match of
the universe? And how many times did I ask Mark
like why isn't a miracle science? And he kept saying
that we have to repeat it?
Speaker 5 (11:30):
But yeah, I mean, you know, looking back to your questions,
there's no dumb questions, you know, I genuinely believe that
because we don't really have a working model. We don't understand.
You know, I wouldn't say we don't understand anything, but
at a fundamental level, we really don't know how much
we don't understand. And you know, I think it seems
that if you go back in history, you know, scientists
(11:52):
of the time always believed or quite often believed that
that you know, they had a complete picture of nature
at that time, and then there's some revolution or something,
you know, I happens that completely changes that the way
we have to think, and we have the way we
have to change our models, and so I don't think
we're anywhere near the end of that process. I mean
(12:14):
I think, you know, I really think to first order,
we know nothing. And you know, we we have these models,
we have these models of the universe, and we use
you know, and we try to explain the universe and
languages that we can comprehend and understand. They may not
be the right languages to use at all, right, I mean,
(12:34):
these are you know, we have not been around it
very long, and we're trying to you know, we've developed
these languages that are based on our observation of our
microscopic sort of world that we have some intuition about
and we're trying to sort of force those languages onto
the microscopic that we can't see and we can't really
you know, experience as well, and it just, you know,
(12:55):
maybe it just doesn't work. And so I think languages
is an important aspect of it. And actually something John
just said it just kind of triggered something in me.
You know, you're looking at you know, different cultures and
in different groups, and you know, I can imagine those
different cultures in different groups have different ways of explaining things.
(13:15):
And you know a concrete example to that is, you know,
coming from New Zealand, wherey sort of indigenous people are
the other Maori, you know that the Maori have a
very sort of almost poetic name for you know, the
stars in the sky. You know, in English we say
star and that's you know, an object, right, that's a
singular object. In Maori, it's tafana marama and Tafana mahrama
(13:37):
actually means the family of light. So it's already it's
a completely different way of thinking about it. You know,
everything is interconnected, and it's it's not the stars aren't
an object, but it's it's more a reference to the
way we actually observe it, and so it's a completely
different way of thinking about you know, what you actually see.
And you know, I think so, I think language plays
(13:59):
are really sort of important role in how we understand
our surroundings.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And that's why you're always so busy when I call
you because of your duke's favorite professor, because when the
students come in, you tell them that probably first thing, right,
no dumb questions, It.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Is something I just said. So my introduction to astrophysics course,
I do mention, mention that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That's so good, that's just wonderful. That gives permission to
women or anyone in science just start using their imagination
that just like unlocks it. If you say, maybe we
don't even understand any of it. I just recently started
learning how to sing, and I thought I couldn't sing
(14:43):
at all. And the one of the world's best singing teachers,
he said to me, I sang him this tiny song,
He said, who told you you can't sing? And it's
really the same thing with a you know, science, right,
and so many things, math and writing, and teachers who
aren't as skilled and compassionate as both of you, they
kind of short circuit that process. So I'm hoping that
(15:05):
this podcast, hopefully it'll be fun and makes science fun
or just exploring, imagining, creating that it just gives everyone
permission to think about the big ideas.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yeah, and you know both, you know, to think about
things and not be sort of intimidated by it. I
think there's some sort of institutional role here where, you know,
we teach physics in a certain way and it tends
to be sort of a linear way, and we haven't
really changed the way we do that in decades, and
I think it's sort of more based on sort of
(15:38):
a male dominated society, as many things are, so I
think the way we actually teach is we don't sort
of embrace sort of more sort of diverse ways of
thinking about things. And you know, in my small way,
I try to change that, but it almost sort of
requires some sort of institutional commitment. And of course these
things you know that makes people nervous, I think have
(16:00):
to embrace different, different ways.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Upside down thinking. And I don't even understand the standard model.
Maybe you could, I know that would be a four
hour discussion. But isn't this standard model is the new
model beyond equals MC square? But aren't there some things
that are going to debunk it.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Now, or it's already debunked, but we don't. Yeah, it's
already debunked, but we don't have a better option unfortunately.
So you know, what we call our standard model of
particle physics is really just our best model that we have,
and the fundamental constituents of the standard model, you know,
other fundamental particles. You know, in the early nineteen hundreds,
protons were considered fundamental, but now we know they're made
(16:44):
up of smaller things, for quarks, and so, you know,
our fundamental understanding is that everything is made up of
parks and electrons. And so, for example, a proton, which
is in the nucleus of an atom. Protons are made
up of upquarks and down quarks, not very inventive names,
but those are what they called upquarks and down clarks.
(17:06):
Neutrons are also made up of upquarks and down clarks
in a somewhat different configuration, and together protons and neutrons,
you know, make the nuclei of atoms, and then you know,
they're surrounded by orbiting electrons that make up atoms. So
our fundamental nature of the universes that upquarks and down
(17:26):
clarks and electrons. A lot everything that we observe is
made of. Now it turns out that you know through
experimental observation that there's other types of clarks and other
types of electron like objects. And so what we call
the upquarks, down quarks, and the electrons, what's called a
first generation of fundamental particles there happens to be and
(17:49):
also a second and a third generation that are identical
to this first generation except in their fundamental masses. We
have no idea why. We have no idea why these
other generations exist, and that's an question. So I think
the standard model has done a very good job in
explaining what the universe is made of, but not why.
But another aspect of our standard model is that it
(18:10):
describes how different particles, how fundamental particles interact. So they
can interact what we call the electromagnetic interaction, which is
classically what we think of it as an electric field.
They can also interact by what's called the strong interaction.
This is what keeps the quarks bound together to form
a proton or neutron. And they can also interact via
(18:32):
what's called the weak nuclear interaction. This is an interaction
that mediates things like radioactive decay. But also the our
standard model does not have a good description of gravity,
and gravity is probably our most familiar interaction, the most
familiar force, but we do not have you know, standard
model does not have a description of that quantum mechanical
(18:52):
description of that. So that's obviously a serious problem. We
don't even know really if gravity is indeed fundamental, is
it derived from something even more fundamental. So there's a
lot of open questions like that and sort of more
almost in a sensational sense, that the standard model only
describes our observable universe. So what's in the observable universe,
(19:16):
which we now believe is only about five percent of
the universe. So we understand from cosmological observations that about
twenty five percent of the universe is a sort of
entity that we call dark matter. It's just called dark
matter because we don't really know what it is. We
believe it is a form of matter because we've observed
it's sort of gravitational interactions, but we don't know what
(19:38):
it is. But it's about six times more prevalent than
ordinary matter, the things that we're made of, So the
things that we're made of, the Earth is made of.
