Science Series 2: Dr Ben McAllister / Dark Matter / Axioms / Theoretical Research vs Experimental

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Welcome to another episode of
Come Together.

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Doctor Ben McAllister, Welcome
to the show.

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Happy to have you here.
Yeah, thanks for having me, you

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look.
Awfully young for a doctor, got

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to tell you.
Oh, I don't know.

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I mean, thank you, but I'm 32
years old and yeah, I don't

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know, did my PhD straight,
basically straight, like high

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school, undergrad, grad school,
kind of straight through.

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So you can get it done in that
time.

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That's a lot of work, I imagine.
Right?

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Yeah.
Oh.

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Yeah, for sure.
I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's a

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life of a a lot of studying.
But if you if you love it, then

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it's it's good fun.
I don't know if it, if it, if it

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stimulates you and it's
enjoyable, then yeah, I always

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say it.
I mean, we've, we've jumped

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right into to would you do a
PhD?

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But I always say to people, if
you like it, it's great.

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But you know, don't do it
because you think you should.

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Right.
Yeah.

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I kind of feel that way about
everything, you know?

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Yeah.
I mean, I find out the more that

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I live like that, the happier
the happier I am or the more

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productive that I am because
it's really hard to play

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something, these things.
And if you like it, then it's

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not really a pull.
Yeah.

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Yeah, please.
I always say to my students that

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if you're not like having fun, I
mean, not like literally every

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moment of every day is fun, But
if in the kind of macro sense,

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working on the project, like if
you're not having fun, you're

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doing something wrong.
Like, especially in the kind of

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area that we work in, because
it's like fundamental physics,

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like we get to try and like
answer the big mysteries and the

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big questions in the universe.
And it's like, I think we should

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not lose sight of the fact that
that's like an immense

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privilege.
And it's really cool to be able

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to work on that stuff and like
not get too lost in like the,

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the parts of it that are like
annoying or painful and remember

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what they are sort of all point
towards.

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And if you're really truly
having a miserable timing of PhD

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program or whatever, maybe just
do something else.

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Because it should be.
It should be fun, you know,

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ultimately in in the big scale.
Yeah, yeah, that's actually why

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I never went back to to school
because I didn't think that I

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would enjoy getting a master's
degree in creative or, you know,

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PhD in any kind of literary
aspect, which is my undergrad.

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But but I'm I'm way more
interested in what you study,

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which is physics and
specifically the I think, and

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please correct me if I
misunderstood, but the dark

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matter in particular, correct?
Yeah, that's that's right.

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I'm a dark matter physicist.
It's a relatively obscure niche

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category.
Physics, I think based at least

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based on social norms or based
on, you know, the zeitgeist.

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Sure.
Whether people have heard of it,

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yes, fair enough.
I, I guess you could say that

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it's relatively obscure in terms
of who's aware of it.

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But in some senses I think it's
like very not obscure as a

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science problem.
It's one of the biggest problems

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in modern science today.
The scale of the problem is

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massive.
So it's just for anyone who's

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not aware, dark matter is the
name we give to what I like to

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call one of the biggest
mysteries in the universe.

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It is what is the nature of all
of this invisible stuff that is

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all around us, passing through
US, makes up most of the matter

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in the universe, and we just
don't know what it is.

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We The name dark matter is
actually incredibly descriptive.

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It's sort of tells you just
about everything we know about

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it.
It's dark, which means that it

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doesn't interact with light.
It doesn't reflect light or give

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off light, so we can't see it
using traditional telescopes.

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And it's matter, which just
means it has mass, it has some

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stuff to it.
And that is that is kind of the

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stuff we know for sure.
We know it's dark, we know it's

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matter.
We know roughly how much of it

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we think we know roughly how
much that there is.

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We think we know roughly where
it is.

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We have ideas about what it
might be made of, but that's

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sort of it.
So I kind of think it's a huge,

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huge mystery for for contact,
the scale, it's about 5 sixths

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of all the matter in the
universe is this invisible

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stuff.
So if you think about like

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everything that makes people,
planets, stars, black holes, all

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of those fun little fundamental
particles, all that stuff,

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according to our best models
today is about 1/6 of all the

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matter.
And then there's about five

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times as much again, this
invisible stuff called dark

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matter that we, yeah, we simply
don't know what it's made of.

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Is that not extremely daunting
for not not only for yourself,

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but also for every other
scientist that MO that because I

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kind of from a science
perspective, adds A variable or

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variables that you have no idea
how to define, right?

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Yeah.
But yeah, Well, yes, it's

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daunting for sure.
I had to answer the first

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question.
Yes, it's a huge, it's a huge

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problem.
But hey, there's a lot of big

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mysteries in science and there's
a lot of history of, of working

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to answer them.
That's sort of what it's what

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it's what it's all about if you
ask me, in terms of like stuff

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we can't define.
I guess that's like that's the

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idea behind Dark Matters.
We do try to kind of fence it

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in.
Like we take the information

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that we have and we say, OK,
it's dark and it's matter.

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So that's, you know,
automatically like it sounds

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like it's a huge fraud category
and it is.

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But at the same time, we've run
out a lot of stuff that it

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isn't, you know, like we know it
can't be any of the stuff we

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already know about.
We know it has to have mass that

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kind of already puts some fences
around it.

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And then you can kind of start
kind of closing in on it from

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there.
And that's that's kind of the

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the aim of the game is we go,
OK, so does this stuff does dark

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matter?
What might it be made of when

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people come up with different
ideas and then we do either

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different, like theoretical
calculations, which is not my

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area, or different experiments,
which is my area, that sort of

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gradually constrain that large
parameter space of possibilities

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for what the dark matter can be?
Cool.

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What's the just just to
understand for myself and for

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anyone listening, what's the
difference as far as the

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theoretical and the experimental
goes from the from your end?

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Sure.
So, yeah, it's a great question

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because it is a relatively, I'm
not going to say like brand new

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thing, but it is a in the grand
history of science, the divide

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between theory and experiment is
relatively new.

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Time was the sort of like, you
know, great since the field,

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your Isaac mutants, your, your
Lord Kelvin's, your, your people

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from, you know, hundreds of
years ago, pioneers of science

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would be theorists and
experimentalists.

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They'd be doing experiments in
their lab and then working on

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theory to explain the
experiments.

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Now, in a sense, physics, you
know, I don't want to, I don't

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want to denigrate these guys or,
or, or people, you know, who,

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who are absolute legends,
discovered all kinds of

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incredible things with the kind
of equipment that they had on

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hand at the time.
It's astonishing, some of the

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stuff that was done, but the
science was a little bit simpler

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then.
Like we weren't talking about

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like subatomic particles.
We weren't talking about quantum

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physics.
You know, we weren't talking

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about the kind of level of
intricate detail that we have

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today, which makes it very just
difficult for one person to be

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so highly specialized in.
Like as as science has gotten

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kind of more advanced and
physics has gotten into ever

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smaller scales, there's a lot
more like we're kind of like,

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you may think like, oh, as we're
narrowing in and getting

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smaller, like it's getting, you
know, we're getting closer and

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closer to the bottom, which is
true in some sense, but it's

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also opening more and more doors
and like more and more rabbit

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holes.
And so there's, there's so much

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more physics today that we know
about than there was like 300

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years ago, which means it's
impossible for anyone physicist

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to know all of it.
It's just not practical to be an

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expert in literally everything
in all of physics.

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And so one way and that gets
divided up in like lots of

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different ways, like within the
field, but one like kind of big

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broad category split would be
the split between people who do

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theory and people who do
experiments.

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And, and theorists would be
people who do, you know,

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calculations and simulations
and, and, and modeling and, and

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model building to try and
understand the physics in

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question and then come up with
like predictions.

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And then experimentalists will
be people who will build and run

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experiments and devote a lot of
their time to think about how to

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make those experiments better,
how to get the data, how to

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analyze the data and how to
either fit it in to confirm or

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refuse the theory.
So this is kind of like into

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play between the two kind of
aspects.

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And you know, like with
everything like this, it's not

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really.
Hey everyone real quick if

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you're enjoying the show, click
subscribe and rate the show. 5

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stars helps a time.
Thanks so much.

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Like a strict binary, it's, it's
there are people who exist kind

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of partially in both areas and
everyone will sort of sit

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somewhere along the spectrum in
this regard.

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But broadly speaking, physicists
will tend to categorize

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themselves as either a theorist
or an experimentalist.

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I gotcha.
That's really cool.

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Is it?
Can you say that it's

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metaphorically, I guess, similar
to the way that that someone it

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could be teaching a, a topic and
then, you know, let's say about

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business and then another person
is actual business owner.

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A lot of times you'll go back
and forth between the two and

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you know, and, and students had
to make fun of teachers and say

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those who can't do teach.
But but I think that there's

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something to be said about the
ability to communicate, which we

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will obviously get back to.
Yeah.

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You know, I think it's, it's
funny the analogy there because

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I think if you asked both camps,
they'd probably both be like,

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yeah, and I'm the one who's
actually doing it.

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On the other hand, it's, I don't
know, I mean, that would get a

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little bit thorny.
I think it's definitely like

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both.
I don't know.

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I think both are really
important in doing modern

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physics.
And that's why, yeah.

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I mean, ultimately, ideally in a
perfect world, probably there

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wouldn't be that divide.
Everyone would have like such

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incredible expansive brains that
we were able to know all of the

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deep theory and also all of the
technical details for making

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experiment work and how to
acquire it.

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It's not practical.
We divide and conquer, you know,

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both.
Both are really, really

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important things to to have.
You need people coming up with

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brand new ideas and you need
people building better and

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better experiments.
Can I ask your thoughts before

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we go on with dark physics?
Just on that point, I know that

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one of the huge values of AI is
to sort through an enormous

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amount of data and be very
effective, far more effective

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than people could be.
AI can do.

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AI companions like the new
Clawbot or anything like that

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play a role as far as sorting
data and trying to really like

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cover more ground and what you
know, teams and teams of people

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could cover.
It's not.

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I mean I do anything AI related.
It's a very difficult question

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to answer in any kind of
concrete way.

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I think to give a very broad
question, our physicists using

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large language models to help
them.

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Yes, unequivocally yes, people,
people and more and more as I

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think is common in just about
every field at the moment.

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And in terms of like machine
learning more broadly for data

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science, I would say that's been
going on since kind of for the

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current kind of AILOM boom, you
know, like, like physicists and,

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and data scientists have been
interested in machine learning

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is the way to tease things out
of data for a very long time.

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So yes, broadly speaking, I
think is the answer,

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00:10:49,560 --> 00:10:51,760
particularly in fields where
there's big data.

226
00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:53,800
Like, I know there's some people
here at the university that I'm

227
00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:56,880
at, Swinburne University in
Melbourne that work specifically

228
00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:59,760
on like AI and machine learning
for radio astronomy data.

229
00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:03,360
Because like telescopes pull
into an enormous amount of data

230
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:06,480
from the sky.
And there's a lot of really like

231
00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:10,480
amazing kind of regular
statistical signal techniques

232
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:12,120
for pulling information out
there.

233
00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:14,360
And then there's kind of
increasingly like, oh, I wonder

234
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:16,480
if we can do something
interesting with this AI stuff.

235
00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:20,760
I mean, the, yeah, it's, it's,
it's certainly a useful tool.

236
00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:24,400
And then on the other aspect of
it, like data analytics aside,

237
00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:28,880
like more and more physicists
they know are reporting that

238
00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:31,720
they find that the tools like
the, the more commercial tools

239
00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:36,600
like useful for like a sort of
research assistant kind of

240
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:40,040
thing.
You know, you still have to be

241
00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:43,840
quite careful about
hallucinations.

242
00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:45,960
You have to really, you know,
check, check the sources for

243
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:47,640
sure.
If it's going to be anything

244
00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:50,080
that you're going to like rely
on firmly.

245
00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:53,120
But it can definitely help as
like a jumping off point for,

246
00:11:53,160 --> 00:11:55,000
for things.
It's, you know, more and more

247
00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,040
often I'll find myself like, oh,
OK, this is an area I don't know

248
00:11:57,040 --> 00:11:58,720
anything about.
First thing I'll do is go get an

249
00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:01,000
LM and be like, well, one of
the, you know, or even just to

250
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:02,560
be like one of the 10 papers I
should read.

251
00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:05,240
And then it'll like get out of
this, you know, and that's, that

252
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:07,240
saves a lot of time in, in terms
of good searching and stuff.

253
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:08,400
So yeah.
And it's getting used in

254
00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:09,800
different ways in physics at the
moment.

255
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:13,240
So actually something quite
interesting happened maybe like,

256
00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:15,560
and, and, and well, I guess like
with everything of AI, it's like

257
00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:19,000
it's changing so rapidly.
It's like, you know, the the.

258
00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:21,760
Tomorrow will be it'll be
something new already.

259
00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:24,360
Exactly, Like if we had this
conversation two months ago, I'd

260
00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,360
probably have given you a
different answer.

261
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:29,240
But, and yeah, I mean, like,
especially like recently, as of

262
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:34,360
March 2026, I don't know, it
feels like the, like, it feels

263
00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,760
to me personally, like, I mean,
I'm unqualified opinion on this.

264
00:12:37,760 --> 00:12:41,480
I'm really not like an AI expert
at all, but like just just just

265
00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:43,720
personal experience.
It feels to me like the model

266
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:46,960
had gotten quite a bit better
quite quickly in the last little

267
00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:51,120
while.
But anyway, that aside, like 2

268
00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:53,120
years ago, I think like, well,
maybe a year and a bit ago, like

269
00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:55,680
early in like the kind of people
were starting to adopt these

270
00:12:55,680 --> 00:12:58,720
things.
There was a seminar here at at

271
00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:03,280
the university that was like,
oh, like, you know, AI and

272
00:13:03,280 --> 00:13:05,240
physics seminar.
And I like went along and it was

273
00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:08,080
a room full of like physicists
and astronomers and the first

274
00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:11,920
thing, and I wasn't using like
AILLMS that much at that point.

275
00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:15,280
And the first thing the guy
running the seminar said was

276
00:13:15,280 --> 00:13:17,920
like, OK, like, put your hand up
if you're using an LLM every

277
00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:20,280
day.
And probably like 75% of the

278
00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:23,480
room put their hands up.
And I was like, oh, OK, there's

279
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:25,800
something about this I'm not
understanding because up until

280
00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:28,920
that point I'd been like, Oh
yeah, this is kind of a kind of

281
00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:30,840
a useful tool.
I guess I can like help me like

282
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:33,920
edit down documents or whatever.
Like it's not, you know, I'm not

283
00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:35,400
really.
And I like tried to use it for

284
00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:36,840
research questions.
And then like, oh, it's not that

285
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:38,960
good.
You know, it's not very useful.

