Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - What are white holes?

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

You've heard of black holes but what are white holes? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA. terminal, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. 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. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate.

Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Jorge, I have a question for you about science and naming things. You know, that's an issue with me, right, Daniel? I've heard that before, yes. What happened? Do they give something a totally absurd name again in physics? Well, I'm sort of wondering about, like, the process, you know? Like, how do you feel about pre-naming? Like, give it a name before it's born?

Yeah, exactly. Like, what happens? Is it okay? Or how do you feel about if we give something a name before we discover it? like before we even know if it exists. That way, you know, we don't have to argue about it afterwards. Is it like reserving a website name? Like you can just come up with a name and if somebody discovers it, you own it? Yeah, or like one of our marital harmony strategies in my marriage, at least, is pre-assignment

of blame. Like, well, if this happens, it's your fault. And we agree that, so we don't have to argue about it afterwards. And how's that worked out so far? It's great. It's great. And, you know, you just accept the blame and move on. All right.

It's always my fault. Does that work in physics as well? No, but sometimes, sometimes in physics, you know, people have an idea for a thing. We don't even know if it's actually a thing in our universe, but they give it a name anyway. All right. So from now on, I say any future particles discovered should be called the Horhe-Han or Horgon. The Horon. I think I've created a monster, the Horhan.

Hi, I'm Jorge. I'm a cartoonist and the creator of Ph.D. Comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a cheese aficionado. What's your favorite cheese, Daniel? Oh, these days I'm into the sheep's cheese. I've been traveling through Europe the last few weeks. and enjoying a lot of really interesting, soft, creamy sheep's cheeses. I don't know the names of any of them, though. I just gobble them up and smile. Maybe you can pre-name them.

That's right. They're called Daniel's favorite cheese one, Daniel's favorite cheat two. Well, before we get too cheesy, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeard Radio. That's right, in which we zoom around the universe, trying to find interesting, fascinating, black things, white things, dark things, light things, cheesy things, creamy things, and tasty things to talk about to entertain and educate you. And we are qualified to do this because we are the authors of a book called We Have No Idea, a Guide to the Unknown Universe. So if you are interested in all of these topics, then check that out.

What exactly does that qualify us for other than shilling our book on our podcast? Isn't that the synonym for podcaster? Just a shiller. You know, I heard somebody say the other day, every conversation is a podcast if you just close your eyes. Or every podcast is a conversation if you open your eyes. That's right. But we do love to explore things about the universe that we know

and things about the universe that we don't know. Like some things that are out there that we don't understand, some things that might be out there. We don't even know if they do exist. We love to delve into the unknown and try to just chat about it with you so that you understand as much as theoretical physicists do, or don't. That's right.

We like to explore things that nobody knows right, too, right? And we like to talk about why nobody knows anything about them. That's right, exactly. And, you know, one of my favorite things in physics is that there are multiple ways to sort of create a new idea. Like one way, the classic way, is, well, you discover something new in the universe. Like, what's this weird thing? It doesn't, it isn't explained by any law of physics.

so therefore we need a new law of physics or this tells us there's something else in the universe we didn't understand. That's a classic way, right? Like you're doing something else, like you're in a bathtub or you're playing around with radioactive materials and Eureka.

Jorge, do not play with radioactive materials in the bathtub. How many times do I have to tell you that? I think you're thinking of a toaster. That's the no-no. There's more than one thing that doesn't mix well with bathtubs, okay? It's not an exclusive list.

Isn't this how power plants work, just a giant bathtub and some radiacting material? Yeah, first you get a radioactive toaster, okay, then, no, that's the recipe for the beginning of a terrible superhero novel. No, but one way is to stumble over something new, usually when you're doing a science experiment, but not always, right? The other way, though, is to think of something new. Say, like, huh, you know, if there's, you know, X, Y, Z particles, why isn't that, they're also a W particle, right? Or, you know, I see this pattern. You know, the particles go like one, two, three, five.

Hmm, is there a particle that slots in number four? And that's another fascinating way to explore the universe because you're relying on our mathematical patterns and our understanding that the universe seems to follow these patterns and then following those patterns to find something real and out there in the universe. It's like the theory tells you there should be something there until you go and you look for it. Yes, and we've done this successfully. I mean, that's how the Higgs boson was discovered. We almost certainly would not have found the Higgs boson if we weren't looking for it

because it's pretty subtle. It's pretty hard to spot. But we suspected it was there because of a theoretical pattern that made much more sense if you had this one extra little particle. Wow. And, you know, we've done this lots of times in physics and also in chemistry. Like, look at the periodic table. For years and years, there were holes in that table.

