Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - Listener Questions 52

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Daniel and Jorge talk about aliens, answer a question from a high school class, and advise a listener about destroying the moon.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you. I'll take it all! I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that.

Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. No such thing.

I'm Dr. Joy Hardin-Bradford, host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I know how overwhelming it can feel if flying makes you anxious. In session 418 of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett and I discuss flight anxiety. What is not a norm is to allow it to prevent you from doing the things that you want to do. The things that you were meant to do. to listen to therapy for black girls on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast it's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone and there is help out

there the good stuff podcast season two takes a deep look into one tribe foundation a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community september is national suicide prevention month so join host jacob and ashley shick as they bring you to the front lines of one tribe's mission one tribe save my life twice welcome to season two of the good stuff Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's start with a quick puzzle. The answer is Ken Jennings' appearance on The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs. The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land?

Jeopardy-truthers believe in... I guess they would be Kenspiracy theorists. That's right. They gave you the answers, and you still blew it. The Puzzler. Listen on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Daniel, met any aliens yet? Not so far, at least not that I'm aware of. Oh, do you think they're not hearing your invitations to come on the podcast?

Well, you know, if they're hearing the podcast, maybe that's why there's something. staying away. Oh no. Are you saying our podcast is keeping humanity for making first contact with an alien species? It could be, but you know, if they don't like dad jokes or bananas or chocolate, do we really want to talk to them? That's right. They can't be very cool if they don't like any of those things. I mean, what are we going to talk about with them? I know. That is, in the end, the great filter. Hi, I'm Hora. I'm a cartoonist and the author of Oliver's Great Big Universe. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I live five miles from the most famous chocolate-covered banana joint.

Wait, what? I didn't know this. What makes it the most famous one? You never seen a rested development? I've seen the show. I guess I'm not a super fan. Is that like a real thing? Like the one featured in the show is a real thing? Oh, yes, absolutely. It's a real thing. In fact, there are two chocolate-covered frozen banana stands on Balboa Island near my house, and they both claim to be the original. Well, one of them is lying, then.

Yes, one of them is lying. Or one of them is wrong, at least. Or maybe they're both wrong. Maybe the original one is in New Jersey or something. Either way, they're feuding about bananas and chocolate. But then, which is the one featured in the show? That must be the most famous one. I'm not sure if the one featured in the show is one of the real ones,

or if it's a fictional stand-in. Oh, interesting. So then neither of them is very famous. The concept of Newport Beach chocolate-covered frozen bananas is famous. Have you tried it? Is it good? You know, not a fan of the bananas. Is it worth going to Bobba Island to happen?

No, not a fan of the bananas, even if you cover it in chocolate. Wow. What if it's a dark chocolate? That's better. Definitely better, but not good enough. You would stop add the banana like you would eat it. Yes. Anything but the banana.

It's just a chocolate delivery system, exactly. The banana's got nothing to represent. I would have thought it's the food that brings us all together, Daniel. It's like this podcast is a chocolate-covered banana. I know, and it's a big joke, so you think we'd love it. But anyway, speaking of a podcast, welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of High Heart Radio. In which we try to feed you the secrets of the universe.

We dip them in chocolate, we freeze them, we do everything we can to make them palatable. because we think that everything that's out there in the universe can be understood and deserves to be understood by me and by you and by everybody out there. Explanations are possible and you deserve to hear them. That's right. You deserve to hear on this podcast, which is, in fact, the most popular podcast called Daniel and Jorge

Explain the Universe. That has not been featured in a TV show yet. That's true. That's highly qualified but also accurate. It's all in the detail. You can read the fine print. We're probably also the most successful podcast that mentions the word banana so often.

There might be podcasts dedicated to bananas. I feel like you're making an unscientific claim. Have you sampled all other podcasts to make that claim? I have not. I'm guessing. I'm definitely speculating. The first step in science is speculating, right? Then you go out, you gather some data.

Let's see. That's your hypothesis. I'll follow up on it. That's your dull hypothesis. nature is always full of surprises and so maybe the podcast universe will surprise me. We'll see, we'll see. But anyways, we do like

to take facts about the universe and all of the amazing things that are happening out there, cover them in delicious chocolate and then tell them to you so that you can also appreciate what's out there and the dark mysteries of the cosmos. But this podcast isn't just us talking about the universe. It's a conversation

between us and you. We want to know what you don't understand about the universe. We'd love to know what puzzles you, what you'd like to hear more about and what explanations you find unsatisfactory. So if you have questions about how the universe works or you've always heard something explained a certain way

and it never really clicked, please write to us to questions at danielanhorpe.com. We will write back to you and help you figure it out. Yeah, because even though it sort of starts with guessing, before guessing comes to questions, right? Scientific progress starts with somebody looking at something and going, huh, how does that work? Why is that the way it is? And can I

freeze it and cover it in chocolate. Every scientific question ends with, can I freeze it and cover it in chocolate? Can you take a quark, freeze it, and covered it in dark matter chocolate? These are some dark forces we're playing with. Yeah, it's a tasty field of research there. But yeah, it all starts with questions. And as you said, Daniel, we love to take questions from our listeners.

And sometimes we dedicate whole episodes to answering them, or at least trying to answer them. to making silly jokes about them at the very minimum. If I get a question that I think, hmm, I bet other people want to hear the answer to this, or I'm sure Jorge has some funny things to say about this topic, then instead of just running back to you, we will answer it here on the podcast for everybody to hear.

Wait, are you saying there are questions you get, and you're like, nobody else wants to know this answer. You're like, only the person asking this question could possibly be interested in this topic. Absolutely. People send me their crazy detailed theories of the universe, and they want specific answers to why it works or doesn't work. That's not the kind of thing we talk about on the podcast.

Although maybe we should. I don't know. I wonder if that would make an interesting episode to get some of your theories about the universe that you get and then figure out why they're not true. Yeah, maybe it would. And if I ever find one that is compelling, that does sound great, then absolutely we'll talk about it on the podcast. Or maybe we can offshoot another podcast.

You know, Daniel and Jorge shoot down your theory of everything. Why You're Wrong About the Universe with Daniel. Yes. Or just why you're wrong. That's actually a pretty good idea there. There's a podcast already called Wrong About Everything. Yeah, but we be the more famous one. Yeah, I'm sure.

We talk about bananas more than the other one. Yeah, we record it in Bubble Island, which automatically makes it more famous. But anyways, we do like to answer questions. And so today on the podcast, we'll be tackling. Listener questions, number 52. Is 52 an important number? Yeah, it's one more important than 51. I feel like it has area 52 connotations.

Isn't that area 51? Oh, is it? No, I'm talking about the extra secret area that people don't even know exists. It's the one after Area 51. Make sure you don't tell anyone about Area 53. That's double extra secret. You need one more level of clearance to know about that.

Don't tell me because I have no security clearance. But yeah, we like to answer questions here. And today we have three great questions from listeners. One of them is about Daniel's favorite topic, aliens. The other one is about the electromagnetic force and why it works the way it does. And the third one is about saving humanity by destroying something that maybe a lot of people hold precious.

Chalka-covered bananas. We'll cover the moon in chocolate. All right, well, let's jump right in, Daniel. Our first question comes from Nick, who's from Tucson, Arizona? Hi, Daniel and Jorge. This is Nick from Tucson, Arizona. Growing up in a city that is so richly involved in science and astronomy, asking questions about our universe has become second nature.

One of the recent questions I've had is this. In our search for life elsewhere in the universe, we see abundant evidence that we are likely not alone in the universe. However, on the off chance that we actually are, at what point do we make that determination given one cannot prove a negative? I'm excited to hear your breakdown of how we tackle such a dilemma. Thanks for being awesome. All right. Interesting question from Nick here.

I feel like he's basically asking, how will we ever know whether we're alone in the universe or not? It's a good question. And I think he's also asking, what can we say? Is there some point at which we draw the line and say, we're done looking, we've decided we're alone. Like at some point in the future, if we never hear from other aliens, you can have to figure out that maybe we are alone, right? Like, nobody ever comes to visit you to your house. Obviously, the answer is that you're the only person on Earth.

Yeah. Or everybody hates you. Yeah, that's the other explanation. But let's keep deluding ourselves. I think this question is really interesting from the philosophical point of view like how could you ever know whether we're alone

and also it reveals something about how we make statements in science how you can make statistical arguments even if you can't ever make definitive arguments well Nick brings up the idea that it's impossible to prove a negative right it's technically theoretically impossible to say for example that there are no pink unicorns

out there in the universe because there might be and usually you'd have to check every little nook and cranny of the entire cosmos to be able to say that such a unicorn does not exist. Exactly. And even checking every little nook and cranny of the last cosmos doesn't prove it, right? Especially in a case of aliens where the category is so broad and undefined.

It's basically any sentient being that doesn't come from Earth. You could have lots of different characteristics that we don't anticipate. You might imagine, oh, if we check every single planet out there and we don't find aliens, then we know we're alone. But aliens could always exist in some manner we didn't anticipate. So, yeah, we might not find aliens on rocky planets, but they could exist in gas giants or underground or in the center of stars or in dark matter or in some other way we hadn't imagined. So it's impossible to ever say we're totally alone in the universe. You can discover aliens.

You can meet them and conclude that they're there. But you're right that we can't technically say definitively that we are alone. Right, ever, right? Like, it's theoretically impossible. It's theoretically impossible to make a completely definitive statement. But I also think that's too high a bar. That's not the bar we use in science, for example. You mean being correct?

It's too high of a bar? Making absolute definitive statements is not the business we're in. Right. It's not the business because you can't do it. You can't do it. If you try to do it, you wouldn't be able to do it. Yeah, exactly. And so instead we have statistical tools that tell us like how confident we can be in a statement.

You could never say anything really definitively. Even things like the Higgs boson. When we discovered the Higgs boson, we claimed discovery. of it but we also said here are the chances that we're wrong here's the chances that the Higgs boson doesn't exist and it just sort of looks like it does. Right, right. That just

kind of gets to how science actually works which is through this idea of the null hypothesis, right? Like for example even the Higgs boson, it's not like you went out there and you said, well, I have a certain degree of confidence that the Higgs boson exists, you're actually really what you're saying in your science papers is saying we have a

certain degree of confidence that not having the Higgs boson exists. is not possible. Yeah, we calculate very precisely the probability of having been fooled. Because remember, we don't see the Higgs directly. It's not like something we can say, here is one, look at it. It's not like discovering a unicorn in the forest. We only see its footprints and its hair left on trees,

and we have indirect evidence like we almost always do in science. And so we can calculate the probability of seeing that indirect evidence without there being a Higgs boson, which is not zero. And we can say, well, we can rule that out not completely, not to do that, not definitively, but we can say it's very unlikely and we can be very specific about the level at which it's unlikely and there's a standard threshold

above which we're allowed to say we've discovered it we've pretty much settled it but of course it's never definitive although I wonder with something like the Higgs boson you maybe you can't say that you've seen one right like if you collide something and you see a particle fly out of it then maybe you could say that it

