This conversation is a masterclass in science communication that elegantly simplifies the profound complexity of emergence for a general audience. However, it occasionally prioritizes poetic speculation over the rigorous technicalities that define the actual physics involved.
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EP 21🌌Neil deGrasse Tyson Science Facts: Consciousness, AI and Emergence Explained StarTalk PodcastAdded:
is Star Talk. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Got with me Chuck. Nice. Chuck a baby.
>> Hey. Hey, Neil.
>> All right. All right.
>> What's happening?
>> So, you know what we got today?
>> Yeah.
>> We got an old favorite.
>> Yes, we do.
>> Someone who is, I will say, just as popular uh in the world of science as you.
>> No. No. He's way more popular.
>> No, I'm not going to do that.
>> I'm sorry. I know you. I know he's here.
objective evidence for what I just said.
>> Really?
>> Yes.
>> And what would that be?
>> I I'll bring it up. Can I introduce the man?
>> Let's We're talking about him like he's not here.
>> I'm enjoying this.
>> Brian Cox, welcome back, dude.
>> Thank you.
>> Yeah. You've been here long ago when we were on TV with National Geographic.
Yeah. Uh when Stark talked.
>> I thought I thought you still were. I've been misled.
>> Well, not on TV. We're still We're still vibrantly podcasting. So you are professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester. Yeah. And and that's outside of London. Where is that specifically? Or is it in Manchester?
>> Manchester. It's in Manchester.
>> The best way I can describe it is near Liverpool if you that >> near Liverpool. It's roughly where the Beatles came from.
>> Yes. Yes. You've got very popular podcast which I've been on once maybe twice. The infinite monkey cage.
>> Yes.
>> It just makes me laugh every time.
>> Yeah. I wonder whether it's a good title actually because it's not got science in it. So if you don't know what it is, right, >> you have no idea what it >> and you know that addressing the probability of phenomena happening with an infinite number.
>> Weren't people worried that you were actually caging monkeys?
>> We did have some complaints because it's a BBC show. A lot, you know, the British people are very good at complaining in letter form in green ink. You probably get some of that green ink.
>> It's usually green ink. And that means that you're that this letter is going to be exceedingly unpleasant.
>> Yes.
>> And someone did complain about it being cruel, although we pointed out that an infinite cage is roomy.
>> Arguably the universe is an infinite monkey cage with monkeys in it.
>> That's pretty.
>> And the monkeys don't complain about being contained in the universe.
>> Yeah. So they were tripping on the word cage there, right?
>> Yeah. Monkey in cage. Infinite. They missed.
>> Yeah. They missed the infinite part, right?
>> And Brian, you're you're just coming off of a tour that put you in the Guinness Book of World Records.
>> That is crazy fact. So So what are the details of that?
>> The the world record, which admittedly I'm not sure how much competition there is for the the biggest science tour in the >> biggest science tour in the world. Okay, >> I got you.
>> It was Yeah, it went on for quite some time. It went on for about four years in the end and I think the number was something nearly half a million people came.
>> Okay.
>> Which was a wonderful thing for people.
>> No. No. Ter Swift will do that in two concerts.
>> Exactly. Actually, she does that in the parking lot >> if she So, Exactly. So, if she decides to start speaking about cosmology and astronomy, she will beat that record. I I feel I'm happy to lay down the gauntlet and say, "Go and then break that record.
>> You bring on the challengers." Yeah.
Yeah. So it was counted as one tour because it was the same topic.
>> Yeah, it well it actually changed a lot because >> but it had the same title.
>> It's another complaint we get actually on the BBC show. It's like you scientists, you keep changing everything. You know, >> we make new discoveries. So over that four years, it's been remarkable >> because you got to stay current with the science. Remind me the title of that. I actually saw that show Horizons. You saw an early version of it. I think um >> you've hosted multiple BBC shows. Yeah.
>> With lofty titles, right? like you've taken on the whole universe. Well, >> solar system.
>> We've done we've done a solar system type show three times. Okay. And did struggle with the title because the first one was called Wonders of the Solar System. It was initially, by the way, going to be called Seven Wonders of the Solar System. Oh.
>> There's a very famous broadcaster called David Dimbleby. I don't know if you know him here, but he's he's an institution.
And he had something else. I think it was called Seven Seven Wonders of the World or something like that. It was on at the same time. And and people thought that there might be some confusion. So they turn into this wonderful history show about the development of the the British state or whatever it was like yeah over a thousand years and they get me talking about planets and so they they just cross the seven because I was the junior person so became wonders of the solar system and then we did it again um you know about 10 years later and called it the planets >> and simple direct and then we did it again and then we thought we've done wonders of the solar system we've done the planets so it got called solar system so we're starting to so I don't think we can do another one just pure Surely because I >> ran out of titles. Yeah. Okay. And you also had a cosmology show, right?
>> Yes. So, we've done um >> Wonders of the Universe.
>> But it's interesting to me that usually the solar system shows do the best. And >> is there tangibility to the objects that are in it >> or also people know it already? They know >> the moon, the sun, the planet. You know, your first science project in elementary school is is ball, you know, styrofoam balls that you paint to mimic the planets. It goes deep within us.
>> And someone said that to me, you know, even when you're you're little, you know, you have those things over your Yeah. And so, so maybe it's something about the planets, I think. And also, it's easier to film, you know, as you'll know as a TV show, if you're talking about the volcanoes on Io, you can go to a volcano. Whereas if you're talking about a super massive black hole, >> it's difficult to decide what to hard to send a film crew.
>> Yeah. What to find a camera at?
>> Yeah. So, so this is that's important sort of tap routts to your visibility, your popularity, not only in the UK, but worldwide. So now you're saying, "All right, we got this Guinness Booker World Records record. Uh, let's keep going."
>> Well, I love this next topic.
>> Emergence.
>> Emergence. Yeah.
>> Oh my gosh.
>> I I I really I I love doing the live shows and I really enjoy writing them.
And the Horizon show that you mentioned earlier had been written, you know, what five or six years ago because we you start developing the graphics a long time in advance. So I'd had all these ideas for a very new show partly or actually inspired by Kepler. So, Johannes Kepler, you you probably know he wrote a very beautiful little book called The Six Cornered Snowflake, which um you can get today. It's still in print. You can get it on Kindle. It was about an experience he had in6009.
He writes it was New Year's Eve 169. So, he's I think he's embellished it a bit.
It's a beautiful story though. He was walking across the Charles Bridge in Prague from the observatory to his patron's house for a party on New Year's Eve and he realized he hadn't bought his patron a present and and then he noticed snowflakes landing on his arm and he looked at them and he got interested in why they're all six cornered. His book's called the six cornered snowflake. So what is the origin of this symmetry of the snowflakes? And and so he went to the party and he said to his benefactor, I have brought you the gift of almost nothing because I I know how fond you are of nothing but he said in that gift of almost nothing which is the snowflake you can read the entire universe which is a beautiful line. And and so in this book he speculates I got to tell you that's the worst freaking gift I have ever if you showed up at my house with a melted snowflake I have bought you almost nothing. And I'll be like, "No, you bought me nothing. Not almost nothing."
>> He knew this. It's a very funny book.
So, you get this insight into Kepler as a really witty kind of person. So, he obviously knew that, of course. But the thing is, it's a very modern way of thinking because he's saying that the symmetry of the snowflake has some there's some cause. He says that there's a quote that's something like, I cannot believe that this symmetry, this six cornered nature can exist without reason because they're all six cornered. So there's a reason for it and and obviously we now know it's the water molecule. He didn't know about molecules. So he starts thinking about way 20 really a 20th century discovery.
>> Exactly.
>> So we he talks about beehives and pomegranate seeds and he but what's >> beehive with a hexagon in the beehive?
Yeah.
>> So he says what's that? What's the reason for that? Which again is quite complicated. We figured out in the 20th century >> different reasons. But for me it's wonderful because you see this mind, this modern mind asking modern a a very modern question which is what is the origin of this symmetry that we see.
>> Interesting.
>> I think it's a really beautiful book and at the end by the way he says I the translation I have is I'm knocking on the doors of chemistry.
>> Now I I don't know whether that word was around at the time that's the translation alchemy was there for sure.
He said, "I'm knocking on the doors of chemistry, but I don't know enough. So, I leave it to you, dear reader, >> to take the next step." It's it's an absolutely magnificent book.
>> Yeah.
>> So, that it would be one of many examples of emergence.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Because I I have a very limited list of what I know is emergent. one of them and correct me if I'm wrong. You know, you can study a bird all you want >> and know everything about it, >> but you would not know from that that a bunch of birds will flock together >> and in syncopation change direction all at once.
>> Exactly. That's you don't get that from the physiology of the bird. And that's an example. That's a fine example, is it?
>> Yeah. Emergence. I mean, even >> Well, you know what? Before we go any further, what is emergence? Well, at an even deeper level, you could say consciousness is an emergent property.
That's probably the most famous one that people discuss because it's a property of some atoms and molecules in a particular configuration. We can discuss, you know, I mean, some people don't think that, but that's the scientific view is that's what it is.
And so, but also there's this idea that it's not that there's a more fundamental description in a sense of a better description of this complex thing, as you said, like birds flocking. Um there are different levels of description that are appropriate in nature. So biology you could say you could try to say well if you knew all about particle physics and a theory of everything then you could predict you know a human being but of course you can't.
>> So in all science there are different appropriate levels of description.
Nuclear physics would be another one.
You don't do nuclear physics at least at the moment by doing particle physics. So I suppose emergence is to my mind most simply the the question of how does this complexity that we see in the world emerge or appear from the simple underlying laws >> and that is layered depending upon what you're observing uh in terms of biology or physics or any like or the bird >> but in the end would you say it's just all physics? Well, no. I think I think the modern view is is >> I'm asking a physicist of course. Yes.
Yes. And no. So, so yes, in the sense that the thing the complexity that we see has the origin has an origin of course in the laws of nature that we understand.
>> But scientifically speaking, the correct way of you know the best way of being a biologist to try and understand complex biological systems is not to be a particle physicist. It's a completely different discipline. So >> even if you are foundational to everything that's happening, it's pretty useless at the level of the biology.