We say, huh, how come we have element number 44? And 46, where is element 45? So you go out, you look for it, you're trying to make it, right? So there's lots of times when the theory guides you, it suggests there's a gap here where there might be something new and real out there for you to discover. And a lot of times you find it, right? Like there was an element 45, and there was a Higgs boson. Yeah, I don't know about a lot of times, but non-zero number of times, right?

I wish it was more times. Although, you know, this is sort of the theoretical direction. And I think it's fascinating and it tells us something about how, you know, the theories in our minds are intimately connected with the reality out there in the universe, although because I'm an experimentalist, I really prefer the first way, you know, finding something new and weird out there, just jumping in a sort of metaphorical ship and sailing across the metaphorical ocean of ignorance to find something new and crazy that makes the theorists rewrite their laws, right? That's my personal scientific fantasy. But today we're focusing on the other, yeah. So then you can win a metaphorical Nobel Prize or get a metaphorical.

PhD. That's right. Well, you know, then I'll have metaphorical groupies, which are better than not groupies, you know. Hey. And you get the metaphorical prize. Metaphorical prize money comes with the medical for a price. Yeah. Well, today we are going to be talking about a topic that kind of falls in that later category, right? Like the one where we physicists have dreamed about it, have thought about it, have imagined it, but we don't really know if it exists or if it's out there. Yeah. I don't even know if it falls into that category yet. It's like, threatening to fall into that category. It's like, you know, rolling down the cliff. Yeah, rolling down the cliff towards that category, you know. It's sort of like in the super category of that category. I don't even know if it really exists yet as an idea, but it's a fun topic to think about. Yeah, so it's a super fascinating topic,

and it came to us through a question from a reader. So today, we'll be talking about white holes. What is a white hole? How can you have a hole that's white? That's right. That's the topic of today's podcast, and we want to give a special shout out to one of our listeners,

a UCI alum Ryan Keith, whose birthday it is this week. And this shoutout comes to her from her sister, Kate Azar, who's also a UCI alum. And the two of them told me that they sometimes wish they were still on campus at UCI

so they could get accosted by a random physicist asking them questions. But the only wish that sometimes. Sometimes. Most of the time, they're happy they're not being accosted by a physicist. I don't know. They don't want it often enough to actually go to campus and hang out, you know, or come knock on my door and offer to answer these questions. It's not that hard, you know. My office number is listed on the web. So anybody wants to come by and answer questions. It's welcome to, but nobody ever does. I feel like that's when we know we'll have, we made it, Daniel, when people will show up at your office and they're like, hey, ask me a question. Yeah, well, I'll let you know if that ever happens.

Well, this is a perfect point to take a 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 two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in place. lane site. 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. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes,

My boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now, he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now, hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor, and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating.

He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet. So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his person? professor or not. To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime 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 audition 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 vivas 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 code switching? I won't say whitewash, 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 Come Again as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Well, so White Holes, this is a pretty crazy topic because I think everyone has heard of black holes, right? I'm sure most people have heard of them, but how many people have heard of white holes? Yeah, and black holes are definitely part of the sort of culture and people have heard about them and they're in movies

and probably in rap songs and all sorts of stuff. They've deeply penetrated the sort of social brain on physics. And so I was curious, like, what do people know about white holes? Does anybody heard of them before? Does anybody understand it? Yeah, so as usual, Daniel went out there and talked to people on the street and asked them if they knew what a white hole was.

And so before you listen to these answers, think about it for a second. If you were accosted by a physicist, or if you went into Daniel's office and asked him to ask you a question, and he asked you, what is a white hole? What would you answer? You'd say, oops, I regret doing this. Here's what people had to say. And usually I would say, no Googling, but in this case, Googling won't even help you. No, I've never heard of that. I've heard a black hole, though.

Okay. And what's your best guess, what a white hole might be then? If black hole is black, then white hole is light. I've not, actually. Okay, do you have any guesses what it might be? I mean, so if a black hole is a curvature of space time that light cannot escape from, I imagine a white hole would be the inverse of that.

But, like, I can't even wrap my brain around quite what that would mean. No, I heard a black hole, not a black hole. Honestly, all I think about is, like, a black hole when I think of a white hole. said, I'm not really sure. No. I guess, but no. A white hole, yeah, it's like the opposite of a black hole. What does that mean?

It's like the Big Bang, essentially. That's kind of the only example that we have of it, I'm pretty sure. I remember hearing about it. I have no idea what it is. Maybe there's like too much energy from stars. I don't know, actually, what it might be. All right, not a lot of familiarity with white holes. Yeah, you know.

Not a lot of people have a solid idea of what a white hole is. And, you know, as you'll hear later on in the podcast, that puts them in some pretty good company. Well, I like the person who said, if a black hole is black, then a white hole is white. Boom. That's an answer. And you know what? That person was thinking on their feet and that, and they're not too far off. You know, like that's basically the logic, right?

That's the whole concept of a white hole is like, here's a thing. Could we have the opposite thing, right? Because, you know, hey, in physics, there are lots of opposites. Particles have anti-particles, right? You know, up has down, plus has minus, you know. Not everything has an opposite. Like mass doesn't have negative mass, but there are a lot of things that have opposites. The universe likes to have symmetry, it seems.

And so it's totally reasonable when you discover something to look at, for the sort of the opposite of it, the negative of it, the mere reflection of it. Well, technically that listener, that person is correct, right? It's like a black hole is black and a white hole is white. That's pretty much all you need to know. Yeah, that's it. And that's our podcast for today, folks. Thanks very much.

Thank you very much. Well, this is kind of a crazy subject. And to be honest, I had not heard about white holes at all until, I think, recently maybe you brought it up or in one of our episodes. You mean 30 minutes ago? I said, let's do a podcast about them. When you send me the nose for this? Yeah, that's when I heard about it. But is it like a new idea?

Is it something that's been around for a while? Or is it, you know, something you just came up with 10 minutes ago? That's right. One of these days I'm going to prank you by inventing a totally ridiculous made-up idea and have you do a whole podcast about it. In the end, I'll reveal that it's just some silly thought of mine. 30 minutes in, you're like, gotcha. And yet it'll be a totally valid podcast episode that we will totally publish anyways.

Now, that'll be the control episode, right? We'll see how interested and in-depth can Jorge go on a topic that's complete nonsense. That'll be our control episode to see if anyone's listening to this podcast. Or it's the placebo podcast, right? How much can you think you understand about something that actually means nothing? No, but it's not that old. the whole idea of black holes itself is not that old. It's like, you know, about as old as general relativity, which is just about 100 years, right?

Now, black holes only discovered a few decades ago, right? It's an actual thing in the universe. And so, first of all, black holes are a great example of the sort of theoretical-led discovery. Like, wow, the equations tell us this could exist. Like, we did a bunch of experiments. We learned something about the universe. We wrote equations that described what we learned. And then we explore those equations.

and discovered in some weird corners, those equations describe something strange we'd never seen before. Let's see if that means the equations are wrong or the equations are right and that thing is actually out there, right? So that's the sort of history of black holes. It's crazy to think that I'm older

than our confirmation of black holes. Like, for part of my life, we didn't know if black holes existed. That's right. I might say that it's a more important moment in the history of physics, discovery of black holes, than the birth of Horace.

Chm, but, you know, that remains to be seen. Like, we'll see what physics you're accomplished. That's right. TBD. It's TBD. That's right. Your life ain't over yet, so you got time to ratchet that up. White holes, I think, proposed originally in the 60s.

And, you know, the whole idea is not too far from what that listener, what that interviewee said, which is like, okay, we have this thing of black holes, right? Black hole is a region where things can enter, but nothing can escape, right? And that's why they seem black. Right. That's the definition of a black hole. It's like the part of space where there's so much gravity, nothing can come out of it. That's right.

And the way I like to think about it is not like the gravity is pulling so hard that even photons can't climb up that mountain. But that gravity is, there's so much gravity there that space is bent in such a way that there's just no paths out. Photons are zooming around inside the black hole, but there's just space is bent in a way that makes it sort of sell. contained. It's like cut off from the rest of the universe. Like a hole in space, literally. Yeah, or sort of like, you know, a sub-universe, right? Like, there's just no way out of it.

You know, it's an escape room where there just is no key. It doesn't matter how smart you are. And so people thought, well, is it possible to have the opposite, right? And the opposite of a black hole, you name it a white hole, right, is a region where nothing can enter.

So things can escape. Things can shoot out of it, but nothing can go into it like if you try to go into it what would happen you get bounced back or yeah well the way like nothing can leave a black hole right because the space there is disconnected you can't get into a white hole like you'll into the paths that approach a white hole get bent away from it rather than all getting bent to it they just get bent away from it yeah okay but it you know and that makes you wonder like okay when you invert a white a black hole you get a white hole you've like inverted the word black into the word white why didn't you invert hole also right like white like white

Isn't a black hole you're inferred into a, I don't know. Like a white, what's the opposite of a hole? A bump, I don't know, a lump, stump. A white bump. And that explains why it's it, they don't use it. They couldn't get any funding for white bumps. Yeah, exactly. And so the next thing you can do is you can say, well, is that possible?

Like, you know, could that thing exist at all? Is it, do the equations, in fact, predict the existence of this kind of things, something where nothing can enter, but things can escape, right? And just like, take a moment to think about what that would mean physically. Like, here's something where nothing is a lot to go in, but it's like shooting out particles all the time, right? Like, things can leave it. It's like, you know, it's white. If it has things inside. Yeah, but it's, if it doesn't have things inside, it doesn't exist, right? Like, it only exists if it has some mass to it. Well, it's not just that things can leave, but is that anything inside of it, it gets shot out, kind of, right?

Like, if it's the opposite of a black hole where, like, it gets sucked in and can't escape, then is the opposite that anything inside just automatically gets expelled? Yeah, I think everything inside eventually gets kicked out. And so, you know, what would that be like? What would it look like? You know, a white hole in that sense would be like a bright source of, you know, radiation of particles and light and all sorts of stuff. And so in that sense, a white hole is like a pretty good name for it.

But, you know, it's like a bright source, you know, so it looks, it's very bright. It's like white, right? That's the idea of the name, I think, why the name makes some sense. But, you know, you can ask, like, number one, is that consistent with any of the theories that we have? Right now, it's just an idea. Like, oh, here's a cool idea. Could we have a rainbow hole? Could we have a purple hole, right?

Could we have a white hole? And then you have to ask, like, you know, one, do the equation support it? then two, is it possible that it actually exists out there in the universe? Okay, so that's kind of the short of it, right? It's like, imagine a black hole and then just imagine the opposite of it. That's the idea of a white hole, right? I mean, right? Like, anything you imagine, I don't know about a black hole, just turning on it instead.

But, you know, you have to ask, like, the opposite along what axis, right? Like, what are you oppositing? You know, what are you inverting to make a black hole into a white hole, right? because, you know, you might ask. It's not just everything. Yeah, what's the opposite of chocolate? Is it peanut butter or is it white chocolate? Is it like, you know.

Obviously, it's white chocolate. That's still chocolate, right? I don't know. It's confusing. I think my wife would disagree. I think she has strong opinions about whether white chocolate should be called chocolate. Have you tried this rose chocolate? A rose chocolate.

I'm not making that up. That's the thing. There's brown chocolate, white chocolate. And then in the history, of chocolate science. They recently came up with a new kind of chocolate, rose chocolate.

Wow. Was it a physicist who came up with that? And I don't know if it was a theoretical as much as our understanding of the universe.

Well, you know, there is that famous correlation between the amount of chocolate consumed per capita and the number of Nobel Prizes per capita. So, yeah,

maybe it wasn't a physicist. I don't know. We should do a whole podcast on Rose chocolate, but maybe we should actually eat some first. Wait, wait, hold on a second.

Actually, I think That's not rose chocolate. I think it's called ruby chocolate. Yeah, that's right. It's ruby chocolate. All right, let's get into whether this even makes any sense, theoretically or practically, and let's get into whether or not these actually exist. But first, let's take a quick break.

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 two, 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. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Well, wait a minute, Sam, maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now, he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now, hold up.

Isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor, and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet.

So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. 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 a backlog will be 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 unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're talking about white holes, Daniel. And so you were saying it's like a black hole. but it's kind of like where you, almost the opposite of it. If a black hole doesn't let things escape and that's why it looks black, a white hole just pushes everything out. That's why it looks white.

Yeah, exactly. And so I was trying to understand like, what is a white hole? How do you make one? What arrangement of mass in space would give you a white hole? Because like we understand how to make a black hole. You take a bunch of stuff, you squeeze it down to a really small area. So you have so much gravity that you get this. crazy curvature space and nothing can leave, right?

It's weird, it's crazy, it's real, but we understand how you might do that. How do you build a white hole, right? What creates a white hole? What does it even mean? Can I ask you a question? So a lot of times they explain black holes using the rubber sheet analogy of the universe. You know, like where you imagine that space is like a giant rubber sheet and gravity is kind of like the putting a bowling ball on that rubber sheet and seeing the indentation of it on the sheet,

right and a lot of times they explain black holes as these like if you put a like a bazillion bowling balls it's just going to create this giant um hole divot in the rubber sheet right yeah yeah um so is a white hole kind of the opposite where you like may you pinch a bit of that rubber sheet and then you lift it up to create like a like a peak instead of a hole no and that's part of the really confusing bit is that a white hole is also because that that would be like negative gravity or having negative mass. But it's not a white hole. A white hole is also just a blob of mass and it has a gravitational force towards the white hole, right? Not away from it. This is the really confusing part. A white hole is the same arrangement of mass as a black hole. And it sort of only exists

sort of in counterpart to the black hole. Like it's not clear that a white hole could ever exist on its own. It might be sort of just like a strange conceptual reflection of a black hole. hole. Wait, you're saying that if I, if I was in the presence of a white hole, I would get attracted to it, but I just couldn't enter it. Yeah, that's right. And I think, so there's one really crazy, weird conception of a white hole. But I think the simplest place to start is actually to start with a wormhole. Now, we once talked in our podcast about like, are wormholes real, right? And it's possible that wormholes exist. Wormholes are allowed by general relativity. And wormholes in some conception are essentially a black hole, right? Where you get,

fall into the black hole, except it's a wormhole. It's not just a, you get fall into the black hole and you're stuck there. Inside the black hole is a connection to somewhere else in the universe where you then get spout out. What's that other side of the wormhole? Well, it's a white hole. So you get sucked into the black hole and then you get shot out the white hole, right? And that, and that sort of explains like how the black hole and the white hole are really two halves of the same thing. Right. A wormhole needs an in and out. That's right, for it to be effective, right? Otherwise, it's just a hole.

That's right. That's right. And so that's one conception of a white hole. It's like a back end of a wormhole. Wait, do all black holes connect to a wormhole or only some of them? No, we don't even know if they exist, right? Now, most of the black holes that we do know exist are a different kind of black hole. They're the kind of black hole that's formed by gravitational collapse. Like you have a star and it's fusing.

It doesn't want to fuse anymore. It's used of all its fuel. And now it's collapsed into a really dense blob. And it just creates maybe a singularity. We don't know what's going on, but does not make a wormhole. But if wormholes do exist, then one idea of them is a pair of holes. The black hole and the white hole connected. But not every black hole is a wormhole.

Okay. All right. So if a wormhole exists, one end would need to be a black hole and the other end would need to be a white hole. Right. And that's sort of how you make sense of. of a black hole and a white hole being formed from the same configuration of mass. Because in order to bend space in that way

to bring some distant part of space close so that you can go from like here to Alpha Centauri without actually traveling through all that space, takes a single configuration of mass. How you do it, I don't know, nobody knows. But that's the reason why like a white hole and a black hole are sort of a reflection of the same arrangement of mass and energy

that have been configured to do this, to create this wormhole thing. And that's the simplest sort of white hole to understand. It gets crazier from there. It gets crazy. There's multiple flavors of white holes. There's a lot of different flavors of white hole. And some of them don't make any sense at all.

Well, you were telling me earlier that they don't make any sense to anybody, right? Like, these are a little bit far out there and nobody really understands them. Yeah. You know, I walked around campus and I went to some mathematicians offices and some theoretical physicists offices and folks that like even really think about the formal theory and um and ask them about white holes like what do you know about what else do you have an idea how would you explain this and um they were stumped also you know white holes are not something that most theoretical physicists think about very much they're not um a sort of a topic of current research they're not really

taken very seriously it's sort of like it's not really a well-formed idea yet it's like somebody said it one afternoon like huh maybe there's a white hole thing and somebody else picked it up and you know walked a little further but it's not like finished yet it's not like black holes where we had a really solid theoretical understanding of what they would be like before we found them this is like maybe this might be a thing nobody's really even thought it through all the way yet so i asked nobody sat down to do the math it just kind of gets mentioned yeah and there's a few places where people have worked it out like this wormhole black hole white the whole thing and a couple other cases maybe we can talk about in a moment but it's not something that

that's really rigorously understood or or not something that even people agree on what it means. You know, you say white hole to one theorist, they might understand something totally different than another theorist. So it's really just, it's sort of, it's an idea of an idea so far. All right. So step us through how it works with these white, uh, warm holes. So something goes into a black hole, goes through the wormhole and it comes out the other end. Is that kind of how would a white hole?

Yeah. And that's how a white hole would be spewing stuff out, right? What is it spewing out? Where is this stuff that it spews out come from? It comes from the black hole on the other side, right? And that's why, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to have anything in it and it can still spew stuff out or it can spew stuff out forever without disappearing. Because whatever goes in the black hole on the other side comes out.

But they're in totally different parts of the universe, right? Yes, but sort of. I mean, remember we like to think of space as sort of a flat sheet, right? It's like simple and, you know, to go from here to there, you need to go through space. But space could have all sorts of different organizations, like it can be bent around in a donut so that, you know, you leave off of one edge and you appear in the other edge. And you can have all sorts of really complicated geometry so that you can connect different parts of space. Things that you would think are really far apart. You can make it so they're actually near each other, right?

And that's what a wormhole is. Wait, would the donut have black chocolate frosting or white chocolate frosting? It depends on whether you're going into the donut or out of the donut, of course. You're throwing it up or you're eating it? Is that what you're saying? I think it tastes better going in. Usually, usually. And that's sort of the simplest conception of a white hole that I understand.

But there are other ideas of white holes, right? And these are not consistent necessarily with the whole wormhole concept. They're just like different ideas of how a white hole might appear. And one of them says, one of them is an argument sort of like this, says that general relativity is supposed to be time symmetric, meaning the equations of general relativity were just as well for a universe going forwards in time and backwards in time, right? And that might sound really weird to you. You might think, oh, how can a universe go backwards in time? That doesn't make any sense. Well, we don't know how a universe could go backwards, but we also don't know why the universe is going forwards. So it's sort of interesting to, to, a note that you could run the universe backwards in general relativity and get the same equations, right? So particle, earth going around the sun one way, the general relativity says it also works the other way, okay?

Like if you hit reverse, right, or the back arrow in the streaming video player, it should look sort of normal, just backwards. Exactly. So then you can say, well, there are weird things in general relativity, like blue, black holes. So then what is the time reversed black hole look like, right? How can you time reverse a black hole? If general relativity is supposed to be time reversible and general relativity predicts black holes, then what is the time reversed black hole look like? Boom, that's a white hole. It looks like something that's not sucking stuff in, but just spewing stuff out.

Yeah, exactly. But general relativity is not the only law out there, right? There are other laws like thermodynamics and the second law of thermodynamics that says entropy always increases. And so, you know, you can't just create new matter and you can't just, like, violate the second law of thermodynamics by like spewing, by undoing a black hole, right? And so it's sort of an unfinished concept because while that would be allowed by general relativity, it's not allowed by the second law of thermodynamics. And so we don't really think that that's a thing. And so I sort of get to sense that this white hole is sort of interesting to think about,

but nobody can really make it work or make sense. Is that kind of where we are with it? Yeah, exactly. It's like open territory in theoretical physics that nobody has really gone and like chiseled out carefully to figure out what's going on. And is this interesting? And can we even make a solid predict? experimentally of what to look for, right?

But it's interesting because it seems like there might be something there, right? Maybe in the future somebody will think about it carefully enough to figure out what ideas are important and how they fit together and how to make it all connect and then we'll know what to look for. And, you know, that was the case also for other theoretical things. Like before Peter Higgs came up with the Higgs boson, people knew that there was something interesting to be done there. Like somebody had to figure out how these particles get made.

fast, didn't quite make sense, and, you know, a young brash scientist waded into this muck and figured it out and made it all clear. And then us experimentalist knew what to look for. And that's sort of the stage we're at with white holes. It's like we're pre-pre-discovery. It's more of like a fun maybe right now. Yeah, exactly. You might say like, well, are there, is there evidence of white holes?

You know, like we look out there. Even if we don't have a solid theoretical understanding, can we flip it on its head and say, just look for them because if we find one then that'll give us a lot of clues as to how the theory has to work right and so what would a white hole look like well it'd be really bright source of crazy radiation and you know the university is filled with lots of crazy sources of radiation and so sometimes people like to speculate like oh this big gamma ray burst right a really a recent huge gamma ray burst people thought could this be a white hole and most of the field went no of course not. It's a supernova, but you know, it's fun to speculate. You're saying like maybe one of

the stars we see at night could be like a white hole or? It could be except that we'd expect a white hole probably to be transient, right? Like it would give off a huge amount of radiation and then fizzle, right? Or really? Or it could be not very bright at all. Like if it's the backside of a wormhole, then it only shows up when something goes through it, right? If nothing is getting transited through the wormhole, then the white hole sort of, I don't know, dark for a while. Yeah, exactly. You know, other ideas are like, well, maybe the Big Bang was a white hole, right? And does that mean that our whole universe is the backside of a black hole from somewhere else?

You know, like, because if you're thinking about like crazy sources of radiation spewing out of nowhere, that kind of sounds like the Big Bang. where yeah because the big bang you get asked where did all this stuff in the universe come from exactly seems to sort of violate second law of thermodynamics you know if you think of the universe as a closed system so you know and that's a sort of fun stuff to think about it I think when theoretical physicists get tired of working on hard problems they know well they like to bounce this kind of stuff around in their heads and see if they can like find a new little bite to take out of it. But, um, you know, it's not really something that, uh, it's like,

what do professional dreamers dream about? Exactly. When they're not dreaming professionally. Yeah, exactly. When they're done eating the bananas and they smoke the peels, what do these guys think about? And, uh, what do they do in their downtime? Yeah. And so I think if you got a bunch of theoretical physicists in a room and you ask them all, um, or you got them all in separate rooms, and you ask them all to define a white hole, I bet you would get as many different answers as theorists you ask. It's just like white chocolate.

You know, if you ask people, if they like white chocolate, you would get a very polarizing set of responses. Yeah, all the people with taste would say yes, and all the people who don't understand chocolate would say, no. I mean, it's pretty simple. All right, so white holes sounds like they're a wait for it maybe kind of thing.

Yeah, it's sort of like... They're in like a weight hole. Yeah, either it's nothing or it's like a little bit of 22nd century physics that we're just hearing about for the first time now, you know? Because if you read about like the history of black holes, it sort of existed as a crazy idea for a long, long time, decades before anybody took it seriously. And so maybe we're just in those sort of early stages of the history of white holes in the future textbooks will be written about how, you know, people band. ended this idea around for a while before XYZ physicist from, you know,

Ecuador or somewhere cool, finally figured out what it meant and then figured out how to look for it and that's when progress really started. Could we just in the prehistory of the discovery of white holes? Right. And hopefully there'll be a little asterisk that says Daniel and Jorge

made a podcast episode about it. Which inspired that guy in Ecuador, that girl or guy in Ecuador. And there we go. Daniel and Jorge made a podcast about it in which no progress was made. But other people were inspired to actually make progress. Yes, that would be a wonderful story. Well, it sounds like a fun idea, and I could potentially have big repercussions.

I mean, if the Big Bang does turn out to be a white hole, that would be a very big deal. Yeah. And, you know, if there are black holes and there are white holes, then maybe there are rose holes out there in the universe. You never know. Or gray holes. Or how about gray warm holes, which is like a Game of Thrones? reference and a physics reference all at the same time. That's right. That's right. So, you know, expand your mind and think about all the kind of things

that could be out there in the universe, that are out there in the universe, that are definitely not out there in the universe, or that, you know, might eventually be in the minds of theorists and then discovered by experimentalists. The universe is crazy. It's filled with crazy stuff. And one day, we'll figure it all out. So go out there and get crazy. And enjoy some white chocolate. See you next time. 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. 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. Ah, come on, why is this taking so long?

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