Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - Did our Universe evolve?

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

Daniel and Jorge discuss the theory of Cosmological Natural Selection Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Tune in on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hi, it's Jorge and Daniel here. And this holiday season, if you're looking for a gift for yourself, for a friend, or for your family, why not get them the gift of answers about the universe? So check out our new book,

Frequently Asked Questions About the Universe, you can find details at UniverseFaQ.com. Thanks for supporting the podcast. Happy holidays, everyone. Hey, Jorge, do you think that our universe is well-suited to us? I don't know. I mean, some of it seems so staggeringly beautiful to our eyes, you know, like stars, the galaxies, even, like, the drama of the black holes. That's true. It's definitely something we can't appreciate, but it also sometimes seems like the universe is kind of alien to us. I think the universe is here first, so technically we are the aliens.

Yeah, but you know, sometimes the way that it works is so bizarre and so strange that I wonder if we're ever going to understand it, if our minds are suited to it. Maybe that's what makes it especially suited to us. What do you mean? You know, it's like the perfect puzzle to keep us entertained for eternity. It's like that toy you put in front of a toddler, why you need to get some work done. It's like the TV for human toddlers. Maybe Steve Jobs created the universe. Hi, I'm Horham, a cartoonist and the creator of Ph.D. Comics.

Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm constantly amazed at the strangeness and the bonkersness of the universe that we live in. You think the universe is bonkers? Like, it is bonkers, or it was made bonkers? Or made by a bonkers? I won't speak to the mind of the creator if one exists, but it does continue to astound me how strange and how weird the universe is. And the fact that it is weird, that it seems strange, that it's counter to our expectations because we are part of the universe. So why doesn't it feel intuitive to us? Well, you know what I always say. If your expectations are not being met, maybe you should change your expectations, Daniel. I should try the Scandinavian approach. Just expect to be disappointed all the time and then be pleased when you're not. Or expect to be

surprised, you know. It's only weird because you think it's weird because it doesn't meet your expectations. But really, really the universe was here first. That's true. Maybe the universe thinks we're weird. We are kind of bonkers after all. Well, welcome to our bonkers podcast. Daniel and Horhe explained the universe, a production of iHeard radio. In which we have no idea what the universe thinks of us, but we do dive deep into what human minds think about the universe. There questions we have about the way it works at the tiniest scale of frothing, buzzing quantum. quantum particles to the very biggest scale of galaxy formations and the entire fate of the universe. We question the very nature of reality. We peel it back to see what's going on underneath and we

explain all of it to you, at least as far as we understand. Yeah, because it is a pretty big universe and there's a lot that seems very puzzling and perplexing to us. It's, you know, wonderful and amazing and beautiful it seems sometimes, but also a little bit terrifying and powerful and sometimes even dangerous. It sometimes seems amazing that we even live here. You know, we could have been wiped out by a supernova nearby or could be that with small changes in the nature of the particles, we couldn't have had the chemistry we need for life to happen. Sometimes it seems like a lot of things had to go just right for us to evolve and to survive. Yeah, and if we hadn't been here, who would be asking these questions, Daniel? That's the main question. Probably some better

looking smarter version of us. If that's even possible, yeah. Impossible. Yeah, impossible. But we just disproved that theory. Or improbable, at least. But yeah, it is a pretty amazing universe. And sometimes you have to wonder, like, how did it come to be like that? And how come it came to be that we are here and we are looking at it and wondering how it works? That's right. And that is one of the deepest questions in physics.

We are often asking how do things work? What's going on with these particles? But underlying that, there is a question standing in the wings waiting for an answer. And that question really is, why this universe? Why is the universe this one and not some other one? Could it have been a different universe or is this the only possible way for a universe to exist? What does it mean that we ended up in this universe? Well, we're thankful that we are in this universe, I guess, or that this universe is here for us.

But to understand these questions, sometimes you kind of have to look outside of physics to think about new ways in which you might answer these types of queries. That's right. And when we look to biology, for example, we find a very compelling and very powerful, very broadly useful argument for understanding why creatures exist and have certain traits. When we look at, for example, the beaks of birds and ask like, why do they have that shape? We get the answer when we look at the nuts they eat or the bugs that they have to pick up. They seem to be very well suited to their environment and for a reason.

Yeah, so today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question. Is the universe the result of natural selection? All right. We're asking some big questions today here. I know. That's sort of mind-blowing to imagine like the universe is a bird on an island somewhere picking out bugs. Wait. I thought we were the birds. Aren't we the birds? I think we might be the bugs. Or the nuts. Are we wondering how some things are suited to eat us? No, we are the birds. And physics is the nut. And we're trying to crack it open. Oh, boy. I'm getting lost in these analogies here.

I know. I'm driving you nuts. But it is a fun idea to wonder. if the universe could have been other ways, and if the universe that we ended up in is this way because of some sort of process that guides the formation of universes to end up at one that sort of works. Whoa. You mean like the evolution of universes?

Multiple universes over countless time, somehow changing and evolving. Yeah, that's the idea. We have talked about multiverses in many times on this podcast, but this is sort of like a different take instead of imagining the universe is actually many universes all sort of rolled up into one grander idea this is like maybe our universe is in competition with other universes on some sort of like meta universe playing field whoa like an african savanna but for universes and there's some kind

of predator some universe predator some universe eating i think i saw that on an episode of the new show look what can eat an entire universe exactly right and so maybe marvel got it right as usual They can do no wrong. Well, this is kind of a mind-boggling question, big ideas here. And so we were wondering how many people out there had thought about the universe as evolving and or as being the result of something like natural selection. So Daniel went out there as usual and asked people on the internet what they thought of this question. That's right.

