The ultimate fate of the universe—whether it will expand forever into heat death or eventually collapse in a big crunch—depends on the density of matter and the nature of dark energy. Scientists discovered in the 1990s that the universe's expansion is accelerating, leading to the Nobel Prize-winning conclusion that dark energy is pushing space apart. However, a South Korean research team recently reanalyzed Type Ia supernova data and found that when accounting for the fact that older supernovae appear brighter, the expansion may actually be slowing down, suggesting a possible big crunch scenario. This illustrates how scientific conclusions can change as new data emerges and demonstrates the importance of replication and peer review in establishing scientific consensus.
Skeptics Guide
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Hello and welcome to The Skeptics's Guide to the Universe.
[applause] [music] Today is Saturday, January 10th, 2026, and this is your host, Steven Nolla. We are live from Seattle. Welcome to Seattle, EVERYONE. [cheering] >> [applause and music] >> JOINING me at this live show are Bob Nolla.
>> Hey everybody, [applause and music] >> Carara Santa Maria.
>> Howdy.
[applause] >> Jay Nolla.
>> Hey guys. [music] >> And George.
>> Well, baby, I hear the blues are calling. [laughter] >> This is our second time in Seattle.
>> Second time.
>> Second time. The first time we were here, >> CO was spreading through the city and we didn't know it and we didn't know. We didn't know it.
>> But luckily, none of us caught it. We were like completely We were talking we were like at a restaurant all like getting up in each other.
>> We were at a family style Asian restaurant with with like people rubbing up against us, >> live chickens walking around. [laughter] >> I mean, yeah, even even just a dozen people having it in a big city was a huge thing in January 2020. It's like, oh my god, it's, you know, it's really spreading there. So it was it doesn't seem big but it was big.
>> What's amazing we were we were a basically a month before shutdown whereas this time we're a month before civil war. So it's kind of [laughter] >> it's like a book end. It's like a book end >> symmetry. Good symmetry there.
>> So before we get to some more news item kind of discussions. We're going to do a debate >> and we're going to try to do what we call a skeptical debate, which means that not only are you going to try to convince the other side of your position, you're going to try to identify where the common ground is, like find out what do we agree on, why do we disagree, but this is more of a fun cultural one um that we're going to start with. George, you came up with this idea, I think. So this is the the question is what would you rather only be able to see movies in the theater for the first two years after they come out?
So kind of like it used to be used.
>> No streaming for two years >> or there's no theaters and all movies are only streamed, >> right? Yeah. And we we kind of weren't divided e. So who's taking which position?
>> I'm a theater guy.
>> Theater. I'm theater. Theater >> streaming.
>> Streaming. Streaming. Streaming. Yeah.
>> All right. It's very convenient the way we're set up. Um [laughter] >> All right. So, George, you're a theater only, so why don't you >> Yeah, you'll get that idea. So, this is this is like it used to be. So, it used to be a movie would come out and if you had HBO, let's say you were lucky enough to have HBO, it took about a year, sometimes two, depending how popular the film was before you could watch it on your own television. And to me, there was something kind of cool about that about I'm all about anticipation. I like I almost like the anticipation of a thing better than the thing. like the weeks before Christmas are always way cooler than Christmas. [laughter] Um, and yet the the experience, the theatrical experience of having a shared experience, I think is so important culturally that it would be to me way worth waiting a year or two to be able to have it in your home with your friends, with your family. So, I would be completely fine if that model changed back over to, you know, you see it in a theater, big huge screen, as big as you can possibly manage, and then you just got to wait. And I I like the anticipation of waiting and I I think it'd be I think it would be I think it would force people to go back and do those kind of public activities where you have a shared cultural experience because there's fewer and fewer of those I think.
>> And I think that it is a I like that you're framing it as a shared cultural experience because um you know we think about shared spaces and how we have fewer and fewer of them and how we are engaging with them less and less. But I've never thought a theater is a shared space. Like, yes, there are a lot of people in it, but you're all facing the same direction. Like, it's the worst first date.
>> It's not a good It's not a good date >> because you're not getting to know the person next to you.
>> But to share a laugh with like 50 30 people or like a surprise or a shock, a horror movie when that when the whole audience sucks in the first time I watched Evil Dead back many moons ago, I'll never to this day decades later, I remember this experience that I'd never really had anywhere else. There's a scene super na it wasn't very graphic but it was a scene where this guy was just chopping up somebody and you see like a shadow but he's chopping this person up the entire almost not me but the entire audience was like screaming at the same time everybody and that was just like whoa that was I've never experienced that before or >> Bob's doing that thing he likes to do during debates where he makes arguments for the other side. [laughter] >> No I'm kidding.
>> Well Cara he's up for the extravagan >> Exactly. Exactly. No, but I guess the thing is like the reason I fall on the side of streaming is that I just need to look at my own experience in data. I'm not going to the movies. Now that I don't have to, I'm not doing it.
>> What's the last movie you saw in a theater? Do you remember? Even, >> you know, I live in LA and I have a lot of friends who are filmmakers. So, the only time I'm going to theaters is for their screenings. I'm not going for Hollywood movies at all anymore. I'm watching them at home. I'm watching them in my sweatpants, >> which you really can't beat. I am with George, you know, streaming is great, you know, like staying home and being having access and all that stuff.
>> But the the reason why I went I went with that is, you know, co took away so many things from us. Like it it it really did change how people feel in a theater. It ch it just changed it somehow. Like I I and it's I feel it when I go to a theater now. I feel a little awkward for some reason.
>> See, now my art.
>> No, [laughter] no, I'm not. No, I'm telling you though, I want to undo that.
Like I want I want those shared theater experiences, not just movies too. Like anytime you're experiencing anything theatrical with other people, there is a very human group response. We have hardwired group responses in us. So when you're in a room and a lot of people have an emotional outburst, whatever it is, it could be good, could be bad, you know, scared or whatever, whatever the movie elicits from the audience, it enhances your your personal experience as well. And it feels good. And like this the the thing about community like we are so not belonging to individual communities anymore. Most of us don't talk to our neighbors like we're just you know we we we try not to say the Trump word or the Biden word when we're out in public. You know we're like scared to like you know ruffle you know ruffle anybody's feathers and everything. I I I anything that is a positive group experience to me is just a a huge net gain that we have to get back to somehow.
>> I I don't watch very many like reaction videos. was like sometimes they're fun to watch. And this isn't necessarily a reaction video, but there's a famous clip on YouTube of uh Avengers Endgame when Captain America gets Mjolnner when it flies into his hand and you hear the audience go apeshit.
>> Yeah, >> I love that.
>> Yeah, it feels >> I love watching that clip. There's like something that almost gives me like a little sense of hope in a weird way of like that you could have that moment of like everyone there knows what that means. They've been waiting for it.
Steve Rogers gets the hammer. I know this is a total nerd thing, but it's just like and it's so satisfying and that can only happen in a shared environment like that. I remember finishing Breaking Bad. I never watched it. My parents watched it and I finished it or or finished some season and when one of the characters died first thing I called them. I was like, "Oh yeah, guy just died. He just blew up in the hospital cuz I wanted to have that shared experience even though I was sitting at home watching it in my sweatpants."
>> Totally. George, we used to when we when we saw Kids with our dad, my dad took us to see every single movie. Like we saw everything that we were age age appropriate to see >> almost every weekend.
>> Yeah. And >> and some that we were not age appropriate.
>> The [laughter] >> Yeah. There's a couple I wish I didn't see. Like I had no business seeing Jaws when I was 9 years old.
>> Yeah.
>> That would scar me as an adult. Like that changed my relationship with water for the rest of my life. [laughter] >> Remember that movie that horror movie he took us to where this guy was like this surgeon was taking out the eye from some dude and I think we walked out cuz it was just like wa we're out of here. Like no I want to see this. But anyway, my favorite my absolute favorite part of the experience wasn't actually seeing the movie. It was the discussion that we had walking out in the car all the way home and when we got home and I don't have those discussions today. They're gone.
>> I do. Like that's the thing. I'd rather be with a really close group of people that I love than a bunch of random strangers. And this is going to cause some mixed reactions in the audience, but I'm a pauser.
>> Yes.
>> And a talker. Like >> I like to pause and and that's what we do a lot at home when we're like no no no blah blah blah blah I mean it's better than talking over it I think right but >> so the streaming experience overall is superior because what you can pause you have to go to you have to go to the bathroom >> you don't have to miss things >> in the theater there are times like you have to decide do I hold it or do I >> get a UTI >> or do [laughter] I miss oh I don't know I mean it just is such a weird thing it's like you could Just go before you watch the movie. Yeah, but >> sometimes you still got >> What are you drinking? Like a big >> Yeah, you have bladder privilege. Jay, [laughter] >> check your bladder privilege. No, seriously. Sometimes you can't get through the movie and then also then you have to like I can't drink that much during the movie because otherwise I'll have to pee halfway through.
>> Sounds very selfish.
>> So you're modulating. Well, this is the point.
>> It's all about you. I'm talking about community. George almost cried over there and you're [laughter] like if I if I have to go to the bathroom or I have to get food out of my refrigerator then we're I'm stopping a movie, you know.
>> It also you save a lot of money at home.
>> They have that app. They have a pee app for movies. Did you hear about this?
>> No.
>> Yeah. It it tells you when to pee when you're at the movie. Like right now at minute 42, you can miss 5 minutes. Go paint an office. Whatever you want to [laughter] do.
But yeah, it it's also it's a lot less expensive.
>> An office.
>> Oh yeah. So [laughter] the advantages are it's less expensive. You you have total control. You're not playing the paying the ripoff prices of their concession stand. And you don't have to worry about catching illness from other people, which is a still a thing even though we're not technically >> but no one's taking that away from you.
You just got to wait. No one's taking away your streaming experience, your home experience. It just won't happen for years. That's the problem. That's part of the problem because you could you say you missed the movie. Movies are out for what a few months maybe at at best and then if you miss that oh I got to wait a year and a half to watch that.