286
00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:41,560
And then like all of these
physicists, all of the peers

287
00:13:41,560 --> 00:13:42,840
were like, oh, yeah.
And then I was like, OK.

288
00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:45,400
And I was like, really, you
know, then then focused on, on

289
00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:48,000
the preceding hour of people
describing different use cases

290
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,040
and some other things.
Anyway, I don't want to get into

291
00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:53,920
a whole chat about AI, to be
honest, because I honestly don't

292
00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:56,520
know how I feel about it more
broadly speaking as a as a

293
00:13:56,680 --> 00:13:58,920
thing.
But to answer the question as

294
00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:01,120
asked, are people using it?
Yes.

295
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:03,960
Is it helpful in some ways?
Yes.

296
00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:05,880
Do I use it?
Yes, for some things.

297
00:14:06,520 --> 00:14:07,560
I gotcha.
Yeah.

298
00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:09,400
I don't know how I feel about it
either, man.

299
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:11,400
That's how.
Yeah.

300
00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:14,240
And you know what?
I don't think that we should

301
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:16,800
know how we feel about it
because like you said, the, the,

302
00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:22,280
the, its existence is changing
so rapidly, so frequently that

303
00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:25,760
it's very hard to wrap your head
around what it really is.

304
00:14:25,760 --> 00:14:28,240
Because what it was six months
ago, it's not the same thing as

305
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:31,440
it is now.
And having anyone who has a set

306
00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:34,680
opinion on it is might be might
be ignoring the, you know, the

307
00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:36,440
present, the present
circumstance.

308
00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:41,720
Yeah, I, I agree with you that
it's, it's like, yeah, it's hard

309
00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:42,720
to have a fixed opinion about
it.

310
00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:48,040
I, I, I do, I do kind of like, I
do think that that in itself is

311
00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:49,880
also kind of a problem.
Like I think like, you know,

312
00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:53,680
that like stuff is changing too
quickly for people to really

313
00:14:53,680 --> 00:14:58,480
have fixed opinions about it and
that it it's changing too

314
00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:01,920
quickly to almost like know what
the sensible thing to do is

315
00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:03,920
about it.
And I think that that, you know,

316
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,040
we should look at and be like,
OK, maybe we need to slow down a

317
00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:08,760
little bit on this kind of, you
know, like this kind of this

318
00:15:08,760 --> 00:15:11,680
arms race between these like
this driving this thing.

319
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:14,200
And it's just like that is
actually that doesn't need to be

320
00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:16,760
happening.
Like we just, we could, we could

321
00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:19,000
stop and pause and be like, OK,
like what's a sensible way

322
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,080
forward here?
But anyway, like I said, not not

323
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:25,080
an expert on this topic, just.
For sure.

324
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:27,480
And I think that it's important
for you.

325
00:15:27,520 --> 00:15:29,600
What I think is interesting and
particularly important is the

326
00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,120
fact that, you know, a lot of
people will say, oh, well, AI is

327
00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:33,680
the next breakthrough, AI is the
next development.

328
00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:36,480
But there's so much science that
has to be done, including the

329
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:39,000
work that you're doing that, you
know that we can turn to as

330
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:40,320
well.
And so I think that for people

331
00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:44,040
that think that, hey, you know,
the next, you know, the future

332
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:47,080
is just AII mean.
There is that you're ignoring a

333
00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:49,480
whole lot of you're doing a
whole lot of universe out there

334
00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:51,080
and there's a whole lot of
science and there's a whole lot

335
00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:55,440
of other things going on that,
you know, I'm sure could, could,

336
00:15:55,720 --> 00:15:58,360
could be looked into as well.
And yeah, we need to catch up as

337
00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:00,560
a society.
We still need to catch up years

338
00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:03,640
ago from what we still need to
catch.

339
00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:05,560
Up from 20 years ago.
I mean, like, you know, I mean,

340
00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:08,280
like I think people are still, I
think I think that society's

341
00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:10,840
kind of going, you know, we're
still trying to figure out how

342
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:13,360
to navigate the world now.
And I don't think it's really

343
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:16,200
been consistent in one place
that we've really figured out to

344
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:20,480
get a handle on it for since
really probably the early 2000,

345
00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,160
you know, the mid 2000s.
Yeah, I have this theory that

346
00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:26,400
like, like technological
development is like, it's

347
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,280
exponential, obviously, and
against time.

348
00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:31,920
And like The funny thing about
an exponential is like if you

349
00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:34,600
zoom in and you don't like you
zoom in at any point, it still

350
00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:37,640
looks like an exponential, like
the the Y axis and the X axis

351
00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:38,880
change.
So like you're here and you're

352
00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:40,400
like, wow, things are changing
so quickly.

353
00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:44,120
And like, so it always feels
like it's going way faster than

354
00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:47,040
you can possibly deal with it.
And then at the same time, it's

355
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:51,160
also getting faster and faster.
So like in a, in a, in a sense,

356
00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:53,720
it's like, it's easy to be like,
oh wow, things are like things

357
00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:55,640
are so crazy right now and
things are changing so fast.

358
00:16:55,640 --> 00:16:59,520
And it's easy to forget that
they also were, you know, 20-30

359
00:16:59,520 --> 00:17:01,200
years ago.
I think like, you know, like

360
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:06,040
we're about the same age.
I think like probably grew up, I

361
00:17:06,040 --> 00:17:08,160
wouldn't say like the kind of
like younger generation, maybe

362
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:10,800
like, you know, complete digital
natives because like, you know,

363
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,520
and I don't know that you like
my early childhood, I wasn't on

364
00:17:13,520 --> 00:17:15,839
the Internet all the time, but
by the time I was like, I don't

365
00:17:15,839 --> 00:17:20,640
know, seven, I was.
And then so I think that

366
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:25,800
transition is like pretty crazy
in terms of the like, I don't

367
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:29,600
know, networking and connection
information and and then like

368
00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:31,680
watching the kind of like smart
smartphone thing happen.

369
00:17:31,680 --> 00:17:33,960
I think those were like massive
messengers, idolships that

370
00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:36,040
you're right, I don't think we
have really fully come to grips

371
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:40,320
with as a as a culture.
And yeah, so in some sense, I

372
00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:42,680
guess there's nothing that new
about the fact that things

373
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,280
changing so rapidly and crazy
and we're not prepared to deal

374
00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:48,120
with it.
But in other ways, yeah.

375
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:49,080
I mean, it's, it is.
It is.

376
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:51,040
Different We're still trying to
convince you whether social

377
00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:53,880
media hasn't been a great idea.
You are like not to let kids

378
00:17:53,880 --> 00:17:55,280
use.
And we're like, I just can't

379
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:57,120
believe like it's 2026.
We still have to have this

380
00:17:57,120 --> 00:17:58,520
conversation.
We're talking about AI now.

381
00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:00,320
You know we're talking.
About, you know, talking about.

382
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:02,560
We're talking about quantum
physics, we're talking about

383
00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:04,040
UFOs, we're talking about like
all this stuff.

384
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:06,480
And you're talking about like,
you know, whether or not a kid

385
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:09,280
spending too much time on
Twitter or X or Instagram or

386
00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:12,880
whatever it is.
And on one hand, it is a super

387
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:16,320
important right now problem that
like has to be, you know,

388
00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:19,880
responded to or acknowledged at
least, you know, And on the

389
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:22,160
other hand, it's like, but
things are also going on over

390
00:18:22,160 --> 00:18:23,560
here, you know, it's really,
it's really.

391
00:18:24,800 --> 00:18:27,400
Yeah, too much stuff going on,
fire hose and information, too

392
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:30,000
many, too many different areas
that need a lot of immediate

393
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:35,240
attention is broadly speaking
the case.

394
00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:38,000
But hey, I mean, we're not
talking about physics right now,

395
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:40,800
so let's get.
Back to it.

396
00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:43,520
So can you take me through,
please, the life of her?

397
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:45,960
So how'd you get, how'd you get
started in this?

398
00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:52,960
Were you always a science
enthusiast or curious about?

399
00:18:53,120 --> 00:18:57,160
I know that people I talked to
are either very analytical or

400
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:00,320
very imaginative when it comes
to becoming scientists, I feel

401
00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:03,040
like.
And what was your kind of

402
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:06,800
experience and what what drew to
it and what does it experiments

403
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:09,480
look like?
You know, as far as throughout

404
00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:12,200
your education, was most your
time spent in labs or how'd that

405
00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:14,200
work?
Yeah, it's a good question.

406
00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:19,560
I I guess in a sense I kind of
in school I didn't really know

407
00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,040
what I wanted to do.
Like in primary school that is

408
00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:25,280
like I was just like I was good
at science and maths so that,

409
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:26,720
you know, I was just good at
them.

410
00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:30,720
I guess just happened to have
that kind of brain and that was,

411
00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:33,480
you know, something that I just
did and always kind of enjoyed.

412
00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:35,520
I enjoyed the problem solving
aspects of it, but I wasn't

413
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:37,520
thinking at that time like, oh,
I'm going to be a scientist.

414
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:40,000
You know, like I always, I
always say these days, like, you

415
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,680
know, I was in high school, I
wasn't thinking about becoming a

416
00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:46,200
scientist because I guess I just
wasn't kind of aware that that

417
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,720
was something you could do.
Like it, it didn't, it didn't

418
00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:50,600
even occur to me that that was a
thing you could do.

419
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:53,040
And I was like good at physics
and maths and good at chemistry

420
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:57,040
and stuff.
And like all of my like peers

421
00:19:57,040 --> 00:19:59,720
who were also good at those
things, the vast majority of

422
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:01,680
them will be like, oh, we're
going to go into Med school,

423
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:03,160
we're going to come doctors or
whatever.

424
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:05,800
And I knew I didn't want to do
that.

425
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:08,120
I, I don't know, I just kind of
like didn't, didn't appeal to me

426
00:20:08,120 --> 00:20:11,200
very much.
And so I was like, OK, I guess

427
00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:13,560
I'll be an engineer because
that's the thing you do if

428
00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:15,680
you're good at physics and, and
maths and stuff.

429
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:18,920
So I like, I went to, to
university to study engineering

430
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:24,240
and I was taking a second major
and I just picked physics

431
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:25,920
basically because I kind of
found it interesting.

432
00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:29,240
And I was studying engineering
all through undergrad And I was

433
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:30,640
like, OK, cool, I'm going to be
an engineer.

434
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,040
And the physics stuff is just
kind of cool and interesting and

435
00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:34,720
it helps the engineering, you
know, you understand the

436
00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:36,360
physics, you understand the
engineering, blah, blah, blah,

437
00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:37,600
blah.
And then it wasn't until like

438
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:40,680
the end of undergrad that I was
doing like an astronomy class

439
00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:43,680
and I learned about the dark
matter problem, like, and the

440
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:45,880
scale of this problem and like
how we know about it and all

441
00:20:45,880 --> 00:20:47,360
this extra matter and blah,
blah, blah.

442
00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:52,440
And I was like, oh, wow, that's
incredibly fascinating.

443
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:55,400
And I don't know how you could
like have a bigger problem and

444
00:20:55,400 --> 00:20:57,960
how more people not aware of it.
And how was I not aware of it?

445
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,560
And like, what, what, what you
know, and, and, and I was sort

446
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:03,200
of like, how could I, it just
kind of grabbed me, just kind of

447
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:04,280
grabbed my brain as like a
problem.

448
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:07,720
And I was like, oh, OK, how can
I do anything else in a sense?

449
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:10,040
So you kind of became very
quickly the feeling.

450
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:14,000
And so I kind of shelved the
engineering at the end of that,

451
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:15,680
like undergrad, it was like, oh,
do you want to go to your

452
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:17,360
masters in engineering?
I'm a professionally qualified

453
00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:19,040
engineer or start grad school in
physics.

454
00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:22,160
I kind of told myself like, oh,
I'll like start grad school and

455
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:25,040
see how I go and maybe I'll go
back and do the engineering

456
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:26,560
eventually.
Engineering, right.

457
00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:27,360
Yeah.
Yeah.

458
00:21:27,360 --> 00:21:29,720
I just never looked back.
Went straight through to the PhD

459
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,640
and then started working as a
physicist on this dark meta

460
00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:33,960
problem.
Yeah.

461
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,600
Just just found the big, the big
mystery aspect of it.

462
00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,200
And the fact that there was like
something that I could actually

463
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:43,760
do to contribute to it, you
know, it was, was fascinating.

464
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:46,560
And like, I don't like, you
know, I don't, I, I always say

465
00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:48,840
like people sort of like, oh,
like this is an area like, you

466
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:50,200
know, a Nobel Prize, blah, blah,
blah.

467
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:52,480
I don't like, I mean, obviously,
like no one's going to be like,

468
00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:53,720
no, I don't want to win a Nobel
Prize.

469
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:55,400
But I was like, that's not,
that's not the motivation for

470
00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:56,520
me.
Like, I don't really like, I

471
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,600
don't need to be the person who
makes the big discovery.

472
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:04,600
I'm really be working on the big
problem.

473
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,960
And I'm like, I'm, I'm, it would
be awesome, obviously, like if

474
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,600
our experiments worked and we
detected dark matter and we

475
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:12,000
made, you know, this massive
discovery.

476
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,920
Like obviously that's like kind
of what I, what I want to

477
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:18,000
happen.
But at the same time, I like see

478
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:22,920
the value in contributing to
solving the problem because it

479
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:25,240
is kind of this process of
elimination like with with dark

480
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:28,480
matter, like with testing
different models and like ruling

481
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:32,680
things out.
So did I lose you?

482
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:34,560
Sorry, did I?
Did I disconnect for a second

483
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:36,400
now?
Yeah.

484
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,200
You're good.
OK, Yeah.

485
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:41,600
It's like we're we're we're
testing different problems and

486
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,160
kind of testing different ideas
and kind of ruling things out.

487
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:47,040
And like if you do your
experiment well and you rule out

488
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:50,400
a certain concept of dark
matter, it means that someone

489
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:51,480
else doesn't have to do that
later.

