Is CERN shifting timelines?

[00:00:24][music] Hello and welcome to Pale Blue Pod, the astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but still want to be its friend. Uh I'm Connie and I'm definitely overwhelmed by the universe but I recently got a promotion by Moya. Thank you Moya and the university the potiversity. Um I my new title is now chief curiosity officer. So I will pass it to you my friend.

[00:00:50][laughter] Thank you chief curiosity officer Connie. Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Moya McTar. I'm an astrophysicist and a folklorist and a friend to the universe and many of its parts, but some of its parts are overwhelming me today. That's that's just life. That happens. It happens to me a lot, bestie. But, you know, we'll we'll go through it together. We will, as we always do.

[00:01:12]>> Indeed. you know, when we're already feeling overwhelmed, I think is a great time to talk about CERN and the the conspiracy theories about it bringing about timeline shifts and maybe the end of the universe, right? Like those two things go together.

[00:01:30]>> Well, uh yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a great topic for how we're both feeling today.

[00:01:38]>> Yes. Let's do it.

[00:01:39]>> Let's do it. Let's do it.

[00:01:41]Have you seen any videos about CERN lately? Because I they've been popping up on my various timelines. I have. I have. And you told me about it briefly, too, but uh something about the the CERN is I think turning off something.

[00:01:56][clears throat] And the last time they when they turned it on was 2019, and that's kind of threw us into whack-a-ole city. Uh, and so they're about to turn it off or they have turned it off and we are hoping for a timeline shift or something like it seems like it's getting very metaphysical, very lost of like yes, once this turns off like everything will change and I'm like I hope so. I'm going to I'm ready for it. I'm open to it >> and we'll see.

[00:02:30]>> Yeah, I like that. You know, it is giving lost. It's giving [laughter] >> back to the future. It's giving Quantum Leap or Sliders if you're familiar with those shows. Yeah, it is a fun conversation to watch people have, I will say. And by the end of this episode, we are going to clear up those conspiracy theories. We're going to clear up the timeline of everything. But >> it is mighty coincidental. I I mean, as a millennial, we've just been living through like unprecedented times for basically our entire lives. I'm so tired, bestie.

[00:03:06]>> Yeah. So, of course, we'd be able to see big cultural moments that correspond to the years where they turned the Large Hydron Collider on and off just because things keep happening.

[00:03:19]>> Things keep happening and stay happening and I'm sick of it. I'm tired of it. But I also think that it was about time that we as a society had a new thing. So, like again, we are millennials. We grew up in the Y2K era. So, I was like, "Oh my gosh, the computers are going to shut down. The world is going to change and be over. Oh my goodness." And then I was like, "Oh, wait. That's fine." But the Mayan calendar, it only stopped at 2012.

[00:03:44]What do we do? Uh, and so I feel like we were due for a new like [laughter] something uh is needs to change things moment. So, >> yeah.

[00:03:54]>> Yeah. We're We're all We yearn for an excuse for things to be weird instead of just humans do weird things.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:06]>> It's okay. Tell me about it.

[00:04:07]>> Yeah. Cuz one of the weird but cool things that humans do is science. And CERN is one of the most prolific, productive, interesting scientific experiments that humans have conducted ever in my opinion. The whole point of CERN is to understand the fundamental building blocks of the entire universe and it has >> it has stayed close to its mission and fulfilled a lot of promises. But we're going to get into like the organization behind CERN. We're going to get into the history of its founding and some of its major experiments. And then we will of course talk about the Large Hydron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

[00:04:50]>> Mhm. And we have a fun activity at the end to wrap it all up for us.

[00:04:55]>> I love your fun activities, bestie.

[00:04:57]>> Okay, so CERN is an acronym, but it's an acronym in French.

[00:05:03]>> Oh, okay. [laughter] Yes. Yes. It's the English translation is the European Council for Nuclear Research, which was established in 1952. But then in 1954, the name was changed cuz it was really like a whole new organization coming like a phoenix out of the ashes of the old one. And the new organization was called the European Organization for Nuclear Research, but they kept the French acronym. So it just kept the name CERN. It is a scientific facility on the French Swiss border, but the headquarters for CERN are in Geneva, Switzerland. Oh, okay. So, they went from trying to be eoner to CERN, but CERN is the you said the French order of the words. They started as E C N R but the French version of that is C E R N.

[00:06:03]>> Okay?

[00:06:03]>> Because they switch around the adjectives and the nouns. And then it the whole organization's name got changed to E O NR but they kept the name CERN. Okay. The primary mission of CERN is to quote uncover what the universe is made of and how it works. And they do that with particle accelerators. The whole institution is run by a council of member states that acts kind of like the Senate. All of the member states get two different representatives. One of the representatives is meant to look out for the [clears throat] government administration interests and the other representative is meant to look out for the national scientific interests of the member state. But the two have to vote together. So every member [clears throat] state only gets one vote.

[00:06:53]>> Oh, okay. All of the 25 member states are European countries except for Israel.

[00:06:59]>> And they get to be a member cuz they just get to be a member everywhere. And then all of the members have to pay into the CERN convention at a rate that's based on that country's national net income from recent years, which is nice cuz then you're you're only like paying what you can to [clears throat] be a part of the collaboration.

[00:07:20]>> There are 11 associate member states from South America and around Asia and like Eastern Europe. And then Japan and the US have observer status.

[00:07:33]So they can watch but not touch. I guess I mean I get the US like actually [laughter] we may not I understand they don't want us involved and we can watch but we can't touch. That makes sense for us, >> right? I mean it also makes sense for Japan.

[00:07:48]>> Yeah, >> they've done some >> Yeah.

[00:07:51]>> So we have observer status for the Large Hydron Collider specifically. Not like all of CERN's projects, but we can be involved with the LHC. [laughter] And around the world, there are 600 at least 600 universities and research laboratories that use CERN's facilities and data.

[00:08:09]>> Okay. Wow. I like how it's global, but they're like, "We are still European."

