Speaker 1: Hey, or hey, you have a good holiday break.
Speaker 2: I did. You were hiking near volcanoes, swimming under huge waterfalls,
Speaker 2: scuba diving as a whole adventure.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you'd agree with the rest of my family.
Speaker 1: They prefer adventures to vacations, which sometimes I think could
Speaker 1: be more exhausting than our regular schedule at work.
Speaker 2: Would you prefer physics adventures?
Speaker 1: Not really? I mean they'd like to go skiing, which
Speaker 1: seems like a highly dangerous physics adventure. You ski, I
Speaker 1: don't ski. They ski, and I stay in the cabin
Speaker 1: and bake treats.
Speaker 2: Oh, I say, you prefer to do chemistry while they
Speaker 2: do physics. That's your vacation.
Speaker 1: That is the one part of chemistry I do like, yes,
Speaker 1: kitchen chemistry.
Speaker 2: Well, if you could take a physics adventure anywhere in
Speaker 2: the universe, where would you go? You visit a black hole,
Speaker 2: dive into a neutron star.
Speaker 1: You know, the best place to visit in the universe
Speaker 1: is right here around the surface of the Earth, where
Speaker 1: the fewest things that are trying to kill you, and
Speaker 1: we have the highest chocolate concentration in the universe.
Speaker 2: I get the sense you're not much of an adventurer.
Speaker 2: Are you You.
Speaker 1: And my family have finally figured that out. I think
Speaker 1: we've done this for a while now. Daniel Guilty is charged.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Jorha Mac, cartoonist and the author of Oliver's
Speaker 2: Great Big Universe.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor
Speaker 1: at UC Irvine. And the kind of adventures I like
Speaker 1: are mental adventures?
Speaker 2: Mental? Like radical like whoa dude that's mental? Or like
Speaker 2: trips to the mental institution.
Speaker 1: No, nothing that's going to drive you mentally insane. I
Speaker 1: mean adventures into our understanding of the nature of the universe,
Speaker 1: or frank, just fantasies about orbiting black holes without actually
Speaker 1: going there.
Speaker 2: You prefer ecotourism, not ecotourism.
Speaker 1: A fantastical exploration of the universe rather than a real one.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you rather have both? Though? When those both be fun?
Speaker 2: Like if you go if you could go to a
Speaker 2: black hole, you'd be there enjoying it, and it would
Speaker 2: also be stimulating your mind, stretching your mind as men.
Speaker 1: If you go to the black hole and send me
Speaker 1: back the data, then I can have the mind stretching
Speaker 1: without the body stretching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be a bit of a stretch, like, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure you'd be the first person I would tell.
Speaker 1: I know you have a whole contry a physicists you.
Speaker 2: Collaborate, But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge
Speaker 2: Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: In which we try to stretch your mind with the
Speaker 1: grandest mental adventure of all time. We want to take
Speaker 1: the entire universe and squeeze it into your brain. We
Speaker 1: hope that everything that's out there in the universe, from
Speaker 1: the tiniest particles to the biggest stuff out there, can
Speaker 1: be made sense of, can be explained, and can be
Speaker 1: folded into a short audio stream and explained to you.
Speaker 2: That's right. You want to be the vacation from your
Speaker 2: every day living up the universe too, thinking about the universe,
Speaker 2: taking your mind on giant journeys across the cosmos and
Speaker 2: into the deepest secrets of the universe.
Speaker 1: If you desperately want to understand how the universe works,
Speaker 1: how it all comes together, what rules it follows, without
Speaker 1: reading a whole textbook filled with mathematics, then this is
Speaker 1: the right podcast for you.
Speaker 2: Or unless you're a mathematician, in which case that sounds
Speaker 2: like a vacation to them.
Speaker 1: Probably this podcast is a vacation from pages of equations.
Speaker 2: Or I guess if you want to spend your vacation sleeping,
Speaker 2: you could pick up a pretty good, uh math physics book.
Speaker 1: Some of those are riveting, Like, oh my god, what
Speaker 1: derivative are they going to take next? I can't even predict.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all a big cliffhanger. But yeah, even in
Speaker 2: your vacations or your holiday break, you're probably wondering what's
Speaker 2: out there, what's out there in the nurs what's going on?
Speaker 2: How does it all work?
Speaker 1: Because part of being human is wanting to understand everything
Speaker 1: you see, whether you're on the ski slopes or hiking
Speaker 1: up the side of a volcano, or in your kitchen
Speaker 1: cooking up a treat. There are rules that the universe follows,
Speaker 1: and we want to understand them. So everybody out there
Speaker 1: asks questions about how things works and wants to know
Speaker 1: the answer, And we'd love if you shared your questions
Speaker 1: with us. Any questions you have about the physical universe
Speaker 1: or volcanoes or baking, send them to us. Two questions
Speaker 1: at Danielandjorge dot com.
Speaker 2: Oh Man that just just turned into a baking podcast.
Speaker 1: You're the one who brought up baking, man, I never
Speaker 1: want to talk about chemistry.
Speaker 2: You're the one who brought up baking. Oh no, that's
Speaker 2: baked into the intro.
Speaker 1: You're right, that's true. No, I'm guilty. You're the one
Speaker 1: who made it about chemistry, but I did bring up baking.
Speaker 2: Yes, Now do you think about chemistry when you bake?
Speaker 2: That's my question?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's the part of baking I actually
Speaker 1: don't like because it seems like, oh, the temperature just
Speaker 1: has to be right, and then has to go up
Speaker 1: and then down, and some magic happens and the texture
Speaker 1: changes completely, and the whole thing can be very frustrating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tasty.
Speaker 1: If it works out, it can be delicious.
Speaker 2: Well, the part I get hung up in is just
Speaker 2: following the recipe. Whenever I see like ounces, I'm like ounces,
Speaker 2: Is that weight or volume or teaspoons? What is that?
Speaker 2: It's the units, man, the units.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But anyways, everyone does have questions. We all have questions
Speaker 2: since we were little kids. As we grow older, and
Speaker 2: the question just seems to get bigger and bigger as
Speaker 2: we think about the universe and everything in it.
Speaker 1: So on this podcast we tackle lots of different questions,
Speaker 1: but our favorites are your questions, the questions that bubble
Speaker 1: up in your mind as you live in this universe
Speaker 1: and think about your next vacation.
Speaker 2: So to be on the podcast, we'll be tackling listener
Speaker 2: questions forty eight. Now, Daniel, is there a theme to
Speaker 2: these questions today? Are they about baking or school diving?
Speaker 2: There's a lot of physics in scuba diving. Actually, it's
Speaker 2: part of this certification process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, today's questions are all but vacations and cosmic destinations.
Speaker 2: Wait, did you say bavocations or vacations?
Speaker 1: I said vacations. But I'm never going to go on
Speaker 1: a vacation again without thinking about it as a vacation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you can go. You can bake it into
Speaker 2: the name and the baking.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bake my way through that vacation.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so these questions are all about traveling to
Speaker 2: distant and interesting places across the universe. Do you think
Speaker 2: people are cooped up and during the holidays and we're
Speaker 2: wondering about where they can go in the universe.
Speaker 1: I think people just like to imagine themselves in various
Speaker 1: parts of the universe. What would it be like to
Speaker 1: be near a neutron star or to go visit a
Speaker 1: black hole or to see an anti matter black hole?
Speaker 1: What would the actual experience be like? I think if
Speaker 1: people are frustrated by being trapped on the surface of
Speaker 1: the Earth and want to actually go and experience the
Speaker 1: rest of the universe.
Speaker 2: Mm. Well, we have the awesome questions here about white dwarfs,
Speaker 2: about destroying a whole planet. I'm not sure what kind
Speaker 2: of occasion that would be, and also one about antimatter
Speaker 2: and whether it matters in the universe. And so let's
Speaker 2: jump right in. Our first question comes from Tray from
Speaker 2: Tribuco Canyon, California.
Speaker 3: Hello, Daniel and Jorge, This is Trey in Tribuco Canyon, California.