And so thank you to everybody who's willing to entertain my crazy questions without the opportunity to think about it or to prepare. If you'd like to participate for a future episode, we would love to hear your voice on the podcast. Just write us an email, no special equipment required. Shoot us an email to questions at danielandhorpe.com. So think about it for a second. If someone asked you, what is cosmological natural selection? What would come to mind in your brain? Here's what people had to say. I'm going to say those bodies orbiting around a star that have the most stable gravitational orbits last the longest.

Every star for itself, may the strongest in the universe survive, and the weakest universal objects become space dust. Well, I guess planet, stars, galaxies, etc., survival of the fittest would apply to. Vanilla star is more likely to pass on positive traits. Does that have an influence on the next generation of stars? Maybe it's a theory that explains why there are no medium-sized. black holes by using an analogy from evolution. Maybe there were some conditions in the environment that made them go extinct while the supermassive black holes we see today lived on and

procreated, assuming that's a thing they can do. All right. Nobody said an African Savannah with universes. Nobody talked about something eating universes. It's a pretty crazy idea to encapsulate in just three words, cosmological natural selection. So we didn't give them a whole lot to go on. It seems like people didn't trigger something big in their heads. Like most people stuck to stars or galaxies as maybe evolving. But nobody thought about the universe evolving. It's sort of too crazy. You know, it's sort of too big an idea to even leap to from this concept.

It's sort of bold. But, you know, I like that. I like that about bold ideas. Like, first you hear about this and you think, what, that's great. Hold on a second. Maybe that makes a little bit of sense. That's the nice thing about crazy big ideas. I guess, you know, even ideas like the multiverse at some point.

you know, seem crazy and insane, but now people seem to kind of accept it. And some people even assume it's true, like people like Marvel. But you can't necessarily turn that around. Just because some ideas which now make a lot of sense once seemed crazy doesn't mean that every crazy-seeming idea will eventually make sense, right? Right, right. Sense only works one way. It only makes sense to make sense one way. There are a lot of crazy-seeming ideas that we don't talk about anymore because they still seem crazy. Right. The whole, like, Like the universe is like turtles and turtles all the way down on top of some elephants or something. That also seemed bonkers, but that doesn't mean it's true.

Yeah, exactly. It's got to have some legs. It's got to solve some problems. It's got to open up avenues for exploration. And it's got to sort of hang together mathematically. Well, I mean, turtles do solve all problems. You think about it. And they have legs.

And they do have legs, yeah. Although they do it kind of slowly. So we're still waiting for those turtles. All right. Well, step us through this, Daniel. this big idea what is the cosmological natural selection so cosmological natural selection is a really fun creative idea by a physicist named lee smullen a theoretical physicist and it's in solution to what physics calls a fine-tuning problem which is just a fancy way of saying like why is the

universe the way that it is because it seems like it could have been lots of other ways so before we dig into how he tries to answer that question let's make sure we have like a good good grasp on what the question is. What is the problem we're trying to solve? Why is it tricky to understand that the universe is this way and not some other way? Right, because, you know, as physicists, you've been sort of drilling down on the equations that make the universe work. And at some point, you come upon something that you're like, you can't explain. Like, it just seems to be the way it is because it seems to be the way it is. Like, you can't really explain why pie is 3.14 or the cosmological constant is X, right? That's exactly right. You know, the grand goal of physics is

to summarize everything we see, all phenomena, all matter, all energy, all forces in terms of one concept. You know, like maybe a single equation that we could write onto a T-shirt. And so we've made a lot of progress there. We have a few equations. They don't quite fit onto a T-shirt, but they're kind of beautiful and compact. And, you know, they describe a portion of the universe that we understand that we've explored. Well, it depends on the size of your T-shirt. Just get a bigger T-shirt.

Like I said, just adjust your expectations of what a T-shirt is or, how many people can fit in it and that might solve your problem that's right if we go to micro font then it's no problem we can describe the whole universe on a t-shirt but currently we have this model of particles and their interactions we call it the standard model and as you say there are parts of it that we don't understand you know not just the structure but there's lots of questions about the structure of you know like why are there copies of these particles electron muon tau but also just we find numbers in these equations and those numbers have no explanation that we can find they are just numbers. And the theory doesn't tell us what those numbers have to be. We have to go out and

measure them. One of these numbers, for example, as you say, is the cosmological constant, this rate at which the universe seems to be expanding. We don't know why that number is what it is. We have no theoretical prediction for what it should be. It's just like a placeholder, like a parameter. It's sort of like you're in the control panel for the universe and it just has these knobs. You know, the structure of the universe is this control panel and you could turn the values of these parameters up or down and maybe get different universes that follow the same basic laws of physics, but with different settings on those knobs. Right.

They seem like arbitrary. Like somebody came in before you and adjusted those dials and then you came in and you're like, why did you set these dials? Yes, exactly. We have no explanation for why these numbers are where they are. And you might be tempted to think about numbers like the speed of light because we don't know why the speed of light is the speed of light. You know, why isn't it not faster or slower?

It's a little tricky because the speed of light has units on it, right? It's meters per second. So the actual number there depends on the units you choose. If you change the meter or change the second, you get a different number. So physicists like to focus on dimensionless numbers. You can rearrange all these constants of the universe in ratios and whatever to get rid of the units and you end up with pure numbers, numbers that just are. And, you know, if all those numbers were one, we'd be like, cool, that makes sense.

