October 25, 2011 • 42 mins
There may be a Bizarro World in our universe. Every particle has a mirror image with a reverse electrical charge, and when these opposites meet an energy transfer 300 times stronger than nuclear fusion occurs. Could this reaction power spacecraft?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Bryant. Yeah,
(00:22):
here he goes the Flash. That's your new nickname Flash. Okay,
con I just moved. I just wouldn't got this beverage
and came back. You didn't even see me. It's amazing
I didn't, Chuck. Is now the Flash Charles W. The
Flash Bryant and the anti Flash. Actually, well, that's funny
that you bring that up, because that would make you
(00:43):
buddy Bizarro flash. Yeah did you see this? Surely you
saw this? Saw what bizarrow something? Yeah? Man? That was good,
Chuck really yeah. So you just teed me up for
um for my intro and then I squandered it by
complimenting you. But let me let me pick up again oversee.
(01:05):
Have you ever heard of a place called hit Tray? No?
H t r A. No is that something spelled backwards?
It is Earth spelled backwards and hit Trey Um first
appears in the d C Comics canon in the nineteen sixties.
Um it is what we know and love as Bizarro World.
(01:28):
It is cube shaped. Um. It's inhabitants include Bizarro, Superman, Bizarro,
Lois Lane and their kids. Right, and then over time,
DC added whenever they wanted to um more Bizarro characters. Um,
like the yellow lantern Bizarro Flash, who is you? Uh,
wonder Zaro which is wonder woman, but Bizarre is yellow.
(01:52):
On the opposite end of the spectrum is green. No,
here's I'm gonna get to the ground. You stop your
blowing my intro. Bat Zorow is the World's Worst Detective,
which is the opposite of Batman, who is the world's
greatest detective. He got to start in the detective comics
DC Detective Comics, okay, at any rate, the Bizarre World,
(02:18):
which you also know from the Seinfeld of course, and
Buffy the Vampire's Layer. Apparently, Yeah, it really was, um, isn't.
It's based on the idea the concept of anti matter. Yes, okay,
So the idea that for every for every anything there
is in this realm, and this the state of matter
(02:40):
that you and I occupy, there is somehow somewhere out
there a mirror image of it. The problem is with
bizarro world. Like you say, the mirror image of Earth
is not a cube. And although Batman would be the
world's worst detective in in bizarro world, there's there's some
holes in it. But again, this is DC make sure.
(03:00):
But the idea that it's based on is not entirely
out of the remal possibility. In fact, the idea that
there is anti matter has been proven definitively by people
way smarter than you or I. Yep. So let's talk
about anti matter before we talk about the basis of
this podcast. What what what it's really about? I guess
(03:22):
you could say, which is anti matter spacecraft? I have
to say I'm excited about this one. This is This
goes in the our g whiz folder. Okay, all right, Josh,
it should be a pretty quirky subject. Oh God, how
much do you want to hit me right now? No,
it's not that. It's more just like pain. Okay, Matter, Josh,
(03:43):
is was always typically defined as anything with mass that
occupies volume. That's still true, but it's got sort of
a different definition now because of anti matter. Yeah, Adams,
just break it down. I don't want to go sub
atomic yet, but let's go to atomic. Everyone knows, and
Adam has a central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of
(04:06):
negatively charged electrons, the the humanist sign held there the
electrons by a magnetic field. The nucleus is a mix
of positively charged protons neutral neutrons, and when these atoms
get together and have a party, they form a molecule. Yes,
eventually you get enough molecules together, you're gonna have stuff,
(04:27):
and you have our podcast. Yeah, doesn't matter, which kind
of helps. Right, So anti matter is the exact same thing,
but the opposite. Right, All it is is um. For
every particle that you just described, there is another particle
that has the exact same mass, but it has the
opposite electrical charge. So for electrons, there are positrons, which
(04:52):
are their electrons with a positive charge, which is a
cool name. It is very cool. Um protons got screwed. Yeah,
Well basically, yeah, protons are um what anti protons? It's
kind of and just like with um, atoms with positively
charged or regularly how about this, we'll call it the
(05:14):
straits the normals. With the normals, you can build them
into atoms and molecules and so on. Conceivably, you can
build anti atoms into anti molecules, anti whatever, anti substances,
anti stuff like you say, um, so all of this
(05:34):
was theoretical. There is a guy named Paul am Durrak
who he had the audacity to revise Einstein's theory of
relativity equals mc squared. Direct said it did because he
did it in nineteen Einstein's alive and well and he's
in full you know, boxing shape. It's ready to go.
(05:58):
Let's bring it um and Direct revised the equation into
e equals plus or minus mc squared, and then he
stuck his tongue out at Einstein, and Einstein said, well,
if you wanted to get picky, sure, yeah, I thought
I thought that was assumed. He said, which of us
wears flow length for coats? And Direct his hung his
(06:18):
head and say, we both just said the very poor
Schwartzenegger almost, which Einstein kind of was, Yeah, he's the
he was the Schortzenegger of math. So he had the
cajones to revise that he was dead on because they
actually proved this since that time, like four years later,
that anti particles do in fact exist. Have you heard
(06:39):
of um, Carl Anderson, Well just from this article, but
I mean, did you look into him at all. Uh no,
so we want a Nobel prize for this. I didn't
know that, um, but he he he found evidence of positrons.
Definitive evidence of positrons a photograph, right, Yeah, there's like
a famous photograph of it. But he used it cloud chamber,
(07:01):
and cloud chambers is very sophisticated piece of equipment. This
guy built his own. But a cloud chamber is basically
just like a cylinder with um filled with gas that's
saturated with water vapor, and then you shoot cosmic rays
through it and see what happens. And well, the cosmic
rays leave a trail in the water vapor. You can
measure the density of the water vapor and determine what
(07:22):
kind of particle just passed through. It wasn't enough for
Anderson to create his own um gas chamber, not gass chamber,
cloud chamber. Wow that too. History has not rooted that
one out yet. But yeah, we're gonna think differently of
him soon. Um. He created his own cloud chamber and
(07:43):
put an electromagnet around it so he could direct these
cosmic particles in a circle. And he noticed that when
he did that, when he shot a cosmic ray through
something that had the same mass as an electron was
creating an arc going in the opposite direction. He said,
holy cow, that's a pow the tron. He said, what
is that? He said, hello, million bucks from the Nobel Committee.
(08:05):
Is that what he won? I think that's what you
win back then? Probably not, but it was like twenty
million bucks compared to today. Yeah, that's a good point. Uh.
Anti adams were discovered by CERN, our buddies at CERN
that we talked about like many many times. I know
I forgot about them, since they didn't in the world.
(08:25):
They created the first anti adom and by to the
tune of nine anti hydrogen atoms, and at first was
I'm sorry before night they lasted forty nana seconds, but
they were there and they had a record of it.
But then they're like poof gone. Yeah, but still quite
an achievement. UM. Anti protons were discovered in ninety at
(08:50):
the Berkeley Bevetron Adam Smasher particle accelerator. UM. What CERN's doing,
uh is something that's been aroun them for a while,
which is basically you can we figured out and not
we meaning you and me, We have no idea UM,
but other people have figured out that you can using magnets,
(09:11):
vacuum tubes, um and beams of light, you can shoot
particles at one another and smash them together exactly. That's
what that's another name for a particle accelerator. And when
you smash them together like they do, it certain because
they get the atoms going almost to the speed of
light and then they smash them together. And when they do,
(09:31):
um all these particles are created, very exotic ones that
like you said, the anti atoms lasted for uh forty
nanoseconds well back then. And what they think is that
this is this is what the Big Bang looked a
lot like, right, So um, yeah, which is step one.
It is step one toward building an anti matter engine.
(09:53):
But the the I guess the question is, well, let's
talk a little bit about anti matter and what happens
when antimatter comes and intact with regular matter. It's pretty awesome.
What happens is they collide and it becomes nothing but
pure energy. It explodes, they both are annihilated, and it's efficient,
(10:13):
creating pure energy at the speed of light. It's the
it's the only um reaction as far as we know
that is on efficient. Like you said, where the mass
of both the matter and the animatter particles are transferred
entirely to this explosion. Yeah, you get some sub atomic
left over, but it's nothing like you know, car exhaust right,
(10:36):
you know what I'm saying. It's not even like nuclear
um reactions like nuclear fusion. Apparently only three percent of
the mass of the atoms um is transferred is lost.
Is like heat that is not efficient. No light is
created UM by this the um particle matter and antimatter interaction.
(10:59):
I don't think he'd is. It's more like the radiation
that's created is where you get all your heat though actually,
because I know that one of the first things you
have to do is cool it down if they're storing it. Okay,
it's just a guess. So UM. The problem is is
that this doesn't just happen when you smash atoms together.
This happens anytime an antimatter particle comes in contact with
(11:20):
this it's normal particle UM. They annihilate one another. So
there's this thing. There's this aspect of the standard theory
UM which includes gravity. Uh no, it doesn't include gravity.
It's everything else but gravity, electromagnetism, weak, nuclear force, strong
nuclear force, and it doesn't include gravity, which is like
(11:42):
the that's the Holy Grail. Right. So the standard theory says,
at the beginning of creation the Big Bank, there were
an equal part of particles and antiparticles. The problem is
is within about two seconds, since anti particles anti matter
of matter cancel each other out through these violent explosions um,
(12:06):
there should be nothing in the universe except light left
over from that the first two seconds when all matter
canceled itself out. Right. The fact that we're here proves
that that can't be right, and that there's matter but
not antimatter. Right. So there's a couple of explanations for this,
and one is that there is simply there was and
(12:29):
it maybe still is or isn't um less anti matter
than matter, right. So the idea is that over time
there was way more matter than we have now, but
that canceled out all the anti matter, and there is
none anymore. We can produce it now, but it doesn't
exist naturally. The second explanations that it does exist, right,
(12:50):
it's just kind of sequestered off elsewhere in the universe. Yeah,
And there's sort of an addendum to the first one
that it's not necessarily that there was more matter than
anti matter, but there is a slight asymmetry between them, UM.
And they've actually proven that that was the inn A
forty eight experiment that Sern did and the k T
(13:12):
e V experiment at firm A Lab, And those are
the two big daddies this kind of research, and that
the not the Berkeley bever tron. I don't know about
them anymore, UM, but they directly measured this asymmetry and
proved it like there is an asymmetry, and that could
have been just that little bit could have been enough
that matter one out essentially, right, And when you're talking
about asymmetry, it's almost like a coin toss, right, where
(13:34):
when you toss, when you create a particle UM, say
seven times out of ten it creates a um an electron,
and then the other three times that created a positron.
That's the asymmetry. So there is evidence of that. But
there's also evidence that there is a store of anti
matter towards the center of the cosmos. I couldn't find
(13:55):
much about that. They think they discovered it in nineteen
seventy seven, but I haven't seen want to follow up. Okay,
So let's say it is there, but have they done
follow up? I don't know, but I have seen recent
reference to that idea. Also that year Star Wars came out.
No coincidence. If there, if there um, if there is
a I guess a deposit of anti matter, then it
(14:20):
is conceivable that there is an anti world there. There's
anti stuff there. Wouldn't that mean there's no matter there though,
because it would be colliding right, No, there's matter, it's
just the opposite of what we have. There's more antimatter
than because that's about it. Like they at Certain, they
created anti Adams, So maybe there is no matter there.
(14:40):
It's just anti matter and everything. There's us, but it's
the opposite of us. Bizarro Josh and Chuck. I mean
two guys who are really talented at their jobs, right exactly,
who have the adoration of people, not the score right. Um,
So okay for the time being, until we find out
if they're really is a store of antimatter at the
(15:01):
center of the cosmos and figure out how to go
get it. And when they're open, we had we had
to create our own, which is what Cern is doing.
Now we can do it, but Certain is doing They're
they're just not up to snuff. They're they're creating two
to three pike a grams a year. Yeah, I've got
a couple of realities for you here. UM. Since the
(15:22):
discovery of the anti proton, the total amount from Lear
Sern and firm A lab that they've created amounts to
less than one millionth of a gram. Okay, and at
the current rate, and it's picking up, the rate is
and that's what we're counting on here. But at the
current rate, it would take a hundred hundreds of millions
(15:42):
of years and over one thousand trillion dollars to produce
one gram of anti matter. So they got to pick
up the pace. Yeah, not only do they need to
pick up the pace if we UM are going to
use antimatter as a propulsion device, the ultimate propulsion, because
like we said, I mean, this thing is thousands of
times more produces thousands of times more energy than oxygen
(16:06):
or hydrogen combustion, which is what we use now to
power rockets outer space, inner planetary rockets like the Mars
rover that was hydrogen oxygen combustion. Right, this is thousands
of times more more potent, more powerful than those engines.
If we're going to use that. We need to figure
out how to make these engines more efficient. I got
(16:29):
stats on that too. If you want, let's hear, one
kilogram of antimatter a kilogram annihilating ordinary like colliding with
the ordinary matter can produce ten billion times the amount
of energy released with a kilogram of TNT in a
single gram of antimatter, the one that you know is
going to take hundreds of millions of years to produce, uh,
(16:52):
would get you as much energy as uh the fuel
tanks of two dozen space shuttles a single gram US.
It is nuts. The problem is we're gonna need tons
of the stuff to make it to another star, which
you know we're gonna want to do. It will be like,
oh yeah, Mars, who cares about ten grahams They think
(17:12):
could get you to Mars in one month, where right
now it takes about eleven months to get there with
regular fuel, right exactly. So finally we have at our
at our fingertips, the way to get from one place
to another very quickly throughout the universe without having to
(17:33):
take theoretical wormholes or use warp drive or anything that
that hasn't be improven. This is this is possible if
we can figure out how to how to store it
and how to harness it correctly, create it, store it,
use it, use it. Right, So, there's three three big
components to an antimatter matter antimatter engine is what we
should call it, UM the magnetic storage rings. Remember you
(17:56):
can basically tell um particles to do what you on
and that's just travel around in a searching circle by
using electromagnets. Sure, so you need to store the antimatter
that you create until you're ready to use it. You
need to be able to feed it efficiently. So basically
you need like a a particle accelerator, and then you
need the magnetic rocket nozzle thruster which which takes that
(18:23):
energy and and uses it efficiently to through a thruster
the spacecraft forward right or backward? I guess if you
want to go backward really fast. Um there are some
problems with it right well, yeah, notably the fact that
they can't create very much of it right now, even
then the speeding up, uh they have as a June
(18:43):
of this year, I'm sorry, may have this year um
CERN has stored three nine anti hydrogen atoms for one
thousand seconds about sixteen and a half minutes, and which
is huge. And I think they said, like four years
ago it was like nothing, So it's it's not growing exponentially,
(19:04):
but they're really gaining steam with storing it, and pretty
soon they hope to be able to store these anti
hydrogen atoms long enough to see how it reacts to gravity,
like do these things fall up or down? Which would
be pretty amazing, especially if they fall up. Robert Hume
would be very pleased. But that's still only three nine
antry anti hydrogen havens, which is nothing. No, but you
(19:27):
said four years ago, like this is all this is theoretical.
You know, seventy years ago. Four years ago, we were
just starting out. So I mean, I I imagine we're
gonna have some sort of breakthrough. This is why we
need a population boom. The more people there are, the
more geniuses there are. Uh. They did think about they
could storm in magnetic bottles, but because like charges repel though,
(19:50):
that's a problem. So you can't just say, let's load
this thing full of positrons because they repel each other
and it's gonna start leaking or something, So they can't
store a ton of it at a time. And did
you have the Steve Hawe guy. He's not Steve half
from Yes or or Asia. I think he was in
Asia too. Wow, he was in Yes and Asia I
(20:12):
guess like a prog rock god. And GTR I think
too terrible Now the terrible band called g t R.
What does it stand for guitar? It's like three incredible
guitarists in one band and they had one album and
some cheesy lead singer. Anyway, different Steve Howe, but he
has an idea for a fission based anti matter sale,
(20:34):
So like a fifteen foot diameter sale codd of with
uranium and basically he said, the key is to store
anti hydrogen in the form of a frozen pellet that
will evaporate slowly and create this reaction that hits the
sale to propel it forward. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Who
(20:55):
knows if that's gonna work. Um. Another big problem is
that anti proton ones um release high energy gamma rays,
which can penetrate you and your entire family and dissolve
your molecules back into atoms. Isn't that kind of the
key though to the propulsion or now, Yeah, the radiation.
The problem is is like, unless we figure out how
(21:17):
to protect the astronauts they're going to be exposed to
it too. Well. And my question too, which I didn't
see anywhere in any of my research, was can a
human go that fast? That was my next question. To
remember Colonel John Paul Staff from the Murphy's Murphy's Law
episode and other things. Um, he survived up to forty
(21:37):
six gets that was the peak, but he also suffered
red outs and um, lifelong trauma. Um. Apparently right now,
if you're on a rocket and you're being shot up
into space on a hydrogen oxygen combustion rocket, you experienced
four g s, which is substantial, but it's certainly not
life threatening or anything like that. But if this produces
(21:58):
ten times the out of thrust, this is my own
like backpulation. Yeah, because remember you can get there ten
times faster, you can maybe it produces ten times more thrust. Um,
it's still forty gs that you have to endure the
whole time. So that's a month of forty g s
(22:21):
of the of just under the most any humans ever
ever survived. So why are they even wasting their time
with this? Because they could like a robot or something.
But the thing is that canna space shut Even withstand
that we have, we have no idea. That's another whole
aspect of this that's gonna need to be worked out.
(22:41):
Maybe we need to be stored in some sort of
liquid for a month. Who else. That's why this one's
in the g whiz folder. I need to pretty cool.
So I guess the point is is you can look
for anti matter space spacecraft in the next couple of years.
That'll be cool. I can't wait to go see one
of those launches that didn't They say that like possibly
(23:04):
in the next few decades, so they must be ramping
it up here soon. It's true. Good for them. Uh.
If you want to know more about the promise of spaceflight,
the dream of man and bird alike, UM, you can
type in anti matter spacecraft pretty cool stuff UM in
(23:24):
the search bar at how stuff works dot com. That's right.
And Star Trek fans, we know, we know, we know. Uh.
I think I said search bar at how stuff works
dot com. Right. Well, that brings up then listener mail Josh,
You're gonna be pretty excited because we get periodic updates
(23:45):
from our amazing fans. Sarah, the eleven year old who
was now fourteen. Yes, we've watched her grow up before
very eyes. She's awesome. She acts now, I believe in
plays at school. Yeah, she's become a very cool person
in my opinion. This is from Sarah the amazing fourteen
year old man. Dear guys, really another letter from Sarah.
(24:07):
Well that's not you boring. I didn't not expect this, Hi, guys,
this means John Hodgen. I'm surprised you didn't see me
sitting here the entire podcast. Well, it was weird. You
literally materialized in front of our eyes. Yeah. Well I
was wearing my cloaking mechanism. Okay, well done. Yeah you've
been here the whole time. Yeah, yeah, what did you think?
(24:29):
You know? It was? It was good, I was. I
was satisfying. It wasn't long. It's long and getting longer. Yeah,
you know, know when to stop talking these days, joints. Well,
you know, it was an extremely interesting topic. But I
feel like you guys went off into some weird pop
cultural rattles and stopped talking about the topic for a while,
and then you came back to it and they mostly
(24:52):
satisfactory way. So I would say, you know, right down
the middle for you guys, absolutely, thank you. Yeah, no,
I just it's just this letter call thing. No, yeah,
just the last few letters. You know, I just realized
that I don't have a lot of me in them,
you know what I mean, They're like from other people,
and that's not really what I want in a podcast.
(25:14):
And uh, you know, so I just took the chopper
down and I landed on the roof here how stuff
works tower, and uh, I thought I would just come
by and and see you guys, And well, all right,
look I just finished this new book. Okay, okay, yeah,
you know you don't get the chopper out for just
(25:35):
anything these days, well almost anything. But it was the
easiest way to get to Atlanta from Sri Lanka, where
I was at my compound. Um, but I have I
you know, I'm I'm a deranged millionaire. Now we've heard that.
And uh and I've written a new book. This is
the last book in my compendium of Complete World Knowledge.
(25:58):
And it's called That is All, but the last book
or like the Last Crusade, kind of confusing last book. Oh,
I see what you're saying. No, this is the last one,
because not only is it called That is All? And
I don't have anything else to write about. But also,
as you know, about um thirteen months or so, the
(26:20):
world is going to end, or at least the mind
long time calendar ends, and and probably will. I mean, look,
we don't really know what's going to happen. I mean,
you know, I'm not saying that the world is going
to end in fire and flame and famine, flood and
all the other fs, leaving only John Cusack alive. That's
the ancient minds were saying that playing those guys. That's
(26:41):
not me. But you know, I am keeping John Cusack
prisoner in my home just in case, because it just
seems like something's gonna happen. Don't you think I feel
a lot better knowing that those minds will say anything.
Because you just stick close to John Cusack, I think
you're gonna be okay. That's that's the lesson that I
took from reading the Purple of the Ancient Mind text
to kick well. I mean, here, yeah, we'll see. That's
(27:04):
the thing because because I'm I'm you know, I used
to be in all these ads and on television all
the time. And remember the ads are over now because
we sold all the computers, I think, and are they
are they done? Yeah? I think, I mean, why else
wouldn't we be doing They must have sold them all,
so good work for us. But that's sort of left
(27:25):
me just this idle, deranged millionaire. And so I wrote
the book and I arranged for a major publishing house
to publish it, and uh, and I can just afford
to take myself on book tour wherever I want. And
today I'm I decided to come here. So you have
a schopper now if I may call it that, you
can you can call it a chopper. It's more like
a hellic harrier. Yeah, what happened here? Zeppelin? It's you're
(27:51):
talking about my my speed Zeppelin Hubris, the the the
h the h Z Hubris Hodgman Zeppelin Hubris, that that
I bought off of Emo Phillips a few years ago. Yeah,
not only did that crash, it crashed and burned. Was
it something ironically given the name? Was it something that
(28:13):
that had to do with Emo Phillips uptake maintenance caretaking
of this Zeppelin? No? No, no, it was. It was
in perfect condition when I got it, do you know
what I mean? But I just like, you know, when
I when I'm having a Zeppelin party. It's not a
Zeppelin party unless you have a fire breather. Someone should
have warned me that Zeppelin's have this problem with fire
(28:36):
like if this were a known problem, this were a
known issue, as they say in the software Developing game.
I wish I had gotten that memo, you know what
I mean, or at least in the in the Zeppelin
the radiogram that I should have gotten about that. We
should probably tell everybody. This is not a video cast,
so you know, we have to often describe things that
are going on. John looks great, Yeah, sure, And he's
(28:57):
holding in his hand a hard cover volume of his
third book, the third in the trilogy, That is All,
and it's handsome and John, we do want to mention
in all earnest here that the book is coming out
in November one. That is so, it's called That is All. Yes,
it is by John Hodgman. Available where would you like
(29:17):
people to buy their local bookstore? Well, they should buy
wherever they would like to buy it. They should support
their local bookstore of choice if they like. But it
is available for pre order now at this moment, even
though it is not November one, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Indie Bound Powells all your major books selling websites. Be
smart by this book, because if you get the first two,
(29:37):
you gotta have the third. You're not gonna know how
the everything is. I want to say, be smart. I
think it's more like, stop being a dumb dumb Okay,
fair enough and buy my book fair enough? And uh
and if you would like to know what it sounds like.
It sounds like this, I'm just gonna I think your
audience will enjoy this. I'll just read the entirety of
the book. Good evening. I write to you now from
(29:59):
my secret retreat in the Internetlace hills of rural Massachusetts,
or else. I'm in my custom built survival Brownstone in Parkslow, Brooklyn,
or else I'm on the high seas, cruising on the
luxury passenger ship Hodge Manic. I'm sorry I can't tell
you where I am for reasons of safety. My location
must be kept secret, even from myself. But it is
(30:23):
good to write you again. So much has changed in
my life since I wrote my first book, The Areas
of my Expertise. If I'm sorry, I love your book. Yeah,
I've read your book, and then you don't mind hearing
it again. I would want to hear it again, but
I don't know if we have the time to read
it in its entirety, because well, wait, wait, wait, wait,
this is a podcast, right, what he's saying, there's no rules. Yeah,
(30:46):
I know. It's like it's not like you got another
podcast coming on after this one. We want to sell
some of these though. You don't want to spoil it,
all right, but everyone's bugging me for the audio book,
and so I just figured this would be the easiest
way podcast, So don't give it away, sting, Alright, how
do it? Uh? I mean, I'm We're delighted to have
you here, John, I'm delighted to be drawing pictures, read
(31:06):
some words. I could talk. I could talk all day long.
But we've beefed up security here recently. I noticed, and
you just appeared. They waved me through. No, I don't
understand how that happens. I got a ticket? Did you
a ticket? Ticket? Your podcast? Live podcast taping? We don't
have tickets, Oh, yes, you do, you do. I got
it through my credit card, don't Yeah, my credit card,
(31:29):
all all kinds of perks, like I'm not a sporting fellow,
but you know, if I wanted to go see a
sports a sports thing exhibition, like a sports contest. Do
you know what I mean? I just call up my
independent concierge at my credit card and they get me
a ticket, and you know where my ticket is? Where
is it? Well, let's say I go to a New
York Jets game. Okay, all right, you know where my
(31:50):
ticket is? Where Nick Mangolds shoulders. He's a player on
that team. Yeah, yea, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Your book a lot too? Can you get to watch it?