is there with 100% confidence we can never say that with 100% confidence the Higgs boson lasts for like 10 to the minus 23 seconds. We can never see. We only see what it turns into, unfortunately. But that's the case of discovery, which is special and wonderful. We can also play statistical games when we don't discover something. We can say, for example, oh, there's a new particle. If it did exist, we probably would have seen it. And so we can conclude that it likely doesn't exist. And that's not, again, definitive. It could be that we got unlucky or something. But it's sort of like, you know,

looking for Bigfoot. If you look all through the forest and you don't see Bigfoot, then you can say, well, Bigfoot might exist, but he's got to be pretty rare or pretty sneaky or got some camouflage technique that we didn't think of already. You can still make negative statements, even if they're not definitive. Right. But in the case of like Bigfoot or aliens, I feel like once you see one, then that's 100% confidence that they exist, right? I think maybe Nick is asking more about the scenario where we don't see one. So if we see an alien, then for sure, we can know for 100% with confidence that they exist, but if we'd never see one at what point, I think is the next question,

do you say, well, I guess they don't exist. Yeah, I agree in spirit with what you're saying. I just want to put an asterisk there because even if you see an alien, you never know 100%. You could be being fooled or whatever. No knowledge really is 100% definitive. But in practice, we call that definitive. There are cases in the past when we found things, we're like, there's no way that this could have been faked.

And then we, you know, we're pretty sure dinosaurs are real, for example. nobody takes seriously the scenario that dinosaurs are all fake. Yeah, or like a whale, like we know with 100% certainty that whales exist and that whales are a thing, right? I mean, technically again, like there's always an asterisk there. You never know anything 100%, but practically speaking, the probability of being fooled. They're so small we basically call it zero. Yes, you're right.

But you're right. Nick is focused also on the other scenario. What can we learn from not discovering aliens? Is there some point at which? And so we can make statistical statements like, We know if the universe was filled with aliens and they were very loud in electromagnetism and travel the stars very enthusiastically, we would have seen them already. And so by not having seen them, we can say, well, if those aliens exist, they must be rare.

And we can say how rare they have to be for us to not see them. So we can make negative statistical statements about aliens. Or not about aliens, but about scenarios for aliens, right? Like you're not saying aliens don't exist. You're just saying aliens that watch a lot of times. TV, broadcast TV and have spaceships that have figured out interstellar travel, those are

maybe less likely. Although those could still exist, you know, maybe they don't like to travel. Yeah, exactly. You can imagine a scenario and you can say, well, what are the chances that if that scenario is real, we wouldn't have seen aliens? And so if you

imagine a scenario where aliens are visiting Earth all the time, it's very unlikely that we don't see them. And so if we haven't seen them, you can mostly rule that scenario out. But there are always other scenarios. Like maybe they can't travel. Maybe they're weirder than we imagine. Maybe they don't care to travel.

They don't want to contact us. Or maybe they all died a billion years ago or they're hiding or there's always some scenario in which aliens could exist and we haven't seen them. So basically, if we haven't seen them, there's nothing you can say about aliens. Because I feel like there's so many ifs and possibilities that you really just starting to, you know, make statements based on assumptions that, you know, you really don't have any information. about. I think the kind of stuff you can say if you don't meet aliens is pretty weak, but not exactly nothing. Like aliens that desperately want to come to Earth and have the capabilities to do so,

those aliens don't exist. Like if they existed, they would be here. So we can rule out some scenarios, but the space of possible scenarios that we can't rule out is infinite. And so much, much bigger than the things we can rule out. So like what fraction of the scenarios have we ruled out by not discovering aliens basically zero. But that doesn't mean there are no scenarios we've ruled out. We've learned a little bit by not having met aliens. I see. I think what you're saying is that we can sort of paint you know, very subtle shades of rarity about the idea or the question of whether aliens exist. But again, these are just kind of like shades of statements that are, you know, based on assumptions and really nobody knows. Really nobody knows. But you can learn something. Like for example, in our book,

we go into some of these scenarios. Imagine there's a civilization out there in the galaxy that builds self-replicating robots. Robots that go off in a space and find moons and mind them and make more of them. So you get an exponential number of these robots because each one makes two more, which makes two more, which makes two more. And you can ask like, how long does it take before that civilization sends a robot to every single planet in the galaxy? And the answer is like tens of thousands of years. So if the galaxy is billions of years old, if that civilization exists, or at least one of them, then Earth should have some of those robots visiting us. So that hasn't happened, for example, we're pretty sure. And so we can say, like, that scenario is

mostly ruled out. So there are interesting scenarios that we can mostly rule out. Though you're right, we're always making statistical statements and there's lots of stuff we can't rule out. Right. And at some point, I feel like you're basically making invaluable, unavailable statements. Like at some point, You're basically saying, well, if we haven't seen Superman yet, that means that there isn't an alien race out there, they grew up around a red sun that was about to explode, and then their parents sent out this kid out in a spaceship and landed on Earth. That's something we can say about aliens, right?

Yes, I agree. Because so far, we haven't seen Superman yet. Yes, that's true. Off the infinite list of possible scenarios, we can cross one off the list. That's progress. It's still infinitely long. No, you can't even cross it out the list. You can paint it with a statistical rare.

Right? You can say that's much less likely. Not even that cat, right? I mean, it's statistics. So just because you haven't rolled 12 on a die, it doesn't mean that you can't. That's right. But if you roll the die a lot of times, you never see 12, then you can start to make statements. It's still possible. It's still possible.

But you can make statistical statements, right? It's not true that you can say nothing. Right. Right. But I guess you can debate how useful a statistical statement is. It's totally unsatisfying, especially in comparison to discovering aliens, right? But it's how we make progress, right? It also gives us inspiration.