Or if all those numbers were 10 or something, it would make sense. sense, but they're all really different. Some of them are really small. Some of them are really large. And we just have no explanation for them. So as you say, they seem kind of arbitrary. And we wonder, you know, like, could they be different? Could you have had another universe with different values of those numbers? And we think through like what the physics could be like, but the physics would be really, really different. And the universe would be totally different from the one we see. And so we wonder, like, why are these values what they are? They seem to be sort of just right to give us the universe that we have.

So these are like ratios, I imagine. It would be like saying what is the rate at which the universe is expanding? It's like, you know, there's 7.47 percent. And so that's a dimensionless constant too, right? A percentage. So is that what you mean? Like ratios of like the number of so-and-so particles to so-and-so other particles? Yeah, that kind of thing.

So one of the most important dimensionless constant is called the fine structure constant. It includes the speed of light and the charge of the electron and Planck's constant. And if you change that number, then physics changes because that affects, like, how strongly electrons and positrons repel each other and, you know, the distances at which things feel these kinds of forces. Other important ones are ratios of the masses of the particles, like, why is the muon so much heavier than the electron? Why is the top cork so much heavier than everything else? You know, if you change those numbers, you also really change how physics work. You know, like, what if the electron wasn't the lightest lepton? And what if we had muons in our bodies instead of electrons because muons were lighter mass?

Like that would really change everything. Right. But you're really sort of asking two questions, right, aren't you? Like you're asking, for example, in the case of the electron, like what is the mass of the electron the way it is? And also why is the mass of the other cousins of the electron, you know, a certain number of times that mass of the electron? Yeah, exactly.

And so there's lots of different ways you can arrange these things. But fundamentally, we're looking at a set of numbers. and those numbers control the way the universe is, and we don't know why those numbers are what they are. And, you know, as you said earlier, one possible explanation is we know if those numbers were different, who would be here asking that question? And that's a popular answer,

and it goes by the name of the Anthropic principle. It just says that if the numbers were different, you wouldn't get humans and you wouldn't get intelligence, and nobody would be asking. So only in a universe where things happen to work in just this way, do you have people to ask that question? So you want to ask that question when it's possible. And that's sort of like a circular explanation,

but a lot of people like that answer. Sort of like my kids asking, why is our house designed that way? It's like they were just born into the house. If they've been born in a different house, they would be asking a different question about that house. Yeah, or it's like kids asking, you know, why am I here?

Why was I created and not some other kid? You know, like, well, if I'd had a different kid because, you know, he'd been conceived in a different moment, that kid might be asking the same question. or, you know, have different interests or whatever, ask a different question. Right. Basically, you want to tell your kids they're not special. Of course, my kids are special.

Everybody else's kids, I don't know about it. Of course. Yeah, it sounds like an anthropic parenting. And my complaint with this is that it's sort of like giving up. It's sort of like saying there is no explanation, look no further. Whereas what I like in science is when you're always trying to dig deeper, you're always saying there must be a reason for this to happen. let's look deeper because it's possible that there is a deeper answer, right?

We certainly don't have the final theory of physics. We know that our description of particles and their interactions is flawed and limited because we know, for example, it breaks down. If you have really, really high energies, our theory just doesn't work. And so we know we need some sort of deeper theory. And so maybe, you know, there is some deeper explanation one we just haven't found yet that explains these values and says these values have to be certain numbers. like there's not arbitrary it only works if they are these numbers we just don't quite see the full

picture yet and so i don't like the anthropic answer because i always want to strive for that deeper understanding right like maybe you'll dig deeper into the equations and find that if the electron had half the mass that it does right now it just doesn't make for a logical universe or like a universe that you know gives you 2 plus 2 equals 7 like that's what you want you want to to boil it down to one equation and say look if you change this then you wouldn't it wouldn't logically work, right? Because that's kind of the only alternative when you say, like, is things have to be a certain way. Like, not being able to be a certain way means that it would be illogical. Yeah. And people are looking for a theory of the universe that's self-consistent,

right? So the sort of philosophical implication there is that only self-consistent universes can exist. And so maybe there's a reason why those other values of those numbers make for some inconsistency. And there you'd need to like have some sort of physics principle. We haven't yet discovered, right? That shows us why those things would be inconsistent. You know, and we don't have that, but we can sketch the sort of like rough idea. You know, maybe, for example, string theory is correct. And at the basic level, the universe are these little tiny vibrating strings. And they can only vibrate in certain ways. And because of their basic fundamental nature. And that leads to certain properties that we then measure, you know, at our scale, which have to come out this

certain way. And you just can't have an electron with a different charge. And you can't have a muon with four times as much mass as the electron, you have to have the numbers that we have now. And it comes out of some deeper logic that we just don't know yet. So we don't have that theory yet, but you know, you can imagine that kind of theory existing. Right. Would that still satisfy you, though, as a physicist? Like, did you say, well, that's just the way the universe is? And it has to be that way because of the way the universe is. Oh, I'll never be satisfied.

Absolutely not. No, when we get that answer that explains all the mysteries we see today, there will just always be more questions. And that's what I don't like about the anthropic principle, because it stops you from asking that next round of questions. Whereas I feel like science is this cycle of digging ever deeper into the most basic questions. And even if we exhaust physics and we get to one single theory that describes the whole universe, we'll always have philosophy because we can always ask like, well, what does it mean, man?