The stars really only constitute about five percent of the universe,
you know. Twenty five percent is this sort of mysterious
dark matter, and that's one of the things we're trying
to do at the Large Adrin Collider is in fact,
seeing if we can actually produce dark matter and detective
(20:00):
It's very difficult because we can't see it, so it
doesn't interact electromagnetically. Everything we see, like light from stars,
is due to the electromagnetic interaction, so dark matter interacts
extremely weakly, and so it's very hard to produce them,
very hard to detect, which is why we really don't
know what it is. But we know how much of
it there is because we've seen how it sort of
(20:23):
gravitationally influences galaxies, for example. And then there's another seventy
percent of the universe, which which we call dark energy,
and we have no idea what that is at all.
And you know, and if we have a universe that's
only made of matter and it's expanding, then that expansion
rate has to decrease just due to gravity and it expands,
(20:44):
it has to that expansion rate has to decrease but
sort of more recent observations over the last sort of
twenty years have shown that the expansion of the universe
is actually accelerated, so it's getting bigger and bigger, faster
and faster, and so there's sort of an anti gravitational
or negative pressure effect on the expansion of the universe,
(21:05):
and we have no idea what's causing that, and so
we call it dark energy, meaning our standard model has
no idea what it is, and there's just an ad
hoc explanation for it. So really all this simply means
is that, you know, we're now starting to observe things
both in cosmology and particle physics the contrary, you know,
to what our models can do with seeing the limitations
(21:26):
of these models, but we don't have any better ideas
for how they should be replaced.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I only wish I had a particle physics teacher that
spoke so well and as you do, and you're so
enthusiastic and so inspiring, because John also had mentioned that
the feminine part of the brain is that right, John
is really important for discovery, And I love how Mark
(21:53):
is like gives us permission to think about these ideas
and welcomes us, and why is it so important the
female imagination Mark, I mean he.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
Really said it well, so that you know, the intuition,
the imagination, those things, if you think about it, right,
in most species, it's the feminine. It's the women that
give birth that in and of itself is a mysterious
you know, you know, how does a being grow out of?
You know, just the DNA code of the egg and
the sperm and so on end. So the feminine gives
(22:25):
birth and there's so much unknown in that, Like, the
feminine is the master of that unknown, in that unknowable space,
the dark energy, dark matter. The masculine can can categorize, analyze,
make institutional you know, the sort of scene, right, And
the domain of the feminine is that which pushes the
(22:48):
envelope right, pushes beyond. It's it's the idea that someone
into its, like Mark said, whether it's an Einstein or anyone,
and all of a sudden, what made you think of
that direction or try that? You know, it's almost like
if you're exploring an iceberg and you're spending all the
time observing the very tip that's out of the water,
(23:09):
and you're defining your iceberg based on what you see
out out of the water, right, and the feminine which
has been i should say, the sort of visionaries, the imaginator,
the you know, the ones with imagination, the ones with intuition,
the ones who follow a different path, a different calculation,
(23:31):
a different theory throughout human history. Eighty percent of those
those medicine people, those shamans, those visionaries were women, and
still are a large other percentage where gay men. And
you know, so the feminine has been always in a
sense at that forefront. Remember the movie Hidden Figures, you know,
(23:52):
try it this way, what about this way? And you
know there's there's just myriad examples of this. They just
don't get written up so much in in history, I think, right,
but there's always been that person that will venture, which
takes a lot of courage sometimes into the depths, go
(24:13):
from the other side of the iceberg and start studying
it from that side. And it's hard to it's hard
to put it in paper, it's hard to explain it,
and you know, it's hard to teach it in a
class et cetera.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
But that's the.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Beauty of it, you know, it's it is the beauty
of the unknown, of that if there's a way. Obviously,
with instruments, like Mark said, you can't we can't see it.
We can't measure it with our current sort of electromagnetic
based instruments and so on. We can't see it with
our eyes and everything. But the exploration of it through
(24:47):
these other means, which is truly, in the opinion of
my teachers and everything I've learned, essentially dominated by that
feminine side, you know, of our of our own brain,
of every but he's brain, you know, the artistic, the poetic,
the you know, and so but the two come together.
The beauty of this discussion and the way Mark looks
(25:12):
at a teaching where he is in his institution, Yeah,
and you know, and then someone like me, who you know,
does not have an institution, basically is that at some
point it will increasingly come together, just like in a
good visionary scientist's brain, the left and the right start
(25:34):
to start to dance with each other.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
And I think, you know, in physics and sort of
the most traditional sciences, so the hard sciences, in some sense,
you know, we don't embrace that enough. And I think
we don't really embrace it. I guess it's probably too
hard to say we don't acknowledge, but we don't. But
in some sense we don't. We don't acknowledge the sort
(25:58):
of the females side of the brain, as you put it.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And that's what we're going to do here with this.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
So I mean, yeah, because we're running to roadblow. I mean,
it's it's a limiting it's it's limiting our ability to
really have a fundamental sort of understanding. And you know,
if I go even further, it's like, why do we
want a fundamental understanding? I mean it's in some sense
it's it's human nature to want to understand ourselves, our universe,
and our place around it. But you know, in some sense,
(26:27):
you know, because this has traditionally been sort of a
male dominated field, you know, we kind of believe that
by understanding something, we can control it. And that's, you know,
I guess partially where this has come from. And I
don't think it's a coincidence that we refer to nature
as mother nature or as female. You know, nature is
(26:47):
something to be controlled or understood. I mean it's I
think all these sort of emerged from a sort of
male dominated way of thinking about how we need to
understand ourselves and.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Human sort of exclusive rather than inclusive, which you know,
really right, more fear base, which is control versus love base.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Oh, it's definitely fear based.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And what do you think we could do to It's
kind of a lifelong mission probably to crack these fields
open and welcome more women, more creativity. Maybe do we
need to make it more glamorous? What I don't know,
I mean in permission.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
So my observations have been that women that are interested
in physics tend to get put off early. And this
could be you know, in high school or in early
college where it's still taught from a sort of dry,
male dominated perspective. And so I think, you know that
(27:41):
needs to change. And I think, you know, there are
obviously some exceptions, some realiant, brilliant women have sort of
overcome those barriers and then you know, done extremely well.