>> The standard model of particle physics is there's no point in trying to understand the brain >> by starting with a standard model of particle physics. You will get nowhere and probably never will.
>> Gotcha. The idea of emergence where complex patterns arise from simple parts working together is science in action.
Ironically, the same principle is what's missing from much of today's science news. Between political spin and fragmented coverage, the bigger picture often gets lost and important discoveries get buried. Take this article for example about interstellar comet Threeey Atlas. As you'll see, there's a large gap in who's covering this story. Gaps such as these are called blind spots. stories that have political undertones and are disproportionately covered by media sources on one side of the political spectrum. The contrasting coverage and who's reporting it further highlights the ideological divide between celebrating scientific prowess and fueling speculation. So, who can you trust? Well, that's why we're longtime fans of Ground News. Founded by a former NASA engineer who set out to bring clarity to complex stories, Ground News pulls reporting from tens of thousands of sources around the world, from peer-reviewed journals to international outlets, so you can actually see how the full story emerges. Ground News doesn't just filter the news, it gives you the context others skip, which biases shape the coverage, how credible the source is, and who's funding it. We've partnered with Ground News for years because these tools matter more than ever. In a time where science is under pressure from politics and misinformation, you need something that keeps you ahead of the story. For just a small investment of $5 a month, you can further your understanding of the cosmos by heading to ground.
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>> All right. So, you built a whole public show, stage show on this one topic.
>> Well, it starts with Kepler because one of the things I like doing with live shows is is developing graphics and, you know, just sort of spending time working with people. So, it starts on the Charles Bridge with a snowstorm and I tell that story.
>> But just to be clear, this is with a a video wall.
>> Well, yeah, by video. That's the other cool thing because I I get to in the big shows current. I I believe the video wall we're going to have is 100 ft wide by 50 feet high.
>> So, it's just the biggest LED wall you can fit in an arena. Mhm.
>> So, but it starts with that but pretty quickly we go into the snowflake and then journey inwards initially. So, the the modern understanding of the snowflake with the the water molecule but why is the water molecule with that particular angle was it 1098 degrees. So then you have the oxygen hydrogen atom.
>> It's the angle between the two hydrogen atoms coming off the oxygen. Okay.
>> Which is the origin of the symmetry of the snowflake ultimately. And then you go to protons and we go into the proton.
I mean my PhD was uh broadly speaking on the structure of the proton. I worked at a lab in in Germany called Daisy an accelerator.
>> Daisy has great graphical representations of physical phenomena.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Daisy collaboration.
>> Very famous lab Daisy. Yeah. And so we were looking at the structure of the proton really mapping the structure of the proton. So we're going to the proton and then into quarks and quarks. So a proton made most simply as as two up quark with two up quarks and a down quark which as far as we can see are pointlike things. They may well not be pointlike. They probably aren't but we don't have a powerful enough microscope.
So we just see this point but then there are all sorts of other things in the proton gluons and strange quarks and anti-range quarks and things like that.
So it gets complicated. So we zoom into that and then we go a bit more speculative and zoom into maybe what are the building blocks of quarks? Is it super strings? Is it string theory or something like that? So there's element of a journey inwards and then a journey outwards again. So the the show works particularly in the second half actually physically with our intellectual journey because if you think about it Kepler you could say I mean you'll you'll have comments on this. You could say that's the beginnings of modern science around 1600.
>> Yeah definitely. Well, this new simultaneous invention of the telescope and the microscope, they came out within 10 years of each other and we're often running in both directions once you have that. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And it's so you know post capernicus but Kepler is a contemporary of Galileo pre-new. So in 400 years we've gone from essentially the same view of the natural world that we had in ancient Egypt or Greece or Yeah. I I always think if if you took an ancient Egyptian from 3000 BC and put them in Greece about 0 AD or so, they wouldn't be too surprised. There wouldn't be much they didn't understand, right?
>> Whereas from 1600ish, 1550, 1600, >> the whole modern world has developed in 400 years because we worked out how to do science. I would argue I mean some historians will be watching going it's a bit more than than that but I think >> no where science as it is now practiced took its tap routts in that era. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I mean where you have a hypothesis you test it. You don't just say something's true because it feels like it should be true.
Even something so obvious as the sun goes around the earth that's so obvious why even test it and you test it. Right?
And so so this idea of testing and we can't give short shrift to the what's your organiz what's your institute in >> oh the royal society >> the Royal Society yes of of London was that what they >> we just call it the Royal Society of course okay but that's very British >> is the Royal >> the Royal Society as if there were another >> I know right >> so part of the show so although we we're going inwards as far as we can go outwards as far as we can go talking about the a lot of images from the James Webb Space Telescope and because they're so spectacular Vera Rubin Observatory now so those latest images and the problems they're raising by the way as an aside about the early universe development of early galaxies and so on >> but ultimately is a thread which is this is a remarkable 400 years >> and and in the in the end so the Voyager spacecraft actually starts to take quite a became a character in this show because as this thing which is its 50th anniversary is what is it 2027, isn't >> it? Yeah, it was 1977 launched.
>> Yeah. So, so it's kind of as our first emissary to the stars, I suppose, as Carl Sean would say, as it begins to say it, isn't it?
>> Um, so it's there's there's something I think quite current about how we learn to acquire reliable knowledge about the world and how that has changed everybody's lives in a way that they never changed before. So you could go for a thousand years or 2,000 years or 3,000 years, nothing changes really. We don't discover antibiotics. We don't discover medicine and then just 400 years from people like Kepler and Capernicus and Galileo the modern world appears and now we stand on this threshold I think at almost a decision point and it's our decision what we do with this power that we have.
>> Do do we go forward to the stars following Voyager? So is Voyager uh the first explorer and many will follow or does it become some kind of museum you know with the golden record does it become is it the last thing that we end up sending out of our solar system so there's an element of that I think just reflecting on the position we are with >> you're going to be bumming some people out if you >> No because I'm I'm an optimist >> okay >> but but I think that we're at a stage now where the potential the possibilities are so great >> but the risks are also great at the moment.
>> Well, part of the risk being raised or intensified is because of the technological advances and scientific advances that we have made. Yeah.
>> You know, they actually put us further at risk. So, we are all at once the beneficiaries and the people harmed by our own advancements.
>> Yeah. I think we've talked about this before, haven't we? That that it's our knowledge exceeds our wisdom. So we have power. Power to do things like build nuclear weapons, for example. Power to change the climate intentionally or unintentionally.
>> And and maybe we don't have the wisdom to control that power.
>> Yeah.
>> Buming us out, dude.
>> Yeah. Well, >> well, but I'm but I'm an optimist. We we've done well so far, >> right?
>> Yeah. We've had the power to >> We've done well in spite of ourselves.
Really?
>> We've had the power to destroy ourselves since the late 1940s. Yeah. Mhm. I think what do you feel about this? I mean, this is more philosophical, but for both of you, I think the amount of information that inundates the average person around the world now thanks to, you know, phones places us in a position where there's more information available, but also more misinformation and abuse of information than ever before. So that I think raises the stakes in terms of us destroying ourselves. Yeah, that's why I used the term reliable knowledge earlier and I think that's one of the skills that we are we all of us as citizens are going to have to learn because we're a wash with information as you say and now the the the trick is to try to find trusted sources and it's not easy clearly and I don't necessarily blame well I don't I don't blame individual citizens to go back to Carl Sean you know one of my favorite books is the demon haunted world. And I love the first I think it's the first chapter where he tells the story of being in a taxi here in New York actually in a cab with a cab driver. He says, "You're the astronomer on TV. What do you think about UFOs? What do you think about Atlantis? What do you think about the and all these things?" But Carl Sean, I think with great wisdom said that he didn't think, "Oh god, this guy, you know, he's talking to me about Atlantis.
He thought we have failed that society has failed. This is a personame curious.
>> Yeah. Because this is a person who's curious and interested and fascinated by the mysteries, >> right?
>> But the real mysteries, >> right? The ones that are truly fascinating.
>> Yeah. Hasn't had access to them, which is a failure of education.
>> So, it's you guys fault. It's you two.
Who have you? You guys have screwed us >> to an extent. Yeah. You know what you meant though. I think it's really it's really important that because >> you know I obviously I meet people online especially but also just in everyday life >> who who are sort of we we've got you know this thing this comet when we will talk about the atlas threeey comet that's going through at the moment a fascinating thing but maybe what current estimates maybe 7 8 billion years old has come from a distant star system >> older than our solar system which is only four and a half billion >> formed before the earth formed an unprecedented opportunity to observe material that's coming from a distant star system and yet you see people going it's aliens you know that that that's I think this is what Carl Sean meant that the reality of it that this is something that formed before the earth formed >> right >> and and is visiting our solar system and going back out into interstellar space is more interesting than trying to say that it's some kind of completely useless by the way if it's an alien spaceship it's not spending much time it misses the earth by what is it two astronomical goes flying through the solar system, flying off again. It's been traveling for something like probably about 7 billion years or something like this.
Can you imagine if anyone is you missed your exit? No. 7 billion years. We'll go we'll go around again. We'll make a cause correction and go around again.
>> I'm sure it'll be fine. Not much will have changed in 7 billion years. I mean, it's not it's in a hyperbolic orbit, right? It's not it's they don't even have the chance to come back, right? But yeah, so that it's a good example though. What >> just would to be clear, hyperbolic, there's like several categories of orbit >> and well it's actually three orbits we can speak of. One would be a circle, >> right?
>> But nothing is in a circle cuz there's always something going on. So most are ellipses, >> right?
>> And if you keep making the ellipse bigger and bigger, >> there's a point where it sort of opens up to the outside and you get a parabola, >> right?
>> But that's a very specific form of a hyperola. Right. And so hyperbole is just it comes in and goes out and it never see it again. I mean I suppose actually thinking about it probably it's in a bound orbit in the galaxy.
>> So it's orbiting something but not the sun.
>> Not the sun. Right. Right.
>> Yeah. It's hyperbolic to the sun, right?
Not to something else. But give us more examples of emergence just so we can get in your in the bathtub with you here.
