Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - What Are Quantum Fields?

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

Quantum Field Theory, explained! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Season 2 of The Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Daniel, you know how in science fiction there are all kinds of fields? You mean like big, expansive lawns? No, I mean like force fields or energy fields. Oh my God. You know, none of that is real, right? What? Wait, the force from Star Wars is not real?

None of it. Absolutely none of that is real. Wait, wait. What about like energy fields? Those are real, right? Energy fields are not real. But there's something that's even weird or even cooler that is real. Wait, cooler than Star Wars.

Cooler than Star Wars are quantum fields. And that's a thing that is real and is everywhere in the universe. I don't believe it. I think you just made that up. We physicists did, in fact, invent quantum fields. field, but it turns out because it accurately predicts what happens in the universe, it might just be real. Is that like field of dreams? Like if you think of it, people will believe it. That's right, quantum fields of quantum dreams. That's basically what being a physicist is all

about, having quantum dreams. And you're the Kevin Costner in the situation. Hi, I'm Jorge. And I'm Daniel. And welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge, Explain the Universe. This is Daniel and Jorge. This is the podcast you're looking for. Exactly. Yeah, on this podcast, we try to talk to you about everything in the universe, things that are big, things that are small, things that are invisible, but fill the entire universe.

Things that are everywhere. Things you had no idea existed, but determine everything about your existence. That's right. Today on the podcast, we'll talk about quantum fields. What are they? Where are they? Who are they good for? Absolutely nothing.

Say it again. Is it just a family whose last name is Fields or? It's a bunch of discrete playing field somewhere, quantum fields. You can have one field, you can have two. Two fields, you can't have two and a half fields. They're quantized. But once you enter, you don't really know where you're going or where you are. No, a quantum field theory is something you hear about.

You might have heard it's part of modern physics. It's a theory that people use to do calculations. It's really awesome. It's impressive. But what is it? What is a quantum field? What is the theory of quantum fields? What relationship does that have to you or the rest of your life or anything at all?

Well, it's more than just a part of modern physics. It's kind of like the foundation of our theory about the universe, right? That's right. It's kind of like the language of physics currently. You know, it's like quantum field theory is to modern physics the way like English is to Shakespeare. You know, we use the tools of quantum field theory to try to talk about what's going on in the universe. And it's remarkably successful. It's incredibly successful.

Wait, you guys only use pig Latin. I thought that was the... We only do that when you come by, Jorge, to try to confuse you. But it's like the foundation. of modern physics, and it's also super duper accurate. Like, you guys are pretty sure this is the right way

to describe the universe. Yeah, well, on one hand, it's super duper accurate. Like, we can predict the way particles interact with fields, and we can make predictions out to lots of decimal places. And then we can go out and measure how those particles interact with the fields, and it turns out those predictions are correct

to, like, one in millions and millions. So, you know, you have on one hand, like a theoretical calculation, that you've written down. This is like an idea that predicts an experiment. And then you go out and you check it with a super precise experiment and get the same answer. And, you know, it's so accurate that you think

maybe this is the true story of the universe. This is not just like human ideas. This is like revealing the source code kind of thing. So you're pretty close to saying quantum fields are true. They're like the truth of the universe. Yes, except that we also know they can't be the final answer. Oh, no. Yeah, I know.

Well, we'll get into it. But I will admit, I don't have a clear idea of what a quantum field is. And we were wondering how many of you out there had some ideas about what it would be. So as usual, I walked around the UC Irvine campus and I asked a bunch of very friendly, very accommodating, very willing to answer random questions, UC Irvine undergrads. And I asked them, what is quantum field theory? Here's what people had to say. I have no idea, but I have heard of it before. All right.

It's probably related to quantum mechanics. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I think it describes the different vector fields that you use in quantum mechanics. Maybe the way self-atomic particles and extracts with one another? Cool. Similar to quantum mechanics, chemistry.

I don't know what it is, but I've heard of it. Okay. It's something to do with general relativity, is it, trying to marry that together with quantum theory? Are the waves involved and resonance of particles? Something like that, maybe? All right, and pretty good answers. I feel like the word quantum just gave it away.

You know, like if he asked, what is a quantum Googling book? You can just say, oh, I think it's related to quantum particles, right? And you would be sort of right. Yeah, but that's not really an answer, right? You know, and we know one of those answers is actually not from a UC Irvine undergraduate. That's from a fellow who wrote in and said that he was disappointed with the quality of the answers that the undergrads were giving. He thought he could do better. So I said, all right, here's the next question for the next podcast.

Don't do any research and record your answer. Wow. And he wrote back a very humbled email. He said, okay, you're right. It's harder than I thought it was. but he was still willing to do it so I thought that was totally awesome so he sent us his description

of quantum field theory do you think that we think in society today we think we're smarter than we are because we have Google at our fingertips you know like we know everything because we kind of do it just give us a second to tap it on our phones it's easier to access information

but sometimes that makes me feel less smart because I feel like I have less information actually in my head and I'm relying more and more on these facilities that are outside my brain Even though the cognitive connection between me and Google keeps increasing, I don't feel like that makes me smarter. It just makes me plus Google smarter.

What about the day that you connect your phone through your brain or something? Then you're sort of technically as smart as Google. The day that I become Google, that's the singularity, the Google singularity. Yeah, we all connect our brains. We all become one mega consciousness. The Googlerity. Man, what are you smoking over there today, Jorge? I want some.

Pass that over. it's the Googularity the Googularity I'll look forward to that but well we know they're related to quantum theory quantum fields so let's let's break it down

first of all what is a field to a physicist right so a field is just it's like a fluid that fills all of space it's like it's something that's everywhere and everywhere in space you have a number right and it comes from things like

the electromagnetic field people were puzzling a hundred years or so ago, like, how do two magnets push each other apart without touching, right? There was this action at a distance mystery, like that's sort of spooky. Like a telekinesis. Yeah, right. How are they actually pushing each other apart, you know? And this really puzzled physicist for a while, and they came up with this idea of a field,

the idea that each magnet has a magnetic field. It's this invisible thing that surrounds it, which will push on any other magnet that enters that magnetic field, right? And the magnetic field is strongest near the source of the magnet. and then it drops off, just as you would expect. So a magnet super far away won't feel anything. And this came because they noticed that how one magnet pulls or pushes on another sort of depends on where you put them relative to each other, right?

Like where you put it around the other one. That's right. And so they came up, they said, well, maybe every magnet generates in space this invisible thing we'll call it a magnetic field, and that's the thing that does the pushing. Right. And sort of a mystery that came up immediately, was like, is the field a real thing?

Is it actually there, a physical thing that exists in the universe? Like, does it have substance? And can you play baseball on it? Or is it just a way that we calculate things? You know, just like a tool in our minds to help us understand things. Oh. Like, is it a thing? Like you said, it could be like a fluid or it could just be like a mathematical construct.

Exactly, exactly. And that's a question that people are still grappling with, right? One philosophical problem was, how can things that are not touching push and pull on each other. And they answer that with, oh, okay, we just invent fields. All right, now the question is, are fields a real thing or are they something else? You know, that's the joy of philosophy

is that every time you answer a question, it just creates another question, which is just as deep. But what do you mean by a field is like a number? Because the way I learned about it in engineering is that a field is basically something that gives you a number depending on where

you stand or where you are in space. That's right. Every point in space has a number associated with each field. So, for example, the magnetic field from a magnet, there's a strength of that field. There's a field strength at every location. So as you're saying, you can ask, what is the field strength here,

right next to the magnet, and you get a number? What is the field strength way over there far away from the magnet? You get a smaller number. So the magnetic field has a number at every point in space. And you can have different kinds of fields.

You can fields that just have a number. Those are called scalar fields. That's just a fancy way of saying a number. Or you can have vector field. You can have a field where at every point you have an arrow that points in a certain direction. Is it kind of like a, are you saying it's a field is kind of like a map? Like it tells you what is it every position in space? Yeah, or a map is kind of like a field, actually.

Yeah, exactly. So you can think of it like a map. It says, how much magnetic field is there here? How much magnetic field is there there? And, you know, everywhere in space there is magnetic field. And it's either it's strong or it's weak, right? If you're talking about like ordinary classical fields like from 150 years ago, then they can be zero, right? No magnets means there's a field there, but the field value is zero.

Wow. So the question is, is a field just like a map that we hold in our hands that tells these things? Or are we actually living on a map, right? Like, is the field a real thing of substance? Yeah. And the answer to that question is we have no idea. And it's sort of a philosophical question, more than a scientific one, right? if you have a

calculational tool, a field that lets you predict the outcome of experiments and that works really, really well, does it matter if it's really physically true the thing that's happening or just a way that you do these calculations? What's the difference, right? Okay.

You know, if we weren't here, would those fields exist? Well, that's not really a question you can answer because if we weren't here, there'd be nobody to answer the question or do the experiment, right? So they're really tricky little philosophical puzzles, and that's a whole area of philosophical exploration

that I'm totally not qualified to talk about, but I often do anyway. That's the basis of our entire podcast. That's the field of our podcast. No, you know there's a huge conflict between philosophers of science and physicists who

think there's philosophers of science and spout off glibly sometimes in uninformed way in front of mass audiences and then get taken down by actual philosophers of science. So that's a common mistake to make, which is why I wanted to put that qualifier out there in the world.

It's like an academic war kind of between philosophers and physicists who venture into philosophy. Yes, exactly, exactly. And there are some physicists who really have learned about philosophy and can speak knowledgeably about it. And then there are others who think they can speak knowledge of me about it, but don't actually know anything. Sounds like an exciting fight, ironically speaking. All right. So that's a field. That's kind of what it is. It's kind of like a map of space that tells you something.

And then you can have particles in these fields, right? Like a particle is part of the field or something can be on a field. Yes. One of the most interesting thing about field theories or theories of fields is it tells you that particles are not the most basic thing in the universe. That particles are in fact just vibrations of the field. Like particles are a real thing, right? We feel them, we see them, we are them. But this tells us where they come from, right? The rules, it tells us that if you want to understand how particles move, you really have to understand these fields, because the particles are just vibrations in those fields. But vibrations of what?

Of the fields, right? Like the fields are, you know, a thing and they vibrate, which means they have energy, right? And localized excitations of these fields. Imagine, for example, a big rubber sheet that fills the universe, right? It's totally flat. But you could poke it and send a wave through it, right? And that wave can travel. It's energy that's traveling by oscillating this field.

And that's what particles are. They are oscillations in fields. But if I poke a sheet, it'll sort of dissipate. It'll go outwards and dissipate. But a particle kind of likes to stay in one place. Well, I don't know what particles like. I don't know if you've done any interviews with particles. I know lots of particles.

There's lots of ways to vibrate a sheet, right? You can vibrate a sheet so you get a localized packet that's traveling, right? It's easier to think about, for example, in one dimension, like instead of a sheet, think of a rope. Like, if I'm holding a rope and you're holding a rope, I can wiggle it to send you like a little wiggle along the rope so you can get a message, right? Oh, I see.

And you're saying a particle is one of these wiggles. A particle is a localized excitation of the quantum field. Exactly. And the crazy thing is, Every particle has its own field. So, like, in the universe, everywhere, there's an electron field. And everywhere there's an electron, that's the electron field wiggling. Wiggling.

And there's also a cork field, right? An upcork field. Everywhere there's an upcork, the upcork field is wiggling. Like a particle is something that's causing the field to vibrate? Or it's like it is the vibration of the field? It is the vibration, exactly. Yeah. That's what it is.

Yeah. Oh. And so that's what we're all made out of. Like you and I are made out of protons and corks and electrons. And so we're all just like massive collections of little vibrations. That's right. It's all actually vibrations, man. Those dudes that thought vibrations were everything.

They were right. Good vibrations, man. Exactly. And so if you like to think of yourself as made of particles and you wonder like, well, what are the particles made out of? I mean, they might be made out of smaller and smaller particles. But at some point you get down to the smallest particle. and what's that particle made out of and you think, oh, universe stuff.

Well, it turns out the universe stuff might be quantum fields, right? It's the quantum fields that are oscillating that make a particle. Okay, so that's the definition of a quantum field. It's the stuff of the universe. We're done. Yeah, so a field is just like a fluid to fill space.

It doesn't have to be quantum. It could be like electromagnetic or any kind of field. But a quantum field is a field that describes the motion of a quantum object, like a particle. And so since we're dealing, with particles and they move really fast and they have quantum mechanical properties, we deal with quantum fields. Okay.

So a quantum field is what describes the things that we're made out of, right? Because we're all made out of quantum particles. That's right. And every particle that makes us up is actually just a vibration of one of those fields, you know? And it's a really different way to look at the universe. Like when physicists started and they were thinking about quantum mechanics, they were thinking about like, what happens to a particle, you know? what is this electron's story?

It starts off over here and then it goes off over there and that's the way we're used to doing physics, right? Like, you think about a ball. What happens to this ball as it rolls down the hill? It's very natural to sort of follow the story of the ball. So we tried to do that with us to follow the story of the electron. The problem is quantum particles don't behave like that. Like they don't have a path, right?

It's not like you're here and then you're here and then you're here. There's all this uncertainty. Right. But more than that, they're being destroyed and created all the time. Like an electron doesn't just fly through space. It flies through space. It turns into a photon and something else. Then it turns back into an electron.

And then it creates this other thing which exists for a bill a second and then comes back. It's this like frothing mass of stuff that's happening. And the quantum mechanics we first developed couldn't describe that at all because it was very difficult to describe the creation or destruction of particles. Wow. So you sort of like reboot your thinking completely and say, let's ignore the story of one particle. And just think about like particles in general, right? Let's think about all the particles.

It's just like vibrations of this sheet that fills the universe. Then we don't have to worry about the story of particle A and the story of particle B. Because you were saying an electron, if you think of it as a thing and that thing disappears and turns into something else, then you're left wondering what happened to that thing. Yeah, like Kevin the electron. What is his story? He disappeared and he came back. Is it still Kevin?

Right. In the quantum field theory version, like all the electrons are Kevin because all the electrons are the same. Right. Every electron is identical, right? There's no difference between this electron and that electron. We're all Kevin. We're all made out of Kevin. Turns out that's the answer to the life, the universe and everything. Kevin.

There's like 12 Kevins listening to this going, I knew it. I hope we have more than 12 Kevin's listening to this. Well, let's get a little bit deeper into it, but first, let's take a quick break. The 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal.

Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and Order Criminal Justice System is back. In Season 2, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in the backlog will be a cold case. identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen.

I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolved. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so you're saying that the universe is not empty. It's like it's filled with these quantum fields that just kind of permeate everything. And they might be imaginary or they might be real things. But they, but they, permeate the entire universe, and we, like particles, us matter, are just kind of like little vibrations in these fields.

That's right. And they lay on top of each other, right? Every point in space can have an electron field and an up quark field and a down quark field and a Higgs boson field, an electromagnetic field. We have lots of different kinds of fields. And, you know, it might turn out eventually that we figure out how they're all really just part of one big field. But right now we have lots of different kinds of fields that all sort of lay on top of each

They're all the same size. They're all the size of the universe. Every piece of space has all these fields. And some of them are zero-ish. You know, they're low, and some of them have energy in them, which is why you have the electron here. So if you have, like, an electron on your left, that means the electron field is excited there.

And if you have an up quark on your right, it means the up quark field is excited there. And the electron field is not, right? And they can sort of talk to each other, right? Like an electron, you could have a little vibration in the electron field, and then suddenly that disappears, and it gets transferred to a different field and becomes a different particle.

Exactly, and those are the forces. So quantum field theory can describe matter, that's what we've been talking about, but it could also describe the forces. Like the electromagnetic field is a way for charge particle fields to interact with each other, right? You have one electron over here,

another electron over there, how do they talk to each other? Well, it turns out the electron field and the photon field interact. And so one electron can talk to another electron by shooting a ripple through the photon field, which is like sending a photon between one electron and the other. Wow, through another field.

Yes, exactly. The fields couple to each other. They interact. Otherwise, it would be a pretty boring universe. And these fields fill the entire universe. So are they related to space? Like if space grows, these fields grow as well? Yes, exactly.

It's a basic part of space, right? You can't have space without these fields as far as we know. There's no fieldless part of space. And every part of space has these fields. It's like there's a hum at, every point in the universe. There's no quiet place in the universe. Exactly. And you might be thinking, well, what if you have an empty space? Maybe all the fields are just zero, right? Well, that's the fascinating thing about quantum fields, right? Because of uncertainty principle, because there's

a maximum amount of information you can have, you can't have quantum field to be exactly at zero. There's a minimum amount of energy they have to have so they can bubble and slosh in a way that gives you that uncertainty. Wait, wait, wait. There's kind of like an inherent energy in these quantum fields. That's right. They're positive, I guess. They're not zero. Exactly. You can't have quantum fields exactly at zero. And so there's always some energy there.

And this is the energy of empty space, right? And that energy means you have energy and you can create an electron and a positron, which then annihilate themselves back into a photon or back into something else. So this energy is always bubbling and frothing. I feel like this kind of

makes anything possible, right? Like, Before, when you were... Is there something specific you wanted to accomplish with the quantum field? You wanted it to do your dishes? Get away with, something I wanted to get away with

or imagine that I could do. That's right. No, what I mean is in the sense that before, if you were keeping track of all particles, like if I was made out of the Kevin particles, then there was sort of no way for me to suddenly disappear and appear over there.

But now, because everything is a quantum field, I could choose magically, for some reason, right? Right. it's not like because we have quantum fields there are no rules right there are specific rules for how quantum fields interact with each other and how things propagate through quantum fields

and you know so we still have laws of physics it's not like we're tossing the laws out the window and you do whatever you like the parents are out of town right it's just another way of looking at the universe okay all right I guess what I mean is you know stuff can appear out of nowhere with these quantum fields yes yeah okay it's certainly true that a lot of your intuition is wrong

and the quantum fields tell us that crazy things could happen and then we do the experiments and it's right like quantum field theory seems to be correct it's a pretty interesting view of the universe

you know we think of it as big and empty but really there's sort of like a like a little froth in the background right a little like simmering bubbling yeah exactly there's no place that's actually empty there's energy everywhere and it's filled with possibilities literally and it's a fascinating way

to look at the universe, and it's led to a lot of insights. I mean, just like this mathematical way of thinking about things has revealed things about the universe that we didn't know. For example, like what? Like the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson was just an idea, right? 50 years ago, Peter Higgs and several others said, huh, what if there was another field?

We'll call it the Higgs field, conveniently. And, you know, where did he get this idea? Where did this idea come from? Who wouldn't want to postulate a field that fills the universe and it's named after themselves, right? Do you think he named it after himself or people named it after him? Oh, there's a whole controversy there about who named the Higgs fields. And it comes down to who submitted a paper first and whether a paper is dated based on the

submission date or the acceptance date. No, I mean, like, did Higgs write in his paper, I'm going to call this the Higgs field? Or did you say it's the H or B and then somebody said, oh, that's the field Higgs was talking about? Yeah, somebody later referred to it as the Higgs field because Higgs paper has the earliest date on it. But he actually submitted his paper after some other folks. Their paper had a later date on it because the paper had the acceptance date on it, not the submission date. So somebody later gave Higgs credit maybe inappropriately. Okay, so you're saying that these fields are not just kind of neat to think about,

but they've actually led to real discoveries and real understanding of the universe. Yeah, it was a guy named Steve Weinberg. who read Higgs paper. He was looking at these fields and he was thinking there's a mystery here, there's a pattern here that doesn't quite work.

And that comes from trying to unify the fields. We've talked in other podcasts about how the electromagnetic field and the weak nuclear field, right, those two forces are actually parts of the same thing. And they're very similar.

But the difference is that the photon, the thing that moves the electromagnetic field, has no mass, right? It's massless. And the thing that moves the weak nuclear force, are the W and Z bosons, they're really heavy.

So Weinberg was like, if these are two parts of the same thing, how come one has no mass and the other one has a huge amount of mass, right? What could do that? Mathematically, like theoretically, how could you make that happen? Wow. And what he found was the simplest way to do that, the easiest, the clearest, like the, without adding the minimal number of moving pieces, was to add one more field.

And so he read that paper by Higgs and he thought, aha that is just the field we need so he said if you add this field and it explains this mystery why photons have no mass and why the w and z have a lot of mass but it you know creates another field that fills the universe so let's go see if that's real wow and but it what's interesting is that there are other people positing other fields right like he wasn't the only one he wasn't the only one other people had similar ideas and then there were other totally competing ideas

right you know for ways to solve that mystery with other different fields Yeah, exactly. So, like, I could say, hey, there's a Jorge field that permeates everything. Yeah, you could. And I would be a physicist. Boom, you're a physicist right here today on the podcast. I deputize you. Yeah, oh, all right.

So if you wanted to propose a field, it would have to solve a problem, right? Like, why this field and not some other field. I see. And you'd have to provide a way for us to check. Like, in what experiment could we see the Jorge particle, right, which is an excitation of the Jorge field, right? And the same way that the Higgs boson is an excited state of the Higgs field, right? You'd have to provide some way for us to do that. And Peter Higgs did.

He's like, oh, well, if you smash protons together, this energy, you should see a certain number of Higgs particles. Wow. All right, so I'll table that for my next career after we have a podcast host. In a world where cartoonists try to be physicists. Before we keep going, let's take a short break. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys.

Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded. into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and Order Criminal Justice System is back.

In Season 2, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know.

There's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast Season 2 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 Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide.

One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I wouldn't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury. because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff.

Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hola, it's Honey German, and my podcast, Grasas Come Again, is back. This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment, with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned in, like, over 25 years. Oh, wow.

That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles,

and all the issues affecting our Latin community. You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the coach? switching. I won't say whitewashed because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me. Yeah. But the whole pretending and cold, you know, it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasas Has Come Again as part of my Cultura podcast network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, so yeah, it's like, it's like really the basic theory of everything, you know, math. light, forces, energy, any kind of, everything out there, we describe it using quantum fields.

Almost everything. Yeah, is there something we don't describe with quantum fields. Yeah, and it's always the same thing. It's the black sheep of physics, it's gravity. It's the black hole of physics. Quantum field theory describes matter. It describes electromagnetism. It describes the weak nuclear force.

It describes the strong nuclear force. It even can incorporate special relativity, meaning we understand what happens when electrons go super-duper fast, close to the speed of light, right? But quantum field theory is easiest when space is flat. I mean, we can do quantum field theory in curved spaces, but it gets really nasty. And space getting curved is exactly what general relativity says will happen. So what quantum field, you're saying, don't work in space that is not flat. Like, it only works in flat space.

Not exactly. We can do it, but it's not easy. It's not a lot of fun. Why not? Why not? No, it's a great question. It's a great question. It's a great question.

So the issue is more about figuring out how to get quantum field theory to explain that curvature, to generate that curvature, to get a quantum field theory description of how space gets curved. Like if space curves or contracts, what does that do to a quantum field? Doesn't it just squishes it or bends it? Oh, yeah, you're right. It just squishes it. Oh, thanks. We just solved that problem. Check that off the list of modern physics mysteries.

Noble Prize, please. Yeah, the squish function. Yeah, we'll just add the squish function. I think also the larger problem is that we don't know how to describe gravity in terms of a quantum field, right? Electromagnetism and all these other forces, we can describe as oscillations in a field, right? And that field is associated with its own particle. The photon is the particles is associated with a field for electromagnetism. The gluon is the particle associated with a field for the strong nuclear force.

We've never been able to describe gravity in terms of a quantum field like a gravitational field filled space and has a particle associated with it, the graviton. We try to do that. We try to do those theories and write them down but you get crazy answers. You get infinities

where you should get reasonable numbers and it just doesn't work. So even if you came up with the gravity quantum field and the graviton, you're saying by itself it's not consistent, even in flat space. That's right. It's we can't make those theories work.

I mean, people have tried, and people are trying, and they're writing down theories of quantum gravity, but those theories don't make testable predictions that make sense. You know, they predict infinities. You know, what is the force between these two particles? Infinity! How much mass does this thing have? Infinite.

So it makes predictions which are nonsense, and we haven't been able to fix them mathematically. What if it does have infinite mass? No wonder I feel so sluggish today. I have infinite mass. All right, so quantum fields, they permeate everything. They describe everything that we know about, almost, except gravity. Except gravity.

And they're amazingly accurate. Like you were telling me earlier, they can predict things up to like 10 decimal places. Yes, exactly. It's super accurate. Like, if you exclude gravity, we can do these experiments and we can check them and we get bang on the right answer to as far as we can measure. You know, it's a kind of thing that makes me wonder if we really have pulled back the curtain of nature and seen the way the world really works, you know. Yeah, yeah, that sort of makes me all wonder, you know, if this is the way the universe works, what makes these fields? Like, what's their origin?

Where do they come from? You just never satisfied, are you, Jorge? We explain matter in terms of particles. We explain particles in terms of fields, but you're like, I want more. What makes up the fields? Yeah. How far does the rabbit hole go? Yeah, I mean, we've explained the way matter works in terms of particles and particles work in terms of fields.

And so then, of course, the next natural question is, you know, what makes the fields? Are the fields actually just something else, right? The wiggling of strings or, you know, the dancing of tiny puppies or something. We don't know. And we don't know if we get that answer, if there's not another question behind it, right? That goes even deeper. Is there an end of this rabbit hole? We have no idea.

And frankly, I hope not. I think the answer is clear. It's metacloriant, obviously. making these fields. Absolutely. Yeah, that was definitely a documentary. So, you know, the next time you are out walking around in the world and you look up at the sky and you are amazed at how beautiful things are, remember that deep down underneath, it's a hot, nasty, frothing mess of quantum fields, oscillating and interacting and bouncing against each other and doing crazy calculations just to make your everyday world work for you. Yeah, I like to think of it more as happy fields, maybe not so, like, nasty.

What if they're happy fields? Happy, what's happy about these fields? They're like zinging and zanging and interacting with each other and they're like never resting, you know, they're not like slow, languorous, lazy fields, you know. These are hyper fields. But it's interesting. I think it sort of makes me think that maybe in a way we are all connected,

you know, if we're all just vibrations in these mysterious quantum fields of stuff, we're all sort of part of all, we're all connected, you know, we're all part of the same stuff that the universe is made out of. That's right. Me, you, and Kevin were all really the same. Wait, which Kevin? All the Kevins? All of them, all the Kevins. We are all the Kevins, basically. That's my new religion. The Church of Kevin. The Church of the Flying Kevin Monster. No, we are all oscillations in the same universe spanning fields. That is true. All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed that quantum field discussion. Thanks for tuning in.

And if you have some crazy concept in physics, you'd like us to break down, send it to us at Feedback at Danielanhorpe.com. Or if your name is Kevin, we have reserved an email address for you, which is Kevin at danielandhorpe.com. That's right. And if you have secrets to the universe, Kevin, please send them to us at that address. See you next time. Thanks for listening. If you still have a question after listening to all these explanations,

please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge. That's one word. Or email us at Feedback at Danielandhorpe.com. Hi, it's HoneyGerman, and I'm back with season two of my podcast, Grasias, come again.

We got you when it comes to the latest in music and entertainment with interviews with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned in like over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah.

We'll talk about all that's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement and a whole lot of laughs. And of course, the great vivras you've come to expect. Listen to the new season of Grasias Come Again 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 Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. One Tribe save my life twice. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Do we really need another podcast with a condescending finance brof trying to tell us how to spend our own money? No thank you. Instead, check out Brown Ambition.

Each week, I, your host, Mandy Money, gives you real talk, real advice with a heavy dose of I feel uses. Like on Fridays when I take your questions for the BAQA. Whether you're trying to invest for your future, navigate a toxic workplace, I got you. Listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast.