September 29, 2025 • 19 mins
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Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: one of the hosts of "Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe," physicist Daniel Whiteson!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses.
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"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
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Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello Puzzlers. A quick announcement. The Puzzler is doing a
live show in New York City and we'd love for
you to come. It's October seventh at six thirty pm
and an awesome venue called Caveat. There will be stories, puzzles, prizes.
It's part of the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival. We love
(00:23):
a good rhyming title here at the Puzzler. Please check
the show notes for a link to tickets. Now on
with the show, Hello Puzzlers. I thought today we could
start with a little puzzle, actually a riddle. We don't
do enough riddles, so here's a little riddle, I wrote.
I don't know if it's too easy, too hard, somewhere
(00:45):
in between. I haven't given it to anyone, So you
be the judge. Here we go. You ready. Every day,
a weather reporter has to record two separate weather announcements.
One is for the American radio, where the temperatures are
given in fahrenheit, and the other is for European radio,
where the temperatures are given in celsius. So if she
(01:08):
records for America that is seventy seven degrees fahrenheit, then
she has to record for Europe that it's twenty five
degrees celsius. But one day she says, screw it, I'm
only going to record one message. But she did not
get fired for this seemingly reckless act. What was going on?
(01:32):
What was the temperature that day? Hint, it was very cold.
It was very cold. The answer to this scientific riddle
and more puzzling goodness after the break. Welcome back to
the Buzzler podcast. The event horizon in your puzzled black hole?
(01:55):
Another one.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Or bad. If you're in a black hole, it's it's
the end anyway, and the last thing you get to
experience is this, So we'll.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Go You're right, Yeah, I'm hero Staja Jacobs and that
is Greg Pliska, our chief puzzle officer. Greg. Before the break,
I gave a little riddle about a radio reporter who
has to give the weather in fahrenheit and celsius. But
one day she says screw it and only gives the
only records one message, not the usual too. So what
(02:29):
why was she not fired? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
There's one fahrenheit temperature that converts to the same number
in celsius, and there's a formula for that conversion, all
of which is beyond my mental capacity to remember, but
I know I could look for it.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You could. You've got a computer in front of Well,
what about our guest.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Do you have to know that I'm a scientist and
you know a little bit about this. It's the two
temperature scales crossed. They're not just shifted relative to each other.
It's not like every temperature is forty degrees higher in
one real the other. Each degree counts differently in the
two scales. And so if you go far enough down
the two lines cross, and I think they cross at
(03:08):
negative forty.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
You think, correctly, Wow, look at that, which frankly?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Which frankly, If that's the temperature in the United States
and in Europe, no one is going to care about
the weather forecaster.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
This will be the.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Last of our issues, is what did she say on
the radio? We're going to be trying to survive.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, I don't see it happening soon. But that's why
it's a riddle. So that voice you heard, that wise
voice who knows his fahrenheit and celsius, is our guest today.
He is a professor of physics and astronomy at the
University of California at Irvine, He is the co host
of a very popular iHeart podcast, Delightful Show, Daniel and
(03:53):
Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. He hosts it with biologist Kelly Wienersmith,
and his name is Daniel Whitson.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Welcome Daniel, Thank you very much, so excited to be
here at a puzzle with both of you.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yes, and thank you for helping out Greg on his Farnheit. Celsius.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, you can come back anytime. AJ asks Celsius and
faradhey questions.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
You're invited back.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So, Daniel, you have a lovely podcast about all things
science from I saw that one recent episode is about
zombie ants. So you do cover but you also cover
like sort of the Big Bang. You cover everything, and
you also have a book coming out called Do Aliens
Speak Physics? So I want to talk about both those things.
(04:40):
In fact, before we give you the puzzle, let me
just ask you one puzzling question, something that's been puzzling
me about aliens, and that is this I've been seeing
last couple of years. I see it reports every couple
of weeks, evidence that there's life on Mars, evidence that
there's life on others, soul systems. How reliable are these reports,
(05:03):
should I be believing that, like, are aliens coming in
the next five years.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, we're living in a very exciting time because we
can now see planets around other stars in a way
we couldn't even just like twenty years ago, and so
the number of planets we're seeing is increasing very quickly,
and we can do something really exciting, which is we
can look at the atmosphere of those planets. So you
see a lot of reports recently where they use light
from that star which passes through the atmosphere of the planet,
(05:28):
and then we can analyze that light here to tell
what was in that atmosphere, and they'll see things in
that atmosphere like water or other things that they suspect
might come from life, but they're not very strong signatures.
