December 3, 2025 • 29 mins
It won the Nobel Prize in 2025, but what is it and what can you do with it? Jorge talks to one of the Nobel Prize winners to get the inside scoop.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, please take a second and leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast.
Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome to Science Stuff production of iHeartRadio.
I'm horhitch Ham, and today we're doing the impossible. We
are going to basically teleport through walls, and we're going
(00:22):
to do this using something called quantum tunneling, which is
a phenomenon that's being used to make quantum computers a reality.
Today we're going to talk to a couple of physicists
about this, including one of the people who want the
Nobel Price this year for this technology. I'm going to
ask him what it was like to win and what
advice he has for future scientists to get ready to
(00:44):
tunnel to the quantum world. As we answer the question
what is quantum tunneling? Hey, everyone, Today we're taking another
trip to the quantum world. We've talked before about what
a quantum computer is and how it might basically make
passwords and things like cryptocurrency totally useless. Today we are
(01:07):
covering how those quantum computers are being made, and most
of the big ones, like the ones at Google and Amazon,
use something called macroscopic quantum tunneling. So we're going to
explore what that is. And the cool thing is that,
thanks to a collaboration with Physics magazine, we're going to
talk to one of the people who won the Nobel
Prize for it this year. But before we do that,
(01:30):
I reached out to doctor Shohini Ghosch, a professor of
physics and computer science at Wilfred Laurier University and the
chief Technology officer at the Quantum Algorithms Institute in Canada.
I asked her to help us explain what quantum and
quantum tunneling are. Well, thank you, doctor Ghosh for talking
with me.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm glad too, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
So maybe for those of us who are not familiar,
how do you describe what quantum is?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, so, quantum mechanics is actually the theory that underpins
the behavior of fundamental particles and light in the universe. So,
for example, if you look at the periodic table, there's
a whole bunch of elements, but all of those items
are also built up of fundamental particles like electrons. And
if you look at the nucleus, there are particles within
(02:18):
the nucleus too. Every single such microscopic particle in the
universe we can actually describe using this amazing theory called
quantum mechanics, and we can describe even particles of light,
which we call photons. So essentially this is our description
of all the matter and energy in the universe.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
It's no big deal, right, That's a small theory. I
guess you could say, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
The other important thing I'd wanted to say about quantum
mechanics is that we feel like this might be something
not connected to our everyday lives. But think about one
of those very very important elements in that periodic table,
which is silicon. Understanding silicon is essentially why we now
have Silicon Valley, semiconductor industry, all of our electronics, all
(03:01):
the devices we use every day. So it's actually part
of our lives. And we've been involved in this amazing
technology revolution which started back one hundred years ago when
this theory was first developed.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Amazing and phones are definitely a big part of my
teenagers's lives. Maybe sometimes too.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Much, that's true, There could be too much quantum mechanics
in some people's lives.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay, So things at the level of super small particles
act very differently from what we experience in our everyday lives.
They have strange properties that you might have heard of before,
like the idea that you can never tell exactly where
they are and where they're going. That's called the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle. Or that they have a probability of being
(03:47):
in several places at the same time. That's called superposition.
And there's something called entanglement, which is the idea that
these weird quantum properties can spread out when you mix
different quantum things together. Well, a result of some of
these properties is something called quantum tunneling.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So quantum tunneling is a very very fundamental property that's
part of this model, and what it is is it
describes the behavior of these quantum particles. It's kind of
like walking through walls. I don't advise anybody to try
it in our real world, but yes, electrons and other
quantum particles can do it, and that's quantum tunneling.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Okay, here's how doctor Goes explains what quantum tunneling is.
Let's say you're standing in front of a mountain. Now
you are where you are, but if you were a
quantum particle, where you're going to be is kind of fuzzy.
There's a probability that you're going to be one meter
ahead of you, and another probability that you're going to
be two meters ahead or three meters behind. That cloud
(04:48):
of possibilities is called a wave function. You can think
of it as kind of a fog or a cloud
that hovers around you that tells you where you might
be next. Well, mathematically, part of that cloud could be
on the other side of that mountain in front of you.
Your wave function can sort of leak to the other side,
and so there's a wisp of a possibility that's where
(05:10):
you're going to be next. So if you stand in
front of that mountain long enough or enough times, you
might suddenly find yourself appearing on the other side without
having to climb the mountain.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
If that electron doesn't have that energy, then it shouldn't
be able to climb to the top of the mountain,
and yet it can make it to the other side.
So this very surprising way to somehow be able to
not have the energy and still be able to walk
through the mountain because there's no way it can climb
to the top since it doesn't have the energy. That's
what quantum tunneling is. It's like if we walk through
(05:45):
the mountain.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Or it's like we created a tunnel through the mountain
that's not really there. It's a quantum tunnel exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
There's actually no probability of being inside the mountain.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, this is the strange part. It's not like you
or the particle go through the mountain, because if you do,
that would mean you're inside the mountain at some point.
It really is like you just appear on the other side.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What's really weird about this quantum tunnel is that if
you ever try to observe this particle tunneling through this mountain,
you'll never find it actually ever spending any time inside
the mountains. It's either on one side or the other,
but it's never actually in the mountain. So that's what
makes it even weirder. Okay, every time you think quantum
(06:31):
is not weird, it gets even weirder.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Okay, you might be wondering at this point, like I was,
how is this possible? How can something just be on
one side of the mountain in one moment and then
be on the other side of the mountain in the
next moment. That seems impossible. Well, interestingly, that's something not
even people who study quantum physics all their lives can't explain. Well,
why do I have a probability of being on the
(06:57):
other side of the mountain If it's impossible.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, I'm not saying is the next instance. It could
take some time before you find the particle on the
other side, but what it's doing during that time is
not to dwell inside the mountain. When you say, why
does it do it?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That is the.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Great mystery of quantum mechanics. Our theory tells us that
this is how the description when we go and do experiments,
so when we go and measure it, we can confirm
whether the theory is correct or not. So in a way,
the universe is showing us that this is how it works.
