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your target audience with lips and

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ads. Go to lipsandads.com now. That's

1:06

L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. ["The

1:24

Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries only. This is

1:26

episode 449. I'm your host,

1:28

Thomas Smith. And today I've

1:30

got astrophysicist Dr. Brian Gillis to

1:32

explain what the hell happened to

1:34

the sky the other day. This

1:37

is important. Somehow the Northern Lights

1:39

were no longer Northern. They

1:42

were very much lights, but they were

1:44

not as much Northern as they normally

1:46

are. And Brian volunteered to explain that

1:48

to us. And it's very complicated. It

1:50

is so much more complicated than you

1:52

might think. A lot of really fascinating

1:55

and complex science here that Brian will

1:57

try to make sense for us. So.

2:00

That's what's on deck for today. We'll pause for

2:02

a brief break that you don't have to hear

2:04

if you're a patron at patreon.com so serious pot

2:06

and I also want to note that a seriously

2:08

awful movies or a Seriously good

2:11

thing is on deck. Dr.

2:13

Steve Proper is back and he decided to

2:16

Give us a break and let us watch something

2:18

good and we watched the pilot episode of scrubs

2:21

To talk about kind of the medical science

2:23

involved there And it

2:25

was a very pleasant change from having to watch

2:27

house So that'll be on patreon.com/serious

2:29

pod very soon Thanks so much to those

2:31

who support the show you're the best you

2:33

make it happen And I hope you enjoy

2:36

the no ads and the goodies. All right

2:38

after this break Let's find out

2:40

what in the world happened to the sky the

2:42

other day The The delicious

2:44

ice cold taste of Dr. Pepper has a

2:46

lasting effect on people. Lindsay from Sacramento said...

2:48

Pro tip, 40 degrees is the perfect

2:51

temperature for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Why

2:53

is 40 degrees the perfect temperature for Dr.

2:55

Pepper? We brought in Sue from Duluth, Minnesota to

2:57

tell us. Oh yeah, I know a thing or two

2:59

about cold. Oh, that right there is the

3:01

perfect kind of ice cold for Dr. Pepper. I'd

3:04

share that with my friend Nancy. She likes Dr.

3:06

Pepper too, you know. My coldest... Alright, that'll

3:08

be all, Sue. Having a perfect temperature for

3:10

your Dr. Pepper? It's a Pepper thing. Inspired

3:13

by Real Fan Posts. You're a

3:15

podcast listener and this is a podcast

3:17

ad reach great listeners like yourself with

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podcast Advertising from lips and ads choose

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from hundreds of top podcasts offering host

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endorsements or run a reproduced ad like

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this one across Thousands of shows to

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reach your target audience with lips and

3:30

ads go to lips and

3:32

ads calm now That's Li B.

3:34

S y n ads calm and

3:37

we're joined by Brian Everyone's favorite astrophysicist

3:39

to tell us what happened to this

3:41

guy that broke I think how's

3:44

it going Brian? Yeah, hello Thomas things

3:46

are going well with me and how

3:48

are things with you good? I I

3:50

heard from the outside world that something

3:52

happened in the sky I've only I've

3:54

been chained to a rock at a

3:56

podcast factory, but people tell me oh,

3:58

yeah, nothing happened. Yeah Yeah,

4:00

I heard you've been making a new podcast there.

4:03

Congratulations. This is what, number six,

4:05

something like that? Who knows? Yeah,

4:07

thank you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

4:11

So for those who haven't heard

4:13

or are listening to this far

4:15

in the future, just last week,

4:17

there was a phenomenal display of

4:19

the Northern Lights, which was visible

4:21

from much further south than is

4:23

normal. Many people in the

4:25

US even were able to see

4:28

them, which the outside of Alaska

4:30

almost never happens. So

4:32

I thought that was a good time. Thomas had an

4:34

open slot in the show so I could come in

4:36

and talk a bit about what

4:38

exactly the Northern and Southern Lights

4:40

are and why this ridiculously

4:43

magical looking thing actually happens.

4:46

Yeah, I'm rooting for apocalypse. I'm hoping it

4:48

means it's all over soon,

4:50

but maybe there's just a more basic explanation.

4:53

But yeah, it really was incredible. Lydia

4:55

messaged me and was like, hey, you

4:57

should go see the Northern Lights. I

4:59

was like, what in the world does

5:01

that mean? Is there, is this code

5:03

for something? What are you talking about?

5:06

I had no idea because that like

5:08

in a normal day, what does

5:10

that mean? That means like, hey, I

5:13

know it's like 9 PM and you're

5:15

editing or whatever. Maybe it was like 10,

5:18

but go to Alaska right now or something.

5:22

And then I just was too busy and then

5:24

I saw people start to post stuff. I was

5:26

like, oh shit, really? And it was visible all the

5:28

way where we were, I think, and

5:30

are not far away from it, which is, you

5:33

know, Sacramento is not,

5:36

it's not the North Pole here. It's

5:38

not, uh, it's not very North. Yeah,

5:40

that was extremely unusual. The good news

5:42

is that it probably won't be the

5:44

last time in the near future that

5:47

there are going to be some good

5:49

Northern Lights displays. They might not get

5:51

as far south as Sacramento again,

5:53

but from everything I've heard or

5:55

kind of entering, uh, are part

5:58

of a, like a, a. year

6:00

or so cycle of the sun's

6:02

activity where seeing the northern lights

6:05

becomes more and more common. So

6:07

if you're living a bit further

6:10

north than that in the regions

6:12

that can normally see it, so

6:14

the cutoff for that is roughly

6:17

the UK, northern Europe, northern Russia,

6:19

and mid to

6:21

northern Canada. Like if you're

6:23

above the southern strip of Canadian cities where

6:25

they're all clustered, if you're a bit above

6:28

that you can often see the northern lights.

6:30

So that's the reason that can normally see

6:33

them. And then of course the southern lights

6:35

too. Physically they're exactly the same phenomenon on

6:37

the other side of the planet. So yeah,

6:39

they'll be active too if you're in Australia

6:41

or New Zealand. You should have some good

6:43

chances to see them again if you miss

6:45

them this time. I just never

6:48

thought about obviously the fact that there

6:50

would also be southern lights. Is it

6:52

just because there's not as many people

6:54

that tend to witness that? Why the

6:56

northern lights get all the credit? Yeah,

6:58

it's just because there are so many

7:00

more people in the northern hemisphere. Okay.

7:02

Yeah, that either already lives close to

7:04

them or can travel there quickly. Like

7:06

the northern lights are called the aurora

7:08

borealis and the southern lights are called

7:10

aurora australis. They're called the aurora in

7:12

general. But the southern lights is

7:15

visible from just Australia and New

7:17

Zealand. Even then not too commonly.