490
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:54,360
And so you've kind of narrowed
down the space.

491
00:22:54,360 --> 00:22:57,880
You know, it's like famous, like
Isaac Newton quote, we've seen

492
00:22:57,880 --> 00:22:59,400
further than others.
It's because I'm stood on the

493
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:01,520
shoulders of giants is an
appreciation of the fact that

494
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,040
that's how science works.
You know, like the the number

495
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:07,280
that there are, there are many,
many, many more unsuccessful

496
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:09,560
experiments and ideas than there
are successful ones.

497
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:12,280
And you have to have all of the
unsuccessful ones to have the

498
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,320
successful 1.
So, you know, someone

499
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,400
ultimately, maybe me, maybe
someone 10 years from now, maybe

500
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,240
you know, will will be the one
that stumbles upon the answer.

501
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:24,080
And that will be because of all
of the work you did before of

502
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:26,800
narrowing down possibilities.
I love that there's a great,

503
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:29,080
there's a great quote.
It's not up to you to finish the

504
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:32,520
job, but that doesn't mean
you're not doesn't it doesn't

505
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:34,560
deprive you from the
responsibility of contributing.

506
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:38,080
Yeah.
You got to be the one to crack

507
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:39,760
it.
But if everyone ignores it and

508
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:41,600
everyone has that attitude of
it, I'm not going to crack it.

509
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:43,760
I'm not going to do it, then
then it's never going to get

510
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:46,040
done, you know?
And so that's that general

511
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:47,480
attitude.
I think that leads to progress.

512
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:49,960
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's especially true in

513
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:52,720
science.
I think it's, it's, yeah, it's

514
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:54,640
people like often say we're
talking about like the dark

515
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:55,920
matter thing.
They're like, oh, like how do

516
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:57,280
you feel?
Like, you know, you might spend

517
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,640
your entire year working on this
problem and never discovered the

518
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:00,680
thing.
And I'm kind of like, well,

519
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,000
yeah, maybe.
But it's exactly like you just

520
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,440
said, like that's, that's,
that's more often the case than

521
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:08,000
not.
And if we all feel that way,

522
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,320
then no big problems would ever
get solved.

523
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,840
You know you need to to be to be
willing to to do the best you

524
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:16,760
can, chipping away at it and
contributing to the eventual

525
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,120
discoveries.
So can you walk me through the

526
00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:22,640
research process?
Do you find fear?

527
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:26,400
You know, I guess you do find
papers or theoretical works and

528
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,160
then try to bring them to life
in your in a, in a lab.

529
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:30,680
Is is that the way that you go
about it?

530
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,000
And yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

531
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,080
So, so broadly speaking, there's
different like like like I

532
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:37,680
mentioned, like there's
different ideas about like what

533
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:38,640
the dark matter might be made
of.

534
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,560
So we can talk a bit more about
the the the ideas there.

535
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:45,080
So like historically speaking,
so OK, maybe I'll create history

536
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,760
a little bit.
So dark matter as a problem has

537
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,360
been, I'm going to say it's
roughly 100 years old.

538
00:24:52,360 --> 00:24:55,560
The the origins of it,
specifically in terms of who the

539
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:57,400
first person was who proposed
it.

540
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:01,200
People come up in different
answers to that question because

541
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,160
it depends whether you're like
including someone who made like

542
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,440
the vague idea that all maybe
there's some invisible stuff as

543
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,640
opposed to someone making a
concrete idea that's like, oh,

544
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,880
the extra matter is needed to
create this effect in space,

545
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,360
blah, blah blah.
About 100 years ago, different

546
00:25:14,360 --> 00:25:18,160
astronomers were looking at
different stuff in space and

547
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,760
they were looking at the way
that it moved around and there

548
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:26,000
started to be evidence for the
presence of extra stuff that we

549
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,120
can't see.
So you would look at like the

550
00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:35,280
way a Galaxy was moving and in
space, the, the main force that

551
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,160
that pulls things around is
gravity.

552
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,960
And you can look at something
and kind of by looking at like

553
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,720
the number of stars and, you
know, gas and dust and all the

554
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:47,840
stuff you can see, you can like
estimate roughly how much mass

555
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,560
there is, which means you should
be able to estimate how much

556
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:52,600
gravity there is.
And so you should be able to

557
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,640
estimate how stuff should move.
And like what people started to

558
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,320
see is like, oh, when we look at
these like galaxies and we count

559
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:03,080
up all the bits of matter we can
see, the way stuff is moving

560
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,160
cannot be accounted for if all
the gravity is only coming from

561
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,280
the stuff we can see.
There has to be some extra

562
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:11,000
stuff, some extra invisible
stuff that isn't giving off

563
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:12,720
light so telescopes can't see
it.

564
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,480
That's providing extra mass,
that provides extra gravity that

565
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,600
holds stuff together.
And this idea was kind of like

566
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:22,480
floating around for a while and
then it started to gain like

567
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,640
really good scientific traction
in the 1960s, Nineteen 70s.

568
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,400
Particular work of these
astronomers, Vera Rubin and Ken

569
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:34,520
Ford and others, measuring what
were called the rotation curves

570
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,400
of galaxies.
So you look at like a spiral

571
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,360
Galaxy, like the Milky Way, like
our own Galaxy, and it's like

572
00:26:40,360 --> 00:26:42,920
kind of a spinning disk.
So there's like a big, heavy

573
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:45,280
thing in the center.
And then there's these spiral

574
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:47,360
arms of matter that are just
kind of like rotating around

575
00:26:47,360 --> 00:26:49,680
them.
And if you use a telescope, you

576
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,920
can look at a Galaxy like that
and you can measure how fast all

577
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:54,720
the different parts of the
Galaxy are rotating.

578
00:26:55,120 --> 00:26:57,680
So you can say, like, OK, how
fast is the part near the center

579
00:26:57,680 --> 00:26:59,560
spinning as opposed to the part
in the middle, as opposed to the

580
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,120
part on the edge?
Then if you just looked at a

581
00:27:02,120 --> 00:27:04,840
Galaxy with the telescope and
counted all the stuff you could

582
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,560
see, you would say, OK, most of
the stuff I can see is near the

583
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,200
middle of the Galaxy, there's a
big bulge of matter, and then it

584
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,160
gets wispier and wispier to the
outside, which means that in

585
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,720
near the middle there, gravity
should be really strong.

586
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,360
And then as you get to the
outside gravity, the pull

587
00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:20,400
towards the center should be
weaker because you're further

588
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:21,680
away.
There's less matter.

589
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,120
And so.
Sorry, was that a question?

590
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:25,880
Yeah.
Question I wanted to ask on

591
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:27,040
that.
So that means that that that

592
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:30,800
means that there's something
very heavy typically in the

593
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:34,960
center of these galaxies, that
is, yeah, putting everything

594
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,920
towards it, right.
Yeah, so that's right at the

595
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:39,760
center of galaxies, there's
what's called a supermassive

596
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,280
black hole usually, which is a
giant, giant dense core of the

597
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:45,200
Galaxy.
And then also there's just

598
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:47,040
because of, I mean, it's the
nature of a spiral.

599
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,160
Like the arms get closer
together near the center.

600
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,880
There's just more stuff there,
like more of the the stars and

601
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:53,520
the gas and the dust.
Like if you just look at a

602
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,360
Galaxy, most of the stuff is
near the middle and it gets more

603
00:27:56,360 --> 00:27:58,840
and more sparse as as the arms
go further out.

604
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:02,000
So the gravity should be strong
near the middle and it should be

605
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,040
weak on the outside, which means
that the stuff should be

606
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:06,800
spinning around really fast near
the middle.

607
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,080
And it should be spinning around
a lot more slowly around the

608
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,120
outside.
Because it's like if you've ever

609
00:28:11,120 --> 00:28:13,840
had a ball on a string and like
you spin it around, you know,

610
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:16,640
like you can only spin it so
fast before the string breaks

611
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,720
and the ball flies away.
In this context, like gravity is

612
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:21,440
the string.
So like the stronger gravity

613
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,400
near the middle means that the
ball should be able to spin

614
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,920
around really quickly.
And the weaker gravity near the

615
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,560
outside of the Galaxy means that
it should only be able to go

616
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,680
like much more slowly without
being like flung off into space,

617
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:33,480
right?
And so that's, that's like,

618
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,920
that's what we expect galaxies
to behave like just by looking

619
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:38,960
at them.
But then it turns out that when

620
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,640
you actually measure the
velocities of the stuff in the

621
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:46,200
Galaxy, the parts near the
outside are not spinning really

622
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:47,640
slowly compared to the parts in
the middle.

623
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,480
In fact, they're spinning just
about as fast or faster than the

624
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:52,800
stuff near the middle.
So they're moving like really

625
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,840
quickly around the outside of
the Galaxy, even though we can't

626
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,280
see like what it is those
speeds.

627
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,680
Well, but those speeds, like if
all the gravity was coming from

628
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:03,480
just the stuff we can see in the
middle, the Galaxy should be

629
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,120
like flying off into space.
There shouldn't be enough

630
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,320
gravity to keep it bound to the
to the center of the Galaxy.

631
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,880
So there has to be some extra
stuff, some invisible matter in

632
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,960
the Galaxy that is holding it
together, providing extra

633
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,560
gravity and like pulling in on
the outer parts of the galaxies

634
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,360
to allow them to like spin that
quickly without like completely

635
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:23,480
breaking apart.
So that's essentially like the

636
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:24,920
first good bit of evidence for
the problem.

637
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,240
There's all this dark matter.
It's providing extra gravity.

638
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,880
It's holding galaxies together.
And then people go, OK, So what

639
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:31,320
is it?
OK, what's it, What's it made

640
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:34,840
of?
And there were historically a

641
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:37,920
very popular hypothesis was this
particle called a weakly

642
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,160
interacting massive particle or
a WIMP.

643
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,200
Because, yeah, silly acronyms
are very important in physics.

644
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,680
People like to come up with,
with fun, fun names for things.

645
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,680
And these particles are
essentially like they do what

646
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,000
they say on the tin.
They are massive, which is to

647
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,640
say they have mass and they
interact very weakly with the

648
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:58,320
regular matter.
And they are just all around us.

649
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:00,440
And they're, they're passing
through us because we're sitting

650
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,520
in a big soup of dark matter.
And occasionally one of them

651
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:06,880
might like bump into one of the
atoms in our body or one of the

652
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:09,320
atoms in an experiment we make
and give it a little bit of

653
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,320
energy.
And this was like the favored

654
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,600
hypothesis for dark matter for
probably, I don't know, 40 years

655
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,000
or so that it was made of these
things, these, these weakly

656
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,480
interacting massive particles.
And there were reasons for that

657
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,920
that I could go into or probably
what in terms of why that was

658
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,160
the most popular model, it was
to do with some deep theory

659
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:29,240
stuff.
So I guess this comes back to

660
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:31,680
your question, like how do
people decide on how to do

661
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:33,360
experiments?
Maybe it is actually instructive

662
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:37,000
to talk about the the.
I would love, I would love to

663
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:38,600
hear.
I'm fascinated doing a great job

664
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:40,400
explaining this.
Sure, thank you.

665
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,040
So we had this big problem with
the dark matter and people were

666
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,760
like, oh, what's it made of?
And then at the same time, like

667
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,160
a different group of physicists.
And so I guess this is sort of

668
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:51,840
similar to what we're talking
about before with this kind of

669
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,640
like so many different streams
of stuff we need to know about.

670
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,560
Like you have the astronomers
who were going like, whoa,

671
00:30:57,560 --> 00:30:59,760
there's all this extra matter or
there has to be all this extra

672
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:01,520
matter to account for the way
the galaxies move.

673
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:04,960
And at the same time, like
particle physicists and, and,

674
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:07,920
and quantum theorists and people
were starting to try and build

675
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,520
different like models that
explain the whole universe, like

676
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:11,960
the grand unified theories and
stuff.

677
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:13,320
So sort of like unrelated
physics.

678
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,240
And there was this really,
really popular kind of family of

679
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,120
new models to explain the
universe that was called super

680
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:24,520
symmetry, which is the name for
just like a class of, of, of

681
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,520
models and physics that that try
to account for all of the like,

682
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,400
essentially trying to come up
with like one big grand unified

683
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,720
equation or theory that explains
the whole universe.

684
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:35,720
And like one of the popular
candidates for this was called

685
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:39,520
super symmetry.
And one of the consequences of

686
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,400
supersymmetry, like if it was
real, was it predicted all of

687
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,680
these new particles.
And one of the particles that it

688
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,120
predicted was this thing called
a called a neutral, you know,

689
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,920
don't worry about it.
But when people looked at like

690
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:53,840
the properties that they
expected that new particle to

691
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:56,200
have, they like matched exactly
with the properties of dark

692
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:57,760
matter, which is to say they had
mass.

693
00:31:58,000 --> 00:31:59,520
They would be wary with the
interacting.

694
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,040
And they would be expected to be
produced in the like, early

695
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,680
universe in about the right
amount to account for all the

696
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:07,240
dark matter.
And so everyone was like, OK,

697
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,600
great, we've solved it.
Like this is it, the neutralino

698
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,680
is going to be the dark matter.
It's also going to prove

699
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,280
supersymmetry is real.
And we're going to solve all of

700
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,680
this in like 1-1 fell swoop.
You know, we're gonna we're

701
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,080
gonna find this particle that's
going to prove our ground

702
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:22,080
unified theories, right?
It's also going to explain the

703
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,400
dark matter.
It was just too beautiful.

704
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:26,320
Like what was it too?
Sorry.

705
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:27,760
When was that?
When did it?

706
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,520
Was that discovered?
Mid 20th century this this would

707
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:35,440
have been so like, yeah,
sixties, 70s, around that time,

708
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:39,040
probably maybe a little earlier,
mid 20th century would have been

709
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,080
the prediction of this particle.
And everyone was like, so

710
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:46,160
convinced that this was like
going to be it and build a bunch

711
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,560
of experiments to try and detect
this particle and prove that it

712
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:52,440
was real.
And yeah, it just kind of didn't

713
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:56,040
find it.
So sorry.

714
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,880
In what sense?
Well, we, we build different

715
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,960
experiments to try and and find
these particles passing through

716
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:04,040
US.
And like generation after

717
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,040
generation of these experiments
has not seen this particle,

718
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,440
they've not detected it.
And it's starting to call into

719
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,680
question the idea of whether
this theory is right, just

720
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,320
because this theory is so
beautiful that it predicts the

721
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:18,840
existence of this particle that
explains all these problems.