It's like, yeah, maybe that comes from life. Maybe there's
just weird chemistry on that planet. We don't know about.
Stuff that's closer to home. I think is much more exciting,
(05:49):
Like they recently found stuff on Mars that they can't
explain without some kind of microbial life. And you know
on Mars, there's a few lines of evidence there, like
there's seasonal myths, the production on Mars that nobody can explain.
We know there was water on the surface of Mars,
so there could very well be still like little critters
on Mars, little microbes on Mars that we might discover soon.
(06:13):
That would be incredible. And there's other places in the
Solar System, like the moons of Saturn and Jupiter could
also have like life underneath the frozen crusts on the
surface that have these oceans of water underneath. So there
could definitely be discoveries of real alien life, you know,
in the next decade or so. It's an exciting time
to be alive.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That is so cool.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I would put my money on we're going to find
aliens sometime in the next couple of decades.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
All right, Well, it would be good for book sales,
so you do have a motivation.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
But a whole new group of readers for your books,
those microbial readers.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
There's so many of them.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Of them all right, Well, that is very exciting. I
want to talk more about aliens and science later, but
in the meantime, I have a puzzle that is all
about aliens. Oh my gosh, yeah, uh, and it is.
It's actually about ET's extraterrestrials and the letters e T so.
(07:17):
In this puzzle, we all of the answers are going
to be common two word phrases that have the initials
E T so on font tereb might be one, but
it's not because I couldn't think of a clue. Now,
the trick of this puzzle is that, since it's about aliens,
(07:39):
I am going to clue these et phrases in alien speak.
I'm going to use my best impression of an alien
speaking English. They aren't going to be speaking it. So,
for instance, I'll give you an example. Here is an
aliens description of an object that has the initials ET,
(08:01):
and your job would be to guess the objects. So
the alien might say human earthlings clean the enamel protrusions
in their mouths twice a day. Some humans use a
small motorized device to do it. What is that ET?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
All right? I think I know that one, right? That
must be an electric.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Toothbrush, exactly exactly. So okay, so you get it? Uh
now I'm now I should I feel I should really
commit and do an alien voice.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I don't know, I can't, I don't think I have.
What about if I got Greg to do the alien voice.
He's in show business trying.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
To say it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
You do accents, you sing. Why would you stop at
alien voices?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I don't know. Maybe it's cultural appropriations. All right, I'll try,
I will try. I'm not gonna I'm gonna go halfway.
I'm just in toto sort of a monotone aliens. All right,
here's another object for you, Dan. You ready. This device
measures the minutes it took an Earthling to cook an
unfertilized chicken.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Ovum sounds delicious, wanted that might be an egg timer.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You are correct, that is it. You're like inside the
mind of these aliens.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I wrote a whole book trying to get inside the
minds of aliens. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
All right, we got some more alien clues. Oh, here's
another object. There's another human. Earthlings are irrationally drawn to
a white substance called ivory, made from these elongated incisors.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh yeah, that might be longated incisories. Elephant tusks.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yes, elephant tusks. Look at that you're cruising through.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
All right, you're just setting me up for the humiliation
of a tough one.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Could be could be like your paranoia. All right, This
next at is is a place or a structure on
the continent humans called Europe. Earthlings built a tall structure
that serves no apparent purpose. No one lives there, no
one works there, but earthlings take pleasure in looking at.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
It and think you should have done a French accent
for this one talking about the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I am indeed talking about the Eiffel Tower, Daniel.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Have you have you heard j do a French accent?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
No, but I would like to.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
He thinks he just did, Oh.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, French and a alien accent. That would be too much.
I mean, I just think that would be too much
for our listeners. They would be uh, my acting abilities
would overwhelm them. All right, I only have two more
you all right? This this actual, this next et is
is a person, a human person. Uh and the alien
(11:19):
might say. This carbon based organism married several other carbon
based organisms, including ones named Richard Burton and Eddie Fisher
and Conrad Hilton.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I'm gonna have to guess, because I think this is
a little too old for me. But is it Elizabeth
Taylor exactly?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
She is a little too old for you.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
For any of us, really, right, But in her day
she was lovely, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So yes, Elizabeth Taylor, well done. Okay, I've only got
one more. All right, this et is actually a job
on occupation to have a structure called school where older
humans instructure younger humans. One instructor at the school forces
students to read and interpret untrue stories in a popular
(12:11):
human language. Thank you for.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I was thinking elementary, but but that's elementary school teacher.
That's three words. So I'm going to go with English teacher.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Exactly. It's an English teacher, and I think that's what
they do. They make you read stories.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
You just out here offending entire swamps of the audience.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I come from a family of English majors.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
We've got we've got the microbes coming on the horizon.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
We don't need English teachers anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, that is fantastic. You did, You did wonderfully. I
have a I have an extra credit before I give that,
I do have. I just want to ask you some
more puzzling questions about the topic. So, Daniel, one of
the episodes that I loved on your show was about
scientific discoveries, and actually you or one of your guests,
(13:10):
said that puzzles and scientific discoveries are sort of. They're
not the exact same, but there are cousins. So what
do you think. What are the similarities and differences between
science and puzzles.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I think they have a lot in common. Actually, I
think about science the same way I think about like
reading a murder mystery. You know there's a truth something happened,
and you don't have all the information. They give you clues,
and those clues restrict the possible answers until eventually you
have enough clues that there's only one possible answer, right,
(13:45):
and you know it's Ms Marple in the living room
with the candelabra or whatever. And that's the same way
science works. We start out not knowing how the universe
works at all, but then we do experiments, and those
experiments rule out a bunch of possible explanations for how
the universe works, and we keep doing experiments, narrowing it
down further and further until eventually, hopefully one day, we
(14:05):
figure the whole puzzle out. Because philosophically, it sort of
makes sense if there's unexplanation out there, if there's one
reason why everything happens, you know, one true story. We
don't know if the universe actually works that way. But
that's sort of the motivation at least for science, which
I think is a lot in common with the solving
murder mysteries, which I also enjoy reading.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Well, I like what you say about it's it's not
an immediate process. It's not like the Archimedes is in
a bath and something plapchin and he like runs out
naked screaming eureka. It takes a while.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
But when you solve the world, that's what's happens to you.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I keep my pants on.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I was very surprised to learn recently, speaking to a
historian of science, that that might not be an apocryphal story.
I always thought that was a made up event, like
Newton with the apple, but this history of science was like, no,
we think that might have be happened.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's terrific. I love to hear it. I'm not going
to believe it till I see video, But well, I do.
I believe that history in the science was the one
you were talking to about how long it takes. And
I will tell you one of my first books, I
read the Encyclopedia Britannica, and one of the few things
(15:23):
I remember is something that your show kind of sparked
in my memory, which was Isaac Newton. It took him
a long time to figure out what gravity was and
how it worked. And one of the weird side roads
that he went down in figuring this out was alchemy.
(15:44):
He got very into alchemy for a couple of years,
and his fello scientists were like, what the hell you
do in Isaac? But alchemy, even though it's not true,
it had this idea of magical forces acting at a distance,
and that was something that simmered in Isaac Newton's mind,
(16:05):
and he's like, maybe there are real sources that do
act at a distance. So I love the idea that
you can take from all these different places in the world.