7:20

They're most often seen by people who

7:22

are, I think they were first observed

7:24

by westerners on ships that were exploring

7:26

the southern hemisphere. Now that there are

7:29

more residents of Australia and New Zealand,

7:31

they get seen more commonly. But yeah,

7:33

they just don't get talked about

7:35

as much. People down the southern hemisphere

7:38

just get forgotten about. But

7:40

they've got lights too. Yeah, definitely. You know,

7:42

I also saw the northern lights just on

7:44

a flight because flying across

7:46

the country usually does that like upward

7:49

geodesic or whatever the heck is called. And yeah, you

7:51

can see a lot further north when you're up higher.

7:53

And it took me a second to realize what it

7:56

was. I was like, what in the hell is that?

7:58

And then I thought of it like maybe. that's

8:00

the northern lights. I never thought of like the

8:02

angle, you know, being able to see kind of

8:04

further than you might think. But it

8:06

is a really cool looking thing. Yeah.

8:08

So a bit about them in

8:11

general, we've already covered so where for

8:13

the northern lights, but if you want

8:15

to get a bit more technical, the

8:17

lights form in a ring around the

8:19

poles. They aren't actually at the poles,

8:21

but ring around

8:23

them. And then you can see them from

8:26

much farther outside of that ring. And then

8:28

if you get too far away, the curvature

8:30

of the earth gets in the way typically,

8:32

unless of course you're in a plane. And

8:34

in which case you can see much farther.

8:36

Or if you're a flat earther. Yeah,

8:38

then you can always see them. Yeah,

8:41

exactly. Because it respects your religion and

8:44

there's visible all the time. Yeah. So

8:46

the next is probably what? What do

8:48

they look like? And a lot

8:50

of people have probably seen the northern lights

8:52

without realizing it as

8:55

one of the forms they take

8:57

is just a glow in the

8:59

north. And I've actually seen that

9:01

rather commonly leaving up in Scotland

9:03

as well within the zone where

9:05

you can see the aurora

9:07

under normal conditions. And I

9:09

got an app on my phone, which gives

9:11

me alerts for that if you also live

9:13

in the UK, it's called Aurora watch UK

9:15

for Android. This bro, I think they also

9:17

have an iPhone version, it actually gave me an

9:20

alert tonight. So after we're done recording this, I

9:22

might have to go to check and see

9:24

if we can see them again. But

9:26

most often when I get an alert,

9:28

it's just, oh, there's a bit of

9:30

a glow to the north, which yeah,

9:32

that is them. But it's not the

9:34

fantastical displays you see people posting pictures

9:37

of. And what

9:39

it actually turns out is going on with a lot

9:41

of those pictures is what

9:43

people are posting online mostly

9:45

are long exposure photographs, which

9:48

can pick up much more subtle contrast

9:50

in the sky than you can see

9:52

by eye. So the

9:54

photos actually look a lot better

9:56

than the aurora look

9:58

in reality. Unless you're lucky

10:01

enough to live in a place that's

10:03

far away from any light pollution, which

10:06

almost definitely most people don't. Most people

10:08

live in cities where there are lights

10:10

even at night. But

10:13

those who can get away from it can

10:15

have the Northern Lights being the only significant

10:17

source of light aside from the stars in

10:19

the sky and get some fantastic

10:21

shows that can just be seen by eye. That

10:24

would be cool. You know, I would say it

10:26

was one of the most disappointing things that I

10:28

learned that a lot of the coolest photos just

10:30

of anything are the long exposure stuff like

10:32

the night sky. I'd be like,

10:34

boy, you sure can see a whole lot of that Milky

10:37

Way when you're, I guess,

10:39

I don't know, somewhere other than here. And it's like,

10:41

well, no, a camera just was left on for a

10:43

month. And then that's what it looks like.

10:45

Yeah. And a lot of

10:47

that we could have seen if it weren't

10:49

for all of the light. One of the

10:51

frustrating things is light pollution is one of

10:53

those things that isn't really good for anyone.

10:56

It's wasteful of energy if you have light

10:58

that's going off into the sky. And

11:00

there are very often some simple

11:02

modifications that can be made to

11:04

street lights. You only need

11:07

the light to go down. So if you just put

11:09

a reflective surface above it, you only need half the

11:11

intensity to get the same light going down. Yeah,

11:13

a lot of places are doing that.

11:17

But then you also get things like

11:19

office buildings, which leave their lights on,

11:21

or they just have to have their

11:23

logo displayed at full brightness overnight. All

11:26

of this stuff adds up. And the

11:28

light that we get from the Aurora

11:30

is usually drowned out. And so a

11:33

lot of these displays are going on. We

11:35

just can't see them. And

11:37

it's a shame, really. Yeah. But

11:39

what's happening? Is the planet burning or something? Is

11:41

it climate change? Why do we got, I mean,

11:44

it's pretty crazy. Is it for once

11:46

going to not be something horrible that's

11:48

responsible for this crazy phenomenon going on?

11:50

As far as humanity knows, we are

11:53

not to blame for the Northern Lights.

11:55

They've been going on since humanity was

11:57

around. The way they looked... This

12:00

must have been like one of the

12:02

things that convinced people of the supernatural.

12:04

If you see these weird light displays

12:06

in the sky and have no understanding

12:09

whatsoever of what signs you could possibly

12:11

cause it. That's one of the things

12:13

that yeah, I get why people would

12:15

believe in like fairies or something causing

12:17

it because even these days

12:19

we don't fully understand the science behind

12:21

it. We've got a lot of pieces

12:24

of the puzzle put together. There are

12:26

just a few steps in the middle

12:28

where we aren't sure what's happening. So

12:30

I'll give you what steps we

12:33

do now. So step

12:36

one, we've already covered the where.

12:38

The where is a pretty big

12:40

clue as to what's happening and

12:42

that they occur in rings around

12:44

the poles. And this is a

12:47

strong indication that one of the

12:49

factors influencing them is Earth's magnetic

12:51

field. We can get into magnets

12:54

in a bit, but let's say

12:56

the technical stuff for a bit

12:58

later on and just wait

13:00

on that. The other clue is

13:02

that they are very

13:05

strongly correlated to activity in the

13:07

sun. Now that we're able to

13:09

monitor the sun with telescopes, we

13:11

can check for solar storms, what

13:13

they call coronal mass ejections, which

13:15

is when there's like a big

13:17

bubble in the sun that bursts

13:19

and spits a bunch of particles

13:21

at us. Whenever something like that

13:23

happens, we get typically a much

13:26

stronger auroral display. And that

13:28

type of thing is why we're going

13:30

into a period of seeing a bunch

13:32

more auroral displays. Like the sun has

13:35

long-term weather changes. Like you know how

13:37

on Earth every few years we get

13:39

El Niño and La Niña, the long-term

13:41

weather changes. The sun has things like

13:44

that too. There's an 11-ish year cycle

13:46

and we're hitting the peak of it.