722
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,440
And you know, that doesn't mean
it's a bad theory.

723
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,240
I guess this kind of gets back
to like what we were talking

724
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,040
about before.
Well, like, say that it's a it's

725
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:29,280
a good, it's a good idea.
It like it all, you know,

726
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,280
there's no, it's very self
consistent.

727
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:33,520
It solves a lot of problems.
It all hangs together nicely on

728
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,320
paper.
It just sort of starts to look

729
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:38,240
like that's maybe not the way
the universe works.

730
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,400
Like the universe doesn't have
to work a certain way just

731
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,720
because it looks nice on paper.
Like just because you can write

732
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,240
down these really gorgeous
theories of super symmetry that

733
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:48,120
you know, are mathematically
beautiful and perfect and

734
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:49,280
elegant and solve all that
problem.

735
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:51,760
The universe doesn't have to
care about that.

736
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:53,160
Like it can just work a
different way.

737
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:54,920
You can just think.
It is not that particle can just

738
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,320
turn out to not exist.
And I don't, I want to be clear

739
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:58,440
in case there are any other
particles.

740
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,040
This is listening to this.
I'm, I'm not saying that that

741
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,120
winds are completely dead.
I'm not saying that sort of

742
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,680
symmetry is dead or anything.
I'm talking in very broad terms.

743
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,639
I think it would be fair to say
about very broad shifts.

744
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,280
There are people, very serious
people who are still, you know,

745
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,639
believe that we're going to find
these particles, that these

746
00:34:15,639 --> 00:34:17,960
experiments are still ongoing.
They're certainly not ruled out

747
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,719
by any, by any nature that it's
still possible that these

748
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:22,760
particles exist.
I'm simply saying this was the

749
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,280
historically most popular
candidate because it accounted

750
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,120
for these beautiful theoretical
models.

751
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:28,560
And it also was going to explain
the dark matter.

752
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:29,639
And I built all these
experiments.

753
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,719
And over time, as the evidence
for that particle has started to

754
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:37,360
look a little bit shakier, other
kind of ultimate dark battle

755
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:41,600
models and hypotheses have
started to become more more

756
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,880
prevalent in the field.
And that is kind of where my

757
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,840
work comes in because whilst
winds have sort of been like,

758
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,600
yeah, the historic juggernaut in
the the search for dark matter

759
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,679
around, I'm going to say, I
guess it's really like the ideas

760
00:34:55,679 --> 00:34:58,400
about these particles began in
like the late 20th century, like

761
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:02,200
70s, eighties, 90s.
They really started to become

762
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,440
like a big force in definitely
the 21st century.

763
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,240
And it's it's searches for this
different particle called the

764
00:35:08,240 --> 00:35:10,800
axion, which is a different kind
of dark Meadow.

765
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:13,280
Great.
Real quickly before we dive into

766
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,600
that, I just want to confirm
that I understand correctly.

767
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:20,960
Is the is the issue with the
WIMP particle and the

768
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,240
neutralino?
Yeah.

769
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:29,760
Is the issue that we can't
measure it and so we're saying

770
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:31,720
it can't be it because we
haven't measured, because you

771
00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:33,160
haven't found an accurate way to
measure it.

772
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:34,080
Is that?
Is that what the problem

773
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,360
ultimately is?
It's some two things.

774
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,120
So I mentioned before that like
the WIMP particle was motivated

775
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,600
by these like grand unified
theories called supersymmetry.

776
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:45,560
And for a long time, particle
physicists were very excited

777
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,360
about supersymmetry and, and
many still are.

778
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,040
And you've probably heard of the
Large Hadron Collider, like the

779
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,440
big particle accelerator that is
the like, maybe, maybe not.

780
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,920
OK, maybe this is one of my OK,
I need to, I need to get out of

781
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,400
my head problems.
Yeah, sorry.

782
00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:01,480
I said I'm a real novice, but
yeah.

783
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,800
Yeah, sure, sure.
Well, yeah, the the Large Hadron

784
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,240
Collider is this giant particle
accelerator that is underneath

785
00:36:08,240 --> 00:36:09,520
like several countries in
Europe.

786
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:11,960
It's like the biggest physics
experiment that's ever been

787
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,080
built.
It's like many, many kilometers

788
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,920
of, of particle acceleration
with like super strong magnets

789
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,240
that drive the particles around
and smash them together.

790
00:36:21,240 --> 00:36:22,360
And like, look at what comes
out.

791
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,640
And it's, it's, it's part of a
like grand tradition of what's

792
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,600
called like Collider physics,
which is how we like discover

793
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,880
stuff about like the very, very
small particles in the universe.

794
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:35,560
Like we smash atoms together, we
see what falls out and we go,

795
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:37,960
OK, the atoms made-up of protons
and neutrons and most protons

796
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:39,600
and neutrons are made-up of
quarks and blah, blah, blah.

797
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,440
And that's, that's like the
history of particle physics.

798
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,520
And the, the Large Hadron
Collider is this massive,

799
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:51,040
massive thing that was built,
you know, to, to do lots of new

800
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:52,520
physics.
But one of the things that

801
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:55,000
people were really excited about
was it was going to find all of

802
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:58,760
this evidence of supersymmetry,
not just the neutralino, the web

803
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:00,520
stuff matter, but like all of
these other predictions of

804
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,240
supersymmetry.
And so we built this big

805
00:37:02,240 --> 00:37:04,840
Collider and we did all of these
like precise experiments and we

806
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:06,760
discovered all kinds of like
incredible things, like new

807
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,400
particles, figured out all this
other amazing stuff about

808
00:37:09,400 --> 00:37:12,240
particle physics and no evidence
of supersymmetry.

809
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,160
And so it was kind of like, so
the, the theoretical grounding

810
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,040
for the existence of this
particle, whilst it's not dead,

811
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,000
it's fair to say it's looking a
little shakier.

812
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,360
And you know, many physicists
will tell you, oh, we just like

813
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,840
if we have a, a more powerful
Collider, if we can access

814
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:28,960
higher energy scales, then we'll
eventually find the

815
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:31,080
supersymmetry.
So yeah, like I said, by no

816
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:36,960
means dead, certainly shakier as
a, as a theoretical motivation

817
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,440
for the existence of a particle.
And then at the same time, all

818
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:41,640
of the dark matter experiments
that have been looking for the

819
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:43,920
web dark matter for decades have
not seen it.

820
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,680
So like whilst when you're
looking for like an unknown

821
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,360
unknown, you can't ever say it's
like completely ruled out,

822
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:50,640
right?
Because you can always just say,

823
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:52,800
oh, it exists in a different
vast range or a different energy

824
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,400
scale, or it's more weakly
coupled is I think personally,

825
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,760
I'm willing to stand on this
fair to say that it is at least

826
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:05,280
worth considering the fact that
these particles may not exist

827
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:06,960
and that there are other
candidates that we should be

828
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,800
looking for.
You know that's that's not to

829
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:12,560
say sorry.
It's a very polite way.

830
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:15,480
Of saying it too, you know,
because it's just an idea, you

831
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:16,840
know, You're not insisting on
anything.

832
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,680
Yeah, that, that's right.
Like I certainly and like, yeah,

833
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,640
to be clear, like there's,
there's generations of these web

834
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:24,960
experiments that are still being
built that I think should be

835
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:27,840
built because the hypothesis is
by no means completely ruled

836
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,760
out.
And we have a lot of a lot of

837
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,600
expertise at building these
things now and a lot of very

838
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,720
capable scientists who can, you
know, it's kind of like a

839
00:38:34,720 --> 00:38:37,000
marginal, like it's like the the
field is already built.

840
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,480
So building the next generation
detector is like a marginal cost

841
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,800
compared to spinning up an
entire new field.

842
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,120
So I think that is very much
worth continuing to pursue as an

843
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,760
area, at least for the moment.
But I also think it is fair to

844
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,520
say that both the theoretical
groundings of the things and the

845
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,840
experimental searches have meant
that it makes sense to consider

846
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:55,160
alternate candidates more
seriously.

847
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,200
And that is, that is kind of
where my work comes in, which

848
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,440
is, yeah, like I said, this,
this newer kid on the block as

849
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:04,040
it comes to, you know, dark
matter, it's called the Axion,

850
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:05,880
which is it's sort of a similar
story.

851
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,200
It, it falls out of a different
area of particle physics,

852
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,160
There's this other problem.
So I mentioned like, oh, super

853
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,480
symmetry is the motivation for
this particle slightly different

854
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:14,920
thing.
There's this big problem in

855
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,240
particle physics that I honestly
will not go into because it's,

856
00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:20,040
it's very, you know, people can
Google if they're interested.

857
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:21,480
It's called the strong CP
problem.

858
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:28,000
Suffice to say, it is a very
glaring hole in an otherwise

859
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,720
incredibly precise theory.
So like we have this really,

860
00:39:30,720 --> 00:39:33,160
really nice mathematical theory
called quantum chromo dynamics

861
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,400
that explains things about the
way particles behave on very

862
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:37,320
small scales.
And it's really precise.

863
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,600
Like it's able to predict
things, interactions and

864
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,920
particle gliders really, really,
really well, except for the fact

865
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:43,280
that it has this one gaping hole
in it.

866
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:44,960
And whenever you've got
something like that, it's like,

867
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,080
oh, that's really interesting
because this theory is clearly

868
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:49,880
not completely bad.
It's really good.

869
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:53,520
It's just predicting like one
thing that we just equivocate

870
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,560
like unequivocally do not see.
And so like, what, what's what's

871
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:58,000
going on there?
Like what's wrong with this

872
00:39:58,000 --> 00:39:59,880
theory?
You know, what's the patch we

873
00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:01,240
need to put on it?
What's the change we need to

874
00:40:01,240 --> 00:40:04,600
make?
And in the 1970s, these

875
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,560
physicists proposed that you can
solve this problem by

876
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:09,560
introducing this new particle
called the axion.

877
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:11,880
And it's introduced and it has
these certain properties that

878
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,000
interact with that physics in
such a way that it removes that

879
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,120
problem.
And then shortly thereafter.

880
00:40:16,720 --> 00:40:19,120
A bunch of other physicists,
sort of similar story to the

881
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,040
WIMP, looked at this prediction
of this new particle, the axion,

882
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:24,880
and said, oh, it also has the
exact properties we need of dark

883
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:26,520
matter.
And it can also be produced in

884
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,760
the early universe in such a way
that it can account for all of

885
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:30,880
the dark matter that's all
around us.

886
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,800
So that makes it a compelling
dark matter candidate.

887
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,720
This it's, it's, it's, it's very
plausible that the dark matter

888
00:40:37,720 --> 00:40:38,920
could be made of these
particles.

889
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:40,760
They're motivated by this other
problem.

890
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,600
They can account for the dark
matter.

891
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,960
So we should look for them.
And so that is the kinds of

892
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,640
experiments that I do is
searching for this particular

893
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:50,160
type of dark matter called the
axion.

894
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,080
Now, when you're searching for
dark matter, it doesn't matter

895
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:54,800
what model it is.
And also to be clear, there's

896
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:56,880
like dozens of other candidates
as well.

897
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,440
These are, I think it's probably
fair to say, just kind of the

898
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,360
two biggest ones, the Wimp and
the Axion.

899
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:06,360
The, the, when you're searching
for them, regardless of what

900
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,880
you're searching for, you've
still got a like, it's not like,

901
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:10,320
oh, I'll build an experiment for
this particle.

902
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:11,960
I'll build an experiment for
this particle.

903
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:13,800
There's one type of experiment
to search for that particle

904
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,160
because the properties of these
things exist in what are called

905
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:19,880
parameter spaces.
So like part of the issue is we

906
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:21,800
don't know the mass of either of
these particles.

907
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,480
So like we don't know if say
dark matter is axions, whether

908
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:28,480
it's made of a smaller number of
very heavy axions or a much

909
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,040
larger number of very light
axions.

910
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:33,400
We know roughly how many total
mass there is like in a given

911
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:35,120
volume.
We just don't know what's making

912
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:37,480
that up.
And then we also don't know how

913
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,640
strongly interacting they are.
So if you imagine like a 2 axis

914
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,160
parameter space, like on the X
axis you would have the mass of

915
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,800
the particle and on the Y axis
you would have like how strongly

916
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:48,320
it interacts with the regular
matter.

917
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:52,080
And the particle can be like
anywhere in that space.

918
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,800
And so when you when you do an
experiment, you are only

919
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:59,320
sensitive to like a small subset
of that space at any given time.

920
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:01,680
You can only make your
experiment to search for axions

921
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:03,880
in a given mass range in a given
sensitivity range.

922
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:06,640
And so that's essentially the
name of the game.

923
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:08,840
It's building different
experiments that probe different

924
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,480
regions of the parameter space
and either say, OK, upgrade,

925
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,920
we've detected dark out of here.
Or as has been the case with

926
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:16,640
every experiment to date, no, we
didn't.

927
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,240
And we can rule out a chunk of
this parameter space and we can

928
00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:22,120
say like, OK, cool, we searched
here, we didn't see it, so that

929
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,160
bit's ruled out and now we can
move on to the next bit.

930
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,480
Or we can try and make the thing
more sensitive to try and push

931
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,680
lower and lower on the Y axis.
I see.

932
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:31,680
OK, think I think I got that
all.

933
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:37,560
I think, I think I got that all
hang on.

934
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:43,280
I'm trying to think of that the
best way to process and to to

935
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,600
respond.
So how do you, So what are you

936
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,360
observing?
What are you taking, and how are

937
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,480
you observing it, and how?
And what's the process like for

938
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,800
actually filtering out whether
or not you're finding this dark

939
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:54,720
matter or not?
Good, good question.

940
00:42:54,720 --> 00:42:57,080
So it depends on on what you
believe it is.

941
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,080
But going forward, I'm just
going to talk about axioms,

942
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:00,160
because that's the kind of thing
I do.

943
00:43:00,720 --> 00:43:04,280
Sure, with Axion, dark matter
searches, one of the things

944
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,840
that's nice about axions as a
candidate is they are predicted

945
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:11,520
to have an interaction with
photons, which are particles of

946
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:14,640
light.
And the thing that as a species

947
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:16,960
we are the best at detecting.
We're really good at observing

948
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:18,480
photons.
Our eyes do it really well.