>> The one that's always talked about that we mentioned is consciousness. I think and it's becoming very topical because of course AI and the the potential development of artificial general intelligence we're not there yet but AGI >> um raises this question of of what intelligence what the experience of being human is. Mhm.
>> And so there are different I think there are two categories of emergence people speak of. Actually Sean Carol, if you had him on the show, he's got he's got about five in a recent paper. He's got loads of category 2A and three or whatever.
>> But broadly speaking, people think of weak and strong emergence. Okay. So weak emergence is what I think virtually every scientist would certainly a physicist would would say consciousness is which is this very complicated the most complicated emergent phenomena we know of in the universe I would say um but it's it comes from the underlying laws so so you could you could model it with this sufficiently powerful computer you could imagine modeling how the human brain works I think most people would accept there is also a strong emergence which is somehow the the phenomena you see is not you can't simulate it from the underlying laws there's something else going on now I would not subscribe to that so I would say consciousness is interesting because it's weakly emergent it emerges from this thing the brain >> how we don't know >> what about the gas laws that we learn about in chemistry class >> that you can't derive from just looking at the movement of gas particles as individual. It's a macroscopic understanding of what's going on. Highly accurate and very predictive. But I don't think you can derive them from just looking at how a molecule moves in a gas.
>> Well, you could in principle that's the that's the point. In principle, if you had a very very >> if if you could model particles, okay, >> if you could keep track of every single particle and then track them, >> Yeah. Then you will be able to then in principle determine >> yeah which which actually goes back to what we talked about earlier though it'd be pointless as you said you know gases you can understand them with pressure and volume and temperature microscopic objects microscopic entities >> why would you bother you know having a superco computer track the motion of all and the momenta of all these things it' be a silly thing to do >> and does it matter if there's okay I'm I don't know how to say this properly so I'll just ask does it matter if there are levels of emergence because when you say consciousness animals are also conscious there are dogs they are clearly conscious uh chimpanzees I'm sorry let's go down to monkeys a capuchin helper monkey is definitely conscious but is not conscious on what we would consider the level that we are we don't know if it's pondering its existence and all that kind of stuff whales are definitely dolphins so it but does it matter that there are levels of consciousness >> no I mean there would just be one of those remarkable properties of atoms was again to quote Carl Sean again didn't he say that a physicist is a hydrogen atom's way of learning about hydrogen atoms a great definition of phys heard that >> I heard it at that level I heard humans are a way for the universe to know itself >> that's that's also great I've heard you say that >> that's a little higher up than hydrogen atoms >> that's that's pretty cool though >> that's another example you In cosmology about 3 or 4 minutes after the big bang you have 75% hydrogen 25% helium bit of lithium maybe not much else tiny bit of burillium I think and that's it and then you go so there's also that story which I tell in the show of how you go from that which we have a very good picture of let's say 10 minutes after the big bang how you then go to this 13.8 8 billion years later, which is stars and planets. Yes. But us as well. It's it's a remarkable story, but it's understood broad sweep.
>> Yeah.
>> No, that is not true.
>> We all know that the greatest story ever told is Jesus. Please stop.
>> Okay.
>> Well, he's an emergent thing, too.
>> So true. I mean, so true. Tell me about the wetness of water. What should we be thinking about that?
>> I'm sorry.
>> Yeah, that's a that's a that's another good example of something that's appropriate to talk about liquids and they're wet and what does it mean to be wet? Yeah, but actually at the lower level it's just a load of a load of molecules, oxygen and hydrogen atoms which don't have the property wet.
>> So again, it would be another example.
>> Oh, and so >> so I mean really I mean you can read by the literature >> you can't point to a molecule and say that's wet. No, >> but an ensemble of them then you can measure it and see okay is it wet is it not >> interesting.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. So I mean basically I mean in a sense almost everything's emergent right that that we I mean clearly you know we observe the universe at our particular scale so sizes of things that we can see and we and we're a particular size and so I suppose you could argue that everything that we understand and perceive as human beings is emergent.
Right.
>> But is it really because is there a Doesn't emergence have to have some special characteristics that otherwise would not be if you just did the same thing over and over again? For instance, the noise that happens after the cellular division of a sperm and an egg coming together, that starts a certain kind of noise that biologists don't know what, but they know that split, split, split, split. And then that keeps going until there's a person and then none of those people ARE THE SAME. NONE of them.
So like that to me is truly emergent.
Whereas when you talk about water like that is the connection of these, you know, this hydrogen, this oxygen, and I don't care. You just keep connecting them that way. And guess what? You're always going to get that. You're always going to get water. So is that truly emergent?
>> You see what I'm saying? Oh, so you're saying in some cases it's a precisely repeatable thing.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> Whereas in sperm and egg you got billions of different people.
>> Absolutely. And so the true nature of the emergence is in the uniqueness of those separating characteristics as opposed to something that is just repeatable.
>> Doesn't it come down to just how many variables you're working with?
>> Well, yeah. It's a really beautiful way of thinking about it. I hadn't thought about it in that way, but you're >> I made Brian Cox think differently.
Yeah.
And you could say, as Neil was just about to say, you could say, well, it's just the number of >> variables you have to keep track of.
>> Right. Right.
>> I think you're right. There is something qual that feels very different between just wetness as an example. You're a liquid, >> right?
>> Uh that that's that's an emergent behavior. But you're right that when when you get to life, I mean, life is surely the most remarkable example of that. and and and actually some of the work that that we see I was listening to some uh there's a paper just been published I've forgotten the name it's from a a Google research group about essentially seeing replicators which is what we're talking about here living things emerge that behavior emerge just from random code >> so it's a very beautiful paper I wish I could remember the name maybe on the strap line here when we do this thing >> you mean in human written code >> yeah so you just you just do a very basic computing language and essentially the concept of a touring machine which now I'd have to explain but this idea that you can a computer is essentially just a a tape with like characters on it or you could have just ones and zeros on it and something that goes along and can change those zeros into ones and ones into zeros. it can read and write on the tape and and a few other properties. And Alan Touring back in the 1930s wrote a very famous paper which showed which introduced the concept of a universal touring machine. So all computers are equivalent to each other essentially.
>> Oh. Um and so but but there there's some work being done um on seeing how you can just start with no coding really just just randomness and a couple of rules for computing and you leave it and over time you get you essentially get code written that can replicate.
>> So so you get coding sequences that can copy themselves.
>> You know what there's an economic counterpart to this. Okay. So, you can go to the street corner and say, "I need milk and there's milk there. I need you eggs." The eggs are there and they'll sell you the eggs. Okay? You didn't set up the shop. You didn't do anything.
It's just there for you. And you can say, "There must be some cosmic law that is serving my needs here and now. This must be some magic force." And then you realize it is very simple economic forces operating, >> right?
>> Okay. Buy it, sell it for more. Okay.
The laws of supply, demand, and profit.
>> Exactly. And you get a product someone wants. Okay. That's it. Everything else falls into place. So that would be not very many variables that lead to high complexity down the line.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And the complexity emerges, to use that word, from really some very simple words.
>> That's really cool, actually. No, think about it. if I think about it.
>> Yeah. Cuz I want I want to get rich and so I want to find something you want and I'm going to sell it to you >> and I'm going to sell it at a profit so I can get rich.
>> And an entire economy unfolds out >> and that emerges out of this simple transaction that one person thinks oh it's there for me and the other person is like oh I have to do that so that you know I can profit from that.
>> Yeah. It depends how big your ego is to think the whole world is configured for you.
>> Yeah. Well, listen. I I'm in therapy for your ego.
>> And and it's interesting because it raises and this is not my field of expertise, but it raises questions about what life is, >> right?
>> Because you could say that life is just it's about information. It's really computing is what life is on some level.
>> So, it's not really what you're saying there really is biology, the the nature of the physicality that we think of as life. We think of biological systems with DNA and all those things, >> right? But you can you can argue that that's not the really interesting bit.
That that's just the way that it's realized.
It's an expression of the true thing which is the computing the computing which if that is the case then we have stumbled into the creation of life that will replace us which is if we ever get to artificial general intelligence and what you're saying is an emerging property of computing which is also an expression of life then it's only a matter of time before that particular computing becomes a life form which of course will outthink us, outlive us, out everything us.
>> Terminator.
>> Oh yeah. And and this is, you know, again, >> smile while you're agreeing with him on that.
>> Sad face for once on your that mug.
>> But one of the um things I've been involved in, we have um I'm involved at a a research institute called the Francis Crick Institute in London, which is a biosciences. It's it's a wonderful place. It's on it's a temple to curiosity. I love the place. There's a a great Nobel Prize winner called the Paul Nurse who's a good friend of mine who won the Nobel Prize for cancer research actually by looking at what yeast cells.
So it's it's a remarkable sort of fundamental study of life but he really pioneered the building of this institute or inspired it in his image which is about >> co-discovered the DNA >> double healing called the um but we did some podcasts called a question of science actually which are around um and we just did them at the Cric institute and with panels of experts and so I just it was wonderful for me because I just chaired it and asked the questions and it mainly audience questions actually but one of them was on AI And there was an interesting split in the panel between um the neuroscientists and the and the computer scientists >> really.
>> So so the neuroscientists really felt that for example large language models which is what we have at the moment right >> were just symbol shuffling things and they and the brain is fundamentally different to that. So we are not large language models.
>> I kind of feel that way about them as well. I kind of feel that way too. It's just rearranging statistical juapositions of words, >> right?
>> And >> it's seeing all the probabilities.
>> I don't feel like it understands anything.
>> Yeah.
>> When I interact with a large language model, it's like there's this vacuous eyes staring back at me and there's no soul behind it.
>> Yeah. Well, the the argument one of the panelists gave was that imagine that imagine that you're immortal. The time doesn't matter to you, but we like we could be in this room if we were immortal and someone could start putting little symbols in under the door and if we put the right symbol out, we'd get some food, right? So, we'd soon learn what the right symbol was. And then they put two through the door and we do the same thing and then three. And ultimately, if we had a huge amount of time, kind of a near infinite amount of time, we'd end up having a conversation, right?
>> And we'd do it right. But at no point would we have any clue what was going on. But we'd not have any understanding at all of what we were doing.