Like, if we can think carefully about the kind of categories we have been able to see, it makes us aware of our blind spots. Like, oh, well, actually, it turns out we've only been looking for people that broadcast in electromagnetism. Let's look for messages in neutrinos or in gravitational waves, right? Inspires us to think outside the box a little bit more. Let me see. Helps you maybe narrow the search of how you're looking for aliens.

Yeah, actually broaden the search, right? Consider other ways we might be contacted. All right. What would you say is the answer for Nick here? I would say we never make that determination. Superman does not exist. I would take an even bet against Superman existing for sure, yes. But we can never prove that we're totally alone in the universe. All right. I wonder if that's comforting or not.

Would you want to know you're the only species in the universe? Or would we feel better knowing there are other aliens out there? It's sort of frustrating because it's one of these questions where either answer, yes, we're alone in the universe. so we're super rare and special or no we're not alone in the universe so there's other intelligent life out there either answer is amazing and mind-blowing so it's kind of frustrating if the answer we get instead is maybe here's some statistics here are some statistics based on some guesses based on some comic books and sci-fi novels that daniel has read yes that's absolutely less satisfying than a definitive answer yes or no so that's pretty frustrated i feel you nick

I feel you. All right. Well, it sounds like there is no point at which we can make that determination. But at some point, you kind of have to get suspicious about whether or not they do exist out there. Yeah. All right. Well, Nick is definitely not alone in having questions about the universe. Other people have questions and they have sent it to us.

And we are going to answer them here on the program. So when we come back, we'll tackle two more questions about electromagnetic charges and about destroying the moon. But first, let's take a quick break. Get fired up, y'all. Season two of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway. We just welcomed one of my favorite people and an incomparable soccer icon, Megan Rapino to the show, and we had a blast. We talked about her recent 40th birthday celebrations,

co-hosting a podcast with her fiancé Sue Bird, watching former teammates retire and more. Never a dull moment with Pino. Take a listen. What do you miss the most about being a pro athlete? The final. The final and the locker room. I really, really, like, you just, you can't replicate, you can't get back.

Showing up to locker room every morning just to shit talk. We've got more incredible guests like the legendary Candace Parker and college superstar A.Z. Fudd. I mean, seriously, y'all, the guest list is absolutely stacked for season two. And, you know, we're always going to keep you up to speed on all the news and happenings around the women's sports world as well. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the iHeartner. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adapt strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like like go you go blank yourself right it's easy it's easy to just drink the extra beer it's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague

who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 gives 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.

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 thoroughly 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. All right, we're answering listener questions here today.

And our next question comes from Collum. Hey, I'm Collum, and I wanted to know why specifically do positive and negative charges attract to each other, as well as why do two negative charges and two positive charges repel from each other? How exactly does that work? Thank you. All right, awesome question from Collum here. It sort of gets into the very idea of what is the nature of forces, and electromagnetic forces and charges, right?

Yeah, it's a great question, really fun, really deep, kind of philosophical. And it came to me actually originally from Collum's physics teacher. He said he got this question in class, wasn't sure how to answer it, could I help him out? And so I thought, hey, let's talk about it. And he agreed to play our answer in class. So hi, Collum, and everybody in your class. Yeah, hello. I hope you're not disappointed.

Let's give them the answer first, and then we'll see if they're disappointed. Do you think this is more or less exciting than the lecture that Colum's teacher normally would have done? Oh, I'm pretty sure Colum's teacher is a fabulous lecture in addition to being good-looking. Yes, best teacher of the year award, multiple years going, or at least they will. Yes, and probably hilarious too, right? Yes, yes. All teachers should play our podcast on our classrooms. But thank you to all the high school science teachers out there for your service on the front lines of education.

Yeah, that's right. And for all of you students out there, if you give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or any of those platforms, you automatically get an A in this class. Wow. Yeah. Jorge does not have the authority to promise that. But go ahead. Give us a five-star rating. Yeah. No, no. We never tell the lies here in this podcast. Yeah, well, it's statistically possible that you could get an A from giving us a five-star rating that we can't say definitively. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Now I feel really alone in making my statement. better statistics than lies right all right well let's get to column's question column wanted to know

why do plus and minus charges attract and why do two charges of the same polarity repel like how does that work why is it so binary I guess and what makes one combination attract and the other one repel yeah it's a really fun question

because it gets to the nature of like what is charge what we really know about it and it also gets to the question of like well why does electric magnetism attract with opposite charges and why do other forces not you know for example in electromagnetism two positive charges repel but in gravity two positive masses attract each other so there's lots of different directions to go in with this question right because you have the

idea that a charge it's like just a property of particles right they're like little labels that you attach to things to stuff out there like electromagnetic charge or like mass or like like maybe some of the other charge forces. Yeah, that's definitely a valid way of thinking about it. And that's the way we teach it. But I think there's a layer we need to pull apart there. So we clear on which part of it is actually something we observe and which part of it is sort of an explanation we've concocted to explain what we've observed.

Because in the end, charge is a tool we use to explain attraction and repulsion. That's what we see out there. See a bunch of particles, some of them push against each other, some of them attract each other. And what we've noticed is if you put these labels on the particles, call some of them plus and some of the minus, and you come up with this explanation, like charges attract and opposite charges repel, then it works. It's consistent. It explains all the attraction and repulsion that we see. So it's not like we discovered charge. What we discovered is some particles push and pull and we came up with charge as a way to explain that.

You're saying like the idea of a charge is really just, it's a definition thing. or charges maybe not something fundamental to the universe is just something we came up with to explain what we see. Yeah, that's the philosophical side of it. We don't know if this really is a property of the universe or just part of the story that we tell. But what we definitely see, what we observe is the pushing and the pulling. And we use charges to explain that.

I think there's another important wrinkle there in something you just said, which is these are property of the particles. It's actually really fascinating because it's a property actually of a pair of particles. Like, what does a particle do if it has charge and it's all alone in the universe? Well, it doesn't push or pull. It doesn't get pushed. It doesn't get pulled, right? It's only when you put another charge there, do they push or pull on each other?

So it's sort of like velocity, where velocity is relative. You know, you can only measure a velocity of an object relative to something else. Velocity is not the property of an object. Even though we describe particles as having charge, it's only really meaningful relative to another particle. So it's more like the property of a pair of particles. Here's two that have the same charge. Here's two that have opposite charge. And we've come up with a consistent explanation to describe all of that.

And so we think that's probably what's going on. But, you know, we don't really know. Okay, so you're saying that as scientists, we've been studying things out there in the universe. And sometimes we notice that when you have these little things, particles, sometimes they repel each other and sometimes they attract each other. And we've come up with this scenario where when they attract each other, it must be because they have

opposite of something and when they repel each other is when they have the same of something and we call that a charge. Yes, exactly. So to ask like why does that happen the answer is like basically because it does. Well the answer

is we see it happen and we can tell a story about the mechanism behind it. We have this idea that each particle that has a charge creates a field and that field has a force on other particles and so we can describe it. We can accommodate it But we're doing much better than just saying, this is what happens in the universe.

We're not just describing everything we see. We're really explaining it. You can tell the difference between describing and explaining because explanations are simpler. They're not just a list of everything you've seen. They're more compact. They're more economical. So specifically, if you have like 10 particles you want to understand, there's like 50 different unique pairs of those particles.

So a totally descriptive theory, one that just lists what. What happens between every particles would have like 50 pieces of information. It wouldn't simplify anything at all. But the idea of electric charge is really an explanation because by putting a plus or a minus on every particle, that's just 10 pieces of information, one per particle. Then the result for any pair of particles determined by the relative charges. So it's not just a description of what happens. It's a clever, compact, economical explanation.

And that's good physics. The rest is tricky philosophy, right? Why does the universe work this way and not some other way? That's a deeper philosophical question. We can also talk about why in electromagnetism, like charges repel, whereas in gravity like charges attract, that is something we do understand. I mean, I feel like basically you're saying that the answer is because it does. Like, why is it that way?

Because that's what we observe. But I wonder if maybe Colm is asking more like, you know, in our knowledge and our models of quantum mechanics and particles. and quantum fields, like what is the basis of a charge in that scenario, and what's the mechanism by which having a positive or a negative of that charge makes you retract or repel another particle? Yeah, and the story is fascinating and compelling. The way we talk about it is that particles have these fields around them. So an electron creates an electric field, right?

And it depends on the charge. A proton has a different field than an electron. And that field can vary. You know, it can be like stronger here and weaker there. And that variation is crucial. If the field is slanty, if it's like stronger in one place and weaker in another place, it will create a force on other charged particles. So the slantiness of the field is where that force comes from.

Just like if you put a ball down on the ground, if the ground is level, the ball's not going to roll anywhere. But you put a ball down on a hill, it's going to roll downhill. In exactly the same way, you put a charged particle in space, where the field has a gradient where it varies, it's stronger in one place, weaker somewhere else, it's going to feel a force pushing it to where the field is weaker, depending on its charge. Right. I feel like you're saying, again,

just more of like it is because it is. But I wonder if you can say something about in your math formulations of quantum mechanics for quantum particles, how do you account for a charge? Is it just like a little number you append to a particle or to like a variable that you call a particle and then how does it come up that if you have the same as sign or plus or minus, then you repel?

And how does it come up that you attract if you have different signs? Yeah, so quantum mechanics, we have these labels that be assigned to particles. And I think maybe what you're looking for and what column is asking about is like, where do these labels come from? What really is charge? Sure, they seem to work and they're compact and we can use them to predict the forces on particles. But do we understand where the charge itself comes from? And the answer is no. And here's where we get a bit philosophical because you have to think carefully about the kind of answer you're looking for when you ask this question. Take a step back, for example, and ask a similar question.

Why does the proton have charged plus one? Where does that come from? Well, we know the answer. It comes from the bits the proton is made out of the quarks. So back to the electron or for the quarks. Also, what's the answer there? Well, we don't know because we don't know what the electron is made out of. if it's made out of anything but just the electron. So for bigger stuff that's made of smaller stuff, we can answer this question.

We can explain it in terms of that smaller stuff. For the smallest stuff, we can't. It's just how the universe is. And that will be also true when we eventually find out what's at the foundation of the universe, what's the smallest most basic bit of matter. We'll look at it and say, why is it the way that it is? And if it really is the foundation of the universe,

we'll have no answer because we can't explain it in terms of its bits because it doesn't have any internal bits. So that's the philosophical answer. We don't yet know what's inside the electron, if anything, so we don't really have any insight into why it has charge. But zoom back out from that philosophy and you can still learn things about forces and fields and charges. If you start from the charge and the field it makes, that tells you something about the forces. We act as if the charge is a property of the particle.

And then it creates these fields and those fields push or pull on the other. other particles, but the nature of the field, whether it's electromagnetism or gravity, determines whether light charges attract or like charges repel. And that gets a little bit mathematical. It's like the structure of the field. Is it a vector field? Is it just a scalar? Like, is there a number or is there a direction to the field?

That determines the kind of particle that transmits the information. So in electromagnetism, we have the photon, right? The photon is a complicated particle. It has spin, whereas the Higgs fields, for example, has the Higgs goes on, which doesn't have any spin. It turns out it's the spin of that particle that's communicating the information that determines whether like charges attract or like charges repel. Wait, wait.

