June 16, 2009 • 26 mins
The world's problems necessitate innovative solutions. Listen in as Josh and Chuck propose some innovations, from teleportation to an international language, that the world needs right now in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
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):
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. With me is Chuck Bryant
with his beautiful juke brug. It's still beautiful. Yeah, So Chuck,
(00:24):
how you doing? Uh? Well? So are you? I'm pretty good?
I'm pretty good into everyone out there listening. If it
sound like I'm talking a little fast, that is because
Chuck literally has a stopwatch here to keep you from
talking to what's in this podcast? I kid you not. Yeah,
in a cat of Mine tales. Yeah, we could very easily.
I shouldn't say we, I could very easily traps into
(00:45):
I guess long windedness as a euphemism I should use yeah,
Chuck says, yeah, he's his head um, and so to
combat that, Chuck has the stopwatch. So, Chuck, let's talk
about some innovations that we need and why look at
you so proud? Uh? Yeah, Josh? You know there are
the world is in trouble in some ways, and big
(01:07):
innovations and big innovators come along and correct things and
change all that and that's what we need, buddy, we
can We've named three here, there are many more. Yeah, agreed,
And what do you think about blogging? Yeah, and thank
you for reminding me. I would like this is especially
I would like to call out to the blog and
get you folks on the Friday recap when this comes out,
because we have only uh named three kind of pie
(01:29):
in the sky innovations that could help the world, and
there are many more. And I'd like to hear what
people have to say to Chuck. So that's the call out.
Nice Chuck, So you want to get started on this? Yes,
you got your you got your stopwatch going? Yes, okay, alright,
so Chuck, let's do teleportation. I wish we could, my goodness.
(01:49):
So do I have you ever been on like a long,
long road trip? Yeah? I like road trip. So so
on the way right, on the way back, on the
back is awful. Right. What if you could just drive
to a place, say, you know, like a subway station,
which is a good idea. Uh And instead of getting
on a subway, you just go through some sort of
(02:10):
teleportation portal, so at a teleportation station. Nice, Yeah, they
should call it that. I think they will probably did
you on this term spend around since oh wow, you
did some extra extra research in Yes, an American writer
and paranormal investigator named Charles Fort wrote it in his
book Low for It's one of my heroes. You know
that really yeah forty times. Well, he had a book
(02:32):
called low within a post exclamation point at the end
l O w or l O l okay, and apparently
that's where he first used the word teleportation. Fantastic, So, yeah,
that would be awesome, and it's not exactly impossible, No,
it's not. Thanks to the magic of quantum physics, we
could conceivably teleport ourselves. Indeed, I guess the way that
(02:55):
it's starting to look more and more is like we
would be facts. Yeah, exactly. That's a good way to say.
Instead of source, what what you're doing is you're recreating.
You would be recreating every cell in your body and
copying it, and that first edition would have to be destroyed. Though.
This one of the keys, right, that is the key
I didn't quite get to the bottom of y aside
(03:15):
from you know, very rapidly overpopulating the earth. But yeah,
I got the impression that as far as quantum mechanics goes,
you would the original would have to be destroyed before
transmission or as it was being scanned. And then basically
it takes these particles and atoms and everything. It doesn't
(03:37):
actually transport the atoms. This is this is the big distinction.
Like all teleportation as far as science fiction goes, generally,
UM has to do with actually physically moving the atoms
through the air and then recreating them elsewhere. Uh. Much
like images on television. Right, as you've seen Willy Wonka
Chocolate factory, right, much like that. That's not the case.
(03:59):
In stead, what we would need to do is basically
scan us what makes us us. All the information about
where you know one of the cells in your liver
is um, about where you know every your genetic makeup,
everything for absolutely every part of you, including stuff we
(04:21):
haven't nailed down yet, would have to be analyzed and
then sent and then it could be recreated in the
first one was destroyed. There's a big problem with this,
well uh, namely, we're too complex of of beings to
do that. Well. Sure, but also if you subscribe to
any kind of Judeo Christian or any kind of religious idea,
(04:43):
um uh, you would have a big problem because basically
you've just been destroyed and all the information about you
has been transferred. And if you believe the soul is
some sort of if it's extant and an externality that's
not part of your body, that it's it's something beyond that,
can that be recreated? Yeah that's true. But let's say
(05:04):
most people who are working on uh teleporting us don't
subscribe to any ideas of the sult right, Okay, so
let's just go with that assumption. Let's just say phy physiologically,
what are some of the challenges. Well, they have actually
teleported uh atoms and UH photons. Did you know that
they've sent adams a distance of about half a meter
(05:26):
and they sent some photons over tens of kilometers. Yeah,
pretty impressive, it is. And I know that there's one
really smart guy out there, Charles Bennett, who was a
really smart scientist. He uh he said that in principle
that teleporting humans does not actually violate any fundamental laws
of physics. No, they used to think it violated Heisenberg's
(05:47):
uncertainty principle because we were talking about scanning and once
you get down to the sub atomic quantum level, um
you're you're you're dealing with quarks, little pieces of matter
and um other non material stuff. Uh that when you
analyze and when you observe them, when you measure them,
(06:08):
the the more accurately you measure them, the more likely
you are to disrupt their behavior until you can't get
an accurate measurement anymore. They figured out a way around this, right, Uh,
where you're talking about quantum entanglement. Yes, that is Uh.
Einstein actually called that spooky action at a distance, except
he said in German, it probably sounds cooler in German,
(06:30):
although spooky is pretty cool. Basically, it's two separate particles
behaving as if it's one particle, even though they're separated
by a great distance. Right, Well, they were together at
one point in time. They become entangled, like there's their superpositions,
their states become entangled. And then yeah, after they're separated,
the behavior of one is the same as the behavior
(06:53):
of another, and they they can't they shouldn't be influencing
one another anymore. Right, But Bennett's that that's not even necessary.
If you were to figure out how to teleport an
entire human, he said that quote, the teleported person would
end up slightly different, but not in a biologically important way.
So well, chuck um there there are some Think about
(07:16):
what you just said, you're you're reproducing something that's not
biologically different. Think about your mood, the mood d'ine right now,
that's all a series of chemical reactions, So we have
to analyze down to that level where else should come
out on the other end, like maybe insane or very
depressed or ready to kill. I mean, there's a lot
of information that would have to be scanned to accurately
(07:36):
reproduce you as you were before the scanning started. But
let's say we can do that, right. What What are
the benefits of teleportation? Why do we need this? And
since this is all pine in the sky and pipe
dream type of stuff, let's say we can teleport. That
would save time? Yes, time is money. How would you
love to not um commute to beam yourself to work
every day? That would be crazy. Work days would be shorter.
(07:58):
That means you could save energy at at the workplace.
I know I get a lot more work though when
a telecommute. Yeah, and teleporting, imagine that you could save
on you were talking about transportation of goods and jets
and big barges. Maybe if you could teleport your goods
then you wouldn't have to you know, fly things halfway
around the world. Yeah, that might be a good thing. Yeah,
(08:21):
I think there's a lot of benefits to teleportation. What
else you got, that's all? You don't have some Brady
bunch as any uh plotline that you can dream up here? No, no,
because the original is destroyed. That's where all the comedy lives. Yeah,
you're right, yeah, when there's duplicity or multiplicity, except there
wasn't that much comedy there. Yeah, Michael Keaton Wolf. Yeah.
(08:44):
So Chuck, um, pressure, stop watch, let's clear it out again.
Let's clear it out. So, I mean, trust me, folks,
we could do an hour on teleportation. But we could,
but we just stopped making sense after a little while.
Next because you couldn't understand us, but because we're dumb.
So what's the number two? Josh ready? Yes, okay? Number
two is a universal language? Chuck, consider this, how much conflict, war,
(09:06):
misunderstanding and just general strife, nationalism, isolationism, fascism, all of
this stuff, How much of it is the result of
this unphysical border we call language. Right, They say that
the Devil's greatest creation was language. Really yeah, miscommunication, absolutely, dude.
And you know what, you're right, if there was an
(09:27):
international language, if everyone spoke the same language, I don't
think it would make us some big you know, it
would make us all the same. So lay thot years
a rest folks. No, most of the people I've I've
read who are talking and thinking about universal language is
saying like, this is not meant to supplant native languages.
It's just you know, if you're at home, you're let's
(09:47):
say you're in America, you're speaking English like Chuck and
I speak English to one another. But if we went
to give a seminar on podcasting in Norway, we would
use the international language. Interesting you bring up Norway because
some folks say that Norwegian might be a good start. Well,
they used to, and they used to think that nineteen eleven.
At least that's true. Yeah, go ahead. Some people have
(10:10):
thought about this over the years and they think that, uh,
you should probably create a new language with another language
is a basis. But it probably shouldn't be one of
the big boys either, because it would give that that
nation too much of a leg up. Oh yeah, you
said from now on English is the universal language. Everyone
who speaks English should be like, damn straight, yeah, yeah,
(10:32):
you'd have to create your own language if you want
a universal language. And I know you're dying to talk
about Esperanto, Chuck. I had only vaguely heard of Esperanto
before and didn't really know the nuts and bolts of it.
But um, actually Ben Bolan, the creator of one of
our soon to be released podcasts, a conspiracy podcast called
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know It. Yeah, looking
(10:52):
forward to it. Um, he was telling me about Esperanto
and basically, in the nineteenth century, a guy named L. L.
Zamenhoff came up with this idea that we need a
universal language that would promote tolerance and quality, that kind
of thing, avoid war again specifically, I think he said
that was one of his aims. And yeah, he was
definitely a pacifist. You know. He also tried to come
(11:12):
up with a um uh, neutral religion that's all that
called Hamaronism. Maybe that's why I didn't take something all
right now, I guess. But he was twenty seven, he
was at the tender age of twenty seven, and he
created a universal language. He did and basically it sounds
a lot like it's a romance language kind of it's
(11:35):
kind of like a broken romance language. Yeah, it's it's
independent in and of itself. So while he did borrow
from others, they say it's they don't describe it as
a as a mix, like a potpourri of other languages
just mixed together right now. They it's structurally similar to
um non European languages than European ones. I mean, it's
very much phonetic, and it's it's spelled the way it
(11:57):
sounds supposed to be pretty easy, very easy. There's the
sixteen rules of Grammar and pronunciation to it, and that's it.
Because I mean, you think about English, you know you've
got like good, better, best, Where the hell did better
and best come from? We started out with good, you know,
like where does that come from? And apparently English is
one of the most difficult languages to learn that. Yeah,
(12:18):
I would say so, because of all the little problems
like that. So I think what Zomanoff was on the
trail of it. I think anybody has created a universal
language is to get away with all the get get
rid of all the all the foibles, the weird things
that make a dialect or language, so unique inconsistencies. One
of the other problems is is that's actually a structural approach.
(12:39):
There's also a symbolic approach. Yeah, I like that one.
The symbolic approach is like we call mother mother for
no good reason. It's a symbolic word, you know, it's
not like the word cuckoo, where you know, cuckoo is
the sound that a cuckoo bird makes. That's very structural.
But this, this symbolic words probably have even more difficulties
(13:03):
than a universal language um that was built structurally. Because
what a language is is it's a world view of
a culture the people who share that language. Right, So
how do you get the entire world to agree on
you know, the meaning of mother, right? Well? Mother is
probably an easy one. But let's say the meaning of happiness.
(13:25):
Let's pick on happiness, right, Well, you can't. That's the problem,
and that's probably why there never will be a universal language.
That's not necessarily true. Also, I think that most I
think every single language universal language attempt and there's been some.
Did you read about idiom neutral Russian one that sounded
like it got pretty close? Wow, what do you mean
(13:46):
by clothes? Solo than Esperanto. Two million people speak Esperanto today,
That is true. Have you been on a learning It's
a website for dedicated to teaching Esperanto. It's got the
tutorials and everything in there, so if you want to
learn Esperanto. And Chuck is right, there is actually a
thriving little community of Esperanto speakers. And there's also two
(14:09):
movies that have been shot entirely in Esperanto. We're gonna
talk about one. What I was feeling. Johnny Depp did
one of him? No? No, no, uh, Bill Shatner, Oh yeah,
that's right. There is a nineteen movie called Incubus, and
the whole thing is filmed entirely in Esperanto. William Shatner
speaks Esperanto, or at least he spoke the lines from
(14:31):
that movie. Yeah. No, it rang a bell that I
heard he was he learned it. Yeah, he knows esperanto.
You know, worked with sat Did he speak Esperanto? TI like,
Oh my god, that explains so much. I just thought
he was having a stroke. He's a nice guy though. Yeah,
he's a little puffy, sure, but it was for a
TV commercial. He was he was into it. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah,
(14:52):
Like he really gave it his bringing, every bring, everything
he did. I was impressed because sometimes commercial actors are
kind of like, go through the motions, we'll chuck, let's
talk about it. What's the uh what? What's What are
the benefits of universal language besides war avoidance or anything
like that. I would say economically, it would be easier
to communicate and negotiate contracts and uh broker deals and
(15:13):
trade and stuff like that with you. Oh, definitely, And
I think we need it. We're becoming more and more globalized.
We're interacting with one another more and more. You basically
can't be an isolated country anymonger if you want to
stay afloat, it would save time. Plus, also, think about science,
I mean, why does science use Latin. It's an agreed
upon universal language. What if there was an uh, there
(15:33):
was a real universal language that scientists could more easily
communicate their ideas with one another their findings. Well, yeah,
and I saw that um in one of the articles
we read for this. Some some of the old school
Russian scientists used to not like to have to publish
in German, which I think at the time was what
most German and French and German and French, and then
a lot of ts for you Russian. Yeah, and a
(15:54):
lot of students either um today have to read these
things in a translated form that may not be quite
accurate or you know, not read it at all. And
time check you one to go into number three? Yes,
to clear out your your stopwatch there. Okay, all right,
you're ready and go go. This one is Chuck's favorite one.
(16:18):
He picked this one. Are we ready? Yeah? Okay, Chuck
picked this one. I think it's a good idea to Chuck.
What is the third innovation that we need right now?
Innovator is what we need? We need Chuck, just spun it. Yeah,
we need a human, we need another Einstein, we need
another Newton, we need another Tesla to come along, just
(16:39):
not another Edison. Yeah, and Josh, some people might say,
when it comes to innovators, you're probably thinking in the
world of science, which is appropriate, and uh, a renaissance
scientist maybe where you need to to start your search. Sure, Chuck,
we found this article about renaissance scientists and how actually
in the United States and the higher educational system that
(17:02):
the cards are stacked against any of these people actually
being produced that very much that we have to just
basically hope that one comes along, and if it does,
it's gonna be a total fluke, you know, because the
idea is that in order to be a true innovator, Uh,
then you have to be a whole brain scientist, definitely.
And the graduate system that we have today, they said,
the undergraduate system does a pretty good job of it. Well, yeah,
(17:23):
I just think about all the different kinds of classes,
the core classes, and then you know, I took biology
for no good reason. Statistics I hated stats. Oh it's awful. Uh.
But the whole brain thinkers are the ones that have
the more well rounded approach. So not only are they
are they a brilliant a physics mind, but they can
understand the human side of maybe how to apply that,
(17:44):
and that's what's missing a lot of times. Right. So
Mills and no Tino, I think wrote this this, this
opinion piece we found in Forbes. Um that basically you're saying, like, yes, yes,
undergrad we have it. It's great. Same generally with high school,
middle school, grade school, UM, kids are exp oose to
all these different fields of study. The problem is it's
geared generally towards funneling them one way or another. And
(18:07):
this becomes most evident when you get to grad school
big time, where if you're a doctoral student and you
need money, you better come up with a a an
incredibly specific, unique and specific idea or field of research
that you're going to go into. It's all geared towards that.
And like you said that, as you as you go
forward an education, the path gets narrower and narrower until
(18:30):
you're literally, yeah to where you may be researching one
thing for your career and maybe you'll come up with innovation, innovation,
that way to change the world. But my money is
on a whole brain thinker. Well, yeah, or at least
somebody who can take all these various fields of research
or all this various research data and put it all together,
(18:52):
because research is just research until you apply it. So, Chuck,
is there anybody on the horizon? Is there anybody we
should be keeping an eye on? May who? There's a few?
I know some people might say the first answer that
comes to my via Stephen Hawking, but did a little research.
And while Hawking is no slouch, there are some in
the physics community that think Hawking gets a lot of
(19:13):
attention because he's generated a lot of attention through his
books and uh maybe through his disability has garnered a
lot of attention. So certainly not to knock anything he's done,
but within the physics community, I don't know if he's
as high on the list of some of these other
guys and gals. Guys and gals, I love that there's
so much smarter than I. I'm calling him guys and gals,
(19:34):
these dudes and chicks. Ed Whitton is one of them. Okay,
you ever heard of Ed? I He is a physicist,
specifically a mathematical physicist, and studies at Princeton. He's gotten
the MacArthur Genius Grant. He's won the Fields Medal, which
is the highest uh medal or honor you can get
in math. So he's he's he's been called the next
(19:57):
Isaac Newton. But he works with theory, which I know
you're you're not a big fan of. I have one
word about string theory? What's that? Boo boo? Yeah? So
he's up there. And then there's a guy, a dude
named Murray gell Man. Have you heard of him? Tell
us about him? Okay? Uh MGM is I like to
call him. He's a prominent scientist and once again he
(20:20):
won the Nobel Prize in Physics in nineteen nine for
his work with the theory of elementary particles. And he
is the one that came up with cork the quirk.
So he's no slouch. No, he's not a slouch. I mean,
to predict the existence of a theoretical particle and then
have it confirmed. Not a pretty smart guy. And then
(20:40):
you know, some people might say folks like Bill Gates,
who uh, he's not a physicist or a mathematician. But
he has a high emotional intellect, a very high emotional
intact and ellect, and a lot of money and a
true visionary and a guy that likes to spread his
money around to good causes nowadays. So I don't know
what got into him, or if he was always this
way and he was just really focused on Microsoft, but
(21:02):
I gotta tell you, I like this repackaged Bill Gates. Yeah,
he's very generous guy. Apparently more than half his fortune
he's invested outside of Microsoft. It's fantastic. So if you're
talking about an innovator, I mean, you can only really
do good if you're if you're trying to help your
fellow man, right, well, yeah, or if it's a happy
byproduct of your evil deeds like Oppenheimer. No, that's the
(21:24):
reverse of that. So, Chuck, there's three innovations. You said
we could do a lot more. I'm kind of glad
we did. But uh, I am interested as well. Thank
you for turning off the stop by. I too am
interested to see what our listeners who go through to
the blogs think too. There's certainly some uh. I mean,
we were talking if we were just on pipe dream time,
(21:46):
like a food pill where you could just drop some
water on it would create a meal. Sadly, that was
one that we considered talking about, right, and he said
it's called the vitamin, and I felt kind of stupid. Yeah,
so you know we're not talking about which jetson type
of stuff. I mean real attainable things like teleportation. Yeah,
it's right there, right there. It's facing people so who
(22:09):
all speak the same language Esperanto and Chuck, I guess
it's time for a listener mail, right. Indeed, Yes, Josh,
we're gonna call this a walk around the world listener, Marail,
I have three quickies from different parts of the world,
and we're gonna read them right now. Okay, you don't
actually have to walk though, right, you're gonna first one
(22:31):
is from Australia. Get a. My name is Nicola and
I'm a student from Melbourne. I am finally seeing you
an email after months of NonStop listening. I just want
to say thank you for putting metric conversions in your
more recent shows. I've been confused by your measuring method.
Imperial is it called? Also, I must confess I love
how you guys say Australia, especially how you pronounce it.
(22:53):
Would you say it again on the air for me, Chuck, Australia, Australia,
thanks a million. And that is from I won't say
your biggest fan, because that's what everyone says. I will
call myself a committed fanatic. Actually that sounds It's way
better than slightly creepy if you asked me Nicola. So Nicola.
This one is from Luca and Serbia. Luca says, I'm
(23:15):
writing about Nicola Tesla. He said that he was Austrian.
That is not true. He was an ethnic Serb. Wait
a minute. Our last one was our last listener was
Nicola from Australia, and now Luca from Serbia. Is writing
about Nicola Tesla. How about that this is crazy? It's crazy,
so he says that is not true. He was an
ethnic Serb who was born in today's Croatia, which was
(23:36):
part of Austria, so he's not what you would consider
today Austrian. He's although I'm sure Luca just said he
was born in Austria, so Croatians like to say he
was Croatian. But he's a Serb because his father was
an Orthodox priest and Croatians are Catholics. So that is
from Luca. And then my final favorite from China. Remember
(23:59):
al Jane, Uh, this is great. I'm just gonna read
it as it stands here, and we should go ahead
and tell y'all we're not making fun. I love broken English.
I think it's adorable and when people make the effort
it really you know, gives me a good feeling. There
you go, Chuck, Well, I'm a loyal fan of stuff.
You should know. You guys always make me laugh and
when there have some weird words that I don't know,
(24:21):
I will hear it repeatedly. So I am a hard
working fan of your program. I got an interesting topic.
I think why you guys don't talk about the Internet
censorship and how to skip it because in my country, China,
people can't access the YouTube and interestingly, I even can't
access your blog, so we're banned in China. I know
(24:43):
I blogged about it. Uh, this is the American Life
podcast may be also illegal because I can't download it.
There has a defense system named great Wall. Wish you
can see it and read it in your program. But
don't mock me. It's what he says, and I think
he means there is I'm you know, apologies for the
broken English or emen don't market one of those. So
(25:07):
that is from Yao Jian and we appreciate you all listening.
And yes, yeah, and thank you for the information. Because
I actually did blog about Tianamen Square the anniversary the
twenties anniversaries happened. I couldn't remember which listener told us
that we were banned there, but yeah, I gotta tell
you that's the point of pride for maybe. Yeah, that's awesome,
and we love folks writing in and given their best
attempt at speaking are weird language. Yeah, Chica, thanks to
(25:34):
all of you. And I just think it's cool that
there's people on the other side of the world that
think we're interesting. Yeah, weird. Yeah, Well, if you want
to tell us that we're interesting, or correct us about
where some guy was born or whatever for Marcus, sure,
you can send an email to stuff podcast how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(25:59):
other topics at how stuff works dot com. Want more
house stuff works, check out our blogs on the house
stuff works dot com home page. 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. With me is Chuck Bryant
with his beautiful juke brug. It's still beautiful. Yeah, So Chuck,
(00:24):
how you doing? Uh? Well? So are you? I'm pretty good?
I'm pretty good into everyone out there listening. If it
sound like I'm talking a little fast, that is because
Chuck literally has a stopwatch here to keep you from
talking to what's in this podcast? I kid you not. Yeah,
in a cat of Mine tales. Yeah, we could very easily.
I shouldn't say we, I could very easily traps into
(00:45):
I guess long windedness as a euphemism I should use yeah,
Chuck says, yeah, he's his head um, and so to
combat that, Chuck has the stopwatch. So, Chuck, let's talk
about some innovations that we need and why look at
you so proud? Uh? Yeah, Josh? You know there are
the world is in trouble in some ways, and big
(01:07):
innovations and big innovators come along and correct things and
change all that and that's what we need, buddy, we
can We've named three here, there are many more. Yeah, agreed,
And what do you think about blogging? Yeah, and thank
you for reminding me. I would like this is especially
I would like to call out to the blog and
get you folks on the Friday recap when this comes out,
because we have only uh named three kind of pie
(01:29):
in the sky innovations that could help the world, and
there are many more. And I'd like to hear what
people have to say to Chuck. So that's the call out.
Nice Chuck, So you want to get started on this? Yes,
you got your you got your stopwatch going? Yes, okay, alright,
so Chuck, let's do teleportation. I wish we could, my goodness.
(01:49):
So do I have you ever been on like a long,
long road trip? Yeah? I like road trip. So so
on the way right, on the way back, on the
back is awful. Right. What if you could just drive
to a place, say, you know, like a subway station,
which is a good idea. Uh And instead of getting
on a subway, you just go through some sort of
(02:10):
teleportation portal, so at a teleportation station. Nice, Yeah, they
should call it that. I think they will probably did
you on this term spend around since oh wow, you
did some extra extra research in Yes, an American writer
and paranormal investigator named Charles Fort wrote it in his
book Low for It's one of my heroes. You know
that really yeah forty times. Well, he had a book
(02:32):
called low within a post exclamation point at the end
l O w or l O l okay, and apparently
that's where he first used the word teleportation. Fantastic, So, yeah,
that would be awesome, and it's not exactly impossible, No,
it's not. Thanks to the magic of quantum physics, we
could conceivably teleport ourselves. Indeed, I guess the way that
(02:55):
it's starting to look more and more is like we
would be facts. Yeah, exactly. That's a good way to say.
Instead of source, what what you're doing is you're recreating.
You would be recreating every cell in your body and
copying it, and that first edition would have to be destroyed. Though.
This one of the keys, right, that is the key
I didn't quite get to the bottom of y aside
(03:15):
from you know, very rapidly overpopulating the earth. But yeah,
I got the impression that as far as quantum mechanics goes,
you would the original would have to be destroyed before
transmission or as it was being scanned. And then basically
it takes these particles and atoms and everything. It doesn't
(03:37):
actually transport the atoms. This is this is the big distinction.
Like all teleportation as far as science fiction goes, generally,
UM has to do with actually physically moving the atoms
through the air and then recreating them elsewhere. Uh. Much
like images on television. Right, as you've seen Willy Wonka
Chocolate factory, right, much like that. That's not the case.
(03:59):
In stead, what we would need to do is basically
scan us what makes us us. All the information about
where you know one of the cells in your liver
is um, about where you know every your genetic makeup,
everything for absolutely every part of you, including stuff we
(04:21):
haven't nailed down yet, would have to be analyzed and
then sent and then it could be recreated in the
first one was destroyed. There's a big problem with this,
well uh, namely, we're too complex of of beings to
do that. Well. Sure, but also if you subscribe to
any kind of Judeo Christian or any kind of religious idea,
(04:43):
um uh, you would have a big problem because basically
you've just been destroyed and all the information about you
has been transferred. And if you believe the soul is
some sort of if it's extant and an externality that's
not part of your body, that it's it's something beyond that,
can that be recreated? Yeah that's true. But let's say
(05:04):
most people who are working on uh teleporting us don't
subscribe to any ideas of the sult right, Okay, so
let's just go with that assumption. Let's just say phy physiologically,
what are some of the challenges. Well, they have actually
teleported uh atoms and UH photons. Did you know that
they've sent adams a distance of about half a meter
(05:26):
and they sent some photons over tens of kilometers. Yeah,
pretty impressive, it is. And I know that there's one
really smart guy out there, Charles Bennett, who was a
really smart scientist. He uh he said that in principle
that teleporting humans does not actually violate any fundamental laws
of physics. No, they used to think it violated Heisenberg's
(05:47):
uncertainty principle because we were talking about scanning and once
you get down to the sub atomic quantum level, um
you're you're you're dealing with quarks, little pieces of matter
and um other non material stuff. Uh that when you
analyze and when you observe them, when you measure them,
(06:08):
the the more accurately you measure them, the more likely
you are to disrupt their behavior until you can't get
an accurate measurement anymore. They figured out a way around this, right, Uh,
where you're talking about quantum entanglement. Yes, that is Uh.
Einstein actually called that spooky action at a distance, except
he said in German, it probably sounds cooler in German,
(06:30):
although spooky is pretty cool. Basically, it's two separate particles
behaving as if it's one particle, even though they're separated
by a great distance. Right, Well, they were together at
one point in time. They become entangled, like there's their superpositions,
their states become entangled. And then yeah, after they're separated,
the behavior of one is the same as the behavior
(06:53):
of another, and they they can't they shouldn't be influencing
one another anymore. Right, But Bennett's that that's not even necessary.
If you were to figure out how to teleport an
entire human, he said that quote, the teleported person would
end up slightly different, but not in a biologically important way.
So well, chuck um there there are some Think about
(07:16):
what you just said, you're you're reproducing something that's not
biologically different. Think about your mood, the mood d'ine right now,
that's all a series of chemical reactions, So we have
to analyze down to that level where else should come
out on the other end, like maybe insane or very
depressed or ready to kill. I mean, there's a lot
of information that would have to be scanned to accurately
(07:36):
reproduce you as you were before the scanning started. But
let's say we can do that, right. What What are
the benefits of teleportation? Why do we need this? And
since this is all pine in the sky and pipe
dream type of stuff, let's say we can teleport. That
would save time? Yes, time is money. How would you
love to not um commute to beam yourself to work
every day? That would be crazy. Work days would be shorter.
(07:58):
That means you could save energy at at the workplace.
I know I get a lot more work though when
a telecommute. Yeah, and teleporting, imagine that you could save
on you were talking about transportation of goods and jets
and big barges. Maybe if you could teleport your goods
then you wouldn't have to you know, fly things halfway
around the world. Yeah, that might be a good thing. Yeah,
(08:21):
I think there's a lot of benefits to teleportation. What
else you got, that's all? You don't have some Brady
bunch as any uh plotline that you can dream up here? No, no,
because the original is destroyed. That's where all the comedy lives. Yeah,
you're right, yeah, when there's duplicity or multiplicity, except there
wasn't that much comedy there. Yeah, Michael Keaton Wolf. Yeah.
(08:44):
So Chuck, um, pressure, stop watch, let's clear it out again.
Let's clear it out. So, I mean, trust me, folks,
we could do an hour on teleportation. But we could,
but we just stopped making sense after a little while.
Next because you couldn't understand us, but because we're dumb.
So what's the number two? Josh ready? Yes, okay? Number
two is a universal language? Chuck, consider this, how much conflict, war,
(09:06):
misunderstanding and just general strife, nationalism, isolationism, fascism, all of
this stuff, How much of it is the result of
this unphysical border we call language. Right, They say that
the Devil's greatest creation was language. Really yeah, miscommunication, absolutely, dude.
And you know what, you're right, if there was an
(09:27):
international language, if everyone spoke the same language, I don't
think it would make us some big you know, it
would make us all the same. So lay thot years
a rest folks. No, most of the people I've I've
read who are talking and thinking about universal language is
saying like, this is not meant to supplant native languages.
It's just you know, if you're at home, you're let's
(09:47):
say you're in America, you're speaking English like Chuck and
I speak English to one another. But if we went
to give a seminar on podcasting in Norway, we would
use the international language. Interesting you bring up Norway because
some folks say that Norwegian might be a good start. Well,
they used to, and they used to think that nineteen eleven.
At least that's true. Yeah, go ahead. Some people have
(10:10):
thought about this over the years and they think that, uh,
you should probably create a new language with another language
is a basis. But it probably shouldn't be one of
the big boys either, because it would give that that
nation too much of a leg up. Oh yeah, you
said from now on English is the universal language. Everyone
who speaks English should be like, damn straight, yeah, yeah,
(10:32):
you'd have to create your own language if you want
a universal language. And I know you're dying to talk
about Esperanto, Chuck. I had only vaguely heard of Esperanto
before and didn't really know the nuts and bolts of it.
But um, actually Ben Bolan, the creator of one of
our soon to be released podcasts, a conspiracy podcast called
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know It. Yeah, looking
(10:52):
forward to it. Um, he was telling me about Esperanto
and basically, in the nineteenth century, a guy named L. L.
Zamenhoff came up with this idea that we need a
universal language that would promote tolerance and quality, that kind
of thing, avoid war again specifically, I think he said
that was one of his aims. And yeah, he was
definitely a pacifist. You know. He also tried to come
(11:12):
up with a um uh, neutral religion that's all that
called Hamaronism. Maybe that's why I didn't take something all
right now, I guess. But he was twenty seven, he
was at the tender age of twenty seven, and he
created a universal language. He did and basically it sounds
a lot like it's a romance language kind of it's
(11:35):
kind of like a broken romance language. Yeah, it's it's
independent in and of itself. So while he did borrow
from others, they say it's they don't describe it as
a as a mix, like a potpourri of other languages
just mixed together right now. They it's structurally similar to
um non European languages than European ones. I mean, it's
very much phonetic, and it's it's spelled the way it
(11:57):
sounds supposed to be pretty easy, very easy. There's the
sixteen rules of Grammar and pronunciation to it, and that's it.
Because I mean, you think about English, you know you've
got like good, better, best, Where the hell did better
and best come from? We started out with good, you know,
like where does that come from? And apparently English is
one of the most difficult languages to learn that. Yeah,
(12:18):
I would say so, because of all the little problems
like that. So I think what Zomanoff was on the
trail of it. I think anybody has created a universal
language is to get away with all the get get
rid of all the all the foibles, the weird things
that make a dialect or language, so unique inconsistencies. One
of the other problems is is that's actually a structural approach.
(12:39):
There's also a symbolic approach. Yeah, I like that one.
The symbolic approach is like we call mother mother for
no good reason. It's a symbolic word, you know, it's
not like the word cuckoo, where you know, cuckoo is
the sound that a cuckoo bird makes. That's very structural.
But this, this symbolic words probably have even more difficulties
(13:03):
than a universal language um that was built structurally. Because
what a language is is it's a world view of
a culture the people who share that language. Right, So
how do you get the entire world to agree on
you know, the meaning of mother, right? Well? Mother is
probably an easy one. But let's say the meaning of happiness.
(13:25):
Let's pick on happiness, right, Well, you can't. That's the problem,
and that's probably why there never will be a universal language.
That's not necessarily true. Also, I think that most I
think every single language universal language attempt and there's been some.
Did you read about idiom neutral Russian one that sounded
like it got pretty close? Wow, what do you mean
(13:46):
by clothes? Solo than Esperanto. Two million people speak Esperanto today,
That is true. Have you been on a learning It's
a website for dedicated to teaching Esperanto. It's got the
tutorials and everything in there, so if you want to
learn Esperanto. And Chuck is right, there is actually a
thriving little community of Esperanto speakers. And there's also two
(14:09):
movies that have been shot entirely in Esperanto. We're gonna
talk about one. What I was feeling. Johnny Depp did
one of him? No? No, no, uh, Bill Shatner, Oh yeah,
that's right. There is a nineteen movie called Incubus, and
the whole thing is filmed entirely in Esperanto. William Shatner
speaks Esperanto, or at least he spoke the lines from
(14:31):
that movie. Yeah. No, it rang a bell that I
heard he was he learned it. Yeah, he knows esperanto.
You know, worked with sat Did he speak Esperanto? TI like,
Oh my god, that explains so much. I just thought
he was having a stroke. He's a nice guy though. Yeah,
he's a little puffy, sure, but it was for a
TV commercial. He was he was into it. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah,
(14:52):
Like he really gave it his bringing, every bring, everything
he did. I was impressed because sometimes commercial actors are
kind of like, go through the motions, we'll chuck, let's
talk about it. What's the uh what? What's What are
the benefits of universal language besides war avoidance or anything
like that. I would say economically, it would be easier
to communicate and negotiate contracts and uh broker deals and
(15:13):
trade and stuff like that with you. Oh, definitely, And
I think we need it. We're becoming more and more globalized.
We're interacting with one another more and more. You basically
can't be an isolated country anymonger if you want to
stay afloat, it would save time. Plus, also, think about science,
I mean, why does science use Latin. It's an agreed
upon universal language. What if there was an uh, there
(15:33):
was a real universal language that scientists could more easily
communicate their ideas with one another their findings. Well, yeah,
and I saw that um in one of the articles
we read for this. Some some of the old school
Russian scientists used to not like to have to publish
in German, which I think at the time was what
most German and French and German and French, and then
a lot of ts for you Russian. Yeah, and a
(15:54):
lot of students either um today have to read these
things in a translated form that may not be quite
accurate or you know, not read it at all. And
time check you one to go into number three? Yes,
to clear out your your stopwatch there. Okay, all right,
you're ready and go go. This one is Chuck's favorite one.
(16:18):
He picked this one. Are we ready? Yeah? Okay, Chuck
picked this one. I think it's a good idea to Chuck.
What is the third innovation that we need right now?
Innovator is what we need? We need Chuck, just spun it. Yeah,
we need a human, we need another Einstein, we need
another Newton, we need another Tesla to come along, just
(16:39):
not another Edison. Yeah, and Josh, some people might say,
when it comes to innovators, you're probably thinking in the
world of science, which is appropriate, and uh, a renaissance
scientist maybe where you need to to start your search. Sure, Chuck,
we found this article about renaissance scientists and how actually
in the United States and the higher educational system that
(17:02):
the cards are stacked against any of these people actually
being produced that very much that we have to just
basically hope that one comes along, and if it does,
it's gonna be a total fluke, you know, because the
idea is that in order to be a true innovator, Uh,
then you have to be a whole brain scientist, definitely.
And the graduate system that we have today, they said,
the undergraduate system does a pretty good job of it. Well, yeah,
(17:23):
I just think about all the different kinds of classes,
the core classes, and then you know, I took biology
for no good reason. Statistics I hated stats. Oh it's awful. Uh.
But the whole brain thinkers are the ones that have
the more well rounded approach. So not only are they
are they a brilliant a physics mind, but they can
understand the human side of maybe how to apply that,
(17:44):
and that's what's missing a lot of times. Right. So
Mills and no Tino, I think wrote this this, this
opinion piece we found in Forbes. Um that basically you're saying, like, yes, yes,
undergrad we have it. It's great. Same generally with high school,
middle school, grade school, UM, kids are exp oose to
all these different fields of study. The problem is it's
geared generally towards funneling them one way or another. And
(18:07):
this becomes most evident when you get to grad school
big time, where if you're a doctoral student and you
need money, you better come up with a a an
incredibly specific, unique and specific idea or field of research
that you're going to go into. It's all geared towards that.
And like you said that, as you as you go
forward an education, the path gets narrower and narrower until
(18:30):
you're literally, yeah to where you may be researching one
thing for your career and maybe you'll come up with innovation, innovation,
that way to change the world. But my money is
on a whole brain thinker. Well, yeah, or at least
somebody who can take all these various fields of research
or all this various research data and put it all together,
(18:52):
because research is just research until you apply it. So, Chuck,
is there anybody on the horizon? Is there anybody we
should be keeping an eye on? May who? There's a few?
I know some people might say the first answer that
comes to my via Stephen Hawking, but did a little research.
And while Hawking is no slouch, there are some in
the physics community that think Hawking gets a lot of
(19:13):
attention because he's generated a lot of attention through his
books and uh maybe through his disability has garnered a
lot of attention. So certainly not to knock anything he's done,
but within the physics community, I don't know if he's
as high on the list of some of these other
guys and gals. Guys and gals, I love that there's
so much smarter than I. I'm calling him guys and gals,
(19:34):
these dudes and chicks. Ed Whitton is one of them. Okay,
you ever heard of Ed? I He is a physicist,
specifically a mathematical physicist, and studies at Princeton. He's gotten
the MacArthur Genius Grant. He's won the Fields Medal, which
is the highest uh medal or honor you can get
in math. So he's he's he's been called the next
(19:57):
Isaac Newton. But he works with theory, which I know
you're you're not a big fan of. I have one
word about string theory? What's that? Boo boo? Yeah? So
he's up there. And then there's a guy, a dude
named Murray gell Man. Have you heard of him? Tell
us about him? Okay? Uh MGM is I like to
call him. He's a prominent scientist and once again he
(20:20):
won the Nobel Prize in Physics in nineteen nine for
his work with the theory of elementary particles. And he
is the one that came up with cork the quirk.
So he's no slouch. No, he's not a slouch. I mean,
to predict the existence of a theoretical particle and then
have it confirmed. Not a pretty smart guy. And then
(20:40):
you know, some people might say folks like Bill Gates,
who uh, he's not a physicist or a mathematician. But
he has a high emotional intellect, a very high emotional
intact and ellect, and a lot of money and a
true visionary and a guy that likes to spread his
money around to good causes nowadays. So I don't know
what got into him, or if he was always this
way and he was just really focused on Microsoft, but
(21:02):
I gotta tell you, I like this repackaged Bill Gates. Yeah,
he's very generous guy. Apparently more than half his fortune
he's invested outside of Microsoft. It's fantastic. So if you're
talking about an innovator, I mean, you can only really
do good if you're if you're trying to help your
fellow man, right, well, yeah, or if it's a happy
byproduct of your evil deeds like Oppenheimer. No, that's the
(21:24):
reverse of that. So, Chuck, there's three innovations. You said
we could do a lot more. I'm kind of glad
we did. But uh, I am interested as well. Thank
you for turning off the stop by. I too am
interested to see what our listeners who go through to
the blogs think too. There's certainly some uh. I mean,
we were talking if we were just on pipe dream time,
(21:46):
like a food pill where you could just drop some
water on it would create a meal. Sadly, that was
one that we considered talking about, right, and he said
it's called the vitamin, and I felt kind of stupid. Yeah,
so you know we're not talking about which jetson type
of stuff. I mean real attainable things like teleportation. Yeah,
it's right there, right there. It's facing people so who
(22:09):
all speak the same language Esperanto and Chuck, I guess
it's time for a listener mail, right. Indeed, Yes, Josh,
we're gonna call this a walk around the world listener, Marail,
I have three quickies from different parts of the world,
and we're gonna read them right now. Okay, you don't
actually have to walk though, right, you're gonna first one
(22:31):
is from Australia. Get a. My name is Nicola and
I'm a student from Melbourne. I am finally seeing you
an email after months of NonStop listening. I just want
to say thank you for putting metric conversions in your
more recent shows. I've been confused by your measuring method.
Imperial is it called? Also, I must confess I love
how you guys say Australia, especially how you pronounce it.
(22:53):
Would you say it again on the air for me, Chuck, Australia, Australia,
thanks a million. And that is from I won't say
your biggest fan, because that's what everyone says. I will
call myself a committed fanatic. Actually that sounds It's way
better than slightly creepy if you asked me Nicola. So Nicola.
This one is from Luca and Serbia. Luca says, I'm
(23:15):
writing about Nicola Tesla. He said that he was Austrian.
That is not true. He was an ethnic Serb. Wait
a minute. Our last one was our last listener was
Nicola from Australia, and now Luca from Serbia. Is writing
about Nicola Tesla. How about that this is crazy? It's crazy,
so he says that is not true. He was an
ethnic Serb who was born in today's Croatia, which was
(23:36):
part of Austria, so he's not what you would consider
today Austrian. He's although I'm sure Luca just said he
was born in Austria, so Croatians like to say he
was Croatian. But he's a Serb because his father was
an Orthodox priest and Croatians are Catholics. So that is
from Luca. And then my final favorite from China. Remember
(23:59):
al Jane, Uh, this is great. I'm just gonna read
it as it stands here, and we should go ahead
and tell y'all we're not making fun. I love broken English.
I think it's adorable and when people make the effort
it really you know, gives me a good feeling. There
you go, Chuck, Well, I'm a loyal fan of stuff.
You should know. You guys always make me laugh and
when there have some weird words that I don't know,
(24:21):
I will hear it repeatedly. So I am a hard
working fan of your program. I got an interesting topic.
I think why you guys don't talk about the Internet
censorship and how to skip it because in my country, China,
people can't access the YouTube and interestingly, I even can't
access your blog, so we're banned in China. I know
(24:43):
I blogged about it. Uh, this is the American Life
podcast may be also illegal because I can't download it.
There has a defense system named great Wall. Wish you
can see it and read it in your program. But
don't mock me. It's what he says, and I think
he means there is I'm you know, apologies for the
broken English or emen don't market one of those. So
(25:07):
that is from Yao Jian and we appreciate you all listening.
And yes, yeah, and thank you for the information. Because
I actually did blog about Tianamen Square the anniversary the
twenties anniversaries happened. I couldn't remember which listener told us
that we were banned there, but yeah, I gotta tell
you that's the point of pride for maybe. Yeah, that's awesome,
and we love folks writing in and given their best
attempt at speaking are weird language. Yeah, Chica, thanks to
(25:34):
all of you. And I just think it's cool that
there's people on the other side of the world that
think we're interesting. Yeah, weird. Yeah, Well, if you want
to tell us that we're interesting, or correct us about
where some guy was born or whatever for Marcus, sure,
you can send an email to stuff podcast how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
(25:59):
other topics at how stuff works dot com. Want more
house stuff works, check out our blogs on the house
stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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.
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