What does it mean? And that's one potential way to answer why the universe is the way it is, why those numbers are all the way, the numbers that they are. Maybe there's some as yet to be discovered, you know, equation or theory that explains them all that makes them want to be those numbers or makes them have to be those numbers. But then there's another theory about what could explain them, right? Yeah. And another way to approach this problem is to say maybe the values aren't arbitrary. Maybe they are random. Like maybe it's possible to have different universes with different values

and all the universes with all the different values exist. This is the multiverse explanation to say that maybe all those possible universes are out there with these different values of the parameters. And there's different physics in each one. And this just happens to be the one that we are in. Right. It's like you walk into a control room. You see all the knobs turn to a certain number for all the values of the universe. And you're like, why are they like this? And the answer is sort of like, well, that's because there's another control room next to you with the value set a little bit different. And next to that one is another control room with the value set a little bit different at up to infinity. That's sort of an explanation. And it doesn't answer questions like, you know, well, who chooses those

values or is it truly random, like quantum mechanically random, or is it like systematic where you get one universe for every possible value? Are there an infinite number of them? There's so many questions opened up by that. And unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to probe that kind of theory. Like, where do you go from here? You know, if those universes exist or not, you know, can we ever discover them? No. Can we interact with them? No. So can we prove fundamentally that they exist? Folks like Sean Carroll would argue that you can sort of implicitly prove they exist. if you demonstrate that it's the only way to make sense of the universe that our theory of physics requires that they exist and is the only theory that you can develop. It's a bit weaker than actually finding them and exploring them, but, you know, it's an argument to suggest that the multiverse might be real.

Because I guess that would sort of explain why we have the one we have is that it's just like a random roll to die. Although could you make the argument that, you know, the universe only rolled to die once? Like, does it have to roll the die an infinite number of times? It's a great question, and one that's hard to probe, but what we can do is look at the numbers that we have and ask, are they likely? Is this a likely arrangement? And here we get in a really fuzzy territory, but physicists look at the numbers we have, and they feel weird about them.

They're like, hmm, the cosmological constant is very small, and these other numbers seem kind of large, and why is gravity so, so weak, and, you know, why all the forces have such a different strengths? And they make these really hand-wavy arguments that suggest that the numbers we have are somehow improbable or unnatural. And it's more likely to get a different set of values. And that makes our universe seem sort of like weird on this like multiverse landscape. And I don't know if that's an argument against the multiverse exactly, but it suggests that you might need some sort of mechanism to explain why we have these numbers. And if this is the only one, then, you know, the universe got really unlucky or lucky, depending on your problem.

point of view. Oh, I think the universe is totally lucky to have this. At least you, Daniel, at least we're lucky to have you. All right, well, we have this big question about why the universe is the way it is. There are some theories, but they are a little bit unsatisfying. And so there's sort of a new or emerging idea that seems really interesting. And it's all about evolution. So let's get into that. But first, let's take a quick break. Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and on she pivots, I dive into the inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps in their lives and

careers. I'm Gretchen Whitmer, Jody Sweeten. Monica Patton. Elaine Welteroff. I'm Jessica Voss. And that's when I was like, I got to go. I don't know how, but that kicked off the pivot of how to make the transition. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them. Every episode gets real about the why behind these changes and give you the inspiration and maybe the push to make your next pivot. Listen to these women and more on She Pivots, now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here, and on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history, the predictions, will we see a first-time

winner, and the pressure. Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court, and of course, the Honeydun. the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not. Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about Icon Venus Williams' recent wildcard bids or the young Canadian

Victoria Mboko making a name for herself? How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, Listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an Iheart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I don't write songs. God write songs. I take dictation. I didn't even know you've been a pastor for over 10 years. I think culture is any space that you live in that develops you.

On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us podcast, I sat down with Warren Campbell, Grammy-winning producer, pastor. and music executive to talk about the beats, the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. This is like watching Michael Jackson talk about Thurley before it happened. Was there a particular moment where you realize just how instrumental music culture was to shaping all of our global ecosystem? I was eight years old, and the Motown 25 special came on. And all the great Motown artists, Marvin, Stevie Wonder, Temptations, Diana Raw.

From Mary Mary to Jennifer Hudson, we get into the soul of the music and the purpose that drives it. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kurt Brown-Oller. And I am Scotty Landis, and we host Bananas, the Weird News Podcasts with wonderful guests like Whitney Cummings. And tackle the truly tough questions. Why is cool mom an insult, but mom is fine? No. I always say, Kurt's a fun dad.

Fun dad and cool mom. That's cool for me. We also dig into important life stuff. Like, why our last names would make the worst hyphen ever? My last name is Cummings. I have sympathy for nobody. Yeah, mine's brown-oller, but with an H. So it looks like brown-whaler.

Okay, that's, okay, yours might be worse. We can never get married. Yeah. Listen to this episode with Whitney Cummings and check out new episodes of bananas every Tuesday on the exactly right network. Listen to bananas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Daniel, what does it all mean, man?

Why are we here? Why is the universe the way it is? What does it seem so suited to us for us to be comfortable in our houses this year, having a conversation about the way it works? Yeah, exactly. Maybe we are just the beaks of those birds. perfectly evolved to fit into the trees and grab out those grubs. And, you know, that's the inspiration, is that we see in biology that it's not random that

animals are well-suited to their environments, that they're very fine-tuned, right? And they're fine-tuned for a reason. There's a mechanism there. Natural selection operates by enhancing those that are well-suited, right, and killing off those that are not. And so you're more likely to end up with critters that are well-suited to the environment. So the environment then shapes the nature. of the critters.