In this universe, these kinds of robberties are possible and
(07:31):
we can observe it. And if all this sounds very confusing,
it's okay because I think quantum scientists and physicists since
the early nineteen hundreds, this is something physicists have also
debated about. Is this particle actually just disappearing and appearing
on two sides of a barrier? How come it doesn't
spend time in the barrier. These are still things that
(07:52):
we are grappling with.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So not even Einstein figured out what it all means.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
No, I think Einstein was always deeply disturbed the implications
of this serial.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
He wasn't able to quantum tunnel out of No, that's
good work.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yes, he was unable to.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Okay, two recap. This is what quantum tunneling is. It's
a phenomenon that you see quantum particles like electrons or protons,
where if you have a particle that's up against a
wall or some kind of energy barrier, that particle can
sort of tunnel through that wall and appear on the
other side if there is a mathematical probability that it
(08:30):
can do that. Even though it may seem physically impossible,
physicists aren't quite sure how it happens, but it does,
and it's all around us. It's what makes scanning tunneling
microscopes work. And flash memory, which basically every phone and
computer in the world uses. Flash memory works by pushing
electrons to quantum tunnel in and out of little electronic
(08:54):
cages that are completely insulated. When an electron is inside
the cage, it's storing in of one and it stays
there until you quantum tunnel it out. The device you're
using right now most likely uses quantum tunneling to store
the audio file you're listening to right now. And all
of this raises two questions. One, if quantum particles can
(09:16):
tunnel through walls and barriers, could bigger objects do it too?
And two, if bigger things can do this tunneling, what
can you do with them? Well, as it turns out,
this year's Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to three
scientists who prove that this is possible and who are
using it to make quantum computers. So when we come back,
(09:38):
we're going to talk to one of the winners to
hear how they did it, and I'm going to ask
them what's it like to win a Nobel prize. Stay
with us, we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
We're talking about quantum tunneling, which is something that happens
in the quantum world. Small particles like electrons can sort
of tunnel through walls and appear on the other side
of them, almost by magic. And as I mentioned, it's
what's used in scanning tunneling microscopes to take pictures of
extremely small things, and it's how flash memory in your
phone and computers work now. For a long time, people
(10:25):
thought that this strange behavior could only happen for small
particles like single electrons or protons, and that once you
got to bigger things, things made of millions or billions
of particles, this behavior couldn't happen because of something called decoherence,
which basically means the quantum information is lost. But in
nineteen eighty four, three physicists at the University of California
(10:48):
at Berkeley showed that this assumption was wrong, and for
that this year they got the Nobel Prize in Physics.
To tell us what happened, here's doctor John Martinez, one
of the three Pece people who won the price. Well,
thank you so much, doctor Martinez for joining us. It's
such a pleasure and an honor to be speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Could you tell us just generally who you are and
what do you do?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, okay, John Martinez. I've been a physicist researching quantum
devices quantum computing for many decades. Right now, I was
a professor at UC Santa Barbara. I've retired recently. I
also worked for the Google Quantum AI team until about
twenty twenty and for a couple of years. Now I've
(11:34):
started my own company called Collab, and I'm the chief
technology officer and we're just basically trying to build a
useful quantum computer.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It sounds like you're very busy.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Ah, yes, I'm super busy right now after the Nobel Prize.
But it's been nice, it's been wonderful. I can't complain.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
What was it like to receive the announcement that you
had won the prize?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Well, I wasn't expecting it at all, and this I
was just so busy. I knew something was coming up,
but I then thought about the date or anything. And
actually my wife found out about it through email. She
was up late and then she let me sleep in
till five thirty in the morning, which I love my wife.
(12:16):
She knows exactly what I need. I need my sleep. Yeah,
And then she just woke me up in bed and said, hey,
there's some reporters outside you want to talk to you.
And it was like, what, okay, you know, so I
looked on I opened my computer and you know, lo
and behold with John Clark and Michelle Deverey, and there
was the announcement with me, So that was just a
(12:38):
great honor. And it just took a kind of stunned
for a few minutes and kind of got ready and
I talked to some reporters. He showed up early in
the morning to film me and get my immediate reaction
and the like. But yeah, it's you do science because
it's great, it's interesting. There's an artistic element to it.
(13:00):
There's a communication element, answering questions all that's really fun.
But you know, getting this award is an honor, not
not something one should expect. Okay, that's the best way
to approach it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Amazing live go back to you when you first did
the experiment, right, and I believe at the time quantum
tunneling had been proven for small particles electrons, that was
well known. To take us back to before you did
the experiment, somebody had proposed that it might be possible
to prove quantum properties in more complicated systems, but it
(13:33):
was a big unknown. What were you thinking at the
time you and your colleagues.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
First of all, I decided to join John Clark's group
as a graduate student. That was in nineteen eighty because
he was already doing experiments seeing quantum noise effects in
electrical devices. And I thought this was really fascinating because
I liked electronics. I like devices, that was my hobby
(13:57):
and whatever, and of course quantum mechanics fascinating. So I
went to a conference down in UCLA and it was
clear people were talking about it was really interesting, but
people really didn't understand the experiment very well yet.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Oh what was the question?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Well, the question was could you see this macroscopic quantum
tunneling effect?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Okay, here's the question, doctor Martinez, doctor John Clark, and
doctor Michelle Deveray. Where tackling was could you get something
bigger than an electron, maybe something millions of times bigger
to quantum tunnel So instead of having one electron passing
through a wall and appearing on the other side, could
you get a whole bunch of them acting together to
(14:41):
tunnel through.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And at the time, it was just murky and not
very clear in the light. And I remember talking to
John Clark about that and he said, yeah, well, there
were some experiments that are already done, but you know,
if we're going to do this, we're going to have
to do something new.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
How did you go about designing this experiment? He said,
something new was needed.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So what the experiment is very simple. You'll have this
weak link adjosin junction and you put current through it,
so in some condition it looks like a superconductor. And
then as you raise the current more and more, at
some point it switches to the voltage state. Okay, it
looks like a normal metal wire.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
This is a little hard to explain, but it's basically
the same picture we had before. Imagine a wire where
you have electrons flowing through it, but now in the
middle of the wire you put up a wall, a
thin piece of something that doesn't conduct electricity. So now
the electrons can flow through the wire unless the quantum
tunnel through the wall. Now, as I mentioned, getting one
(15:44):
electron to quantum tunnel through is not that hard. Happens
all the time on the flash memory of your phone.
But that's only one electron at a time. To get
more than one electron tunnel at the same time, you
need to make the wire a super conduct.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
All the electrons in a normal mettle are kind of
moving around independently. But what happens is when you go
into the superconducting state, they lock together and it's like
they condense into what it's called a BCS state. Then
it behaves like a single it's a ball if you like.
(16:24):
So you really needed the superconducting state to see a
macroscopic state.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
This gets a bit technical, but if you make your
wire a superconductor by making it out of a special
material and making it super cold, then all the electrons
and the wire start to sort of bunch together and
they get linked in a quantum mechanical way so that
they act like one giant electron. And that's what doctor
Martinez and his colleagues were able to show. Can quantum
(16:53):
tunnel not just one electron or a pair of electrons,
but a synchronized blob of millions of electrons. Now the
secret sauce here was two things. One they added some
new bells and whistles to the experiment that nobody had
tried before, better filters in a microwave resonator. And two
they had a lot of moxie. I love to ask
(17:18):
you about the moment of discovery.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Well, the moment of discovery was when we did this
initial experiment it didn't work, and then we discovered how
to fix it, and then we got it to work,
and that's when we really felt we were going to
get this to work. And then it just took a
lot of effort to get it to work and understand everything.
It took some time to get there, but you just
(17:41):
did experiment after experiment and it made.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Sense interesting, and so you didn't give up. Do you
remember that moment where you're lifted on You're like, oh,
it's working.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, I kind of remember that, the one of this
initial experiment us being very pleased with that. The one
moment I do remember is we were just from turning
on that sample, cooled it down, I set it up,
and I had an assilloscope that was tracing when it
switched from the zero voltage to the vaulted state, and
(18:10):
I could see those three peaks. Okay, up until then,
I only saw one peak. Those three peaks are just
the smoking gun of quantum mechanics, to have three distinct
frequencies in this system, and that's a property of quantum
mechanics that tells you there's something very unusual going on
with this kind of wave nature. Okay, there's something you know,
(18:33):
really quantum going on there. But when I saw those
three peaks. I knew that when I analyzed the data,
this would be a totally clear explanation what was going on.
So I do remember the joy of seeing that and
knowing that you know, this would be the really conclusive
proof that it was the main quantum mechanics.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
So that's the story of a Nobel Price winning discovery. Next,
we're gonna talk about what was so significant about this
discovery and how it's creating a boom in the rays
to create the first really functional quantum computer. Stay with us,
we'll be right back, and we're back. We're talking about
(19:31):
quantum tunneling. And we just heard one of the winners
of this year's Nobel Prize in physics describe how he
and his colleagues were able to prove that the weird
properties of quantum physics don't just happen at the level
of single particles like electrons or protons. If you set
things up right, you can see quantum properties in bigger objects,
big enough to hold in your hand. Now the question
(19:53):
is what can you do with that. Here's Professor Shohini Coach.
So we've been talking about fundamental and small particles, but
this year's Nobel Price went to a quantum tunneling of
bigger things, things that are bigger than microscopic objects exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So the reason that this was an important step was
not because this was anything new about tunneling. This was
something that was perhaps the next step in a long
series of theoretical and experimental studies that were exploring quantum effects.
But all of those were being done at that very
(20:31):
very small, individual particle level. So measuring the current generated
by one electron is extremely difficult, but measuring the current
generated by a million is a million times higher current,
So that immediately makes the engineering piece much much easier.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well, first of all, thank you for making things easier
for engineers. I'm an engineer. We always appreciate when the
physical world is easier to design for.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So I think the big advance was it led to
this new possibility of creating devices and doing engineering at
a larger scale, and that would lead to technologies for
the future, and that's really what happened.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
So the big breakthrough here is in making it easier
to make quantum devices. As we said, quantum objects have
some strange properties that almost seem like magic, and before
this discovery, we thought the only way to make them
was by handling and manipulating hiny, little fragile particles or
individual atoms. But what doctor Martinez and his colleagues discovered
(21:35):
was that you can get that same quantum magic with
larger objects that are easier to work with and put together.
And one of the biggest applications so far is in
making quantum computers. If you're interested in learning more about
quantum computers, we did a whole episode on them earlier
this year, so check that out. But the main takeaway
(21:55):
is that quantum computers could be used for lots of
interesting applications, including breaking encryption, which would make all your
passwords and all that cryptocurrency out there useless. And the
idea here is that you can build quantum computers using
the very same devices that the Nobel Price winning researchers made.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
This became the basis for creating all kinds of devices,
the most important of those being what we call these
quantum computing devices that are new types of computers that
use these superconducting circuits as a fundamental unit of what
we call a quantum bit, which is, like, you know,
we have regular bits that drive our regular computers. Quantum
(22:39):
bits are what are driving our quantum computers. So big
companies now like IBM and Google and others are using
that same idea to build out these quantum devices.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
So this has led to an enormous field of people
trying to build the quantum computer. Right now, there are
a few thousand people who are trying to build the
super conducting quantum computer.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Now here's an interesting historical fact. The idea to use
this super conducting circuit doctor Martinez and his colleagues made
for quantum computers may have been sparked by a chance
encounter with none other than the famous physicist Richard Feynman.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
So you're demonstrated your artificial atoms that can be connected
by and controlled by wires.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
That's Matterini, the editor of Physics magazine.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Was very clear in your mind, Oh, this is going
to be a cute bit. I'm going to make quantum computers.
I remember reading somewhere you were at a conference where
Fineman was presenting his quantum computing ideas.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Yeah, that's right. At the end of my PhD, I
came to Santa Barbara for a conference and they were
talking about this physics and then Viinman gave a talk
where he kind of talked about a quantum computer, and yeah,
it was clear that this was really interesting and this
would be something physicists would love to figure out how
(23:56):
to do. And then it wasn't until the Factory Now
algorithm by Peter Shore, which is the beginning of the nineties,
that people saw that there was a way to do this,
or at least a motivation to do this. And then
sometime after that there was a funding going on so
that when the funding was available, we could start doing
(24:17):
things pretty effectively.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Actually, doctor Martinez has been at the forefront of making
quantum computers.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Now these systems can now form quantum bits, and we
can build these systems and make a quantum computer out
of it. And you know, I've been doing this for
forty years now, and it took, you know, many decades.
And the big culmination of all this was in twenty
nineteen when I was working for Google. We did this
(24:44):
quantum supremacy experiment of fifty three cubits where we showed
for a very mathematical problem that we could do a
quantum calculation that would be very very difficult, very costly
to simulate with a classical super So we show that
a quantum computer was powerful. Eventually, if we build a
(25:05):
useful quantum computer, this is going to be used to
solve real problems, and it might be part of artificial
intelligence and helping with large language models kind of things.
I'm thinking about how we can simulate chemistry and materials,
maybe to use materials that are more ecologically mind or
cheaper to mind, so that these new materials can be
(25:28):
more common for people. That would be quite the benefit
to humanity.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
All Right, you magically appeared at the end of the episode.
Hopefully that'd give you a good sense of what this
strange quantum phenomenon is, how it impacts your everyday life,
and how it might change your future. So the next
time you use your phone or a computer, think about
the mountain of challenges that scientists and engineers had to
tunnel through to get to the other side. Thanks for
(25:56):
joining us, See you next time you've been listening to
science stuff. Production of iHeartRadio written and produced by me
or Y cham dited by Rose Seguda, executive producer Jerry Rowland,
and audio engineer and mixer Kasey Pegram And you can
follow me on social media to search for PhD comics
(26:18):
and the name of your favorite platform. Be sure to
subscribe to Science Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts, and please tell your
friends we'll be back next Wednesday with another episode. Hey
for a post credits bonus. I thought i'd played for
you two interesting moments in our conversation with doctor John Martinez.
(26:40):
After all, it's not every day you get to interview
a Nobel Prize winner. The first moment is when I
asked him what it was like to make this Nobel
Prize winning discovery as a graduate student and what advice
he has for future young scientists. And after that, I'll
play you the moment doctor Martinez said he learned something
new from me. I mean, it's definitely not every day
(27:03):
you get to teach a Nobel Price winner anything enjoy.
I'm interested in the idea that you were a graduate
student when you did this work. I think that's a
little rare. What was your state of mind back then
as a graduate student? Were you even dreaming of a
Nobel Prize or were you just interested in the problem
in front of you?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
No.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Bell Prize is just so unobtainable, even if you're super smart,
it's not a goal anyone should have. But what a
goal one should have is to do a good thesis experiment. Okay,
you know I went to the conference and people were
talking about it. It seemed absolutely fascinating because it was
answering a very fundamental question. I don't know why lots
(27:44):
of other people didn't jump on it, but you know,
John was kind of set up to jump on it
because he was looking at quantum effects and devices at
the times. And I would say also the funding at
that time. He had enough general funding so that we
could just do it. So it was very lucky about that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Amazing. Well, you've been super generous with your time, John.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
It's fun and I liked it very much because I
think I have a better way to describe how tonly works.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Wait, what was the new way to explain it that
you came up with today.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Oh, it's the fact that you just think about going
through a wall, it's going to take energy to get
inside that wall. You can think of as an energy
argument why you bounce off.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Meaning you have to push your way through the.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You have to push your way through and there's some
force and you know it's just not going to do
that However, quant mechanically, you can borrow the energy to
get through that for a short amount of time, and
then if you go through the wall in that short
amount of time, then you can pay back the energy
and you're okay. So that's the way to explain it.
That's great, and we should work on this in the comics.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah. You know, if you send me like doodles, like
napkin doodles or any kind of doodles, I can't.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Well, I'm too busy now to do that because besides
doing all the nobel things, I have to go to
Washington next week to meet with people and talk about quantum,
and I'm trying to raise money for my company. I
have like three or four jobs right now, so I
can add the job of a cartoonist.
Hey, please take a second and leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast.
Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome to Science Stuff production of iHeartRadio.
I'm horhitch Ham, and today we're doing the impossible. We
are going to basically teleport through walls, and we're going
(00:22):
to do this using something called quantum tunneling, which is
a phenomenon that's being used to make quantum computers a reality.
Today we're going to talk to a couple of physicists
about this, including one of the people who want the
Nobel Price this year for this technology. I'm going to
ask him what it was like to win and what
advice he has for future scientists to get ready to
(00:44):
tunnel to the quantum world. As we answer the question
what is quantum tunneling? Hey, everyone, Today we're taking another
trip to the quantum world. We've talked before about what
a quantum computer is and how it might basically make
passwords and things like cryptocurrency totally useless. Today we are
(01:07):
covering how those quantum computers are being made, and most
of the big ones, like the ones at Google and Amazon,
use something called macroscopic quantum tunneling. So we're going to
explore what that is. And the cool thing is that,
thanks to a collaboration with Physics magazine, we're going to
talk to one of the people who won the Nobel
Prize for it this year. But before we do that,
(01:30):
I reached out to doctor Shohini Ghosch, a professor of
physics and computer science at Wilfred Laurier University and the
chief Technology officer at the Quantum Algorithms Institute in Canada.
I asked her to help us explain what quantum and
quantum tunneling are. Well, thank you, doctor Ghosh for talking
with me.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm glad too, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
So maybe for those of us who are not familiar,
how do you describe what quantum is?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, so, quantum mechanics is actually the theory that underpins
the behavior of fundamental particles and light in the universe. So,
for example, if you look at the periodic table, there's
a whole bunch of elements, but all of those items
are also built up of fundamental particles like electrons. And
if you look at the nucleus, there are particles within
(02:18):
the nucleus too. Every single such microscopic particle in the
universe we can actually describe using this amazing theory called
quantum mechanics, and we can describe even particles of light,
which we call photons. So essentially this is our description
of all the matter and energy in the universe.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
It's no big deal, right, That's a small theory. I
guess you could say, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
The other important thing I'd wanted to say about quantum
mechanics is that we feel like this might be something
not connected to our everyday lives. But think about one
of those very very important elements in that periodic table,
which is silicon. Understanding silicon is essentially why we now
have Silicon Valley, semiconductor industry, all of our electronics, all
(03:01):
the devices we use every day. So it's actually part
of our lives. And we've been involved in this amazing
technology revolution which started back one hundred years ago when
this theory was first developed.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Amazing and phones are definitely a big part of my
teenagers's lives. Maybe sometimes too.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Much, that's true, There could be too much quantum mechanics
in some people's lives.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay, So things at the level of super small particles
act very differently from what we experience in our everyday lives.
They have strange properties that you might have heard of before,
like the idea that you can never tell exactly where
they are and where they're going. That's called the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle. Or that they have a probability of being
(03:47):
in several places at the same time. That's called superposition.
And there's something called entanglement, which is the idea that
these weird quantum properties can spread out when you mix
different quantum things together. Well, a result of some of
these properties is something called quantum tunneling.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So quantum tunneling is a very very fundamental property that's
part of this model, and what it is is it
describes the behavior of these quantum particles. It's kind of
like walking through walls. I don't advise anybody to try
it in our real world, but yes, electrons and other
quantum particles can do it, and that's quantum tunneling.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Okay, here's how doctor Goes explains what quantum tunneling is.
Let's say you're standing in front of a mountain. Now
you are where you are, but if you were a
quantum particle, where you're going to be is kind of fuzzy.
There's a probability that you're going to be one meter
ahead of you, and another probability that you're going to
be two meters ahead or three meters behind. That cloud
(04:48):
of possibilities is called a wave function. You can think
of it as kind of a fog or a cloud
that hovers around you that tells you where you might
be next. Well, mathematically, part of that cloud could be
on the other side of that mountain in front of you.
Your wave function can sort of leak to the other side,
and so there's a wisp of a possibility that's where
(05:10):
you're going to be next. So if you stand in
front of that mountain long enough or enough times, you
might suddenly find yourself appearing on the other side without
having to climb the mountain.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
If that electron doesn't have that energy, then it shouldn't
be able to climb to the top of the mountain,
and yet it can make it to the other side.
So this very surprising way to somehow be able to
not have the energy and still be able to walk
through the mountain because there's no way it can climb
to the top since it doesn't have the energy. That's
what quantum tunneling is. It's like if we walk through
(05:45):
the mountain.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Or it's like we created a tunnel through the mountain
that's not really there. It's a quantum tunnel exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
There's actually no probability of being inside the mountain.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Okay, this is the strange part. It's not like you
or the particle go through the mountain, because if you do,
that would mean you're inside the mountain at some point.
It really is like you just appear on the other side.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What's really weird about this quantum tunnel is that if
you ever try to observe this particle tunneling through this mountain,
you'll never find it actually ever spending any time inside
the mountains. It's either on one side or the other,
but it's never actually in the mountain. So that's what
makes it even weirder. Okay, every time you think quantum
(06:31):
is not weird, it gets even weirder.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Okay, you might be wondering at this point, like I was,
how is this possible? How can something just be on
one side of the mountain in one moment and then
be on the other side of the mountain in the
next moment. That seems impossible. Well, interestingly, that's something not
even people who study quantum physics all their lives can't explain. Well,
why do I have a probability of being on the
(06:57):
other side of the mountain If it's impossible.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, I'm not saying is the next instance. It could
take some time before you find the particle on the
other side, but what it's doing during that time is
not to dwell inside the mountain. When you say, why
does it do it?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That is the.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Great mystery of quantum mechanics. Our theory tells us that
this is how the description when we go and do experiments,
so when we go and measure it, we can confirm
whether the theory is correct or not. So in a way,
the universe is showing us that this is how it works.
In this universe, these kinds of robberties are possible and
(07:31):
we can observe it. And if all this sounds very confusing,
it's okay because I think quantum scientists and physicists since
the early nineteen hundreds, this is something physicists have also
debated about. Is this particle actually just disappearing and appearing
on two sides of a barrier? How come it doesn't
spend time in the barrier. These are still things that
(07:52):
we are grappling with.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So not even Einstein figured out what it all means.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
No, I think Einstein was always deeply disturbed the implications
of this serial.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
He wasn't able to quantum tunnel out of No, that's
good work.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yes, he was unable to.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Okay, two recap. This is what quantum tunneling is. It's
a phenomenon that you see quantum particles like electrons or protons,
where if you have a particle that's up against a
wall or some kind of energy barrier, that particle can
sort of tunnel through that wall and appear on the
other side if there is a mathematical probability that it
(08:30):
can do that. Even though it may seem physically impossible,
physicists aren't quite sure how it happens, but it does,
and it's all around us. It's what makes scanning tunneling
microscopes work. And flash memory, which basically every phone and
computer in the world uses. Flash memory works by pushing
electrons to quantum tunnel in and out of little electronic
(08:54):
cages that are completely insulated. When an electron is inside
the cage, it's storing in of one and it stays
there until you quantum tunnel it out. The device you're
using right now most likely uses quantum tunneling to store
the audio file you're listening to right now. And all
of this raises two questions. One, if quantum particles can
(09:16):
tunnel through walls and barriers, could bigger objects do it too?
And two, if bigger things can do this tunneling, what
can you do with them? Well, as it turns out,
this year's Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to three
scientists who prove that this is possible and who are
using it to make quantum computers. So when we come back,
(09:38):
we're going to talk to one of the winners to
hear how they did it, and I'm going to ask
them what's it like to win a Nobel prize. Stay
with us, we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
We're talking about quantum tunneling, which is something that happens
in the quantum world. Small particles like electrons can sort
of tunnel through walls and appear on the other side
of them, almost by magic. And as I mentioned, it's
what's used in scanning tunneling microscopes to take pictures of
extremely small things, and it's how flash memory in your
phone and computers work now. For a long time, people
(10:25):
thought that this strange behavior could only happen for small
particles like single electrons or protons, and that once you
got to bigger things, things made of millions or billions
of particles, this behavior couldn't happen because of something called decoherence,
which basically means the quantum information is lost. But in
nineteen eighty four, three physicists at the University of California
(10:48):
at Berkeley showed that this assumption was wrong, and for
that this year they got the Nobel Prize in Physics.
To tell us what happened, here's doctor John Martinez, one
of the three Pece people who won the price. Well,
thank you so much, doctor Martinez for joining us. It's
such a pleasure and an honor to be speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Could you tell us just generally who you are and
what do you do?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, okay, John Martinez. I've been a physicist researching quantum
devices quantum computing for many decades. Right now, I was
a professor at UC Santa Barbara. I've retired recently. I
also worked for the Google Quantum AI team until about
twenty twenty and for a couple of years. Now I've
(11:34):
started my own company called Collab, and I'm the chief
technology officer and we're just basically trying to build a
useful quantum computer.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It sounds like you're very busy.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Ah, yes, I'm super busy right now after the Nobel Prize.
But it's been nice, it's been wonderful. I can't complain.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
What was it like to receive the announcement that you
had won the prize?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Well, I wasn't expecting it at all, and this I
was just so busy. I knew something was coming up,
but I then thought about the date or anything. And
actually my wife found out about it through email. She
was up late and then she let me sleep in
till five thirty in the morning, which I love my wife.
(12:16):
She knows exactly what I need. I need my sleep. Yeah,
And then she just woke me up in bed and said, hey,
there's some reporters outside you want to talk to you.
And it was like, what, okay, you know, so I
looked on I opened my computer and you know, lo
and behold with John Clark and Michelle Deverey, and there
was the announcement with me, So that was just a
(12:38):
great honor. And it just took a kind of stunned
for a few minutes and kind of got ready and
I talked to some reporters. He showed up early in
the morning to film me and get my immediate reaction
and the like. But yeah, it's you do science because
it's great, it's interesting. There's an artistic element to it.
(13:00):
There's a communication element, answering questions all that's really fun.