Pay All being one, she's now directed General Ancern. But
you know these are too few and far between. I mean,
I think we have to, you know, I think the
roadblocks are still there in some sense. You know, I'm
(28:02):
seeing it in my own kids. I mean I have
the perfect experiment. I have, you know, a boy girl
eleven year old twins, and I can see how they
how they think differently. But I've already noticed that although
the school they go to is very nurturing and is
sort of promoting stem for girls, my daughter is still
(28:23):
somehow from just absorbing the idea that she shouldn't be
good at science, right, And you know, I don't see
that with my son. You know, she's probably way better.
I mean, she's got a very got amazing intuition, but
she's somehow is already sort of absorbed from her, you know,
(28:44):
her surroundings from society in some sense that she's not
supposed to be very good at science. And you know,
I of course try to correct that, but it's but
it's not something that I think just simple actions can do.
It's a societal thing. I think it's you know, prevalent
and persistent throughout society, just the way society is right now.
(29:06):
And I think the changes that that really have to
be quite revolutionary. I think if we're going to really
do that, you know, we can sort of help women
succeed in physics, but we also need proper role models.
I mean, you know, I can can promote and be
sort of an ally, but you know, I will admit
that I won't be I'm not the perfect model, role
(29:26):
model or mentor for a woman science. It needs to
be a woman that's encountered the barriers that I have
not encountered.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And it's hard to talk about it. Even when I
was a pretty good baby scientist, but I would run
into all sorts of weird men at science fairs and
I just I didn't know how to say, oh, yeah,
well guess what I'm going to do it anyway, I
just didn't know. So your daughter's so lucky that she
has you. And then we're going to find I wish
(29:55):
we could talk to a thousand Well maybe we'll do
a thousand episodes. We'll talk to every woman at turn,
but you're gonna find us the best coolest women to
talk to, and that's cern and we can find out
how they persevered. Or because I know a lot of
women too, they've been told they were crazy right when
they had an idea or went down the road. Is
(30:17):
it Andrea Guez who won the Astronomy Nobel Prize recently,
or there was some other women in Arizona right with
the telescopes who they were out there on their own.
And you've got to be a really courageous strong person
to keep going with your ideas and especially now the
way the world is, it's just like it's And maybe
we should make our own Iheartcerned Podcast Award, or we
(30:41):
should do something like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket to
Cern to help. You know, and because you guys are
so special that how much you've helped me, it's just
such a gift the way you look at the world,
both of you, that you just really encourage originality and
exploration and intuition and imagining. So John Away, is not
(31:02):
the name of your book dreaming, what is it dreaming a.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
New dreaming your world and to being.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, so that's really fantastic, isn't it to be able
to use your imagination to create a new world? And
hopefully we will all be working together in our lifetime
to build a world that we created from our intuition
and evaluation imagination.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
I think it starts, you know, with each individual that
can recognize the beauty and the power and the strength
of the feminine within them.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Right.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
So, I think what makes Mark extraordinary? And I think
I was sort of always this way as a child.
I have two brothers, but I was I always thought
I was like my mom's only daughter. Right, So what
that meant was, you know what that meant was I
had you know, I had a strong and she was
(32:03):
a great example. And I think, and that's that's a
large part of it, Like you said, a great, great, powerful,
strong female examples who aren't that by being more on
their masculine side either, but really embracing the feminine. And
and so I've always had a strong appreciation and acknowledgment
of the feminine within me right, feelings, emotions, expression, art, music, poetry, dance, ceremony, ritual,
(32:33):
the subconscious, the magic, the miracles, the synchronicities, the things
that happen in life that the left brain, the masculine
side of the brain doesn't have to understand. Like it's
okay to not to kind of wrap your head around that,
but to just you know.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Sit with it.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
And it does take courage. You know, when I would
go to the Amazon and explore these things in the
middle of the Madre de Dios, Mother of God river,
think about that for a second, you know, on this
little island and in ceremony in the middle of the night,
and I knew there was a jaguar just inside the
bushes beyond the beach, and I really tested, you know,
(33:16):
I appreciate fear. I believe it's normal to be fearful
and be shaking. And I walked up to the edge
and I realized I was shaking because there's a jaguar
right there, probably and I can't see it. It's unknown,
I don't know. And yet I've just tried to practice
Can I stand here anyway, even in my fear, or
can I even walk further in?
Speaker 5 (33:35):
You know?
Speaker 6 (33:35):
Can I practice courage?
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Right?
Speaker 6 (33:37):
And so if each individual learns to practice courage with
the feminine in them, with that, with that dive into
you know, the the unknown or the unexplainable, then I
think we have a chance. And this is men and women, right,
I think I think we have a chance to begin
(34:00):
to have that more of that and more people than
rising up through institutions or businesses or policy bodies, the whole,
you know everything, And then we then we have a chance,
you know, I think then we are being good role
models for young girls and boys who need to embrace
(34:25):
that within them so that they can embrace it in
women as it were. Brilliant and LGBTQ, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So much to think about right, you guys both inspired
me so much? Would that be? Okay? I promised I
will pierson at iHeart we'd find our special ieheart particle,
which is interesting because iHeart concern. You know, they're both
like the hearts. Could we talk to you brilliant guys
further and hopefully we can cook up a time to
(34:53):
come tocern and we can look at all these ideas
further and how we can step out and also inspire
and make this fun.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Yeah, I think it'd be great to do this again.
You know. That's I mean, there's there's lots of questions,
and you know, I've loved hearing from from John. I'd
love I've got a lot of questions. Now I think
we should we should we should make it almos a
program out of this. I think, you know, there are
different ways of approaching things, and you know, I think
solutions to all these sort of complex problems and broadly
(35:24):
really require different and more diverse approaches. So I think
it's just the recognition of that and so good. Yeah,
so a great discussion to continue.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Okay, well, so we better we better let these two
geniuses go, But how about we I like the idea
of creating a contest or something that somehow we got
to crack that nut open so that you know, girls
and well anyone would actually think of particle physics. That
could be a career. I could actually work on the
(35:57):
large Hadron collider. I mean we were even considered this.
I mean, maybe girls now are considering more than what
I was considering when I was young, but how amazing.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
Maybe more but still not enough.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
We're gonna shake it up. We're gonna have our own revolution.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Always going to be work to do right decades.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Well, we gotta hurry though, we don't have that much time.