And so the idea was take that and can we use that to explain sort of how we find the universe to be fine-tuned? Is there some mechanism we can use to explain how the universe itself selected these values? So in this analogy, in this idea, to explain why the universe is the way it is, somehow like the universe has been evolving in some environment and it's sort of arranged itself or it became to be the way it is now because of some natural selection process. That's kind of the idea, right? Yeah, but it's not being selected for us or for physics that makes sense or for physicists or for cartoonists is being selected for universes with lots of black holes in it.

What? Yeah, so the basic idea is maybe universes can give birth to other universes by creating new universes inside their black holes. And that would tend to give you lots of universes that have lots of black holes in them. You would end it with more universes that have lots of black holes than universes that don't have lots of black holes. And so maybe our universe is fine-tuned to have the sets of parameters you would need to give you universes with lots of black holes. Whoa. Okay. I feel like you just introduce a lot of crazy ideas here.

Like, first of all, like a universe giving birth to other universes. Don't you need two universes? This is a mono biological birth? What do you call those animals that can just split off? Just butt off a asexual reproduction? Yes, that's right. Yes, right. Is the universe asexual?

Yeah, it could be that universe is reproduced in lots of different ways. We're open-minded on this podcast. But the idea is not totally bonkers. It comes from the recognition that there's a connection between what happens inside a black hole and what happens at the beginning of our universe. And that connection is a singularity, right? We know that our universe started with a singularity. That's this crazy, dense moment when the universe was like,

infinitely dense and then expand it out really rapidly. We call that the Big Bang. And we know that there's a singularity at the heart of black holes or we think there is according to general relativity. And so this idea says like maybe every singularity at the heart of a black hole is actually a singularity to create a new universe. Whoa. But then I guess so then the idea is that the universe that is created inside of a black hole

exists within the black hole or does it grow out and take over its parent universe? It exists within the universe. the black hole. So the idea is that instead of imagining inside a black hole, you have like a dead singularity. This is just like super dense point that instead you have something dynamic, that it's a bounce instead of like just a collapse into a singularity. That matter collapses, you get this moment of great density. And then you get a new expanding region of space time within the black hole and never escapes. You can't see it from the outside of the black hole. But that maybe inside black holes, we have this region of expanding space space.

space time began with the singularity of infinite density, just like our universe. And so it's sort of like this bounce moment where it collapses into a singularity and then starts expanding out again. Expanding, but still inside of the black hole. Still inside of the black hole. Is that what you're saying? It's like a little bubble inside of the black hole of regular space. And this sort of connects to an idea we talked about recently about whether black holes actually

are black holes. And we talked about how these objects, whatever they are, are in regions of very warped space time, which means that their time slowly. down dramatically. So when you're looking at a black hole, instead of looking at something which is sort of like a dead singularity, you might be looking at something dynamic, which is collapsing and then going to bounce back, but it's just super duper slowed down so that what takes microseconds in its time takes billions or trillions of years for us. So this is sort of a similar idea to say maybe black holes are not just like static little dense objects collecting

more mass, but they are this bounce where you come to a point of great density and then start expanding out into effectively what's a new universe inside each black hole. Whoa. But then wouldn't that mean that each universe is like a bounded or finite, you know, like it has a limited amount of energy to it? Whereas, you know, it seems like our universe has almost, it looks almost infinite and it has almost infinite amount of energy. How did all this stuff that we're living in come from like a tiny black hole, for example?

Yeah, exactly. That would mean that there is a bound on the universe, but we don't know if our universe is bounded with some of our theories of cosmology suggest that it should be infinite it would be most natural if it were infinite but we just don't know that and we can only see a limited part of the universe the portion of the universe we can see now is about 93 billion light years wide and we just don't know what's beyond that and we also know that our universe is expanding and the mechanism for that is totally unexplained so it is possible that our entire universe is inside some like mega black hole that's just unimaginably wide okay so then the end

The idea is that in our universe, or basically any universe, whenever there's a black hole, it's sort of creating a whole new kind of universe. And those new universes are the same or slightly different than the parent universe? They're slightly different. So when you create a new universe inside a black hole, somehow, and this is like where the magic happens, the laws of physics tweak a little bit. Like that process of bending space time and that singularity somehow changes the fundamental constants of that universe a little bit. And this part of the theory is extremely fuzzy.

It's like we don't have a mechanism to understand how that might happen. It's just like a what if. And so in that way, you can sort of like explore different possible universes. You can in one universe create lots of babies with different sort of properties, the same way that in natural selection, if a spider has a thousand offspring and they're all a little bit different than the ones that are best suited to survival will continue. So in this model, you create lots of baby universes in lots of black holes. and the ones that are more likely to create more black holes within them. So now black holes within black holes are more likely to create more universes.

Right. So you can just call those black holes turtles. And it is sort of turtles all the way down. I think a big question here is, you know, like natural selection and regular biological evolution, you have DNA and that makes sense that like your DNA changes a little and then your kids carry on that DNA that's changed a little bit. But like you said, there's sort of no known way in which, like, that new universe will have different constants, right? Like, why would it have different constants if it's being born in the universe with certain laws and certain constants? Yeah, absolutely. That's not something we understand.

And you're right, like for natural selection, we understand the mechanism of it, right? You have the genetic code, which is then modified. And so in this case, we have no explanation for how that happens, no mechanism for it. you know, maybe the fundamental constants of the universe are stored in some deep process and the creation of a singularity disturbs that process, really just speculating. And the theory itself has not been fleshed out. We don't have any sort of like DNA like mechanism that explains where these parameters are like stored and how they might be modified by a singularity is really just speculation. But you know, physics works this way sometimes. We're like, let's, you know, put a bunch

of dots down. We'll come back later and connect those dots. But let's see how far we're we can get with sort of a string of big ideas and, you know, we'll circle back and fill in some of the crucial details later. All right. Well, so then the basic idea is that, you know, our universe makes a whole bunch of black holes, and each of those black holes has a universe. And some of our baby universes make more black holes, and some of them don't make a lot of black holes. And so the ones that make more black holes are then going to have their own kid universes who are also good at making black holes. And some of them will make more black holes. And eventually, Don't you get to a universe that's all black holes?