What do you mean? Like, what's the connection between the spin of something and it's charge? And are you talking actually about like particle spinning or are you talking about some thing we call spin? Well, when we're talking about particles, they don't actually spin. They just have this thing we call quantum spin, right? And so some particles don't have any of it. We call them spin zero.

Some particles have spin one. Some particles have spin half. All of the particles that transmit forces like electromagnetism have unit spin, spin zero, spin one, spin two. So the photon, for example, is a spin one particle. And that comes out of the nature of the electromagnetic field. Like when you make photons, which are ripples in this electromagnetic field, you make these particles that can have spin. And that's because the electromagnetic field has vectors.

It can like point in different directions. Whereas the Higgs field is just a number and to the ripples you make in it don't have any spin. And then the spin of these particles that transmits the forces determines whether like charges attract or repel. So electromagnetism because it has a photon, a spin one particle, that's what makes like charges repel. Why is that? What's the connection there? Why does the photon having spin one make like charges repel? Yeah, it has to do with how we construct the mathematics of the quantum field theory. Basically, you get a negative sign every time you go up in spin. So spin zero, like charges attract.

You add spin to spin one, you get a negative sign. You add another spin to spin two, like the graviton, then like charges attract again. So it comes out of the statistics of quantum field theory, which I think is a little too hairy to get into. So wait, are you saying that photons have spin? Photons have spin, absolutely. Photons can be polarized, right? We had a whole episode about polarization of photons. They can spin this way.

They can spin that way. And so when you say spin one or spin zero, what does that actually mean? Like the number of dimensions or are we just creating categories to explain why something's attract and repel? Well, spin zero means just a number. It doesn't have any spin. Spin one means it's a vector. It points in some direction.

It can also point in the other direction. Spin two is for really complicated particles like gravitons. They're tensors. They're more like not a vector. They're more like a matrix. really complicated so they can have more values of spin. A particle that's called quote unquote spin one can have zero plus one or minus one spin. Particle that's quote unquote spin two can have plus two plus one, zero minus one minus two. So as the structure of the field itself gets more

complicated, the nature of the particle is more complicated and that changes the kind of interaction that it mediates. I see. So I feel like maybe you're saying that the answer for our high school audience here is that it's sort of related to the dimensionality of the forces that we're talking about. Like if the force that we're talking about has a certain number of dimensions, then like charges are going to

repel. If it has a different set of dimensions, then like charges are going to attract. And it's almost like it sort of goes by the odd or evenness of the number of dimensions. That's exactly right. And you know, the explanation we gave earlier, like, well, this is just sort of what we see.

You know, it's not just descriptive. Like, We put together as simple as possible an explanation for all the pushing and pulling that we've seen. And it works together kind of beautifully. It's really compact. It's simple. It tells a really compelling story. And there's some restrictions to it. Like you can't just build any quantum field theory you want.

They don't all work. These are the ones that work and that do explain what we see. So in that sense, maybe we are revealing something that's true about the universe. This is what's actually happening behind the scenes. Maybe charge is real and it's part of these particles. We'll never really know, of course, any more than we know. if there's aliens out there or Bigfoot exists, but it's very compelling story we're telling about how it works.

Yeah, because it's sort of based on the math. The dimensionality, how many dimensions the force has, then light charges repel. If it's even, then the light charges attract. That's kind of a fundamental thing about the universe, right? Yeah. Because it ties math to what we see and experience in our everyday lives. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was trying to say earlier is that there's only a few ways to build these theories.

It's not like you can just build any theory you like, so you have an infinite number of possible explanations. There's a lot of constraints on making these theories work so they don't break down. They don't make nonsense predictions. They also agree with everything we've seen. And so what we've seen is that the universe really constrains us. There are rules for how you can build these theories mathematically. And that's why seeing something work in the mathematics is often a really big hint that it might reflect something in the universe. And so that's why we hope that by exploring the mathematics of these theories, we're actually investigating what's happening behind the scenes in the universe. Yeah. All right. So,

then the answer for column and columns class and for everyone out there is that like charges repel in electromagnetism because of the number of dimensions that the electromagnetic forces seem to operate in. If the electromagnetic forces operated in a different set of dimensions or number of dimensions, then light charges would do the opposite. They would attract each other. Exactly. Like they do with the Higgs field and like they do with gravity.

All right. Well, everyone gets an A. Extra credit on the house all around. Well, if you sat through that whole explanation and that discussion, I think everyone deserves a name. What do you think? At least a frozen banana. Yeah, yeah, and a frozen banana. Okay.

All right. Well, thank you, Collum, and thank you, Collin's teacher for bringing this up. It's great to know there are high schoolers out there that are curious about these things and they're drilling in to the nuances and having questions about very basic things. And it also shows you how easy and common it is to ask simple questions that have tricky answers. We don't really know the answers to. This is a pretty basic question and the answers are a little bit slippery and philosophical and mathematical. So you're right there at the edge of our knowledge and our understanding.

All right. Well, let's get to our last question of the day. And this one is pretty dramatic and pretty intense. It's about destroying the moon, maybe to save humankind. So let's dig into that question. But first, let's take another quick break. Get fired up, y'all. Season two of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway.

We just welcomed one of my favorite people and an incomparable soccer icon, Megan Rapino to the show, and we had a blast. We talked about her recent 40th birthday celebrations, co-hosting a podcast with her fiancé Sue Bird, watching former teammates retire and more. Never a dull moment with Pino. Take a listen.

What do you miss the most about being a pro athlete? The final. The final. And the locker room. I really, really, like, you just, you can't replicate, you can't get back. Showing up to locker room every morning just to shit talk. We've got more incredible guests like the legendary Candace Parker and college superstar A.Z. Fudd.