So okay, I will be bringing you two brilliant gentlemen again,
and we will on the path back to Cern. We're
gonna go revisit the God particle. And uh, it would
be my honor and pleasure to talk to both of
you again and get to the crux of this.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
It's fun, been fun talking with talking to you too, John.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
Yeah, you too, Market. I was going to ask about
your family, because obviously they were three when we met last,
and now they're practically teenagers, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
His house got struck, His house got struck by lightning.
And then he just said a tree fell on his garage, so.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
I don't know. So the side of the side of
my carriage got hit by lightning and throw the power out.
And then just as it was repaired, literally a tree
fell down and the end of the tree hit the
same place where the lightning at the side of the garage.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Right there you go. What's the probability of that. Well,
we're gonna have about on our next little chat. Well
we'll give Mark one hundred dumb questions. Maybe we'll even
have some people calling with dumb questions. No such thing, remember,
five favorite guys. Thank you so much. All right, thank
(37:38):
you by chow wow.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I love these discussions. What do you think? I love
how Mark always reminds us that all interpretations are valid,
that we know only five percent of the universe, and
that there are no dumb questions. I also love that
John encourages us to open our hearts, follow our intuition,
and realize that we are all connected. We'll be sure
(38:02):
to have them back on future episodes for more cool thoughts. Indeed,
thank you.
Speaker 6 (38:07):
For joining me.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
If you have any questions, any questions at all, I
really do want to know your thoughts, so please email
us at omgpspod at gmail dot com and I will
get the brainy acs here concern to answer them. Until
next time, remember keep looking up, stay positively charged. We
are the stars. Goodbye for now, Adios arivederci a feutersen abiento.
(38:35):
Catch us next week for another installment of my enlightening
conversations with these geniuses.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Excel. There is an extremely chair.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
This podcast may sun disappear at any time. Esewhere will
not be responsible. Thanks for listening to my podcast and
please come see my play the Oh My God Particle
show running from August second to twenty seventh, except August
(39:12):
fifteenth at Gilded Balloons at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival twenty
twenty three. I'm going to be posting all the information
on my Instagram at Dahlia Wild Official. Stay tuned for
more details about more OMGPS live theater shows in London, Geneva,
New York City.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
La outer Space, Who Knows.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
Thank you for all your support
Welcome vin kommen yin venido juvenub binveanutiaduti, Welcome one and all,
Thank you for joining me. I'm Gallia Wild and this
is the Oh my God Particle Show where we talk
about science and art and music and good good good
vibrations and all matters near and far. So ready or not,
(00:33):
unpack your imaginations and get ready to rumble through the
universe that we are so so lucky to live in.
We are the Stars.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Quality standard statement.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
The muons, gluons, and neutrons in this podcast are guaranteed
to be of the same quality and quantity as those
used in other productions of OMGPS Enterprises and their subsidiary.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Hi guys, guess where I am.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Me and my beloved dog Higgsy Bozani. We made it
to Geneva, Switzerland.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
We accomplished our mission, the return to CERN.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I just love this place, especially all the flags at
the CERN visitor Center.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
It's his sight to see there are flags representing all
one hundred countries who got together and made this amazing
place happen.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Giggsy, can you smell it?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
The air is so clear, so silky, so quietly, so naturally,
so beautifully breathable.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And look over there. Cars are all plugged in and
they say, share me. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Let's go in aside. We'll get my Wi Fi set
up so we can have a wrong talk with my
wonderful sern mentor.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Doctor Mark Cruz.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
He originally took me underground into the Large Hadron Collider.
The LHC is now revd up again and running at
even higher energies, so all the researchers from all over
the world who work here can discover even more about
how our universe is created, sustained, and evolving. We are
(02:25):
also going to have another great human in our talk today,
John Nobel Rasmussen. John has studied and visited with indigenous
people all over the world. He helps me torture Mark
with all my questions about where does science and spirituality meet?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
What is energy?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
What are vibrations?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
How does it all work? Okay, stand by for these
two great guys. Thank you, gentlemen for joining me. We
had such a good time, didn't we.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
That.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Can you believe it was eight years ago when Mark
brilliant particle physicist.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Really eight years I can't believe it was that years.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Ago, twenty fourteen, right in like August and September, and
you took me and the great John Rasmussen and we
had our other visitors from Oxford came and that was
such a phenomenal time. So, Mark, could you tell our
nice listeners, who are a lot of enthusiastic girls and
(03:24):
women especially who might want to get into particle physics
what I can't say? The word todays particle physicists.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
One of those drunk words, right, physicists.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Can you tell that people? What the heck you do
at CERN? What is CERN? What is Large Hadron Collider?
And what do you do at Duke? I forgot?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
Yes, I'm a professor at Duke in the physics department here,
and so my research group is in experimental particle physics,
and so experimental particle physics basically is trying to, you know,
understand the fundamental of the fundamental nature of the universe.
And the way we do that is we try to
collide particles together to try to sort of replicate what
(04:11):
happened in the literally the first trillionth of a second
of the universe. And so we do this at these
huge sort of collider experiments and So the Large Hadron
Collider at CERN, which is on the border of Switzerland France,
is one such colider. It's the highest energy collider right now.
And so at CERN, we what the Large Hadron Collider.
(04:34):
We collide protons together at extremely high energies, at the
sort of highest technologically available energies that we're able to create.
And the way we do that is in this twenty
seven kilometer tunnel underground, and we have these sort of
thousands of bunches of protons and we collide those together
at these enormous energies, which correspond to the energies that
(04:58):
particles had with the universe. Well, was literally about a
trend of a second old. So we're trying to replicate
those conditions to see, you know, what existed then and
how and why the universe evolved into you know what
I did, and why in fact, why we're here. You know,
ask these types of questions.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
There so amazing, so interesting, and how did you get
into particle physics?
Speaker 5 (05:20):
How did I get into it? So? I I grew
up in New Zealand, you know, so the suburb just
outside of Auckland, and my parents really didn't put any
pressure on me to do one thing or another, they
think both neither of my parents even finished high school,
so sort of a first generation scientist in some sense.
(05:42):
And so they you know, they didn't say you have
to be a doctor or you have to be a lawyer.
That they sort of let me sort of think and
do things fairly freely, and you know, particle phys itself.
I guess I sort of got more into philosophy first,
you know, just asking questions about what am I doing here,
you know, and looking, you know, looking up in the
(06:03):
night sky and saying, you know, what is my place
on this little rock that's you know, orbiting the star?
You know, it's any special in anything special about this place?
And in some sense, you know, early on, I guess
in my early teens it was a sort of obsession
or more I wouldn't have such more fascination with what,
(06:24):
you know, infinite means what do we mean by something's infinite?
What do we mean by the fact that the you know,
the universe will last forever? And here I am, you know,
definitely not going to last forever, you know, in a
universe that does last forever, I mean, But so that
those those sort of sorts of questions really bothered me
early on. I guess it's sort of a morbid sort
(06:46):
of fascination with death in some sense. I mean it
was like, you know what, you know, why am I
here for just a flicker of time compared to the
entire universe? And you know what am I doing here?
Trying to you know, explain my you know, my part
in this, and so you know that kind of naturally
used to particle physics, just particle physics is tempt at
(07:08):
fundamentally understanding the nature of the universe.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And that's sort of what John, what you do too,
isn't it?
Speaker 5 (07:16):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
John?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Well, let's see what I do?
Speaker 6 (07:19):
Is I drink as much coffee as possible to get
my energy high enough to collide a few neurons and
maybe I'll get an idea about it. But yeah, no,
I definitely started out very similarly in a way to Mark,
with the philosophical side of things and a lot of questions,
you know, why are we here?
Speaker 5 (07:37):
How do we get here? What is this?
Speaker 6 (07:39):
What is this thing called creation and consciousness and all
that kind of stuff? And I wanted to be an astronaut,
so I ended up studying electrical engineering, and and and
literature and things like that, and then moved on to
studying some of the ways the ancient cultures perceived the
(08:01):
world and how they use that in practical ways, you know,
to make the quality of life better, you know, for
their villagers and so on. And so I spent a
lot of years studying a couple of those cultures and
the visionaries you might call them. Of those cultures, they're
called shamans. But then that's one language, and many other
(08:23):
languages there it's another word.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Because you've been all over the world where Peru and
China and where you've been everywhere, right.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Yeah, Fortunately I had the opportunity when I was working
in the in the engineering world to travel a lot,
and on the evenings and weekends, I would seek out,
you know, the sort of healers, the cheekong masters, the
energy healers, the teachers and masters of all these traditions,
(08:51):
and I would you know, study and try practicing some
of these things, and a kind of in a truly
scientific method, you know, of if you ask one hundred
people to do the same thing, you know, focus on something,
meditate on something, what have you, and then you ask them,
you know, so that's the injunction, right, And then and
then the observation what did you notice? What did you see?
(09:14):
You know, did you have a vision of some sort
you know? Right, that's the sort of data and corroboration.
And then you know, if everybody sort of sees the
same thing or has a similar result, maybe you get
close to some some sort of proof.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Right.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
So it's just in a more mindful you know, it's
uh truly just kind of heart, mind and soul level
of exploration and uh and and trying things and seeing
what results you get. You know, it's only sort of
(09:51):
interesting to to folks like me and my teachers if
something produces a result in terms of how's your quality
of life?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
How is this improving? You know?
Speaker 6 (10:03):
So it's both philosophical, but there's sort of this practical,
pragmatic aspect of it, which I know is the same.
It's very similar obviously for a partner.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Mark, Yes, and both of you gentlemen are still extra special.
And I was telling Will Pearson, who's the head of
iHeart podcast, who he actually went to Duke where Mark
teaches and I was a student, and he created this
initiative to help amplify women's voices, and I was telling
(10:33):
him about how special you are, and even though this
is an initiative to help women's voices, I told him
how important it is to really pay honor to the
great men who are helping women. And so hopefully we
can create a model so that people know what it
looks like now when men help women and help every
diverse voice. So that's exciting and I love when out
(10:55):
because especially both of you guys have been very patient
with me, because I I know Mark says there are
no dumb questions in particle physics, but I really asked
him a lot, and Mark, you were so patient with me.
And also John, you've been really patient with my endless
spiritual slash physics questions. And then we tortured Mark a bit,
(11:16):
didn't we in twenty fourteen when we went to CERN
and I was asking like, who struck the match of
the universe? And how many times did I ask Mark
like why isn't a miracle science? And he kept saying
that we have to repeat it?
Speaker 5 (11:30):
But yeah, I mean, you know, looking back to your questions,
there's no dumb questions, you know, I genuinely believe that
because we don't really have a working model. We don't understand.
You know, I wouldn't say we don't understand anything, but
at a fundamental level, we really don't know how much
we don't understand. And you know, I think it seems
that if you go back in history, you know, scientists
(11:52):
of the time always believed or quite often believed that
that you know, they had a complete picture of nature
at that time, and then there's some revolution or something,
you know, I happens that completely changes that the way
we have to think, and we have the way we
have to change our models, and so I don't think
we're anywhere near the end of that process. I mean
(12:14):
I think, you know, I really think to first order,
we know nothing. And you know, we we have these models,
we have these models of the universe, and we use
you know, and we try to explain the universe and
languages that we can comprehend and understand. They may not
be the right languages to use at all, right, I mean,
(12:34):
these are you know, we have not been around it
very long, and we're trying to you know, we've developed
these languages that are based on our observation of our
microscopic sort of world that we have some intuition about
and we're trying to sort of force those languages onto
the microscopic that we can't see and we can't really
you know, experience as well, and it just, you know,
(12:55):
maybe it just doesn't work. And so I think languages
is an important aspect of it. And actually something John
just said it just kind of triggered something in me.
You know, you're looking at you know, different cultures and
in different groups, and you know, I can imagine those
different cultures in different groups have different ways of explaining things.
(13:15):
And you know a concrete example to that is, you know,
coming from New Zealand, wherey sort of indigenous people are
the other Maori, you know that the Maori have a
very sort of almost poetic name for you know, the
stars in the sky. You know, in English we say
star and that's you know, an object, right, that's a
singular object. In Maori, it's tafana marama and Tafana mahrama
(13:37):
actually means the family of light. So it's already it's
a completely different way of thinking about it. You know,
everything is interconnected, and it's it's not the stars aren't
an object, but it's it's more a reference to the
way we actually observe it, and so it's a completely
different way of thinking about you know, what you actually see.
And you know, I think so, I think language plays
(13:59):
are really sort of important role in how we understand
our surroundings.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And that's why you're always so busy when I call
you because of your duke's favorite professor, because when the
students come in, you tell them that probably first thing, right,
no dumb questions, It.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Is something I just said. So my introduction to astrophysics course,
I do mention, mention that.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That's so good, that's just wonderful. That gives permission to
women or anyone in science just start using their imagination
that just like unlocks it. If you say, maybe we
don't even understand any of it. I just recently started
learning how to sing, and I thought I couldn't sing
(14:43):
at all. And the one of the world's best singing teachers,
he said to me, I sang him this tiny song,
He said, who told you you can't sing? And it's
really the same thing with a you know, science, right,
and so many things, math and writing, and teachers who
aren't as skilled and compassionate as both of you, they
kind of short circuit that process. So I'm hoping that
(15:05):
this podcast, hopefully it'll be fun and makes science fun
or just exploring, imagining, creating that it just gives everyone
permission to think about the big ideas.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
Yeah, and you know both, you know, to think about
things and not be sort of intimidated by it. I
think there's some sort of institutional role here where, you know,
we teach physics in a certain way and it tends
to be sort of a linear way, and we haven't
really changed the way we do that in decades, and
I think it's sort of more based on sort of
(15:38):
a male dominated society, as many things are, so I
think the way we actually teach is we don't sort
of embrace sort of more sort of diverse ways of
thinking about things. And you know, in my small way,
I try to change that, but it almost sort of
requires some sort of institutional commitment. And of course these
things you know that makes people nervous, I think have
(16:00):
to embrace different, different ways.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Upside down thinking. And I don't even understand the standard model.
Maybe you could, I know that would be a four
hour discussion. But isn't this standard model is the new
model beyond equals MC square? But aren't there some things
that are going to debunk it.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Now, or it's already debunked, but we don't. Yeah, it's
already debunked, but we don't have a better option unfortunately.
So you know, what we call our standard model of
particle physics is really just our best model that we have,
and the fundamental constituents of the standard model, you know,
other fundamental particles. You know, in the early nineteen hundreds,
protons were considered fundamental, but now we know they're made
(16:44):
up of smaller things, for quarks, and so, you know,
our fundamental understanding is that everything is made up of
parks and electrons. And so, for example, a proton, which
is in the nucleus of an atom. Protons are made
up of upquarks and down quarks, not very inventive names,
but those are what they called upquarks and down clarks.
(17:06):
Neutrons are also made up of upquarks and down clarks
in a somewhat different configuration, and together protons and neutrons,
you know, make the nuclei of atoms, and then you know,
they're surrounded by orbiting electrons that make up atoms. So
our fundamental nature of the universes that upquarks and down
(17:26):
clarks and electrons. A lot everything that we observe is
made of. Now it turns out that you know through
experimental observation that there's other types of clarks and other
types of electron like objects. And so what we call
the upquarks, down quarks, and the electrons, what's called a
first generation of fundamental particles there happens to be and
(17:49):
also a second and a third generation that are identical
to this first generation except in their fundamental masses. We
have no idea why. We have no idea why these
other generations exist, and that's an question. So I think
the standard model has done a very good job in
explaining what the universe is made of, but not why.
But another aspect of our standard model is that it
(18:10):
describes how different particles, how fundamental particles interact. So they
can interact what we call the electromagnetic interaction, which is
classically what we think of it as an electric field.
They can also interact by what's called the strong interaction.
This is what keeps the quarks bound together to form
a proton or neutron. And they can also interact via
(18:32):
what's called the weak nuclear interaction. This is an interaction
that mediates things like radioactive decay. But also the our
standard model does not have a good description of gravity,
and gravity is probably our most familiar interaction, the most
familiar force, but we do not have you know, standard
model does not have a description of that quantum mechanical
(18:52):
description of that. So that's obviously a serious problem. We
don't even know really if gravity is indeed fundamental, is
it derived from something even more fundamental. So there's a
lot of open questions like that and sort of more
almost in a sensational sense, that the standard model only
describes our observable universe. So what's in the observable universe,
(19:16):
which we now believe is only about five percent of
the universe. So we understand from cosmological observations that about
twenty five percent of the universe is a sort of
entity that we call dark matter. It's just called dark
matter because we don't really know what it is. We
believe it is a form of matter because we've observed
it's sort of gravitational interactions, but we don't know what
(19:38):
it is. But it's about six times more prevalent than
ordinary matter, the things that we're made of, So the
things that we're made of, the Earth is made of.
The stars really only constitute about five percent of the universe,
you know. Twenty five percent is this sort of mysterious
dark matter, and that's one of the things we're trying
to do at the Large Adrin Collider is in fact,
seeing if we can actually produce dark matter and detective
(20:00):
It's very difficult because we can't see it, so it
doesn't interact electromagnetically. Everything we see, like light from stars,
is due to the electromagnetic interaction, so dark matter interacts
extremely weakly, and so it's very hard to produce them,
very hard to detect, which is why we really don't
know what it is. But we know how much of
it there is because we've seen how it sort of
(20:23):
gravitationally influences galaxies, for example. And then there's another seventy
percent of the universe, which which we call dark energy,
and we have no idea what that is at all.
And you know, and if we have a universe that's
only made of matter and it's expanding, then that expansion
rate has to decrease just due to gravity and it expands,
(20:44):
it has to that expansion rate has to decrease but
sort of more recent observations over the last sort of
twenty years have shown that the expansion of the universe
is actually accelerated, so it's getting bigger and bigger, faster
and faster, and so there's sort of an anti gravitational
or negative pressure effect on the expansion of the universe,
(21:05):
and we have no idea what's causing that, and so
we call it dark energy, meaning our standard model has
no idea what it is, and there's just an ad
hoc explanation for it. So really all this simply means
is that, you know, we're now starting to observe things
both in cosmology and particle physics the contrary, you know,
to what our models can do with seeing the limitations
(21:26):
of these models, but we don't have any better ideas
for how they should be replaced.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I only wish I had a particle physics teacher that
spoke so well and as you do, and you're so
enthusiastic and so inspiring, because John also had mentioned that
the feminine part of the brain is that right, John
is really important for discovery, And I love how Mark
(21:53):
is like gives us permission to think about these ideas
and welcomes us, and why is it so important the
female imagination Mark, I mean he.
Speaker 6 (22:03):
Really said it well, so that you know, the intuition,
the imagination, those things, if you think about it, right,
in most species, it's the feminine. It's the women that
give birth that in and of itself is a mysterious
you know, you know, how does a being grow out of?
You know, just the DNA code of the egg and
the sperm and so on end. So the feminine gives
(22:25):
birth and there's so much unknown in that, Like, the
feminine is the master of that unknown, in that unknowable space,
the dark energy, dark matter. The masculine can can categorize, analyze,
make institutional you know, the sort of scene, right, And
the domain of the feminine is that which pushes the
(22:48):
envelope right, pushes beyond. It's it's the idea that someone
into its, like Mark said, whether it's an Einstein or anyone,
and all of a sudden, what made you think of
that direction or try that? You know, it's almost like
if you're exploring an iceberg and you're spending all the
time observing the very tip that's out of the water,
(23:09):
and you're defining your iceberg based on what you see
out out of the water, right, and the feminine which
has been i should say, the sort of visionaries, the imaginator,
the you know, the ones with imagination, the ones with intuition,
the ones who follow a different path, a different calculation,
(23:31):
a different theory throughout human history. Eighty percent of those
those medicine people, those shamans, those visionaries were women, and
still are a large other percentage where gay men. And
you know, so the feminine has been always in a
sense at that forefront. Remember the movie Hidden Figures, you know,
(23:52):
try it this way, what about this way? And you
know there's there's just myriad examples of this. They just
don't get written up so much in in history, I think, right,
but there's always been that person that will venture, which
takes a lot of courage sometimes into the depths, go
(24:13):
from the other side of the iceberg and start studying
it from that side. And it's hard to it's hard
to put it in paper, it's hard to explain it,
and you know, it's hard to teach it in a
class et cetera.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
But that's the.
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Beauty of it, you know, it's it is the beauty
of the unknown, of that if there's a way. Obviously,
with instruments, like Mark said, you can't we can't see it.
We can't measure it with our current sort of electromagnetic
based instruments and so on. We can't see it with
our eyes and everything. But the exploration of it through
(24:47):
these other means, which is truly, in the opinion of
my teachers and everything I've learned, essentially dominated by that
feminine side, you know, of our of our own brain,
of every but he's brain, you know, the artistic, the poetic,
the you know, and so but the two come together.
The beauty of this discussion and the way Mark looks
(25:12):
at a teaching where he is in his institution, Yeah,
and you know, and then someone like me, who you know,
does not have an institution, basically is that at some
point it will increasingly come together, just like in a
good visionary scientist's brain, the left and the right start
(25:34):
to start to dance with each other.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
And I think, you know, in physics and sort of
the most traditional sciences, so the hard sciences, in some sense,
you know, we don't embrace that enough. And I think
we don't really embrace it. I guess it's probably too
hard to say we don't acknowledge, but we don't. But
in some sense we don't. We don't acknowledge the sort
(25:58):
of the females side of the brain, as you put it.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And that's what we're going to do here with this.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
So I mean, yeah, because we're running to roadblow. I mean,
it's it's a limiting it's it's limiting our ability to
really have a fundamental sort of understanding. And you know,
if I go even further, it's like, why do we
want a fundamental understanding? I mean it's in some sense
it's it's human nature to want to understand ourselves, our universe,
and our place around it. But you know, in some sense,
(26:27):
you know, because this has traditionally been sort of a
male dominated field, you know, we kind of believe that
by understanding something, we can control it. And that's, you know,
I guess partially where this has come from. And I
don't think it's a coincidence that we refer to nature
as mother nature or as female. You know, nature is
(26:47):
something to be controlled or understood. I mean it's I
think all these sort of emerged from a sort of
male dominated way of thinking about how we need to
understand ourselves and.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
Human sort of exclusive rather than inclusive, which you know,
really right, more fear base, which is control versus love base.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
Oh, it's definitely fear based.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And what do you think we could do to It's
kind of a lifelong mission probably to crack these fields
open and welcome more women, more creativity. Maybe do we
need to make it more glamorous? What I don't know,
I mean in permission.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
So my observations have been that women that are interested
in physics tend to get put off early. And this
could be you know, in high school or in early
college where it's still taught from a sort of dry,
male dominated perspective. And so I think, you know that
(27:41):
needs to change. And I think, you know, there are
obviously some exceptions, some realiant, brilliant women have sort of
overcome those barriers and then you know, done extremely well.
Pay All being one, she's now directed General Ancern. But
you know these are too few and far between. I mean,
I think we have to, you know, I think the
roadblocks are still there in some sense. You know, I'm
(28:02):
seeing it in my own kids. I mean I have
the perfect experiment. I have, you know, a boy girl
eleven year old twins, and I can see how they
how they think differently. But I've already noticed that although
the school they go to is very nurturing and is
sort of promoting stem for girls, my daughter is still
(28:23):
somehow from just absorbing the idea that she shouldn't be
good at science, right, And you know, I don't see
that with my son. You know, she's probably way better.
I mean, she's got a very got amazing intuition, but
she's somehow is already sort of absorbed from her, you know,
(28:44):
her surroundings from society in some sense that she's not
supposed to be very good at science. And you know,
I of course try to correct that, but it's but
it's not something that I think just simple actions can do.
It's a societal thing. I think it's you know, prevalent
and persistent throughout society, just the way society is right now.
(29:06):
And I think the changes that that really have to
be quite revolutionary. I think if we're going to really
do that, you know, we can sort of help women
succeed in physics, but we also need proper role models.
I mean, you know, I can can promote and be
sort of an ally, but you know, I will admit
that I won't be I'm not the perfect model, role
(29:26):
model or mentor for a woman science. It needs to
be a woman that's encountered the barriers that I have
not encountered.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And it's hard to talk about it. Even when I
was a pretty good baby scientist, but I would run
into all sorts of weird men at science fairs and
I just I didn't know how to say, oh, yeah,
well guess what I'm going to do it anyway, I
just didn't know. So your daughter's so lucky that she
has you. And then we're going to find I wish
(29:55):
we could talk to a thousand Well maybe we'll do
a thousand episodes. We'll talk to every woman at turn,
but you're gonna find us the best coolest women to
talk to, and that's cern and we can find out
how they persevered. Or because I know a lot of
women too, they've been told they were crazy right when
they had an idea or went down the road. Is
(30:17):
it Andrea Guez who won the Astronomy Nobel Prize recently,
or there was some other women in Arizona right with
the telescopes who they were out there on their own.
And you've got to be a really courageous strong person
to keep going with your ideas and especially now the
way the world is, it's just like it's And maybe
we should make our own Iheartcerned Podcast Award, or we
(30:41):
should do something like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket to
Cern to help. You know, and because you guys are
so special that how much you've helped me, it's just
such a gift the way you look at the world,
both of you, that you just really encourage originality and
exploration and intuition and imagining. So John Away, is not
(31:02):
the name of your book dreaming, what is it dreaming a.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
New dreaming your world and to being.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, so that's really fantastic, isn't it to be able
to use your imagination to create a new world? And
hopefully we will all be working together in our lifetime
to build a world that we created from our intuition
and evaluation imagination.
Speaker 5 (31:28):
Right. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
I think it starts, you know, with each individual that
can recognize the beauty and the power and the strength
of the feminine within them.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
Right.
Speaker 6 (31:40):
So, I think what makes Mark extraordinary? And I think
I was sort of always this way as a child.
I have two brothers, but I was I always thought
I was like my mom's only daughter. Right, So what
that meant was, you know what that meant was I
had you know, I had a strong and she was
(32:03):
a great example. And I think, and that's that's a
large part of it, Like you said, a great, great, powerful,
strong female examples who aren't that by being more on
their masculine side either, but really embracing the feminine. And
and so I've always had a strong appreciation and acknowledgment
of the feminine within me right, feelings, emotions, expression, art, music, poetry, dance, ceremony, ritual,
(32:33):
the subconscious, the magic, the miracles, the synchronicities, the things
that happen in life that the left brain, the masculine
side of the brain doesn't have to understand. Like it's
okay to not to kind of wrap your head around that,
but to just you know.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Sit with it.
Speaker 6 (32:53):
And it does take courage. You know, when I would
go to the Amazon and explore these things in the
middle of the Madre de Dios, Mother of God river,
think about that for a second, you know, on this
little island and in ceremony in the middle of the night,
and I knew there was a jaguar just inside the
bushes beyond the beach, and I really tested, you know,
(33:16):
I appreciate fear. I believe it's normal to be fearful
and be shaking. And I walked up to the edge
and I realized I was shaking because there's a jaguar
right there, probably and I can't see it. It's unknown,
I don't know. And yet I've just tried to practice
Can I stand here anyway, even in my fear, or
can I even walk further in?
Speaker 5 (33:35):
You know?
Speaker 6 (33:35):
Can I practice courage?
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Right?
Speaker 6 (33:37):
And so if each individual learns to practice courage with
the feminine in them, with that, with that dive into
you know, the the unknown or the unexplainable, then I
think we have a chance. And this is men and women, right,
I think I think we have a chance to begin
(34:00):
to have that more of that and more people than
rising up through institutions or businesses or policy bodies, the whole,
you know everything, And then we then we have a chance,
you know, I think then we are being good role
models for young girls and boys who need to embrace
(34:25):
that within them so that they can embrace it in
women as it were. Brilliant and LGBTQ, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
So much to think about right, you guys both inspired
me so much? Would that be? Okay? I promised I
will pierson at iHeart we'd find our special ieheart particle,
which is interesting because iHeart concern. You know, they're both
like the hearts. Could we talk to you brilliant guys
further and hopefully we can cook up a time to
(34:53):
come tocern and we can look at all these ideas
further and how we can step out and also inspire
and make this fun.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Yeah, I think it'd be great to do this again.
You know. That's I mean, there's there's lots of questions,
and you know, I've loved hearing from from John. I'd
love I've got a lot of questions. Now I think
we should we should we should make it almos a
program out of this. I think, you know, there are
different ways of approaching things, and you know, I think
solutions to all these sort of complex problems and broadly
(35:24):
really require different and more diverse approaches. So I think
it's just the recognition of that and so good. Yeah,
so a great discussion to continue.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Okay, well, so we better we better let these two
geniuses go, But how about we I like the idea
of creating a contest or something that somehow we got
to crack that nut open so that you know, girls
and well anyone would actually think of particle physics. That
could be a career. I could actually work on the
(35:57):
large Hadron collider. I mean we were even considered this.
I mean, maybe girls now are considering more than what
I was considering when I was young, but how amazing.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
Maybe more but still not enough.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
We're gonna shake it up. We're gonna have our own revolution.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Always going to be work to do right decades.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Well, we gotta hurry though, we don't have that much time.
So okay, I will be bringing you two brilliant gentlemen again,
and we will on the path back to Cern. We're
gonna go revisit the God particle. And uh, it would
be my honor and pleasure to talk to both of
you again and get to the crux of this.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
It's fun, been fun talking with talking to you too, John.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
Yeah, you too, Market. I was going to ask about
your family, because obviously they were three when we met last,
and now they're practically teenagers, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
His house got struck, His house got struck by lightning.
And then he just said a tree fell on his garage, so.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
I don't know. So the side of the side of
my carriage got hit by lightning and throw the power out.
And then just as it was repaired, literally a tree
fell down and the end of the tree hit the
same place where the lightning at the side of the garage.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Right there you go. What's the probability of that. Well,
we're gonna have about on our next little chat. Well
we'll give Mark one hundred dumb questions. Maybe we'll even
have some people calling with dumb questions. No such thing, remember,
five favorite guys. Thank you so much. All right, thank
(37:38):
you by chow wow.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I love these discussions. What do you think? I love
how Mark always reminds us that all interpretations are valid,
that we know only five percent of the universe, and
that there are no dumb questions. I also love that
John encourages us to open our hearts, follow our intuition,
and realize that we are all connected. We'll be sure
(38:02):
to have them back on future episodes for more cool thoughts. Indeed,
thank you.
Speaker 6 (38:07):
For joining me.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
If you have any questions, any questions at all, I
really do want to know your thoughts, so please email
us at omgpspod at gmail dot com and I will
get the brainy acs here concern to answer them. Until
next time, remember keep looking up, stay positively charged. We
are the stars. Goodbye for now, Adios arivederci a feutersen abiento.
(38:35):
Catch us next week for another installment of my enlightening
conversations with these geniuses.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Excel. There is an extremely chair.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
This podcast may sun disappear at any time. Esewhere will
not be responsible. Thanks for listening to my podcast and
please come see my play the Oh My God Particle
show running from August second to twenty seventh, except August
(39:12):
fifteenth at Gilded Balloons at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival twenty
twenty three. I'm going to be posting all the information
on my Instagram at Dahlia Wild Official. Stay tuned for
more details about more OMGPS live theater shows in London, Geneva,
New York City.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
La outer Space, Who Knows.
Speaker 4 (39:32):
Thank you for all your support
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.