You don't want to have a narrow focus.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah. The most amazing thing about alchemy, even though it's
like been dismissed as a pseudoscience for a long time,
is that now it's real. Now we can actually do it.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What do you mean.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I mean we understand how to change led into gold
because we understand what atoms are made out of, and
like the nature of an atom is just determined by
the number of protons in it. So you want to
change the element, you can just admore protons or take
protons out, and we can actually manufacture gold at the
large Hadron collider by smashing other particles together, and we
can make gold. I mean, it's not economically feasible make
(16:50):
make like nanograms of gold for a billion dollars, but
in principle we have cracked that puzzle. So I think
Sir Isaac would be very impressed. I would love to
blow his mind.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, but that I'd love to give him like a
necklace that costs like fourteen trillion dollars to make. That
is so interesting, yeah, I guess. And the same as
with with diamonds. I think diamonds are much easier to make,
right they are.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
So the people who prefer, for some reason, the diamonds
that have like real suffering in them. You know, the
lab grown diamonds are more perfect, more chemically pure, better crystals,
but they're not as expensive because people want the ones that,
like you have to struggle to get out of the earth.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, that's also right. We end up loving the natural
thing whatever.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
That is right.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
It's why as a as a music creator, you know,
I have faith in humans to continue creating art and
music and things because we are flawed and imperfect, but
we're natural in a way that AI in computer and
scientists sciences, scientific things are not yet, you know what
I mean, scientifically created things.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
See, you don't want AJ to replace you with a
lab grown Greg.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It depends on whether you know. I still get I
still get royalties from the podcast.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I get.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Well.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I actually I have a friend who's in lab grown
meat and he gave a very interesting ted talk about
how people don't accept lab grown meat because it's so
quote unquote artificial. But he said, go back one hundred
years or so, maybe more one hundred and fifty, and
artificial ice was invented. They invented ways, and people were like,
(18:34):
are you crazy, I'm not going to have that. That
is like, that's unnatural. I wanted from the lake chopped
up like it's supposed to be. And so maybe that
is sort of a hint of the future, but maybe not.
Who knows. Well, Daniel, we are very lucky because we
have you for another episode and we can talk about
(18:56):
more cool nerdy science stuff than But in the meantime,
I do have an extra credit for the folks at home.
This is actually a plant and here's the alien's interpretation.
Humans mistakenly refer to the koala organism as a bear.
(19:17):
It is not a bear, but the koala does consume
this plant as its main diet and it is an
et phrase. Thank you once again, Daniel, Thank you very much.
So think on that you'll get the answer tomorrow. And
if you want even more puzzling, then check out our
Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles
(19:40):
and we'll see you tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that
will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hello Puzzlers. A quick announcement. The Puzzler is doing a
live show in New York City and we'd love for
you to come. It's October seventh at six thirty pm
and an awesome venue called Caveat. There will be stories, puzzles, prizes.
It's part of the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival. We love
(00:23):
a good rhyming title here at the Puzzler. Please check
the show notes for a link to tickets. Now on
with the show, Hello Puzzlers. I thought today we could
start with a little puzzle, actually a riddle. We don't
do enough riddles, so here's a little riddle, I wrote.
I don't know if it's too easy, too hard, somewhere
(00:45):
in between. I haven't given it to anyone, So you
be the judge. Here we go. You ready. Every day,
a weather reporter has to record two separate weather announcements.
One is for the American radio, where the temperatures are
given in fahrenheit, and the other is for European radio,
where the temperatures are given in celsius. So if she
(01:08):
records for America that is seventy seven degrees fahrenheit, then
she has to record for Europe that it's twenty five
degrees celsius. But one day she says, screw it, I'm
only going to record one message. But she did not
get fired for this seemingly reckless act. What was going on?
(01:32):
What was the temperature that day? Hint, it was very cold.
It was very cold. The answer to this scientific riddle
and more puzzling goodness after the break. Welcome back to
the Buzzler podcast. The event horizon in your puzzled black hole?
(01:55):
Another one.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Or bad. If you're in a black hole, it's it's
the end anyway, and the last thing you get to
experience is this, So we'll.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Go You're right, Yeah, I'm hero Staja Jacobs and that
is Greg Pliska, our chief puzzle officer. Greg. Before the break,
I gave a little riddle about a radio reporter who
has to give the weather in fahrenheit and celsius. But
one day she says screw it and only gives the
only records one message, not the usual too. So what
(02:29):
why was she not fired? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
There's one fahrenheit temperature that converts to the same number
in celsius, and there's a formula for that conversion, all
of which is beyond my mental capacity to remember, but
I know I could look for it.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You could. You've got a computer in front of Well,
what about our guest.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Do you have to know that I'm a scientist and
you know a little bit about this. It's the two
temperature scales crossed. They're not just shifted relative to each other.