Speaker 3: I was hoping you could help me and my wife
Speaker 3: resolve a little disagreement about our packing for vacation next year.
Speaker 3: You see, we really want to go to the system
Speaker 3: serious B, which I believe is a white dwarf, and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to tell my wife how the rocket equation
Speaker 3: basically means we have to pack as light as possible.
Speaker 3: She's determined that you can't go on vacation without bringing sunblock.
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to explain that, you know, serious B
Speaker 3: is a white dwarf. There's no nuclear fusion happening anymore.
Speaker 3: I think that means there's no UV radiation the kind
Speaker 3: that causes sunburn. I think we can save some of
Speaker 3: our suitcase space by leaving that at home. So please
Speaker 3: help us solve that question. And if we do have
Speaker 3: to bring the some block, what SPF would you recommend?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. All right, great question, Trey. And
Speaker 2: just to let you know, we're not qualified marriage counselors, right,
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can help inform the decisions you make
Speaker 1: in your marriage, but.
Speaker 2: Do you think we're qualified even for that? What would
Speaker 2: our wives do? Would our wives degree?
Speaker 1: I'm terrified to ask them that question. But you know,
Speaker 1: in the same way that like science can inform policy, right,
Speaker 1: we can help people just understand the nature of the
Speaker 1: situations they're getting themselves involved in without actually recommending a
Speaker 1: course of action.
Speaker 2: Well, I wonder if we should decide with his wife
Speaker 2: just you know, in his best interest here?
Speaker 1: You think that's always the best advice.
Speaker 2: I would be ready, You're always wrong. Your spouse is
Speaker 2: always right, that is the key to a happy marriage.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, we just got to listen and they.
Speaker 2: Follow it too. If they follow too, then it did,
Speaker 2: it'll be a happy marriage.
Speaker 1: Yes, everybody compromises more than fifty percent. That's a good situation.
Speaker 1: Everyone gives in one hundred percent of the time. That's love, man,
Speaker 1: that's love. All right. But then you have to actually
Speaker 1: decide are you bringing the sun block to visit Serious B? Right?
Speaker 1: Decisions actually have to be.
Speaker 2: Made, all right, all right, let's get back to the
Speaker 2: question here. Trey seems to be planning a vacation with
Speaker 2: his wife and he wants to go to a white
Speaker 2: dwarf system and he wants to know if he should
Speaker 2: bring sunblock. That's the basic question.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's right. He wants to know basically, how
Speaker 1: bright would it be near there? Is it safe to
Speaker 1: be near a white dwarf because there isn't fusion happening
Speaker 1: inside of it? Basically, what's it like to be near
Speaker 1: a white dwarf? And what gear do you have to bring?
Speaker 2: Well, he mentions the system Serious B, which he believes
Speaker 2: is a white dwarf. Now is it a white dwarf?
Speaker 1: Daniel Series B is a white dwarf. It's the closest
Speaker 1: one to Earth. So it's a good choice if you
Speaker 1: want to go visit a white dwarf. So he is
Speaker 1: pretty serious about it. He seems to be serious. He
Speaker 1: seems to be serious. Then he wants to go to
Speaker 1: serious b. But yeah, so it's the closest one. How
Speaker 1: close is it you said it's the closest one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just under nine light years away from here, which
Speaker 1: is not really a practical trip for Americans at least
Speaker 1: who only get two weeks of vacation. But if you
Speaker 1: want to see a white dwarf, it is the most accessible.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's tag into the question, Daniel, and
Speaker 2: let's start maybe with the basics. What is this white dwarf?
Speaker 2: And do you need sunblock if you're under it or
Speaker 2: above it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, white dwarf is a really fascinating object. It's basically
Speaker 1: the end point of stars, right, Stars we think of
Speaker 1: as huge burning balls of gas, fusion happening inside them,
Speaker 1: converting lighter elements into heavier elements. But like anything that
Speaker 1: uses fuel, eventually it will run out. It will fuse
Speaker 1: all of the available materials and no longer be able
Speaker 1: to do that fusion and sputter out, and the endpoint
Speaker 1: of a star depends on how much mass it started with.
Speaker 1: Smaller stars end up as white dwarfs, Bigger stars become
Speaker 1: neutron stars. Even bigger stars become black holes.
Speaker 2: So this would be a star that's not big enough
Speaker 2: to turn into an utron star or a black hole
Speaker 2: when it runs out of fuel. So what happens when
Speaker 2: it runs out of fuel? Does it collapse or does
Speaker 2: it just like proof or it just stops burning?
Speaker 1: Sort of all of those. I mean, the star when
Speaker 1: it's burning is a delicate balance between gravity that's trying
Speaker 1: to collapse it into a black hole and fusion which
Speaker 1: is pushing out, creating radiation and preventing it from collapsing
Speaker 1: into a black hole. But then the fusion runs out right,
Speaker 1: and so no longer is it able to sustain it,
Speaker 1: so it does collapse into a much denser object. A
Speaker 1: typical white dwarf has about the mass of the Sun
Speaker 1: but the volume of the Earth. So it's really a
Speaker 1: very very incredibly dense kind of matter.
Speaker 2: Is it like a big collapse, like a supernova collapse,
Speaker 2: or is it just like a let's just crumbles into
Speaker 2: a denser object.
Speaker 1: It's not like a supernova collapse. It's more like the
Speaker 1: core of the star is left over. Like when a
Speaker 1: star is burning. The fusion initiates at the core, but
Speaker 1: then as heavier elements gather at the core, the fusion
Speaker 1: tends to move to the outer layers. In the later
Speaker 1: periods of the star, the outer layers where the fusion
Speaker 1: is happening, and those get puffy and the star gets
Speaker 1: really big. It eventually just blows out all the outer
Speaker 1: layers and leaves behind sort of the core of the star,
Speaker 1: which is this hot blob of super dense matter, like
Speaker 1: the ash from all the fusion that's left behind.
Speaker 4: Mmm.
Speaker 2: And so it's super dense, super hot, but not as
Speaker 2: dense as a neutron star. Like things are still an
Speaker 2: atom form or are they broken up.
Speaker 1: So yes, it's not as dense as a neutron star,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have enough gravity yet to collapse into
Speaker 1: a black hole because there are still some forces there
Speaker 1: pushing back. What exactly is the nature of the matter,
Speaker 1: We call it electron degenerate matter. It's still atomic matter
Speaker 1: in the sense that there are like protons and neutrons
Speaker 1: and electrons there, but it's all merged together really really tightly,
Speaker 1: so it's not like they're really individual atoms. The electrons
Speaker 1: occupy these sort of like energy levels that are spread
Speaker 1: out across the star, and it's actually the electrons that
Speaker 1: are keeping the star from collapsing further into a neutron star.
Speaker 2: So it's a giant like rock or is it like
Speaker 2: a giant soup of electrons and protons.
Speaker 1: It's a giant, very dense soup of protons and electrons,
Speaker 1: and the electrons because the polyexclusion principle, are trying to
Speaker 1: avoid ending up in the same quantum state because remember,
Speaker 1: electrons are fermions, and fermions can't occupy the same state
Speaker 1: as other fermions, So the electrons don't want to be
Speaker 1: squeezed down to like lower energy states because then they
Speaker 1: would overlap with each other, and that results in a
Speaker 1: kind of pressure because electrons are forced to stay at
Speaker 1: higher energy levels, like further up the ladder in order
Speaker 1: to avoid colliding with electrons at the lower energy states.
Speaker 1: That means that they're whizzing around and basically pushing on
Speaker 1: the star and keeping it from collapsing. If you had
Speaker 1: more masks, you would squeeze those down. Those electrons would
Speaker 1: be captured by the protons, turning them into neutrons, and
Speaker 1: you get a neutron star. But there isn't quite enough
Speaker 1: gravity to make that happen.
Speaker 2: So it's a giant, dense soup of super hot stuff. Right.
Speaker 2: It's super hot, right.
Speaker 1: It's super hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like how hot is it?
Speaker 1: Well, there's actually a big range from like four thousand
Speaker 1: kelvin up to like one hundred and fifty thousand kelvin.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, if you look at all the white
Speaker 2: dwards in the universe, they have a range of temperatures.