But you know, getting this award is an honor, not
not something one should expect. Okay, that's the best way
to approach it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Amazing live go back to you when you first did
the experiment, right, and I believe at the time quantum
tunneling had been proven for small particles electrons, that was
well known. To take us back to before you did
the experiment, somebody had proposed that it might be possible
to prove quantum properties in more complicated systems, but it
(13:33):
was a big unknown. What were you thinking at the
time you and your colleagues.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
First of all, I decided to join John Clark's group
as a graduate student. That was in nineteen eighty because
he was already doing experiments seeing quantum noise effects in
electrical devices. And I thought this was really fascinating because
I liked electronics. I like devices, that was my hobby
(13:57):
and whatever, and of course quantum mechanics fascinating. So I
went to a conference down in UCLA and it was
clear people were talking about it was really interesting, but
people really didn't understand the experiment very well yet.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Oh what was the question?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Well, the question was could you see this macroscopic quantum
tunneling effect?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Okay, here's the question, doctor Martinez, doctor John Clark, and
doctor Michelle Deveray. Where tackling was could you get something
bigger than an electron, maybe something millions of times bigger
to quantum tunnel So instead of having one electron passing
through a wall and appearing on the other side, could
you get a whole bunch of them acting together to
(14:41):
tunnel through.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And at the time, it was just murky and not
very clear in the light. And I remember talking to
John Clark about that and he said, yeah, well, there
were some experiments that are already done, but you know,
if we're going to do this, we're going to have
to do something new.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
How did you go about designing this experiment? He said,
something new was needed.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So what the experiment is very simple. You'll have this
weak link adjosin junction and you put current through it,
so in some condition it looks like a superconductor. And
then as you raise the current more and more, at
some point it switches to the voltage state. Okay, it
looks like a normal metal wire.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
This is a little hard to explain, but it's basically
the same picture we had before. Imagine a wire where
you have electrons flowing through it, but now in the
middle of the wire you put up a wall, a
thin piece of something that doesn't conduct electricity. So now
the electrons can flow through the wire unless the quantum
tunnel through the wall. Now, as I mentioned, getting one
(15:44):
electron to quantum tunnel through is not that hard. Happens
all the time on the flash memory of your phone.
But that's only one electron at a time. To get
more than one electron tunnel at the same time, you
need to make the wire a super conduct.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
All the electrons in a normal mettle are kind of
moving around independently. But what happens is when you go
into the superconducting state, they lock together and it's like
they condense into what it's called a BCS state. Then
it behaves like a single it's a ball if you like.
(16:24):
So you really needed the superconducting state to see a
macroscopic state.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
This gets a bit technical, but if you make your
wire a superconductor by making it out of a special
material and making it super cold, then all the electrons
and the wire start to sort of bunch together and
they get linked in a quantum mechanical way so that
they act like one giant electron. And that's what doctor
Martinez and his colleagues were able to show. Can quantum
(16:53):
tunnel not just one electron or a pair of electrons,
but a synchronized blob of millions of electrons. Now the
secret sauce here was two things. One they added some
new bells and whistles to the experiment that nobody had
tried before, better filters in a microwave resonator. And two
they had a lot of moxie. I love to ask
(17:18):
you about the moment of discovery.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Well, the moment of discovery was when we did this
initial experiment it didn't work, and then we discovered how
to fix it, and then we got it to work,
and that's when we really felt we were going to
get this to work. And then it just took a
lot of effort to get it to work and understand everything.
It took some time to get there, but you just
(17:41):
did experiment after experiment and it made.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Sense interesting, and so you didn't give up. Do you
remember that moment where you're lifted on You're like, oh,
it's working.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, I kind of remember that, the one of this
initial experiment us being very pleased with that. The one
moment I do remember is we were just from turning
on that sample, cooled it down, I set it up,
and I had an assilloscope that was tracing when it
switched from the zero voltage to the vaulted state, and
(18:10):
I could see those three peaks. Okay, up until then,
I only saw one peak. Those three peaks are just
the smoking gun of quantum mechanics, to have three distinct
frequencies in this system, and that's a property of quantum
mechanics that tells you there's something very unusual going on
with this kind of wave nature. Okay, there's something you know,
(18:33):
really quantum going on there. But when I saw those
three peaks. I knew that when I analyzed the data,
this would be a totally clear explanation what was going on.
So I do remember the joy of seeing that and
knowing that you know, this would be the really conclusive
proof that it was the main quantum mechanics.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
So that's the story of a Nobel Price winning discovery. Next,
we're gonna talk about what was so significant about this
discovery and how it's creating a boom in the rays
to create the first really functional quantum computer. Stay with us,
we'll be right back, and we're back. We're talking about
(19:31):
quantum tunneling. And we just heard one of the winners
of this year's Nobel Prize in physics describe how he
and his colleagues were able to prove that the weird
properties of quantum physics don't just happen at the level
of single particles like electrons or protons. If you set
things up right, you can see quantum properties in bigger objects,
big enough to hold in your hand. Now the question
(19:53):
is what can you do with that. Here's Professor Shohini Coach.
So we've been talking about fundamental and small particles, but
this year's Nobel Price went to a quantum tunneling of
bigger things, things that are bigger than microscopic objects exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So the reason that this was an important step was
not because this was anything new about tunneling. This was
something that was perhaps the next step in a long
series of theoretical and experimental studies that were exploring quantum effects.
But all of those were being done at that very
(20:31):
very small, individual particle level. So measuring the current generated
by one electron is extremely difficult, but measuring the current
generated by a million is a million times higher current,
So that immediately makes the engineering piece much much easier.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Well, first of all, thank you for making things easier
for engineers. I'm an engineer. We always appreciate when the
physical world is easier to design for.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So I think the big advance was it led to
this new possibility of creating devices and doing engineering at
a larger scale, and that would lead to technologies for
the future, and that's really what happened.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
So the big breakthrough here is in making it easier
to make quantum devices. As we said, quantum objects have
some strange properties that almost seem like magic, and before
this discovery, we thought the only way to make them
was by handling and manipulating hiny, little fragile particles or
individual atoms. But what doctor Martinez and his colleagues discovered
(21:35):
was that you can get that same quantum magic with
larger objects that are easier to work with and put together.