I mean, seriously, y'all, the guest list is absolutely stacked for season two. And, you know, we're always going to keep you up to. to speed on all the news and happenings around the women's sports world as well. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain 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'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential.

I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or I'd get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you.

Because it's easy to say like, go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to suppress, seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier.

Denials is easier. drinking is easier, yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 career. years. I'm Gretchen Whitmer, Jody Sweeten, Monica Patton, Elaine Welteroff. I'm Jessica Voss. And that's when I was like, I gotta 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 gives 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

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 thoroughly before it happened. Was there a particular moment? 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. All right, we're answering questions from listeners, or at least the questions that Daniel feels like answering. I answer all the questions. I just elevate some of them to the podcast. Oh, this is elevating the questions.

Interesting. I thought it was lowering them. You're thinking your contribution to these is lowering our answers to them? Possibly, yeah. We're covering it with a hersey chocolate. That's right. But our last question here comes from Kim from Toronto. Hi, Daniel and Jorge.

This is Kim from Toronto in Canada. I know how much you enjoy answering ethics and physics questions from aspiring evil villains. So I have a question for the two of you. If climate change is melting the ice caps and forcing sea levels to rise at the equator, could this effect be offset at the equator by destroying the moon? Safely, of course, so nobody gets hurt. And since more of the Earth's population is closer to the equator, later than the poles, would this potentially save the lives of those who are currently living

in zones which would flood if the sea levels rise? And a question for Jorge, if I were to single-handedly destroy the moon in order to save millions of lives, would this make me a hero or a villain? All right. A bit of a scary question here from Kim. I'm not even sure what to make of this question or what it even means. Like, how do you tie destroying the moon to saving the planet? Well, I do like the creativity here.

Like we're facing some issues, people. Let's think about out-of-the-box solutions, right? That's right. We have the problem of climate change. Obviously, the easiest thing is to destroy the move. I don't know if it's the easiest thing or even on the top 10 easiest solutions to climate change. But it's kind of interesting to think about. Okay.

So I think what Kim is thinking here is that climate. Climate change is a thing. And one of the consequences of climate change are rising sea levels, which is a problem. Maybe not if you're in Montana or in Siberia, but if you're in a coastal city, then it's sort of a problem. And if the sea levels rise, then it's going to cost a lot of chaos and instability for billions of people, which is bad news for everybody. And so I think Kim is thinking like, oh, rising sea levels, that sounds like something related to tides. and tides are related to the moon. Why do we destroy the moon?

Would that solve the consequences of climate change, right? I think that's what Kim is trying to propose here. Yeah, I think the idea or the hope is that you could mitigate the impact of rising sea levels by minimizing the tides. Like, yeah, maybe the ocean is going up, but the worst part is when the ocean goes up and you have high tides. If your tides aren't as high or if you can remove the tides, then the ocean doesn't rise as much. And so you're somehow mitigating the rise in sea levels by preventing these swings in the ocean depth. Right, right.

Because I imagine that Kim has figured out that if you remove the moon, that doesn't mean that the sea levels go down. It just means that they don't go up and down. Yeah, that's exactly right. They don't go up and down. And so they're not as high, right? I think that's the point. The highs are not as high and the lows are not as low. You eliminate the variation of the tides, which helps, it doesn't solve the right.

rising sea levels because the average sea level will still rise. That's right. Maybe the high tide wouldn't be as bad as it would be if you had the moon. Exactly. And this relies on sort of a simple model of the tides where the moon is pulling on the water and making it deeper here and narrow or there. And so it's making higher tides and lower tides. And it's true that the tides can be very large and quite variable.

You know, in some places around the world, the tides can be like, you know, more than 10 meters. So it can definitely be very dramatic. Wait, you mean like in some places it can go up and down 10 meters? Yeah, exactly. Tides could be very, very dramatic. Where is that? 10 meters is a lot, 30 feet. It is.

I looked at a map of the tidal variations and it's sort of surprising. It's not focused on the equators. You know, there's like the inlet under Alaska is very dramatic. Actually, the waters just to the west of Central America have some of the strongest tides. Up near the northern coast of Europe has very strong tides. It doesn't just vary on latitude. Tides in the end are influenced by the moon, but there's lots of other important factors

like the shape of the coast and the depth of the water, how the water likes to slosh around, the temperature of the water. Lots of things affect the amplitude of the tides. So then what does that mean? Does that mean that if you eliminated the moon, you would still get tides? That's also true because the sun contributes

like a third of the tidal forces. So if you eliminated the moons, you would reduce the tides, though it wouldn't be concentrated necessarily at the equator. But if you limited the moon, you would still have ties because the sun also causes ties on a slightly different pattern, of course, than the moon, but you wouldn't get rid of them by destroying the moon. Yeah, I remember we had a whole episode about ties, and it was kind of complicated.

It's very complicated. You know, people have been trying to understand this for a long time, and Newton had the first model based on, you know, gravity pulling on the water, but that's just one part of it. That's just like the input. That's how much gravity is pushing on the water. You also have to understand how the water responds. Like if you sit in your bathtub and you push on the water to make a wave, you make a wave. The water doesn't just bend under your hand and stay there.

So you have to understand the water's response, all the wave equations to really understand how the tides are formed. It's very, very complicated. These days we have a really solid understanding of it, though, which is why you can like look up the tides anywhere on Earth pretty far in the future and get a pretty good prediction of it. Right, right. Although I hear the accuracy of that kind of goes up and down. depending on when you look or where the moon is. I think what you're saying is that Kim's plan would work, sort of. Like if you took out the moon, you wouldn't totally eliminate the tides, but you would maybe eliminate two-thirds of the tide, which is sort of Kim's plan.