[00:08:15]>> Yes. [laughter] Like, yeah, everyone's technically welcome, but you can't have ice in your water. [laughter] Um they have different committees that look after the science interests of all the member states and decide what scientific experiments CERN should do.

[00:08:31]And then they have a finance committee that figures out how they're going to pay for all of the science as needed.

[00:08:38]And all of this came about in the wake of World War II when you know we had seen the hydrogen bomb and its effects and Europe was like maybe we should have some sort of uh research institute for nuclear science perhaps. H I don't know and maybe we shouldn't let the US or Japan uh touch anything you know maybe perhaps perhaps that should be our plan.

[00:09:04]So yeah, Europe starts talking about this continental science lab after World War II and in 1951 in Paris at a meeting for UNESCO. They sign onto this agreement to develop this nuclear research laboratory across all of Europe or like most most of Europe. They broke ground on the facility in May of 1954 in Geneva and that was specifically chosen because it had a central location in Europe across like all the countries that were heavily involved and they had their whole neutrality thing from World War II. So >> it made sense. Um so that's 1954. They start breaking ground. In 1957 they build and turn on their first particle accelerator. This is not [clears throat] the first particle accelerator in the world. Those were uh developed in like the 40s but around the world. I know the US had some uh other parts of the world had some but they briefly had one of like the most powerful particle accelerators. It was called the 600 mega electron volt synchro cyclron.

[00:10:14]>> Oo very uh sci-fi. The synchro cyclotron 5000.

[00:10:21]Yes, very sci-fi. And I have a a picture of it here for you. It looks just like a like there's a metal cylinder, but it connects to this big metal box behind it. The metal box itself is bigger than humans, but the whole thing is two D-shaped parts and they are put next to each other so that the flat sides of the D are next to each other. Okay, that makes >> sense. Yeah. Mhm.

[00:10:49]>> Um the whole diameter across is 16 m. So that's what like almost 50 ft. And it has magnets placed above and below and on the sides to direct the motion of the charged particles that are flowing around the chamber. At first they're working with things like electrons.

[00:11:08]Maybe they're shining lights at things, but they're not working with protons or atomic nuclei yet. That's going to come later.

[00:11:15]>> Okay. So they have these magnets that will move the particles around the space because the particles themselves have electric charges. So they react to the magnetic fields and those magnets can speed up the particles until they reach almost near the speed of light and then they can send that particle at a target.

[00:11:34]Um that target might be an electron, that target might be something else.

[00:11:40]Then they can collide the beam of charged particles with that target and see what is made. What particles are a byproduct of that collision? I think in Iron Man 2, uh Tony Stark may use a mini particle accelerator to create a new element. I put that in quotes cuz I'm like I don't know if that's a thing. Uh you know, again, sci-fi mumbo jumbo, but you know, his heart was being poisoned and so he creates a new element to stop the poison. Blah blah blah. But it's a cool scene that they put together that this reminds me of. I was like, "Oh, if I picture the 2Ds next to each other, you know, in the sci-fi 200910 techie version, I could see the particle accelerator that Tony Stark used and he had to like beam some lights and the things were swirling around them really fast and it was just like all the big science stuff in a big room." So, yeah.

[00:12:29]Okay.

[00:12:29]>> Yeah. And I mean we have made new elements in labs. Okay. Not necessarily through particle acceleration. Um but it's possible and the particle accelerators absolutely reveal new types of particles. Um so not necessarily whole new chemical elements like whole new types of atoms but definitely new types of particles that could be used to power something.

[00:12:52]>> Mhm.

[00:12:52]>> So that's typically how a particle accelerator is going to work. You can have a couple different kinds. You can have a linear particle accelerator where you have a beam of light that shoots down a straight path at a target that's held still some distance away. Or you could have a ring accelerator where you send the particles speeding around a loop, but you have two different beams going in opposite directions so that as they continue to go around this loop, they will collide with each other. Aha.

[00:13:23]Aha. Both of those have pros and cons.

[00:13:26]For the ring accelerator, you can get these particles going at faster speeds.

[00:13:32]You can have more collisions that happen because they're not going to hit each other the first time they go around the ring, but they continue to go around the ring until they hit something.

[00:13:44]>> So, you get more collisions to study at higher energies, which is great, but it's harder to control. And remember in the last episode when we talked about Bremstral radiation and synretron radiation which is when electrons or other charged particles curve around a space or are decelerated and accelerated. Yeah >> the brakes something about break >> brakes break acceleration is breaking radiation. So when you have a ring accelerator, as the charged particles are going around the curves, they are producing synretron radiation.

[00:14:22]So they are losing some of their energy.

[00:14:24]So that's a bit of a con. So you don't lose energy with linear accelerators, but you can't move as fast and you get fewer collisions to study. It's all about balance. All about balance. I was talking about the the synretron, the 600 mega electron [laughter] volt synretron.

[00:14:42]uh this machine they were especially interested in observing the decay of pions. A pion is another name for a pi maison or mison. Remember we talked about mison? We did last week. Yeah, >> we did last week. Yeah. They are uh particles that are made up of two quarks. There's a quark and an anti-quark. And it's really rare to see those types of particles in general, but al also like to see them decay into other types of particles is extremely rare. So the main goal at first for this synchro cyclron was to study the decay of pions and they saw it just a few hours after turning on the machine. Oh, so it was a well-designed experiment.

[00:15:28]Okay, best. What happened in 1957?

[00:15:31]anything crazy happened in 1957 when they first turned this one on.

[00:15:34]>> I It's not like a a a iconic year, you know, off the top of my head. So, I I may have to look that up.

[00:15:42]>> I know that Sputnik launched in 1957, but I don't know about anything else.

[00:15:47]>> Okay. Okay.

[00:15:48]>> Not to feed into the conspiracy at all.

[00:15:51]>> Well, that's why I was wondering, but I was like, okay, I don't know. Although maybe you could argue that it's about the amount of energy that they are putting into these particle collisions.

[00:16:00]It wasn't this that powerful yet. Maybe, >> right? Cuz this is only 600 mega electron volts. The next accelerator that CERN starts to use is going to be 28 giga electron volts. So mega is million. Giga is billion. So this is 28 billion electron volts. Even that >> not actually that much energy. 28 giga electron volts is the same thing as 5 * 10^ the - 9th power. So 5 1 billionth of a jewel and a jewel is a typical unit of energy in science. A watt like your light bulbs they're what 40 60 watts.

[00:16:41]One watt >> is one jewel per second. So these energy levels that they're reaching in the particle accelerators, not even enough to power your light bulb for a second.

[00:16:54]>> You would need like a billion of them to power your light bulb for a second.

[00:16:58]>> Wow. So they're Yeah, they're actually quite low energies.

[00:17:02]>> Okay. So the the synchro cyclron, which I just like to say, I know you do, bestie.

[00:17:08]>> It operated until 1990. It it worked for 33 years, but it switched in uh 1964 to be less about particle physics research and more about nuclear physics research.

[00:17:23]Interesting. The only notable thing I can see that happened in 1957 uh is [laughter] they passed a civil rights act uh for the first time. And so that's just an interesting thing. But that's the only thing that I could see that was like society shifting interests. And obviously that is very American forward.

[00:17:41]So >> yes to always remember this is a global this is a global thing. So we can't just rely on local events to to compare to the turning on and off of this machine.

[00:17:53]>> Yes indeed. Uh and there are many more machines that were turned on and off. So let's get to the next one. In 1959, CERN updated to their proton synretron accelerator which accelerated protons for the first time cuz before they were using different types of particles. Um, protons are heavier than electrons and uh, you know, they're positively charged. Like there you just have to deal with them differently than you would other types of particles. And they accelerated them like I said before up to 28 giga electron volts. The Proton Synretron or the PS was used as its own particle accelerator collider for a little bit and now it's used as kind of like the pregame accelerator for particles before they send them into the Large Hydron Collider.

[00:18:42]>> They're like, "We need to warm up actually."

[00:18:45]>> Yes. You got to stretch. You don't want your muscles You don't want those fundamental particle muscles to tear.

[00:18:51][laughter] >> They're like, "We want to split the atom, but not that way." Okay.

[00:18:58]>> Um, also they clearly didn't like saying synchro cyclron as much as you because now it's the proton secretron. They cut it shorter because it's not a cyclron anymore, which is like a particular type of instrument.

[00:19:11]>> Mhm.

[00:19:11]>> But yes, it's a less fun name.

[00:19:13]>> Yeah.

[00:19:14]>> And so that is operating starting in 1959. In 1971, they move on to their next project where they actually have two particle beams hitting each other instead of just uh sending a particle beam around a ring or down a hallway to hit a stationary target. So, in 1971, they start the intersecting storage rings project and they're firing two beams of protons at each other for the first time. That same year they approve the super proton synretron project. Got to upgrade always. They are always upgrading and that takes 5 years to complete. So it's done by 1976 and operated until 1984 as its own entity. Now we use this SPS as it's called the super proton synretron. That is the other pregame accelerator before the the large hydron collider. So the SPS and the PS work to work well they work separately. They accelerate their own beams of particles to get up to near the speed of light and then they inject those beams of particles into the large hadron colliders tubes and then they can do that circle thing where some like they'll collide with each other as they go around the ring.

[00:20:31]>> Wow.

[00:20:32]>> But back in the day back in the 70s the super proton synretron was just its own accelerator its own mission. Mhm.

[00:20:41]>> It was the first underground ring accelerator at CERN. It was 7 kilometers in circumference. So that's what like 3 3 4 miles. Okay.

[00:20:52]>> In circumference and it was an average depth of about 40 m below the surface of the ground. So they had to dig these tunnels uh deep underground. And the energy threshold for this SPS is up to 450 gale electron volts. that's up from 28 >> uh with the PS.

[00:21:13]>> Uh so they're like, "Oh, we really love this SPS machine. It's giving us a lot of good data." In 1979, they convert it into a different type of machine uh where instead of just colliding protons with protons, they start colliding protons with anti-roton for the first time.

[00:21:30]>> Uh so they're they are starting to collide matter with anti-atter.

[00:21:34]>> Oh.

[00:21:35]>> Which is very exciting.

[00:21:36]>> Yeah. And this relies on a technique that was developed earlier in the decade called stochastic cooling. It makes it easier to collect and then direct the anti-roton.

[00:21:49]I am not totally sure how it's better at collecting the anti-roton, but it does make sense to me how they can direct them better. So this technique was developed by Simon Vandermir, who was a scientist at CERN. And I'm talking about these particle beams, right? these um almost like a laser beam of it could be light, but it could also be protons or electrons, but like a beam of particles.

[00:22:13]>> Any type of beam is going to have inefficiencies like the the particles on the outside of the beam, they're going to spread away. And so by the time the the beam reaches its ultimate destination, it will have lost a lot of those particles. The stochastic cooling method is meant to keep the beam of particles together. It like keeps it all bound tightly together by using the electrical charges of individual particles to kind of keep the others in line. They're creating the panopticon for for packets of particles. [laughter] It's it's a system where they are each designed to narc.

[00:22:50]>> Oh, [laughter] it's like here's your hall monitors going buddies. You have to stay buddies.

[00:22:57]Okay.

[00:22:58]>> Wow. All right. So, so then they can better direct these beams of anti-roton towards the beams of regular protons without losing too many and sacrificing the collisions.

[00:23:11]>> And so the um proton anti-roton collider depends on stochastic cooling. Cooling in in that term not at all related to temperature. Astronomers and physicists will call something hot if there's a lot of motion. Um, and we'll call something cool if there's not a lot of motion. Or I should say more precisely, we'll call something hot if there's a lot of scatter in the motion. So if things are moving as a group in different directions and and at different speeds.

[00:23:38]And we will say that something is cool if there's either not a lot of motion or the motion is like a a bulk co-movement like there's not a lot of scatter because they're all moving in the same direction and at the same speed.

[00:23:51]>> Okay.

[00:23:51]>> Yeah. So stochastically cool means these particles aren't venturing away from the beam. They're staying together. So they're all moving as one bulk thing.

[00:24:00]>> Okay.

[00:24:00]>> And that was the proton anti-roton collider. I think with that collider they were able to detect W and Z bzons for the first time in 1983. And W and Z bzons are the fundamental particles that carry the weak nuclear force which means we are now better able to study the weak nuclear force. That's fantastic.

[00:24:19]>> Yeah. And then we we're we're continuing on. In 1986, CERN starts colliding heavy atomic nuclei for the first time. So not just protons like the the you know individual particles that you would see within a nucleus of an atom, but they start colliding entire nuclei. They start with relatively light nuclei at first, some oxygen, some sulfur, and then they build their way up to heavier nuclei like lead nuclei. M >> and they're doing this because all of the particles within a nucleus, the protons and the neutrons, they're both made up of quarks and they're held together by gluons. Remember, gluons are the particle that carry the strong nuclear force.

[00:24:59]>> Okay?

[00:25:00]>> So, these atomic nuclei have a bunch of quarks and gluons in them. And there's this theory about the early universe right after the big bang that it was too hot for the quarks to combine. And so the entire universe was full of what we call a quark gluon plasma, like just this soup of of hot particles swimming around each other. And it's really hard to recreate those conditions, but by smashing together nuclei and hopefully splitting it up into all of the quarks and gluons that were holding that nucleus together, then you can create your own soup of quarks and gluons. And they did. uh they were able to show convincing evidence that a cork gluon plasma state existed in 1986.

[00:25:55]>> Hi everyone, it's me. Connie is playing with the mini hydron collider I keep in my desk drawer and I think that's going to keep her occupied for a little bit.

[00:26:03]So let me share some messages with you.

[00:26:05]The first message is that our merch is available for order. You can head to certifiedcrucial.com/collections and search for paleblue pod or head to the link in the episode description. I just got a sample of our t-shirt and I love it so much. Eat the sun, remember, because the moon is for the people. And you can check out that t-shirt and our other merch at the link in the episode description. Thank you so much. I also want to thank our patrons who support the show financially every single month.

[00:26:35]As an independent podcast, we rely on support from listeners like you to keep going. So, thank you so so much. And we want to give a special shout out to our Sunlike Stars, Scott Reynolds, Tom T, Seven Petraor, Ashley Shambo, Bruce Sedlloff, and Kelly Benell. You are golden. You're beautiful. Your mass is perfect. Thank you so so much. If you want to join these stellar people and support this indie podcast on Patreon, you would get to hear your name on the show, make it onto the patron star chart, and get research notes for every episode for $5 a month. That's at patreon.com/palblue pod. And if a monthly subscription or donation isn't something you can do, then you could become a supernova in the palue pod sky by going to the PayPal link in the episode description and making a one-time donation. Of course, if you can't support us financially, we understand and we still love you. You are space. There are other ways to help the show grow, like rating and reviewing us on whatever podcast platform you use and sharing a link to a particular episode with a particular person who you think would enjoy it. But no matter what, thank you for listening. Connie and I are honored to be a part of your week in your ears. Thank you so much. My next message is a podcast recommendation. It's another show in the Multitude Collective called This Guy Sucked. This is a history podcast for haters by haters, where you can join historian Dr. Claire Aubin and a new expert every week to pull back the scholarly curtain on some of the world's biggest bummers. No dead person is safe, and the show's guests prove that the best part of understanding the past is criticizing it. They just did an episode about Renaissance arms dealers that was fascinating, although it does talk a lot about uh guns and gun violence. So, uh be on the lookout for that. New episodes come out every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. And Claire is so smart and so funny. You'll want to check it out. All right, Connie has successfully made her first charm quirk with the Minihydron Collider. I'm so proud of her. So, let's get back to this discussion and hear how CERN made the larger version of my favorite office toy. [music] So, I just talked about the cork gluon plasma. They found that in 1986.

[00:28:50]Meanwhile, from 1983 to 1988, CERN was digging tunnels for their large electron positron collider >> when they were working on it. This was the largest civil engineering project in Europe ever.

[00:29:06]like at the time >> cuz I'm like they've already dug so much for what they already have and then they're it's not like they're replacing and like maybe maybe getting it bigger or something but it's like no they're building a whole other thing that's a lot of ground to cover this place must be huge or have expand has expanded. It spans the border of France and Switzerland and and so yeah they are building entirely new tunnels because the tunnel that they built for the intersecting storage rings those were only 7 km in circumference.

[00:29:39]>> The tunnels for the large electron posetron collider were going to be 27 km in diameter.

[00:29:48]>> We still got to multiply that by three to get the circumference.

[00:29:51]>> Yeah. So it's a it's a big boy down there.

[00:29:54]>> Big boy.

[00:29:56]>> And it's at an average depth of about 100 meters underground. So it's below the intersecting ring storage and much bigger.

[00:30:07]>> Yeah. The large electron positron collider turned on in 1988 and it was dismantled in 2001 to make way for the large hydron collider which used the same tunnels. So hadrons I think we have talked briefly before it's one of the confusing umbrella terms within particle physics. A hadron is any particle that is made up of quarks. So that includes barerons and maison. Okay. So the electron posetron collider was just colliding electrons and anti- electrons aka posetrons.

[00:30:44]>> Okay.

[00:30:44]>> So like the anti-atter counterpart to the electron.

[00:30:48]>> The large hadron collider which like they started to plan it in 1995 and then they approved the first experiments in 1997 and then uh finished building it in 2007.

[00:31:04]>> Okay. that [clears throat] is colliding these hadrons, these particles made up of quarks. And when they do that, they can break apart the the quarks. They can even release other types of particles because the strong nuclear force holds together these particles so strongly that to break them apart requires a lot of energy and actually produces other quarks in the process. [laughter] Here's some more. Here's some more. Yes, exactly. And so they were they were getting ready for the LHC all the way back in 1995.

[00:31:37]Another great thing to happen at CERN in 1989 is that Sir Tim Berners Lee invented the worldwide web, a way to actually search through the internet because before that the internet was really only useful for people who knew how to use computers. like there wasn't any sort of user interface like like usable user interface for people who wanted to connect to the internet and it was just a bunch of like isolated hosting platforms where computer geeks put their information but you as a regular person couldn't really navigate to those different sites. No. And so Tim Berners Lee when he was working at CERN, he realized that the whole organization is just huge. There are too many people to keep track of, especially in the directory that [clears throat] they had where you could search for someone based on their research project or who their adviser or like employer was, but like you it just wasn't really usable. You couldn't search for their name. You couldn't search by any other type of information. It was all nested. And so Tim Berners Lee developed a new personnel directory for CERN that had these embedded links where you could follow a link from one person's profile to another and you didn't have to search from the top of the directory and and follow all the chain all the way down.

[00:33:04]And then that system of having these uh hypertext links that will take you to another directory within the same system was used to for the whole internet not just CERN's directory and um then we got the first worldwide web which still needed like a like a search function. So like Internet Explorer came about and so we owe the searchability of the internet to CERN's ridiculously large and complicated personnel directory.

[00:33:37]>> Go science.

[00:33:38]>> Yeah. Um you by the way can read that entire story including the invention of the internet itself in uh my upcoming book, Mothers of Invention. Chapter 8 covers the invention of the internet and of course had to include the invention of the worldwide web. I can't wait, bestie. [laughter] Thank you. Um, okay. So, let's let's talk about the large hydron collider.

[00:34:00]Okay. This is the thing that people are freaking out about. And >> it opened in ' 07.

[00:34:06]>> They were done building it in ' 07, but they turned it on for the first time in '08.

[00:34:11]>> Oh. Oh, you mean the global financial crisis?

[00:34:14]>> I do mean the global financial crisis. M see cuz we were earlier talking about how like local things should it really count but that one's gloable.

[00:34:27]>> It was.

[00:34:28]>> Mhm. Okay. Let's just get Obama was also kind like kind of a big deal.

[00:34:34]>> That was a big deal.

[00:34:35]>> Mhm.

[00:34:36]>> Lots of things around that time were a pretty big deal. [laughter] >> But this was when they turned it on. I wonder if it's just the switch or if it's like on is good and off is bad or vice versa. But it might just be the switch. I don't know. That's what we'll we'll have to tease that out.

[00:34:50]>> Yes. Well, I'll tell you I'll I'm gonna give you the timeline. I'll tell you when they turned it on and off and and you tell me if you discern any type of pattern by the end of this.

[00:34:57]>> Okay.

[00:34:57]>> The Large Hedron Collider was one of the most expensive scientific experiments undertaken in Europe in all of its history. It cost €7.5 billion or $9 billion to build it by 2010. By 2010.

[00:35:14]And then uh the estimates are that it it costs about $1 billion to maintain annually, but they've done several updates to the large hydron collider since 2010. So this whole thing has to have cost over $20 billion.

[00:35:33]>> Wow. Worth it in my opinion.

[00:35:36]>> Worth it. Cuz I I want to know what the universe is made of. I want to know how particles work. So, I'm I'm happy [clears throat] they're doing it. And the US has contributed very little. You don't need to get any upset about taxpayer money. It's all Europeans.

[00:35:52][gasps] >> We contribute a little bit.

[00:35:55]>> That's just the thing. There are people who do have that and maybe they should use that money towards that kind of thing, but they don't like to do that.

[00:36:01]>> Yeah. So, it it was expensive and it it's state-of-the-art. Of course, it's going to be expensive. The Large Hydron Collider uses more than a thousand magnets and they are updating these magnets every few years to be the strongest most effective magnets that we can find. But more than a thousand magnets to curve these charged particles around the path in opposite directions of the the ring accelerator. The magnets have to be kept cooler than the average temperature out in space. So [laughter] they they are kept at -456° F with the help of liquid helium coolants because otherwise they the thermal heat like the thermal noise from these magnets would disrupt the signal of of these particle collisions.

[00:36:49][laughter] >> So they have to keep it colder than out colder than outer space. This does take us to like close to zero kel.

[00:37:00]Wow. Yeah, it's really cold. They have to keep these things really, really cold and that costs money. Yeah, because then how does that not affect the outside of it? I guess I'm wondering what keeps the cold. They're 100 meters underground.

[00:37:16]All right, that that'll do it. And the tubes themselves are made of things that can absolutely handle the cold.

[00:37:22]>> That's that even just that to me is just like, wow, we figured that out how to do that.

[00:37:28]I love talking to you about space things because the stuff I take for granted.

[00:37:32]You you remind me that it actually is very cool. Like yes, [laughter] something just to get that cold >> is really interesting. It's it's a cool phenomenon.

[00:37:44]>> It's like wow. Nothing naturally on this planet gets that cold. So we had to like figure out how to make it that cold with like man-made things. Yeah. It's that even just that part is still like that's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. So the Large Hadron Collider with its cold magnets turned on and started taking data for the first time in September of 2008.

[00:38:07]>> Mhm.

[00:38:08]>> September of 2008. September 10th actually of 2008. 9 days later there was a quote incident. There was an incident with the superconducting magnets and the project had to be shut down until November of 2009. So, it was only operational for nine days and then it shut down for over a year. Huh. [gasps] It starts operating again in 2010 and is in operation until February of 2013. And that whole time it's operating at 4 terra electron volts. So, mega is million, giga is billion, terra is trillion. H. [clears throat] But even still, we are not yet at we're at like a millionth of a jewel. So it's still very low energies. While they're operating in this first phase, they find the Higs Bzon on July 4th, 2012.

[00:39:08]>> They've been looking for this for decades. The Higs Bzon particle as we've discussed um in previous episodes a little bit is the fundamental particle that interacts with other fundamental particles and assigns them their mass.

[00:39:21]So the Higs Bzon is interacting very lightly with the electron because the electron has very little mass and it's interacting much more strongly with something like the bottom quark which is which is quite massive [laughter] bottom. I tried to keep it in, bestie, but I couldn't. I got distracted. That's just who I am. I was just like, "Wow."

[00:39:44]Yeah, the bottom it's quite large. It's okay. I also I giggled. [gasps] Bestie, I want to know if you, like me, are the type of nerd who remembers where you were when you heard about the Higs Bzon announcement. [laughter] You know, I actually wish I were because there there are other things that would be that for me that I also still like I don't really remember that. [laughter] I feel like I remember, you know, there are certain things that I do remember, but uh not this one. I'm so sorry to say. No. Oh, darn. I have this vivid memory of working at a Girl Scout camp.

[00:40:20]So, this was before you were even like a declared astrophysicist person. This is the summer before I went to college.

[00:40:26]>> Wow. Okay. And I remember [clears throat] I'm standing in the dining hall because we need to clean for the upcoming parent visitors weekend.

[00:40:34]So, we're scrubbing the floors of the dining hall and playing the radio and it's like it's like teen radio, but there's just like one little announcement about the Higs Bzon cuz it was truly such a huge deal. Like it was news everywhere. And so I remember I'm standing by the cabinet that has all the like brown mugs and and plates and everything and like scrubbing it when I hear on the radio that they have detected the Higs Bows and I didn't know what it was but I had heard people talking about it as the God particle and so I like my ears perked up.

[00:41:09]>> Yeah. And that's that's where I was at Camp Redwing in southwestern Pennsylvania.

[00:41:14]>> Amazing.

[00:41:15]>> And so it it was discovered July 4th, 2012. So, we're coming up on the 14th anniversary of the discovery of the Higs Bzon. And in 2013 or in 2012, I can't remember, but like soon after it was discovered, Peter Higgs and Francois Anglair, who were the scientists who like theorized mathematically and not experimentally the existence of the Higs, they won the Nobel Prize in physics.

[00:41:44]>> Nice.

[00:41:44]>> Which is interesting. like it goes to the person who who theorized it and not to the person who necessarily discovered it.

[00:41:50]>> Yeah. And so that was the first phase of the large hydron colliders operation.

[00:41:56]Then they shut down for their the first of three so far long shutdowns and they start operating again in December of 2014. So this is almost 2 years after they shut down. And then they come back in December 2014. But it takes them a couple months to like really turn everything on. and they operate for about 4 years almost. They shut down again in December of 2018. That entire time they're operating now at 13 terra electron volts. So, uh like three times the energy from before, but still still much much much below the the jewel. Like they found some new particles in that run. They were studying something called the magnetic monopole. Uh, so magnets that we are all familiar with, they have a dipole, right? They have two polar opposites. There's the the north side and the south side. Even if you were to cut a bar magnet in half, that would still leave you with two magnets that both have a south side and a and a north side, a positive side and a negative side. They were studying the possibility of a magnetic monopole, which is a magnetic object that only has one charge and not both. Um, so they were studying that, which is pretty interesting. And then they turn the Large Hydron Collider on again in April of 2022.

[00:43:22]>> Like a a quick on and off, like a quick >> No, no, no. This is now in their third phase. Starting at the beginning of April 2022. It goes until June 29th, 2026.

[00:43:34]>> Just passed. Yeah, just passed. And it's going to be off for four years. It will turn on again in June of 2030 after doing a bunch of upgrades so that when it turns back on, it's going to be the high luminosity large hadron collider. I saw scientists describing it as brighter, so they'll be able to collide more particles at like slightly faster speeds and be more efficient at measuring and detecting the particles that are released after the collisions.

[00:44:04]So, it's just going to be like an updated new and improved Large Hydron Collider. They're calling it uh H High Lumi.

[00:44:14][snorts and laughter] >> Oh, now they're getting cute with it, huh?

[00:44:16]>> Yes.

[00:44:19][gasps] >> And so, um I don't know. Can you think of anything that happened in April of 2022?

[00:44:25]>> Cuz people were saying like it turned on in in 2019 or it turned on in 2020. It didn't.

[00:44:30]There was there was no transition in 2019 or 2020.

[00:44:35]>> No.

[00:44:36]>> Well, I guess it it turned off in December of 2018, but >> I mean like the thing that we all know from 2020 did kick off in 2019, but like a well after.

[00:44:48]>> Exactly.

[00:44:49]>> Yeah.

[00:44:49]>> Mhm. So, we're we're continuing to poke holes in this conspiracy theory. So, that's the Large Hadron Collider. It is currently off. that's going to be off for 4 years. And it discovered new particles. It helped us figure out why particles have mass, but it's just one of CERN's many, many projects. Um, and across all of those projects in the last almost 75 years that CERN has been around, they have discovered some amazing things. They've discovered something called the weak neutral current. Um the weak force as we've discussed is carried by two different types of fundamental particles the W and Z bzons.

[00:45:29]W Bzans have an electric charge but Z bzons don't and yet they can still carry the force across space. So they can have a current of Z bzons but that current won't be electrically charged. So it's uh weak because it's associated with the weak nuclear force a weak neutral current. I don't I don't know exactly what they do with that but it is interesting. [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:52]>> They also had a direct observation of something called charge par violation.

[00:45:58]So there are a lot of laws in particle physics around symmetry. The way particles spin uh should should like sometimes be symmetric in certain ways.

[00:46:09]If you have a particle and its antiarticle counterpart, they should have a lot of symmetry going on.

[00:46:15]Specifically, the charge par symmetry says that if you have a particle and an anti-particle, an electron and an anti-electron, then the two should behave identically to each other as long as their physical coordinates are swapped.

[00:46:32]>> So like as as long as like you invert the position of one of them, >> Uhhuh.

[00:46:38]>> they should behave identically. They have all the same properties. And that rule of symmetry is broken often for particles that are produced through the weak nuclear force. And they observed that at CERN. And the solution to that violation helps us or has helped us come up with one of the candidates for what dark matter is made of. M yeah it's possible that dark matter is made up of these types of particles called axons which are produ they're like tiny very low mass particles that are produced every time this CP symmetry law is broken and because that law is broken so often the axion is actually very abundant. This is just one possibility for what dark matter is made of but it is my personal favorite possibility.

[00:47:30]>> Nice. And of course, we owe CERN a lot of gratitude for filling out the standard model of particle physics and telling us about what all of these fundamental particles are.

[00:47:42]>> Amazing.

[00:47:42]>> Yeah, it is amazing. And it's not scary.

[00:47:46]So like all all of this discussion around timeline shifting is it is there anything to it? That is the question.

[00:47:55]>> I think not bestie. the times kind of are phased just naturally as they do when it's been turned on. Yes, there have been global and local events that have caused, you know, shifts in things, but like that always happens, doesn't it?

[00:48:12]>> Yeah. It's not like a specific as soon as the switch turned on because then I'd be like okay. So when it was off of 2009 is that when like Obama had like the you know like all chambers of Congress as Democrat like you know like you could try to like find whatever you need to grab towards it. Uh but I think the biggest debunker of it is COVID basically because obviously big world shifting event but like happened in 2019 and the Hadron Collider was off but came on in 2022. So it was like from 2018 to 2022 that it was off and like you know it happened in in between that but like things happened and it spanned across the off like it's [laughter] this came up in 2022. this conversation around CERN causing reality shifting.

[00:49:05]It's all >> magnets. [laughter] >> It's all those magnets. U well I mean a lot of it is people thinking that by colliding the particles they're going to produce a a mini black hole that like sucks people in or they're producing a mini black hole and because people have heard about black holes and time dilation they think oh that black hole is messing up time. But all of the effects of a black hole are proportional to its mass. And if they're creating these tiny black holes, which they're not doing, but if they're creating these tiny black holes, they are tiny and don't have enough gravity to have any effect on the larger world. Another point against these conspiracy theories, which uh was pointed out by CERN researcher Dr. Clara Nellis, she pointed out that quote, "There are much higher energy particle collisions happening in our atmosphere all the time." [laughter] End quote. And she's right. These natural particle collisions. They are frequent in space environments. You see them a lot around, well, not see them, but like they happen a lot, you know, around stars. They happen a lot around black holes. Like anything where there's energy or particles moving quickly or just a lot of particles in a smaller space, you're going to have these collisions. And if those aren't producing timeline shifting, reality bending physics, then neither is CERN.

[00:50:26][snorts] Yeah. Yeah. I feel like a lot of the things that they attach to the turning on and off is very like mental, emotional, like metaphysical and not like if they were if it's because they were physically colliding things that you know might create something physical to suck things in. It wouldn't really be global. It would be like, "Oh, CERN disappeared because it went into its own black hole or something like it may feel like a black hole, but it's [laughter] not like life right now." Oh, yes.

[00:51:02]>> Mhm.

[00:51:02]>> Correct. Yeah. It may feel like life is sucking all of the energy out of you.

[00:51:07]>> Yeah.

[00:51:07]>> And if that is the case, then life is not a black hole because black holes do not suck.

[00:51:11]>> Fair. And so uh also wrapped up in these conversations around timeline shifting and the large hadron collider, you will hear about the Mandela effect. Yes, this term was coined by paranormal researcher Fiona Broom [laughter] in 2009. And she came up with the term because she was convinced that she remembered Nelson Mandela dying in the 1980s when he in fact died in 2013.

[00:51:41]>> Right. And psychologists have since studied the Mandela effect. Like why are people misremembering all of this stuff?

[00:51:49]There's there's a lot of reasons, you know, um confirmation bias, group think bias, um recency bias, cuz a lot of these pictures are going around and if you've seen the incorrect picture more recently, you'll remember that. There's lots lots of reasons, but I would like to play a Mandela effect game with you guys.

[00:52:08]>> Great. Great. Because I when you said paranormal researcher Fiona Broom, I was like, "Was she on Tumblr?" Cuz like I feel like I remember being on Tumblr when this conversation like was first starting to go around and they started calling it the Mandela effect because I was I was clicking links to see what the Fruit of the Loom shirts that they were selling were. I was clicking I was like, "Well, let me see.

[00:52:31]>> Well, I don't know that." I mean, anybody could have that's not proof to me. It's like individual, you know. But >> so bestie, does the fruit of the loom logo, it's a bunch of fruits. There's I see an apple. There's grapes of many colors. Does the logo have a cornucopia or not? I know that it doesn't, but I I feel I just And that's what it is, right? Like I just feel like I did, but I don't know that I did. And then I've seen the illustration looks good. And I know it's like the same one now. like it's been this way since whoever first did it and now it's kind of just a copy pasta thing where it's like everybody's using the same logo that we've all quote unquote seen but like now I really don't remember because I have seen actual shirts with it on it but that's because someone probably made it that way.

[00:53:22]>> Yeah. Yeah. Like for the joke. Yeah. It was like individual t-shirts like on eBay or whatever where people are like I found it. I have it. It has the logo.

[00:53:30]But I'm like, but nobody else has been a like there are only a few people and I feel like it's just like an easy thing to to do to a t-shirt >> to try to prove it. Yeah. And you are so right.

[00:53:40]>> I too know that it doesn't have the cornucopia, but I believe in my heart of hearts that the cornucopia is the right answer, >> right? Like it should be there to be honest.

[00:53:51]>> It should be there.

[00:53:52]>> It looks natural.

[00:53:53]>> Yeah. Okay. Next question. The Monopoly man >> with his little top hat. Does he have a monle or not? This one I've heard about, but I can't actually remember which one is the truth. And so I'm going to say that I think he doesn't have a monle, but he he did at some point because I feel I mean, yes, it's just the top hat, but I feel like there was something about the top hat and a monle that just felt like part of the times. And I've played Monopoly, but also does anybody play Monopoly and have like a just a regular time where they remember everything or does it just get a little heated? So [laughter] >> that never played Monopoly.

[00:54:35]>> You know, you would hate it, bestie.

[00:54:37]>> That's why I've never played. You're right. I would hate it. I would flip that board over so fast.

[00:54:41]>> It seems like most people do. Like I very rarely hear people say, "I love to play Monopoly. [laughter] It's just a game you play and it shows you what capitalism is and what it devolves.

[00:54:53]>> We don't have enough examples of that.

[00:54:55]>> I know. But what it devolves into is all you get out of capitalism. Somebody won.

[00:55:00]Everybody's mad and the game could go on forever. But what's the point? What's the point? You are right. He does not have a monle. I believe it's Mr. Peanut who has the monle top hat combo. They were both kind of popular around it.

[00:55:15]Like I feel like, you know, Mr. Peanut as an icon really kicked off in the 90s.

[00:55:19]I don't know if he's older than that, but I remember him from that era along with playing Monopoly and the Monopoly man, who they were also animating and like putting commercials for all the kids stuff. So, I can understand conflating those two things. Next one, Curious George. Uh, I also have never read Curious George. Uh, but does George have a tale or no tale? I actually haven't either, so I didn't like have a a vision of him from from childhood to try to remember, but um I I mean he's a monkey. He should have a tail, >> bestie, he's not a monkey. Oh my god, he is a chimp.

[00:55:58]>> Oh, >> he's a chimp. Chimpanzees do not have tails.

[00:56:02]>> Even though they call him a monkey in the in like the story, >> he is not.

[00:56:06]>> That didn't >> I know it's confusing. It's confusing, but he does not have a tail because he no is monkey.

[00:56:13]>> Wow. Next, Pikachu and specifically his tail. Is his tail all yellow or does it have like a black jagged stripe at the end of it? I know that it doesn't have a black jagged stripe, but I do also feel like I remember because I was playing Pokemon. It's like one of the main games I've played since I was a kid. Nintendo is the only system I've really ever had.

[00:56:38]So, me and Pikachu have been riding together for a while and there's something about the Jagged Tail that just feels familiar. Like, I don't know what I remember it from. There was the anime, of course, there was like the big movie and so I feel the the specifically the jaggedness of the black. Like, it's not just like a black square or rectangle against the tail. It's like that jagged edge feels so familiar. And I think it might be conflating with another Pokemon actually that I is also yellow and has like a black jagged stripe against him. Uh and he might that one might also be from like Gen One or Gen Two. So something where they would have been we would have been playing those characters around the same time.

[00:57:16]>> Yeah, it's easy to conflate, >> but you're right again.

[00:57:19]>> Yeah. And finally, we have from Snow White >> and the Seven Dwarves. When the the evil queen person, when she's talking to the mirror, does she say mirror mirror on the wall or does she say magic mirror on the wall? Who's the fairest of them all?

[00:57:41]>> Yeah, I do think it's magic mirror. But mirror, mirror is what I do remember.

[00:57:46]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, Mirror, Mirror is what we were saying as kids.

[00:57:49]>> It's what we were saying. There was a song on Disney Channel by a group called M2M. No, I feel like I'm the only person who might remember this, but it was a song called Mirror, Mirror, and it was like Mirror Mirror hanging on the wall.

[00:58:01]And like it was a very like sad, you know, kind of sad song about a breakup.

[00:58:04]Um, and the reason why I remembered it, uh, was because it reminded me of a Sailor Moon couple at the time. And I was like, this would make a good video or like a, you know, one of those fan edits and that I didn't never do. But that solidified to me that it was mirror mirror. [laughter] But also to be fair to me also Snow White kind of scary to me. Snow White as a movie was scary.

[00:58:28]>> Yeah. Like the evil witch and the specifically the part where she runs into the woods and it's dark and like all the bats and stuff start to like attack her and things. I was scared of that for a very long time. So, I like didn't watch it that much as a kid. And >> maybe when I became a teenager or a later teen, I was like, I'm going to [snorts] watch it again. And I'm like, wow, that is good. [laughter] I've never seen it.

[00:58:51]>> Wow. Yeah, that track's for you.

[00:58:54]>> Yeah, I missed out on a lot of the Disney movies.

[00:58:57]>> Yeah. Yeah. U Well, clearly you are not suffering from the Mandela effect. Like, you have all the right memories.

[00:59:05]>> No, I am suffering from the Mandela effect. I've just seen that researcher.

[00:59:09]I've seen her her work be digested a multitude of times on my timelines because there's always some new Mandela effect and I'm always like, >> "Wait a second." [laughter] But do I think it was specifically the Large Hadron Collider? No. It must be It might be something else. We just have to keep searching.

[00:59:30]>> Yeah, we've debunked this theory. I think this episode has successfully debunked the conspiracy around the Large Hadron Collider creating reality shifting. So those paranormal researchers out there, keep looking.

[00:59:43]There might be something. You never know. You're right. You never know.

[00:59:46]That's And that's science. [laughter] And that's on science. Yeah. You know, no matter how true your memories are and no matter what reality you live in currently, you're still space.

[01:00:06][music] Pale Blue Pod is hosted by Dr. Moya McTar [music] and Connie Gibbs. Moya created the show with the funny and talented Karine Caputo with help from the Multitude Productions team. Our theme music is by Evan Johnston. our [music] cover art by Shane McMullen and our audio editing is handled by the superlative Misha Stanton. [music] Stay in touch with us and the universe by following paleblue pod on Instagram or check out our website paleoblod.com.

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