Speaker 1: They do have a big range of temperatures.
Speaker 2: Exactly what does that range depend on? Like how old
Speaker 2: they are, or how big they were, or how hot
Speaker 2: the star was, how many TikTok followers they have.
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about here is the surface temperature,
Speaker 1: and that depends, yeah, basically on the mass. So there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a range of the masses of these things,
Speaker 1: and the bigger they are, the hotter the surface temperature.
Speaker 1: Because there's no longer fusion going on at the heart
Speaker 1: of these stars, right, This is like when fusion is done,
Speaker 1: these protons are not squeezing together to make heavier elements
Speaker 1: that's already happened, already have like carbon or helium or
Speaker 1: whatever has been fused. You don't have the temperatures needed
Speaker 1: to fuse the heavy elements that you've gathered, so fusion
Speaker 1: is sort of done.
Speaker 2: It's not actually burning.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of like after a fire has gone out,
Speaker 1: you still have embers and they're still sitting there hot
Speaker 1: and glowing. That's essentially what a white dwarf is. And
Speaker 1: eventually it will cool down, it will radiate away all
Speaker 1: of its heat out into the universe, and it will
Speaker 1: become a black dwarf.
Speaker 2: Wait what eventually?
Speaker 1: Eventually we think every white dwarf will become a black dwarf.
Speaker 1: We think it takes a very very long time.
Speaker 2: Is there a range for it, like it turns into
Speaker 2: a gray dwarf? And is this sort of like Gandalf
Speaker 2: and the Wizards where they have different powers.
Speaker 1: We don't know because we've never seen what happened, and
Speaker 1: we don't think there's been enough time in the universe
Speaker 1: for this to happen. It's sort of counterintuitive, but it
Speaker 1: takes a long time for things in space to cool off.
Speaker 1: You think of space as like cold, and if you
Speaker 1: go out there, you're freeze to death. Right, It's actually
Speaker 1: harder to lose your heat in space because there's no
Speaker 1: air out there to rob you of your heat. There's
Speaker 1: no wind. The only way to lose heat is to
Speaker 1: radiate it away, to glow away your heat. So, for example,
Speaker 1: satellites and the space station have to worry a lot
Speaker 1: about cooling. It's complicated anyway. It's going to take like
Speaker 1: trillions of years for white dwarfs to turn into black dwarfs.
Speaker 1: So we think the universe eventually will have lots of
Speaker 1: black dwarfs in it because like ninety something percent of
Speaker 1: all stars in our galaxy will become a white dwarf,
Speaker 1: but there hasn't been enough time for any of them
Speaker 1: to form.
Speaker 2: Wait ninety seven pertend that's almost all the stars in
Speaker 2: the universe. All of them will become white dwarfs and
Speaker 2: eventually black dwarfs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it depends on the mass of the star.
Speaker 1: Smaller stars become white dwarfs, bigger stars neutron stars, even
Speaker 1: bigger stars black holes, and most of the stars in
Speaker 1: the universe are actually less massive than our sun. Our
Speaker 1: sun is on the heavier side. Most of the stars
Speaker 1: that are out there in the universe right now are
Speaker 1: red dwarfs. They're smaller, they're colder, they're redder than our sun,
Speaker 1: which is yellower. So most of the stars in the
Speaker 1: universe have the right amount of mass to end up
Speaker 1: as white dwarf.
Speaker 2: Now why do they call them white dwarfs, I guess,
Speaker 2: and not red or black or fusia or ciam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. You know, white isn't really
Speaker 1: a color. It refers to like a broad spectrum of colors,
Speaker 1: and so you can ask, like, well, what kind of
Speaker 1: light gets emitted from a hot blob of rocks sitting
Speaker 1: out there in the universe that's like four to one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand degrees Calvin And it's very broad, right,
Speaker 1: These things glow not because fusion is generating photons, but
Speaker 1: just because they're hot, and hot things in the universe glow.
Speaker 1: It's called black body radiation. Everything out there where the
Speaker 1: temperature of the dark matter does glow and generate radiation,
Speaker 1: and that radiation depends on its temperature. So the higher
Speaker 1: the temperature, the higher the frequency of the light that
Speaker 1: you generate. And so white dwarfs happen to be in
Speaker 1: a temperature range where they generate mostly white light, at
Speaker 1: least the part of it that we can see.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, then let's answer now. Trace question was
Speaker 2: if he went to this solar system serious B, which
Speaker 2: has a white dwarf in the middle, and they're their vacationing,
Speaker 2: do they need to wear sun block or are they
Speaker 2: safe without?
Speaker 1: Well, no surprise, Trey's wife is correct, you need to
Speaker 1: bring some sunscreen because even though there's no fusion happening,
Speaker 1: Serious B is a hot blob of rock, and it
Speaker 1: is radiating in the ultraviolet, and it will give you
Speaker 1: cancer if you get too close.
Speaker 2: I feel like eventually, but like, how bright is a
Speaker 2: white dwarf? Like if our sun Collason was replaced with
Speaker 2: a white dwarf, how bright would it be? Would it
Speaker 2: be like as bright as it is now our sun,
Speaker 2: or would it be would it be sort of really dim,
Speaker 2: like you know, maybe the sun at sunset or sundown,
Speaker 2: or as bright as as the moon.
Speaker 1: So the typical white dwarf is hot and dim and
Speaker 1: very dense. So mostly they're not as bright as our sun.
Speaker 1: Some of them are like one ten thousands as bright
Speaker 1: as our Sun, but some of them are like a
Speaker 1: one hundred times brighter than our sun. It depends on
Speaker 1: the mass.
Speaker 2: Oh what, but what is serious be then, because that
Speaker 2: that's the question really wants to know. His marriage depends
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: So Series B is just about the same mass as
Speaker 1: our sun, but it's like a twentieth of the luminosity
Speaker 1: of our sun, so it's not as bright as our sun.
Speaker 1: So it depends on how close he wants to get.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's still pretty bright. A twentieth of the
Speaker 1: brightness of our sun is not a very dim object.
Speaker 2: Mmm. I see. So if it's about the same mass
Speaker 2: as our Sun, then you probably want to be orbiting it,
Speaker 2: maybe at around the same place where the Earth is,
Speaker 2: which means that they were vacationing there. It would be
Speaker 2: pretty dip. Like they should bring some some headlamps or something.
Speaker 1: It'd be like twilight all the time exactly.
Speaker 2: Then would they still need sunblock?
Speaker 1: They still would need sunblock because these things are pretty
Speaker 1: hot and they actually do emit significantly in the ultraviolet.
Speaker 1: Some of these, including Series B, also generate X rays,
Speaker 1: so if they have no atmosphere protect themselves, then they
Speaker 1: can just be exposed to the UV.
Speaker 2: It sounds like there's a lot of variables here that
Speaker 2: we're adding. But like if they were on Earth, similar
Speaker 2: to ours orbiting series B, it's almost like they have
Speaker 2: an automatic SPF of twenty because the Sun is twenty
Speaker 2: times dimmer than the Sun. But even in the X
Speaker 2: ray and UV range, it's be a one twentieth or
Speaker 2: it'd be less maybe because it is it's mostly black
Speaker 2: body radiation.
Speaker 1: But the Sun is also mostly black body radiation, and
Speaker 1: so it'd be pretty similar.
Speaker 2: Spectrum, but just one twentieth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just one twentieth. So if they magically transport the
Speaker 1: Earth to that system and orbit series be the same distance, yeah,
Speaker 1: then yeah, they don't have to worry about sunblock. But
Speaker 1: if they're out in space orbiting series B, then yes,
Speaker 1: please bring some sunblock.
Speaker 2: So well, I guess maybe the answer is that Tray's
Speaker 2: wife is right, you do need some block, but maybe
Speaker 2: you don't need like a thirty SPF or fifty. You
Speaker 2: just need like a five SPF.
Speaker 1: I mean, just always brings sunblock.
Speaker 2: You were some block even when you sit in your
Speaker 2: couch eating chocolate.