949
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,680
We build telescopes, we build
other kinds of sensors that are

950
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,560
really, really good at detecting
small amounts of light, which

951
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:26,400
makes them experimentally
attractive as a candidate

952
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,640
because you have a mechanism by
which you can take this

953
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,480
invisible stuff, dark matter,
and convert it into a little

954
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:33,720
flash of light, something we can
see a really, really good at

955
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,640
observing.
And we do that with experiments

956
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:40,840
that are called Axion
haloscopes, which actually were

957
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,280
proposed by a guy who was at the
University of Florida.

958
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:45,600
His name is PS Akivi.
He's a great physicist.

959
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:52,400
And yeah, sorry, Pierre Sikivi
PIERESIKIV i.e.

960
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,520
Yeah.
Anyway, very, very good, good

961
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,640
physicist there at UF.
Anyway, he proposed this type of

962
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:05,800
experiment where you can convert
axons into photons in inside a

963
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,360
special kind of chamber.
And so the way you do that is

964
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,240
you apply a strong magnetic
field.

965
00:44:10,240 --> 00:44:13,880
So like a really, really strong
magnet, like stronger than the

966
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:15,960
kind of magnet that you might
use in a scrap yard to pick up a

967
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,120
car, kind of stronger than an
MRI magnet.

968
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,280
And if there are axions inside
passing through some amount of

969
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,000
them will interact with that
magnet and convert into one of

970
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:26,720
these little photons, these
little flashes of light.

971
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,760
And then the game, the game
becomes detecting those photons.

972
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,320
And then it's about how you do
it.

973
00:44:31,720 --> 00:44:34,360
And the thing that makes it hard
is what lots of things make it

974
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:35,480
hard.
The two things that make it

975
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:40,120
hardest are because the so the
the frequency of that photon or

976
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,640
like the color of the light if
you will, depends on the axion

977
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:45,640
mass which is not a quantity
that we know.

978
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:50,280
So we don't know what frequency
that light is going to be and

979
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,440
the size of the signal like
whilst we don't know how

980
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,320
strongly it couples.
So like how many of those

981
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:56,480
photons are going to convert per
second.

982
00:44:56,520 --> 00:44:59,040
What we do know is that it is a
very small number.

983
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,880
So like even in the kind of best
case scenarios, it's going to be

984
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,160
a very, very small signal of
light.

985
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,440
So we're looking for tiny little
flashes of light of an unknown

986
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,480
frequency, which is a really
difficult experimental challenge

987
00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:15,040
because you can only build a
light detector to be sensitive

988
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:17,240
to some bandwidth of frequencies
at any given time.

989
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:22,240
But you are getting maybe?
Am I understanding this

990
00:45:22,240 --> 00:45:24,440
correctly?
So you're basically causing a

991
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,120
reaction that is measurable,
right?

992
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:31,880
Meaning that the, the, the
magnetic force allows the axiom

993
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:36,680
to I guess collides or whatever
it is interacts with axiom in

994
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,360
the sense that causes it to turn
to light.

995
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:41,280
And you could capture that,
right?

996
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,520
And you could actually.
That's exactly right.

997
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:45,040
That's the that's the goal of
these experiments.

998
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,800
And the challenge is that you
don't know how much light it's

999
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:52,480
giving off, or what the
percentage of light to its mass

1000
00:45:52,720 --> 00:45:56,800
it creates in the process.
Yeah, we don't know how much of

1001
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:58,400
it it's producing that.
That would be like the

1002
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,600
probability of interaction.
The other thing we don't know is

1003
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:05,400
the the like, if you've like, if
you use a radio, right and like

1004
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,160
you tune the radio through
different frequencies, like it's

1005
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:09,640
like looking for like a radio
station.

1006
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:11,640
We don't know the radio station.
Like we have to tune our

1007
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:13,960
detector because we don't know
the frequency of the light

1008
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,880
that's coming out.
So it's actually very similar to

1009
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,280
to a radio station because a
radio station is a thing that is

1010
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,600
picking up radio frequency
light, a radio tune.

1011
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:24,800
It's so it's actually quite
similar, like we're tuning,

1012
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,480
we're tuning a radio detector to
look for light of an unknown

1013
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,960
frequency and an unknown signal
strength as well, which makes it

1014
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:34,760
challenging because, yeah, like
much like your car's radio

1015
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,600
receiver, it needs to be tuned
because it is only sensitive to

1016
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,760
some small bandwidth, the
frequencies at any given time.

1017
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:42,400
The same is true for our
receivers that we use in the

1018
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,320
Axion experiments.
We can only be sensitive to some

1019
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,120
bandwidth of frequency.
So we have to tune the thing

1020
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:48,080
around and that's just
experimentally quite

1021
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:51,360
challenging.
It turns out tuning the location

1022
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,560
in frequency space the key
detector is sensitive to.

1023
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:55,560
And then of course there's just
the fact that the signals are

1024
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,240
incredibly weak, which means
that you are always looking for

1025
00:46:59,240 --> 00:47:01,040
something small buried in a huge
amount of noise.

1026
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,640
So that's that's the
experimental challenge is to

1027
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,920
bring the noise level down and
to increase your ability to do

1028
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,640
like statistical data processing
to pull small signals out of

1029
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,800
noise.
I gotcha.

1030
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:14,720
I can't believe I got, but I got
you.

1031
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:18,040
Great, glad to hear it.
Hey, that's a real that's a real

1032
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,280
testament to your ability to
explain this stuff because you

1033
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:23,040
did it.
That was that was that was a

1034
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:24,520
trip.
And I'm happy I was able to hang

1035
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:25,200
on for the ride.
I'm.

1036
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:29,240
Glad.
So, but it's got to be

1037
00:47:29,240 --> 00:47:33,600
incredibly encouraging to know
that you are getting like you're

1038
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:35,560
getting a reaction, you're
getting something tangible that

1039
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:40,960
you can that you can measure.
When was the first time that

1040
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,160
this was measured, and how long
has it been since we're trying

1041
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,440
to accurately measure it?
So this, this is the thing so

1042
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:49,320
much like with like with the
with the Wimps, what I'm

1043
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,320
describing is the mechanism by
which this interaction is

1044
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,440
proposed to occur.
We have not actually yet

1045
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,000
detected this particle.
That's the thing we're doing

1046
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,480
searches for this.
So when we run an experiment,

1047
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,800
because light is everywhere, you
detect stuff all the time.

1048
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,800
And then the question becomes
like, is that an axion?

1049
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,440
Have we definitively proven that
this thing exists, right.

1050
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,240
So this, this is this is the the
great mystery of dark matter.

1051
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,040
We've known about this stuff for
about 100 years.

1052
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:17,280
We've done a lot of very precise
experiments and we have never

1053
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:21,000
like categorically detected it
directly here on Earth.

1054
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:25,640
It may be that we just can't, It
may be that we are wrong about

1055
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:28,000
what it's made of.
It's not made of limbs, it's not

1056
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,240
made of axions, and it just
doesn't interact with the type

1057
00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:32,520
of stuff we can make detectors
out of.

1058
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:34,600
There's no reason that can't be
the case.

1059
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,320
All we can do.
I was going to say the

1060
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:38,160
beginning.
I was going to say the

1061
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:39,520
beginning.
Well, you just think that our

1062
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:42,840
method of measuring things, you
know, could capture, you know?

1063
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,480
Yeah, there's there's no reason
to to well, OK, I'm not going to

1064
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,600
say there's no reason to believe
that, but it's not, it's not

1065
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:53,120
impossible that.
Yeah, we just can't, right.

1066
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:55,200
Like so.
So when we talk about physics,

1067
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,960
we talk about the particles in
the universe interacting through

1068
00:48:59,960 --> 00:49:02,880
what we call the four
fundamental interactions.

1069
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:07,440
And this, this is just a list of
stuff that particles in the

1070
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,720
universe are allowed to do.
It's really, it's quite, it's

1071
00:49:10,720 --> 00:49:14,520
quite descriptive.
We don't in some ways have like

1072
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:17,960
a deep, deep why knowledge of
why these things exist.

1073
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,640
We just kind of have observed
and we can very precisely

1074
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,240
mathematically describe these
four different kinds of

1075
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:26,960
interactions.
So the four things that as far

1076
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:28,200
as we know, it's possible there
are more.

1077
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,760
The four things we know about
now, that stuff is allowed to do

1078
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:33,440
in the universe, gravity, that's
one of them.

1079
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:36,720
So that is stuff that has mass,
attracts other stuff that has

1080
00:49:36,720 --> 00:49:38,240
mass.
Anything that has mass, even

1081
00:49:38,240 --> 00:49:40,800
something very light, something
very heavy, they pull on each

1082
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,760
other gravitationally.
Another one, electromagnetism.

1083
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,400
This is the main force that you
actually feel in your day-to-day

1084
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:47,880
life.
If you push down on the table in

1085
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,120
front of you or sit on the chair
you're sitting on, the reason

1086
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:52,120
your hand doesn't go through the
table and the reason you don't

1087
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:54,840
fall through the chair is
because the particles in you and

1088
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,800
the particles in the surface are
repelling each other using

1089
00:49:57,800 --> 00:50:00,360
electromagnetism.
It's also the force that makes,

1090
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,480
you know, magnets stick to
fridges and like static

1091
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,760
electricity, that interaction
is, is is a really dominant and

1092
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:07,920
important one.
Then there's these two other

1093
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,600
ones that are called the strong
and weak nuclear interactions,

1094
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:14,280
which only occur on very, very
small scales inside atoms and

1095
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:16,720
inside subatomic particles that
are to do with the way that

1096
00:50:16,720 --> 00:50:20,840
those but are bound together and
the way that they decay apart.

1097
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,640
So those are the four things
that we know stuff is allowed to

1098
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:26,240
do.
As far as dark matter is

1099
00:50:26,240 --> 00:50:29,400
concerned, we know it must
experience gravity because

1100
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,080
that's the only way we see it.
We see it pulling on stuff in

1101
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:33,960
space, right?
We see the presence of extra

1102
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:37,200
mass, so it must have gravity.
We know it must not experience

1103
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:39,840
electromagnetism because it's
passing right through us all the

1104
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:41,320
time.
It passes through itself.

1105
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:44,120
We can observe like large
clusters that contain both

1106
00:50:44,240 --> 00:50:46,560
regular and dark matter hitting
each other.

1107
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:48,720
The regular matter like collides
and sprays off.

1108
00:50:48,720 --> 00:50:50,240
The dark matter just goes
straight through.

1109
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:54,160
So we know it doesn't experience
electromagnetism, we know it

1110
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:56,640
doesn't experience the strong
nuclear interaction, because if

1111
00:50:56,640 --> 00:50:59,480
it did, it would like mess up
the way atoms form and would be

1112
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:01,360
able to detect it.
And we're not sure about the

1113
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:05,720
other one, so it's entire, but
it is entirely possible that

1114
00:51:05,720 --> 00:51:08,920
dark matter is some new kind of
exotic material that only

1115
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:11,400
experiences gravitation.
It just only has gravity.

1116
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:14,800
And so the only way we're ever
going to see it is by looking in

1117
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:16,840
space with telescopes at the way
stuff moves around and seeing

1118
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,280
the presence of this matter.
And all these experiments that

1119
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,880
we're doing on Earth to try and
detect it by these other

1120
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:25,280
mechanisms will just never work
because the dark matter just

1121
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,960
doesn't interact that way.
It's possible, but in terms of

1122
00:51:29,240 --> 00:51:31,720
like, why are we doing those
experiments then?

1123
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:35,080
It's because it's the only thing
we can do.

1124
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,200
Like we, we, we, you know, we
can only use the, the tools that

1125
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:40,920
we have.
And like you would say, it's

1126
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:44,440
like it's, you know, we, we're,
we're trying to answer a big

1127
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,520
mystery.
Anyone being intellectually

1128
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:49,640
honest is going to tell you, we
may never answer it, but like,

1129
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:53,000
does that mean we shouldn't try?
You know, we, we, we try with

1130
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,960
the best tools we have available
and we'd be honest about the

1131
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:58,920
fact that it may not work.
But if we want to try and solve

1132
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,040
the mystery, this is the only
way we're going to.

1133
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:05,360
And even if the stuff that we're
doing now isn't the right stuff,

1134
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:07,920
it's still like the steps on the
road, you know, like if we rule

1135
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:10,920
out the fact that it is either
of these particles, well, OK,

1136
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:13,840
now we need to do the next thing
and maybe eventually we'll get

1137
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,480
there.
Like this is the like science is

1138
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,040
it?
It's, it's not like it's not, I

1139
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:20,760
guess I would say it's, it's
like this.

1140
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,360
I heard this said somewhere
sometime.

1141
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,160
I can't remember who said it.
But science is not a guaranteed

1142
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:29,200
path to knowledge.
It is not guaranteed that by

1143
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:30,880
doing the science you will get
the answer.

1144
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:35,520
But it is a reliable path to
knowledge and it is kind of the

1145
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,960
only one that we have so.
Really like.

1146
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,280
We go, here's the problem.
We throw our best hypothesis at

1147
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,800
it in terms of stuff we can
actually do, and we do the best

1148
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:45,960
we can to try and answer the
question.

1149
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:48,080
I gotcha.
I gotcha.

1150
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:52,240
What do do people hypothesize
about the potential uses of

1151
00:52:52,240 --> 00:52:55,840
understanding or applying, you
know, our knowledge and trying

1152
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:57,680
to, I guess, control or
manipulate?

1153
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,160
It yeah, it's a great question.
It's all my favorite ones about

1154
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,520
dark matter like, OK, cool.
So it's an interesting problem.

1155
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:03,640
I agree.
Get into it.

1156
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:05,400
I'm sorry about that.
Sorry.

1157
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:06,800
Oh, no, no, no, no.
That's great.

1158
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:08,040
It's the right time.
Yeah.

1159
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:08,960
It's one of these good
questions.

1160
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:10,200
It's like, OK, cool.
You've convinced me.

1161
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:12,160
It's an interesting problem.
But like, ultimately, why do we

1162
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:14,720
care about this?
I think there's a lot of

1163
00:53:14,720 --> 00:53:17,200
different.
I imagine that if something that

1164
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:20,520
comprises so much of the
galaxy's mass, it's got to be

1165
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,560
enormously, enormously valuable,
no?

1166
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:26,320
Well.
I mean, hey, so that's that's

1167
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,480
one of the things is because we
don't know what it is.

1168
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,960
It's kind of you can't, you
know, we can't say one way or

1169
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:33,400
another.
But I think the fact that we

1170
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,640
don't know what it is and we
know there's so much of it to me

1171
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:38,720
is like reason enough that we
need to know what it is.

1172
00:53:38,720 --> 00:53:40,440
Because like, you look around
and you think about like, OK,

1173
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:43,040
think about everything humans
have accomplished, computers,

1174
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:45,280
modern medicines, space travel,
all of art and literature,

1175
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,720
everything that's ever moved you
in this life, all of that has

1176
00:53:48,720 --> 00:53:52,280
been achieved using 1/6 of the
matter in the universe.

1177
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:55,160
And there was five times as much
again of this invisible stuff

1178
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:57,120
called dark matter.
We just don't know what it is

1179
00:53:57,400 --> 00:53:59,480
like.
So, like, to me, the idea that

1180
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:01,360
it's not worth trying to figure
out what it is is kind of

1181
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:03,920
ridiculous.
Like, we, we need to know what

1182
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:05,440
it is first.
And if it turns out that it's

1183
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,640
useless, well, OK.
But we had to, we had to find

1184
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:11,720
that out because it could be,
you know, like this whole new

1185
00:54:11,720 --> 00:54:14,280
world of, of incredible stuff.
And, and so that's like the very

1186
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:17,920
kind of high level, kind of, you
know, optimist answer on the

1187
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:19,920
other side, like the slightly
more practical answers, like

1188
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:23,640
there's a few of those as well.
If it is axions for, for one,

1189
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:27,400
that's really particularly
appealing because we can convert

1190
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:29,960
them into light, which is, you
know, a form of energy that we

1191
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,320
can potentially harness and, and
use for things.

1192
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,720
I mean, we'd, we'd need a few
things to go our way for that to

1193
00:54:35,720 --> 00:54:37,240
be the case.
Like we'd need the coupling to

1194
00:54:37,240 --> 00:54:39,040
be quite strong.
We'd need the local density of

1195
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:42,080
axions to be strong.
But anyway, it's, it's, it's

1196
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:44,680
certainly interesting.
You know, you can also imagine

1197
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:46,920
that people have proposed using
them for like communication

1198
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,320
technology, like if we can
figure out how to reliably

1199
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:51,160
convert, because the conversion
works both ways.

1200
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:53,760
If axions exist and they couple
to photons the way we think they

1201
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:55,840
do, you can also turn photons
into axions.

1202
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:59,280
And so you can imagine like
taking some signal of

1203
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:01,880
information that's encoded in in
photons, which is a common way

1204
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:04,560
we send information, converting
it into a stream of axions and

1205
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:05,800
then reconverting it on the
other side.

1206
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:08,480
And having like unhackable,
undetectable communication

1207
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:10,400
transmitted by dark matter that
you can shoot right from the

1208
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:11,760
center of the planet.
You don't need satellites or

1209
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:13,320
whatever.
So, you know, you can get all

1210
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:16,280
kinds of interesting sci-fi
ideas out of axions because you

1211
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:19,200
can couple them to photons.
And I do think it's worth

1212
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:21,600
thinking about those things.
But ultimately I think the first

1213
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:23,800
thing we need to do is figure
out what this stuff is and then

1214
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:26,640
we can start looking at like
what it's useful for.

1215
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:28,640
And then of course, there's the
other side of it, which is that

1216
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:32,040
like we, we know doing this kind
of fundamental research in

1217
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:34,960
inevitably leads to new
technologies and, and, and new

1218
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,560
kinds of like spin out.
So there's, there's two aspects

1219
00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:39,920
of it, right?
There's like, as we build better

1220
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:42,360
and better experiments, we're
building better detectors, we're

1221
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,680
developing quantum technologies,
we're developing things that are

1222
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:46,120
going to be useful in other
areas.

1223
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:48,320
That's certainly the case, and
that has always been the case.

1224
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:52,360
There is also the fact that like
doing fundamental physics is the

1225
00:55:52,680 --> 00:55:56,000
only thing historically that has
led to massive technological

1226
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:59,600
breakthroughs.
There's and like usually they

1227
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:03,680
don't come from people doing
research with like well defined

1228
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:05,560
outputs and answers.
And this is like a key point

1229
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:08,680
that I like to that I like to
hit like so for example, like

1230
00:56:08,760 --> 00:56:12,640
all modern computing technology,
communication technology is

1231
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:15,160
based on this thing called a
semiconductor transistor.

1232
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,040
And our ability to engineer
those semiconductor transistors

1233
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:21,160
relies heavily on our
understanding of quantum

1234
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:23,480
physics.
And if you ask the people who

1235
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:26,040
discovered quantum physics in
like the early 20th century,

1236
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,800
what is this for, they wouldn't
have said 01 day.

1237
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:32,920
It will allow us to build
something called a semiconductor

1238
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,040
transistor that will eventually
go inside something called an

1239
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:36,760
iPhone.
They would have said, I'm just

1240
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:38,760
trying to understand the way the
universe works on a fundamental

1241
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:40,360
level.
And that is the thing that

1242
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:43,760
inevitably leads to making the
new stuff.

1243
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:48,040
Another great example is radio
waves in like the 1880s when

1244
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:51,840
radio waves were discovered by
the scientist Heinrich Kurz is

1245
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:53,720
recent enough that you can
actually go read newspaper

1246
00:56:53,720 --> 00:56:55,840
articles from the time.
There's a journalist who

1247
00:56:55,840 --> 00:56:58,000
interviews Heinrich Kurtz and
says Professor Hertz, you know,

1248
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:00,960
I'm paraphrasing, great job that
you've discovered these radio

1249
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:02,640
waves.
But essentially like of what

1250
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:04,360
possible use are these radio
waves?

1251
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:06,960
And Heinrich Hertz goes, I don't
know, probably nothing.

1252
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,880
I just wanted to prove that
Maxwell, who's the physicist who

1253
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:14,160
proposed them, was correct.
And now, of course, the entire

1254
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:16,240
modern communication network is
based on radio wave

1255
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:18,200
communication.
So like, you don't always know

1256
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,640
what the downs to impacts of
these things are, but doing that

1257
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:23,400
research is the only way we ever
make truly groundbreaking

1258
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:25,520
discoveries.
And if we, if we require that

1259
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:28,440
the people doing that research
can tell you from day one what

1260
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:31,480
technological, scientific or
like, you know, commercial

1261
00:57:31,480 --> 00:57:33,840
output is going to come, then we
are doing something wrong.

1262
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:41,520
Right, can not a completely fun,
speculative, you know, sci-fi

1263
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:47,360
fun level.
Can you potentially understand

1264
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:52,160
the UAP phenomenon that's been
going on through the through,

1265
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:54,080
especially the way the way you
describe the relationship

1266
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:57,400
between axioms and photons and
the way that they kind of could

1267
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:01,720
convert over And it almost, And
I mean, you know, the, I guess

1268
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:04,040
the common thing that people
seem to be saying about the UAP

1269
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,680
UFOs is just the sheer speed and
velocity doesn't seem to, it

1270
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:09,720
seems to break our understanding
of physics at the moment.

1271
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:13,680
And I'm not sure if you're and I
don't, and I'm actually, I'm

1272
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,760
curious what you would think, if
you are familiar with Eric

1273
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:21,240
Weinstein, who goes on long
podcasts and talks about how he

1274
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:23,920
thinks that there's basically
blacklisted physics or

1275
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,880
classified physics that we just
have not, you know, that like

1276
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,280
we've basically been at a dead
end for a while and it's been

1277
00:58:30,280 --> 00:58:34,200
going on in a classified,
compartmentalized, you know,

1278
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:36,760
capacity.
And this is kind of what we've

1279
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:39,480
been seeing.
I don't know if he goes as far

1280
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:43,040
as it is what we've been seeing,
but he says it's curious about

1281
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:46,000
the relationship between the. 2
Sure.

1282
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,600
Want to talk about your PS.
The first thing I will say is

1283
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:55,280
that I am by no means an expert
in this area and I you know this

1284
00:58:55,320 --> 00:58:57,280
is fun.
This is just fun Yeah, just for

1285
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:59,840
fun.
The next thing I would say is

1286
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:03,240
without looking like, because
I'm probably not like, as I know

1287
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:05,120
there's like interesting stuff
going on in that area in terms

1288
00:59:05,120 --> 00:59:07,320
of like new releases of
information and stuff and like,

1289
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:09,000
you know, declassified videos
and whatever.

1290
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:12,240
I know that that stuff has been
confirmed by like military

1291
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:13,760
officials saying like, yeah,
these are real videos or

1292
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:17,160
whatever.
The last time I honestly checked

1293
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:19,520
in on that stuff in any kind of
serious way, like looking into

1294
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:21,600
it was like a couple of years
ago, to be honest.

1295
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:23,560
But sort of I imagine things may
have changed.

1296
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,560
But just to like one thing that
I think is quite interesting and

1297
00:59:26,560 --> 00:59:29,600
important to, to acknowledge
about some of that stuff at the

1298
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:32,440
time, at least the stuff that I
was referring to from a couple

1299
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:34,400
of years ago, like the stuff
that gets referred to as like

1300
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:36,120
physics defying or physics
breaking.

1301
00:59:37,680 --> 00:59:40,680
I, I think it's care.
Like it's important to be

1302
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:43,400
careful about that language
because like a lot of the stuff

1303
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:45,120
people like, oh, it's like
moving so fast, it's

1304
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:49,080
accelerating so fast or
whatever, based on like

1305
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:53,320
statements made by like the like
people on the planes who are

1306
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:55,920
like filming the thing.
And it's like, it's not like,

1307
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:58,800
yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah.

1308
00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:01,800
But it's like, you know, the the
people who are measuring a

1309
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:03,200
thing, moving really fast or
whatever.

1310
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:07,480
They're not like, they're very
smart people who know how to fly

1311
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:09,320
these planes, but they're not
necessarily like.

1312
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:12,760
They're not just the ones saying
it.

1313
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:14,760
It's the people it's captured
on.

1314
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:16,720
I mean, you, we have military
footage of it.

1315
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:18,600
A lot of this, because a lot of
this stuff revolves around

1316
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:19,280
military.
I don't.

1317
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:21,240
Know that's that's what I'm
talking about like the military

1318
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:22,960
guys right like so like the guys
like on the video will be like

1319
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:25,200
whoa that thing's crazy I've
never seen it like they don't

1320
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:28,000
like that doesn't mean that it's
like in physics it means it's a

1321
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:32,320
possible plane right like they
don't necessarily have the like

1322
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:34,800
so I I don't know I've seen I've
seen things but someone's like

1323
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:36,760
oh this crypt defies physics and
then like people look at it and

1324
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:39,240
they're like well clearly that's
like that speed is a radar error

1325
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:41,760
this frame shows the right speed
and that's actually.

1326
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:44,360
Just I'm not referring to the,
I'm not talking about like

1327
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:47,640
Twitter videos.
I'm talking about, you know, if

1328
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:49,840
something's giving, you know, if
you could detect something with

1329
01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:52,400
the radar, that means that
there's tangible data that's

1330
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:53,640
being collected about it, isn't
it?

1331
01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:54,240
Doesn't.
It totally.

1332
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:56,160
I'm not saying these things
don't I'm not saying these

1333
01:00:56,160 --> 01:00:58,080
things don't exist to to be
clear, sure.

1334
01:00:58,120 --> 01:01:03,160
I'm, I'm just saying that like,
I think like I haven't seen any

1335
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:07,440
like confirmed official footage
that could like, and I'm not

1336
01:01:07,440 --> 01:01:09,480
saying it doesn't exist that
that like you could look at it

1337
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:11,640
and be like, oh wow, that truly
breaks physics.

1338
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:13,680
There's no way that a craft
could do that, you know.

1339
01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:16,480
And, and like the this, I think
the stuff that has been like

1340
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:18,720
officially like military footage
risers just like, yeah, that's a

1341
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:20,800
really interesting weird thing
that's going on.

1342
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:23,760
It doesn't look like a it
doesn't look like a plane that

1343
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:26,480
we're familiar with today.
But yeah, I'm not, I'm not

1344
01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:28,680
convinced that that stuff is
necessarily physics breaking.

1345
01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:32,560
Yeah.
But anyway, to to talk about in

1346
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:35,600
a more big picture sense, do I
believe that there are aliens in

1347
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:37,920
the universe?
My answer is almost certainly

1348
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:39,640
yes.
I mean, the universe is very,

1349
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:41,600
very large.
It would be crazy to think that

1350
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:44,560
there aren't aliens somewhere in
terms of whether they've ever

1351
01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:47,240
been to Earth.
I don't know.

1352
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:50,240
I, I personally, I think like
it's totally unlikely.

1353
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:52,840
Like as much as I want to
believe in like the, you know,

1354
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:56,160
like the, and I, I wouldn't say
that it's, it's like impossible.

1355
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:59,760
I just think it's like kind of
unlikely given the distances

1356
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,720
involved and, and the fact that
like, yeah, obviously.

1357
01:02:02,720 --> 01:02:04,360
And, and this is where it gets
in the realm of like, oh, OK.

1358
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:06,680
But you can imagine some like
massively, massively advanced

1359
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:08,040
thing.
And it's just like, but at that

1360
01:02:08,040 --> 01:02:10,520
point it's like, it's, it's
purely like it's, it's literally

1361
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:12,400
purely speculation.
Like, is it, is it possible?

1362
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:14,000
Yeah.
Is it possible that there is

1363
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:17,000
some like massively, massively
advanced civilization and it's

1364
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:18,840
able of doing like wormhole
travel across space?

1365
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:20,600
I'm sure.
Yeah, that of course that's

1366
01:02:20,600 --> 01:02:22,960
possible.
But I don't believe that those

1367
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:26,800
people are like like if if the
station was not advanced and

1368
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:29,080
they didn't want us to know
about them, like we wouldn't.

1369
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:32,480
And if they did want us to know
about them, we would like the

1370
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:34,600
Earth based governments wouldn't
be able to stop them.

1371
01:02:34,680 --> 01:02:37,560
So I don't know that's that's
like those are the things that

1372
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:39,520
my brain always gets hitched on
when I think about this stuff is

1373
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:41,760
that I'm just like as much as I
look at like interesting UAP

1374
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:44,200
phenomena and I'm like, wow,
that's really interesting.

1375
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:48,360
I really like and I do believe
there are probably aliens in the

1376
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,840
universe.
I just like I can't get over

1377
01:02:50,840 --> 01:02:54,000
these mental hurdles of like the
why of it I find so challenging.

1378
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:57,160
It's just like, well, why would
they be here and not telling us?

1379
01:02:57,160 --> 01:02:59,680
Or if they didn't want us to
know, why would we then be able

1380
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:02,480
to film it like that?
That seems, that seems weird to

1381
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:04,520
me.
But you know, in terms of like,

1382
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:07,240
is it possible like, yeah, I
guess it's possible that there's

1383
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:10,440
some like massively advanced
technology in terms of relation

1384
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:11,640
to dark matter.
I don't know.

1385
01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:14,160
I mean, it'd be throwing out
sci-fi buzzwords like, oh, OK.

1386
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:17,360
Well, like manipulating gravity
by course in the dark matter and

1387
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:19,720
that lets us travel super falls
like, yeah, I don't know, maybe,

1388
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:21,560
but it's that stuff's way out
there.

1389
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:24,760
Although stuff that is way out
there, sometimes real, but it's

1390
01:03:25,280 --> 01:03:28,080
it's it's, yeah, more.
Often than I'm than I'm

1391
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:31,960
comfortable with actually is
what I said a lot more often

1392
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:34,640
than I'm comfortable with.
I found recently, you know,

1393
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:39,040
every everything that I thought
was wild is is just having it,

1394
01:03:39,160 --> 01:03:40,400
You know, it's just being
confirmed.

1395
01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:42,800
I'm like this.
Yeah, but I, I tend to, you

1396
01:03:42,800 --> 01:03:45,840
know, I, I think, I think I have
a really strong argument with

1397
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:49,800
the why and the Y factor,
particularly with, coupled with

1398
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:53,680
the fact that this activity does
happen on military bases, does

1399
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:55,840
lead me to think that.
Especially because now we're

1400
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:58,480
having, you know, conversations
at least from the Americans.

1401
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:00,960
And I actually was going to ask
you this from the Australian

1402
01:04:00,960 --> 01:04:02,920
perspective, because my
understanding is that other

1403
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:05,640
countries are not as skeptical
about alien life in general as

1404
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:07,720
Americans are.
And I think Americans have an

1405
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:11,680
enormous, enormous stigma.
It's even the possibility that

1406
01:04:11,680 --> 01:04:13,520
humans aren't alone, you know?
Right.

1407
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:16,000
OK, Well, yeah, I mean, that's
interesting.

1408
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:19,640
I think.
I don't know, I, I, I wouldn't

1409
01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:22,400
want to speak to like the
Australian general public

1410
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:23,720
perspective.
I would say most of the

1411
01:04:23,720 --> 01:04:27,280
scientists I know, I imagine
believe that aliens probably

1412
01:04:27,280 --> 01:04:30,960
exist somewhere, you know, like
the, the, that, that it's, it's

1413
01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:33,520
most of the businesses probably
believe that.

1414
01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,160
I, I think from at least the one
that I've spoken to, tend to

1415
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:38,200
tend to think that the universe
is so vast.

1416
01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:41,160
If the universe's purpose was to
create humans, Gee, there's a

1417
01:04:41,160 --> 01:04:44,960
lot of waste in that simulation.
You know that there are easier

1418
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:51,560
ways to do that than to make.
So anyway, yeah, in, in a broad

1419
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:54,040
sense, I, I tend to to think
that that's probably the case.

1420
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:56,280
But yeah, the UAP services find
hard to connect.

1421
01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:59,120
I think it's just more likely
like the more, the more likely

1422
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:01,720
explanation is that they're just
like highly advanced military

1423
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:05,760
craft that we just have the
disclosure about or some other

1424
01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:07,760
kind of thing.
I, I don't know, I mean, like,

1425
01:05:07,760 --> 01:05:09,720
don't get me wrong, like I find
this substitute super

1426
01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:11,640
interesting and I like to talk
about it and I like to think

1427
01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:15,000
about it.
I just, I think, yeah, it's,

1428
01:05:15,240 --> 01:05:19,880
it's easy to jump to the alien
explanation and I would love if

1429
01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:23,720
that were true.
I just, I think that would be

1430
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:27,400
really cool.
I just I'm yet to see anything

1431
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:30,360
that couldn't reasonably be
explained by something else.

1432
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:35,360
When I was about, I don't know,
maybe 9 or 10, I grew up in New

1433
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:38,720
York and during the change of
seasons, I don't know, there's a

1434
01:05:38,720 --> 01:05:41,760
phenomenon in Australia.
But when there's a pretty

1435
01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:45,080
drastic, dramatic, dramatic
change in temperature, it looks

1436
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:47,920
sometimes like the stars are
shimmering and changing color.

1437
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:51,360
Sometimes, I don't know,
probably a regular phenomenon.

1438
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:53,000
You know, I mean, there's a
million different reasons why

1439
01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:54,680
that would be.
I was 11 years old.

1440
01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:57,680
I'm looking at my window and I'm
going to bed and I see these

1441
01:05:57,680 --> 01:05:59,920
shimmering stars.
I'm like, they're coming.

1442
01:06:00,880 --> 01:06:05,480
And let me call my friend Jason,
who's like the smartest friend I

1443
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:07,360
know.
And he's a, he's a mechanical

1444
01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:08,960
engineer.
He was 11 year old at the time.

1445
01:06:09,680 --> 01:06:11,280
And I'm like, dude, look
outside.

1446
01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:12,840
He's like, what?
I was like, what is that?

1447
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:15,280
And he's like, I don't know, you
guys like pull out this like,

1448
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:17,440
you know, one of his books.
And he was like, oh, that's just

1449
01:06:17,440 --> 01:06:18,760
like the gas.
And like, you know, like right

1450
01:06:18,760 --> 01:06:21,800
now it's like, you know, it's
small and the air is changing

1451
01:06:21,800 --> 01:06:23,600
and the airs get heavier or
whatever it is.

1452
01:06:23,600 --> 01:06:25,920
And so it just looks like that.
We're totally finding.

1453
01:06:26,200 --> 01:06:29,320
And ever since then I've wanted
it to be true, but I still alas

1454
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:32,000
and disappointed on a regular
basis.

1455
01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:35,040
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
I yeah, I think it would be

1456
01:06:35,040 --> 01:06:39,480
cool, but I, yeah, I just, yeah,
I look, I'm not totally close to

1457
01:06:39,480 --> 01:06:41,800
it as a concept.
There's definitely weird stuff.

1458
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:44,720
I just don't think that it's,
yeah, I haven't seen anything

1459
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:47,240
like, Oh yeah, that's definitely
aliens as opposed to like, oh,

1460
01:06:47,240 --> 01:06:51,240
that's some kind of crazy
aircraft that, you know, or like

1461
01:06:51,240 --> 01:06:53,400
some kind of drone or something.
Sure, sure, sure.

1462
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,160
I want to.
I want to actually talk the last

1463
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,480
little bit with you, if you
don't mind, about probably an

1464
01:06:59,480 --> 01:07:02,360
equally valuable contribution
you're making, which is

1465
01:07:02,360 --> 01:07:05,920
communication and teaching.
I personally am a huge advocate

1466
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:08,160
of education.
I think that in general, it's

1467
01:07:08,160 --> 01:07:12,160
enormously underappreciated.
And the way that you were

1468
01:07:12,160 --> 01:07:15,080
describing the type of science
for the sake of science are

1469
01:07:15,080 --> 01:07:17,560
almost like playing like a just
like, you know, I mean, some of

1470
01:07:17,560 --> 01:07:20,080
the best scientists that I know
are guys that just have always

1471
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:22,080
loved to play and like take
things apart and put things back

1472
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:24,520
together just for the fun of it.
And like, like they're just fun

1473
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,600
people that like fun things.
And so science is appealing to

1474
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:31,520
them for that reason.
Tell me about teaching and you

1475
01:07:31,520 --> 01:07:35,800
know, 32 year college professor.
It's, it's probably, it's

1476
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:37,480
probably fun.
I imagine.

1477
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:38,640
I've always wanted to teach
college.

1478
01:07:38,640 --> 01:07:42,120
I teach high school.
Tell me about what that's like

1479
01:07:42,520 --> 01:07:46,880
teaching introductory classes
and how you know what what you

1480
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:48,400
feel about it and what you're
hopeful about.

1481
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:50,160
Sure.
So to be clear, I'm not a

1482
01:07:50,160 --> 01:07:52,360
professor.
I'm a I'm a research fellow.

1483
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,680
I have a few runs on the on the
totem below professor, but you

1484
01:07:55,680 --> 01:07:57,960
know, I'm hoping to hoping to
get there one day.

1485
01:07:58,200 --> 01:07:59,920
I do some teaching at the
moment.

1486
01:07:59,920 --> 01:08:02,800
I'm actually like right now one
of research fellowships.

1487
01:08:02,800 --> 01:08:04,480
I'm actually 100% research
allocated time.

1488
01:08:04,560 --> 01:08:09,800
I have taught in the past and I
do I do I really enjoy it.

1489
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:12,400
I really, I really enjoy it.
I like in my last Gen.

1490
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:16,640
I was teaching intro quantum and
introparticle physics at the

1491
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:20,160
University of WA and that was
really cool.

1492
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:29,279
And I'm a good question.
It was like FIS 102, which is

1493
01:08:29,279 --> 01:08:32,240
the smaller of the two, because
everyone takes FIS 101, which is

1494
01:08:32,240 --> 01:08:34,000
like engineers and stuff, like
all take FIS 101.

1495
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:35,960
And then FIS 102 is like just
the people going into physics.

1496
01:08:35,960 --> 01:08:37,920
I don't know, there were maybe
like 40 or 50 students in the

1497
01:08:37,920 --> 01:08:43,080
class, not that big.
And yeah, in some ways that's

1498
01:08:43,080 --> 01:08:45,279
really nice because you can like
kind of get to know the students

1499
01:08:45,279 --> 01:08:47,240
quite well and you like know the
students who show up every week

1500
01:08:47,240 --> 01:08:50,040
and the ones who don't and you
know, what to expect out of

1501
01:08:50,040 --> 01:08:51,760
them.
Honestly, more of the like,

1502
01:08:51,760 --> 01:08:56,080
teaching stuff I do at the
moment is more like, it's more

1503
01:08:56,080 --> 01:08:59,040
like like all primary school and
high school, like school

1504
01:08:59,040 --> 01:09:00,640
engagement stuff.
So like one of the things that

1505
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:03,760
I'm involved in is this thing
here called the National Quantum

1506
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:06,680
and Dark Matter Road trip.
Every August in Australia, it's

1507
01:09:06,680 --> 01:09:09,520
National Science Week.
And a bunch of other physicists

1508
01:09:09,520 --> 01:09:12,319
and I get into cars and they
like drive around like regional

1509
01:09:12,319 --> 01:09:15,040
and remote schools around
Australia and like visit

1510
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:17,920
classrooms and science teachers
and, and talk about the science

1511
01:09:17,920 --> 01:09:20,399
that's going on like around the
country and try and like promote

1512
01:09:20,399 --> 01:09:23,080
people to get interested in, in
STEM and, and to go into physics

1513
01:09:23,080 --> 01:09:24,600
at uni.
Because I don't know what it's

1514
01:09:24,600 --> 01:09:28,399
like in the US, but the rates of
like enrollment in like STEM

1515
01:09:28,399 --> 01:09:31,359
degrees at universities are like
not going in the direction that

1516
01:09:31,359 --> 01:09:36,439
they should be.
So, so always trying to trying

1517
01:09:36,439 --> 01:09:39,479
to bump those numbers up as best
we can.

1518
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:41,600
I think part of the compete
problem, I completely agree.

1519
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:43,399
Like education is like so, so
important.

1520
01:09:43,399 --> 01:09:46,160
And a big part of the problem is
just that, like, there aren't

1521
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:51,120
enough teachers in high school
with a science background.

1522
01:09:51,720 --> 01:09:53,520
Yeah.
And so like, you'll have, like,

1523
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:56,640
really, like, awesome teachers
who are really passionate about

1524
01:09:56,640 --> 01:10:00,600
education, and they just, like,
struggle with the STEM stuff.

1525
01:10:00,600 --> 01:10:03,120
And so then that just gets
passed on to the kids.

1526
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:05,520
And then the students like who
may have otherwise gone into

1527
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:08,440
STEM because like they like just
like find it kind of like

1528
01:10:08,440 --> 01:10:11,160
difficult or intimidating or
scary because their teacher did.

1529
01:10:11,600 --> 01:10:14,440
And so then they, they don't
like consider that a path they

1530
01:10:14,440 --> 01:10:16,520
can go down.
I know like, I think some

1531
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:18,960
countries, I think Canada has a
thing where like to be a science

1532
01:10:18,960 --> 01:10:21,640
teacher in school, you have to
have like at least a few years

1533
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:23,480
of university science.
I think that's awesome.

1534
01:10:24,440 --> 01:10:26,800
I think that would be great
everywhere.

1535
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:30,240
But part of the problem, I
guess, is just like Australia's

1536
01:10:30,240 --> 01:10:35,160
like so big and so remote.
So much of it is so remote that

1537
01:10:35,160 --> 01:10:39,040
like, it's, it's not really.
And to have like a physics

1538
01:10:39,040 --> 01:10:41,440
teacher in every school who
actually has a physics degree,

1539
01:10:41,440 --> 01:10:44,080
you know, and like, we
definitely see that out in the

1540
01:10:44,200 --> 01:10:49,840
countryside, there are like so,
so rarely like really STEM

1541
01:10:49,840 --> 01:10:52,320
teachers with, with those
qualifications like in, in the

1542
01:10:52,320 --> 01:10:54,440
schools.
Yeah.

1543
01:10:54,440 --> 01:10:56,520
I don't know what to do about
that other than try and

1544
01:10:56,520 --> 01:10:57,920
encourage people to go into
teaching.

1545
01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:01,280
I mean, I think it's, yeah, an
incredibly important and

1546
01:11:01,280 --> 01:11:06,040
valuable thing to do.
And yeah, I think more people

1547
01:11:06,040 --> 01:11:10,680
like with stand backgrounds need
to need to go do it personally.

1548
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:16,080
Well, the problem is that you
are asking people essentially to

1549
01:11:16,080 --> 01:11:18,880
be a martyr.
But it's hard.

1550
01:11:20,680 --> 01:11:23,200
And I think a lot of people
that, you know, especially if

1551
01:11:23,200 --> 01:11:26,360
you can make bigger money,
whether that be via grant or,

1552
01:11:26,360 --> 01:11:29,560
you know, a job at A, at a
private company or a government

1553
01:11:29,560 --> 01:11:32,720
contracting company or whatever
it is, you're basically asking

1554
01:11:32,720 --> 01:11:36,000
someone to take in a very
intense and refined and

1555
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:40,440
particular niche skill and
accept essentially minimum wage

1556
01:11:40,440 --> 01:11:43,200
for it, you know, and deal with
a bunch of snotty kids and their

1557
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:49,000
parents.
And, you know, and I, and so I,

1558
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:52,520
I can't imagine if I was a
scientist, you know, of that

1559
01:11:52,520 --> 01:11:55,000
caliber that I don't want to be
a high school teacher either

1560
01:11:55,000 --> 01:11:59,200
necessarily, you know.
I I agree with you.

1561
01:11:59,200 --> 01:12:01,040
I mean, I guess I'm like, not so
much talking about people with

1562
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:03,920
PhDs necessarily, although
that's certainly good too, you

1563
01:12:03,920 --> 01:12:05,720
know, And I, I mean, like,
people do that.

1564
01:12:05,720 --> 01:12:07,280
Like they're like, I'm sick of
this.

1565
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:09,080
I'm going to go teach high
school.

1566
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:11,960
That happens, you know, because
academia is a pretty brutal game

1567
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:15,360
as well.
But yeah, I mean, it seems hard

1568
01:12:15,360 --> 01:12:16,520
for sure.
Like, I definitely think

1569
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:19,080
teachers need more support and
more incentive to do it.

1570
01:12:20,160 --> 01:12:22,440
I think also like it's, it's a
bigger problem outside of the

1571
01:12:22,440 --> 01:12:24,680
cities, right?
Like if you go around Melbourne

1572
01:12:24,800 --> 01:12:28,600
or Sydney, you're probably going
to find like pretty good science

1573
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:31,240
teachers in most of the schools.
If you go out, you know, a

1574
01:12:31,240 --> 01:12:34,000
couple hours out of one of the
cities, then like it becomes

1575
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:35,240
harder.
And that's also, I think part of

1576
01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:37,680
the challenge is because you're
not just asking someone to, to,

1577
01:12:37,840 --> 01:12:40,320
you know, take these skills and,
and go teach high school.

1578
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:44,040
You're also asking them to like
move several 100 kilometers

1579
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:48,000
from, you know, everyone they
know to go to teach kids.

1580
01:12:48,000 --> 01:12:49,880
So I don't know what the
solution is there.

1581
01:12:50,880 --> 01:12:55,280
And I, yeah, like I said, we
just try and we try and go visit

1582
01:12:55,280 --> 01:12:57,520
the schools and try and provide
a bit of like motivation,

1583
01:12:57,520 --> 01:13:02,360
inspiration, someone to, we try
and leave results behind to help

1584
01:13:02,360 --> 01:13:05,280
the teachers.
We try and provide like a

1585
01:13:05,280 --> 01:13:07,680
communication and just like, oh,
if you know your students ever

1586
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:10,320
have questions, like here's a
kind of catch all e-mail that

1587
01:13:10,320 --> 01:13:13,040
they can send information, send
a question to and we'll try and

1588
01:13:13,040 --> 01:13:16,280
answer it.
But yeah, it's a hard problem.

1589
01:13:16,320 --> 01:13:18,640
I guess, like so many things,
it's a hard problem and there's

1590
01:13:18,640 --> 01:13:20,560
not an obvious solution.
Yeah.

1591
01:13:20,560 --> 01:13:24,200
I think I, I mean, I personally
think that we are a little

1592
01:13:24,280 --> 01:13:27,560
overdue for an education reform,
just the structure of the way

1593
01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:30,040
that we do it.
And I think that we are in a

1594
01:13:30,040 --> 01:13:34,160
world at the moment where people
could be a lot more the way that

1595
01:13:34,240 --> 01:13:36,720
their education could be a lot
more customized and personalized

1596
01:13:36,720 --> 01:13:40,200
to their needs and allow them
and really, you know, while

1597
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:44,640
providing a lot of the basic
foundations, also allow their

1598
01:13:44,640 --> 01:13:49,000
individual niches to be expanded
on and developed and matured.

1599
01:13:49,400 --> 01:13:53,280
And I think that integration at
the moment is probably just the

1600
01:13:53,280 --> 01:13:55,640
hardest, the hardest issue,
which just trying to shake up a

1601
01:13:56,160 --> 01:13:58,480
system exists to support to save
itself.

1602
01:13:58,480 --> 01:14:00,040
You know, that's, that's always
the way it is.

1603
01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:03,280
And this this system is not
letting go very anytime soon it

1604
01:14:03,280 --> 01:14:05,400
seems like.
Yeah, I get.

1605
01:14:05,480 --> 01:14:08,440
Yeah, it's, it's an interesting
thought, the idea of like a

1606
01:14:08,440 --> 01:14:10,680
really big like revolution in
the way we do education because

1607
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:14,320
I suppose that's happened
before, you know, and I guess

1608
01:14:14,360 --> 01:14:17,240
like, yeah, it's, yeah.
Not being an expert on, on

1609
01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:21,720
pedagogy or anything, I wouldn't
want to want to comment too much

1610
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:24,760
other than to say I do see the
value in like a journalist

1611
01:14:24,760 --> 01:14:27,600
education.
I do think it's important as a

1612
01:14:27,600 --> 01:14:30,160
kind of foundation file learning
to have a journalist education.

1613
01:14:30,160 --> 01:14:32,080
And I'd be worried about a
system that encourage people to

1614
01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:35,480
specialize to, you know, but at
the same time that is like

1615
01:14:35,480 --> 01:14:39,160
increasingly that like that's
just the way because of the same

1616
01:14:39,160 --> 01:14:40,920
stuff I mentioned before about
like in physics, like there's

1617
01:14:40,920 --> 01:14:42,680
too much physics.
You can't, you know, know all of

1618
01:14:42,680 --> 01:14:43,480
it.
So you kind of end up

1619
01:14:43,480 --> 01:14:45,960
specializing.
I guess that's probably just

1620
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:48,200
true in general.
It's hard to know everything,

1621
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:51,800
but you have to know some subset
of the things.

1622
01:14:52,440 --> 01:14:55,360
I guess it's just about where
along the way you do that

1623
01:14:55,360 --> 01:14:59,640
specialization because, you
know, kids brains haven't always

1624
01:14:59,640 --> 01:15:02,480
necessarily fully formed by the
time we'd be asking them to make

1625
01:15:02,480 --> 01:15:06,800
those kinds of decisions.
No, yeah, I, I don't know, man.

1626
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:14,040
It's a hard problem.
Like I said, I, I don't, I don't

1627
01:15:14,040 --> 01:15:17,280
see like a direction that
anyone's moving in that is like

1628
01:15:17,280 --> 01:15:19,000
this is the answer.
But at the same time, I do

1629
01:15:19,000 --> 01:15:20,840
believe that like there are
people who care about this

1630
01:15:20,840 --> 01:15:22,440
problem.
Yeah.

1631
01:15:22,520 --> 01:15:25,360
Like, and, and it's, it's like
everything, it's like the

1632
01:15:25,360 --> 01:15:27,480
tendency to think like when
something is so like heavily

1633
01:15:27,480 --> 01:15:30,600
involved in like bureaucracy and
like the government stuff that

1634
01:15:30,600 --> 01:15:33,000
you're like, oh, like, yeah,
that's decay because nobody

1635
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:34,480
cares about it.
And then you go meet the people

1636
01:15:34,480 --> 01:15:35,840
whose job it is.
And it's like, Oh no, these

1637
01:15:35,840 --> 01:15:37,000
people actually do care about
this.

1638
01:15:37,160 --> 01:15:38,800
We actually do want this to be
better.

1639
01:15:39,120 --> 01:15:41,040
You know, It's just that
they're, they're dealing.

1640
01:15:41,480 --> 01:15:44,280
It's a really difficult problem
as well because there's aspects

1641
01:15:44,280 --> 01:15:46,000
of it that you haven't
considered yet because you don't

1642
01:15:46,000 --> 01:15:48,320
know about the, you know, the
realities of how the system

1643
01:15:48,320 --> 01:15:50,520
works and blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, everything is

1644
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:52,040
always more complicated than you
think it is.

1645
01:15:52,040 --> 01:15:55,080
Like, do you think that
something is like, oh, yeah,

1646
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:58,240
this, like, this is a problem
because of these people doing

1647
01:15:58,240 --> 01:16:00,480
this thing who are like, you
know, just don't care?

1648
01:16:00,480 --> 01:16:02,080
Like I find that is almost never
the case.

1649
01:16:02,800 --> 01:16:04,000
I was talking to a friend of
mine.

1650
01:16:04,000 --> 01:16:06,840
I did, I mentioned that I did
this podcast to the nuclear

1651
01:16:06,840 --> 01:16:09,720
physicist and he was telling me
about the potential of, of

1652
01:16:09,720 --> 01:16:13,160
efficiency and, and literally
like limitless energy with, with

1653
01:16:13,160 --> 01:16:15,280
nuclear and I was talking to
other friends about it.

1654
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:17,160
I'm like, it's so weird.
How come it's not integrated?

1655
01:16:17,400 --> 01:16:20,320
He's like, dude, because do you
know what the would happen to

1656
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:22,400
the world if tomorrow oil was
worthless?

1657
01:16:22,440 --> 01:16:25,360
So like, do you know, like, you
know, like what would happen to

1658
01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:29,560
like every institution and like
the global economy, like you

1659
01:16:29,560 --> 01:16:32,720
can't just like pull it out from
underneath it and just like have

1660
01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:35,840
the whole thing claps on itself
is like, I mean, you could if

1661
01:16:35,840 --> 01:16:38,080
you want to, but does it, you
know, it doesn't seem to be

1662
01:16:38,080 --> 01:16:41,200
practical make any sense.
Last question and then I'll let

1663
01:16:41,200 --> 01:16:42,360
you go.
I really appreciate your time

1664
01:16:42,360 --> 01:16:47,120
and this is tons of fun.
That your favorite, most and

1665
01:16:47,120 --> 01:16:50,720
least and least favorite.
I'm sorry your favorite but

1666
01:16:50,720 --> 01:16:53,240
least accurate science movies or
shows?

1667
01:16:53,240 --> 01:16:55,960
Man, that's so good.
All right, I'll preface all of

1668
01:16:55,960 --> 01:16:58,480
this by saying I am not the kind
of scientist who needs my

1669
01:16:58,480 --> 01:16:59,760
science fiction to be
believable.

1670
01:16:59,760 --> 01:17:02,400
Like I really don't care.
Like I I'm not, I'm not going

1671
01:17:02,400 --> 01:17:06,520
there for that.
I don't want it to be real

1672
01:17:06,520 --> 01:17:08,280
science.
You know, I appreciate like some

1673
01:17:08,280 --> 01:17:10,360
of it when it is because it's
just like that's an extra flavor

1674
01:17:10,360 --> 01:17:12,080
of sci-fi.
Like they've made an effort to

1675
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:13,480
make the science kind of more
believable.

1676
01:17:13,480 --> 01:17:15,560
That's cool, but I don't get mad
if it's bad.

1677
01:17:16,640 --> 01:17:19,720
My, one of my favorite movies
just in general of all time is

1678
01:17:19,720 --> 01:17:23,840
Back to the Future.
Fantastic film, great sci-fi

1679
01:17:24,520 --> 01:17:27,040
Lots, lots to to be excited
about.

1680
01:17:27,040 --> 01:17:29,200
And yeah, the fact that the
science is bad, I don't know, I

1681
01:17:29,200 --> 01:17:32,800
found kind of charming.
And in terms of stuff that's

1682
01:17:32,800 --> 01:17:36,560
like pretty good, I mean, like
in terms of like believability,

1683
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:39,240
I really like, I mean, I think
like Andy Weir stuff, which is

1684
01:17:39,240 --> 01:17:42,880
like the Martian and the
forthcoming like project Hail

1685
01:17:42,880 --> 01:17:44,480
Mary, I think is the movie
that's coming out soon.

1686
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:47,200
I, you know, I think that's cool
and I think that he deserves

1687
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,600
props for, for making it efforts
to like put a bit more of the

1688
01:17:50,600 --> 01:17:52,520
hard science in.
Like it's not 100% right, but

1689
01:17:52,520 --> 01:17:54,680
like, like I said, who cares?
It's like, it's, it's cool that

1690
01:17:54,680 --> 01:17:58,080
he like bothers.
And then I don't know what was

1691
01:17:58,080 --> 01:18:01,640
my least favorite.
Huh, I don't know, least least

1692
01:18:01,640 --> 01:18:03,520
favorite.
I mean, the the stuff that is my

1693
01:18:03,520 --> 01:18:05,560
least favorite would have
nothing to do with whether the

1694
01:18:05,560 --> 01:18:09,840
science is good or not, and
everything's true whether the

1695
01:18:09,880 --> 01:18:13,200
narrative is good.
OK, I got you, I got you, I got

1696
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:14,160
you.
OK, I'm not going to ask you to

1697
01:18:14,160 --> 01:18:19,080
crap on any narratives on here,
but but Doctor Ben, I really

1698
01:18:19,080 --> 01:18:21,960
appreciate the time.
This was really tons of fun and

1699
01:18:21,960 --> 01:18:24,200
I hope maybe to do this again
because I think that I learned a

1700
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:27,880
lot and I would love to kind of
process this and maybe dive more

1701
01:18:27,880 --> 01:18:30,120
into some more stuff that you're
you've been researching and

1702
01:18:30,120 --> 01:18:31,800
looking into in some time from
now.

1703
01:18:31,800 --> 01:18:35,280
But this is great meeting you
and thanks again for taking the

1704
01:18:35,280 --> 01:18:36,680
time and a short notice to hop
on with me.

1705
01:18:37,160 --> 01:18:38,280
Yeah, likewise.
Thanks for having.

1706
01:18:38,680 --> 01:18:39,080
Me.
Cheers.

1707
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:40,080
Thanks so much.
Take care.

1708
01:18:40,480 --> 01:18:40,560
Bye.