>> It's it's it's a transactional exchange of simple information that itself >> Yeah.
>> is not anything more than just >> there's no understanding.
>> There's no understanding.
>> That's that's an one of the points of view that were expressed. But >> was that was that the neuroscientist?
>> That was a neuroscientist who said that.
I think it goes back to there's a philosopher called cell. I think there's a an argument he made a long time ago about symbol shuffling. Cell's argument.
So it's similar to that but one of the computer scientists said no that that irrespective of what you think about that that's what we are. So we don't know what we are we don't know what consciousness is. So it could be that that's all we're doing. We we're really and it's true I suppose at the cellular level at the level of a neuron.
>> Wow.
>> There's no understanding that I don't want to think I don't want to believe that >> now that you mention it.
>> Yeah. There are acoustic stimuli coming from your mouth, entering my ear, hitting my brain, and now I process that and some other response comes out and maybe I'm not conscious of anything.
>> No, you you're just like information processing and response machine. Yeah, it's very possible >> and I think that this debate is quite live actually amongst people among many people who all know what they're talking about and and there are different views which just shows you it's complex a complex emerging phenomena >> that's makes sense and that is why a lot of like and these aren't like neuroscientists computer scientists but there's many in the AI world who feel like given enough time you just train the AI on everything if you have enough time and enough computing power, they will definitely be truly thinking.
They're like thinking the way we consider thinking. Uh in >> especially when you think of thinking in that way, right? And it reminds me of a New Yorker comic. I think it was there were two dolphins swimming right in in this water park and there humans up walking on the on the walkway and one dolphin says to the other. They open their mouths and noises go between them, but it's not clear they're actually communicating. Yes, exactly. Right.
>> Yes.
>> So, I get that there's emergence in these complex systems, but what is this talk I hear of emergence from the standard model of particle physics?
What's going on there? I thought that's a pretty straightforward grid of what exists and what should exist or how they interact >> if I understand the question right. So there are things there are quite basic things about particles that are difficult to derive from the standard model. So the standard model is you know that here is the the quarks and the let's so up quark down quark electron electron >> it's an inventory.
>> So so we have 12 matter particle higs bzon and then three forces that it describes.
>> It's an inventory.
>> Yeah. Well, and then it and it tells us about the interactions, but it's got so how particles interact with each other and through which forces do they interact.
>> Can I ask this?
>> I don't care if I feel stupid or if I seem stupid. Why do you guys call them particles when it seems like everything that I read once I go anywhere in depth that it's more like a field of I don't know I can't it's just some kind of amorphous field. But you call it a particle which makes me think like little piece of something that's kind of floating around and it's a tiny little but it's >> but they always are when we observe them.
>> So it's really about the observation.
>> Well, but you're right. So the standard model of particle physics is a quantum field theory. So you're right that the the the objects in the standard model uh fields but maybe it's historic nomure but but it's true that when you you you always see we detect in a particle physics detector an electron >> okay >> and it it goes to a place in the detector >> and just to be clear you detect the signature of an electron you don't actually see the electron >> no we don't see it but we see it in the >> we see its path that it makes or or other things that it has touched on its way through the track that it we have magnetic fields and so the charged particles.
>> So are you seeing a disturbance in the field that shows up as this singular kind of identifier?
>> I think that I think you have to say yes to that >> is okay. Yeah. Listen, I'm just trying to as a layman get my understanding like on point here because sometimes when you guys talk it makes what happens is my physical association with the world kicks in and I'm like well that can't be because it's not that. And so you know that's why I'm asking this.
>> Yeah. And it's it's a good question about how how are you to picture the the existence of you know solid solid this existence in terms of quantum fields you know it's a rather abstract underlying description. So that's absolutely true.
>> Okay.
>> But but you're right what you said that they're just the the particles are the we'd say the exitations in the field.
>> Gotcha. All right. Um >> very cool.
>> Can you start with a standard model and derive quantum field theory from it? No, no. The standard model is a quantum field theory. So, and there are there are lots of what we call free parameters. So, that ultimately things are put in by hand and there are a lot of them put in by hand.
>> Standard model that much less satisfying to you as >> it's not complete. It's certainly not complete. I mean, for example, one of the most wonderful examples um is that so how many matter particles are there in the standard model? So there so to make up you and me. So what's the the minimal description of us? It's up quarks, down quarks and electrons. That's it. And the up quarks and down quarks make the protons and neutrons which sit inside the atomic nucleus. And the electrons go around to make the atoms. And that's it, right?
Three ingredients basically. And there's another one called the electron neutrino of which there are a lot streaming through our head now from the nuclear reactions in the sun. So the four things that's it. Now, it turns out that there are also two copies of that set. So, there's a thing called the charm quark and the strange quark and a muon and a muon nutrino. So, the muon for example, it's it's a heavy electron. It's identical in every way except it's heavier. And then there's another set, the top quark and the bottom quark and the tow and the tow nutrino. So, three sets of these things. So, the the one that makes up everything and then another two. Why? We don't know. We don't know why there are three.
>> So the particles of the universe are in triplicate >> except we are familiar only with that lowest energy regime. Yeah.
>> With with electrons and and >> and then we discovered the other ones and and we we with some very straight little caveats. We know there are no more than three.
>> Why not?
>> Um >> how do you know there no more than three?
>> Because it was so the caveats are very weak. So, at the uh LEP Collider at CERN um through throughout the the 1980s, 1990s, that that machine was well, it was built in the 80s. It was run through the '90s. And >> did you have a position at CERN for a while? Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I I worked on the as we're building the LHC, I worked on some ideas for little detectors close to the beams and and so on on the Atlas experiment. Before that there was an electron positron collider there called LEP which was in the same tunnel and that was really a factory to make things called zons or zed bosons and I call them and um they're to do with one of the forces of nature the weak force and by measuring exactly the the what's called the lifetime the behavior let's say of that particle you can see how many things it can decay into how many because it basically the general rule in particle physics is if you're very massive And you can fall to bits into lighter things than you will. And the more chance there is, the more things you can fall to bits into, the the the more rapidly you fall to bits, right?
Basically, so you can measure how many particles this thing can decay into. And so with some caveats about other other generations as we call them being extremely heavy and you wouldn't see them, then you can you can see how many different kinds of particle this thing can fall into. So it's a very famous measurement. So so we we're sure that there are three there's three copies >> three and only three >> and but that looks like the the periodic table of the elements Mendelv going back all those all those years ago. So the the pattern that you can see when you that we all learn at school in the chemical elements and there's an underlying reason for that which is quantum mechanics and the way that everything works. But so there will be a reason why there are only those three families. But we don't know what it is.
>> Father, son, and holy ghost.
>> It could be that.
>> That's the reason.
>> So yeah. So so so there's there's a lot of that in the standard model, right?
There are a lot of things that we don't know. We don't fully understand the Higs particle at all.
>> Okay.
>> We've detected this thing. It is >> got the Nobel Prize given.
>> Yeah. And it's a remarkable um new property of nature, a new kind of thing in nature. Um but exactly how that works, whether and why so so we know that it gives masses to the fundamental particles at least in the standard model that's its job. But but why it gives the masses to them, you know? So there's a why is the electron the mass that it is?
In the standard model, you say because it interacts in this way with the Higsfield. And you go, why does it do that? and we say we don't know why it does that. So, so there are there are a lot of things in the standard model that you have to measure and so it's not a theory of everything by any sense.
>> How come it doesn't contain gravity?
>> Well, so now you're asking about a quantum theory of gravity and >> Einstein up with it.
>> Einstein spent a long the last what 20 or 30 years of his life trying to find such a thing.
>> Don't cop out on us now. Right. Yeah. So Einstein tried tried this for a while.
So yeah, we don't know. So I I interviewed I had a great it was an honor actually. I interviewed Roger Penrose a few weeks ago and and chatted to him about these things. And Roger Penrose is one of the greats of the 20th and 21st century. He got the Nobel Prize for his work on black holes for really a very famous paper from 1963. I think it was 56 >> was it 60s mid60s >> where he showed that with very minimal assumptions a star a sufficiently massive star will collapse to form a space-time singularity a black hole >> inevitably >> yeah inevitably so with so Oppenheimer and Schneider did it in the n just before the second world war but with some assumptions about symmetry and you could say well nothing collapses in a perfectly symmetric way so you wouldn't form a black hole but pen Henro has removed those ideas, but he's a great relativist. He's a great, you know, a real expert in general relativity. So he would not, you know, the I suppose the fashionable way to think about this is general relativity comes from quantum mechanics, but we don't know how. And there's some support for that from the study of black holes.
>> But there is another f way of thinking that says no spaceime is fundamental.
You know, relativity is fundamental. Um, so I'm saying that because there's debate.
It's not it's not mo I think most physicists would say quantum mechanics is the underlying theory. Some kind of quantum description of nature of that emerges.
>> It's on a roll for how successful it has been.
>> Yeah.
>> In accounting for everything.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. I mean, so why doubt it at this point?
>> Yeah. So we maybe we don't know enough to start. So So you I he I think I'm not misrepresenting him. He would he would question whether you really need to have a quantum theory of gravity in the coming from quantum mechanics. I think he would question that. So the the reason I'm saying that is to say it's an open question. We don't know.
>> So what about the fabric of spaceime?
>> Is that emergent?
>> Well, so the recent work in the study of black holes which is the the tiny bit of research I still do. I had a PhD student and postto working on this. It's called emergent spacetime. The >> Yeah. What is that?
>> So it's the idea that space and time are not fundamental. So spacetime is not fundamental. There's a let's say a deeper description which is basically a network of cubits to put to do the shortand the shorthand version. So cqits quantum bits. So essentially it looks like a quantum computer. Not absolutely not to say that we live in a simulation, right? No one's going there's a little different. Have you noticed that these sounded I don't really mean that.
>> I Well, I don't know whether we live in a simulation. Nobody does. But I'm just saying it's not it's not evidence for that, >> right? But it's beginning to look like you can say well a no let's say a notion of distance can emerge from a network an underlying network which doesn't have the notion of distance or geometry in it. So that's the >> that's you just described subspace from Star Trek, >> did I?