Speaker 1: Yes, slog day every day, absolutely, man. I live in
Speaker 1: southern California.
Speaker 2: Nice? Is that why you look so young and beautiful?
Speaker 1: Young? At least you at least young and as beautiful
Speaker 1: as I ever was.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I think we answered the question right.
Speaker 2: I think you do need some block because there is
Speaker 2: still radiation, X rays and UV light there, but maybe
Speaker 2: not as much. You don't need as much some block
Speaker 2: or as think of a sunblock SPF.
Speaker 1: If you're going to bring your planet and its atmosphere
Speaker 1: with you, then yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the bigger question is why would you
Speaker 2: want to go there for a vacation. It sounds kind
Speaker 2: of dim, kind of far.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of personal. That's between Trey and
Speaker 1: his wife. May they like dim places? Yeah? Who knows, man,
Speaker 1: people like all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess. Yeah. All right, Well, good luck
Speaker 2: Tray on your vacation and your marriage as well.
Speaker 1: If you're coming to us for advice, we already have concer.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's right, you're already in trouble. She turned into
Speaker 2: like a marriage legal advice podcast.
Speaker 1: More stuff. We're not qualified.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well let's get to our other questions
Speaker 2: about destroying planets and about antimatter. But first let's take
Speaker 2: a quick break. All right, we're answering listener questions here
Speaker 2: today and also fixing people's marriage or making them worse.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. It's all about physics experiment.
Speaker 1: We're well intentioned, even if it's clumsy. That's what we're
Speaker 1: here to inform, not to reform your marriage. I have
Speaker 1: performed some marriages, though I have married people.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, and it's valid. Does it work if it's
Speaker 2: a physicist? Are you a man of the universe?
Speaker 1: I am an official shaman of the Universallife Church dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Oh is that your title? Shaman?
Speaker 1: Shaman? I got to pick any title I wanted.
Speaker 2: Isn't it shaman shaman?
Speaker 1: If I think if I'm a shaman, I get to
Speaker 1: decide how I pronounce it.
Speaker 2: I see, I see. There's no requirement. There's no class
Speaker 2: on how to pronounce the title. As part of the
Speaker 2: qualification process.
Speaker 1: The only qualification is can you click this button online?
Speaker 1: And I passed that with flying colors and then makes
Speaker 1: it qualified to marry people? Yes?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Well you should add that to your title physics
Speaker 2: professor slash efficient efficient Yeah shaman.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I did a few weddings and then I retired permanently.
Speaker 2: Oh I see, And how are those marriages going? Still
Speaker 2: going strong? No divorces yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh good, Yeah, you got a perfect record, I do,
Speaker 2: yes so far. Maybe the key is that they've never
Speaker 2: asked you for marriage advice.
Speaker 1: That's probably crucial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well let's get to our next question.
Speaker 2: We have a question here concerningly about how to destroy
Speaker 2: a planet.
Speaker 5: Hello, Daniel and Jorge. This is David from Menlo Park, California.
Speaker 5: I'd like some professional advice. Say I want to destroy
Speaker 5: a planet from a distance with a single particle. What
Speaker 5: particles should I use? It needs to have at least
Speaker 5: ten to thirty two jewels of energy and be stable
Speaker 5: long enough to travel say one light year. Please consider
Speaker 5: as well what method I will need to employ to
Speaker 5: increase the particle's energy to that level. Not asking for
Speaker 5: a friend here, This one is totally for me to
Speaker 5: advance my nefarious plans. Thanks and have a great.
Speaker 2: Day, all right.
Speaker 1: At least he's straightforward. He's not claiming to be asking
Speaker 1: for a friend or anything.
Speaker 2: I like how you said. I like some professional advice.
Speaker 2: Your job to destroy the universe, or to think of
Speaker 2: way to destroy the universe, or think of way to
Speaker 2: prevent the distrection of the planet. I'm not quite sure
Speaker 2: what his profession is.
Speaker 1: I think his boss is Darth Vader and he works
Speaker 1: on the Death Star, right. Oh, or maybe he's Darth
Speaker 1: Vader's boss. Or Darth Vader commissioned him as an architect
Speaker 1: to design a death Star.
Speaker 2: Oh. Interesting, I see he's designer of the future death Star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gonna work our way into the cannon.
Speaker 2: Man, are we gonna get credit? Is there gonna be
Speaker 2: a little plaque in the Death Star made with information
Speaker 2: obtained from Daniel and Hora explain the universe?
Speaker 1: I don't want any kind of credit there, no, thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 2: But it gets destroyed anyways, twice in according to the
Speaker 2: or three times if you count the latter movies, in
Speaker 2: which case our plaque is gone. I think, all right,
Speaker 2: But this is an interesting question, an interesting professional question,
Speaker 2: I should say. And David wants to know if you
Speaker 2: want to destroy a planet like, say, for example, the Earth.
Speaker 2: I imagine and you had to do with a single particle,
Speaker 2: which particle would you use? And I guess how would
Speaker 2: you use it?
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a really interesting question because first you
Speaker 1: have to think about what it means to destroy a planet, Like,
Speaker 1: do you want to annihilate the planet purely into energy
Speaker 1: or do you just want to like break it up
Speaker 1: and send all of its bits flying out into space
Speaker 1: in different directions with enough speed that they like don't
Speaker 1: gather back together into a new planet. Like what are
Speaker 1: the technical requirements for your planetary destruction, please, sir?
Speaker 2: I see, Yeah, start from the beginning, like what do
Speaker 2: you mean by destroying a planet? Because you're like, I
Speaker 2: can help you with all the whole range. We got
Speaker 2: a whole menu here, destroy a little. I can help
Speaker 2: you if you want to destroy a lot.
Speaker 1: He came to the right place, So I was assuming
Speaker 1: that what he wanted to do is make it not
Speaker 1: a planet anymore, basically break it up into chunks and
Speaker 1: send those chunks out to infinity with enough speed that
Speaker 1: they don't come back together as a planet. Didn't want
Speaker 1: to actually like convert the mass into energy.
Speaker 2: I see, because I guess I would be disappointing if
Speaker 2: you like destroy the planet and then a few hundred
Speaker 2: years later it gathers back up into planet again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't really feel like destroying it if the
Speaker 1: explosion just like recollapses back into a planet. I mean,
Speaker 1: probably you still killed everybody on the surface. Maybe that
Speaker 1: has your goal, but there's still a planet there, right.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's usually what people are supervillains mean
Speaker 2: when they met when they talk about destroying a planet.
Speaker 1: I mean it depends, right. If you're like building a
Speaker 1: galactic super highway through a solar system and you have
Speaker 1: to demolish a planet because it's in the way, then
Speaker 1: you really want to break it up into a debris Oh.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're building like a galactic particle collider and you
Speaker 1: just need that space.
Speaker 2: Or maybe you just need to make space for like
Speaker 2: a new vacation resort and or a bakery, and you've
Speaker 2: got a pesky planet in your way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Trey has commissioned you to build something for
Speaker 1: him to visit, exactly, and this is.
Speaker 2: Interesting, interesting, and will he need some block.
Speaker 1: So this is something we can actually calculate. You can
Speaker 1: think about, like how much energy do you need to
Speaker 1: add to the bits of a planet to send them
Speaker 1: out fast enough that they overcome the power of gravity? Right,
Speaker 1: Like we talked about escape velocity. You throw a ball
Speaker 1: from the surface of the Earth fast enough it will
Speaker 1: overcome the gravitational energy and fly out to infinity and
Speaker 1: never come back. Well, how much energy you need to
Speaker 1: do to pick up pieces of Earth and throw them
Speaker 1: all out to infinity so they all have escape velocity?
Speaker 1: That's actually a number we can calculate.
Speaker 2: Interesting, but that's just sending it off. Don't you need
Speaker 2: extra energy to also break up all the rocks and
Speaker 2: stuff holding the Earth together?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do, but most of the energy is gravitational.