He is? He is the Well I don't. Maybe look,
can I stick around until next time? All right? Maybe
we can talk about the coming NERD Jock convergence then,
(32:13):
But right now, I look, I don't know if you
guys mind a little plugging, but I'm doing some you
know me, I loathe the advertising, but I'm doing some
work with with this company, this credit card company, and
it's really amazing. Check. Do you remember what page it's on?
You come on the diners Club. It's not just a
Diners Club card, you understand, it's a special. It's the
(32:34):
Diners Club po f H nine times Diamond card. Because
you had the m X black and you said, forget that,
we had the literally platinum card. Yeah, would you put
your gum on because it's platinum. Sure, because you can
put the gum on it, get it off very easily
because it's because the nature platinum. But now you have
been upgraded to the nine times Diamond Diners Club card.
(32:55):
It's not it's not even a card. It's not even
doesn't even take the shape. I know what it is,
but like you to explain it. It It takes a shape.
It's a it's a feather, it's a You actually get
this beautiful feather in the mail and you carry it
around with you. Here, I have mine here, it's spun
from gold. Is that right? Yeah, it's yeah, it's nice. Right.
And then when you want to make a purchase, like
(33:16):
you don't have to like hand over your card and
have the guy put it in the thing. Do you
know what I mean? I mean, here's the thing. You
go into a store now and you want to you
want to buy something that's very expensive, and you want
to treat the person like their human garbage. You used
to be able to just toss in their card and
then look away like you don't care. Now you have
to swipe your own card like. I can't live like that,
(33:39):
do you know what I mean? So that's why I
have this nine times diamond po FH card. Isn't a card,
It's a feather. This is a beautiful golden feather, and
I just carry it around with me, and the purchases
are like automatic, So if I want to buy something
with it, I don't have to give him a card
or anything. I just take the feather out and I
just lightly touched their cheeks with it two times, and
then it belongs to me. And you point out that
(34:00):
some some men have even met their wives this way. Correct,
exactly so, because the thing about it is, the thing
about having the feather is not only is it beautiful
and thus reflecting you as a deranged millionaire's love of
beautiful things in the world, but it allows you to
treat other people in the most humiliating way possible, which
is really all a deranged millionaire really wants, you know
what I mean. So it has these amazing perks I
(34:21):
told you about the I told you about the watching
a Jets game from the shoulders and mcmangled ticket to anything,
the ticket to anything. Obviously, you have a lot of
travel services because deranged millionaires like me like to travel
around quite a bit. So if you go to the airport,
you have access to special lounges we like what well,
not like the Admiral's Club right or or you know,
(34:41):
but like a really special lounge. Like all you have
to do is like you wouldn't even know that it
was even there. I'm not even familiar with the Admiral's Club.
That's where the admirals go before flying the planes and
they and they drink rock and they sing sea chanty
and then they fly. Okay, Uh, this is a this
(35:02):
is a super secret, like super exclusive lounge, and it's
you just go up to you have to find a
Chili's to Golis Express, the Chili's Express or whatever it is,
which are two very very very different. The important thing
is don't go to the seating area. Go to the
big refrigerator bank where they have all of the different
(35:25):
tacos and Casadilla's pre made stuff, and then you just
you just gently brush your feather across a particular case
of dilla I can't tell you which, and then that
slides back and there's a secret door into the special lounge. Uh,
did you know that, and they have leather chairs, a
(35:46):
full honor bar, a Japanese soaking tub, and all of
the Chili's express food you can eat. Yeah, but at
this time it tastes like actual food. Yeah. What else
is this card? Do you? John? I can't. I could
go on and on. There's just so many perks. Uh.
If you are a fan of the theater, who isn't yeah, um,
(36:08):
and you don't like it's you have a hard time
getting tickets to the Broadway Theater. Right, Well, let's say
you get tickets and the show is terrible, Like now,
you're not going to go back. But what if you
could call your concierge and have them call Peoplitzer Prize
winning playwright David Lindsay a bear and make him write
a new play to your specifications, maybe even starring a
(36:31):
character based on you. Right, And all of a sudden,
that's in the Broadway Theater And not only do you
get the best seats in the house to that particular show,
you get to watch as the ushers kick out the
people who were sitting in your seats before you. Yeah,
I know, we're talking about a good theater and oh
(36:51):
the best, Oh the best, only theaters that are named
for corporations. So we're talking about the good ones. Do
you know what I mean? American Airlines Theater, h Foxwood's Theater,
UM Chili's Express Theater. Yeah, that's that's where. Yeah, it's
in the round. That's where a Book of Mormon is
moving to Oka And uh and what if you don't
(37:14):
have someone to go with you? You just call a
concierge and they'll set up someone to go with you. Uh.
Could be Laurence O'Donnell from MSNBC is the last word,
could be James Spader, He's could be Lonnie Anderson or
any one of a number of stable of celebrity pals
that will go with you to see the show based
(37:35):
in your Life that David Lindsay a bet had to
write for you. So do these people sign up to
be a pal? Or are they kind of corralled into this?
There's usually there's this like they've done something in their
past that they would rather not they've racked up terrible
debts or or you know, maybe they're just trying to
(37:56):
plug the last word with Laurence o'donald and MSNBC for
deranged millionaires. Yeah, there might be people that that won't
ever happen to me. That will never happen to me.
What are you saying, I'm not concerned about that. Here's
the best thing, and I'll leave it with this. After
five years of membership and good standing, premium Feather holders
(38:19):
will be visited in their bedroom by an old man. Yeah,
they'll wake up and they'll be a dude. I'll have
long white hair, and I'll be wearing like a white
suit and a white tie. And he won't be wearing
any shoes because he has bird feet. And he'll invite
you to go with him, and he'll give you, uh,
(38:42):
you'll he'll tell you to become naked, and then he'll
give you a robe to wear, but the robe is
like a little too short. And then you go on
a limousine and you go to a high rise, like
a skyscraper in New York City that you never noticed before,
like was always there, Yeah, it was always there. You're
(39:03):
just not allowed you're not allowed to see. It's it's
actually a zigaratte in the middle of Manhattan. You were
not allowed to see, but now you can. And then
you will go in, and you will go in and
you'll see all the other, uh, five year golden feather holders.
They're they're all wearing golden robes. You probably know them
from the Chili's Express Lounge or whatever. And then the
(39:26):
old man will encourage you to bathe and special waters
and be anointed with special oils. And then you will
be told that you were among the very very few
to ever see the zigguratte and be given the ever
very rare opportunity to apply for the Diners Club Premium
Excelsior pof D card, which costs two million dollars a
(39:48):
year to join. And uh, it's in the It's not
in the form of a feather. It's in the form
of a a talking milk snake, but only you. But
you carry around on your fingers and on your forearm
all the time. You ever see how like an old
Mark's Brothers movies or whatever have Like the really rich
people are walking around in their hands they sort of
(40:09):
like out in the air as that they're holding a cocktail,
but there's nothing there. Yeah, they're holding an invisible milk
snaithe they can talk to that, they can talk to,
can talk to them, but they're the only ones who
can see it. Wow. Another card holders as well, so
just another four years for me and I won't I
won't have to ever see you as again. Do you
I was gonna say, do you think you'll still drop by? Yeah,
(40:32):
I'll drop by, but I'll keep my cloaking mechanism M
so I don't have to dract. I'll drop by for
the next three weeks maybe even. Yeah. No, I'd like
to come back and talk to more about what's you know? Well, yeah,
are you gonna? Are you leaving and coming back? Are
you going to? Can we have your word that if
you do leave, you'll actually have left. You won't be
hanging around with invisibility on Oh no, I had, I had.
(40:54):
I had them set up in office here and how
stuff works as as as safe as a safe room
for me. And I'll just go over there and you're
gonna stay here. I'll just hang out and then I'll
come when you guys are doing it again. I'd love
to come back and prevent you from reading more read
or mail. What is it? Is it Tuesday? We'll be
back in here Thursday, because we record and then publish immediately.