>> Kind of possibly.
>> Yeah. It's like this underlying substrate where the laws of physics aren't necessarily in play, which is why you can go faster than the speed of light.
>> Well, information goes faster.
>> Information goes faster.
>> So you communicate in sub space in a in a in a with witty reparte. Exactly. Even though they're >> even though they're a half a galaxy apart, >> right?
>> Yeah.
>> It's interesting. I I was thinking about this in another context actually because I so there would be laws of physics by the way that the there'd be underlying laws >> right >> and then our laws would emerge from them.
>> Please forgive my inelegant description.
>> We call them effective theories, right?
So it's an effective theory, right? Um which is which works in the regimes we observe things but >> effective theory.
>> But I was thinking about this and I have no evidence for this at all. So I I might cause lots of people to write in about but I think that that note causality for example cause and effect which is what you're saying when things if things can go faster than light then you can essentially build a time machine >> and go into the past you can send messages back into the past if you can go faster than the speed of light basically my guess is that that's absolutely fundamental. Um and so that so you wouldn't just because you can skip if you could skip beneath relativity so so to a deeper picture of spacetime I still guess that causality will be there >> will still be there I will now I'm not aware >> of any anyone who's really who's proved that or I'm not aware of any any other anyone's opinion on it. It is my opinion. Yeah. I don't have any I don't think I have any evidence for that other than Stephen Hawking.
>> How is that different from Stephen Hawkings time travel conjecture?
>> Yeah, the chronology protection conjecture. Sorry.
>> So, it's called a conjecture because he conjected it conjecture. It was conjecture and that was his conjecture.
You're right. He said that whatever the underlying laws of physics are, they prevent time travel into the past, which is is to say that causality >> protecting Right. Exactly.
>> But I think we're absolutely miles away.
We're miles away. This might not be right. this idea of spaceime emerging although it's quite a popular research field.
>> It is interesting because quantum mechanics can seem to violate the spirit of that. So we you probably discussed before on the show quantum entanglement.
>> Yeah. Everybody wants to know about quantum spooky action at a distance he called it. Right. So he didn't like the idea that you can have these widely separated things that can appear to be correlated in such a way that something happens instantly. Now we know John Bell and others showed and it's been experimentally tested that information can't travel faster than the speed of light.
>> But still the idea that some kind of call it configuration that the quantum state can change instantly seems to violate that somehow doesn't it?
This is again >> I heard from the other Brian >> Brian Brian.
>> So I was having lunch with him and I just he said something that just blew my mind. The what might be fundamental in spacetime is this sea of entangled virtual particles where the particles are entangled via what are essentially wormholes.
>> Yeah.
>> Because a wormhole has instantaneous contact from one side to the other. And the wormholes then are the stitching of the fabric of spaceime.
>> It's called ER equals EPR which is Einstein Rosen equals Einstein Fidolski Rosen. So EPR is the spooky action at a distance paper and er is Einstein Rosen which is 1935 I think >> where where they showed that the the uh swatch geometric the eternal swatch geometric which is the description of a the a non-spinning black hole which discovered very early in relativity um has in it if you extend it as far as you can a wormhole geometry so that was Einstein Rosen so it's called I think Leonard Suskin and coined the term ER equals EPR.
>> So what does that mean to you as a thinker in this space?
Can can wormholes be the fabric of anything?
>> Yeah, it's part of the answer one of the answers for how information might get out of a black hole. So is it's what called the black hole information paradigm.
>> That's that's very cool. Go ahead.
>> Yeah. Well, one of the one of the pictures people have for that very handwavy picture is that wormholes somehow connect the interior of the black hole to the external universe.
>> But all the other virtual particles that fill the vacuum of space.
>> Yeah, >> those are particle pairs that come in and out of existence.
>> Yeah, they're entangled.
>> Why wouldn't they be? They're entangled.
Why wouldn't that also be in this wormhole discussion?
>> Yeah, it Yeah. So that's it. That's so so it seems there's some sense of a a link. the the reason it's it came in in in the black hole context is the ma people did very complicated mathematical calculations about what happens to the hawking radiation. So this is the the the radiation that is emitted from a black hole from the and it's really one way to think about it is it's the event horizon of a black hole is disrupting these particles that you talked about these entangle particles that that are really the structure of the vacuum of space right and it kind of disrupts them and so people were calculating how that radiation which is entangled with the black hole how everything behaves as the black hole shrinks because because if you think about this black hole is glowing. It has a temperature losing energy >> through Hawking radiation.
>> Through the Hawking radiation. So, not at the moment cuz they're much colder than the cosmic microwave background.
So, the cold things at the moment, but eventually in the universe there'll be there'll be hot things >> and they'll start they'll shrink >> be hotter than the background. Yeah. So, they'll be net net flow of energy is out.
>> Yeah.
>> Hot is I mean we're talking about 0 whatever Kelvin it >> but eventually they'll shrink. they're entangled with the Hawking radiation because of what you said, because of these pairs that are coming out of the vacuum. And so you get to a point where you get a crisis really where the entanglement can't be supported. It's one way of thinking about one of the problems with the black hole information paradox. So it's all to do with entanglement and what happens and um so from that research some calculations were done which are just mathematical that say that ultimately the Hawking radiation ends up essentially entangled with itself again right is one way to think about it um be because so so you don't lose information but those those calculations can be pictured with handwaving as representing worm wormholes, some sort of wormholes.
They're not the Einstein Rosen wormholes actually. So, it gets very complicated and and and people aren't clear on the interpretation, but that's where the modern resurgence in this idea has come from. I think it's coming from these really very technical calculations about black holes and how information behaves in the in the presence of black holes and wormhole like structures appear to be one interpretation of what's happening. But I sh I'm choosing my words carefully because it really isn't fully fleshed out by a long way. It's interesting, isn't it? But it is really think about like this is how the it's like an information tunnel just for that for the purposes of getting it out.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And then you go why and and even you know you see the language for the purposes of why is it that information is conserved.
>> That looks quite basic. So it looks like another of these basic ideas.
information is not destroyed, right?
>> It becomes massively scrambled. So you can't in any conceivable future read the stuff, but it's, you know, the example that's often given is if you if you burn but it's the iPad. Let's say you set fires to the iPad. You might say, "Well, surely I destroy the memory." But the the idea is that you don't if you could measure everything that came off somehow all the photons and the whole thing then in there scrambled up the you could >> reconstru would be the iPad even though you set it on fire and all those atoms like and every particle that was in there if you could get them all together use you would be able to say oh that was the iPad.
>> Yeah. and you'd have the your photos in there or whatever it is, you know, you could in very principle, but really in principle, not practice, reconstruct.
So, you don't destroy information.
>> You don't destroy information.
>> It's also determinism. It's also it's called unitary evolution in our language, right? Really, you don't you don't destroy information.
>> Gotcha. So energy and information conservation of energy conservation of information is is can we think about them like that or is it not is that a wrong way to think about it? Well, it's less about information, more about entropy, right? I mean, the entropy you can move from one place to another and then there's a then you can measure that or think about it as an entity. Whereas, >> okay, I get >> a point we're raising before obviously if I send a molecule that has structure, a DNA molecule into a black hole and it gets ripped apart and then it comes out as separate atoms, I lost all that DNA information. However, that DNA became DNA at the expense of the sun or whatever other input energy that went into it.
>> That's correct.
>> Gotcha.
>> Right. So, so a a a you draw a sphere around all the action.
>> Somebody give me some weed.
>> This is awesome.
>> I should be high right now, man.
>> So then you could talk about sort of entropy moving, right? you know, without having to to inventory the shape of the DNA molecule, >> right? Because the the DNA molecule is a result of the taking energy from another source that put it in that made.
Correct.
>> Oh, wow.
>> Okay.
>> This is great.
>> You're you're right. I mean it is it's it's so fascinating this work on on black holes black hole information paradox emergent spacetime but it's it's such a early stage that I don't think there are popular articles that really you know the language isn't there yet it's just mathematically it's >> mathematics >> difficult >> wow man >> so we we are doubling up on this and adding a whole segment of cosmic queries which is a branch of what we do here.
Not it's beyond just conversations.
People get to ask questions and we tell them who the guest is going to be and they direct questions to that guest. You have been duly outed on our on our pages and people you have a whole fan base out there and they're eager and dying to hear from you. And we we have some professional overlap, but in the questions that'll come in, it's not likely that I will ever need to jump in.
And I look forward to basking in your brilliance in the face of these questions. But I'm going to lead off if I may. Do I have to fork up $5 for the Patreon?
>> I would like to have it.
>> Okay. Because it's Patreon supporters who >> they're the only ones who get to ask questions.
>> Absolutely. So, this actually came in by a Patreon supporter. So, actually, I'm I'm channeling it.
>> All right.
>> All right. Quarks.
You've never had an isolated quark?
>> No.
>> Okay.
>> Oh, I remember this question.
>> I know. I know. And I couldn't answer it.
>> I couldn't I said I I need one of the Brian here. We got one in one now.
Excellent.
>> Here it goes. You ready? So, >> as you pull two quarks apart, you're actually putting energy into the system by doing so. like pulling a rubber band apart. And at the point where the quark connection breaks, there's enough energy you just put in.
So whole new quarks are created. So now you have two pairs of quirks.
>> Yeah.
>> I I might be simplifying it, but that's the idea.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Basically, we we call it hydronization.
>> Hadronization in particle physics. Okay.
And we have models of it.
>> Okay. Gotcha. So now watch. I now have a cork pair falling into a black hole.
It's nearing the singularity.
Tidal forces stretch it, putting energy into it. It splits, makes two pairs of quarks, and they keep falling in. Will this create a quark catastrophe because the title force will continue to split the quarks and make a new pair of quarks? Will the singularity be overridden with quirks that were created from the tidal separation and the formation of brand new quarks in the energy that was invested in it? Am I taking energy out of the black hole by making quarks with it? What's going on there? And I'd rather think of it as a as a I want to think of it as a quark catastrophe because that's way more fun.
I mean, you're not you're not taking energy out of the black hole because all this is happening inside the horizon.
Yeah. For a big black hole anyway. I mean, I suppose you could say for a micro black hole >> where the separation is on the same scale of that, >> but >> Okay. But why why don't I just make a a bajillion quarks as it falls towards the >> you I mean it's it's I've never thought of it before. It's a beautiful picture.
Yes.
>> Because clearly you'll you'll do that.
You rip matter apart. That's the way it's usually said. So people just say matter, everything gets ripped apart.
Even the protons and neutrons and even the quarks get ripped apart when you go to the singularity.
>> But to rip apart a quirk has consequences.
>> Yeah. And we we don't know what we don't know what the singularity is. I mean other than it it looks like a moment in time. It looks like the end of time, which we've discussed before, I think, which is also a difficult thing to think about. So there's a finite amount of time in there for the for the quarks themselves when they're inside the um that's a way out of that. But um >> Oh wait, just to be clear, wait, was that what Penrron said? Because as you cross the event horizon, what was previously in front of you in space is now in front of you in time.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz Janet, we had Jan 11 here and she's our our resident, you know, up the street cosmologist. So the time in front of you is finite. So it can't keep splitting quirks forever and creating >> No, you don't have forever. I mean, even in the off the top of my head, even the big black hole like the M87 black hole, which is the one we have a photograph of.
>> Yeah. The one that had all the the the ones that made the news, right?
>> Six billion solar masses or something like that, that thing.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> And in there, I think you have about a day. It's about 24 hours or so if you cross the horizon before you go to the end of time. It's roughly speaking a day, give or take a factor of two. I can't remember exactly what it is, but it's something like that. So, so yeah freaking crazy. So, there's a finite there's a finite amount.
>> You have a day left before time.
>> Yeah. And you wouldn't notice.
>> You wouldn't know it.
>> No, you wouldn't notice. We We could be I mean, it's one of the fundamental properties.
>> Why can't I notice it?
>> Well, you wouldn't notice until the tidal forces became important, >> right?
>> Which which is what you're >> Oh, then it gets ripped apart, right?
>> Yeah. So, so when you when you cross the horizon when you so this room we could be falling across the horizon in Einstein's picture purely in Einstein's picture we could be falling across the horizon of a super massive black hole would not notice right >> so from our perspective everything's normal ultimately you'd feel the tidal forces but >> as you get closer to the singularity >> I think it's within the last few seconds for these if I'm remember rightly very big black holes and then you feel it and then it's tidal forces but you wouldn't have time to react really you just go that's a >> right So, you're not going to make an infinite number of quirks?
>> No. No, you won't make an infinite number of quirks >> because time stops it, >> right?
The end of time.
>> Having never thought about it, that's probably the answer.
>> Wow, that's a really that's >> I mean, also >> I mean, energy is conserved as well. So, you can't you couldn't make an infinite number of massive.
>> Maybe it could evaporate the black hole.
>> So, you're being >> You could turn the whole black hole into quirks.
>> Well, it's pulling energy out of the out the >> Well, no. the mass of the black hole will stay the same. So that process of >> I get that I get I get that the mass will stay the same but that mass energy budget is slowly getting converted into quarks because the quirks will keep making new quirks cuz you keep trying to rip them apart with your tidal forces.
>> So you're saying that the quarks are a drain on the electric bill.
So you're saying that spacetime would unwarp because the energy >> will be completely converted in converted into m >> and you have one giant quark >> the quark catastrophe.
>> That's not what happens, isn't it? But but it's not what happens.
>> It's a brilliant question because we see black holes.
>> Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Oh, yeah.
Okay. That's it. I can't argue.
So they haven't the geometry is not has not unfolded >> to then. So then you're left answering why it did not happen.
>> Right. That's what >> Yeah. And I I I think you're I suspect the answer is because of the the finite time you have in there.
>> That's so >> you know. So >> all right we for you though. You want some please.
>> It's also important to say that we don't know what the singularity is.
>> Right. So, so we really and >> we can't calculate with it or anything because you can't get inside a black hole to see what exactly is.
>> Thank you for that. That was from an earlier Patreon question. Great question. I'll know. I'll know.
>> I've never thought of it.
>> Yeah, that was that came from one of our listeners, one of our one of our Patreon patrons, which by the way, you can be one for $5 a month as the entry, just to let you know.
>> It deserves more than it deserves the money back for THAT QUESTION.
IT'S A GREAT QUESTION. free stuff. You get a love free money.
>> That question was so great. That's funny. Okay, >> so Raul starts us off. Raul and he says, "Hello, Lord Nice, Dr. Tyson, Professor Cox. I'm Raul, a new Patreon mentor from uh a couple streets north of where you guys are right now on Central Park. I wanted to know if there was any thinking discourse on whether dark matter and dark energy affectionately dubbed as friend and Wilma by Dr. Tyson are emerging phenomena resulting from the curved manifold of spaceime in the case of dark energy. Could it be that geometry of space allows for peaks and troughs for the accelerated expansion of space and we just happen to be observing the expansion phase? Thanks for all that you continue to do for science. I have to explain Fred and Wilma here before he begins. So I've had taken issue with the terms we have invoked to describe dark energy and dark matter because it implies that it's energy and matter. And I said we don't what we know is that it's dark gravity.
>> That's exact that is what it is. We don't know if it's matter. Maybe it is.
Probably it is but we don't know.
>> Yeah.
>> And dark energy is it energy? We don't know.
>> So I said we should just call them Fred and Wilma.
>> Okay. And that way there's no bias associated with the label.
>> Yeah. And that's how I was going to answer the question is in in that there are different so dark energy what so as you said observationally and we already mentioned Brian Schmidtz who was one of the people who discovered that the universe is accelerating. There is in Einstein's theory of general relativity a thing called the cosmological constant which you could just put in and it does that job. But what whether that's what we're seeing >> is a good question and we don't know the answer. So it could be that you're seeing some kind of quantum field which we talked about earlier. So for example inflation which is the idea that before the universe was hot and dense. So before what we call the hot big bang then space was stretching extremely fast driven by something which we call the inflaton field which is one of these quantum fields we talk about and then that field changes and decays away that's the end of inflation and the heating up of the universe which we call the hot big bang. So it could be that dark energy is something like that. So it's one it's it's a some kind of quantum field that's doing it. That may mean that it changes and it could change over time and indeed it could go away.
So it could go away and I think that one of so there's a in the current data which is associated with the the early universe that there's a tension in between the the the things we measure like the Hubble parameter and things like that from the early universe from the cosmic microwave background radiation from and the measurements from the later universe which is from seeing supernova explosions and so on seeing the expansion of the universe that way and there some sort of almost probably not handwave but preliminary ideas that you could be seeing that something was present in the early universe that is not present now or vice versa. So something's changed. So so it is true that inflation would be an example if it's correct of one of those quantum fields which then changes and goes away and that's associated with what we used to call the origin of the universe.
Right? So, so it could be that dark energy is something like that. And also actually to add to that mystery, there's the Higs field. So the Higs field is what's called a scalar field which is technical jargon, but it's of the same type of thing that that we think the inflation the inflaton field is and possibly the dark energy is. So the these but the Higs field doesn't appear to cause the univer well it doesn't it does not cause the universe to accelerate in its expansion or at least not in the way that we would expect we'd expect it to blow the universe apart >> and it doesn't. So there's something in there many of my colleagues think that associated with these things called scalar fields and the way they interact.
>> Is that something that's going to pop out of a future run of of the Large Hadron Collider?
>> No. No. I I don't think so. I think it's more theoretical advances that we we but but you know precision measurements of the way the universe is expanding and has expanded the expansion history of the universe but these things are all encoded in there somewhere. Um so I think it's that so the answer is to the question is we we don't have a model well we don't have a we we have lots of models of what dark energy might be but none of them are agreed upon or more convincing than the other right we we don't have enough measurement I think precision measurement so it's a very good question and same with dark m you know dark matter we do have more evidence that it's some kind of particle and some of that comes from so I mentioned it the cosmic microwave background I should say what it is is it's the afterglow of the big bang. It's often described the oldest light in the universe. So they're photons emitted about 380,000 years after the big bang which we can detect. So it is a measurement. There's a satellite called plank that made the highest resolution pictures of this that we have at the moment. And so in there you can model the way that that image looks. It's actually sound waves moving through the universe before 380,000 years after the big bang. So what you're seeing is sound sound waves in the plasma that was the early universe. And we can >> we see an imprint of those sound waves at that time.
>> We see the imprint when when the light got released when the plasma went away.
>> Essentially what happens is an actual bang.
>> No. Well, no. I mean that's what Fred Hy used the term, you know, cuz he thought he was so stupid. It's not a bang, right? Well, I mean, as I described it, it's the end of inflation, so whatever.
We don't >> But um so these are sound waves, but we have a very good measurement. We have that photograph which shows us in there is the information about the sound waves.
>> And that allows us to model what the plasma is and what's in it. And the dark matter is a very important component of modeling the way those sound waves behave. So it's not it's often presented as something that people invented because they don't understand how galaxies rotate or interact or something like that.
>> That's a real thing.
>> But but you can see it in many different ways. So it is true that the way that our theories of galaxy formation require it. There's a thing called the cosmic web that you probably talked about before.
>> But there's also independent measurements from the sound waves in the plasma of the young universe and that requires them and you can do actually my postto actually did it. It's one of the things that's in the show. Not that I'm always plugging these tickets for the new show, but one of the things I do in the show is we by we I mean my post talk Ross is great developed a a real time um calculation tool of the the way the sound waves work in the plasma. And what's cool about it is you can sit there with an iPad on stage and you can just go I'll change the recipe. I'll make the dark matter go to like 15%.
Rather than 25% or whatever it is, you know, like the play around with those things and when you do that the the the data goes completely it doesn't match the data. The prediction drifts completely from what we see in the data.
So it's highly sensitive. It's a beautiful demonstration of how accurate astrophysics is now, how accurate cosmology is. So yes, so we I'm pretty I would be very surprised if dark matter isn't some kind of particle because there's multiple multiple different independent observations that suggested this dark energy. We don't have precision the precision I think to discriminate between the models.
>> Cool, man.
>> And you thought I give long answers.
>> Well, it's a very good question. All right, I can see that we have to speed up. I'll speed up.
>> I'm I'm good for I'm good for long answers from either one of you.
Keep going.
>> Donita uh Bukite or Bushite, one or the other. And she says, "Hey, Neil Brian Chuck. Uh Donita from southern Utah.
Help. I need visuals. How does the curvature of spaceime cause tides? I've read explanations. But since I think in pictures, I need some visual support on this." So you imagine the earth and if you try to explain the tides in the ocean by just having a static picture of the earth and the moon just standing >> as is drawn in textbooks >> as is drawn in textbooks then it's hard to figure out what's happening because as Richard Feman said in the Fman lectures if everything's just standing still if the moon and the earth are just standing still they'll just be pulled towards each other and squash >> into madness like when you set them down on a table and they whap come together.
So of course the reason they don't do that is because they're in orbit around their common center of mass. So they're orbiting and actually you need to know that the earth is actually orbiting around the center of mass of the earth moon system as is the moon in order to fully explain the tides and so you get a good explanation. So there are centrifugal forces at work as well because you're in this frame of reference that's spinning around and so on. So, so it's actually relatively easy to describe, but not as easy as it's presented in on television usually.
>> You got into an argument with a producer on this.
>> Yeah. So, I said I can't do it without talking about the the the fact that when there there's a centrifugal forces. It's basically because the the centrifugal force exceeds the gravitational pull of the moon on one side of the earth, right? And and is smaller than it on the other one. It's is that kind of effect, but it's beautifully described in the final lectures which are freely available online. Is that right? I think they're free.
>> Cool. I spent real money on mine. I have I have hard I got them in the in the when did I get them?
>> They're beautiful.
>> 1981 I bought them. Yeah.
>> But it's in there. You can download I think they're freely available now.
>> There's three volumes, right? So classical mechanics, ENM, and then quantum.
>> Yeah, it's in volume one. It's really lovely explanation of it.
>> So there you have it, Donita. And also you can check out the explainer that Neil did on title bulges. That might help you too cuz it's really >> I forgot about that. That's correct.
>> You remember all of our all of our explainers.
>> Why you think I do this job?
>> Okay.
>> All right.
>> I get a free education.
>> All right. Here we go. This is Alyssa Feldhouse. Feld House. Sorry. Alyssa from Tucson, Arizona. Here. Question for Dr. Tyson and Dr. Cox. Do you think the concept of a particle will still be meaningful once we fully unify quantum mechanics and gravity or will it vanish like the idea of a floistan did in chemistry?
>> It'll be meaningful. We we we've been talking about emergence a lot. So different levels of description. So so yes, it may well be that there's a theory of nature >> that I mean we have it. It's quantum field theory that just quantum fields and there may be a deeper level in terms of cubits or whatever those things are plank scale things but there will always be a level of description that that where particles are the right thing and think about an old an oldfashioned TV cathode ray tube where you have a beam of electrons and the beam of electrons goes through a magnet a magnetic field and it jiggles the beam around and you get the picture on the TV that there's never going to be a better description of that than a beam of electrons Right?
>> So maybe a deeper part of that question is if we come to understand that everything is strings then we don't need the language of particles.
>> Uh once again is it just a convenience?
>> You will need the language of particles to explain things that are happening in this room at these energies and temperatures >> because that's how it manifests.
>> Yeah. It's just pointless. You would why you wouldn't talk about these phenomena that only become important for your description of the world energies that you know trillionth of a second after the big bang or something.
>> Okay.
>> I mean just to say quarks right quarks are not that you don't need those to to describe nuclear physics.
>> You you you want protons and neutrons.
Those are the things that you need. And so the quarks are hidden inside.
>> You don't feel that them. You don't perceive them, you know. That's why we didn't discover them until 1968, I think.
>> Yeah. It was pretty late. You were on our way to the moon and we don't yet know that quarks are real.
>> Yeah.
>> That's wild.
>> Yeah, >> that is wild.
>> All right.
>> We're stupid. Okay.
This is David Vilas who says, >> "The best you can do with these people's names."
>> Hey, listen. That's his name. NOW >> YEAH.
OKAY. YEAH, >> you made him. You made him French.
>> That's what I'm saying. That's his name.
Vasil. So this is Anyway, he says, "Hello, Dr. Cox. I've been a fan forever." Dr. Tyson and Dr. Ty, you guys are awesome. Anyway, how do particles know it's time to decay?
>> Love that question.
>> That's a great question.
>> Yeah. Sorry about your name David cuz since you asked such a great question.
>> Um so what's the best way of describing that is time. So they have a lifetime which is um as I said before is to do with can you decay into something lighter. So there might be a reason you can't right because things are cons like electric charge for example electric charge is conserved. So, so you can't take a a positive charged thing and have it decay into a lighter negatively charged thing because you'd be you'd be inventing, you know, you can't destroy and create electric charge. You have to do it in pairs. It's conserved. A very important example is the neutron and the proton. So, the neutron is a bit heavier than the proton. So the neutron can change into a proton >> and does >> and does in in about 10 minutes or so.
>> I suppose even quicker than like six minutes is it or eight minutes I >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's it's like you can count it out and watch and watch it happen. So if it's sat on its own it'll do that and it'll and and to conserve charge there'll be a positive thing will go as well and so so you'll so so basically it can do it. So, and the the the lifetime is really proportional to the difference in mass >> between the neutron and the proton, which is very tiny.
>> So, if it was really big, if it was much heavier, it would decay quicker.
>> So, you've got there's the mass difference and then there's the number of things you can decay into, the number of ways you can do it.
>> Yeah. But that's just a statistical average, the decay time. That's the That's the halflife.
>> Yes. Half life.
>> Okay. So there's a we fill out the time with some of them are decaying sooner or longer. So you it's not just as simple as you described where how much difference is there in the energy and the mass of what it is and what it can be because there's a variation in there and I interpret that question is how do you get that variation?
>> Oh well that that's that's quantum mechanics so it's statistical.
>> Don't say that's the answer. Well, no, no, but it's a bit you're right. It's a very deep question. Yeah.
>> It's like and that bothered immensely the the early founders of quantum mechanics. So, people like Rutherford and those people who Neils Boore and all those people and Einstein it bothered a lot. God does not play dice with the universe. That's essentially what you're saying. You're saying why does God play dice as Einstein puts it.
>> So, so the reason >> he was laid on the mortgage for the universe.
So he plays nice to get some extra cash on the side.
>> Papa got to make this money.
>> So I think Papa got to make this money, baby.
>> Come on.
>> Wait, wait. But Brian, I realized just while you were speaking that you did answer her question precisely >> because she said, you know, cuz why does some take longer than others and the difference in how many options it has coming out the other side >> and the mass difference >> and the mass difference. So that that'll say why one will decay in 5 minutes or 10 or 10 hours. You can get that. Yeah.
Okay. Given that, what is going on at the instant that it decays?
>> It's enough. It's >> because that give me insight into why some will decay sooner and some will decay later so that it averages out to that halflife.
>> So what's going on? So you can it's called the weak nuclear force that's changing these things. So that's part of the standard model. So what actually happens when a neutron turns into a proton. So so a down quark turns into an up quark. So what happens is the down quark it you can think of as emitting a a particle force carrying or a force carrying particle comes off. It's a W minus >> W minus which then goes to an electron and a thing called an anti-electron neutrino actually but it goes so it's the W minus goes off >> and then you get a down quark which is a charge plus plus 2/3.
>> Okay. So you get a you get a minus one/3 quark going to a plus 2/3 quark and then you get an electron that comes off. So all the charges are conserved.
>> So you haven't invented electric right and also the sum of all the charges at the end.
>> We got it. And when we think of a neutron decaying to a proton all that's the in the engine process going on.
That's the gear the gearing that's happening that you just described. So it's that it's the same kind of picture as why does an electron bounce off another electron? So we'd say well because they've got negative charge and negative charges repel. But the particle physics picture of that is that a photon is exchanged between the electrons. So in this case it's this. It's not the electromagnetic force. It's called the weak nuclear force. Basically the down quark is changing into an up quark with ultimately the emission of an electron and a neutrino. And the W minus is the particle.
>> And in the end, when that happens, it's statistical. We got to deal with that.
Are we hiding >> our awareness of objective reality by dusting it into the bin of probability?
>> No, it's so it's not the same uh that that that randomness is not the same as the randomness because we don't know everything. So in in terms of a gas, let's say, you know, there are things things are jiggling around. We don't keep track. we spoke about earlier. We don't keep track of the billions of molecules in the gas. So there's some statistics comes in because we're averaging over a load. The quantum mechanics is not like that. As far as we can tell, the statistical nature of it is inherently it's built into the theory. It's built into nature and that bothered everybody.
>> So Einstein was just wrong. Yes.
>> Well, Einstein didn't like it. It is true that how to interpret that then it's a whole other episode right is so you've probably talked to people about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics not that's all that's this thing that's all in this how do you interpret those statistical predictions >> without the wave function >> without invoking a statistical description >> yeah I mean so it seems that it's it's a fundamentally it's a fundamental part of the theory >> you know my favorite part of particle decay >> was Yeah, >> if you accelerate them, >> right, >> then they take longer to decay.
>> That makes sense >> cuz Einstein's special theory of relativity.
>> So, yeah, that's so badass going closer to the speed of light. So, time literally is slowing down.
>> Slowing down for the and so it decay. It takes longer to decay.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> That's a beautiful thing.
>> That's very cool, man.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow. All right.
>> Time for a few more.
>> All right. Here we go. This is John. He says, "Hello, Lord. Nice." And Dr. Tyson, Dr. Cox, uh John from Arkansas here. You've both explained what a plank length is and how we will likely never get more accurate measurements beyond this supposed limit. I am wondering if light can have a wavelength that small and if energy would be measurable or could that be another infinity we need new physics to explain much like the singularity in a black hole. PS love the show and Chuck I figured I'd mention you first for a change anyway. Yeah. Uh >> there is there is an answer to this. I I'd love this question. Yeah, >> I would not have been able to answer this question.
>> The the answer is that um so the smaller you make the wavelength of a photon, the higher the energy is.
>> So >> So there should be an energy associated with the wavelength that is a plank length is.
>> Yes. And you find out that that's the the that energy density makes a black hole.
>> So I think WHEN OH MY HEING GOD.
>> SO AND THEN SO you think about it the more you try to probe smaller and then the black hole would I I think Len Suskin calls it the UVIR connection. I think that's what he calls it. So the the the upshot is that if you try to put more and more energy into a smaller and smaller space to see smaller things the size of the black hole you make increases. It grows. That's why >> so the more the more you try to see smaller things, the less you can see the small things >> because the the the black hole gets >> the universe is diabolical.
>> Yes.
>> So it stops you. So you can't you can't probe it. So black holes are in the cosmological witness protection program.
You can't get in there.
>> You just can't. No matter what you do, you're not going to That's amazing. What a great question, bro. That was a that was awesome.
>> Okay. Just remind us briefly about a a plank length. Just put that on the map here.
>> So you can construct units fundamental units from things like so from specifically the speed of light the strength of gravity and plank's constant. So if you take those things and put them together so you get meters out, you'll get the plank length. So it's Plank who figured out that it would be good to make units of measurement out of things on which everyone would agree.
If you think if you make meet an alien for example, then there's no point talking about a meter because what is it? It's the length of your arm or something like that.
>> No, no. It's 1 10 millionth the length of a quarter of the Earth from the North Pole to the equator through the Paris Observatory.
>> Is that what it is?
>> Yes. Right. Okay. That's why the circumference of the earth is 40 million >> meters >> which is and make that kilometers it's 40,000 km that's why that's that's why it's that even is the French did that but you're Brit so you don't care what they did.
>> Yeah. So they're all arbitrary things that our planet or our bodies or whatever it is.
>> But then you could say well but the speed of light planks constant and the strength of gravity >> everyone would agree on >> even aliens.
>> So yeah because you can measure those.
So whatever units you measure them in, you can put them together to make something that looks like a length.
>> Gotcha.
>> And that's the plank length. And it happens to be very very tiny relative to us.
>> Right.
>> Very cool.
>> So can there be a fabric of spaceime that in other words you if you were to quantize general relativity, you would have to the plank length would be fundamental to that. Is that not right?
>> Yeah. So we Yeah. So we we think that's telling us something deep about the >> about the universe itself.
>> Okay.
>> So these are properties of the universe these things not properties of planets or right.
Exactly.
>> Very very cool. Okay.
>> Time for two maybe one more. All right.
What do you got?
>> All right. This is Big Stew. And Big Stew says, "Hey, what it do? My name is Big Stew from Austin, Texas. I've heard Dr. Cox talk about how information that falls into a black hole might not actually be lost. But what is that information exactly? Does Hawking radiation somehow contain the same atoms that went in? Or does the universe just eject some cosmic thumb drive full of data? I'm trying to wrap my head around this, man. Help me.
>> Cosmic thumb drive full of data. Yes.
Yeah. So the idea is that the the the Hawking radiation ends up yes the description that what what was who was ask the question >> that Stu said is is basically right. Um so in more technical terms you end up with this Hawking radiation you'd have to collect it and do some operations on it with a quantum computer to kind of extract the information. So it's all no one's ever going to do it. It's impossible to do in practice. But that's the idea the in a very fundamental sense it's in there in the same way that I suppose the information if you were to I suppose ask the question how is the information of this photograph I took with my phone encoded in the memory of the phone it's quite complicated actually it's got error correction in it and all sorts of things like that and it's that idea really but at a quantum mechanical level.
>> Yeah. So, it's not physically right the physical stuff, but it's the it's the data.
>> Cool. Very cool.
>> Time for one more.
>> All right. This is Wayne Ross Muen. And Wayne says, "Hello, star nerds."
>> Nerds unite. Nerds of the world.
>> Does Newton's third law hold true in quantum mechanics? Wayne from Northridge, California.
>> To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah, >> that was simple.
>> Good enough for me. I mean, so so let me let me broaden that. Allow me to broaden it. So quantum physics and relativity has shown that the applicability of Newton's laws has limits.
>> F is not always ma in that simple form.
You need Einsteinian extensions on these constructs.
>> Yeah. So even with his gravity equation is you have to modify it and it was hard earned to learn that Newton's laws fail.
So does every action is an equal and opposite reaction have a point of failure where we need a deeper understanding or an updated understanding of how the universe works?
>> No. No. So, so for example, it's easier to explain the the first law, everything continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by a force.
>> That is uh to do with the symmetries of spaceime, right? So that is true in in relativity as well. So, so if you if you're talking about special relativity and it's one of the examples we teach actually in our first year undergraduate course, you can show that if something's traveling in a straight line in one frame of reference, it's traveling in a straight line in a different frame of reference under both Galilean transformations which are the Newtonian picture and Laurent transformations which are the special relativistic picture.
>> Okay. So you and you could actually phrase that as one of Einstein's postulates because Einstein's two postulates from which special relativity emerges. Uh the speed of light is a constant for all observers and the laws of nature take the same form in all inertial frames of reference. Newton's law that says that something's going in a straight line unless acted upon by a force it will still carry on going in a straight line is one of those laws. I mean if you think about the consequences otherwise you'd be able to change between different points of view moving at the same speed relative to each other and something that was going along in a straight line according to one person would be doing that >> would be in orbit or something that >> we're intact >> built in. So yes, so they're they're a representation of the ultimately of the and and there's a very deep question as to why is that the case and I remember again Fineman who we mentioned earlier talking about it why is that the case >> and he said it's because it's one of the fundamental properties of our universe so we don't know why that's the case >> it just is >> that is the way our universe is built to do with the >> we the posh way or whatever the fancy way of saying it is the symmetries of space time is but but it's just that's one of the fundamental properties of our universe.
>> I'm going to end with something completely irrelevant. Okay.
>> But we mentioned the Galilean transformation.
>> Yes.
>> There's a game played by the Seattle Seahawks.
>> Correct.
>> And I'm in like email uh >> with Pete Carol >> with with Pete Carroll. Okay.
>> So I'm on his radar. He's on my radar.
and their quarterback did a lateral on the field that was being challenged by the opposing side >> as a illegal forward pass.
>> illegal forward pass. He's already passed the line of scrimmage and he he's going to his running back, tosses it to the running back, running back catches it, and they get a first down and they would ultimately score. And he said to me, "Neil, I think what we did was legit. What can you help me here?" And I looked at it and I looked at it and so I posted online that it was a legitimate Galilean transformation. So here's what's happening. He and his running back are running down the field. He is ahead of his running back. He pitches to his running back. He's ahead of his running back when he let go of the ball.
He's ahead of the running back when the running back caught it.
>> Right.
>> Okay.
>> And he lets go of the ball before the line of scrimmage.
>> No, it's after the line of scrimmage.
>> No, that would be an illegal forward pass. I'm getting No, no, no, no, no, no, >> no. He has to let go of the ball before the line of scrimmage.
>> No, no, no, no.
>> The receiver caught it after the line of scrimmage.
>> That's the only way this can work.
>> No, no. Hear me.
>> Let me hear you.
>> Please go ahead.
>> Please. They both are well past the line of scrimmage. Both of them. He's ahead of his receiver. Pitches it backwards to him.
>> Oh, you mean they're running together?
>> Yes.
>> Oh, that's a different story. Go ahead.
Go ahead.
>> Pitches it back to his running back, right?
>> Okay. the whole time he's in front of him.
>> That's correct.
>> But they're running so fast that from the reference frame of the grid iron, the ball actually went forward.
>> No, that makes sense.
>> Okay. So, I I said this is a Galilean transformation. You cannot penalize football players for running fast.
>> You can't do that.
>> Should have been two white players.
>> He's in race therapy. He's getting out of it. He's gotten much better, by the way.
>> Funny.
>> That was funny. Yeah, it was two black players, by the way.
Stop. They're fast. What can we say?
Okay, go ahead.
>> So, so it turns out that they let the call stay that it was a legitimate lateral. Even though according to the field, it was a forward.
>> Yeah. No, it wouldn't look like if you're running fast, that's what it would look like.
>> Yeah. And so, so that that was a Galilean transformation where whatever else is happening, your reference frame is moving and everything is happening in that moving reference frame. Galilean transformation.
>> Awesome. Yeah.
>> Science.
>> You know how we did it on a explainer once? Have you ever been on a on the highway and there these cars racing each other around you?
>> Oh, yeah. That was >> It feels really dangerous, right?
>> But in fact, >> as far as they're concerned, you're just standing still, right?
>> And they're just darting around you.
>> Yeah.
>> And so they're in their own reference frame and you're just blockage.
>> Yeah. So there's exist >> we're all going 40 mph in slow traffic and they're going 70 mph around us and it's less dangerous than it looks is all I'm saying.
>> But don't do it, Peter.
>> Okay. Follow the laws of the road and buckle up.
>> Delight to have you visit >> our humble city, my humble office. Don't be such a stranger, but you're a busy guy, so we we allow this.
>> Yeah.
>> And we look we'll look forward to your emergence tour. I assume it's another international booked tour. Yeah, it comes to Yeah, it comes to the US and I think the tickets are on sale for the end of next year and the start of 2017.
The the the New York date, the East Coast dates are not yet on sale actually, but they will be.
>> Okay. Okay. You going to come back to the Beacon Theater, which is where I last saw you, >> I think. So, >> no, he's going to say I'm coming to stadium.
>> Stadium, >> Madison Square Garden. This time, >> we were we did the town hall as well, which is nice. I love that you did.
>> It's a little more intimate. Yeah. Yeah.
>> I'm not sure which one.
>> Okay. Town Hall is a venue in New York City. It's called Town Hall.
>> They're both great venues.
>> They're both great venues.
>> All right. This has been a delightful uh I think long overdue uh episode with my friend and colleague and partner in crime trying to educate the world of everything cool in the universe and especially in the world of particle physics, Brian Cox. Thank you, Brian.
>> Thank you. All right. And Chuck, always good to have you, man.
>> Always a pleasure.
>> I'm Neil Degrass Tyson.
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