Speaker 2: What do you mean, how do you know? Like if
Speaker 2: I try to break a rock with my hands, it's
Speaker 2: pretty hard, but so so throwing that out into space
Speaker 2: fast and though two, I guess, is that kind of
Speaker 2: what you mean? Like, the energy takes you launch a
Speaker 2: rock away from Earth so that it never comes back
Speaker 2: is way more than the energy might take to break
Speaker 2: it into.
Speaker 1: Two exactly because most of the reason that the Earth
Speaker 1: is stuck together is gravitational energy. Right, It's not actually
Speaker 1: like bonded together. It's just so squeezed together by gravity.
Speaker 1: It's also too complicated problem if you think about all
Speaker 1: those details, there's like too many ways to break up
Speaker 1: the Earth, like to break into two halves and send
Speaker 1: them in different directions. Do you break them into ten
Speaker 1: to forty seven pieces. That energy is smaller, I think
Speaker 1: than all of the gravitation of binding energy.
Speaker 2: I see you're assuming. I guess that it's smaller.
Speaker 1: I've done some calculations. They're very hand wavy and approximate.
Speaker 1: But most of the energy you need is the gravitation
Speaker 1: of binding energy, and that's already a huge number. We're
Speaker 1: talking like two times ten to the thirty two jewels.
Speaker 1: It's an enormous amount of energy we take to send
Speaker 1: chunks of the earth out to infinity.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a lot, but maybe give us some context.
Speaker 2: Like a stick of dynamite. How many jewels can that release?
Speaker 1: So a single stick of dynamite is like two million jewels, right,
Speaker 1: that's like ten to the six jewel and we're talking
Speaker 1: about ten to the thirty two jewels.
Speaker 2: M what about like an an atomic bomb?
Speaker 1: You know, if you blew up all of the nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons that all humans have ever built and even to
Speaker 1: then it's like ten to the twenty jewels. It's still
Speaker 1: a quadrillion times too low, Like ten to the twelve
Speaker 1: too low?
Speaker 2: WHOA? So you need a quadrillion times all the nukes
Speaker 2: on Earth to really obliterate the Earth exactly.
Speaker 1: When they say that we have enough nukes to destroy
Speaker 1: the planet, they don't literally mean blow the planet into smithereens.
Speaker 1: They just need to create enough destruction on the surface
Speaker 1: that everybody dies, right, We don't literally have the power
Speaker 1: to blow up the planet. Even like massive collisions that
Speaker 1: have obliterated all life on Earth have not destroyed the planet, right,
Speaker 1: Like the collision that extincted the dinosaurs. Obviously the Earth
Speaker 1: is still here after that, even though that had like
Speaker 1: ten to the twenty three jewels.
Speaker 2: Well, what about like the collision that made the Moon.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, because it almost did obliterate the
Speaker 1: pre Earth. We think that the Moon was formed by
Speaker 1: a collision of a Mars like object called Fea with
Speaker 1: a proto Earth called Gaia, which is maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit smaller than the current Earth, and that resulted in
Speaker 1: like a huge blob of like molten lava which eventually
Speaker 1: formed into the Moon and then the Earth. And we
Speaker 1: think that had about ten to the thirty jewels in
Speaker 1: that collision, So of course not enough to obliterate the
Speaker 1: previous planet that was here, because we're all still here,
Speaker 1: but close right, like within a factor of one hundred.
Speaker 2: Although Becau's kind of a philosophical question, right, like, if
Speaker 2: you take a planet and you break it up to
Speaker 2: Brazilian pieces and it comes back together, is it still
Speaker 2: the same planet?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's the planet Theseus.
Speaker 2: That's right, planet the Thesius, the old conundrum.
Speaker 1: So it would take really an extraordinary amount of energy
Speaker 1: in order to actually blow up a planet.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, then David's question was if you could
Speaker 2: do it, or had to do it with just one particle,
Speaker 2: which particle would you pick in How would you do
Speaker 2: it with one particle? I guess he wants to release
Speaker 2: the amount of work possible or the most elegant way possible.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what the motivation or constraints are.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a really hard way to blow a planet,
Speaker 1: to put that much energy into a single particle. I mean,
Speaker 1: we put energy into particles all the time, and it
Speaker 1: sounds very dramatic. We have a large hadron collider and
Speaker 1: we have particles from space that are hitting us with
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. But you know, we don't typically
Speaker 1: measure those in jewels because there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: jewels in those collisions. We're talking about really tiny little particles.
Speaker 1: They don't have a lot of mass, they don't carry
Speaker 1: a whole lot of energy. Like the most energetic particle
Speaker 1: we've ever seen hit the planet has a very large
Speaker 1: amount of electron volts, but just a few hundred jewels.
Speaker 1: Like it's called the oh my god particle, and it's
Speaker 1: three times ten to twenty electron volts, But that just
Speaker 1: translates to a couple hundred jewels.
Speaker 2: How much is that like in terms of like a baseball.
Speaker 1: So a baseball traveling like one hundred kilometers an hour
Speaker 1: has a few hundred jewels. So like you throw a
Speaker 1: baseball and one hundred kilometers an hour, it's not going
Speaker 1: to destroy the planet, even if you're like Nolan Ryan and.
Speaker 2: You're saying that's the biggest one we see coming from
Speaker 2: outer space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like cosmic colliders, which are pretty impressed, accelerate
Speaker 1: particles to very high energies, but nowhere near the amount
Speaker 1: of energy needed to destroy a planet. Now that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's impossible, right, It's possible, David, to accelerate particles
Speaker 1: to an arbitrary energy. There's no limit on how much
Speaker 1: you could accelerate a particle. So if you build a
Speaker 1: really enormous particle collider out there, a galactic collider. You
Speaker 1: could in principle, accelerate like a proton up to ten
Speaker 1: to the thirty two jewels, enough energy to demolish a planet.
Speaker 2: Right, there's no limit because just the faster it goes,
Speaker 2: the more energy it has.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a limit on the speed, right, you can't
Speaker 1: exceed the speed of light, but you can always pour
Speaker 1: more energy into the particle. It's just that as you
Speaker 1: approach the speed of light, the relationship between speed and
Speaker 1: energy becomes nonlinear. But there's no limit on energy. Protons
Speaker 1: can have an infinite amount of energy. They'll never go
Speaker 1: fast than the speed of light, they'll always as symtotically
Speaker 1: approach it. But there's no limit on the energy. So
Speaker 1: you got more magnets and you've got more little electric
Speaker 1: fields to accelerate that proton. You can just keep pushing
Speaker 1: it until it has an earth destroying amount of energy.
Speaker 2: Now, I guess there's several questions here I think that
Speaker 2: David is asking. The first one is like, what kind
Speaker 2: of particle would you use as a particle physicist, like
Speaker 2: if you were doing this, And I guess the second
Speaker 2: question would be how fast you need to accelerate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I would use a proton because you
Speaker 1: need something that has a charge in order to accelerate it.
Speaker 1: We tend to accelerate particles by putting them in electric field,
Speaker 1: which pull on them.
Speaker 2: But why a proton? Why not? Like are muons super heavy?
Speaker 1: Muons are heavy, but they don't last very long. They're
Speaker 1: not stable. So you want something stable because it's going
Speaker 1: to take a while to accelerate this thing. So then
Speaker 1: your options are like a proton or an electron, And
Speaker 1: I'd choose a proton because the proton feels the strong
Speaker 1: force and so when it smashes into your planet, it's
Speaker 1: going to have a bigger impact. It's going to like
Speaker 1: collide and interact with the particles the atmosphere more dramatically. Like,
Speaker 1: what you want is for that proton to deliver the
Speaker 1: energy onto the planet, not to just like pass through
Speaker 1: and create a tiny little hole in your planet that
Speaker 1: nobody's going to notice. You want it to deposit all
Speaker 1: of its energy in the planet, and so for that
Speaker 1: to happen, you have the most interactions possible. So proton's
Speaker 1: a nice choice because as an electric charge, you can
Speaker 1: accelerate it and its bits inside of it that the
Speaker 1: quarks feel a strong force. So proton smashing into the
Speaker 1: Earth is just going to deliver that energy.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, so you wouldn't just pick a quark, you'd
Speaker 2: pick a proton, which just made it out of quarts.
Speaker 1: Well, you can't accelerate just quarks. Quarks can't be on
Speaker 1: their own. So yeah, a minimum serving of quarks is
Speaker 1: like a proton.
Speaker 2: All right, So proton would be your bullet choice here.
Speaker 2: How fast you have to accelerate this proton? And what
Speaker 2: would it take to accelerate something a proton that fast?
Speaker 1: It would just take a lot of money. I mean,
Speaker 1: the only thing that limits us from doing it right
Speaker 1: now is enough money to build a big enough accelerator.
Speaker 1: And like we have the technology, we know how to
Speaker 1: do it. You just need to build a lot of
Speaker 1: pieces of your accelerator. The way an accelerator works is
Speaker 1: you just have a lot of little segments. Each one
Speaker 1: has an electric field to give it a little push.
Speaker 1: You want more energy, you just build more segments. So
Speaker 1: the only thing that limits you is having enough money
Speaker 1: to build those things and then enough space.
Speaker 2: Well, like paints the picture, how big of an accelerator
Speaker 2: would you need to accelerate a proton to planet killing speed.
Speaker 1: So I actually did this calculation, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: what if you have it?
Speaker 2: Sounds like you thought about it a lot. Are you
Speaker 2: sure you're not? David from Menlo Park, California.
Speaker 1: I have thought about solar system size accelerators, not because
Speaker 1: I wanted to destroy a planet, but because I wanted
Speaker 1: to create collisions that could help us like see what's
Speaker 1: inside the smallest bits of matter and maybe like reveal
Speaker 1: the plank scale or whatever.
Speaker 2: And if you happen to get a planet destroyed gun
Speaker 2: out of it.
Speaker 1: Hey, you know, I think that would be a bad outcome.
Speaker 1: You know, look sciences for people. I don't want to
Speaker 1: kill everybody. And who's going to read my paper about
Speaker 1: the great discoveries we make with this collider? If there
Speaker 1: are no people to read it?
Speaker 2: Ooh, that sounds like a movie idea. Maybe like we're
Speaker 2: getting invaded by aliens and our only hope are particle physicists.
Speaker 2: We can build a big enough gun.
Speaker 1: If you're hope as particle physicists, you're screwed. Let me
Speaker 1: say that nobody's gonna believe that particle physicists say the
Speaker 1: world like, maybe in fifty years some spin off from
Speaker 1: one of our ideas could actually be useful, but we
Speaker 1: can't deliver anything on schedule.
Speaker 2: All right, So are you thought about this? How big
Speaker 2: of a collider do we need to build to make
Speaker 2: a planet gun?
Speaker 1: So a collider with the radius of the orbit of
Speaker 1: Jupiter would not be big enough with current acceleration technologies,
Speaker 1: which means basically you'd need something like around the scale
Speaker 1: of the Ort cloud or bigger in order to get
Speaker 1: these energies.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you're thinking about a circular collider, which
Speaker 2: is when you build like a circular track and then
Speaker 2: you accelerate the particle going around the loop. Right, Do
Speaker 2: you need something that big over radius because the faster
Speaker 2: it goes, the harder it is to keep it going
Speaker 2: in a loop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And the loop is an advantage because then
Speaker 1: you got to push it lots of times. You can
Speaker 1: also build a linear accelerator just a straight shot, but
Speaker 1: then you only get one push of the part with
Speaker 1: each of your little segments.
Speaker 2: But more like a rifle, right, yeah, more like a rifle.
Speaker 1: So then it has to be much much longer.
Speaker 2: And if you had to do it that way, how
Speaker 2: big would it have to be given current technology? Because
Speaker 2: this all depends on current technology, right.
Speaker 1: It all depends on the space you need to accelerate particles.
Speaker 1: As we talked about in a recent episode about like
Speaker 1: plasma wakefield accelerators, there are some ideas out there that
Speaker 1: you can accelerate particles much more quickly, so accelerators could
Speaker 1: be much much smaller, But those technologies don't really exist currently,
Speaker 1: don't really work on large scales.
Speaker 2: All right, So it's possible, and you're saying you would
Speaker 2: pick a proton as your particle of choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you'd have to build a collider basically on
Speaker 1: galactic scales, you know, or interstellar scales at least, And
Speaker 1: so we're talking about like, you know, well more than
Speaker 1: quadrillions of dollars in order to build this thing.
Speaker 2: What sounds like, David is a professional planet killer. Somebody's
Speaker 2: got money for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David, you're gonna need more paper for the budget
Speaker 1: on this thing. Really tiny thought, get all those zeros.
Speaker 2: Well, my question is, like, let's say you built this
Speaker 2: gun and you accelerate a particle to ten to the
Speaker 2: thirty two jewels and you shoot it at a planet,
Speaker 2: like is it going to destroy the planet or is
Speaker 2: it just going to make a pinpoint hole through it?
Speaker 1: You know what happens when a particle hits the atmosphere
Speaker 1: is it's just like when a meteor hits the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: it interacts with the atmosphere, deposits its energy, creates a fireball,
Speaker 1: and so enough energy, then yeah, it's going to deposit
Speaker 1: all that energy on the planet. It's not just going
Speaker 1: to create a pin prick in the same way that
Speaker 1: like the collision that extincted the dinosaurs didn't just like
Speaker 1: make a hole through the planet, right, created an explosion.
Speaker 1: It deposited its kinetic energy on the surface. Same thing
Speaker 1: would happen here.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking, like a bullet can sometimes just fly
Speaker 2: through you, or like if I shoot a bullet through
Speaker 2: a piece of paper, it doesn't like obliterate the paper,
Speaker 2: It just makes a hole in it. Would maybe like
Speaker 2: a planet, even though it's all rock and lava and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. To a particle going that fast, would
Speaker 2: it just be like a piece of paper.
Speaker 1: It's a good question because a particle going that fast
Speaker 1: would also see the planet sort of length contracted to
Speaker 1: special relativity but still I think because of the hadronic
Speaker 1: interactions in the atmosphere, it would create a big shower
Speaker 1: and that energy would tend to spread out. And if
Speaker 1: it spreads out like that, it's not going to create
Speaker 1: a pin prick. It's going to create like a very
Speaker 1: wide shower of energy, which is going to destabilize the planet.
Speaker 2: Right, So maybe not a pin prick, but a big
Speaker 2: hole through the planet maybe right, Like, it may not
Speaker 2: even obliterate as we are planning the whole planet. It
Speaker 2: might just kind of punch a big hole through it
Speaker 2: and not necessarily send every particle in it, every rock
Speaker 2: in it flying with escape velocity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair. The energy we calculated to obliterate the
Speaker 1: planet assumes that you're going to use all that energy
Speaker 1: and just the right way to like push every rock
Speaker 1: in the right direction. So you need to budget extra
Speaker 1: energy just in.
Speaker 2: Case you might need to shoot it twice what I mean.
Speaker 2: Or you might want to invest in two particles, David,
Speaker 2: that might be a better idea than one part or
Speaker 2: maybe even lots more particles, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or make the particle accelerated even bigger.
Speaker 2: Oh there you go. All right, Well, hopefully this doesn't
Speaker 2: help David. I guess do we want to help David
Speaker 2: with this question?
Speaker 1: I feel kind of conflicted about even answering this question.
Speaker 1: It might lead to enormous funding for a new particle collider,
Speaker 1: So you know, win, lose, lose win. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I see. It's all a giant ethical mess for you.
Speaker 1: It's a big conflict of interest.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, satisfy my curiosity or destroy the planet. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of do know though I kind of do.
Speaker 2: It's not a mess. It is still clear for you.
Speaker 1: We all know what I would do in that scenario.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's get to our last question. Hopefully
Speaker 2: it's not as ethically sticky as this question, and it's
Speaker 2: an interesting question about antime matter, so let's get to that.
Speaker 2: But first, let's take another quick break. All right, we
Speaker 2: are plotting to destroy the earth and or leave it
Speaker 2: to go on vacation, answering listener questions here that listeners
Speaker 2: like you send in, Daniel, How can people send in
Speaker 2: their questions?
Speaker 1: You can write to us to questions at Danielandhorge dot com,
Speaker 1: or go look at our website Danielanhorge dot com, where
Speaker 1: there's a form you can fill out. We answer all
Speaker 1: of our questions. You can also tag us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Daniel and Jorge and we'll respond.
Speaker 2: And you take anonymous questions right from professional planet killers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, we do not require any ID, although the
Speaker 1: FBI might follow up with you, I see.
Speaker 2: Or the NSA and or NASA, depending on how good
Speaker 2: your question is.
Speaker 1: And we do answer every question from listeners. And I
Speaker 1: say that on the podcast all the time, and I
Speaker 1: mean it, and still when people write to me, they
Speaker 1: seem surprised when I respond, we really do answer your questions.
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, all right.
Speaker 2: Well, our last question comes from Nikolay, and here's a
Speaker 2: question about antimatter.
Speaker 4: Could a large amount of anti matter get together and
Speaker 4: form an anti matter black hole? What were to happen
Speaker 4: if this anti matter black hole were to collide with
Speaker 4: a normal black hole of a similar size. Do you
Speaker 4: have a theory or a model that would predict what happens?
Speaker 4: Thanks a lot, yours, Nikolai.
Speaker 1: So, Nikolay wants to destroy a black hole. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? In conflicts of interest?
Speaker 2: Well, he wants to destroy a black hole. He wants
Speaker 2: to make an anti matter black hole.
Speaker 1: But then he wants to smash it into a normal
Speaker 1: black hole, and I think he's hoping to use that
Speaker 1: to destroy the black hole.
Speaker 2: Oh, I see, I see. It's a two step question.
Speaker 2: Can you make an antimatter black hole? Now, would an
Speaker 2: antimatter black hole be an ant would be would it
Speaker 2: be anti black or would it be an anti hole?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly, I think that's what he's asking about.
Speaker 2: Would it be like a white hole or a lump?
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's tag into it, Daniel. What is antimatter?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So Nicola obviously was thinking about antimatter, and lots
Speaker 1: of people are fascinated with antimatter because it seems mysterious
Speaker 1: and it kind of is. Right. Antimatter is just like
Speaker 1: another kind of matter, but it has the opposite charge
Speaker 1: as our matter. Really, the way to think about it
Speaker 1: is not that there's matter and antimatter, but that all
Speaker 1: matter comes in this sort of symmetric set. For electrons,
Speaker 1: there's another version of that particle, the positron, which is
Speaker 1: exactly the same but has a positive charge. And for
Speaker 1: every quirk there's an anti quark, and for the muons
Speaker 1: is an anti muon. Really, these things are like two
Speaker 1: sides of the same coin. It turns out matter can
Speaker 1: come in two flavors. And in our universe, we think
Speaker 1: things were created and balanced an equal amount of matter
Speaker 1: and antimatter. But for some reason we don't quite understand,
Speaker 1: the universe prefers mattern. While most of the matter and
Speaker 1: antimatter annihilated away into energy, a little bit of matter
Speaker 1: was left over. And that's why we call electrons and
Speaker 1: muons and quarks matter and the other stuff anti matter.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of an arbitrary distinction.
Speaker 2: So like, for example, like an anti matter electron, an
Speaker 2: anti electron is really just an electron with a positive charge.
Speaker 2: Everything else about it is the same. It has mass,
Speaker 2: it's like a particle floating out there in the universe.
Speaker 2: It just has a positive charge instead of a negative charge, exactly.
Speaker 2: And like an anti quark is the same, but instead
Speaker 2: of electrical charge, it's the opposite in a different kind
Speaker 2: of charge, exactly.
Speaker 1: And you and I are made of matter, and the
Speaker 1: Earth is made of matter, or the star is made
Speaker 1: of matter, and we think that all of the universe
Speaker 1: is made of matter. We're not exactly sure. We can't
Speaker 1: tell because if there's an antimatter star out there, we
Speaker 1: think it would operate under the same rules, and they
Speaker 1: would emit photons in exactly the same way as star would.
Speaker 1: So it's not always easy to tell whether, like distant
Speaker 1: galaxies out there are made of matter or antimatter. But
Speaker 1: everything in our neighborhood at least is made of matter.
Speaker 2: Now, Nikola's first part of the question is can you
Speaker 2: make a black hole out of antimatter if you gather
Speaker 2: enough antimatter and it all has to be antimatter, right,
Speaker 2: Like if you make matter and antimatter, something special happens.
Speaker 1: So when manner and antimatter meet each other, they can annihilate,
Speaker 1: Like an electron and a positron meet each other, they
Speaker 1: can turn into a photon. Like all the energy that
Speaker 1: was stored in the motion and the mass of those
Speaker 1: particles gets converted into that photon. So that's annihilation, and
Speaker 1: that can happen when matter and antimatter meat, Which is
Speaker 1: why antimatter is like a great fuel because one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the energy stored in the antimatter is converted
Speaker 1: directly into like photons, make a great battery or a
Speaker 1: great like fuel source for a rocket ship much more
Speaker 1: efficient than like chemical fuels or even fusion or stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But what he's talking about is making a
Speaker 1: black hole. Like, does antimatter follow the same rules of
Speaker 1: gravity and make a black hole? The answer is yes.
Speaker 1: Somebody doesn't care about your electric charge. Anything that has mass,
Speaker 1: anything that has energy, can be condensed into a black hole.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you take a big enough blob of antimatter,
Speaker 1: collapse it down, and it will become a black hole,
Speaker 1: an anti black hole, actually just a black hole. Right,
Speaker 1: What can you know about a black hole. You can
Speaker 1: know it's mass, you can know its spin, and you
Speaker 1: can know it's electrical charge. So if you take, for example,
Speaker 1: a bunch of positrons positively charge electrons, you collapse them
Speaker 1: down to a black hole, then yes, you will get
Speaker 1: a positively charged black hole. It's not really an anti
Speaker 1: black hole. It's just a black hole made of positively
Speaker 1: charged particles. There's nothing really anti about it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's inside would be made out of antimatter, you think, right, Like,
Speaker 2: nobody really knows what's going on inside of a black hole,
Speaker 2: Like maybe the stuff inside of it is still you know,
Speaker 2: quote unquote anti.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't know anything about the state of matter
Speaker 1: inside of black hole. As you say, maybe it's all singularity,
Speaker 1: in which case the state of mass there is something
Speaker 1: completely new, right, it's no longer really positrons. And it
Speaker 1: depends on what theory of black holes you're talking about.
Speaker 1: But in general relativity, there's no room to remember that
Speaker 1: the black hole was made of positrons. Like a black
Speaker 1: hole made of positively charged positrons is no different than
Speaker 1: a black hole made of positively charged muons or protons
Speaker 1: or anything else.
Speaker 2: It's no different to us from the outside of a
Speaker 2: black hole. But it's still possible, maybe if you're inside
Speaker 2: of the above black hole, to tell the difference.
Speaker 1: If general relativity is correct, then no, general relativity says
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no difference. They are identical there, as identical
Speaker 1: as two particles that have all the same properties.
Speaker 2: From the outside of the event horizon.
Speaker 1: Even from within, even from within though you can't see it.
Speaker 1: But you don't know that did We don't know that.
Speaker 1: That's assuming general relativity is correct. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: we're pretty sure general relativity not correct about what's going
Speaker 1: on inside of black hole, which is what I'm sure
Speaker 1: is motivating your question. Probably there's something else more complicated
Speaker 1: going on. Inside of black hole because we don't think
Speaker 1: singularities are real. We think there's something more complex happening,
Speaker 1: And quantum mechanics tells us that you can't just like
Speaker 1: delete that information from the universe, that there must be
Speaker 1: some record of the fact that antimatter was used to
Speaker 1: create this black hole and not matter because you can't
Speaker 1: destroy information in the universe, says quantum mechanics. But we
Speaker 1: don't know how to bring like the quantum mechanics ideas
Speaker 1: and the general relativity ideas and merge them together into
Speaker 1: an idea that makes sense at the heart of a
Speaker 1: black hole. So nobody really knows what's going on behind
Speaker 1: the event horizon. General relativity says it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: was used to make the black hole. Energy is energy
Speaker 1: is energy. Quantum mechanics says it does matter, but nobody
Speaker 1: knows who's right about which bits.