(41:17):
All right, we'll send you an outlooking by then. That
would be terrific. Okay, okay, good, all right, let's do
this at least one more time. Maybe we'll do it
all more time. Okay, that's it for this show. All right, well, um,
our apologies to Sarah the amazing fourteen year old fans. Yeah,
we'll get to that. Um. If you are an amazing fan,
or how about this, If you have a question for Hodgeman,
(41:39):
we want to know it. That sounds great. You can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
can also tweet directly at Hodgeman but don't um. You
can visit us on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash
stuff you Should Know, or you can send us a
good old fashioned email at Stuff Podcast at how Stuff
works dot com. M be sure to check out our
(42:05):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join housto Work
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Bryant. Yeah,
(00:22):
here he goes the Flash. That's your new nickname Flash. Okay,
con I just moved. I just wouldn't got this beverage
and came back. You didn't even see me. It's amazing
I didn't, Chuck. Is now the Flash Charles W. The
Flash Bryant and the anti Flash. Actually, well, that's funny
that you bring that up, because that would make you
(00:43):
buddy Bizarro flash. Yeah did you see this? Surely you
saw this? Saw what bizarrow something? Yeah? Man? That was good,
Chuck really yeah. So you just teed me up for
um for my intro and then I squandered it by
complimenting you. But let me let me pick up again oversee.
(01:05):
Have you ever heard of a place called hit Tray? No?
H t r A. No is that something spelled backwards?
It is Earth spelled backwards and hit Trey Um first
appears in the d C Comics canon in the nineteen sixties.
Um it is what we know and love as Bizarro World.
(01:28):
It is cube shaped. Um. It's inhabitants include Bizarro, Superman, Bizarro,
Lois Lane and their kids. Right, and then over time,
DC added whenever they wanted to um more Bizarro characters. Um,
like the yellow lantern Bizarro Flash, who is you? Uh,
wonder Zaro which is wonder woman, but Bizarre is yellow.
(01:52):
On the opposite end of the spectrum is green. No,
here's I'm gonna get to the ground. You stop your
blowing my intro. Bat Zorow is the World's Worst Detective,
which is the opposite of Batman, who is the world's
greatest detective. He got to start in the detective comics
DC Detective Comics, okay, at any rate, the Bizarre World,
(02:18):
which you also know from the Seinfeld of course, and
Buffy the Vampire's Layer. Apparently, Yeah, it really was, um, isn't.
It's based on the idea the concept of anti matter. Yes, okay,
So the idea that for every for every anything there
is in this realm, and this the state of matter
(02:40):
that you and I occupy, there is somehow somewhere out
there a mirror image of it. The problem is with
bizarro world. Like you say, the mirror image of Earth
is not a cube. And although Batman would be the
world's worst detective in in bizarro world, there's there's some
holes in it. But again, this is DC make sure.
(03:00):
But the idea that it's based on is not entirely
out of the remal possibility. In fact, the idea that
there is anti matter has been proven definitively by people
way smarter than you or I. Yep. So let's talk
about anti matter before we talk about the basis of
this podcast. What what what it's really about? I guess
(03:22):
you could say, which is anti matter spacecraft? I have
to say I'm excited about this one. This is This
goes in the our g whiz folder. Okay, all right, Josh,
it should be a pretty quirky subject. Oh God, how
much do you want to hit me right now? No,
it's not that. It's more just like pain. Okay, Matter, Josh,
(03:43):
is was always typically defined as anything with mass that
occupies volume. That's still true, but it's got sort of
a different definition now because of anti matter. Yeah, Adams,
just break it down. I don't want to go sub
atomic yet, but let's go to atomic. Everyone knows, and
Adam has a central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of
(04:06):
negatively charged electrons, the the humanist sign held there the
electrons by a magnetic field. The nucleus is a mix
of positively charged protons neutral neutrons, and when these atoms
get together and have a party, they form a molecule. Yes,
eventually you get enough molecules together, you're gonna have stuff,
(04:27):
and you have our podcast. Yeah, doesn't matter, which kind
of helps. Right, So anti matter is the exact same thing,
but the opposite. Right, All it is is um. For
every particle that you just described, there is another particle
that has the exact same mass, but it has the
opposite electrical charge. So for electrons, there are positrons, which
(04:52):
are their electrons with a positive charge, which is a
cool name. It is very cool. Um protons got screwed. Yeah,
Well basically, yeah, protons are um what anti protons? It's
kind of and just like with um, atoms with positively
charged or regularly how about this, we'll call it the
(05:14):
straits the normals. With the normals, you can build them
into atoms and molecules and so on. Conceivably, you can
build anti atoms into anti molecules, anti whatever, anti substances,
anti stuff like you say, um, so all of this
(05:34):
was theoretical. There is a guy named Paul am Durrak
who he had the audacity to revise Einstein's theory of
relativity equals mc squared. Direct said it did because he
did it in nineteen Einstein's alive and well and he's
in full you know, boxing shape. It's ready to go.
(05:58):
Let's bring it um and Direct revised the equation into
e equals plus or minus mc squared, and then he
stuck his tongue out at Einstein, and Einstein said, well,
if you wanted to get picky, sure, yeah, I thought
I thought that was assumed. He said, which of us
wears flow length for coats? And Direct his hung his
(06:18):
head and say, we both just said the very poor
Schwartzenegger almost, which Einstein kind of was, Yeah, he's the
he was the Schortzenegger of math. So he had the
cajones to revise that he was dead on because they
actually proved this since that time, like four years later,
that anti particles do in fact exist. Have you heard
(06:39):
of um, Carl Anderson, Well just from this article, but
I mean, did you look into him at all. Uh no,
so we want a Nobel prize for this. I didn't
know that, um, but he he he found evidence of positrons.
Definitive evidence of positrons a photograph, right, Yeah, there's like
a famous photograph of it. But he used it cloud chamber,
(07:01):
and cloud chambers is very sophisticated piece of equipment. This
guy built his own. But a cloud chamber is basically
just like a cylinder with um filled with gas that's
saturated with water vapor, and then you shoot cosmic rays
through it and see what happens. And well, the cosmic
rays leave a trail in the water vapor. You can
measure the density of the water vapor and determine what
(07:22):
kind of particle just passed through. It wasn't enough for
Anderson to create his own um gas chamber, not gass chamber,
cloud chamber. Wow that too. History has not rooted that
one out yet. But yeah, we're gonna think differently of
him soon. Um. He created his own cloud chamber and
(07:43):
put an electromagnet around it so he could direct these
cosmic particles in a circle. And he noticed that when
he did that, when he shot a cosmic ray through
something that had the same mass as an electron was
creating an arc going in the opposite direction. He said,
holy cow, that's a pow the tron. He said, what
is that? He said, hello, million bucks from the Nobel Committee.
(08:05):
Is that what he won? I think that's what you
win back then? Probably not, but it was like twenty
million bucks compared to today. Yeah, that's a good point. Uh.
Anti adams were discovered by CERN, our buddies at CERN
that we talked about like many many times. I know
I forgot about them, since they didn't in the world.
(08:25):
They created the first anti adom and by to the
tune of nine anti hydrogen atoms, and at first was
I'm sorry before night they lasted forty nana seconds, but
they were there and they had a record of it.
But then they're like poof gone. Yeah, but still quite
an achievement. UM. Anti protons were discovered in ninety at
(08:50):
the Berkeley Bevetron Adam Smasher particle accelerator. UM. What CERN's doing,
uh is something that's been aroun them for a while,
which is basically you can we figured out and not
we meaning you and me, We have no idea UM,
but other people have figured out that you can using magnets,
(09:11):
vacuum tubes, um and beams of light, you can shoot
particles at one another and smash them together exactly. That's
what that's another name for a particle accelerator. And when
you smash them together like they do, it certain because
they get the atoms going almost to the speed of
light and then they smash them together. And when they do,
(09:31):
um all these particles are created, very exotic ones that
like you said, the anti atoms lasted for uh forty
nanoseconds well back then. And what they think is that
this is this is what the Big Bang looked a
lot like, right, So um, yeah, which is step one.
It is step one toward building an anti matter engine.
(09:53):
But the the I guess the question is, well, let's
talk a little bit about anti matter and what happens
when antimatter comes and intact with regular matter. It's pretty awesome.
What happens is they collide and it becomes nothing but
pure energy. It explodes, they both are annihilated, and it's efficient,
(10:13):
creating pure energy at the speed of light. It's the
it's the only um reaction as far as we know
that is on efficient. Like you said, where the mass
of both the matter and the animatter particles are transferred
entirely to this explosion. Yeah, you get some sub atomic
left over, but it's nothing like you know, car exhaust right,
(10:36):
you know what I'm saying. It's not even like nuclear
um reactions like nuclear fusion. Apparently only three percent of
the mass of the atoms um is transferred is lost.
Is like heat that is not efficient. No light is
created UM by this the um particle matter and antimatter interaction.
(10:59):
I don't think he'd is. It's more like the radiation
that's created is where you get all your heat though actually,
because I know that one of the first things you
have to do is cool it down if they're storing it. Okay,
it's just a guess. So UM. The problem is is
that this doesn't just happen when you smash atoms together.
This happens anytime an antimatter particle comes in contact with
(11:20):
this it's normal particle UM. They annihilate one another. So
there's this thing. There's this aspect of the standard theory
UM which includes gravity. Uh no, it doesn't include gravity.
It's everything else but gravity, electromagnetism, weak, nuclear force, strong
nuclear force, and it doesn't include gravity, which is like
(11:42):
the that's the Holy Grail. Right. So the standard theory says,
at the beginning of creation the Big Bank, there were
an equal part of particles and antiparticles. The problem is
is within about two seconds, since anti particles anti matter
of matter cancel each other out through these violent explosions um,
(12:06):
there should be nothing in the universe except light left
over from that the first two seconds when all matter
canceled itself out. Right. The fact that we're here proves
that that can't be right, and that there's matter but
not antimatter. Right. So there's a couple of explanations for this,
and one is that there is simply there was and
(12:29):
it maybe still is or isn't um less anti matter
than matter, right. So the idea is that over time
there was way more matter than we have now, but
that canceled out all the anti matter, and there is
none anymore. We can produce it now, but it doesn't
exist naturally. The second explanations that it does exist, right,
(12:50):
it's just kind of sequestered off elsewhere in the universe. Yeah,
And there's sort of an addendum to the first one
that it's not necessarily that there was more matter than
anti matter, but there is a slight asymmetry between them, UM.
And they've actually proven that that was the inn A
forty eight experiment that Sern did and the k T
(13:12):
e V experiment at firm A Lab, And those are
the two big daddies this kind of research, and that
the not the Berkeley bever tron. I don't know about
them anymore, UM, but they directly measured this asymmetry and
proved it like there is an asymmetry, and that could
have been just that little bit could have been enough
that matter one out essentially, right, And when you're talking
about asymmetry, it's almost like a coin toss, right, where
(13:34):
when you toss, when you create a particle UM, say
seven times out of ten it creates a um an electron,
and then the other three times that created a positron.
That's the asymmetry. So there is evidence of that. But
there's also evidence that there is a store of anti
matter towards the center of the cosmos. I couldn't find
(13:55):
much about that. They think they discovered it in nineteen
seventy seven, but I haven't seen want to follow up. Okay,
So let's say it is there, but have they done
follow up? I don't know, but I have seen recent
reference to that idea. Also that year Star Wars came out.
No coincidence. If there, if there um, if there is
a I guess a deposit of anti matter, then it
(14:20):
is conceivable that there is an anti world there. There's
anti stuff there. Wouldn't that mean there's no matter there though,
because it would be colliding right, No, there's matter, it's
just the opposite of what we have. There's more antimatter
than because that's about it. Like they at Certain, they
created anti Adams, So maybe there is no matter there.
(14:40):
It's just anti matter and everything. There's us, but it's
the opposite of us. Bizarro Josh and Chuck. I mean
two guys who are really talented at their jobs, right exactly,
who have the adoration of people, not the score right. Um,
So okay for the time being, until we find out
if they're really is a store of antimatter at the
(15:01):
center of the cosmos and figure out how to go
get it. And when they're open, we had we had
to create our own, which is what Cern is doing.
Now we can do it, but Certain is doing They're
they're just not up to snuff. They're they're creating two
to three pike a grams a year. Yeah, I've got
a couple of realities for you here. UM. Since the
(15:22):
discovery of the anti proton, the total amount from Lear
Sern and firm A lab that they've created amounts to
less than one millionth of a gram. Okay, and at
the current rate, and it's picking up, the rate is
and that's what we're counting on here. But at the
current rate, it would take a hundred hundreds of millions
(15:42):
of years and over one thousand trillion dollars to produce
one gram of anti matter. So they got to pick
up the pace. Yeah, not only do they need to
pick up the pace if we UM are going to
use antimatter as a propulsion device, the ultimate propulsion, because
like we said, I mean, this thing is thousands of
times more produces thousands of times more energy than oxygen
(16:06):
or hydrogen combustion, which is what we use now to
power rockets outer space, inner planetary rockets like the Mars
rover that was hydrogen oxygen combustion. Right, this is thousands
of times more more potent, more powerful than those engines.
If we're going to use that. We need to figure
out how to make these engines more efficient. I got
(16:29):
stats on that too. If you want, let's hear, one
kilogram of antimatter a kilogram annihilating ordinary like colliding with
the ordinary matter can produce ten billion times the amount
of energy released with a kilogram of TNT in a
single gram of antimatter, the one that you know is
going to take hundreds of millions of years to produce, uh,
(16:52):
would get you as much energy as uh the fuel
tanks of two dozen space shuttles a single gram US.
It is nuts. The problem is we're gonna need tons
of the stuff to make it to another star, which
you know we're gonna want to do. It will be like,
oh yeah, Mars, who cares about ten grahams They think
(17:12):
could get you to Mars in one month, where right
now it takes about eleven months to get there with
regular fuel, right exactly. So finally we have at our
at our fingertips, the way to get from one place
to another very quickly throughout the universe without having to
(17:33):
take theoretical wormholes or use warp drive or anything that
that hasn't be improven. This is this is possible if
we can figure out how to how to store it
and how to harness it correctly, create it, store it,
use it, use it. Right, So, there's three three big
components to an antimatter matter antimatter engine is what we
should call it, UM the magnetic storage rings. Remember you
(17:56):
can basically tell um particles to do what you on
and that's just travel around in a searching circle by
using electromagnets. Sure, so you need to store the antimatter
that you create until you're ready to use it. You
need to be able to feed it efficiently. So basically
you need like a a particle accelerator, and then you
need the magnetic rocket nozzle thruster which which takes that
(18:23):
energy and and uses it efficiently to through a thruster
the spacecraft forward right or backward? I guess if you
want to go backward really fast. Um there are some
problems with it right well, yeah, notably the fact that
they can't create very much of it right now, even
then the speeding up, uh they have as a June
(18:43):
of this year, I'm sorry, may have this year um
CERN has stored three nine anti hydrogen atoms for one
thousand seconds about sixteen and a half minutes, and which
is huge. And I think they said, like four years
ago it was like nothing, So it's it's not growing exponentially,
(19:04):
but they're really gaining steam with storing it, and pretty
soon they hope to be able to store these anti
hydrogen atoms long enough to see how it reacts to gravity,
like do these things fall up or down? Which would
be pretty amazing, especially if they fall up. Robert Hume
would be very pleased. But that's still only three nine
antry anti hydrogen havens, which is nothing. No, but you
(19:27):
said four years ago, like this is all this is theoretical.
You know, seventy years ago. Four years ago, we were
just starting out. So I mean, I I imagine we're
gonna have some sort of breakthrough. This is why we
need a population boom. The more people there are, the
more geniuses there are. Uh. They did think about they
could storm in magnetic bottles, but because like charges repel though,
(19:50):
that's a problem. So you can't just say, let's load
this thing full of positrons because they repel each other
and it's gonna start leaking or something, So they can't
store a ton of it at a time. And did
you have the Steve Hawe guy. He's not Steve half
from Yes or or Asia. I think he was in
Asia too. Wow, he was in Yes and Asia I
(20:12):
guess like a prog rock god. And GTR I think
too terrible Now the terrible band called g t R.
What does it stand for guitar? It's like three incredible
guitarists in one band and they had one album and
some cheesy lead singer. Anyway, different Steve Howe, but he
has an idea for a fission based anti matter sale,
(20:34):
So like a fifteen foot diameter sale codd of with
uranium and basically he said, the key is to store
anti hydrogen in the form of a frozen pellet that
will evaporate slowly and create this reaction that hits the
sale to propel it forward. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Who
(20:55):
knows if that's gonna work. Um. Another big problem is
that anti proton ones um release high energy gamma rays,
which can penetrate you and your entire family and dissolve
your molecules back into atoms. Isn't that kind of the
key though to the propulsion or now, Yeah, the radiation.
The problem is is like, unless we figure out how
(21:17):
to protect the astronauts they're going to be exposed to
it too. Well. And my question too, which I didn't
see anywhere in any of my research, was can a
human go that fast? That was my next question. To
remember Colonel John Paul Staff from the Murphy's Murphy's Law
episode and other things. Um, he survived up to forty
(21:37):
six gets that was the peak, but he also suffered
red outs and um, lifelong trauma. Um. Apparently right now,
if you're on a rocket and you're being shot up
into space on a hydrogen oxygen combustion rocket, you experienced
four g s, which is substantial, but it's certainly not
life threatening or anything like that. But if this produces
(21:58):
ten times the out of thrust, this is my own
like backpulation. Yeah, because remember you can get there ten
times faster, you can maybe it produces ten times more thrust. Um,
it's still forty gs that you have to endure the
whole time. So that's a month of forty g s
(22:21):
of the of just under the most any humans ever
ever survived. So why are they even wasting their time
with this? Because they could like a robot or something.
But the thing is that canna space shut Even withstand
that we have, we have no idea. That's another whole
aspect of this that's gonna need to be worked out.
(22:41):
Maybe we need to be stored in some sort of
liquid for a month. Who else. That's why this one's
in the g whiz folder. I need to pretty cool.
So I guess the point is is you can look
for anti matter space spacecraft in the next couple of years.
That'll be cool. I can't wait to go see one
of those launches that didn't They say that like possibly
(23:04):
in the next few decades, so they must be ramping
it up here soon. It's true. Good for them. Uh.
If you want to know more about the promise of spaceflight,
the dream of man and bird alike, UM, you can
type in anti matter spacecraft pretty cool stuff UM in
(23:24):
the search bar at how stuff works dot com. That's right.
And Star Trek fans, we know, we know, we know. Uh.
I think I said search bar at how stuff works
dot com. Right. Well, that brings up then listener mail Josh,
You're gonna be pretty excited because we get periodic updates
(23:45):
from our amazing fans. Sarah, the eleven year old who
was now fourteen. Yes, we've watched her grow up before
very eyes. She's awesome. She acts now, I believe in
plays at school. Yeah, she's become a very cool person
in my opinion. This is from Sarah the amazing fourteen
year old man. Dear guys, really another letter from Sarah.
(24:07):
Well that's not you boring. I didn't not expect this, Hi, guys,
this means John Hodgen. I'm surprised you didn't see me
sitting here the entire podcast. Well, it was weird. You
literally materialized in front of our eyes. Yeah. Well I
was wearing my cloaking mechanism. Okay, well done. Yeah you've
been here the whole time. Yeah, yeah, what did you think?
(24:29):
You know? It was? It was good, I was. I
was satisfying. It wasn't long. It's long and getting longer. Yeah,
you know, know when to stop talking these days, joints. Well,
you know, it was an extremely interesting topic. But I
feel like you guys went off into some weird pop
cultural rattles and stopped talking about the topic for a while,
and then you came back to it and they mostly
(24:52):
satisfactory way. So I would say, you know, right down
the middle for you guys, absolutely, thank you. Yeah, no,
I just it's just this letter call thing. No, yeah,
just the last few letters. You know, I just realized
that I don't have a lot of me in them,
you know what I mean, They're like from other people,
and that's not really what I want in a podcast.
(25:14):
And uh, you know, so I just took the chopper
down and I landed on the roof here how stuff
works tower, and uh, I thought I would just come
by and and see you guys, And well, all right,
look I just finished this new book. Okay, okay, yeah,
you know you don't get the chopper out for just
(25:35):
anything these days, well almost anything. But it was the
easiest way to get to Atlanta from Sri Lanka, where
I was at my compound. Um, but I have I
you know, I'm I'm a deranged millionaire. Now we've heard that.
And uh and I've written a new book. This is
the last book in my compendium of Complete World Knowledge.
(25:58):
And it's called That is All, but the last book
or like the Last Crusade, kind of confusing last book. Oh,
I see what you're saying. No, this is the last one,
because not only is it called That is All? And
I don't have anything else to write about. But also,
as you know, about um thirteen months or so, the
(26:20):
world is going to end, or at least the mind
long time calendar ends, and and probably will. I mean, look,
we don't really know what's going to happen. I mean,
you know, I'm not saying that the world is going
to end in fire and flame and famine, flood and
all the other fs, leaving only John Cusack alive. That's
the ancient minds were saying that playing those guys. That's
(26:41):
not me. But you know, I am keeping John Cusack
prisoner in my home just in case, because it just
seems like something's gonna happen. Don't you think I feel
a lot better knowing that those minds will say anything.
Because you just stick close to John Cusack, I think
you're gonna be okay. That's that's the lesson that I
took from reading the Purple of the Ancient Mind text
to kick well. I mean, here, yeah, we'll see. That's
(27:04):
the thing because because I'm I'm you know, I used
to be in all these ads and on television all
the time. And remember the ads are over now because
we sold all the computers, I think, and are they
are they done? Yeah? I think, I mean, why else
wouldn't we be doing They must have sold them all,
so good work for us. But that's sort of left
(27:25):
me just this idle, deranged millionaire. And so I wrote
the book and I arranged for a major publishing house
to publish it, and uh, and I can just afford
to take myself on book tour wherever I want. And
today I'm I decided to come here. So you have
a schopper now if I may call it that, you
can you can call it a chopper. It's more like
a hellic harrier. Yeah, what happened here? Zeppelin? It's you're
(27:51):
talking about my my speed Zeppelin Hubris, the the the
h the h Z Hubris Hodgman Zeppelin Hubris, that that
I bought off of Emo Phillips a few years ago. Yeah,
not only did that crash, it crashed and burned. Was
it something ironically given the name? Was it something that
(28:13):
that had to do with Emo Phillips uptake maintenance caretaking
of this Zeppelin? No? No, no, it was. It was
in perfect condition when I got it, do you know
what I mean? But I just like, you know, when
I when I'm having a Zeppelin party. It's not a
Zeppelin party unless you have a fire breather. Someone should
have warned me that Zeppelin's have this problem with fire
(28:36):
like if this were a known problem, this were a
known issue, as they say in the software Developing game.
I wish I had gotten that memo, you know what
I mean, or at least in the in the Zeppelin
the radiogram that I should have gotten about that. We
should probably tell everybody. This is not a video cast,
so you know, we have to often describe things that
are going on. John looks great, Yeah, sure, And he's
(28:57):
holding in his hand a hard cover volume of his
third book, the third in the trilogy, That is All,
and it's handsome and John, we do want to mention
in all earnest here that the book is coming out
in November one. That is so, it's called That is All. Yes,
it is by John Hodgman. Available where would you like
(29:17):
people to buy their local bookstore? Well, they should buy
wherever they would like to buy it. They should support
their local bookstore of choice if they like. But it
is available for pre order now at this moment, even
though it is not November one, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Indie Bound Powells all your major books selling websites. Be
smart by this book, because if you get the first two,
(29:37):
you gotta have the third. You're not gonna know how
the everything is. I want to say, be smart. I
think it's more like, stop being a dumb dumb Okay,
fair enough and buy my book fair enough? And uh
and if you would like to know what it sounds like.
It sounds like this, I'm just gonna I think your
audience will enjoy this. I'll just read the entirety of
the book. Good evening. I write to you now from
(29:59):
my secret retreat in the Internetlace hills of rural Massachusetts,
or else. I'm in my custom built survival Brownstone in Parkslow, Brooklyn,
or else I'm on the high seas, cruising on the
luxury passenger ship Hodge Manic. I'm sorry I can't tell
you where I am for reasons of safety. My location
must be kept secret, even from myself. But it is
(30:23):
good to write you again. So much has changed in
my life since I wrote my first book, The Areas
of my Expertise. If I'm sorry, I love your book. Yeah,
I've read your book, and then you don't mind hearing
it again. I would want to hear it again, but
I don't know if we have the time to read
it in its entirety, because well, wait, wait, wait, wait,
this is a podcast, right, what he's saying, there's no rules. Yeah,
(30:46):
I know. It's like it's not like you got another
podcast coming on after this one. We want to sell
some of these though. You don't want to spoil it,
all right, but everyone's bugging me for the audio book,
and so I just figured this would be the easiest
way podcast, So don't give it away, sting, Alright, how
do it? Uh? I mean, I'm We're delighted to have
you here, John, I'm delighted to be drawing pictures, read
(31:06):
some words. I could talk. I could talk all day long.
But we've beefed up security here recently. I noticed, and
you just appeared. They waved me through. No, I don't
understand how that happens. I got a ticket? Did you
a ticket? Ticket? Your podcast? Live podcast taping? We don't
have tickets, Oh, yes, you do, you do. I got
it through my credit card, don't Yeah, my credit card,
(31:29):
all all kinds of perks, like I'm not a sporting fellow,
but you know, if I wanted to go see a
sports a sports thing exhibition, like a sports contest. Do
you know what I mean? I just call up my
independent concierge at my credit card and they get me
a ticket, and you know where my ticket is? Where
is it? Well, let's say I go to a New
York Jets game. Okay, all right, you know where my
(31:50):
ticket is? Where Nick Mangolds shoulders. He's a player on
that team. Yeah, yea, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Your book a lot too? Can you get to watch it?
He is? He is the Well I don't. Maybe look,
can I stick around until next time? All right? Maybe
we can talk about the coming NERD Jock convergence then,
(32:13):
But right now, I look, I don't know if you
guys mind a little plugging, but I'm doing some you
know me, I loathe the advertising, but I'm doing some
work with with this company, this credit card company, and
it's really amazing. Check. Do you remember what page it's on?
You come on the diners Club. It's not just a
Diners Club card, you understand, it's a special. It's the
(32:34):
Diners Club po f H nine times Diamond card. Because
you had the m X black and you said, forget that,
we had the literally platinum card. Yeah, would you put
your gum on because it's platinum. Sure, because you can
put the gum on it, get it off very easily
because it's because the nature platinum. But now you have
been upgraded to the nine times Diamond Diners Club card.
(32:55):
It's not it's not even a card. It's not even
doesn't even take the shape. I know what it is,
but like you to explain it. It It takes a shape.
It's a it's a feather, it's a You actually get
this beautiful feather in the mail and you carry it
around with you. Here, I have mine here, it's spun
from gold. Is that right? Yeah, it's yeah, it's nice. Right.
And then when you want to make a purchase, like
(33:16):
you don't have to like hand over your card and
have the guy put it in the thing. Do you
know what I mean? I mean, here's the thing. You
go into a store now and you want to you
want to buy something that's very expensive, and you want
to treat the person like their human garbage. You used
to be able to just toss in their card and
then look away like you don't care. Now you have
to swipe your own card like. I can't live like that,
(33:39):
do you know what I mean? So that's why I
have this nine times diamond po FH card. Isn't a card,
It's a feather. This is a beautiful golden feather, and
I just carry it around with me, and the purchases
are like automatic, So if I want to buy something
with it, I don't have to give him a card
or anything. I just take the feather out and I
just lightly touched their cheeks with it two times, and
then it belongs to me. And you point out that
(34:00):
some some men have even met their wives this way. Correct,
exactly so, because the thing about it is, the thing
about having the feather is not only is it beautiful
and thus reflecting you as a deranged millionaire's love of
beautiful things in the world, but it allows you to
treat other people in the most humiliating way possible, which
is really all a deranged millionaire really wants, you know
what I mean. So it has these amazing perks I
(34:21):
told you about the I told you about the watching
a Jets game from the shoulders and mcmangled ticket to anything,
the ticket to anything. Obviously, you have a lot of
travel services because deranged millionaires like me like to travel
around quite a bit. So if you go to the airport,
you have access to special lounges we like what well,
not like the Admiral's Club right or or you know,
(34:41):
but like a really special lounge. Like all you have
to do is like you wouldn't even know that it
was even there. I'm not even familiar with the Admiral's Club.
That's where the admirals go before flying the planes and
they and they drink rock and they sing sea chanty
and then they fly. Okay, Uh, this is a this
(35:02):
is a super secret, like super exclusive lounge, and it's
you just go up to you have to find a
Chili's to Golis Express, the Chili's Express or whatever it is,
which are two very very very different. The important thing
is don't go to the seating area. Go to the
big refrigerator bank where they have all of the different
(35:25):
tacos and Casadilla's pre made stuff, and then you just
you just gently brush your feather across a particular case
of dilla I can't tell you which, and then that
slides back and there's a secret door into the special lounge. Uh,
did you know that, and they have leather chairs, a
(35:46):
full honor bar, a Japanese soaking tub, and all of
the Chili's express food you can eat. Yeah, but at
this time it tastes like actual food. Yeah. What else
is this card? Do you? John? I can't. I could
go on and on. There's just so many perks. Uh.
If you are a fan of the theater, who isn't yeah, um,
(36:08):
and you don't like it's you have a hard time
getting tickets to the Broadway Theater. Right, Well, let's say
you get tickets and the show is terrible, Like now,
you're not going to go back. But what if you
could call your concierge and have them call Peoplitzer Prize
winning playwright David Lindsay a bear and make him write
a new play to your specifications, maybe even starring a
(36:31):
character based on you. Right, And all of a sudden,
that's in the Broadway Theater And not only do you
get the best seats in the house to that particular show,
you get to watch as the ushers kick out the
people who were sitting in your seats before you. Yeah,
I know, we're talking about a good theater and oh
(36:51):
the best, Oh the best, only theaters that are named
for corporations. So we're talking about the good ones. Do
you know what I mean? American Airlines Theater, h Foxwood's Theater,
UM Chili's Express Theater. Yeah, that's that's where. Yeah, it's
in the round. That's where a Book of Mormon is
moving to Oka And uh and what if you don't
(37:14):
have someone to go with you? You just call a
concierge and they'll set up someone to go with you. Uh.
Could be Laurence O'Donnell from MSNBC is the last word,
could be James Spader, He's could be Lonnie Anderson or
any one of a number of stable of celebrity pals
that will go with you to see the show based
(37:35):
in your Life that David Lindsay a bet had to
write for you. So do these people sign up to
be a pal? Or are they kind of corralled into this?
There's usually there's this like they've done something in their
past that they would rather not they've racked up terrible
debts or or you know, maybe they're just trying to
(37:56):
plug the last word with Laurence o'donald and MSNBC for
deranged millionaires. Yeah, there might be people that that won't
ever happen to me. That will never happen to me.
What are you saying, I'm not concerned about that. Here's
the best thing, and I'll leave it with this. After
five years of membership and good standing, premium Feather holders
(38:19):
will be visited in their bedroom by an old man. Yeah,
they'll wake up and they'll be a dude. I'll have
long white hair, and I'll be wearing like a white
suit and a white tie. And he won't be wearing
any shoes because he has bird feet. And he'll invite
you to go with him, and he'll give you, uh,
(38:42):
you'll he'll tell you to become naked, and then he'll
give you a robe to wear, but the robe is
like a little too short. And then you go on
a limousine and you go to a high rise, like
a skyscraper in New York City that you never noticed before,
like was always there, Yeah, it was always there. You're
(39:03):
just not allowed you're not allowed to see. It's it's
actually a zigaratte in the middle of Manhattan. You were
not allowed to see, but now you can. And then
you will go in, and you will go in and
you'll see all the other, uh, five year golden feather holders.
They're they're all wearing golden robes. You probably know them
from the Chili's Express Lounge or whatever. And then the
(39:26):
old man will encourage you to bathe and special waters
and be anointed with special oils. And then you will
be told that you were among the very very few
to ever see the zigguratte and be given the ever
very rare opportunity to apply for the Diners Club Premium
Excelsior pof D card, which costs two million dollars a
(39:48):
year to join. And uh, it's in the It's not
in the form of a feather. It's in the form
of a a talking milk snake, but only you. But
you carry around on your fingers and on your forearm
all the time. You ever see how like an old
Mark's Brothers movies or whatever have Like the really rich
people are walking around in their hands they sort of
(40:09):
like out in the air as that they're holding a cocktail,
but there's nothing there. Yeah, they're holding an invisible milk
snaithe they can talk to that, they can talk to,
can talk to them, but they're the only ones who
can see it. Wow. Another card holders as well, so
just another four years for me and I won't I
won't have to ever see you as again. Do you
I was gonna say, do you think you'll still drop by? Yeah,
(40:32):
I'll drop by, but I'll keep my cloaking mechanism M
so I don't have to dract. I'll drop by for
the next three weeks maybe even. Yeah. No, I'd like
to come back and talk to more about what's you know? Well, yeah,
are you gonna? Are you leaving and coming back? Are
you going to? Can we have your word that if
you do leave, you'll actually have left. You won't be
hanging around with invisibility on Oh no, I had, I had.
(40:54):
I had them set up in office here and how
stuff works as as as safe as a safe room
for me. And I'll just go over there and you're
gonna stay here. I'll just hang out and then I'll
come when you guys are doing it again. I'd love
to come back and prevent you from reading more read
or mail. What is it? Is it Tuesday? We'll be
back in here Thursday, because we record and then publish immediately.
(41:17):
All right, we'll send you an outlooking by then. That
would be terrific. Okay, okay, good, all right, let's do
this at least one more time. Maybe we'll do it
all more time. Okay, that's it for this show. All right, well, um,
our apologies to Sarah the amazing fourteen year old fans. Yeah,
we'll get to that. Um. If you are an amazing fan,
or how about this, If you have a question for Hodgeman,
(41:39):
we want to know it. That sounds great. You can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
can also tweet directly at Hodgeman but don't um. You
can visit us on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash
stuff you Should Know, or you can send us a
good old fashioned email at Stuff Podcast at how Stuff
works dot com. M be sure to check out our
(42:05):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join housto Work
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
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