13:48

Well just starting to hit the peak

13:51

of it and we should be expecting

13:53

to see stronger and more

13:55

common aurora coming up over the

13:57

next few years or so. What

14:00

the heck makes up the sun's weather

14:02

though? I just assume the sun's just

14:04

all hot. It's just hot

14:07

a lot. Just lots of hotness. What

14:09

different things are happening? It is

14:11

hot, but remember a few

14:14

episodes back we talked about

14:16

turbulence. And it's the

14:18

kind of chaotic thing. Like oh,

14:20

just on your recent episode with

14:23

Dr. Sutter, you talked about the

14:25

turbulence of the free body problem.

14:27

I just have to get this off my

14:29

chest. The show is called Free Body Problem,

14:32

but it features a four body problem. The

14:34

planet is a body too. It's

14:36

so tiny though that they don't count it, I

14:38

think. I think that's what it is. Well,

14:41

no, you do have to count it. If

14:43

you just have a planet and two stars,

14:45

you still do have to account for the

14:47

planet. Particularly because the planet is where all

14:49

the people are, its path gets very important.

14:51

I don't know. How far away do you

14:53

have to be to be a habitable planet

14:55

from a system like that? I'm

14:58

trying to defend the good name of

15:00

free body problem because one thing

15:02

that Paul said was that the reason we don't sweat

15:04

this in our solar system is like it's just a

15:06

series of two body problems and the other planets are

15:08

so tiny it doesn't really matter. Yeah,

15:11

that is a factor. The other

15:13

planets aren't going to send the

15:15

sun careening off or the

15:18

earth. You can

15:20

have chaos with just two

15:22

stars and one planet even if

15:25

the planet is infinitesimally small. If

15:27

you trace the path of that planet, that

15:30

planet's path will still be chaotic even if

15:32

the path of the two stars aren't.

15:35

If you care about what happens to the people, it

15:38

is how many stars plus

15:40

one planet problem. Gotcha.

15:42

Anyways, the point is chaos

15:44

affects the weather and chaos

15:47

basically boiling it down, particularly

15:49

for those who didn't listen

15:51

to that episode, is

15:54

a physical system that is

15:56

not random despite intuitively thinking

15:58

chaos is random. this. When

16:00

we speak in physics jargon, it

16:03

isn't. Chaos means something that's perfectly

16:05

deterministic. It follows the laws of

16:08

physics. If you rewind everything and

16:10

run it again, it will happen

16:12

the exact same way. But

16:15

the difference with chaos is

16:17

that while the present perfectly

16:19

predicts the future, the approximate

16:22

present doesn't predict to be

16:24

approximate future. So if things

16:26

at the beginning were slightly

16:29

different, the future will be

16:31

vastly different. Pretty much unpredictable.

16:34

Weather is one of the

16:36

quintessential chaotic systems. And

16:39

so the sun effectively

16:41

has its own weather. It's a

16:44

lot of particles in a hot

16:46

plasma throughout it, and a lot

16:49

of it being a nuclear fission

16:51

engine. And the

16:53

specific distribution of particles

16:56

is very complicated, random

16:58

in a sense. And

17:00

what this means is that over

17:03

time, small changes in positions of

17:05

the sun will build up into

17:07

bigger effects. And these lead to

17:10

large weather effects. And some of

17:12

these will have predictable patterns, and

17:15

some won't. It'll just

17:17

be chaotic. And these chronomassage

17:19

ejections, you can predict the

17:21

overall frequency and how that

17:23

will change over time. But

17:25

you can't predict exactly when

17:28

one will occur until

17:30

it's basically already started. So

17:33

that's how we get weather in the

17:35

sun. And that's why the auroras are

17:37

sometimes stronger than others. So

17:39

the two pieces we have so

17:41

far to the auroras is you

17:43

get activity from the

17:45

sun, spews out particles,

17:48

these particles hit the earth,

17:50

do something with the magnetic

17:52

field, we'll get back to

17:54

that something. This leads to

17:56

something happening around the poles.

17:58

And the final piece

18:00

we know for sure is what

18:02

causes the colors to be emitted

18:04

from the aurora. This part comes

18:06

from basically what's in the air.

18:09

So in the high upper atmosphere

18:12

where the auroras come from, the

18:14

most common elements are oxygen and

18:16

nitrogen. And particularly in the highest

18:18

regions where we see the auroras,

18:21

oxygen is more common in its

18:23

atomic form. If you remember

18:25

back to high school chemistry, you probably

18:28

remember that oxygen as we most often

18:30

experience it when it's on its own

18:33

is in O2, or

18:35

a molecule of two oxygen.

18:38

Yeah, and nitrogen is most commonly

18:40

N2. In the high upper atmosphere,

18:42

a lot of factors going into

18:44

it, oxygen is most

18:46

commonly in atomic form. Nitrogen is still

18:49

in molecular form, it bonds to itself

18:51

so strongly that it's so hard to

18:53

get apart. You should compare yourself, nitrogen,

18:55

am I right? Yeah,

18:57

oh, it would if it could, trust me. So

19:01

the poles are where the single oxygens go

19:03

to play the theme. Yeah. Okay, most

19:06

oxygen, monogamous pair bonding forever.

19:08

Yeah, so what's going on

19:10

in the Northern Lights is

19:12

basically a rays.

19:15

So think of it this way, that

19:17

energy gets injected into them from the

19:19

particles coming in from the Sun, and

19:21

then the energy, you know, they get

19:24

knocked around a bit by these particles,

19:26

and then they let out a yellow

19:28

of excitement. And this yellow of excitement

19:30

is the light we see. Like a

19:33

mosh pit. Yeah, basically, you've got a

19:35

lot of atoms in a mosh pit,

19:37

and they let out wells of excitement.

19:39

And because of quantum mechanics, the yells

19:41

they let out can only be a

19:44

very specific wavelength. And

19:46

you can think of it like a

19:48

miniature solar system with a nucleus with

19:50

electrons orbiting it. Quantum

19:52

mechanically, it's more complicated.

19:54

But the electrons

19:56

can only orbit in quotes

19:59

at certain. levels. Again,

20:01

due to quantum mechanical between

20:23

these levels is always a

20:25

fixed value. So the photon

20:27

that it spits out is

20:29

always going to have exactly

20:31

the same amount of energy. The

20:33

result of this is that we

20:35

get what we call emission lines

20:37

coming out of the particles and

20:40

for the aurora we primarily

20:43

see two lines from oxygen,

20:45

one red line and one

20:47

green line coming out

20:50

and a bunch from nitrogen. Nitrogen

20:52

as a molecule has much more

20:55

complicated behavior in what light we

20:57

can see so there are a

20:59

lot more potential emission

21:01

lines but the oxygen

21:03

ones dominate and so this is why

21:06

the aurora looks like it

21:08

does and this also explains why

21:10

we see different colors at different

21:13

altitudes. If you look

21:15

at most pictures of aurora you'll most

21:17

commonly see green which matches one of

21:19

the two lines from oxygen. This line

21:22

is stronger and the human eye is

21:24

also more sensitive to green so most

21:27

of the time auroras are going to

21:29

look green but sometimes you'll see the

21:31

red line as well particularly at higher

21:34

altitudes. Like during Christmas and stuff.

21:36

Yeah, yeah. It wants to

21:38

be a little Christmassy. This line

21:40

always shows up but sometimes it

21:43

gets suppressed. Electrons, it doesn't have

21:45

a chance to let it yell. Basically

21:47

a nitrogen comes by, bumps into it

21:50

and steals some of the energy but the

21:52

green one is more able to

21:54

let it out and all of that

21:56

combines gives an interesting mix of red

21:58

and green and then and all of

22:00

the other colors that come in from

22:03

nitrogen, but only when you can really

22:05

see them well. So this part, we've

22:07

got a good handle on. Okay, so

22:09

Northern Lights, they're pretty much always somewhat

22:12

going, is that true? Or I guess

22:14

on both poles. There's always some amount

22:16

of the sun's energy is doing whatever

22:19

it does, you know, in the privacy

22:21

of the bedroom of these molecules. It

22:24

makes something let out some energy, something,

22:26

something light. I sort of understand at

22:28

least what's going on there. But

22:31

it's just a question of it being stronger

22:34

and going further down the planet

22:36

or whatever. Why does that, I

22:39

guess I'm having a hard time understanding like the difference

22:41

in how it comes up or down. So

22:43

the strength of it usually depends on how

22:46

much is coming in from the sun. So

22:48

going back to our mosh pit example, you

22:50

know, it's always like you've got people in

22:52

a mosh pit and there'll be a bit

22:55

of noise coming out. They just kind of

22:57

shuffle around, occasionally bump each other, let out

22:59

an oof, sorry. But

23:01

then when the band gets on stage

23:04

and starts to play and

23:06

inject a lot of energy into

23:08

them, the mosh pit gets loud.

23:10

So the solar activity, when it

23:12

starts ejecting and spraying us with

23:15

many more charged particles, inject a lot

23:17

more energy into the system. So more

23:19

atoms get excited and more excited atoms

23:22

give off more light and it gets

23:24

brighter. I don't know why I'm

23:26

having a little bit of a

23:28

mental block unlike, so why is it,

23:30

it's around the poles because the

23:32

magnetic field of earth is like

23:34

more around there or, and so how

23:37

does that relate to these oxygen,

23:39

they're like the mosh pit-y thing. Why,

23:42

yeah, what's the relation of that? That's

23:44

the tricky part. Okay, so let's just put

23:46

a pin in that for one second because

23:48

there was one other part that's relatively

23:51

easy to address is what

23:53

happened a week ago as

23:55

we talked about this. If anybody's

23:58

looking at this far in the future, that would be...

24:00

around 10th of May, 2024, was

24:04

it wasn't just that they got

24:06

brighter than usual, they also got

24:09

significantly further south than usual. And

24:11

I think the trick here is

24:13

that where they occur

24:15

are also subject to weather patterns

24:18

on Earth, that the upper atmosphere is

24:20

affected by weather as well.

24:22

And this shifted the zone where

24:25

all these charged particles were hanging

24:27

out further south so that they

24:29

could be more visible. That

24:31

part relatively straightforward, at least

24:34

as straightforward as weather can

24:36

be. But we still have

24:38

to get into the question of why

24:40

they're hanging out up north in

24:43

the first place. And to do that, we're

24:45

probably going to have to get into trying

24:48

to explain magnetism as best I can

24:51

over an audio medium. When a

24:53

mommy magnet and a daddy magnet

24:55

love each other very much. Yeah.

24:57

So let's start, Thomas, what do

24:59

you know about magnetism? How would

25:01

you describe that? Literal magic that

25:03

wizards invented. So basically that insane

25:05

clown posse song, miracle, fucking magnets, how do

25:07

they work? That's where you're at. Never heard

25:10

of it, but fully agree with that message.

25:12

Fully agree with that. Okay. Yeah. I

25:14

could have written that, apparently. Our

25:17

everyday experience of magnets is their

25:19

chunks of metal, which do a

25:21

few things, all of which seem

25:23

to be related. They have two

25:25

ends which behave differently. We call

25:27

them poles, like the magnet will

25:29

have the north pole and a

25:31

south pole. And if

25:33

the magnet is able to move

25:35

on its own, it will typically

25:38

rotate to aligned with earth's magnetic

25:40

field. So that's the north pole

25:42

of the magnet points south and

25:45

the south pole of the magnet points north.

25:48

And if you have two magnets, they'll do

25:50

the same thing where the north pole of

25:52

one will be attracted to the south pole

25:54

of the other and vice versa.

25:57

So magnets opposites attract.

26:00

Magnets will also tend to

26:02

stick to a lot of

26:04

metallic surfaces that aren't themselves

26:06

magnetic. This is something we

26:08

call induced magnetism. It basically

26:10

temporarily turns other metals into

26:12

a magnet and then sticks to them

26:14

because of that. So magnets are

26:17

an attractive or repulsive force depending

26:19

on how they're aligned. From good

26:21

looking they are, yeah. Yes, exactly.

26:23

And now one other interesting thing

26:25

about magnets is if you look

26:27

at a magnet, let's say you've

26:29

got a bar magnet, one side is

26:32

the North Pole, one is the South

26:34

Pole. What happens if you cut that

26:36

magnet down the middle? What

26:38

do you have then? Hot dog filer hamburgers. Hamburger

26:42

style. Down the... Oh,

26:44

oh wait, what? Like do you cut

26:46

it in half long ways or? Short

26:49

ways between the North and South poles of

26:51

the magnets. Gotcha, okay. Now, yeah, that's a

26:53

good question. Do you get two... interesting. Do

26:55

you get two magnets with the North and South Pole? Or

26:58

do you get a North magnet and a South

27:00

magnet? Ah, I don't

27:02

know. Yeah, this is something that's

27:04

hard to just imagine but very

27:07

easily to do experimentally. And this

27:09

experiment is done and you always

27:11

get two magnets each with

27:13

the North and South Pole. Really? Yeah,

27:15

you can repeat this, cut each of

27:17

the smaller ones in half. You'll then

27:19

get like four each with their own

27:21

North and South. You can

27:23

keep doing this all the way

27:25

to the atomic level and eventually

27:28

you'll get a single atom of

27:31

iron, typically iron. You can make

27:33

permanent magnets instead of other things

27:35

but iron is by far the

27:37

most common. And that atom acts

27:40

as its own small magnet with

27:42

a North and South pole which

27:44

you can't split apart any further.

27:46

I mean, if you split iron, you

27:48

get a nuclear explosion. Actually,

27:50

no. Iron, you can't even

27:52

split to get a nuclear explosion. It's already in

27:55

a memory. You have to inject a ton of

27:57

energy. So if you split it, that won't happen.

28:01

You have to pour a ton of energy into it, you'll get

28:03

a fizzle. Iron is

28:05

the one element that you can't get

28:07

energy out of by either splitting or

28:09

fusing. Oh yeah, wow. Is

28:11

that coincidental or is that like the

28:14

reason why it is the magnet? I

28:16

think this part actually is coincidental. Okay,

28:18

gotcha. The reason why actually comes down

28:20

to the way the electrons are around

28:23

iron. So if we go back to

28:25

what I was talking about before, that

28:27

electrons are like miniature

28:29

solar systems around

28:31

nucleus. This is

28:34

wrong and it is very

28:36

importantly wrong because if electrons

28:38

were always going in circles

28:41

around atoms, every

28:44

atom would be magnetic. But

28:46

in practice, really only

28:48

iron and a couple others

28:51

are. So what's going on quantum

28:53

mechanically is that each electron

28:56

is more in a cloud of

28:58

probability space of where it could

29:00

be. And most energy levels

29:02

look something like a cloud or a

29:05

blob or something like this. They

29:07

get built up in a very

29:09

weird way. But the interesting thing

29:11

is that eventually when you get

29:13

exactly to iron, the newest energy

29:15

level you add is the first

29:18

one that's actually a ring. That's

29:21

the first time you could say in

29:23

some sense the electron

29:25

is orbiting. Even then,

29:27

it's not quite right. But

29:30

iron puts the electron in

29:32

the state that that energy

29:35

level of the electron has

29:37

a constant magnetic moment, we

29:39

call it, and causes magnetism.

29:42

Interesting. Don't understand it, but I'll take a word for

29:44

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Available to buy now wherever books are

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sold. What's

30:56

up, sandwich heads? Today on Steve-O's Sandwich Reviews, we've

30:58

got the tips and tricks to the best sandwich

31:00

order. And it all starts with this little

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guy right here, Pepsi Zero Sugar.

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Partials of astronomy, craving a cubano.

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31:48

So, to get down

31:50

into understanding, let's talk

31:52

about electricity and electrostatics

31:55

first, because... ...magnetism is really fascinating, and

31:57

I have a good story to share

31:59

with you. about how I uncovered that

32:01

it's actually two different laws of physics in

32:03

a trench coat. So when

32:05

I was learning about electromagnetism in school,

32:07

I was surprised to find that they

32:10

didn't start by teaching us about magnets,

32:12

which I like, what we deal with

32:14

magnets all the time. But

32:17

no, they started teaching us

32:19

about what they call electrostatics,

32:21

which is the simpler half

32:23

of the equation. Electrostatics

32:26

is kind of like gravity

32:28

except the opposite. So

32:31

gravity is simply mass attracts

32:33

other mass, and

32:35

electrostatics just adds one layer of

32:37

complication. Okay, charges

32:40

repel charges that are the

32:42

same and attract charges that

32:44

are opposite. So it's a

32:47

simple opposites attract like repels.

32:50

Things like electrons are

32:52

negatively charged, protons are

32:54

positively charged, so they attract each

32:57

other. Two electrons, both negative, they

32:59

repel each other. It's simple like

33:01

that. And then as you go

33:03

through, they start to introduce

33:05

how it relates to magnetism. And

33:08

what happens is that any

33:11

changing electric field, so this

33:13

could be caused by accelerating

33:16

electric charge, which if

33:19

you want a stable state, you

33:21

can have when you have an

33:24

electric charge orbiting something, it's constantly

33:26

accelerating towards the center. Any accelerating

33:28

electric charge causes a magnetic field.

33:31

So if you have an

33:33

electron actually orbiting a central

33:36

position, you get a fixed

33:38

static magnetic field. And

33:41

the way this magnetic field is

33:43

shaped is kind of like imagine a

33:46

doughnut that the

33:48

electron is orbiting around the center of

33:51

the doughnut, and the magnetic field lines

33:53

go on the surface of it through

33:55

the hole down to the bottom across

33:57

up the edge back over the top.

34:00

and down. So a field line

34:02

is just describing where the

34:05

imaginary magnetic field points at any specific

34:07

time. So this would be like your

34:09

north to south direction. You could trace

34:11

this out for any region of space

34:14

and you'll get a doughnut

34:16

shaped with the electron

34:18

going through the bulk

34:21

of the doughnut around the hole and

34:23

the magnetic lines going down through the

34:25

hole up around the edges. So you

34:27

follow me on that? I'll

34:30

take your word for it. No, it's one of those things

34:32

where it's like fundamental so I don't, I can't, it's hard

34:34

to, can't be like, oh but why?

34:36

You know, because you've kind of hit either

34:39

a fundamental why or just too

34:41

hard to explain to me why.

34:43

Yeah. Well okay. That part I

34:45

can answer. We can go one

34:47

layer deeper on that but

34:50

before we do let's zoom back

34:53

out to the earth. So the

34:56

earth has its own magnetic

34:58

moment because the earth has a ton

35:00

of iron in it and

35:03

magnets tend to induce other

35:05

magnets. So over time

35:08

the iron in earth, a

35:10

lot of it aligns their

35:12

magnetism and for complicated

35:14

reasons it aligns it more

35:16

or less with the pull

35:18

of earth's rotation which actually

35:20

notably isn't always the

35:23

same direction. There's evidence that

35:25

historically the earth's magnetic pull

35:27

has flipped multiple times

35:29

over its history. I think the best

35:31

explanation is that sometimes the earth gets

35:33

hit by a comet

35:36

or asteroid or something and

35:39

it knocks everything out of whack and then

35:41

it settles back the other way by chance.

35:44

That's crazy. Yeah. Right now

35:46

the magnetic pull aligns mostly

35:48

with the axis of rotation. It isn't

35:51

exactly there. So if you were to

35:53

follow up like friends if you follow

35:55

a compass let it point you north

35:58

it will point not in the sky. Exactly to

36:00

the North axial pole but the

36:02

North magnetic pole which right now

36:04

is a bit over the northernmost

36:07

island of Canada, Ellesmere Island Which

36:09

is it's like the old-school equivalent

36:11

of like when Google Maps had

36:13

the wrong thing at your house

36:15

or whatever and like drove A

36:18

bunch of people ended up at your house

36:20

because Google Maps said it was like a Chipotle

36:22

or something It's like that but the old-timey

36:25

thing maybe it'd be a bunch of ships

36:27

or in that whatever Canadian island They're like

36:29

no, it's not It's

36:31

magnetic north. It's not the real it's

36:33

not in the North Pole. Come on

36:36

There actually is a bit of an

36:38

issue with that but for airplanes because

36:40

airport runaways are always numbered according to

36:43

their angle relative to magnetic north

36:45

and Magnetic north keeps

36:48

changing and since Canada is so

36:50

close to the magnetic pole they

36:52

eventually got frustrated with having to

36:54

keep changing the Numbers

36:56

of their runways when magnetic north changed they

36:58

eventually said, okay screw it the rest of

37:01

the world You can do magnetic north. We're

37:03

doing geographical north so we don't have to

37:05

keep up with all of this Anyway,

37:08

that leads us to kind of the

37:10

shape of the magnetic field now

37:12

Let's go back to our donut

37:15

example. You draw your lines around

37:17

the donut You start

37:19

anywhere in the surface of the donut

37:21

follow the magnetic field It goes makes

37:23

a loop around it. Now one thing

37:25

you might notice about these loops Let's

37:28

say you draw four loops one pointing

37:30

out a right and left one up

37:32

and down on your donut At

37:35

the outer edge of the donut these

37:37

field lines as we call them are pretty

37:39

far apart from each other But

37:41

in the center they're close together.

37:43

Oh, right. That makes sense Yeah,

37:46

and when we draw a field line

37:48

diagram how close the lines are together

37:50

is Proportional to how strong

37:52

the field is so the

37:54

magnetic field is very strong going right

37:57

through the center of the donut and

37:59

we coming up around the sacs.

38:01

That's why it's so delicious on that part.

38:04

Yeah. Well, that's why they sell the whole separate.

38:06

That's the most delicious part of the magnet. Yeah,

38:09

so magnetic. Yeah. So if we take

38:11

this as Earth, Earth is like

38:13

the donut hole. Or it

38:15

overlaps a bit with the hole

38:17

because it has a magnet inside.

38:20

And so the field lines are

38:23

going to be all around us. You

38:25

can imagine like the Earth embedded in

38:27

a giant donut. And around

38:30

the north and south poles of the

38:33

Earth, you're close to the center of

38:35

the donut hole. So you've got the

38:37

field lines close together. And then off

38:39

to the sides, you're closer to the edges of the

38:41

donut where the field lines

38:44

are far apart. Oh, man. But I'm struggling

38:46

because you're saying the Earth is the donut

38:48

hole? Because if that were true, I would

38:50

expect everything to be close. Those field lines

38:53

to be close together all around the equator.

38:55

Because isn't that where the donut... Yeah. So

38:57

the trick is we have multiple donuts. One

39:01

donut inside another. I'm

39:03

just simplifying it down to one

39:05

donut. Okay. I want to make

39:07

sure I keep my donuts straight. Because that was something

39:09

that like when you brought that up, the field lines

39:11

is like, hey, for once I can totally visualize what

39:13

you're saying. And then it didn't work. So I just

39:15

want to make sure why. Yeah,

39:18

exactly. So the thing is we have

39:20

multiple donuts layered on top of each

39:22

other. Oh, it's not just one donut.

39:24

It's like a three-dimensional donut. Donut. So

39:27

like you might have heard of a tur

39:29

dakken, the chicken inside a

39:31

dakken inside a turkey. Here

39:33

we have a dough dough dough

39:35

nut nut dot. We have a doughnut inside

39:37

a doughnut inside a doughnut, which is much

39:40

better and also much

39:42

more cruel. Okay. So

39:44

we have doughnuts inside doughnuts and

39:46

around the pole, the whole part

39:48

of these three doughnuts are much

39:51

closer together. Okay. And

39:53

they come out of the Earth around the pole. Gotcha.

39:56

So closer together field lines, much stronger

39:58

field. And then around the

40:00

equator. the outer edges of

40:02

the donuts are farther apart and

40:04

so farther apart field lines is

40:06

weaker field. So overall

40:08

the magnetic field is much

40:11

stronger around the north and

40:13

south poles than is at

40:15

the equator. Gotcha. We won't

40:17

get into the jelly filling, but that's

40:19

another episode later on. Yeah, so then

40:22

the other piece of

40:24

the puzzle is answering why does

40:26

the magnetic field cause charged

40:29

particles to be around there.

40:32

And this is just another

40:35

way that electricity and magnetism

40:37

go together. It's basically the

40:40

same way that electricity

40:42

can cause magnetism, magnetism

40:44

can cause motion in

40:47

electrically charged particles. And

40:49

the way it works is just

40:52

imagine one of these field lines, which

40:54

is just you draw the line north

40:56

to south and until it forms a

40:58

complete loop. If an

41:00

electrically charged particle gets close

41:02

to one of those lines, it'll

41:04

tend to start spiraling around it.

41:07

So to go with the

41:10

metaphor, just imagine somebody who

41:12

loves trees a lot walking through a forest.

41:14

Whenever they get close to a tree, they

41:16

reach out their arm, touch it and start

41:18

spinning around it. I like that.

41:20

That's nice. So up in the

41:23

north and south poles, we've got

41:25

a variable forest of magnetic tree

41:27

lines. And all of these

41:29

charged particles are tree lovers and they get

41:32

caught in the forest and start hanging around

41:34

up there. There are

41:36

many fewer trees out near the equator

41:39

for the particles to get stuck in.

41:41

And even when they do, you know,

41:44

they might start spinning around the

41:46

magnetic field line, but they'll also

41:48

have some velocity either north or

41:50

south just by chance. And then

41:52

they'll spin around it while slowly

41:54

going north until eventually they get

41:56

to where the field line is

41:58

going down. Oh. No,

42:01

no. Yeah, they

42:03

get to the Iggdrasil up at the North Pole. Yeah.

42:06

The field line starts curving back down

42:08

into Earth and then other things like

42:10

atmospheric pressure capture them there. Like

42:13

they'd be fighting against the higher pressure to get

42:15

down. And so the

42:17

magnetic field lines basically capture these

42:19

particles, guide them up the poles

42:22

where the big mosh party is

42:24

happening and they can all celebrate

42:26

their tree loving together in the

42:28

big forest. Right. Because it's one of

42:31

those things where I think I get

42:33

caught in like magneto mode or not. Like

42:35

I'm like, yeah, it's just the magnetic, whatever,

42:37

but got to remember there's also other forces

42:39

like happening all the time as well. So

42:41

it's like that interplay of

42:43

the magnetic force and then also atmospheric

42:46

stuff going on. Yeah. The

42:49

magnets want to guide them one way and

42:51

then the atmosphere pushes the other and eventually

42:53

they get balanced out and they just kind

42:55

of pile up near the poles. And then

42:57

eventually other things come around like the solar

42:59

wind will steadily blow them off. And

43:02

then when there are big coronal mass

43:04

ejections from the sun, they excite all

43:07

of them. They have a big party

43:09

spew out Northern and Southern lights

43:11

that we can all see and have a

43:13

lot of fun. Then a few of them

43:16

get blown off. Many of

43:18

them get blown off in the party. But

43:20

what we see is just the lights coming from them.

43:24

So do we complete the loop there? The

43:26

donut loop? Yeah. So that's the

43:28

reason why the particles are hanging out there. And

43:30

then I guess I, so here's what I'm still a

43:32

little stuck on. Now the

43:35

crazy lights being seen by

43:37

people as far South as

43:39

somehow me, that's not

43:41

a question of more particles getting

43:43

trapped, right? Because that would be

43:45

all earthy stuff. It's

43:47

a question of... Well, the particles do

43:50

often come from the sun. The

43:53

oxygen and nitrogen, yeah, those

43:55

elements come from previous stars,

43:58

But there's also a lot of

44:00

that that... the got into the

44:02

fun at some point and got

44:04

blown towards us. The whole thing

44:06

is complicated but most of that

44:08

does tend to just come from

44:10

earth, earth's atmosphere or kind of

44:12

interplanetary medium of that is the

44:14

death. but given the vacuum thought

44:17

is that the sun is somehow

44:19

sending more. I thought the sun

44:21

was just doing activity lights part

44:23

was it does and more. These

44:25

grow messages and spend a lot

44:27

of particle towards us at the

44:29

big. Miss him as he almost

44:31

as if by law is third

44:33

smaller end of things but there

44:35

is a significant amount that are

44:37

these more masses elements which the

44:39

sun doesn't is yet produce. It

44:41

isn't at that stage or that's life

44:44

but same from previous stars that

44:46

went through their life cycle than produce

44:48

them and then they've just been

44:50

hanging out throughout the source the

44:52

some some of them ended up falling

44:55

into the fun and then getting

44:57

blasted out at us others for

44:59

distant planets and. Get into

45:01

the atmosphere and gets knocked off

45:03

and then slowly come back down

45:05

so it's a bunch of thanks.

45:07

Okay so when it comes when

45:09

the lights go further south it's

45:11

not because of like a stronger

45:14

thing is activating stuff. Further down

45:16

is that there's more. of

45:18

the stuff the more the trapped particle

45:20

a as to as so fuzzy on

45:22

that it's a bit of both the

45:24

of as fun as the more things

45:26

this is part of what isn't fully

45:28

known about it is how much as

45:31

in is being activated more and how

45:33

much as more particles being added to

45:35

the mix but a lot of it

45:37

being seen further south pacific gets brighter

45:39

and brighter it is the further south

45:41

you can see it because he know

45:43

it's a disused the atmosphere the farther

45:45

and then also just optically the by

45:47

something. In the fainter it is.

45:50

But they're also weather patterns on

45:52

earth. a bad effect. Is

45:54

that exists with a particular taste

45:56

where the weather Was married for

45:58

two with us. Kind of

46:00

blew the whole really not much

46:03

farther south than in normally goes.

46:05

At the same time that we

46:07

had a huge storm from the

46:09

sign activating everything's so basically everything

46:11

a line to make them much

46:14

more visible further south than almost

46:16

ever. had lots of the lots

46:18

and lots of variables and they

46:20

all time came up Millhouse for

46:22

the at the Northern lights. Exactly.

46:25

Matsumoto doesn't mean we're dying or the

46:27

climb and or something then know that

46:29

stuff. No, no, this is something that

46:31

happens completely independently from us. If we

46:34

really want to, we could try to

46:36

pump up extra oxygen and nitrogen into

46:38

the air. Ah, I'm probably not the

46:40

best use of our resources such as

46:43

well. It is very shape. Wrangles.

46:45

Astrophysicists. We can have a nice thing

46:47

using this doesn't I think we had

46:49

to have is this is just a

46:51

nice thing of it. It's eclipses. It's

46:54

just something nice south of them will

46:56

gathering and cause that eclipse assists know.

46:58

And Eclipse? Fum. I will. That's nice. So it's

47:00

and you're dealing with you. Expect maybe a bit

47:02

more this? who knows if it'll be. On

47:05

way my an act of the woods the

47:07

like lots of crazy raised up there. yeah

47:09

we may not get out of like the

47:11

again we might get even like the earth's

47:13

been look around particles are getting lucky Him

47:15

I right. Yeah,

47:17

if you're somewhere far north enough that their

47:19

regular you could probably get a nap for

47:22

it will the one I used as a

47:24

row of what's the Pay and you know

47:26

probably use that almost anywhere is optimized for

47:28

the Uk. it's healthier how far into the

47:30

you feel like if we can see them

47:32

in Scotland or England and but it'll. Tell.

47:34

you when the sun is more active

47:37

at least so as the earth over

47:39

and say norway is fry so useful

47:41

for you or mill tell you when

47:43

it's than likely though if you're in

47:45

love those regions get a now if

47:47

you're further south you'll probably get more

47:49

false alert than are worthwhile on a

47:51

nap like that you may wanna look

47:54

for news reports i i think a

47:56

lot of people to alberta to it

47:58

from my guy nasa's twitter account or

48:00

something like that. So, yeah, there are

48:02

other sources, but yeah, it's something to

48:04

watch out for. The The

48:06

delicious ice cold taste of Dr. Pepper has

48:08

a lasting effect on people. Lindsay from Sacramento

48:10

said... Pro tip, 40 degrees is the

48:12

perfect temperature for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Why

48:15

is 40 degrees the perfect temperature for Dr.

48:17

Pepper? We brought in Sue from Duluth, Minnesota to

48:19

tell us. Oh yeah, I know a thing or two

48:21

about cold. Oh, that right there is the

48:23

perfect kind of ice cold for Dr. Pepper. I'd

48:26

I'd share that with my friend Nancy. She likes

48:28

Dr. Pepper too, you know. My coldest... Alright, that'll

48:30

be all, Sue. Having a perfect temperature for

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your Dr. Pepper? It's a Pepper thing. Inspired

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see all deals in the Meyer app. We

49:21

put a pin in, can we go

49:23

down any further than magnetism? And

49:26

I wanted to answer that one for you. I

49:28

wanted to leave it to the end as it's

49:30

where things get pretty technical but it's an interesting

49:32

story I wanted to share. So

49:35

let's go back to when I

49:37

was in high school learning about

49:39

electricity and magnetism. They give us

49:41

all of these equations like how

49:44

moving electric particles cause a magnetic

49:46

field and then a magnetic field

49:48

will apply a force to moving

49:50

electric particles other than the ones

49:53

that caused them. And one

49:55

of the things I highlighted was that

49:57

if you have two wires with electricity

49:59

flow. through them and they're

50:02

parallel to each other, the magnetic

50:04

fields caused by these two wires

50:06

will cause them to attract each

50:08

other. That's just the way the

50:10

math works out. So

50:12

then I started imagining, okay, so

50:14

these wires, they have electrons moving

50:17

through them and then enough

50:19

protons there to balance out the charges

50:21

so that each of them is overall

50:23

neutrally charged. We don't have any electrostatic

50:26

force to worry about, but what if

50:28

we did? And I was thinking,

50:30

okay, so if we had just

50:32

two streams of electrons, they

50:35

would still attract each other

50:37

through magnetism but also repel

50:39

each other from the electrostatic

50:41

force. Now the

50:43

strength of the magnetism is proportional to

50:46

how fast the electrons are traveling. So

50:48

could they travel fast enough that

50:51

it exactly balances out?

50:53

And then I started

50:56

thinking, okay, what about from a relativity

50:58

perspective? So let's say you have them

51:00

fast enough that it balances out and

51:02

then let's say you go and take

51:04

a ride on one of those electrons.

51:07

Now as we discussed way back in one

51:09

of the first episodes I did with

51:11

you on special relativity, you can basically

51:13

shift your frame of reference in the

51:16

universe to any other constant velocity and

51:18

all the laws of physics are exactly

51:20

the same. So if you shift to

51:22

ride one of those electrons, the electrons

51:24

in the other stream will all be

51:27

stationary. For your perspective, you

51:29

just have two lines of

51:31

electrons standing there. So there

51:34

wouldn't be any magnetism in this perspective,

51:37

but there would be the

51:39

electrostatic force. So from that

51:41

perspective, the electrons should be repelling

51:43

each other. But from the

51:45

first perspective, the two forces cancel out and

51:49

the lines don't move. So what's

51:51

going on here? Why do we

51:53

seem to get this contradiction in

51:55

the laws of physics? So

51:58

what I did was I went and talked Okay,

52:00

well what philosophy do you

52:02

need for these two to

52:05

cancel out. I. Plugged it

52:07

into the equations. And. The value

52:09

I got out was. Exactly.

52:11

The fetal I like the A. New

52:14

predicted it. Yeah, this is

52:16

a day To The top

52:18

to all of this is

52:20

that I realize that you

52:22

have to account for both

52:24

magnetism and Relativity. And the

52:26

thing is that. You

52:29

can actually do this from either

52:31

perspective. Just say. Okay, from of

52:33

the perfect of somebody riding the

52:36

electrons, the have to be retelling

52:38

each other at this rate. And

52:40

then there are some velocity Relativity

52:42

causes time dilation. If we account

52:45

for time dilation and then go

52:47

back to our perspective, we see

52:49

them retelling each other a bit

52:52

less. And. No one other

52:54

way to characterize the Republic's other

52:56

a bit less is saying. Okay,

52:59

there's this normal electrostatic forces and

53:01

there's also this other forced pulling

53:03

them together. And. Many

53:06

do the calculations that time

53:08

dilation effect slowing the repulsiveness

53:10

is always. Exactly.

53:13

Equal to what's the magnetic

53:15

force staff. For.

53:17

What it turns out is that. Electrostatic

53:20

magnetism and Special

53:23

Relativity are. Intertwined

53:25

that in a way. it isn't three

53:27

separate laws of physics the but. To

53:30

Laws of Physics. if you

53:32

have just electrostatics and special relativity

53:34

magnetism just appears there if you

53:36

want everything to be consistent so

53:38

are you view phase the grand

53:40

unified theory solved it it's not

53:42

that messes one step but it's

53:44

not one of the things i've

53:46

brought up a couple of times

53:48

as that a lot of these

53:51

theories you can dig down deeper

53:53

and so let's try to throw

53:55

their that portal episode that some

53:57

of the greatest physicists are those

53:59

that discovered negative one laws of

54:01

physics. And this is a case where you've

54:03

unified a few and said that now these

54:06

three things are actually just two things. Although

54:08

I did happen on to this on my

54:10

own, of course, I was far from the

54:12

first to realize this has been long

54:15

known. And I think actually this

54:17

was known in a sense of

54:19

known even before Einstein's theory of

54:21

special relativity. If you go back

54:23

to Lorentz calculating it out, he

54:25

stumbled upon that you need

54:28

this time dilation to have that constant

54:30

speed of life. You just input it

54:32

into a fully unified theory. Hmm. Well,

54:34

that's crazy. Yeah, the whole thing is

54:37

crazy. And I just find it all

54:39

fascinating how this all fits together. And

54:41

you get these phenomenally complicated interplay of

54:44

different laws of physics. You see how

54:46

much work for physicists like Brian do

54:48

that you can enjoy your Northern Lights,

54:50

everyone. Yeah, if we didn't understand it,

54:53

you wouldn't be able to see it.

54:55

Exactly. It wouldn't be there. Yeah. Yeah,

54:57

I agree with that actually. So no,

55:01

that's super cool. I can't pretend I

55:04

followed all of that. But I think

55:06

the important stuff, the donut related analogies

55:08

will stick. And once

55:10

again, thanks, Brian. Is there anything

55:12

you want to plug shout out?

55:14

I don't have much going on

55:16

my my own. So I'm just

55:18

gonna plug my campaign to update

55:20

the opening arguments icon to use

55:22

the Garamond font. Oh, okay. The

55:24

change.org petition. Yeah,

55:27

we'll see. But I can't make any promises, you

55:29

know. All right. But

55:33

go to change.org/Garamond. Oh,

55:36

a Garamond. Thanks so much. Astro

55:38

physicist, Dr. Brian Gillis. Cool

55:40

explanation. And let's all go enjoy some

55:42

guilt free Northern Lights near you. All

55:45

right. Thank you. Transcribed

55:54

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delicious ice cold taste of Dr. Pepper has

56:36

a lasting effect on people. Lindsay from Sacramento

56:38

said... Pro tip, 40 degrees is the

56:40

perfect temperature for an ice cold Dr. Pepper. Why

56:42

is 40 degrees the perfect temperature for Dr.

56:45

Pepper? We brought in Sue from Duluth, Minnesota to

56:47

tell us. Oh yeah, I know a thing or two

56:49

about cold. Oh, that right there is the

56:51

perfect kind of ice cold for Dr. Pepper. I'd

56:54

share that with my friend Nancy. She likes Dr.

56:56

Pepper too, you know. My coldest... Alright, that'll

56:58

be all, Sue. Having a perfect temperature for

57:00

your Dr. Pepper? It's a Pepper thing. Inspired

57:02

by Real Fan Posts. We

57:08

didn't have. Much.

57:12

More laws of. Physics

57:31

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