Speaker 2: All right, well, I think that answer is the first
Speaker 2: part of Nikolai's question, which is that you can make
Speaker 2: a black hole out of antimatter, and you're saying it
Speaker 2: just becomes a regular black hole. It just has a
Speaker 2: giant different charge to it. Okay, Now, the second part
Speaker 2: of the question is if you take a black hole
Speaker 2: that was made using antimatter and a black hole made
Speaker 2: with regular matter, and you put them together, would the annihilate?
Speaker 1: I wish they would. That would be super awesome. I
Speaker 1: would love to build a positive and negative black hole
Speaker 1: collider and do that experiment. General relativity says, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what went in's your black hole, and a black
Speaker 1: hole made of matter is the same as black hole
Speaker 1: made of antimatter, and so this would be the same
Speaker 1: as any other black hole collision, and what we would
Speaker 1: get is just a bigger black hole. Remember, you can't
Speaker 1: destroy a black hole with energy, and antimatter is just
Speaker 1: more energy. Everything is more energy and fuel for a
Speaker 1: black hole.
Speaker 2: First of all, I feel like it wouldn't be quite
Speaker 2: the same, right because if you had like a giant
Speaker 2: positively charged black hole and a giant negatively charged black hole,
Speaker 2: they would be extra attracted to each other more than
Speaker 2: like most black hole collisions out there in the universe.
Speaker 1: That's true, although remember anti matter doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: positively charged and matter doesn't have to be negatively charged.
Speaker 1: You could have black holes made of matter that's like electrons,
Speaker 1: so it's negatively charged, or black hole made of matter
Speaker 1: that's proton, so it's positively charged. Or you could have
Speaker 1: an anti matter black hole made of a die protons
Speaker 1: so that it's negatively charged. So just because it's anti
Speaker 1: matter doesn't mean you know something about the charge. They
Speaker 1: could both be neutral, right, You could have a black
Speaker 1: hole made of anti electrons and anti protons and be
Speaker 1: totally neutral. But you're right. If you have two black
Speaker 1: holes and have opposite charges, they will be extra attracted
Speaker 1: to each other.
Speaker 2: Mm I see, all right, So it sort of depends
Speaker 2: on how you make these black holes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of It depends, unfortunately, and.
Speaker 2: Physics, as you rename that the name of the podcast,
Speaker 2: it depends with Danyle Horde, it is it good? I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: It depends what's gonna happen. It depends. That's almost always
Speaker 1: the answer.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the answer to the universe. It depends. Brought
Speaker 2: to you by it depends adult diapers.
Speaker 1: But if you collide two black holes, you get a
Speaker 1: bigger black hole. And that's what's going to happen if
Speaker 1: you collide a black hole made of antimatter with the
Speaker 1: black hole made of matter. Again, according to general relativity,
Speaker 1: which we think is probably wrong about some of the
Speaker 1: crucial details here, and we don't really know how to
Speaker 1: do gravity for particles, and really matter and antimatter is
Speaker 1: a question about particles, So we're sort of tiptoeing around
Speaker 1: like the fact that we don't understand quantum gravity and
Speaker 1: how to do gravity for particles at all. But assuming
Speaker 1: general relativity is correct, which probably isn't, then two black
Speaker 1: holes will just make a bigger black hole. Regardless of
Speaker 1: whether they're made of matter or anti matter. You don't
Speaker 1: get like a white hole. You don't get an annihilation
Speaker 1: or anything fun like that, You.
Speaker 2: Just get a double black hole. Well, I think it's
Speaker 2: interesting that to think about, Like maybe there is some
Speaker 2: interesting things going on inside of these two black holes
Speaker 2: when they merge, Like maybe you know, the antimatter in
Speaker 2: the antimatter black hole is annihilating with the matter and
Speaker 2: the matter black hole. But maybe we just wouldn't see
Speaker 2: it because it's all happening inside of like a double
Speaker 2: black hole, so nothing would ever come out of it. Right,
Speaker 2: is that possible that, like they do get annihilated, but
Speaker 2: they stay within the hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine a black hole made of electron and another
Speaker 1: black hole made of positrons and the two black holes merge.
Speaker 1: So now the electrons and positrons can sort of see
Speaker 1: each other and interact. Then what happens. They annihilate to
Speaker 1: a bunch of photons which are trapped inside the black hole,
Speaker 1: and the black hole doesn't care at all about the
Speaker 1: state of matter, photons, electrons, positrons, it's all just energy,
Speaker 1: and it's really energy that bends space time, remember, not mass.
Speaker 1: So in order to create a black hole, you need
Speaker 1: energy density, and photons can do it just as well
Speaker 1: as electrons or positrons. The state of matter is kind
Speaker 1: of irrelevant when you're outside the event horizon, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Like maybe they do. It does get annihilated, but
Speaker 2: it's like annihilating something instead of a black hole. It
Speaker 2: stays in the black hole.
Speaker 1: It stays in the black hole. All those photons are
Speaker 1: just trapped inside anyway, they just move towards the singularity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess that answers Nicolai's question, but.
Speaker 1: I don't want to discourage you. Nikolai. If you have
Speaker 1: access to an anti matter black hole factory, then hey,
Speaker 1: build one and shoot it at a black hole. Let's
Speaker 1: see what happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, far away from here potentially collaborate with our previous question.
Speaker 1: Ask her please, but maybe ask Trey he can bring
Speaker 1: it along on his trip to Series B, which is
Speaker 1: probably far enough away for everybody.
Speaker 2: To be safe. Yes, but what they need sunblock to
Speaker 2: witness this collision?
Speaker 1: No, because they'd be trapped inside the black hole. They'd
Speaker 1: be perfectly safe.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: If finds time is right and I find sometime is wrong,
Speaker 1: they'll be fried. So hey, either way we find out
Speaker 1: the answer.
Speaker 2: Either way, their marriage is over.
Speaker 1: Probably they were doomed that kep to us for advice.
Speaker 2: It's right, it was over long before it was featured
Speaker 2: in this podcast. All right, well, awesome questions here today.
Speaker 2: Lots of curiosity about what happens in these extreme situations
Speaker 2: in the universe. I feel like, what happens if you
Speaker 2: accelerate something really fast a single particle? Or what if
Speaker 2: you collide these different black holes? Or would you need
Speaker 2: sunblock to go to a distant start?
Speaker 1: Yes, it's these extreme situations that really teach you about
Speaker 1: what the rules mean. When you stretch them, when you
Speaker 1: push them, when you try to overlap them, and you
Speaker 1: ask what happens when they conflict with each other? Those
Speaker 1: are the edge cases when you really learn about the
Speaker 1: supreme rules of the universe.
Speaker 2: And that's what we love here in the podcast Extreme
Speaker 2: Curiosity at Extreme Adventures Mental or Physical ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna be the official podcast or the X
Speaker 1: Games next year.
Speaker 2: Hey yeah, but do you buy Mountain d Black Hole?
Speaker 1: Do?
Speaker 2: We probably cover a lot more physics because we were
Speaker 2: both Hot Top and Red Bull or Mountain dew All right, Well,
Speaker 2: we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks to all of our
Speaker 2: listeners for sending in their questions, and thanks to our
Speaker 2: question ask yourself today, although not thank you if you
Speaker 2: do succeed in destroying the plant.
Speaker 1: But thanks for your curiosity. It's your curiosity that drives
Speaker 1: this podcast and all of signs forward. So keep asking
Speaker 1: questions and keep sending them to us. To questions at
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge dot com. You really will get an answer.
Speaker 2: You hope you enjoyed that. See you next time.
Speaker 1: For more science and curiosity. Come find us on social
Speaker 1: media where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, Discorg, Insta,
Speaker 1: and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel
Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.