That's ridiculous. I mean we that's how it used to be.
>> That's how it used to be. But we didn't know any better. Now we can never go back. I mean >> exactly.
>> So what would that mean? I mean there' probably be a thriving black market.
Like you want to watch this movie? It's not going to be on TV for for 8 months.
It's like come on. That to me that's a deal. That's why there was a black market. Yeah. You remember watching like people would record it in the theater and it was like a shaky >> Yeah. But but remember the other side of this is you can never go to the theater.
>> I'm okay with shutting down for live plays though. But no, but I'm saying for movies you can never experience a big screen. You say the big screen and that's a loss.
>> If you have an HD TV, you're pretty much getting the same.
>> And you can do the Dolby surround. I mean, you know, >> you can't really say it's the same.
>> It's similar. It is. It's not like not like it was. It's better than it was.
>> It would be a bummer to lose out on IMAX, but I think a regular movie like VHX ask the audience.
>> Oh, okay. Yeah, good question. Yeah. So, so we're going to So, we're going to vote. Uh, how do I say this?
>> So, so yeah. So, and again, it's not it's just you have you get the streaming still. You just have to wait. So, so and no theater ever. So, theater >> streaming.
>> Wow. Dead evening.
But the truth of the matter is more and more those things that are shot just for the theater are artsy. Like the directors say, "Oh, I'm going to do film and I'm going to like most things are actually shot for you to watch it at home now."
>> Yeah. But more and more people are actually thinking about the home viewing experience when they are making these films.
>> Did you not like Oppenheimer? Were you not an Oppenheimer fan? It >> was fine. It >> was fine. Okay.
>> Yeah. I was a Barbie fan.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> All right. So, to be conclude that yes, streaming is the best. [laughter] I'm glad we found some middle ground here. So, like like a month, >> two months, six months. What's the middle ground? Yeah, like >> sweatpants and popants. [laughter] >> What would be a good number?
>> I could do a year.
>> A year.
>> I could split the difference into a year. I >> I saw the Stranger Things finale in the theater. I loved it. It was so much fun seeing it in the theater.
>> I'm actually on the theater side. I only went streaming to balance it out.
>> Yeah. I think I was [laughter] the I think I was the only streaming person. I think Bob was the same, right?
>> No, I mean the premise to me was ridiculous that they waiting two years is like >> Oh, yeah.
This is the two years for Bob.
>> All right. So, we'll say we'll say 8 months.
>> But that but that said, I think we a lot of us would agree. We used to go to the to the movies all the time. Now we are going a fraction. I mean co had a few times a year but we are going so infrequently nowensive.
>> It's kind of sad. Yes, it is.
>> Just for really epic movies, you know, >> just buy candy at the store though.
>> Some movies are >> No, I mean movie tickets are expensive.
>> What are they like?
>> Yeah. 20 30 bucks sometimes. Like it's expensive. You you can't buy any of their concessions. It's just insane.
>> I'm spoiled. I I go on a Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 and it's like whatever nine bucks and there's no one in the theater and it's awesome. It's like >> then where's the community experience?
[laughter] >> Touch.
>> It's me and the guy jerking off in the back [laughter] there. There's a bond of understanding.
[laughter] >> George, why why aren't I getting invites to this?
I do think on the streaming side though other thing is you can make an event out of it. You can invite people over to have dinner, watch the movie, have the snacks there and that could be a very >> good community experience with people you actually know and care about.
>> So there is sort of that mix, you know, if you have a good system, you got a good TV, a good sound system in 4K, it's like that's a damn good TV.
And Steve, you got the OLED. Is it an OE 4K?
>> Oh man, that's a fair. All right, let's move on to some news items. Carrie, you're going to tell us about I love this. The inshitification of the scientific literature.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, >> that's a technical term though.
>> It is a technical term. A couple of years ago, there was actually an article I think it was Yeah. originally at Wired by Corey Doctoro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and he sort of coined the term initification and he's talking about the initification of Tik Tok but really as like a synactic key for all sort of digital platforms that has since been described with a lot of different uh like out outlets or platforms and what's funny is in the conversation which I'm I'm always citing the conversation because it's a it's an online repository it's like a news site but all of the writers of the articles on the conversation are the scientists themselves So it's sort of their way to do press releases around their own academic literature. So Carl Rhodess on the conversation wrote about the five stages of the inshitification of academic publishing. Um so he kind of took that and applied it. But what I love is that when you actually link to the journal article, it's actually called the junkification of research.
They probably didn't even let him use the word. [laughter] I was like that's a bummer. So junkification and shitification. That's all fine. But it it's this phenomenon. They're calling it emergent phenomenon as in not emergent like like the brain uh the mind but emergent like it's happening now. Yeah.
Which describes as they call it quote the increasing volume of lowquality content and products permeating digital platforms. Right. So we know that this is directly tied to the commodification, right? The capitalist sort of layer on top that as soon as the amount of money you make has to do with clicks and page views, you're going to completely change not only the way that you position that content, but the content itself. And with that comes an increasing change in the quality. And so in their academic publication that's very meta their academic publication about the initification of academic publishing they talk about this death spiral as five major steps. So the first one as I mentioned that's the commodification of research and they're saying it shifts the value from intellectual merit to marketability. And we see this and we can make this argument across the board in a capitalist society where there are things that you know you may moralistically argue or not should not be profit driven like health care or education. You know we've we've heard this argument a lot. So what happens when there is a profit motive sort of superimposed on it? Well, then the quality is going to shift and the reasons that people uh receive that kind of care or that kind of um treatment are going to change. Uh the second part of the death spiral they said is the proliferation of pay to publish journals. So we've seen that a lot, right? They spread. And what's unfortunate and I think they do a good job in in this right around talking about this is that this isn't just predatory journals. We talk a lot on the show about predatory journals. these sort of like fake or kind of vague fringe journals where you can pay to publish and you're not really sure or maybe it's really obvious that they're not doing any peer review or their peer review is really weak. But they talk about the the section of elite journals that are paid to publish as well that sort of once you're in you just keep getting in and a lot of times it becomes less about the quality of the research and more about where you publish the research. It's like everybody just takes it whole cloth. Oh, it's in science.
It's in nature. That means it must be good. And the kind of critical view of it changes.
>> But just to emphasize one thing there, when you shift from a traditional format where you don't pay to publish in the journal, they accept your article and it gets and they you know the publication pays for everything and then they make their money through advertising. Yeah.
So >> or through and they they make their money through subscriptions too.
>> Subscription. Yeah. Subscription and advertising. So what drives that is impact factor, right? And that's a measure of how many people are citing basically that study. So ideally and for the most part that favors quality, right? You want to you want to publish quality research to have a high impact factor. The not so good part, it also favors unusual research. Yes. Which is not necessarily high quality. So that's the one thing there that you have to keep an eye on.
>> Unusual like unique or unusual like just weird.
>> It's say it's saying something surprising.
>> Yeah. catchy headline or catchy headline >> which makes it the most likely to be wrong and the most likely to be retracted >> and also it it disfavors uh >> exact publica replication >> yeah replication confirmatory study >> that's not perfect either but at least there's the primary thing is the quality but then with paytoplay it's all volume there's quality is irrelevant it's all volume and then the predatory journals are sort of the end stage of that but all along the way there there are significant downsides >> and part of the And and I think it's important to note part of the reason that we have pay to play or pay to publish is it was an attempt to allow for open access. So we want um I mean I can't speak for everybody but even these uh these researchers are saying we open access is a goal but the way that we have the system set up is that the publishers have passed off the cost to the actual scientist. Should I wait?
Okay.
>> Give it give it a second.
>> Yeah, I'll pick up there.
>> That's a money thing, too. They just it's just cheaper to make a huge long train rather than a bunch of little train. Anyway, >> um >> you always have like a comment about everything.
>> I [laughter] do.
>> You never just sit there and go, I don't know [ __ ] I don't know. [laughter] >> It's funny you say that, Jay.
[laughter] >> All right, never mind. ification.
>> So, so what end what ended up happening when open access was first kind of floated is that these larger and more elite journals were like okay we want to get on this you know open access train as well but we are not going to make money from people paying to read this article because I don't know if you've ever tried to read a journal article online it's behind a pay wall right it's $45 to just get this one or if you want to subscribe it's 250 or thousand it's whatever they're crazy expensive and so instead said they're like when you the the lab have or you the individual scientist did this experiment and now you want to publish your findings we're going to charge you $900 to publish in this but that makes it so that everybody else can read it for free so that leads to this kind of down this death spiral right so that's number two number three a decline in quality and integrity follows as profit-driven models compromise peer review and oversight right number four the sheer volume of publications makes it hard to identify authoritative work. So, not only are there fraudulent journals that are publishing hoax articles, but you're seeing more and more motivation for elite journals to just publish more crap. You know, it's it's just a volume game. So, finally, they're saying inshitification follows and the scholarly systems overwhelmed by quantity, distorted by profit motives, and it's stripped of its purpose of advancing knowledge. And so, you know, they uh kind of argue for new ways to reclaim academic publishing to remember the point of academic publishing that it is a public good. And it, you know, in in their view and in mine as well should not be a for-profit venture or if it is going to be a for-profit venture because as we know unfettered capitalism is always going to lead to a greed model.
So you have to have guard rails and you have to have regulation. Um and so they talk about different alternatives that exist like cooperative publishing models or institutional repositories and then different initiatives. They they give a shout out to the coalition for advancing research assessment. And then they talk about just reclaiming academic publishing as this public good and and building new sustainable open access systems with more oversight. And and I think in some ways we have to have bigger barriers to entry. But those barriers to entry need to be on the people who have historically had none.
They need to be on the more privileged individuals who so easily have been publishing and we need to democratize publishing to people who haven't had those barriers and shift that balance of power.
>> The other layer there is that and this is happening to some extent often times like the government paid for the research and now the public doesn't have access to the research because it's behind a pay wall. It should be open access if it was NIH >> fun. So they're saying if the government funded the research, it has to be open access, which helps.
>> That should be built into their funding.
>> It's got to be built into the system.
But yeah, we're at the point where there is so much crap being published. You can support any position >> absolutely >> with by cherrypicking from the literature. And another layer they didn't even bring up here is the globalization of scientific research because you know whatever standards we have in like the rich western industrialized nations doesn't necessarily exist around the world. It's very cultural. It's very institutional and there are times when you know there are there are places where that are just cranking out [ __ ] Yep.
>> And that's just the nature of what's happening in that part of the world in that country but also this part of the world but it's just get it's just another paper online. You know what I mean? Nobody knows necessarily what the provenence is, >> but that's always going to happen. If you build an elite publishing model and you leave people out, you have to include people so that they have a place to go. And that's really >> part of it, but it's also just the researchers themselves. There's got there's a there's a culture an institutional knowledge and an institutional culture of the researchers. It's not it's hard doing even in the best you know institutions in the in you know the most privileged wealthy part of the world they still do shitty research sometimes it's hard >> there's stratification everywhere >> yeah it's very difficult and we're trying to like that science-based medicine this is what we're doing trying to push the quality higher and higher and higher and point out all the problems and while that's happening there's just this ton of crap being produced that's throwing all of the quality away and so we We have to get to we have to reverse that so we can get back to pushing the quality higher.
>> Yeah. And and one last point that I'll make and they they make it at the top of their of their right. And I didn't realize this. I mean we all kind of know that academic publishing is for profit and we know that it's a big business. I don't think I realized the sheer scale.
So they said that between 2016 and 2022 the number of papers that were indexed in major databases went from 1.92 million all the way up to 2.82 million.
But then they said that the industry is generating more than $19 billion dollar a year and that by some metrics it's rivaling music and film industries and we just don't think about it that way.
We don't talk about it that way but it this is big business. It's it's like elitist kind of behind the curtain big business. Yeah. And and I think we need to open that curtain for sure.
>> Jay. Yeah. Have we found the solution to Forever Plastics? Well, first I um I was looking for something positive. Yeah.
You know, I didn't I wanted I wanted to have something like that could put a smile on some people's faces. We you know, we all we have a massive plastic problem in the world and it's getting worse. We're not even slowing it down.
Like it seems like governments aren't doing anything about it. It blows my mind. It's just one of a list of a hundred things where I'm like, what is happening? You know, you see people pull out. You ever see like the um what do you call it? That giant plastic thing in the ocean and you see like >> garbage patch.
>> Yeah. But, you know, you just see them pulling out tons and tons of plastic and it just keeps it still keeps getting bigger. So, we do have a massive plastic problem and not many not many ideas at all. But [laughter] >> what happened? It's >> just like everywhere on our >> I can't get away from it.
>> When I'm at the airport, if they have a metal like an aluminum water bottle, I don't care if it's $5 more, I buy it.
And actually, I take it home, I reuse it, too. So, >> yeah, we buy as much as we can at home.
We're glass and tin, right? Yeah.
>> No plastic. But when you're traveling, it's like you're in the airport, you got to do what you got to do, you know? But that's not a tiny percentage of what we use.
>> But that's also like, and I know that this isn't the the po point of your story, but it's the thing that constantly bears repeating, which is that the onus should not be on the consumer.
>> Exactly. Should be under when you have no choice or no viable choice or no affordable choice, you're going to do what is simplest and easiest. You know, they have like refill stations for like >> laundry detergent and stuff, you know.
I've never seen it. I know they're in other countries do this, >> but >> Oh, in every country that's not America, they have uh like water stations all over the airport and they have like hot water and warm water and cold water and >> Well, ever since I found out that we have we have microlastics in our brain.
Like I don't I try to avoid drinking water out of these bottles and I got rid of all my plastic cutting boards.
Everything's wood. I just saw an ad for a titanium cutting board. I don't know if that's better. Might be. The thing about wood, there's no perfect cutting board. Now, this is a massive segue.
[laughter] But since you mentioned wood, Jay, did you know?
>> Well, I did mention um >> Yeah, I did mention that you know everything. So, tell us.
>> No, the problem is [laughter] wood soaks up water and therefore bacteria and when you when you use it, so it's not a perfect medium, >> but don't the tannins >> That's why you [laughter] oil, >> Steve. Don't the tannins in the wood act as an antibacterial?
>> No. Not enough. No. So anyway, >> I I clean my cutting board.
>> You have to clean >> Don't cut chicken on a wooden cutting board.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, what do you cut it on then?
>> Yeah, plastic the board. Yeah, plastic is not great either.
>> They're both repositories of germs.
>> If I got Steve's samurai sword, I can throw it in the air and go, >> "No, but the but the plastic you can just put in the dishwasher."
>> You can.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't I just don't I don't want to even see it in my kitchen.
>> That's fair. Silicone. So plastics that are that are made today, you know, they last for a very long time. You know, we're talking like decades is on the low side, you know.
>> No, they last forever. They just get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.
>> Okay. Well, that sucks. Um [laughter] >> it's like your self-esteem.
>> Yeah, you're right. So, from [laughter] >> I mean, one's self-esteem.
>> One self-esteem.
>> Do you see the abuse? Do you see it?
[laughter] They're they're doing it out in the open now.
So anyway, plastics, like Cara was saying, they're they're designed to not fall apart. Like they're designed to be super durable. They're they're made to be strong and they this is done by creating really really stable chemical bonds, meaning that the molecules are very happy to stay together and not not break up with no matter what. Bacteria can't get its way in. Sunlight doesn't do much. Water doesn't do much. So the fact that they can do all that resisting means that there's no way for them to break into smaller pieces and get reabsorbed back into the environment. Um engineers of course have tried to make plastics break down and they to date they have not other than this study which I'm going to tell you about the the way that they did that was they had to weaken the bonds which means that the plastic is just brittle and you know it meaning it won't it won't maintain its shape and it can break very easily. It doesn't have it doesn't have the u the properties that we need plastic to be cuz you know if you notice like there's a lot of plastics in our life. This is this is meaningless. But we're talking about like plastics that are in your car or in products that you're buying where you're you're touching the plastic all the time and moving it. It has to it has to you know be able to to function like that and not break. So it just doesn't work the the the methods that they've used to date. But there was a a study that sought to answer the following question. and they said, "Can we make really strong, reliable plastics that that can fall apart when we want them to, that can degrade uh when we want them to?" So, what they did was um they were taking inspiration from biology where they're noticing that molecules will break down because of largely by how they're shaped and what they're surrounded by, not because the bonds are weak. So, the shape apparently has a lot to do with with the research that they they they've done. So instead of changing the main plastic bonds that keeps it together, they said that they rearranged nearby chemical groups around the plastic that are embedded into the plastic. And what they found was that it made the plastic those those other chemicals and you know it's very complicated and you know there was like so much that you'd have to read it on your own. But the bottom line is that they it changed the shape of the plastic molecules and that was it. That's what that's what the big revelation was that those chemicals influenced how the the plastic hardened and held a shape and those new shapes make them much more vulnerable when they when they want them to be vulnerable. So these plastics that they that they've been studying, they're perfectly normal in everyday use. Um but when they're exposed to they're calling mild triggers, it could be a lot of different things. they were able to to make plastics that were very susceptible to light or certain kinds of light or certain kinds of chemicals that they will begin to break down. And the cool thing is is that the speed of the breakdown can be controlled. They could be like, "We want this plastic, you know, like let's say they make plastic bottles and they're like, this thing can only last 6 months in the environment and then it's just going to be gone.
It's just going to deteriorate." But then they could say, "Hey, let's, you know, we want a really durable plastic.
We don't want this plastic to degrade until we expose it to this chemical that will that will wipe it out.
>> The problem is it won't actually be gone. The things that make it up are still wherever they are.
>> Yeah. So, >> and those things I mean, do we want a plastic problem or a forever chemical problem? Because either way, unless we're talking about biologically useful building blocks, >> we're just going to end up with infused rock, infused landmass that has all of these plastic particles, whether they're at the atomic level or whether they're at, you know, the molecular level or whether they're at the >> I totally agree. Yeah. My first question was like, what's the sludge that comes out of there?
>> Yeah. There's no such thing as it just goes away. It just it just becomes something else and it it will probably bioaccumulate in plants and animals, >> but it won't be a it won't be a like a microplastic because that's still an intact plastic polymer. The polymer itself will break up into smaller pieces, but you're right.
>> We have to ask what are those pieces and what are they may not have a physical property like plastic, but what are their chemical properties? And it could just be that it's like in the background and doesn't do anything, but we have to figure that out. time and time again, we've been showing that's not the case.
>> Yeah, they're aware that's part of the study. Like they they're they absolutely know. First off, you know, this isn't like it's going to be out next year. Like they're they've come up with laboratory proof of concept, >> but it's a platform. They've come up with like a platform in essence. And what they're what they're doing is they're trying to figure out ways to make when the bonds break and whatever whatever it is that is the trigger to make them start to break down that they want it to chemically change. The other thing that I'm so concerned about, and this may sound like cynicism, but actually it is a practical, realistic concern, is that there's always this huge disconnect between innovative lab science and actual city planning and city projects. So, we'll often hear about, oh, this thing breaks down when it's exposed to sunlight. Have you ever seen where our trash goes? Nothing's exposed to sunlight. I mean, they cap it. They actually >> feet and feet deep into the ground. Most plastic is not recyclable. And even if it is recyclable, it is not recycled.
And it mostly ends up in massive piles.
Either here on our car, we used to ship it to to many other countries. We don't do it as much anymore, mostly because they're sending it back. They're not taking it. But it just ends up and and in a lot of what really sadly happens is we sell it or or pawn it off to places that'll take it. They sell it or pawn it. And then when nobody else is willing to take it, the poorest among us are burning it.
>> Yeah. Mhm.
>> They're burning, which is the last thing we want them to do.
>> And that's that's the only way they can deal with it.