You would eliminate two-thirds of the tides, but it wouldn't have the most impact in the coastal areas. It would have the most impact other places on Earth, which is still helpful, right? everybody would benefit from having lower ocean levels or lower highs, I suppose. Wait, what do you mean? It wouldn't affect the equator, you're saying, but tides affect the coastal areas, right? Tide affects the coastal areas, but where around the world those tides are most dramatic is not in the equator.

It depends on the shape of the continents and all sorts of stuff. If you Google like a tide map, you'll see these red hotspots where the tides are most dramatic and they are not along the equator. So if he's looking to focus his efforts and help people along the equator, tides are not the way to do it. Well, I'm not sure Kim actually is that concern about people in the equator and specifically. I think he's just concerned about the overall consequences of climate change. And you're saying it wouldn't be focused on the equator. It would sort of spread out all over in weird places.

But if you did eliminate the moon, it would lower the ups and downs of the tide. Yeah, it would. It wouldn't reduce the tides. But of course, you're also contributing lots of other potential. shall knock on problems from getting rid of the moon, which does much more than just provide ties. What do you mean? Like what other effects would removing the moon have? Well, the moon is crucial for lots of ecosystems. You know, provides light at certain times of night, certain parts of the month. Predators rely on the moon for hunting at night. There's a lot of biological things that

are linked to the moon. You know, a lot of our cycles are linked to the moon for lots of reasons. So you get rid of the moon, it could have difficult to predict impact on ecosystems. I think my question is how would you even destroy the moon? That's the engineering you, man. Let's say you like obliterated it. Wouldn't all those rocks fall on Earth and kill us all, which make climate change a small problem? Yes, definitely you'd have to do this safely.

I've actually read that novel Seven Eves where their moon is destroyed and rains down rocks on the Earth. Super interesting. You know, instead of destroying the moon, you can just like push it out into space. You don't actually have to destroy it. Oh, whoa, whoa, interesting. Like just attach some rockets into it.

and have it just been out of control and shoot off Earth? Yeah, exactly. What kind of energy would that take? A lot of energy, if you want to do it quickly. If you want to do it gradually and you're happy to wait millions of years, then, you know, low rocket thrust can do it. In fact, we're already losing the moon, right? It gets further and further away from us by like a centimeter per year.

So Kim could also just wait a few million years. And then we'll all be dead from other things. I wonder if you can take all this CO2 on Earth, right? Take it to the moon, built and sort of... engine with that and then you solve two problems. Oh yeah, there you go. There's the engineer in you. But you know, you're always creating other problems when you're disturbing the system. Like the moon does, again, even more than like helping predators find prey. It also stabilizes the earth spin. The earth spins off axis, right? So it's a little bit unstable. It wobbles a little bit. And they think that the moon helps

stabilize that wobble. It like absorbs some of that angular momentum. And without a big moon, the earth's axes might tilt more and more until eventually it's tilted all the way over on its side, the way Uranus is. Whoa. Well, in that case, maybe Kim will come out with the idea to make a moon to tilt us back. I mean, Kim seems to have pretty big ideas. Yeah, he'll solve one problem, create another one, then solve that one, create a bigger problem. I see where this is going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Kim has a second part of the question, which is if Kim manages to destroy the moon and save people's lives, would that make them a hero or a villain? Yeah, and this question specifically for you. Yeah, I wonder why specifically for me, am I the ultimate judge of people's actions? I think Kim recognized that you have a deeper appreciation of like comic book superhero lore. Oh, I see. I see.

Interesting, interesting. I guess it depends on several things. Does Kim have a doctorate degree? You know, most villains are called doctor something. Oh, interesting. Does Kim wear a cape and a hood? that makes a big difference also. Yeah.

We'll get that to Kim's PR department right away. Well, I think it depends maybe on the ultimate effect of Kim's actions, you know. Maybe Kim will save millions of lives now, but in the long run, make the Earth a worse place to live. Interesting. In which case, he'd be like a tragic hero. So we're responsible for the unintended consequences of our actions? I'm saying we would all suffer from the unintended consequences of Kim's actions. Well, if this podcast is attracting aliens to Earth and they come in in iniculate,

us all are we then villains only that was your intent all along daniel i'm gonna no comment on that one sounds like yes no comment to that as well that's what a super villain would say danielan has a super team of lawyers and that's what they advise yes yes superheroes don't have lawyers they're honest and forthright there you go kim so if you have a lawyer you're a villain yeah although kim has been pretty forthright about their plans So maybe, I'm very confused, I'm very confused ethically here. I'm hoping for hero. I'm pushing for hero in this one.

Yeah. All right. Well, we're all cheering for you, Kim. And your plan to destroy the moon. Maybe it'd be easier if we just cut carbon dioxide emissions. Sounds like an easier path here. All right. Well, that's the answer for Kim.

And I think that means that we've answered all the questions today. That's right. We have. love your questions. We love thinking about them. We love talking about them. We love answering them. If you have questions about how the universe works and you want to hear us talking about them, please write to me to questions at danielanhorpe.com. Yeah, whichever question you send in, Daniel will give you an A and a banana covered in chocolate. Yes, a digital frozen banana. Covered in chocolate. Covered in digital chocolate. All right, well, we hope you

enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. For more science and curiosity, come find us on social media where we answer questions and post videos. We're on Twitter, Discord, Insta, and now TikTok. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you, I'll take it all! I'm Mani.

I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it.

You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing. I'm Dr. Joy Hardin-Bradford, host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I know how overwhelming it can feel if flying makes you anxious. In session 418 of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett and I discuss flight anxiety. What is not a norm is to allow it to prevent you from doing the things that you want to do,

the things that you were meant to do. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, we're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials easier. Complex problem solving takes effort.

Listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast.