Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - Why does the Higgs boson like Mexican hats?

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Daniel and Jorge talk about the strange properties of the Higgs boson, and why its special powers are linked to a sombrero. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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.

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Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and on She Pivotts, I dive into the inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps in their lives and careers. I'm Gretchen Wittmer, Jody Sweetie. Monica Patton. Elaine Welteroff. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them.

Listen to these women and more on She Pivots. Now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey Jorge, I've got a thought experiment for you. Hmm. I have experimental thoughts. Hit me. Well, what if physicists discovered something totally new? All right. Sounds good. And it turns out to have been under our noses the whole time.

Whoa. Is it like a new booger particle? It's something that changed everything we thought we knew about the universe. It's a fundamental booger? Or is it more like a summer? like a summer blockbuster type of movie discovery. But then we named it after a hat. I don't know if I go to see that movie. Maybe it depends on the kind of hat.

Or the kind of booger. Hi, I'm Jorge, I'm a cartoonist and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I'm suddenly unsure about how to pronounce the word booger. But you know how to pick them, though, right? No comment. But I'm wondering what they're made out of, if they're made out of fundamental little boogerons.

That's right, yeah. Bugers are just matter, so therefore they're made out of the same things we are made out of. We are all made out of star boogers. Or it would be weird if they were made out of something else because people make boogers. So it would be pretty amazing if we could make another, kind of matter. That would be fascinating. It'd be pretty cool if a fundamental discovery about the universe was literally right under our news. You should go pick out that problem.

Or what if dark matter is just boogers? That would be pretty weird to find like huge blobs of boogers in space. You mean like every time we sneeze, we're making dark matter. Has somebody written that science fiction novel? But anyways, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of iHeart radio. In which we get our fingers deep, deep, deep. into the mysteries of the universe and try to pick them out for you. We go all the way up there and try to understand what the tiniest little particles are made out of how they come together in their swirling chaotic buzz to create this bonkers universe

we get to explore. And we go on a journey with you to unravel the puzzle of physics, which seeks to explain everything around us in terms of cute little mathematical stories that make sense to us and also make sense to you. That's right, because it is a pretty sticky universe and it's not readily discoverable. We have to go out there and search for it and look for it and dig through it to understand how it all works and what's it all made out of. That's right. And thanks to hard work by a crazy international team of physicists, some of whom speak Flemish.

We have made a lot of progress in understanding the nature of the universe in sorting out how all these little particles weave together to make the universe that we experience at our macroscope. scale. And it's a pretty crazy story they tell about how they all come together. Yeah, we've discovered that everything that we're made out of, we're made out of atoms, and atoms are made out of electrons and protons and protons and protons and protons and neutrons are made out of quarks. And all those particles are swimming through the universe in quantum fields, interacting with each other, and to create the amazing universe we all live in. And one particle is at the heart of all of it. Revealed only in the last 10 years or so by collisions at the large Hadron Collider, the Higgs

boson was the last piece of the standard model and one that answers a lot of really deep questions about the nature of stuff and the nature of matter and why things have mass at all. Yeah, it's the famous Higgs boson. I would say it's probably the second most famous fundamental particle. What do you think, Daniel? After the Bougaron? After the Bougaron? That's not it.

After the electron, I think, you know, probably the electron is the most famous fundamental particle. But I would say the Higgs boson is right up there because, you know, people know protons and neutrons, but they're not fundamental. That's true. Yeah, I was going to guess photon, but electrons is a good candidate also. Probably up there in the like A-list particles

is Higgs boson, photons, and electrons. Yeah, maybe the Higgs is more like a C-list particle after the photon and electron. Maybe it's sort of like the behind-the-scenes mover and shaker that nobody really knows, you know. I see. He's a Kevin Feige of the real universe. Who's that?

I don't even know that name. So I guess that makes the point. He's the Higgs boson of Marvel movies. I see. Or the Higgs boson is the Kevin Fagy of the particle universe. Yeah, either way, it holds everything together and gives it weight. But it is true that the Higgs boson plays a very special role in this crazy dance of the particles do to make our reality. But it does so because of a really strange and special property that it has that no other particle has that makes it really kind of weird.

I see. So it's because it has this weird property that it has. It does what it does or just does what it does and it has this weird property. It couldn't do what it does without this weird property. This is what gives it its superpower. It couldn't create mass for all the other particles without this really strange thing that it does that no other particle in the universe can do. Yeah. And this interesting property has something to do with headware, apparently.

That's right. Only because physicists, though we are creative people mathematically, are always seem to come up short when it's time. to name things. So there's a special mathematical function that only the Higgs boson follows and it has a bit of a weird shape. So physicists looked around for something that had a sort of similar shape and gave it that name. And so today on the program, we'll be asking the question, What does a Mexican hat have to do with a Higgs boson?

Sorry, I mean the Higgs boson, not a Higgs boson. There's not just like thousands and thousands of Higgs boson. out there. There's just the one. There's just an infinity amount, potentially. But they're all the same one. Yeah, it's the Higgs boson. Even though it's a sea list particle, I guess we should still call it the Higgs boson. Well, yeah, I mean, you are the Jorge Cham, right? You're not just a Jorge champ. Are there more of you? I think there are others in the world. Yeah, you wouldn't think it's a common name, but I think it's happened more than once. Really? Have you gotten together online, hang out, the Jorge Chamfest.

And I don't want to create a matter, anti-matter annihilation or anything. What if it is the same meat, but it's just from another universe? You want to avoid those paradoxes. You could punch a hole in a multiverse, man, that travel to other dimensions. If this is a bad science fiction movie. I see. And in those other universe, is it actually an Argentinian hat that the Higgs boson wears or maybe a Serbian hat or a Russian hat?

Yeah, it could be. Well, I have actually met another Daniel Whiteson, not in real life, but online. Oh, really? Huh. Were they cooler or less cooler than you? They were definitely cooler. I'm at minimum cool value. He is a quite accomplished artist, actually, living in London. Turns out to be a very distant relative, but it does sculpture and painting, and it's great stuff. People have emailed me and said, wow, I love your paintings.

And you're like, thank you. They do paint in my spare time in between physics experiments. Let me refer you to the artistic bureau of the Daniel Whiteson firm, represented by my colleague here. We've only found one. I mean, no offense, but I would think that you have a more common name than me. And there might be more than two of you. No, there are only a couple of us. Weirdly, Whiteson is quite rare.

Whitson much more common. But Whiteson is a weird Britishization of Weitson and strangely very uncommon. Wow. And you're related. We are related, yes. Wow. Well, anyways, we're talking about the Higgs boson and how it's one of the fundamental particles and the one that kind of binds everything together and gives things mass.

And so it has a strange property related to something that looks like a Mexican hat. When physicists talk about the Higgs boson, they almost invariably show this one figure of a mathematical function that looks like a sombrero. It looks a little bit like a Mexican hat. It's ubiquitous in physics talks. Everybody mentions it all the time, refers to it all the time. But I was wondering if people out there knew about this connection, if they understood about this special property that this Mexican hat function gives the Higgs boson. So Daniel went out there as usual out into the Internet to ask. people to question, what does a Mexican hat have to do with a Higgs boson?

If you'd like to be the subject of absurd questions from a physicist over the internet without the opportunity to prepare, if that sounds like fun to you, and I can't imagine why it doesn't, please participate in future episodes and write to us to questions at danielanhorhe.com. So think about it for a second. How would you answer this question? Here's what people have to say. So Higgs boson are Higgs field. probably some shape resembles to the Mexican hat. Yeah, it could be that. Well, if the Higgs field was at a zero level of energy potential,

then we couldn't have any matter or mass in the universe. And you've described it in the past as it being like a ball on a hill that's trying to roll off. And if it did reach the floor, the ground state, then it would end up creating vacuum decay. So I'd like to think that the Mexican hat is just a different, more kind of cultural-based example of this, where you've got the ball but instead of it being on a hill it's on the top of a sombrero

well i know about the mexican hat potential and i saw the the funny drawing of a Mexican hat when the something about the Higgs boson explained and i think that this is the only link between the Mexican hat and Higgs boson Mexican hat? You mean a sombrero? I thought that burritos had much to do with Higgs bosons. Other than that like everything, it needs Higgs boson in order to exist, my only guess would be that maybe I've seen wave functions for quantum particles that kind of remind me of sombrero. That's an excellent question, and I have no idea. I don't know who the Higgs POSON are, but like Mexican hats are very colorful. So I'd say that tribe we're talking about.

I don't know what it is, but it might be like a colorful thing. All right. Maybe the Higgs boson is not that famous. Some people did have no idea what there was, but they knew Mexican hats. Exactly. So the Higgs boson PR team needs to get somehow in touch with Zaburero team. Yeah, it should get what the Mexican hat uses because apparently it's pretty famous, maybe more so than other hats.

Well, Panama hats are pretty famous. Oh, that's right, yeah. Are you the owner of any Panama hats? A Panama hat is not actually a Panama hat. Are you saying it's just branding? They're not actually from Panama? The native Panamanian hats are different than the one that people call Panama hats. But anyways, it's pretty interesting.

A lot of people seem to know or think that it was somewhat related to the wave function or do some sort of potential about the Higgs boson. Yeah, a lot of really informed ideas out there. Some of them pretty close to the mark. Not the one about burritos, but that was a good guess anyway. Well, technically burritos are made also out of corks and electrons and use the Higgs boson. Yes. Every meal you had owes some of its mass to the Higgs boson.

That's true. It should be getting a portion of the tips. Yeah, and if you eat the whole burrito, you definitely fill those Higgs bosons in your stomach. You get Higgs year. But yeah, so somehow the Higgs boson has this interesting property that makes it special. and it has a special shape to it. And so Daniel, let's break it down for folks. Recap for us, what is the Higgs boson?

And what is the Higgs field? So the Higgs field is this thing that fills all of space. And we think that space actually is filled with lots of different kinds of fields. Remember that a modern view of space is not as like emptiness or nothingness, but that every point in space has quantum fields, which means that it has the possibility to have particles in it. Every point in space, for example, can have an electric field or a magnetic field, magnetic field. It can also have a Higgs field. It's like another kind of way that space can wiggle. And in the modern view of particles and fields, we think of space having these fields in it. And particles are like wiggles in those fields. For a photon, for example, is a wiggle in the electromagnetic field. And a Higgs boson, the particle associated with the Higgs field would then be a wiggle in the Higgs field. So you might have like the Higgs field all the way through space. And when we smash particles together at the large Higgs field,

on Collider, we excite that field and we create a Higgs boson, which is like a little extra blob in that field, which wiggles and then dissipates. And so the Higgs field is the thing that fills all of space and the particle is a little wiggle in that field. And it is kind of a special field because unlike some of the other fields, like the electron field or the quark fields, which make matter. This one, sort of like it's not quite matter, right? But it gives things mass and matter. Yeah, it is really a very special field in lots of cool ways. Most of the field, that make up matter, the fermion fields like quark fields and lepton fields, you know, those are the things that make up the building blocks of stuff. You know, up quarks and down quarks make up the protons and neutrons inside our atoms and the electrons. These are all fermions. These are matter fields. And the other kind of fields are like force fields. The photon is the field for the electromagnetic force. And there are fields for the W and Z bosons, which make up the weak force. And there's fields for the gluons for the strong force. And there's fields for the gluons for the strong force. And then there's the Higgs boson, which is different from all of those.

It doesn't make up matter. It's not something you find in the atom. It's not stuff in that way. And it's also not really a force the way that like electromagnetism is or the weak force is. And it's also different from the other ones in that it has no spin. Like electrons have spin and photons have spin and every other particle we've ever seen has spin. But the Higgs does not have spin. It's spin zero no matter what.

Yeah, it's kind of a different field because I think I've heard mathematically that it's different. It's more like a constant in the equations, right? It's like almost like a zero dimensional field. Yeah, we call it a scalar because it can't point in any direction. It's just like a number that fills all of space. Fields can be like vectors, which like the electromagnetic field has value, but it also has a direction. Like magnetic fields also have a direction. You know, you have a magnetic field at some point in space.

It's pulling in some direction. The Higgs field is just a number. It's a scalar. So mathematically is different from the other fields. And that's because it has no spin. These Higgs particles don't like spin up or spin down or spin one or spin two. They just don't spin at all. It's just a number at every point in space.

Right. And it's this sort of number that gives other particles mass. Like without this field, particles wouldn't have the mass that they have. Yeah, the Higgs not only has all these weird special properties, but also it interacts with the other particles. So these fields exist through all of space, but they don't just like hang out on top of each. other. They do interact with each other. So for example, the electromagnetic field interacts with every

other field that has charge. So that's why electrons can push against each other using electromagnetism. So these fields somehow connect to each other. And the Higgs field interacts with all the other fields where the particles have mass. The Higgs field interacts with a lot of these particles and the way it interacts with them changes the way the particles move as if they had mass. Yeah. Well, I guess that all these fields do sit on top of each other, right? It's just that some kind of interact with each other and some don't. Like there are some fields that don't talk to other fields at all, but there are some that sit on top of each other, but they do sort of like if you do something in one, it's going to affect the others. Yeah, you're right. They're all on top of each other. Like every point in space

has all of the fields. Some of them ignore each other. Like the neutrino, for example, totally ignores the electromagnetic field. And some of them interact with each other so that energy can move between them. So energy can move from the photon field to the electron field and back and forth, this kind of stuff. Some of them don't interact and some of them do. And the Higgs interacts with a lot of them. So the ones that it does interact with are the ones that we say have mass. Like if it doesn't interact with the Higgs field, then we say it doesn't have mass. Yeah, that's right. And we talked about this once on our episode about renormalization, about what it really means for particles to have mass. Without the Higgs, all the particles in the universe would be massless like electrons would

fly through the universe without mass. And so with the W boson, and so would all of the particles. they would have no mass. Now, you add the Higgs field to the universe, and it changes the way these particles move to the universe, sort of the way like a photon moves through matter different than it moves through a vacuum. Like it gets absorbed by the atoms and re-emitted, it effectively moves slower through the universe because it's moving through matter. In the same way, all the particles now move through space differently because they're busy interacting with the Higgs field. And the Higgs field interacts with these particles differently than every other kind of interaction. And that interaction is, exactly the same as if the Higgs field wasn't there, but the particles had mass. So in one sense, we say, truly the particles have no mass, their mass comes from this interaction with the Higgs field. Like the sort of the bear,

the pure particle on its own actually has no mass, but it moves through space as if it did have mass because it's busy interacting with this field. I feel like that's a very roundabout way of putting it. I think what you're saying is that what we call mass is actually the interaction of these particles with the Higgs field. It's one way to have mass. There are other ways you could have mass,

but this is one way that particles can get mass, and this is the way that all the particles we're familiar with get mass. Dark matter has mass, but we're pretty sure it doesn't actually get mass through the Higgs field. So you might be tempted to say, this is what mass means. This is what it means to have mass. We've just like revealed the nature of mass. But that's not quite true because there are other ways to get mass. So this is one way in which particles can get mass, but maybe not the only way.

Well, I think it sort of maybe depends. Maybe what do you mean by mass, right? Like there's inertial mass, there's gravitational mass, and all mass is just energy, really, at the end. So I guess maybe what do you mean by mass in this case? Is it like the mass that you feel when you try to push it and move it? Is it only the mass related to moving? Yeah, here we're talking about inertial mass. We're talking about what it takes to get a particle moving, how a particle flies through space,

you know how much force is required to accelerate it for example the mass that goes into like the equations of motions for a particle and so if a particle has these interactions then it changes how it gets from point a to point b and that is different if a particle interacts with the higgs field and if it doesn't and there are other ways to get inertial mass there probably are other ways to get inertial mass we've never discovered them but we suspect that there are for example dark matter we know it has some mass but we don't understand how it gets mass and we don't think it interacts with the higgs boson so we can't think it interacts with the higgs boson so we can't can't get its mass from the Higgs. And also people wonder about neutrinos. Neutrinos might be a really different kind of particle. And it might be myerana particles, which means that they are their own antiparticle, which means they can't get their mass from the Higgs. So there might be other ways to get mass.

Interesting, but we don't know what they are or I have any ideas with that other way is. We have some ideas, but we've never seen them. So the Higgs boson is sort of the only way we know for fundamental particles to get mass. But we do have some ideas for other ways it might happen. I see. But at least, you know, as far as the universe is concerned, at least our universe, our matter particles, the stuff we're kind of made out of the Higgs field. It is how we get inertial mass. And without it, we'd all be flying around at the speed of light, potential. Hey, which doesn't sound too bad, you know, I'd get places much quicker. I'd lose weight. Yeah, the Higgs is a big bummer. Let's be honest. slows the party down. It weighs me down. It really weighs on me. It's a massive bummer. All right. Well, let's get into this special property of the Higgs that makes it. It's super special, and let's see what it has to do with a Mexican hat. But first, let's take a quick 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 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. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

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I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt and it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand. Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we're talking about the Higgs boson and how it's the universe's party pooper. Let's be honest.

Without the Higgs, we'd all be zipping around at the speed of light. Things would get done much faster. All right. Let me speak up in defense of the Higgs, though. you know at your party when somebody hands you're present and it feels really good and heavy you're like ooh this is something good that's also because of the higgs boson no good things coming small packages the lighter it is the more interesting could be cash cash is pretty light that's always a nice gift all right i'm going to put you down on my christmas list for an empty box for

that's right well it's not empty it would have dark matter so there you go one particle of dark matter and that shop my shopping is done for Jorge. Yeah, there you go. I'm an easy buy. But yeah, we're talking about the Higgs boson and the Higgs field and how it's sort of different. I mean, we know it gives mass to most of the matter particles that we know about.

There might be other ways to get mass, but the Higgs, at least as far as we're concerned, it's pretty fundamental, pretty important to our everyday experience. And you're saying that this kind of specialness is because of some mathematical property of it. That's right. Most of the fields that are out there in the universe,

the photon field, the electron field. If you have a chunk of space that's empty, where you don't have any particles in it, we call that vacuum, it still has those fields in it, but those fields are like as close to zero as they can be. Sort of like a parking lot. It can have cars in it, but it doesn't currently.

It has, like, slots where you could put cars. And that's where those fields like to relax to. It's sort of like their equilibrium, their default value. Value of what, I guess? Just, like, general excitability or, like, energy? Of the field. Like we talked about how the Higgs field, what is it? It's a number through all of space.

Just like an electric field, right? You can measure an electric field has a certain value over here and a certain value over there. So we're talking about the value of the field. Electric fields like to be close to zero. If you pull as much energy as you can out of space, electric fields relax down to zero. That's like the lowest energy configuration for an electric field. It's at zero value of the field. There's no electric field.

So most of the fields are like that. And it sort of makes sense. And you can think about it in your head like the field has no value when there's no particles there and you add energy and then you get particles. So the energy goes into ripples of the field, which then wiggle around and move. And you can think about those as particles. And that sort of makes some sense, even in this sort of bonkers view of particles is just like ripples in quantum fields.

So that's how most fields are. But the Higgs field is different. When it relaxes, its lowest energy configuration, when you like take all the particles out, the vacuum state. is at a very large value of the Higgs field, some huge number. So you have a chunk of space out there with nothing in it. No particles. It's filled with a very strong Higgs field.

Meaning like the Higgs field everywhere, even in empty space, has some sort of like excitability about it or some energy or it's kind of empt up. It's not, it doesn't like relax to zero. It doesn't relax to zero. And the confusing thing is that's its lowest energy state. Like when it relaxes, when you pull as much energy out as, possible. It doesn't relaxes down to zero. It relaxes down to this weird non-zero value. That is the minimum energy configuration of the Higgs field at this very large value. It's sort of like if you

pull all the energy out of space and you discovered, wow, now it has a very strong electric field in it. It'd be very strange. Yeah. It'd be like discovering the whole universe as like a charge to it almost. But the Higgs field, you're saying it can go to zero or it doesn't like to go to It can go to zero, but it doesn't like to. And the way to think about this is to think about how things move. And when things move, there's a balance always between kinetic energy, which is like the energy of motion and potential energy. And you're used to thinking about this when you think about like a string, for example, take a string on a guitar. Its lowest energy state when it's relaxed, you haven't plucked it, is that it's just straight, right? Now, if you pull on the string,

you deform it, you bend the string, then it has energy in it. Even before you let it go, it has energy in it because of its arrangement, because of its configuration, because of its new position being deformed from straight. And we call that potential energy. Sort of like if you put a book on a shelf that has gravitational potential energy. So you pull on the string, it has potential energy. You let it go, it vibrates back and forth. That's kinetic energy, right? So it's oscillating. So now this string has a lot of energy. It's oscillating back and forth. But when the energy dissipates out of the string into something else, you know, heat of the room or whatever, it relaxes back down to the lowest potential energy state, which is when the string is flat.

So that's the way a normal field operates. The Higgs field is weird because it likes to be deformed. It relaxes. Its lowest energy state is like having a string that's bent instead of straight. Or maybe like having a string that never stops vibrating. Is that kind of what you mean? Like even if it's just sitting there for a long time, it'll still have a little bit of a hump to it. No, because the vibration is energy, is kinetic energy.

That would mean you have like particles in there. We're talking about what happens when there's no motion. When there's no particles, when you have space without particles in it, we're talking about the vacuum state. The lowest energy configuration is when the field has a large value. And that's because that's actually the place where it has the smallest potential energy. And that's where this weird Mexican hat function comes in. It explains the shape of the potential energy and why it likes to minimize at a value very far from zero field. Well, maybe step back a little bit.

Would it be weird if the Higgs boson had a zero value? Because like if the Higgs boson or Higgs field had zero was zero anywhere, it would mean that whatever is moving through there had zero mass. Is that true? If the Higgs minimized at zero, then you're right. Everything in the universe would be massless. It's only because the Higgs has this non-zero standard value that things get mass. It's from the value of the Higgs field that things have mass.

So in a universe where the Higgs field goes to zero, then everything is massless. Interesting. But the Higgs field doesn't go to zero ever, right? Like it has this kind of floor to it. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't like to go to zero. It can potentially oscillate down to zero temporarily. Sort of like a string can vibrate and get into a weird configuration.

But when it relaxes, it likes to go to this really weird non-zero value. And it's only because of that that all these other particles have mass. So because the Higgs likes to chill out of this very intense state, all the other particles get mass. Interesting. And this is the only field that we know that has a non-zero. relaxed state? It's the only one, exactly. We've never met another field like this. And this is the way that it happens. This is sort of like the theoretical discovery. People were wondering like, geez, how can we get math to these particles? And Higgs and the other folks came up with this

idea. They're like, well, what if there's a really strange field that chills out? And when it relaxes, it doesn't actually go to zero. It just sort of like fills the universe with itself at a really intense value. That would mathematically accomplish what we needed. But it was a very, very strange idea at the time and it's still kind of bizarre. Yeah, because it's also the only, as you said, scalar field, right? The only sort of like non-directional field. It's almost like a kludge in the equation. You can put that on your Yelp review for the universe. You're like this, I don't know, a little ugly. The writers should have come up with a better plot point. I mean like a kludge, like they were looking at the equation and they said, hey, we add a number here. It's going to make

things work. And putting a number there means that there's a scalar field in the universe. Yeah, you could think of it like a kludge it's also sort of beautiful like things in the universe don't really make sense without it and then you come up with this one really strange but kind of simple idea and it all clicks together like mathematically boom it explains why the ws have mass and the z has mass and the photon doesn't it explains how all the other particles get mass it's very weird you're right and it makes this prediction that this new field through all of space that's different from every other field we've ever seen but it does bring all the mathematics together to explain what we're seeing. And that's why it was such an attractive

idea theoretically. So you're saying that this sort of like a non-zero like kind of buzz or pool string of the Higgs boson, this energy that it has at its default valley somehow looks like a Mexican hat? How does that come about? Well, in order to understand where a field will relax to, you need to think about the shape of its potential. And so most fields, their minimum value where the potential is lowest, which means where they like to relax to is at the value of the field being zero. You can think of the potential as being just like a cup. And at the center is the zero value of the field. And if, for example, you put a ball in there, it would roll down and it would relax at the bottom of the cup. And that's what most fields do. And the Higgs field, however, is weird. It's sort of like a

cup, but then in the very center of the cup, it has a big bump. Maybe sort of like the bottom of a wine bottle. You know, sometimes it has that bump in it for your thumb. What would happen if you put a ball in there? Well, it might bounce around a little bit and occasionally get to the center, but it would typically roll off away from the center and settle down in the valley. So the lowest point of the Higgs potential is not at zero. It has this weird shape where you have a bump in the middle and then sort of like a circle around the middle that has this minimum value in it before it rises up again. Some people talk about this like it's the bottom of a wine bottle. Other people call this the Mexican hat shape because a sombrero sort of has a point in the middle and then rise. on the outside.

Right. It's kind of like there's almost like a little trench kind of that goes in a circle. And that's where the energy, instead of like going to the center, it's shaped like there's a groove that goes around in a circle. And so that's where the energy kind of tends to go. Yeah. If you have minimum energy, you have to head for low potential. Where the field relaxes, when there's no particles around, it's no actual Higgs bosons or

no Hedron colliders smashing particles together to make energy density. If you have vacuum, if you empty space, everything has to be. relax to its lowest energy value. The lowest energy value for the Higgs is not at field equals zero. It's at the field equals some other very high value because that's where this Mexican hat has its lowest dip. It doesn't dip down in the middle where the field is zero. It dips down, as you say, in this trench around the middle, which is very far from zero. Because there's like a bump in the middle that doesn't let it settle in the middle. I guess the question is, what middle of are we talking about? Like, I can see it in my head. It sort of looks like a Mexican hat or the bottom of

a wine bottle. But I guess the question is, what are we looking at? What are we plotting in this shape? Yeah, so we're plotting the value of the Higgs field itself. That's the vertical value. So we're plotting the value of the Higgs field itself. That's like the horizontal values, the things that are like sort of the directions of the hat. And then the vertical value is the potential energy. So the Higgs field has different potential energies for different values of the field. And most fields have minimum potential energy at field equals zero. This one, you get a minimum in the field as you move away from the value of the Higgs field itself. But I thought the Higgs field was scalar, meaning like it's just a number.

How can it have two dimensions? Yeah, it is a scalar, but it's actually a complex scalar. It's not a real number. It has a real and an imaginary part. So it's sort of like there are two directions in the Higgs field. It's just a number, but it's actually a vector in complex space. Yeah, I think you're saying that somehow this potential has another dimension, I guess, complex imaginary space because I guess it's quantum right and it's like a wave function and so

therefore it has this sort of you know imaginary dimension yeah there's a real and an imaginary part just like every complex number you know like seven plus two i there's really two numbers there that are sort of independent from each other but you could also just think about this in one dimension you know you could just think about like having a v shape potential versus having like a w shape potential if you have a w shape potential where the center of the w is at zero, then you're going to want to relax down to a value that's away from zero because the trenches, the bottoms of the W are away from the zero value of the field. And that's what this field likes to do. Interesting. It doesn't like to relax to zero. It likes to relax at some

other value in the trenches of the Mexican head. And it's kind of interesting because I've heard that it wasn't always like that. Like maybe at the beginning of the universe is when this Mexican head form. Yeah, we don't exactly know what happened in the very beginning of the universe. But We think that as the universe cooled, this potential was sort of revealed. Like if the whole universe is a higher temperature, it's much denser, it's crazier, then we think that this potential originally, the early universe had a different shape. It was more like a V or like a U, where it minimizes at the zero value. And then as the universe cools, we think it's sort of relaxed down to having this shape.

The interesting thing is the Higgs field might have started out at the center, right? might have started out at zero value. And then as the universe cooled, it had to sort of like roll down this new bump in the center of its potential towards a larger value of the field. All right. So then maybe the universe, it's almost like at some point in the beginning of the universe, the universe somehow got mass. Like it used to be massless, everything, at least the matter particles. And then something happened to this field that made suddenly everything have mass. Exactly. And that's the moment in the universe when electromagnetism and the weak force split off from each other. Because that's what the Higgs boson does is it breaks this symmetry between

electromagnetism and the weak force, which we think are really all just one sort of big, happy force. But the W and the Z particles, which carry the information for the weak force, they're really, really massive. And that happened at that moment when the Higgs boson sort of rolled away from the middle and settled at this large value. We call that electro-week symmetry breaking. So there was a time in the early universe when we think the weak force was as powerful as electricity and Magnetism, and then the Higgs broke it. Oh, man. That Higgs, what a bully.

Made the week for the week. It's just doing its job, man. It's just doing its job. But we think of this also in terms of like phase transitions. Like the universe was very different before this and very different after this moment. And, you know, people, you might hear people talking about like how there were different laws of physics before this phase transition or something. And that's because, you know, these things control how things operate. If the things have no mass, then the weak force is very, very powerful.

Then the effective laws of physics, the things we experience would be very different. Deep down, there's still like the basic laws of physics underneath everything that are controlling how this happens. Those don't change. But, you know, the way the things end up interacting and the way they come together to form complex matter, that does change when you have one of these like big moments in the universe. So that's why they call it like a phase transition in the laws of physics. Like things click together differently, depending maybe. beyond the size of the universe or the density of it.

All right, well, let's get into what this all means. Why is it important that the Higgs field has this potential shaped like a Mexican hat? So let's get into that. But first, let's take another quick break. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. 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. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Oh, wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra crum.

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. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

Attention passengers, the pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, no such thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what?

Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. See? Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, sis. What if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance, bro, tell you how to manage your money again.

Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. when you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates, I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union, shopping around online,

looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt when it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand.

Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we're talking about the Hicks field. And Daniel, you were telling me that it's weird

because the Hicks field relaxes to a valley that's not zero. Most fields like to relax to zero. to chill out and just not do any work or they like to just do nothing. But the Higgs field is weird because it relaxes to sort of like an amped up value. Like it's ready to go at all times. Yeah. It's sort of like you go into a room of kindergartners napping and they're all laying on mats on the floor. But the Higgs field is sort of like up on the ceiling.

And you're like, really? That's where you like to relax? What kid is that one, the one on the ceiling? That's Peter Higgs as a toddler. it's like it's ready to go but even though it's not moving what you're saying it's like it's ready it's ready for action it's ready for action and the thing to avoid being confused about is that it doesn't have energy in it that's where it relaxes

when it doesn't have energy you know the universe with minimum energy has a huge value of the Higgs field it's a really bizarre concept it really breaks a lot of the assumptions we make and the intuition we have by connecting like fields and energy and so it's this number this number that's not zero that gives things mass because what happens? Like as a particle moves through this field, it runs into this number or this number slows the particle down?

Because the Higgs field has this value and the particles interact with the field, then it's everywhere. And so as an electron flies through the universe, it experiences this Higgs field. It's sort of like the only way we can tell that the field is there is because it has this effect on all the particles that were out there. So we can like sort of detect the existence of this Higgs field filling space because it changes the way particles move, as if they have mass.

Interesting. And so I guess the bigger question is, what does it all mean? Like, why is the Higgs field like that? Like, doesn't it have a zero value when it's relaxed? Like, what's making it that way? You can look at it from a few different ways. Like theoretically, this is like the simplest possible way to solve this problem. You know, they say, well, what do we need this particle to do in order to have this property

and then give mass to all the other particles. So they came up with like the simplest shape they could for this function that has this property. It has a minimum far from zero. You're saying that's the only way the kludge works. It's the simplest possible kludge. You could have much more elaborate kludges, right? Much more complex functions. This is like the simplest function they could think of to make this kludge happen.

And, you know, theoretical physics is always about like harmony and simplicity. Right, because I guess if you came up with a field that was zero at its lowest state, that wouldn't be a solution, right? It would just be zero. Exactly. Then it would just minimize to zero and nothing would have mass. And for this trick to work, for the Higgs mechanism to work, the Higgs field has to relax to a non-zero value. It doesn't work otherwise. So this is sort of the simplest function possible. It doesn't mean that it's the function in nature, right? The Higgs potential in nature is something we're still figuring out by doing experiments, the large Hedron Collider to really understand the shape

of it. Because what happens when you do experiments is you excite the Higgs field, You pour extra energy into it and then it wiggles. And when it wiggles, it's making a Higgs boson. And so by understanding, like, how many Higgs bosons you can make? Like, how much energy does it take to excite the field to two or three Higgs bosons? We can explore the shape of this potential function and understand, like, you know, where its edges are and how it moves and stuff. So we're still trying to figure that out and see if the function is actually described by this Mexican hat potential, maybe there are other weird wiggles in it we don't even know about.

I see. I guess another question is, is it change? Has it always sort of looked like this? And we talked about how at the beginning of the universe, it wasn't like that, but is it still changing today? We don't think that it's changing today. We think that it's stable. The universe is sort of like cooled down to a pretty low temperature and sort of like revealed this shape of the potential. You know, you can imagine it's sort of like the ocean emptying and revealing the shape of the bottom.

You know, before the ocean empties, things float on the surface. It doesn't really matter what the shape of the bottom is. But as the universe cools, it sort of like reveals things. down at the bottom. Everything relaxes down. Then, you know, the shape of the ocean floor is actually important. So we think we're down there at the ocean floor that we're at this potential. We don't actually know because, you know, we know very little about the universe. And importantly, we don't know sort of like whether there are other wiggles in this potential, like whether there are minima in the potential that sort of go below where we are. The Higgs boson sort of like got stuck

in this one minimum, but there could be other minima out there. I see. It's like there's maybe not just one groove that goes in a circle and at the rim with this wine bottle bottom or Mexican hat, but maybe there are other wiggled somewhere further out. Further out or further in. It could be that when the universe relaxed, the Higgs boson just sort of like fell into this one groove, but as you say, there could be many grooves. Wait, what? So maybe it's not a Mexican hat is what you're saying. Yeah, maybe it's not a Mexican hat. Like we know that there's this like dip far from zero that the Higgs boson is sort of stuck in right now. And we know that it doesn't like to be at zero, but we don't know sort of what's in between. We don't know if, for example,

there are other grooves between us and zero or also out past us at higher values of the Higgs field. And it's important because where the Higgs field minimizes determines not just the fact that the particles do have mass, but how much mass they have. Like if the Higgs field minimized at half of its value, boom, all the particles suddenly half their mass. Same thing for if it minimizes it twice its value. So it's really important, exactly where it's settled completely determines all the dynamics of our universe. It's very sensitive to exactly where the Higgs boson is sitting. Right. But is this thing actually dynamic? Like does it have the possibility to like jump to another groove? Like is it wiggling all the time? Or is it just like

is this mathematical thing just like this fixed thing and that's where we're at? No, it is dynamic. And every time you make a Higgs boson, you are wiggling the Higgs field. Like in an empty universe, the Higgs field would just be there doing nothing. But every time there's energy, every time this collisions and some of that energy goes into the Higgs field, then it creates wiggles in that field. If you put enough energy into the Higgs field, you could wiggle it so it like gets over a hump and maybe gets stuck in a different groove. Wait, what? Like as you're colliding particles, maybe you can excite, you know, the Higgs field where you're colliding the particles, it could maybe like snap to a different configuration. Exactly. Imagine like you have a ball

and it's sitting in a sombrero and now you give that ball energy. It can like get out of that little groove, and maybe if there are other grooves, it can then relax into those grooves. So as you say, you could collide particles and you could excite the Higgs field and it could snap into another configuration locally, just like right where you are and relax at that value instead. And I've heard that could be catastrophic because then that could propagate and, like, infect the other bits of space around. Yeah, that would be devastating because the rest of the universe would then also relax

to that new value. It would happen sort of at the speed of light, not instantaneously, but it would propagate out from that point. The Higgs field now collapsing to this new lower value of the field, and that would change the way physics works completely. But why would it promulgate? Like, wouldn't it, you know, if I just change it in one spot, why would it make the other spots change as well? Because the Higgs field is meshed together. You can't have like discontinuities in the field. You know, the equations that describe how the Higgs field oscillates and where relaxes, they're like a wave equation. And so it tells you not just how the Higgs field oscillates at any point, but how, how

different points on the Higgs field talk to each other and they're all linked together and so that's for example how energy moves through the Higgs field is the Higgs boson propagates from one point to another and so they're definitely connected to each other and if one collapses then information propagates through the Higgs field

to other points in space. I see, but wouldn't the rest of the field just kind of like stamped down that little bump? You know what I mean? Like why would that bump survive and spread out? What wouldn't the rest of the field kind of like tend to smooth it out? Yeah, if it jumped into a higher value, if it jumped into a minimum that had a higher value of the Higgs field, you're right,

it would be like a spike and then it would get stamped out back down to the value where we are. But what if it jumped into a value that was lower? Like what if between us and zero, there's another minimum, like a true minimum. We're sort of like strapped up there on a ledge somewhere, but there's like really a lower spot for the field to relax to that new value at any point in space, that would spread. The whole field would sort of collapse. Wow, right. Yeah, that's what people call the Higgs boson Higgs field collapse, which could end the universe. And so if we have just a Mexican half potential, that's not an issue because we're in the minimum.

It's a true minimum. There's nowhere else to go. But if there are other wiggles in this Mexican hat between us and zero, then it's possible that the Higgs field could collapse. And by creating the Higgs boson in collisions, you could get the Higgs like out of its little trench and into a lower trench and trigger that collapse. Wow. Okay, first of all, A, we don't know what this Mexican hat looks like? Like, it might have little bumps in the middle that we don't know about? We don't know, exactly. We've only sort of explored the little area in the vicinity of the Higgs where it is. We know the value of the minimum, and we've explored sort of rounded by tweaking the Higgs and perturbing it, making the field oscillate in collisions. But we don't know exactly the shape of this potential. Wow. And second of all, in the collisions you're doing at the particle collider,

you could end the universe potentially and you know this. Is that what you're saying? It's like, yeah, we know that this could happen, but we don't know if it's going to happen. But let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. My lawyer is whispering my ear over here. Hold on a moment.

Yeah, that's technically true. We're fairly confident that the shape of the potential is simple. Fairly confident that you're not going to destroy the universe. Is that what your lawyer is telling you to? That's what my lawyer is telling you. Well, I guess the good thing is that if you do destroy the universe, nobody can sue you, I guess. Is that your backup plan there? Yeah, exactly.

You're unsueable if you destroy the universe. Yeah, exactly. We will pay everybody a million dollars if we destroy the universe. My guarantee. In what currency? Everybody gets a million Higgs bosons. Joking aside, we do have some ideas for the shape of this potential because it turns out that the shape of it depends a lot on the mass of the other. their particles. It comes out of the complex interaction between the Higgs and the top quark

and the Higgs and the W boson. So we do have some ways to like get clues about the shape of this potential. And the information we have so far suggests that it's a very, very stable, that it'd be very, very difficult, essentially impossible to get the Higgs out of its minimum, that this potential is very, very steep. Even if there are other minima, the walls sort of protecting us from those other minima are very tall and very steep. Right. You think. I mean, fairly confident. Doesn't it give you pause, I guess, you know? Like, you know, there was a one in a million chance

that one of my cartoons could end the universe. I'd be like, maybe I should stick to engineering. You know, one in a million is... Is that the threshold for you? If it was like one in a billion, you'd still go ahead? I might think about changing careers, yeah. But you guys are pressing on. You're like, unlikely, but let's hope for the best.

Yeah, unlikely, but let's hope for the best. I mean, what else can you do in life? It would be pretty exciting. All right. I feel like you're sticking up your finger up your nose pretty deep in there, and who knows what's going to happen. That's true, but that's also true every time you do anything at the boundary, you never really know. You know, when we send a rover to Mars, we could, like, irritate the local inhabitants that they could launch an interplanetary attack and wipe us all out, right? But we go to Mars anyway.

I think that's even less likely. I think we're fairly confident that Mars won't attack. Well, we're fairly confident doesn't have advanced civilizations, right? We can see Mars, and we've flown around it. Could be subterranean. Right? They could be laying in weight. In which case, they don't have spaceships, right?

So, also, it's not going to end the universe. We might get attacked, but it's not going to end the entire universe. All right. So wiping out humanity in Earth, okay. Threatening the entire universe, that's over the line. Yeah, because, you know, there could be other, you would be wiping not just us, but those underground Martians, and who knows how many trillions of life forms in the universe. All right.

I'm writing down your concerns here. I will officially take note of them. Thank you. Yeah, please. And when it happens, I'll be to bring that up and complain about it. I'll text you first if it happens. Run. Wouldn't it?

You'll be poor because you have to give a million dollars to everybody. But anyways, it seems like existence sort of depends on this Mexican head. I feel like this Mexican hat or wine bottle bottom is pretty important. Without it, we wouldn't be here. It is absolutely fundamental, essential to the nature of the universe as we know it. is also very, very strange. It's a mathematical oddity, but we know it's real. It's the kind of thing that it's been bouncing around in the heads of physicists for five

decades wondering, like, is this really the thing that our universe has done? Is this the choice of the universe made to get mass to all these particles? And then we found it. We know that it's real. It's actually out there. This is what's really happening. So people have been scratching their heads for 10 years since we found it going like, really? Wow, that is weird.

I wonder what that means. It's the strangest, weirdest, most important. particle we've ever found. And also why we move at the speed that we don't. I don't move at the speed of light because I have mass. And so if you had dreams to one day beam yourself to Alta Centauri to move there at the speed of light, it's because of the Higgs boson that you can't. There you go. Back to it being a bummer. A bummer boson. All right. Well, we hopefully got you to think a little bit about the makeup of matter and what make things the way they are and why they're the way they are. Apparently some things are just the way they are. And we're trying to figure

out why that is. That's right. And if you're interested in the details of the Higgs boson, check out our several other episodes on the topic, including ones about whether there are multiple Higgs bosons in the universe. Oh, it's not the Higgs boson. So it is a Higgs boson. It's the only Higgs boson

we've discovered, but there could be other kinds of Higgs bosons oscillating out there in the dark. Interesting, but they're not as famous as, I guess, yet. Maybe once you destroy the universe, they'll come out and be like, I told you so. You shouldn't have trusted that Higgs boson. They are the guy behind the guy that runs everything in the universe. They're the secret shadow government

of the secret shadow government. Interesting. The CEO of Disney, really. You are really tempting our fate there. You're threatening to destroy the podcast universe by throwing shade on the biggest corporation out there. I think Bob Iger is a pretty chill guy. We'll find out. At least he's not trying to destroy the universe. That's your threshold now, huh? All right, well, we hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. 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, 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 and the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get fired up, y'all. Season two of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway.

We just welcomed one of my favorite people, an incomparable soccer icon, Megan Rapino, to the show. And we had a blast. Take a listen. Sue and I were like riding the lime bikes the other day and we're like, we're like, we're like this. People write bikes because it's fun. We got more incredible guests like Megan in store, plus news of the day and more. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports Network. This is an IHeart podcast.