>> Cara, I specifically looked up with the study, did they mention anything about reclamation? Like, could they turn it into something that could be recycled or reused or whatever? Again, this is early, but they did achieve this breaking of the bond thing and and they were able to control what circumstance that it happened under, which I think still is a net gain. It's a good step forward. And again, this is why I say this every time, you know, we talk in public is we need to be funding research like this because maybe it goes nowhere.
Maybe it comes up with the best freaking thing that we need for, you know, we need thousands of I know it's money, you know, but >> and it also it has to be, you know, it has to be calculated into the cost of making these things.
>> I agree. And yeah, those externalized costs.
>> It's the externalized cost of industry which is a huge problem >> which they which they leave on us. Yeah, but at least you know it is I think better to have the technology than not have the technology and then but then we have to think about what the how we're going to use it and what the consequences are. We can't just assume oh this is sexy let's do it.
>> Can we have a circular system where we just reclaim it and use it to make more products and then reclaim those products and use them to make more products.
>> Yeah. But and my last comment though is like let's just use aluminum and glass for so many things. Like that's probably where the bulk of this plastic is coming from.
>> Right.
>> Yeah. There's a lot there's a lot of plastic use we could phase out there.
There is, but there's it's it's again it's an offsetting problem. And I've I've talked to a lot of people in the industry about this. It's like why not why I remember talking to the people who literally owned a water company that was all about their sustainab but they still had plastic bottles. And I was like why do you use plastic bottles? And they were like because when we ship it, the actual fossil fuels that we would have to use to ship it in glass are a bigger concern than putting it in plastic. And it's Yeah, there's tons of calculations.
>> Oh my god. It's like we can't catch a break. No, just cannot get out of this.
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>> All right, guys. Let's get back to the show.
>> All right, so this is a good time to remind everybody that we have collectively published two books, meaning the SGU. George, you published a book, too.
>> I did, but yeah, not as cool as your book, though.
>> Anyway, >> well, and we've published other books, too.
>> Well, mean we we've published The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, and we've published The Skeptic's Guide to the Future. Those are our two like >> our books.
>> Our books. We've also done that.
>> Yeah. I don't mean Yeah. Yeah.
Individually, but yeah. As the SGU or some subset of the SGU. Yes. George, >> you have an anecdote that you want to share with us about one of your friends who read one of our books.
>> Yeah. So, as a musician, I get to work with a lot of very interesting people.
Very talented, very interesting. And as is often true with artists, the woo is very strong amongst people I work with often. And I've kind of gained this reputation of being like the science guy. And so, when my band would have questions about like, is this a real thing? And 90% of the time I'd be able to say, "No, it's not a real thing." And here's why it's not a real thing. A number of years ago, about 10 years ago, I started working with this young musician who uh I'm just going to call him Dave. Dave was unbelievably talented. Unbelievably, he's 24.
Couldn't believe how how much this guy knew musically in terms of he knew standards, old songs, songs you shouldn't know, and just played brilliantly and was the sweetest guy. He however was kind of raised in a pretty woofilled environment and we would sometimes have these conversations about things he would do or things he would believe. One of which was he studied raiki and he was a raiki practitioner and I never said oh that's [ __ ] that's hor you know I never approach it that way. I just had questions for him to maybe make him sort of start thinking about stuff. And I remember thinking like, "So you you do Raiki in person?"
He's like, "Yeah." I said, like, "Can you do" and then I think I heard him mention one time that you could do Raiki over the phone, right? I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." I was like, "Could you do Raiki by email?" Yeah.
>> And he kind of thought about it and he was like, "Yeah, I guess you could. I guess you could do." I'm like, "Oh, how like how would that work?" work. And so we had this conversation about and the whole time I'm just trying to hear and sort of seeing the wheels turning in his brain of, you know, like maybe that doesn't make sense. Maybe there is a point that Reiki wouldn't work, you know, through text messaging or something. COVID comes along and the band gets this notice that if we want to play in certain venues, we all have to be vaccinated. And everybody in the band agreed to it except for Dave. And Dave like again was very cautious about it and he just didn't he was like didn't want to do it. So, I had a phone conversation with him and we spoke for for a bit and I said, 'What's your hesitancy? And he said, 'Well, this doctor that, you know, I've been going to my whole life, who really helped my family in a crisis years and years ago, said I shouldn't do the thing cuz it's dangerous and we don't know what what's the deal. And the whole time I'm just trying to be supportive and say like like maybe really talk to the doctor to get the rationale because I'm curious what what the doctor's rationale is behind you not getting the the COVID shot.
Some time went he came back and he's like I got the COVID shot. I'm like oh oh great like what did you talk to your doctor? He's like yeah I talked to my doctor and he started talking about like that there was 5G and the vaccine and like that there were microchips and and that just like Yeah. So >> MD doctor.
>> Well yeah question doctor in big quotes with italics underlined in red font you know. [laughter] So, so I I never I never found out exactly, but I think this is a person that had been a practitioner with his family and I think a relative had had an issue and and probably it was one of these they made a recommendation. It didn't do any harm. The person that eventually got better and they were like, "See, that that worked." You know, that's my that's my estimation as to what happened. But Dave, we just we just knew like Dave was sweet. Dave was a good guy, but Dave was kind of wooy and he kind of was raised in woo. He he I ended up not working with him for a little while and uh maybe about about four or five months ago he texted me one morning something was going on in his apartment and he asked if he could use my shower cuz he couldn't get into his shower but he had to go to work and he lives a couple blocks away and I was like yeah sure come on over. Came over, took a shower and we just started chatting.
>> Now were you in the shower with him?
>> I was [laughter] I was filming but I wasn't in the shower.
[laughter] >> It's the musician's code. We start chatting. He's working on his doctorate.
Subsequently, he's not doing so much music anymore. He opened up a yoga studio and he's working on his doctorate in education. He recounts that he said, "Hey, listen, George. You know, I read The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. I read the book like cover to cover." And it completely reorganized my brain.
>> I was like, "What do you He's like, "Yeah, it started making a little bit of sense and then it made more sense and then it made more sense." And in every chapter, in everything I realized, the way that I was raised, the way I was influenced was influencing me in a negative way, that I was seeing patterns that weren't there. I was see all the skeptic stuff. I was seeing connections that weren't there. I understand now that my Reiki that I was doing with my patients was because I was in the room with them and being nice and that's why they were having positive effects with me. And he goes on and like I'm working on yoga now and I really want to remove all the woo from yoga because yoga is actually a great practice. You know, we want to remove sort of and I'm just listening to him just nodding and inside I am doing the biggest touchdown dance you could like possibly imagine. Try not to be like just I'm like I'm like Dave that's so great. I'm like so proud of you. He then we had played a gig actually years ago and the band played for a novella event and he like can't believe that he was in the room with you guys [laughter] and didn't know who you were and now he's like so excited he's going to read the guide to the future next and it was one of these moments of like it's possible it's possible to reach out and touch you know an individual in a way that can change their life and that he's so self-recognized >> all of the things because you guys laid it out in such a way that he could analyze it and be like, "Oh, this is why I thought my horoscopes were right. This is why Reiki was working. This is why, you know, when I faced east and doing the yoga thing, it was all that stuff laid out." There's always explanation and it made he he said the lovely thing of the more I investigated, the more sense it made, which was the opposite of everything else he had studied. The more he would question, can you do Raiki by email? The less sense it made. whereas this was the opposite and it was like page after page after page confirmed this process of using skepticism and science and now he's getting his doctorate in education and like I said he wants to have sort of this yoga practice be more scientific and I'm like what words are you trying to remove like are there he's like yeah there's so much baggage >> start with chi >> so much yeahq chi and energy and like all this kind of stuff and he wants to do it in a way that still maintains and respects the you know the culture and the art of it But I wanted to tell you guys that, you know, you got through to Dave and it's it's freaking amazing >> that day.
>> Yay. Thank you, George. [applause] >> George, now that day that he had that revelation and told you about it, now was that the day that you started selling him the George Rob vitamins?
[laughter] >> He he signed up for a course of 10.
>> Yeah.
>> And it was Yeah. It's perfect. Well, my response to that is first of all, it it's gives hope. You know what I mean?
Like just to know someone out we get emails from people and you know the podcast has had this effect as well. But like it is incredible to think that someone could read a [clears throat] body of knowledge and have a paradigm shift in the way that they perceive their reality.
>> 180 like 180. I mean it's >> that is that is incredible. Oh my god.
I'm sorry.
>> So [laughter] couple of things. I appreciate the anecdote. Of course we'd love to hear that stuff. It's good to know that. the effort we put into the book, you know, is working. But one is your approach to him, right, was not antagonistic. It was the long game that we talk about, you know, asking questions, sewing seeds, and, you know, making even those just saying, >> yeah, I guess it doesn't make sense that Riki could work over email, you know, and maybe that probably is what led him to read the book in the first place, right? And so he was reading it with a prepared mind, >> otherwise it would have no effect, right? So that's I think a testament to that as well that approach and also from the way you're telling the story the way it makes more sense and the research has shown this and we try to you know be mindful of this is you can't just take beliefs away from people. You have to replace them with an alternate way of understanding the universe. And right it's like the I always do the Indiana Jones thing, right? You got to do the sand and the take the thing. You can't just yank it away.
>> Yeah. But it didn't end good for him though. Yeah. [laughter] >> Well, I like Indiana Jones.
>> I like to think of it as like with like um like receptors in the brain, you know, and like molecules that fit in those rece like somebody is doing heroin and in order to get them off the heroin, you might need to put some methadone in there for a while and Yeah. Like you've got to put something else in that receptor. Um or they're going to be grabbing for something to fill that void.
>> Yeah. But I love the fact that it made more and more and more sense. It kind of builds, which is what we were going for.
kind of builds on itself to just like, oh my god, you know, the scales fall away, >> right?
>> Love to hear that. All right, thank you so much, George. All right, I want to pull the audience. Do you want to do the thing?
>> Let's do it.
>> All right, so how many people in the audience think that the ultimate fate of the universe is to expand forever into the heat death of the universe?
>> It's okay. Exp. Wait, whoa, whoa, [laughter] >> Frank, you're like I barely moved. That was good. You're right.
>> Can I Can I clap? Can I clap?
>> Expand. Expand forever. Here we go.
>> Who did that?
>> Not expand forever.
>> How many people think the universe is going to slowly come back together and end in a big crunch? Like the opposite of the big bang.
>> Here we go.
>> Oh, interesting. Okay. How many people think that they don't know or scientists don't know?
>> All right. So, that's what I'm going to be talking about, right? Is is uh the expansion like this is cosmology, right?
The expansion of the universe. Probably many people who've listened to the show for a while know that in the 1990s scientists measured the expansion of the universe over time, right? Because as we look out into space, we're also looking back in time. Does anybody I know Bob you anybody other than Bob on the panel >> know what the primary evidence was for >> for the fact that [laughter] the it's not redshift actually what that the universe is not only expanding. What they discovered was that the expansion is accelerating. a discovery that earned them the Nobel Prize. What was the what was the evidence that was the core basis of that conclusion?
>> It's not the microwave background, is it?
>> No. Dark energy was the conclusion. The universe is expand. We haven't discovered dark energy. That's a placeholder for what's pushing the universe apart. There's got to be some energy that is overcoming the attraction of gravity. So, we'll just call it dark energy. We don't we'll figure out one day what it is, but it's just a placeholder. What was the observation?
What was the data that led to the calculation that Oh, >> you people need to listen to my talks more often, >> but >> nobody pays attention. What is it?
>> Supernova 1A.
>> 1A supernova.
>> Obviously.
>> Obviously. [laughter] So, why why type 1a supernova? Because they are what we call standard candles, meaning that they're a way of measuring distance because we know their absolute brightness, their absolute magnitude. If you know how something is, how bright something is absolutely and you can observe how bright it is apparently, you can calculate its distance >> to be that bright, how far away would it have to be?
>> How far away did it have to be to appear that bright if we know what it's absolute? But how do we know how do we know that it it's the correct type?
>> So, how do we know what the absolute brightness is? Is what you're asking, right?
>> Science.
>> So, wait, wait, dumb it down a little bit. So, they observe a star.
>> It's a super They're observing a supernova. supernova. We don't know how far away it is yet.
>> Yeah.
>> And >> they can see how bright it is.
>> So during the supernova, they're measuring the brightness.
>> The brightness. But how do we know what it was before the supernova?
>> Doesn't matter. All we had need to know is how bright does it get when it's a supernova.
>> And how do we know that? Because >> the mechanism >> the mechanism. So type 1A's form when you have a white dwarf in a binary system with a large star and it sucks off the gas from the large star. it accumulates on the white dwarf and when it gets to a critical mass, it collapses and explodes into a supernova. So that means they're all exploding at the exact same mass. And does that make sense? And that's what determines the brightness.
So they're all the exact same brightness. Therefore, a standard candle, you know. So you and Bob could have made all of this up two two hours ago and I would not know the difference.
Yeah, maybe.
>> So >> why do I do this? [laughter] So they looked at hundreds of type 1A supernova and it turns out that the they calculated the expansion of the universe in different times like oh the universe is expanding faster today than it was a billion years ago and and even faster than it was three billion years ago. The expansion is accelerating, right? That led to dark energy and the Nobel Prize.
Remember how dramatic that was? We always assumed that there was enough mass in the universe to slow down the expansion and and come back like no it's it's accelerating. It's getting faster and faster which was back then was like oh my god nobody really saw that.
>> Yeah. Although the other wrinkle there is it's if you if forget about dark energy before this observation was made if we just are trying to figure out will the universe expand forever or will it will gravity bring it back together.
There's a certain critical amount of mass in the universe, right? And if we have more than that mass, it'll come back together. If we have less, it'll expand forever. And we're like right right at the line, right? So >> it's bizarrely >> bizarrely and to you know some cosmologist maybe we have I think it's called an isometric universe where it approaches that stopping asmtoically but it never quite gets there. So it's like right at the equilibrium point between expanding forever and contracting.
>> Does that mean it it's like expanding then this might stop and just be that?
>> Yeah. Without coming back together again.
>> Is that ideal?
>> Well, you that's an aesthetic question.
So >> is that just an aesthetic question?
[laughter] >> Have more.
>> Some people like the idea of the big crunch better. Some people like the idea of the expanding.
>> There are people that I don't want to get that close to.
>> Yeah. The the big crunch though or as Douglas Adams called it the ganab gib which is big bang backwards right which I always thought was really funny and I just forgot what my point was so never mind. [laughter] >> All right. So anyway going who knows?
>> So we could be on either side of that point. So it was even though it was there was a lot of cosmologist thought we are headed for a big crunch. We always knew we were in the error zone right? We're in the the un so nobody really knew. we're just we're surprisingly close to like the line between expanding forever and closing.
But then when they discovered, oh no, we're accelerating that the debate was over, right? Oh, we're it's going to end in the heat death or maybe even >> the big rip. You guys, we've mentioned the big rip.
>> That was scary.
>> That's what it it expands so much that molecules can't like atoms can't be if primary particles can't be held together, they rip apart like the universe rips itself apart.
>> How could it affect [laughter] because space is expanding so fast at large scales? But that if that expansion happens at small scales like human or planetary scales then that would be eventually ripped apart as well.
>> Wait wait wait wait like your thought that sounds like there's fabric and all the threads are being pulled like all >> space time. I mean it's space time for >> spacetime fabric J. So so so it was it was I remember at that time it was really unusual because I like the idea of the big crunch because it's like hey it go it expands it comes back we got the crunch and then you the universe maybe would just happen again. and the big bang endless cycle.
>> Endless cycle.
>> Something appealing about that, >> right? Right. But the heat death is like, man, this is our one shot. That's it.
>> It's one and done heat death. So that's where we are now. The the consensus of opinion among cosmologists because of the type 1A data is that we're accelerating therefore heat death.
Right? Everybody get that? But what if what if there are technical problems with how we're interpreting the type 1A supernova >> data >> that they haven't uncovered in a quarter century >> that they haven't uncovered in a quart.
So there's a South Korean team that has reanalyzed the type 1A supernova data and with other database as well. So now there are more data because we keep observing right we have way more observations that we had in the 1990s and they said you know if we look at the data we think you that the type 1A are not all the same absolute magnitude that in fact the older they are the older they are I think it's the older they are the brighter they are and when you make that adjustment the universal expansion's not accelerating it's actually slowing down therefore or big crunches back, right?
>> But how does that even make sense? How do you have like, oh, this is an this is a an old school uh supernova 1A and this is a young hydrogen is hydrogen. You you don't have old and young hydrogen.
>> It could have to do with the mix that's in there. You know, there could be other elements or whatever.
>> So, are they saying that >> the universe has a big big crunch?
[laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> No standard. Sorry.
>> Well, what they're saying is you there is but you have to adjust it for distance. They're say they're arguing that you have to adjust the absolute magnitude of the type 1A's to distance.
And if you do that, there's no acceleration.
>> But then you're right. Is that then still a standard candle?
>> It is. It's just with a with a with an adjustment. But it would also a modified standard.
>> It would also mean that other distances that we have calculated over the decades, these other distances would be incorrect in some way that also would need to be adjusted.
>> Yeah. So some of these fundamental differences like how far away's Andromeda it's like oh no it's not as far as we thought.
>> So all right so is this now the new consensus among cosmologists?
>> No no >> so this is one team right and this and as we often say you know replication is king right and don't I don't believe things if just one guy is saying it or one team is saying it until it gets independently replicated by other experts in the field. Um, so what are experts saying now and they're kind of divided. So some are saying it's interesting. There's something interesting going on there. They haven't, you know, the, you know, I like what they did with that with their observations, but this needs to be replicated and we need other people to look at this and we need to consider other things. They're not ready to rip up the cosmology that we have had.
They're not ready to take away the Nobel Prize yet.
>> Oh, is that even on the table?
>> No.
>> Has peer review happened?
>> They don't revoke. What's Yeah. Yeah.
Peer review has happened.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> Yeah. Yeah. But but the other but post publication just the community how are they reacting? So the they're being met with a lot of skepticism as as they should. As they should. It's because they're saying hey we we now have this data that reverses what other people were saying.
>> But at the extreme end some cosmologist saying nah. They had Bob's reaction saying this same group came out with some other reason to think that we weren't expanding. There was no dark energy or we were there's less dark energy or whatever and that was shot down and now they're coming back with some other hairbrain theory. seems like a sacred cow to them potentially like oh what they want >> either they have a conclusion and they're working towards it or more I guess um uh principle of charity is that they're as good scientists are saying okay everybody there's consensus on this thing let's try to break it let's just constantly try to break the thing that everybody agrees with to see if we're missing something because it we do get lazy when we all go okay we agree so we're no longer going to challenge our >> assumption the real question is how sure are we of any of this, right? And the answer is not very. There are huge error bars on all of this cosmological stuff.
>> Sure.
>> And you know, again, as you the expand like probably many most people here knew like the the universe is expanding dark energy, but how many knew it was based upon a wonky interpretation of type 1A supernova data, right? It's like, yeah, the people nerds like Bob and I are astronomy buffs. the guy with the match.
[laughter] >> The guy in the front row with the match shirt.
>> What are the odds?
>> He doesn't seriously [ __ ] [laughter] >> It's there. It it it is interesting to think about how many of these sort of big things dark matter, dark energy, the expansion, the ultimate fate of the universe is based upon a pretty narrow interpretation of a limited set of data and is really subject to change. And in because again we because Bob and I have been following this for for the last 40 years. We've lived through enough of these oh that thing that that you know map of the universe that you had in your head for your whole life. It's wrong.
It's this other thing now like the big crunch. Nope. No big crunch. It's it's >> Steve. I'm trying to get through this week and now I got to worry about this [ __ ] [laughter] >> It's like I you know what this is a this is fun. This is f I love following you.
No, it's not because it is because you know if we do if this happens everybody dies.
>> This is we're talking about billions of years in the future. This is not going to affect >> people might be alive billions of years from now.
>> Not even billions. Quintell quintilions of millennia. I mean it's so far ridiculous.
>> Would there be a disingenuous reason? I mean like talk about initification of data like or trying to get hits or something like that or or >> maybe I don't know. But it's hard to know. Honestly, that's the kind of thing that you know the question is could you know could these researchers you know be not be acting in good faith or have whatever I'm telling you so I don't know I have no idea and the reason why I know I don't have any idea is because I have been in the room with experts talking about other experts in my field and that's when you learn what's really going on. So tell us what >> so I'm sure other astronomers like these guys you know or whatever or they're saying yeah this is a serious researchers who making interesting but we don't know in the public you know >> so when you hear that Steve do you like tear your shirt open superman [laughter] style to reveal the skeptic logo and be like stop that just [laughter] like >> sometimes so yeah so anyway so so it has to we have to this has to work its way through the system my sense is that the South Korean researchers who are claiming now It's it's going to be a big crunch.
There's no ex acceleration of the expansion based upon this new idea that we have to reinterpret the 1A data.
They're probably the ones that are wrong rather than the rest of the community.
>> That's an extraordinary claim. Back it back it up. But every time we've had a big paradigm shift, everybody thought they were wrong until they realized they were right.
>> Usually, they start with one group saying something different from everybody else and either they convince everybody else with data or they don't and they go away and they're a footnote.
Usually our tools improve.
>> Yeah.
>> And then we collect more data and our tools improve more and we and then eventually you can't deny it anymore.
And that's that's how good >> that's the good thing about astronomy too. There's always more observations to make and we are steadily accumulating more observations and we are steadily putting out better telescopes, better tools. So the data is just getting better and this will be resolved. This will resolve itself event.
>> Yeah. I think what we should all do is just check back in on this whole thing in about a 100 years. Now, I bet you we'll know in a year whether this is true or not. Pretty well. And then maybe Yeah, it could.
>> I think well, yeah, once they I think once we'll know. So, there's probably going to be like a short answer where the community really digests it and either and either says, "All right, this is a possible or it's completely wrong.
And if it's possible, then it might take five or 10 years to collect more data and to really sort it out."
>> I wonder what the sigma confidence level is for dark matter and the accelerating expansion. Is it like >> dark energy? Dark. What did I say? Dark matter. Yeah. Is it like six sigma 7? I mean at this point imagine if that's that's wrong. It could happen. But there >> what why is that so funny? [laughter] I mean we at this point at this point >> Bob you lost everyone in this room when you said the word sigma.
>> If they 67 >> 67 [laughter] >> Oh that's what you were doing? Jesus.
Give me a break.
>> Wow. I did. [laughter] Come on. It's meaningless people. Um, so yeah, I I wonder what we're pretty damn confident about darkness at this point.
>> Yeah, but but the sigma is dependent on the assumption that the one are >> but it'd be funny to see like a a a six or seven sigma fall be like, "Oh, no.
>> That would actually undermine confidence."
>> I mean, you guys you guys are both disregarding Omega. [laughter] >> What's up with that?
>> Oh, that's another story.
>> All right. All right. All right, >> Jay. We've we've taken you on a magical journey of science [laughter] and and you're like, you know, not even looking out the window.
>> Did you hear Steve though when he goes, "This is fun."
>> Yeah. [laughter] It is fun. You don't think it's fun to follow a scientific controversy play out in real time? This is actual drama and the stakes are the ultimate fate of the universe.
[laughter] I mean, come on. All right. If you like that, Jay, you're going to love Bob's item about quantum gravity. Bob, when's the last time you covered quantum gravity?
>> Too long. Too long. All right. So a theoretical physicist has proposed an experiment, a fascinating experiment where he says that if we can not only detect gravitational waves, which we can, but if we could somehow use lasers to increase the energy or decrease the energy of these gravitational waves, we may have a breakthrough and finally kind of understand gravity at a more fundamental level and and create maybe one of the best theories in physics where we combine quantum mechanics and general relativity, which has been holy grail for for decades. So this experiment could potentially lead to one of the greatest theories being finally created which is which is it's just so difficult they Einstein tried the for most of his adult life and and he failed to do it. This could lead to it you know it's it's a long shot but it's fascinating to consider these options here. So all right gravitational waves we talked about it on the show. Gravit gravitational waves are ripples in spaceime right you guys have heard about these guys um ripples in spaceime. Now I tried to come up with a way to like how do I describe this in a kind of intuitive way and it's there's so many ways to approach what are gravitational waves. So the best I can come up with gravitational waves are mass that's accelerated in a way that the distribution of mass in this object changes over time that if you have that scenario happening you're going to have these gravitational waves happening. So the classic example of creating gravitational waves is what? Orbiting black holes orbiting neutron stars or maybe just a black hole and a neutron star. If they orbit each other, it creates these gravitational waves that propagate out at the speed of light.
>> I thought they had to collide. They don't collide.
>> Well, they do.
>> That's what we're usually measuring, right?
>> No, no, it's it's the orbit.
>> It's the spiral in spiraling in the end.
And then at the very end, you see the little chirp that which is the collision and then it's end. Then we know that's a critical part of the what the signal. So this is beyond subtle. These gravitational waves are are so subtle that we can determine a distance change 1,000th the diameter of a proton. This is what they are when they detect gravitational waves. This is what they're detecting. A change in spaceime.
>> It still blows my mind. 1,000th the width of a proton and we're measuring it.
>> It's it's it's the most accurate distance measuring scientific instrument that exists. It's it's yeah, LIGO was one instrument. I I remember when they were developing this, they had to they had to cancel out or account for anything that could mess with their instrument. And one of the things they accounted for were wild wolves in the backyard behind the facility. They had to account for that cuz them walking around was messing with their accuracy.
That's what they had to do.
>> So what they do with the wolves?
>> I think they killed them, Jay. Um no, I don't know. I don't know. They didn't do that. But they they they had to account for that. There was a million little things like, "Okay, we got this one.
What's next? Oh, and look at these damn wolves. Let's get rid of these guys. So, it's just >> So, they're like going around killing animals and shooting people.
>> It's science, Jay. It's science.
>> Just to just to make it quiet.
>> Okay. But it's not just it's not just orbiting black holes that are creating these. Everything I'm waving my arm. I'm making gravitational waves right now.
Now, if a black hole is colliding creates this small, what is this doing?
And I actually looked it up. The gravitational waves I'm making right now are about about approximately 20 orders of magnitude smaller than what I just described with the even Q from Star Trek is not detecting what I'm doing right now. It's just like that's how subtle it is.
>> Even Q >> even Q probably. Okay.
>> All right. So what's his experiment? His experiment was that he would manipulate these gravitational waves as we detect them with a with a a device like LIGO.
But also we what he is suggesting is that we is we manipulate that wave by shining laser light like infrared or visible light into the gravitational wave and adding a minute amount of energy to the gravitational wave or take it away from the gravitational wave. And if we do that there could be a signature in the laser light that that points to the existence of gravitons. Something I've mentioned on the show a few times.
Gravitons if they exist they're theoretical. that would mediate gravity.
So the way photons mediate the electromagnetic force, the way gluons mediate the strong force, gravitons could mediate gravity potentially.
>> So is gravitons then if they exist, would they be everywhere?
>> Gravity's everywhere. So they'd have to be they'd have to be >> and they're a particle >> potentially. Like Jay, whenever we interrogate a field in science, whether it's electromagnetic field, electron field, whenever we have taken that field and examined it, it we've been able to quantize it. They're quantizable.
They're they and they have a particle for example a photon a gluon. These are particles that are an excitation of that field. So gravity could be the same thing. Okay. Right now Bob am I remember this correctly? If there are gravitons then there's the potential for anti-gravity. Is that correct or am I >> Yeah, I don't really explore that in this talk but yes if you if you can create and manipulate gravitons you could potentially control gravity. But we're never going to be able to do that.
That's just like and you and you'll and you'll see why it's going to it's going to be quite hard to do that. It's important to state here though that this experiment is only going to infer gravit infer gravitons. We're never going to be able to catch a graviton and with definitively say yes, we have a graviton right here. That's just not going to happen. We're going to be able to infer it, which is great because then these these theories that that predict gravitons will be supported if this experiment is good. So I read a fascinating paper. These scientists tried to say, "All right, if we wanted to detect one graviton, definitively detect it, what would it take?" They concluded that you would need a detector the mass of Jupiter orbiting a neutron star.
>> Wait, would it be it's so it's with a detector. It's not with an acceler.
You're not making it. You're trying to detect it, >> right? So So if you have a detector the mass of Jupiter orbiting a neutron star, which is a a huge source of gravitons, right? Because the gravity of a neutron star is ridiculous.
>> Or you could just go like this.
>> But could you not make a graviton?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Even if we made it, you still have to detect. So we will never but like isn't that how we've done all the like that's how we did Bzons that's how we did was with >> it's different it it's gravity is different it's just >> it is but we're still talking about trying to quantize a field >> right but we're not going to be able to create just like create a graviton I don't think >> is it because they're so much smaller >> they they gravity is the weakest force by far it's it's so ridiculously weak and and that's part of the problem so in their paper they said that >> if we built this thing I mean what kind of society could build this thing. But if they built it, they would detect one graviton every decade or every century.
>> So apparently it's not worth it though, right? Like >> it's [laughter] just it's just not going to But the thing is it's even worse than that, right? As hard as that is, it's even worse than that because they realize that all right, if we're going to detect one graviton, then we're going to have to filter out all these pesky uh nutrinos because because there's for every graviton, they said there's probably what what did I put down here?
Trillions of sexillions of nutrinos. Now they're going to kill trillions of nutrinos for this sudden is murder. Bob, >> it's a noise issue, Bob. It's just there's too much noise to detect the >> Exactly, George. It the noise of nutrinos is is swamping the graviton. So they would have to create a shield, a filter that would filter the nutrinos, but not the gravitons. And if they did that, the mass of the shield would be so massive, so how massive would it be >> that it would that it would collapse into a black hole. [laughter] So scientists call this a non-trivial problem. So [laughter] the the bottom the bottom line is we're not we're not going to catch one graviton. We're never probably we're never going to definitively have a graviton. But is this experiment worthwhile if we're not it? Absolutely. Like for the Higs boson we didn't detect it. We we theoretically determined that the Hig Higs boson which confers gravity to everything.
>> You mean mass?
>> Mass.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Mass. Right. we we our theory pointed to that and then we found it. So it we don't need to actually say we have a we have a graviton. So this so this theory this experiment could be extremely helpful. But for for two big ways if this experiment is is um successful we would we would could then say gravity is quantum because right now a gravitational field is a classical field. We don't have solid evidence that it's that it's a that it's a a quantum field like every other field that we've ever examined is is quantum. We don't know about gravity. Uh it's it's it's just so hard to test. So this experiment could say yes, we have uh a gravitational field is not just a classical field. It's a quantum field.
>> But with all of our observations, can can gravity stay classical?
>> Potentially, >> really? So we've never observed anything about gravity that doesn't fit with with like Newtonian.
>> There's hints. There's hints for for example, Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation shows that that a highly curved spaceime could could create the the Hawking radiation. So So they it's that shows that there's some dialogue going on between quantum mechanics and gravity. But you know it's not super strong evidence. It's not it's not like yep we got we we nailed this.
>> And gravitational wave science could be wholly classical >> but yeah gravitational fields could be classical potentially. No, I mean gravitational wave science like using gravitational wave detectors to make assumptions about the universe. We could do that from a wholly Newtonian perspective.
>> Absolutely. Right now there's nothing obvious about gravitational waves that that says that that it's >> quantity. But what does quantum gravity what what are the not the consequences but what does that mean necessarily?
>> That means that we have taken we have taken gravity >> general relativity >> and we've quantized it in quantum mechanics and they work together now they don't. Oh, so it becomes a single theory.
two different languages right now. can explain black holes >> and it would be huge and I'm going to mention that a little bit but so all right so uh this experiment is worthwhile um we could determine that gra the gravitational field is quantizable which would be wonderful but it also points to this idea that if that if we prove that gravit gravity is is quantum mechanical that then quantum gravity the theory of quantum gravity unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics into one theory is is possible and That's the holy grail. That's the holy grail. That's absolutely the holy grail. And because right now there's mysteries in science in in astronomy and cosmology that we will >> you want to know, Jay? Yeah.
>> Let's let's talk about it. So, two big two big ones that I wanted to talk about that that quantum gravity could solve for us is what's in the middle of a black hole. It's a singularity. But a singularity inside a black hole is kind of like dark energy. It's like it's a placeholder. We don't know what what's in there really because all of our theories just kind of fall apart and that's why we want to unify them because our theories are predicting these infinities are just coming out everywhere. We don't know. So quantum gravity could tell us that all right the singularity isn't infinitely dense and infinitely curved spaceime. It's this it's um it's this finite object. Finite is much better than infinite when you're you're dealing with these theories. So it's a it's a more spread out thing.
That's what quantum gravity could tell us. It could also tell us that, you know, spacetime ends with, you know, within a black hole. It's something that's really strange. It's it's not a singularity, but it's but spacetime just ends right there. Just it's not a space-time thing. And that would be a if we knew that, that would be a huge advance over just this weird like singularity that we nobody knows what's going on there. All right. Another thing, if quantum gravity is real, this is a good one, Jay. You're gonna like this. So, if we had quantum gravity, we could potentially know if we could travel into the past.
>> You like that one, Jay?
>> So, um >> I'm I'm like I really am against traveling into the past, but I think it's, you know, interesting that they're making a relationship between those two things.
>> I mean, traveling into the past is I think it's overwhelmingly likely not to not to be possible, but you could not say definitively that science says traveling into the past is impossible.
You couldn't say that because general relativity predicts that there's something called closed timelike curves like like wormhole time machines that could potentially be used as for traveling into the past.
>> There are solutions that say yes we can travel into into the past according to general relativity but we need quantum gravity to definitively say um one of three things. So we develop quantum gravity. It could say one of three things. It could say that this is forbidden outright. traveling into the past is never going to happen. Closed timelike curves, this weirdly shaped spaceime is is not physical. It's never going to happen. We could say that quantum gravity could also say that mathematically these closed timelike curves exist. These potentially exist, but if you try to build one physically, some quantum effects would prevent you from doing it. It's just it's not possible physically. It's kind of they call this like a a chronology protection which would you know which would be interesting and maybe it'd be kind of nice that you know there's a protection from going into the past because that could be bad. All right. So quantum gravity could also say potentially >> that it's allowed traveling into the past is allowed and it's engineerable.
It's it's something that that we could do. So um but the thing is it could be you might need ridiculously extreme energies. You may you might need exotic matter to make it happen, but it could it could potentially say yes, traveling into the past is possible and it's could be something that some super advanced civilization could potentially engineer.
So So there you are. This simple this conceptually simple experiment um that would be very difficult to pull off, but it's it's just conceptually simple could potentially point to a new a quantum gravity theory that has been stying the best scientists for a decade. So that's that's my story.
>> Thanks, Bob. Woo! Okay, we have enough time for science or fiction. So, we do have to move on.
>> It's time for science or fiction.
[music] >> Each week, I come up with three science news items or facts, two real and one fake. Then, I challenge my panel of expert skeptics to tell me which one is the fake. Are you guys ready? So, we're going to I'm going to read the three items. The uh the people in the audience are not going to respond in any way.
Poker face and then we'll we'll survey the panel and then once they've all committed then we'll survey the audience. Until then, no feedback. Okay.
>> Zip it.
>> And you'll you'll understand why in a moment because you know the theme >> it's not Seattle.
It is Washington State.
>> Washington [laughter] State.
>> Washington DC.
>> Okay, >> here we go. Item number one. Washington State has the highest number of reported UFO sightings per capita, while California has the highest total reported sightings. Item number two.
Despite its climate, Washington state, led by Seattle, has the highest sunglass purchases per capita. And item number three, numerous reported sightings of a lesserknown crypted called Batsquatch, a large flying primate with bat-like wings date back to 1980 in Washington.
>> Batsquatch.
>> Batsquatch. George, last time you were on the panel, >> you went first.
>> Okay. And you got it right. You and Brian were the only ones.
>> Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay.
>> So, I'll give you your choice. Do you want to go first? You want to go last on the panel?
>> I'll go first.
>> All right.
>> I'll go first.
>> There you go. There are the three items.
>> Okay. I I I like the number two about the sunglasses. There is a certain hipster relevance to that of like we wear sunglasses despite their necessary need or not. So, I'm going to say that that's probably that's probably science. The the the also the batsquatch from is from number three. The basquatch from the 1980s. That feels like a very 1980s kind of thing.
>> Feels like a very very 1980s term.
>> Does rhyme with swatch, >> right? Sort of like a post post Leonard Nemoy in search of like we got to be like we're 14 15 years old now. We're naming stuff. So, just based on that, solely on that there are hipsters here and wearing sunglasses and that Batsquatch feels 80sish, I'm going to say that Washington does not have the highest number of reported UFO sightings per capita. So, number one is the fiction.
>> Okay, Cara, >> I'm so glad that's where that like that's kind of what I was leaning toward. So to sort of take them in order really quickly, I think that the first thing I thought of was, ooh, with the California having the highest total versus the highest per capita, I like that makes it more believable. But I still have a feeling that like New Mexico, Arizona is going to have a higher per capita, but that might be too obvious. And then the sunglass thing is hilarious. Like at its surface, you're like, that's the fiction, but I don't know. Like I live in LA, I wear sunglasses every day. I can't not. And I I know what it's like when it's been gloomy and then all of a sudden the sun pops out and it's like it hurts and so I could see needing sunglasses or maybe it's wishful thinking or there are sun showers here. Like it can be raining and it's still sunny. So um yeah, I don't know. I could see it. And then I don't know. Basquatch I've never heard of. It sounds silly but obviously Sasquatch culture in the Pacific Northwest is huge. So you know that one kind of is in keeping. I don't know. Yeah. The UFO.
Ah, this is tough. They these are really good, Steve, because they could they could all be science, but I'm I'm going to go with George and say the UFO. It's probably California might have the highest total um or Texas, but I think the the per capita might be in Arizona, New Mexico, right? That region. Yeah.
>> Okay. Jay, wasn't the first UFO sighting in from Washington State?
>> You are correct. I'll that doesn't affect this answer. Mount Reineer >> in in Washington was where Kenneth Arnold reported seeing objects skipping like saucers that was misinterpreted as a flying saucer shape. Right. He was describing their movement, not their shape.
>> That's the 50s, 40s, >> 40s, 47, I think.
>> 47.
>> All right. So, uh, Washington state has the highest number of reported UFO sightings per capita and California has the highest total reported sightings. I mean, that sounds that sounds like fine.
You know what I mean? like it. I'm not I'm not I can't really shoot a hole in that. I I'm taking into account that you guys picked it, but let me keep going here. Despite the climate, Washington state, you know, basically people here are purchasing the most sunglasses. I don't know. That seems counterintuitive by a lot to me. So, that one is my first pick so far. And then the the bat squatch. I mean, I I've never heard of it. I think I would have heard of it, right? I you know, because what we do lesser known, but we're skeptics. It's like we're the when they say lesser known, it's us who know about it.
>> You know what I mean?
>> Call me less.
>> Yeah. So, I'm going between those two.
Batsquatch. Steve, this is like a claim and not like a a No one has like >> it's not been proven.
>> Reported sightings. [laughter] >> No, I just reported sightings. That's all. It's all >> right. So, people are claiming that there is a large flying primate with bat-like wings. Like like a bat with bat-like wings. I don't know. I mean, between these two. Geez. Um, I'm going to say the sunglasses is the fiction.
Okay, Bob.
>> So, for number one, the UFO sightings.
It seems plausible to me considering that flying saucer was actually coined here. And I think people would be like, "Yeah, this is this is our thing." Uh, so that kind of makes it more tenable to me. The second one with the sunglasses, it's just too obvious. It just seems too obvious unless what that's what you want me to think. So, I'm going to discount that one. Uh, I've got a theory about Batsquatch. I wasn't too familiar with it either. Somebody last night had a t-shirt on that had cryptids and it had batsquatch. And I think Steve saw that t-shirt [laughter] and decided I'm going to put it in >> science or fiction. That's my working hypothesis. So I'm going to say that one is fiction.
>> Oh, you think that one's fiction then?
>> Yes.
>> I would think you'd go the other way.
>> I know. Me too, >> Evan. Nope. What are the odds? Steve looked at and like, "Oh, this is interesting. Oh, look. It was It's seen in in Washington." No. No, I think Steve just like I'm going to use that somehow in science >> or the person that was wearing the t-shirt is from here. It's a local dude deadad and uh that's what you know you're wrong.
>> You clearly did not see the t-shirt, Jay.
>> All right, so we have George Cara for UFOs, Jay for sunglasses, Bob for batsquatch. I love when there's a good spread across the items.
>> Like a nice sandwich.
>> We're going to see how the audience feels.
>> Oh boy. Um, so if you think that Washington having the highest per capita UFO sightings is the fiction, clap.
>> Okay.
>> If you think that the sunglasses is the fiction, clap.
>> And if you think that the bats squatch is the fiction, clap.
>> Okay. Okay. So, I 132 feels like >> is what I'm looking good for me.
>> Come on. Come on. Let's take these in reverse order. [screaming] >> No. No.
>> Do them in order.
>> Numerous reported sightings of a lesserknown crypted called Batquatch, a large flying primate with bat-like wings date back to 1980 in Washington. Bob thinks this one is fiction. Some of the audience think this one is fiction. Now, Bob, I remember the crypted t-shirt from last night.
>> Of course you do.
>> And who wore that t-shirt? Raise your hand. So, I I came up to you [laughter] and took a long look at that t-shirt.
>> So, as did I.
>> To make sure that bats squatch was not on it.
>> Oh.
>> And it wasn't. I don't know what YOU'RE REMEMBERING. [laughter] >> WHOA, WHOA, WHOA. Wait a THERE. WAIT A SECOND. THERE WAS LIKE there was a biped with bat wings. I mean, come on.
>> Not but the word batsquatch was not on it.
>> It was moth man.
>> It was mo man. You were looking at moth man. [laughter] >> This is like the thing with the saw.
>> Moth man was upper left and batwatch was bottom right. Whatever. I was drinking.
>> I I I was like, "Oh, was is that bats one?" No, it's Moth Man. Good. Woo.
[laughter] >> Now, none of you >> There goes my theory.
>> None of None of you made the connection to what what's the cinematic batlike primate?
>> No. [laughter] >> Batman.
>> Wizard of Oz.
>> Monkey. Wizard of Oz. Monkeys with wings.
>> Monkeys with wings.
>> And I hate that movie.
>> Batman, >> but he's a primate.
>> Oh, but 1980. Wow. Yes. So >> this one >> is is >> science. This is science.
>> Yeah. So some guy thought he saw bat squatch in the 1980s.
>> Good name.
>> And there's been a sightings every four or five years. It's not again lesser known. It's not huge, but over the last 30, 40 years, there's been continuous sightings and the legend has grown a little bit. Um during Mount St. Helens, um people thought they saw him in the ash smug, you know. Wait, wait. There's one batsquatch. There's one.
>> Uh, whatever. There's just sightings of batsquatch. Who knows if there's one or multiple?
>> There's one red batqu. [laughter] >> Then one person reported that Batsquatch landed in front of his truck and his truck engine died. So then, so now Batsquatch can make your truck engines die.
>> So yeah, lesser known, but I like these these local, not well-known cryptids are always fun.
>> Okay, >> there's a beer named after it. Ooh, there's a beer. All right, there you go.
>> All right. Nice. Let's go back to number two. Despite its climate, Washington state, led by Seattle, has the highest sunglass purchases per capita. Very few people in the audience think this is the fiction, [gasps] which surprises me. Why does that surprise me?
>> Because you guys all have a lot of sunglasses.
>> Yeah. [laughter] >> If if you search >> Oh, yeah. So, you don't need them all winter and then you you keep losing them every so you have to reby them all the time.
>> That makes sense. Yeah. [laughter] >> That's the common belief. Oh no.
>> That and there is a now if you look up strange things about Seattle, >> right?
>> This is on every single list >> that they have the highest >> that they have the highest per capita sunglass purchase, but it turns out this is a myth.
>> And this is the fiction. I thought I was going to actually get a lot more in the audience. This is the fiction.
>> Good job, [applause and cheering] Jay.
>> Good job, Jay. [laughter] Jay Bird, come on now. Take them.
>> Hands up. I just want I just want to say that, you know, true intelligence, it's subtle. [laughter] >> It's metered. It doesn't brag. It just says the right [ __ ] over and over and over again. [laughter] >> So, I love popular beliefs that are myths making that the actual fiction.
So, this is the fiction. Yes. Um, the data clearly shows that the southeast is where most of >> Cara was right.
>> No, I was wrong.
>> She was saying >> I was saying that about UFO in the southwest UFO sightings. Yeah. We'll get to the UFO >> where is this like Florida then?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Places where you need sunglasses.
>> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Right.
>> Exactly. The the data actually tracks with what you would think it where it tracks. The sunny states is where the most people have.
>> Does anyone here have sunglasses on them? Just a couple. One, two. One, two, three, four. Okay.
>> That Seattleites, is that how you is that your name? Seattleites. I like that. That Seattleites lose their sunglasses at the per That's the myth that they have that's why it's counterintuitively they have because they're constantly losing. I have to keep buying them.
>> Hold on a second. So, why do you guys have sunglasses like with you today?
[laughter] >> Yeah, cuz it's sunny today >> for the sun.
>> It's a rare not rainy sunny day.
>> Let me retort because that this is not sunny in Connecticut.
>> But see, it's the same reason that in LA when it's like 65° we all wear coats.
>> We're [laughter] like, we get TO WEAR OUR COATS. OH, OKAY.
>> They're like trolls, Jay. They come like they have to put their glasses on.
[laughter] All right. Which means that Washington state has the highest number of reported UFO sightings per capita while California has the highest total reported sightings is science.
>> Wow.
>> California the population just dwarfs.
You know, obviously, so of course they get it per just absolute number. Now, nobody mentioned what UFO sightings actually track and why Washington has such a high number. Vermont, by the way, has a very >> I don't know what that means.
>> So, you mean they're counting a they're counting a hand? Some >> kind of weather anomaly.
>> Yeah.
>> You're close.
>> I don't know what what they actually are looking at instead of a UFO.
>> What's triggering all these sightings?
>> Aircraft.
>> Lack of skeptics.
>> It's all military bases.
>> Carefully tracks.
>> Okay. Military bas.
But, but whatever. It's Washington.
[laughter] This is what the data shows. there's fewer people probably in the southwest as opposed to >> there's got to be some critical density of people to see the stuff and also I don't know I guess >> if you it's it's the Washington has combination of military bases and also not just it's not just that there are planes it's also that it's stuff that other countries want to spy on it's their spy planes looking at our >> facilities too absolutely and the air force like yeah they give us you know like they don't they don't contradict reporting because they don't want they're not going to say no that's our secret military base and the Chinese were spying on us. They don't want to say that. So they they just they just let the the UFO reporting stand as they are. So yeah, that I thought that was interesting.
>> So like the best thing for the military to do if they want to like stay hidden is make one of their aircraft look like a UFO. So there was a scandal where in the '9s the US Air Force did actually promote UFO belief as cover >> and they and they were now they're being let the conspiracy theorists eat that up because they were actually engaged in a conspiracy to misinform the public to hide their activity.
>> Yeah. Like Project Mogul, you know, which was a secret. We're spying on the Soviet missile nuclear testing. So, let's not That was the Roswell incident was crashed, you know, spy satellite and they're not going to say, "No, that was our spy satellite, you know." So, they just let that mythology stand.
>> They must love that [ __ ] >> They love it. Yeah, it's so it's it's it's organic cover for their activity.
They Yeah, of course.
>> Can you tell me more about the sunglasses though? I'd like to, [laughter] you know.
>> Yeah. So that it is interesting because the rogues there often I include items that seem blatantly false, >> right? They're counterintuitive and they could go either way. They could say that's blatantly false. I'm going to call that the fiction. Or they'll say that's too easy.
>> Why you included?
>> I'm going to flip it and say that Steve's trying to fool us. I don't know which way they're going to go.
>> And it is so painful to to like go look at the one that looks super fiction and you're like, "Oh, come on. That can't be it." And then when you miss it, [laughter] as soon as you do the reveal, you instantly feel like a [ __ ] You're just like, >> and I just soak up your tears like they're [laughter] the best.
>> Let's give Let's give Jay one big clap for getting it right. Here we go. Come on. There we go. There we go.
>> Good job, Jay. You did it. [laughter] >> I don't even want to play this game.
>> I was See, just so you know, I was 100% sure when you started reading the answers. I'm like, I I am so wrong. It's like [laughter] there's just no way.
Thank you all for joining me for this special Seattle episode.
>> Absolutely.
>> And thank you guys for coming to see us in Seattle.
[applause] >> And until next week, this is your Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
[applause] Skeptics's Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at thekeepicsguide.org.
Send your questions to [email protected].
And if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/skeepicsguide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible. [music]
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