And that's the idea that this process is more likely to give you universes that are likely to have black holes. And so you should end up with universes where the numbers are fine-tuned to sort of maximize black holes. And so that's the argument at least Mullen makes as he says, I'm looking at the parameters. And it seems to me like if you change some of these parameters, you end up with fewer black holes in the universe. And so maybe our universe is sort of like at the max. black holiness. Oh, I see. That's the idea that somehow maybe we're at the maximum black hole capacity. Like, this is the most that any universe can make of black holes. That's sort of the argument. And we'll talk later about whether that's actually true. But, you know, it's got to

maximize something. And it's interesting, this idea that it doesn't maximize us, right? I like this idea because it's not anthrocentric. It's not like the universe was created for us. It's like, oh, it turns out we're a byproduct of the universe being optimized for something totally different, which is production of black holes. And that's pretty cool. And, you know, it's interesting how many black holes there are, right? There are black holes everywhere. Every galaxy is a super massive black hole in it. Stars are collapsing into black holes all the time. It does seem like the fate of our universe, as you say, is to end up as a huge string of black holes. So it does kind of feel like we are at maximal black holiness. Maybe we should rename the podcast to

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Listen to bananas on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. are talking about cosmological natural selection, the idea that the universe somehow evolved to be the way it is, and that's why it is the way it is. We talked about how maybe the universe is the way it is because we're at like optimal black hole making capacity of the universe. And so that's why the universe is the way it is and not some other way. Yeah. So I saw a question was, why do we think that we're at optimal maximal black holiness or black hole making capacity? Like it feels like there's a lot of room still left in the universe. It feels like there's a lot of

room still left in the universe for to make more black holes. Yeah. How would you make our universe black holeier? I don't know. I just poke a bunch of holes in it. You know, like, why not? Like, couldn't our universe be such a way that they pop up more randomly or something? It's really interesting to think about. And, you know, take some of these parameters, like the, the mass of the strange quark, for example, you know, relative to the mass of the other quarks. It's interesting because that actually does help determine the number of black holes in our universe because it creates an opportunity for matter to form something that's not a black hole. That's a neutron star.

Like, if you have not enough stuff in your star, then sometimes when it collapses, it doesn't form a black hole. Instead, it forms a neutron star. And it forms a neutron star because gravity isn't powerful enough to overcome the nuclear forces that are preventing the collapse. And that's partially controlled by the mass of the strange quark. You know, what happens inside a neutron star is not something that we understand very well. It's the strong force at work, zillions of gluons back and forth all the time.

But these things are very sensitively dependent on the masses of the quarks that are involved. And so, for example, if you increase the strange quark mass, if we were in a universe where the strange quark mass was larger, then those forces would be more powerful and lots more stars would collapse into neutron stars instead of black holes. So you tweak this parameter, you get fewer black holes in our universe. But then wouldn't that work the other way to? like if you decrease the strange quark mass and you would get more black holes.

So why isn't the mass of the strange quark smaller? If we are at optimal black hole making capacity. And that's one of the main criticisms. Lee Smoling came out with this argument and he suggested that a lot of these parameters are tuned for black holes. But then other people came and looked at these parameters. They're like, actually it's not that hard to make universes that are black holier. Joe Silka, famous astronomer, tweaked the parameters and he came up with a universe. that could make 10,000 times more black holes than our universe.

And, you know, number one is you decrease the strange quark mass. And number two is you crank up the strength of gravity, right? So it tends to collapse things faster. You don't want to crank it up too much, right? You want a large number of black holes, not just like a single black hole. So you've got to let stuff spread out a little bit and then collapse into a lot of black holes. Oh, I see. You're saying things are being selected for a number of black holes, not like, let's make a giant black hole.

Because if you do, then that means you only have one offspring kind of. That's right. As fun as that sounds, let's make a giant black hole. It's maybe not the best plan if your goal is to have lots and lots of baby universes, not just one mega baby. Right. But I guess you also don't want to have, you know, lots and lots of or like an infinite number of tiny baby black holes, right? Or small, tiny sort of easy to evaporate black holes. You want like a good number of significant black holes as your children.

Exactly. If your black holes are too small, then they will evaporate as you say. because black holes are not completely black. They give off a little bit of energy and they give off more energy the smaller they are. So smaller black holes are more likely to evaporate away into nothingness.

So you need them to be big enough that they can be sustained, that they can keep gobbling things. So you don't want one mega black hole, you don't want an infinite number of tiny ones. There is a little bit of a balancing act to play there. So the basic idea is that maybe all those control knobs in the universe, all those numbers that we can't explain

are the way they are because somehow they maximize the universe's conditions for making the right the most and best kind of black holes. Exactly. And that doesn't argue that the universe has to be maximized for black holiness. It suggests that there are lots of universes out there, but there are more that are close to this maximum because they tend to produce more. And so if you're going to randomly choose among universes to be in, you're more likely to end up in a universe that's closer to the maximum. Oh, I see. Yeah, because I was wondering. like in this idea of the universe evolving or universes evolving, there's no natural selection

process really, right? There's no like predator killing off weak universes or, you know, something destroying the universes that don't make a lot of black hole. It's more like you're more represented in the population of all the universes that exist if you're good at making black holes. Yeah, everybody can make as many babies as I can and then it's just a race to have the most babies. Nobody's eating anybody else's babies. But if you're going to randomly pick somebody to be, you're going to end up in a family that makes more babies. Right. So there's like an infinite savanna out there in some universe, Africa.

There are no predators. You know, you can multiply as you see fit, but the animals or universes that are good at multiplying, they're just going to be more overrepresent. They're going to basically take over the savanna, right? This infinite savanna. And so then that means that we are, if we are going to exist in a universe, we're more likely to exist in a universe that's good at making baby black holes. That's the argument.

And, you know, there's a lot of steps there and a lot of questions, but it's sort of the structure of it. Interesting. So then it's still sort of tentative. And so what are some criticisms, I guess, or what does it all mean? Does it have any interesting implications if it were true? Yeah, there are criticisms of it. People argue that we're not actually that close to maximum black hole production. As I say, people have tweaked the parameters and done some simulations and suggested that you could get many, many more black holes than you have in our universe.

And, you know, the thing about this argument is that it's impossible to disprove that way. You could say, oh, well, this is the way the universe works. We're just a little bit unlucky. We're close to the maximum. We're not necessarily at the maximum. We're going to get the best parents. We have pretty good parents. Yeah, we're not in the biggest family, but, you know, we're not doing too bad.

But it does definitely weaken the argument. It would be a more compelling argument if we were, like, right at the maximum. And you had this good argument to suggest that certain values of all these universe parameters overwhelmed, everything else. So the universe should be totally dominated by numbers very, very close to the optimal values. So that's not exactly the case. Well, I guess a counter argument to that counter argument is that maybe we don't really know if we are optimized for optimal black hole of production. Maybe we are.

We just don't understand the universe well enough to say like, no, this is the best number of black holes. If we had 10,000 more black holes, you know, the universe wouldn't be sustainable or those black holes wouldn't be good enough to make other universes. You know what I mean? That's certainly a good point. don't know how to simulate the whole history of the universe and accurately predict the number of black holes. So these simulations are approximations. And there's lots we don't understand about the evolution of the universe. Big deals about, you know, what is dark matter and how the universe is expanding and why and when. So there's definitely a lot of uncertainty there. Sure. And this also has

consequences about the like the fate of the universe, right? Like maybe that means that the universes don't implode eventually. Yeah. And this idea is not actually that new, sort of been developing over a few decades and it was sort of more in vogue when people thought that the universe was going to end in a big crunch when we thought that maybe gravity was so powerful that it was going to bring the whole universe back together into another singularity that like inside black holes you have this like cycling bounce theory you get a singularity and then expanding space time like a big bang and then come back to a singularity because people like this idea that every universe starts with a singularity and ends with the singularity that connects it to like what's happening inside a black hole. But now we know that the universe is less likely to do that because we discovered 20 years ago

that the universe is expanding and that expansion is accelerating. So it seems like a big crunch is less likely to be in our future. So that takes a little bit of the shine off of this theory. You know, more likely in the future of our universe is not one big crunch. But as we said earlier, lots and lots of very widely distributed black holes as each sort of local clump. of gravitationally dominated matter falls into a mega black hole which is super separated from all the other clumps of matter which is falling

into their own black holes. So you end up with like a universe with lots and lots of black holes in it and nothing else. I see. You're saying like this new theory about natural selection assumes kind of a bouncy universe but we are not seeing that the universe is bouncy. We've seen that it's expanding forever. It's expanding forever. Yeah.

And we are going to end up with more singularities in our future because of all these black holes. but not like one mega singularity that pulls it all together again. But that's not actually critical. That's not a fatal flaw because you don't have to assume that inside every black hole

is a universe that's going to bounce. You can just assume that you create a new universe and whatever happens inside that universe happens inside that universe, even if it means creations of lots of different black holes inside that black hole universe. So that's not a fatal flaw. Right, right.

What happens in a black hole stays in a black hole. That's definitely true. More concerning is that, you know, We don't understand what the implications are for like black hole mergers. We see black holes gobbling up each other, like forming a mega black hole as they combine. And that probably happened even for things like the black hole, the center of our galaxy. Because our galaxy is likely the product of the collision of several galaxies, each of which had their own black hole. So Sagittarius A at the center of our galaxy probably is the result of several black holes.

But if each one had a universe inside of it, what happens when they merge? the universes collide? Do you get some other crazy thing happening? They would have different laws of physics inside each black hole. So like you have some sort of like House Senate Reconciliation Committee where you negotiate what the new laws of physics are. And we know that always goes smoothly and perfectly. That's right. You know, black holes default on their debt limit, etc. And so that's not something that's understood. And again, this is because this came about before we understood how often that happened. When LIGO turned on and we saw black hole collisions, we discovered, Wow, black holes are colliding and merging all the time.

It's not rare. So it's sort of a new thing to face for this theory. Well, we don't know what happens, but that's not necessarily an argument against this idea, right? Like maybe you can merge universes that are different or maybe they annihilate each other and they form a new universe. Like you just don't know it yet, right? We just don't know. It's an open question because we don't understand the mechanism for like storing and changing

these parameters. We don't understand what would happen if two universes with different values of these parameters came into contact somehow and well there's also the other question of like you're sort of assuming that all of these universes that are making more universes they all work with the same laws we just can't explain the parameters of those laws but it assumes a one set of laws for all universes in this giant savannah exactly and we don't understand that structure at all it's like saying well all right i'm explaining why the control panel is set this way but like who built the control panel why do you have this many parameters why are there

26 parameters and not one. Why have any parameters at all? Can't you imagine other universes without parameters? So it doesn't answer that deeper question. And that's what I find frustrating about a lot of these explanations, is that they don't go all the way. I want to go all the way to explaining the universe down to no numbers. You mean a giant savanna full of infinite universes having baby black holes?

That's not hardcore enough for you? Like, you want to go more extreme than that? I mean, it's extremely imaginative and it's evocative mentally, but it doesn't really answer questions, you know, because it doesn't let you grasp of those things and ask deeper questions, you know, about like this, like, why are there all these parameters? You know, it's a limitation of the theory. But couldn't you also apply the same idea, though, to this idea of loss? Like maybe when you make a new baby black hole universe, the laws also changed a little bit,

not just the parameters. And so then you also have natural selection of physical laws. All right. I'm going to call that the Smolin-Cham theory of the universe. Done. Noble Prize. Here's my address. You win one black hole, sir.

I get half of a Nobel Prize. I'll share it with Lee. I've met Lee Smiland before. I'll be happy to share it with him. All right. That sounds like a plan. All right. Well, that's the idea.

And there's something also about the timing of it that's complicated, right? Yeah, it's hard to really think about the timing because you need to think about like the framework in which this happens. Like, we're arguing that these universes would create more universes with more black holes in them. But, you know, if you think about how long it takes our universe to make black holes, it's like millions or billions of years. We do see black holes having formed in the early universe, like after a few hundred million years or maybe a billion years, but that's kind of a long time. Imagine you had other universes that very rapidly formed a smaller number of black holes. They would then create their babies when they were very, very young. And so even if they're not creating as many black holes per universe, they're reproducing so quickly.

that in the end, there are more of those universes than ones with more black holes in them. Just because they had babies sooner than everybody else. Yes. But, you know, that depends on this idea of like clocks. Like, are the clocks in this universe really synced with the clocks in that universe? When did this whole process start? Is there really sort of like a timing for the meta universe? It's sort of fuzzy.

Right, because as we've talked about, time sort of slows down as you approach of black hole, right? Like when you bend gravity that much, time works. works totally different? Or are we saying that time works the same inside of the black hole? We don't know what's going on inside a black hole, right? And this theory would suggest that time inside that universe, that space time is expanding inside that universe instead of just being like twisted by the singularity. But this is a question about like whether you have some meta clock that's, you know, is counting like how long you've taken to create babies. And like the clocks inside the universe are sort of somehow connected to this concept of how many

universes there are and how long it's taken to make those universes. I think what you're saying is that evolution is complicated, right? It's not just about optimal solutions. Like in the animal world, you know, we're not necessarily the most perfect animal out there, which just happen to be the best animal that seems to have survived the most, right? Like, there's still a question of why we have toes. Like, nobody knows why we have toes, but we're there. They're there because, you know, something needs to collect lint, I guess.

Or, you know, the idea is that we're not necessarily. optimized, we just got here first. Yeah, we're the product of our specific history. And while biologists look to explain toes, physicists look to explain theories of everything, which are also toes. Yeah, there you go. So are we, is this the pinky toe of the universe or is this the big toe? Oh, it's definitely. It's the big toe. It's one mega toe. It's the meta toe.

It's the alpha toe. All right. Well, I think the main takeaway here is that we, we don't know why the universe is the way it is. Like, we have really really no idea and so we're open to any crazy idea even like giant sabanas full of competing universes we really are at the beginning of our exploration of all these crazy ideas at the point where we really should take seriously concept that seem bonkers that seem at first flush like what that's insane it might actually make sense and it might actually describe our reality yeah and i think it points to also how much there is still to discover about the universe right like any kids listening or any young aspiring physicists listening to this or any old

the whole physicists do like who aspire to make a big breakthrough that you could sort of focus on these big questions and there's still a lot to explain about why things are the way they are. That's right. And I hope it's the young physicists to figure it out because I got to go take a nap. But why do you have to take a nap, Daniel? Why do you have to take a nap now and not later? Or why in your couch and not in your futon? There's a fundamental parameter of the universe, the number of naps per physicist. I see. It's the big end. Nobody understands it.

And is it dimensionless or do you? sleep forever. Or is there a set amount of time that you get, or units of time that you sleep for? I sleep in many dimensions. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed that and made you think about why we are here and why we are in this universe, which seems pretty good. But who knows? Maybe it's not suboptimal. Maybe we are in the pinky toe of all the universes. Whatever universe it is, I like it. Thanks for joining you. See you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

of Culture Raises Us podcast, I sat down with Warren Campbell, Grammy-winning producer, pastor, and music executive to talk about the beats, the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. Professionally, I started at Deadwell Records. From Mary Mary to Jennifer Hudson, we get into the soul of the music and the purpose that drives it. Listen to Culture Raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The U.S. Open is here and on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain. I'm breaking down the players. The predictions. the pressure, and of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very wonderfully experiential sporting event. To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an Iheart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment

on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports Network. Hey, I'm Kurt Brown-Oller. And I am Scotty Landis, and we host Bananas, the podcast. where we share the weirdest, funniest, real news stories from all around the world. And sometimes from our guest's personal lives, too. Like when Whitney Cummings recently revealed her origin story on the show. There's no way I don't already have rabies.

This is probably just why my personality is like this. I've been surviving rabies for the past 20 years. New episodes of bananas drop every Tuesday in the exactly right network. Listen to bananas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.