It's not like every temperature is forty degrees higher in
one real the other. Each degree counts differently in the
two scales. And so if you go far enough down
the two lines cross, and I think they cross at
(03:08):
negative forty.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
You think, correctly, Wow, look at that, which frankly?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Which frankly, If that's the temperature in the United States
and in Europe, no one is going to care about
the weather forecaster.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
This will be the.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Last of our issues, is what did she say on
the radio? We're going to be trying to survive.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, I don't see it happening soon. But that's why
it's a riddle. So that voice you heard, that wise
voice who knows his fahrenheit and celsius, is our guest today.
He is a professor of physics and astronomy at the
University of California at Irvine, He is the co host
of a very popular iHeart podcast, Delightful Show, Daniel and
(03:53):
Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. He hosts it with biologist Kelly Wienersmith,
and his name is Daniel Whitson.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Welcome Daniel, Thank you very much, so excited to be
here at a puzzle with both of you.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yes, and thank you for helping out Greg on his Farnheit. Celsius.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, you can come back anytime. AJ asks Celsius and
faradhey questions.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
You're invited back.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So, Daniel, you have a lovely podcast about all things
science from I saw that one recent episode is about
zombie ants. So you do cover but you also cover
like sort of the Big Bang. You cover everything, and
you also have a book coming out called Do Aliens
Speak Physics? So I want to talk about both those things.
(04:40):
In fact, before we give you the puzzle, let me
just ask you one puzzling question, something that's been puzzling
me about aliens, and that is this I've been seeing
last couple of years. I see it reports every couple
of weeks, evidence that there's life on Mars, evidence that
there's life on others, soul systems. How reliable are these reports,
(05:03):
should I be believing that, like, are aliens coming in
the next five years.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, we're living in a very exciting time because we
can now see planets around other stars in a way
we couldn't even just like twenty years ago, and so
the number of planets we're seeing is increasing very quickly,
and we can do something really exciting, which is we
can look at the atmosphere of those planets. So you
see a lot of reports recently where they use light
from that star which passes through the atmosphere of the planet,
(05:28):
and then we can analyze that light here to tell
what was in that atmosphere, and they'll see things in
that atmosphere like water or other things that they suspect
might come from life, but they're not very strong signatures.
It's like, yeah, maybe that comes from life. Maybe there's
just weird chemistry on that planet. We don't know about.
Stuff that's closer to home. I think is much more exciting,
(05:49):
Like they recently found stuff on Mars that they can't
explain without some kind of microbial life. And you know
on Mars, there's a few lines of evidence there, like
there's seasonal myths, the production on Mars that nobody can explain.
We know there was water on the surface of Mars,
so there could very well be still like little critters
on Mars, little microbes on Mars that we might discover soon.
(06:13):
That would be incredible. And there's other places in the
Solar System, like the moons of Saturn and Jupiter could
also have like life underneath the frozen crusts on the
surface that have these oceans of water underneath. So there
could definitely be discoveries of real alien life, you know,
in the next decade or so. It's an exciting time
to be alive.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That is so cool.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
I would put my money on we're going to find
aliens sometime in the next couple of decades.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
All right, Well, it would be good for book sales,
so you do have a motivation.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
But a whole new group of readers for your books,
those microbial readers.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
There's so many of them.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Of them all right, Well, that is very exciting. I
want to talk more about aliens and science later, but
in the meantime, I have a puzzle that is all
about aliens. Oh my gosh, yeah, uh, and it is.
It's actually about ET's extraterrestrials and the letters e T so.
(07:17):
In this puzzle, we all of the answers are going
to be common two word phrases that have the initials
E T so on font tereb might be one, but
it's not because I couldn't think of a clue. Now,
the trick of this puzzle is that, since it's about aliens,
(07:39):
I am going to clue these et phrases in alien speak.
I'm going to use my best impression of an alien
speaking English. They aren't going to be speaking it. So,
for instance, I'll give you an example. Here is an
aliens description of an object that has the initials ET,
(08:01):
and your job would be to guess the objects. So
the alien might say human earthlings clean the enamel protrusions
in their mouths twice a day. Some humans use a
small motorized device to do it. What is that ET?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
All right? I think I know that one, right? That
must be an electric.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Toothbrush, exactly exactly. So okay, so you get it? Uh
now I'm now I should I feel I should really
commit and do an alien voice.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I don't know, I can't, I don't think I have.
What about if I got Greg to do the alien voice.
He's in show business trying.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
To say it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
You do accents, you sing. Why would you stop at
alien voices?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I don't know. Maybe it's cultural appropriations. All right, I'll try,
I will try. I'm not gonna I'm gonna go halfway.
I'm just in toto sort of a monotone aliens. All right,
here's another object for you, Dan. You ready. This device
measures the minutes it took an Earthling to cook an
unfertilized chicken.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Ovum sounds delicious, wanted that might be an egg timer.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You are correct, that is it. You're like inside the
mind of these aliens.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I wrote a whole book trying to get inside the
minds of aliens. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
All right, we got some more alien clues. Oh, here's
another object. There's another human. Earthlings are irrationally drawn to
a white substance called ivory, made from these elongated incisors.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh yeah, that might be longated incisories. Elephant tusks.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yes, elephant tusks. Look at that you're cruising through.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
All right, you're just setting me up for the humiliation
of a tough one.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Could be could be like your paranoia. All right, This
next at is is a place or a structure on
the continent humans called Europe. Earthlings built a tall structure
that serves no apparent purpose. No one lives there, no
one works there, but earthlings take pleasure in looking at.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
It and think you should have done a French accent
for this one talking about the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I am indeed talking about the Eiffel Tower, Daniel.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Have you have you heard j do a French accent?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
No, but I would like to.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
He thinks he just did, Oh.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, French and a alien accent. That would be too much.
I mean, I just think that would be too much
for our listeners. They would be uh, my acting abilities
would overwhelm them. All right, I only have two more
you all right? This this actual, this next et is
is a person, a human person. Uh and the alien
(11:19):
might say. This carbon based organism married several other carbon
based organisms, including ones named Richard Burton and Eddie Fisher
and Conrad Hilton.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I'm gonna have to guess, because I think this is
a little too old for me. But is it Elizabeth
Taylor exactly?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
She is a little too old for you.
Speaker 5 (11:42):
For any of us, really, right, But in her day
she was lovely, gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So yes, Elizabeth Taylor, well done. Okay, I've only got
one more. All right, this et is actually a job
on occupation to have a structure called school where older
humans instructure younger humans. One instructor at the school forces
students to read and interpret untrue stories in a popular
(12:11):
human language. Thank you for.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I was thinking elementary, but but that's elementary school teacher.
That's three words. So I'm going to go with English teacher.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Exactly. It's an English teacher, and I think that's what
they do. They make you read stories.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
You just out here offending entire swamps of the audience.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I come from a family of English majors.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
We've got we've got the microbes coming on the horizon.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
We don't need English teachers anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, that is fantastic. You did, You did wonderfully. I
have a I have an extra credit before I give that,
I do have. I just want to ask you some
more puzzling questions about the topic. So, Daniel, one of
the episodes that I loved on your show was about
scientific discoveries, and actually you or one of your guests,
(13:10):
said that puzzles and scientific discoveries are sort of. They're
not the exact same, but there are cousins. So what
do you think. What are the similarities and differences between
science and puzzles.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I think they have a lot in common. Actually, I
think about science the same way I think about like
reading a murder mystery. You know there's a truth something happened,
and you don't have all the information. They give you clues,
and those clues restrict the possible answers until eventually you
have enough clues that there's only one possible answer, right,
(13:45):
and you know it's Ms Marple in the living room
with the candelabra or whatever. And that's the same way
science works. We start out not knowing how the universe
works at all, but then we do experiments, and those
experiments rule out a bunch of possible explanations for how
the universe works, and we keep doing experiments, narrowing it
down further and further until eventually, hopefully one day, we
(14:05):
figure the whole puzzle out. Because philosophically, it sort of
makes sense if there's unexplanation out there, if there's one
reason why everything happens, you know, one true story. We
don't know if the universe actually works that way. But
that's sort of the motivation at least for science, which
I think is a lot in common with the solving
murder mysteries, which I also enjoy reading.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Well, I like what you say about it's it's not
an immediate process. It's not like the Archimedes is in
a bath and something plapchin and he like runs out
naked screaming eureka. It takes a while.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
But when you solve the world, that's what's happens to you.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I keep my pants on.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I was very surprised to learn recently, speaking to a
historian of science, that that might not be an apocryphal story.
I always thought that was a made up event, like
Newton with the apple, but this history of science was like, no,
we think that might have be happened.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's terrific. I love to hear it. I'm not going
to believe it till I see video, But well, I do.
I believe that history in the science was the one
you were talking to about how long it takes. And
I will tell you one of my first books, I
read the Encyclopedia Britannica, and one of the few things
(15:23):
I remember is something that your show kind of sparked
in my memory, which was Isaac Newton. It took him
a long time to figure out what gravity was and
how it worked. And one of the weird side roads
that he went down in figuring this out was alchemy.
(15:44):
He got very into alchemy for a couple of years,
and his fello scientists were like, what the hell you
do in Isaac? But alchemy, even though it's not true,
it had this idea of magical forces acting at a distance,
and that was something that simmered in Isaac Newton's mind,
(16:05):
and he's like, maybe there are real sources that do
act at a distance. So I love the idea that
you can take from all these different places in the world.
You don't want to have a narrow focus.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah. The most amazing thing about alchemy, even though it's
like been dismissed as a pseudoscience for a long time,
is that now it's real. Now we can actually do it.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
What do you mean.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I mean we understand how to change led into gold
because we understand what atoms are made out of, and
like the nature of an atom is just determined by
the number of protons in it. So you want to
change the element, you can just admore protons or take
protons out, and we can actually manufacture gold at the
large Hadron collider by smashing other particles together, and we
can make gold. I mean, it's not economically feasible make
(16:50):
make like nanograms of gold for a billion dollars, but
in principle we have cracked that puzzle. So I think
Sir Isaac would be very impressed. I would love to
blow his mind.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yeah, but that I'd love to give him like a
necklace that costs like fourteen trillion dollars to make. That
is so interesting, yeah, I guess. And the same as
with with diamonds. I think diamonds are much easier to make,
right they are.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
So the people who prefer, for some reason, the diamonds
that have like real suffering in them. You know, the
lab grown diamonds are more perfect, more chemically pure, better crystals,
but they're not as expensive because people want the ones that,
like you have to struggle to get out of the earth.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, that's also right. We end up loving the natural
thing whatever.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
That is right.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
It's why as a as a music creator, you know,
I have faith in humans to continue creating art and
music and things because we are flawed and imperfect, but
we're natural in a way that AI in computer and
scientists sciences, scientific things are not yet, you know what
I mean, scientifically created things.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
See, you don't want AJ to replace you with a
lab grown Greg.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It depends on whether you know. I still get I
still get royalties from the podcast.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I get.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Well.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I actually I have a friend who's in lab grown
meat and he gave a very interesting ted talk about
how people don't accept lab grown meat because it's so
quote unquote artificial. But he said, go back one hundred
years or so, maybe more one hundred and fifty, and
artificial ice was invented. They invented ways, and people were like,
(18:34):
are you crazy, I'm not going to have that. That
is like, that's unnatural. I wanted from the lake chopped
up like it's supposed to be. And so maybe that
is sort of a hint of the future, but maybe not.
Who knows. Well, Daniel, we are very lucky because we
have you for another episode and we can talk about
(18:56):
more cool nerdy science stuff than But in the meantime,
I do have an extra credit for the folks at home.
This is actually a plant and here's the alien's interpretation.
Humans mistakenly refer to the koala organism as a bear.
(19:17):
It is not a bear, but the koala does consume
this plant as its main diet and it is an
et phrase. Thank you once again, Daniel, Thank you very much.
So think on that you'll get the answer tomorrow. And
if you want even more puzzling, then check out our
Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles
(19:40):
and we'll see you tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that
will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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