And one of the biggest applications so far is in
making quantum computers. If you're interested in learning more about
quantum computers, we did a whole episode on them earlier
this year, so check that out. But the main takeaway
(21:55):
is that quantum computers could be used for lots of
interesting applications, including breaking encryption, which would make all your
passwords and all that cryptocurrency out there useless. And the
idea here is that you can build quantum computers using
the very same devices that the Nobel Price winning researchers made.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
This became the basis for creating all kinds of devices,
the most important of those being what we call these
quantum computing devices that are new types of computers that
use these superconducting circuits as a fundamental unit of what
we call a quantum bit, which is, like, you know,
we have regular bits that drive our regular computers. Quantum
(22:39):
bits are what are driving our quantum computers. So big
companies now like IBM and Google and others are using
that same idea to build out these quantum devices.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
So this has led to an enormous field of people
trying to build the quantum computer. Right now, there are
a few thousand people who are trying to build the
super conducting quantum computer.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Now here's an interesting historical fact. The idea to use
this super conducting circuit doctor Martinez and his colleagues made
for quantum computers may have been sparked by a chance
encounter with none other than the famous physicist Richard Feynman.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
So you're demonstrated your artificial atoms that can be connected
by and controlled by wires.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
That's Matterini, the editor of Physics magazine.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Was very clear in your mind, Oh, this is going
to be a cute bit. I'm going to make quantum computers.
I remember reading somewhere you were at a conference where
Fineman was presenting his quantum computing ideas.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Yeah, that's right. At the end of my PhD, I
came to Santa Barbara for a conference and they were
talking about this physics and then Viinman gave a talk
where he kind of talked about a quantum computer, and yeah,
it was clear that this was really interesting and this
would be something physicists would love to figure out how
(23:56):
to do. And then it wasn't until the Factory Now
algorithm by Peter Shore, which is the beginning of the nineties,
that people saw that there was a way to do this,
or at least a motivation to do this. And then
sometime after that there was a funding going on so
that when the funding was available, we could start doing
(24:17):
things pretty effectively.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Actually, doctor Martinez has been at the forefront of making
quantum computers.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Now these systems can now form quantum bits, and we
can build these systems and make a quantum computer out
of it. And you know, I've been doing this for
forty years now, and it took, you know, many decades.
And the big culmination of all this was in twenty
nineteen when I was working for Google. We did this
(24:44):
quantum supremacy experiment of fifty three cubits where we showed
for a very mathematical problem that we could do a
quantum calculation that would be very very difficult, very costly
to simulate with a classical super So we show that
a quantum computer was powerful. Eventually, if we build a
(25:05):
useful quantum computer, this is going to be used to
solve real problems, and it might be part of artificial
intelligence and helping with large language models kind of things.
I'm thinking about how we can simulate chemistry and materials,
maybe to use materials that are more ecologically mind or
cheaper to mind, so that these new materials can be
(25:28):
more common for people. That would be quite the benefit
to humanity.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
All Right, you magically appeared at the end of the episode.
Hopefully that'd give you a good sense of what this
strange quantum phenomenon is, how it impacts your everyday life,
and how it might change your future. So the next
time you use your phone or a computer, think about
the mountain of challenges that scientists and engineers had to
tunnel through to get to the other side. Thanks for
(25:56):
joining us, See you next time you've been listening to
science stuff. Production of iHeartRadio written and produced by me
or Y cham dited by Rose Seguda, executive producer Jerry Rowland,
and audio engineer and mixer Kasey Pegram And you can
follow me on social media to search for PhD comics
(26:18):
and the name of your favorite platform. Be sure to
subscribe to Science Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts, and please tell your
friends we'll be back next Wednesday with another episode. Hey
for a post credits bonus. I thought i'd played for
you two interesting moments in our conversation with doctor John Martinez.
(26:40):
After all, it's not every day you get to interview
a Nobel Prize winner. The first moment is when I
asked him what it was like to make this Nobel
Prize winning discovery as a graduate student and what advice
he has for future young scientists. And after that, I'll
play you the moment doctor Martinez said he learned something
new from me. I mean, it's definitely not every day
(27:03):
you get to teach a Nobel Price winner anything enjoy.
I'm interested in the idea that you were a graduate
student when you did this work. I think that's a
little rare. What was your state of mind back then
as a graduate student? Were you even dreaming of a
Nobel Prize or were you just interested in the problem
in front of you?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
No.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Bell Prize is just so unobtainable, even if you're super smart,
it's not a goal anyone should have. But what a
goal one should have is to do a good thesis experiment. Okay,
you know I went to the conference and people were
talking about it. It seemed absolutely fascinating because it was
answering a very fundamental question. I don't know why lots
(27:44):
of other people didn't jump on it, but you know,
John was kind of set up to jump on it
because he was looking at quantum effects and devices at
the times. And I would say also the funding at
that time. He had enough general funding so that we
could just do it. So it was very lucky about that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Amazing. Well, you've been super generous with your time, John.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
It's fun and I liked it very much because I
think I have a better way to describe how tonly works.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Wait, what was the new way to explain it that
you came up with today.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Oh, it's the fact that you just think about going
through a wall, it's going to take energy to get
inside that wall. You can think of as an energy
argument why you bounce off.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Meaning you have to push your way through the.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You have to push your way through and there's some
force and you know it's just not going to do
that However, quant mechanically, you can borrow the energy to
get through that for a short amount of time, and
then if you go through the wall in that short
amount of time, then you can pay back the energy
and you're okay. So that's the way to explain it.
That's great, and we should work on this in the comics.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah. You know, if you send me like doodles, like
napkin doodles or any kind of doodles, I can't.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Well, I'm too busy now to do that because besides
doing all the nobel things, I have to go to
Washington next week to meet with people and talk about quantum,
and I'm trying to raise money for my company. I
have like three or four jobs right now, so I
can add the job of a cartoonist.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
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.