Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - Will the Higgs-Boson destroy the universe?

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Learn how the Higgs-Boson could unravel the universe with Daniel and Jorge Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Are you sure the ed. The LHC, the large Hadron Collider that you work on, is not going to destroy the planet Earth? For the last time, there's no chance that the LHC will create a black hole that then gobbles up the Earth. Not even a little, you're not worried even a little bit, like it's not even a possibility. The thing is we don't worry about small things like destroying the Earth. What gets particle physicists worried is things like destroying the entire universe. Hi, I'm Horam, a cartoonist, and the creator of Ph.D. Comics. Hi, I'm Daniel Whiteson. I'm a particle physicist. I have not yet destroyed the universe.

Yet. Is that how you introduce yourself every time? Hi, I'm Daniel. I have not yet destroyed all of existence. That's right. And that's true about everybody. And if you are listening to this podcast, then that is proof that the universe still exists. That's right. Every word we speak should be a word of comfort, that the universe is still, at least where you are, still happening. That's right. And now if somebody's internet goes out, they're going to think the universe is ending, right?

What's going on? That's right. Somebody's listening to us on that. That's right. But if folks remember, a Wi-Fi interruption is not the end of the universe. You will survive. It's the end of my universe, Daniel. If somebody's Wi-Fi goes out, do we stop existing?

Because they don't hear us anymore? Well, we got deep in the philosophy all of a sudden. Oh, my goodness. Well, welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge, do not destroy the universe. Yet. Or at least explain how we're not destroying the universe. A production of I-hard Radio. That's right, our podcast in which we think about things big and small.

We explore the universe. We find the craziest, most mind-blowing facts, and we explain them to you in a way that makes you chuckle a little bit and also come away with some deep understanding of your context of your existence. And sometimes we talk about the really small things that can maybe destroy the really big things in the universe. One of my favorite things about physics is when you learn something new

and you discover, wow, the universe is like a little more fragile than I thought. What do you mean? Well, like, how old were you? Or what did you think the first time you learned that, like, the earth that we live on is just this, like, thin crust of rock floating on a mass, massive ocean of lava, right?

All of a sudden, the Earth doesn't feel so stable to me, right? Wow. I think I learned that just now, Daniel, thank you for totally giving me anxieties now that I hadn't didn't up before. Or like that our atmosphere, right, is this very thin shell of gas surrounding a huge planet. It could easily just get like blown away by some cataclysmic, you know, solar flare or something. Wow. I hadn't thought about those things, but thank you.

Yeah. So sometimes you learn something about the universe, and it gives you context. It helps you understand that our situation here is maybe an accident or as a product of the particular arrangements of things. And so physics tells you, like, what's stable about the universe, what's dangerous about the universe, what you should worry about and what you shouldn't worry about. Yeah, so it's not just the Earth that is sort of in a precarious balance. It's also, I mean, you're saying it's also reality itself, possibly. Yeah, you know, as we peel back layers of reality, we understand how the universe works. Sometimes we discover things like, oh, well, this seems to be sort of an accident.

You know, and we never know whether things really are an accident or whether it's due to some sort of deeper understanding. Like something we've talked about before is the relationship between like the electron and the proton, right? The charges of those two particles exactly balance, which means we can have hydrogen atoms and chemistry and physics and bananas and all sorts of good stuff. We don't know if that's an accident, right? We don't know why that's that way. It's essential for life to happen, but we don't know if it's that way for a reason or if it's a coincidence. And so sometimes we stumble across other things like that to seem essential for life to be the way we wanted, but may be accidental and may also not be permanent.

Yeah, and so one of those things is something that you might be familiar with. We're hoping if you're a listener of our podcast. And so today on the program, we'll be asking the question. Will the Higgs boson destroy the universe? And I like the way you phrase that because it means if the universe does get destroyed, it's the Higgs boson's fault. Are particle physicists going to destroy the universe?

Blame it on the boson. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to blame you. Is Daniel Whiteson going to destroy the universe? Now I hear government agents knocking on my door. A new podcast from My Heart Radio. Daniel Jorge destroyed the universe. Yeah, so this is a question.

that I think it was all over the news back when they were looking for the Higgs boson. Everyone was worried and concerned that you guys in Geneva at CERN were maybe going to do something in your experiment that was going to cause the demise of the Earth. Like maybe you were going to unlock something in the universe that was going to swallow us all up and destroy the planet. That's right. There's sort of two totally different but both devastating concerns, right? One is, when you collide two protons, could you trigger really strong gravity and make microscopic black hole, which could then eat stuff around it and grow and eat the whole Earth?

Yeah, that's what people were trying to shut you down. Yeah, people sued the LHC. There was like court cases. We had to like prove in court that this is something reasonable to do. And for those of you, suddenly worried out there, there's no danger. These kind of collisions that we do with the LHC happen all the time. Particles from space hit the Earth and hit the sun, and they do not create black. holes that gobble the earth.

So we are safe. I feel like that's a thin excuse, Daniel. You're like, look, everyone else around us has nuclear bombs. So therefore, we should be able to tinker with one, no problem. Well, you know, actually, when people set off the first nuclear bomb, they were worried, right? They were worried they might ignite the atmosphere. And that was a serious concern, but they did it anyway. But now that they've done it, we know pretty well that blowing up a nuclear bomb doesn't ignite the atmosphere.

Well, I think they did it in secret. I think that was the key. You guys were doing it in the public eyes. I always wonder, like, did the physicists tell the government agents that that was a risk? You know, they'd have to fill out a form. You know, like, oh, if you're going to potentially ignite the atmosphere, please fill out this form first. Please fill out this RIB. That's right, yeah.

So that's concern number one, which is not something to worry about. We've thought about the physics. We are not going to create a black hole which destroys the Earth. We might create a black hole, but it would evaporate very rapidly. Oh, I see. It's all sorts of fascinating insights about the universe. Right. So you're saying the atmosphere creates black holes all the time. It's not that different than what you do. And even if you do make one, it's going to evaporate. That's right, because these tiny black holes will disappear. They'll evaporate because it'll radiate away very quickly. That's the theory at least.

And you're pretty sure about that. I'm pretty sure about that, yes. I mean, my family lives on Earth, so I'm risking my family by keeping the LHC running, and I'm pretty confident. Well, I've seen you say that you would risk a lot to answer answers about the universe, Daniel. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I would sacrifice a good fraction of humanity to get to talk to aliens. That's true. But not my family. That's right, the other fraction, the other 99%.

Which fraction are we talking about? But there's a totally separate concern about whether not the Earth will get destroyed, but actually whether we could trigger a cataclysmic event which fundamentally changes the nature of the universe. So it involved the Higgs boson, and so you're telling me that the Higgs boson might destroy the universe. Is this something that everyone knows? Do you think? There was some press about it a while ago, but I was curious, like, are people worried

that the Higgs boson might destroy the universe? Do people even remember what the Higgs is because it's been a little while since it got pressed and, you know, stuff has happened since then? And so I was curious, do everyday people worry about whether I'm going to ruin the universe? So I went out and asked them. So as usual, Daniel went out and asked people on the street

if they think the Higgs boson will destroy the universe. So think about it for a second If you have maybe heard of this news item Or if you have thought about the Higgs boson And the precariousness of nature Think about it for a second What would you answer if you were asked Will the Higgs boson destroy the universe

Here's what people had to say Do you worry about the Higgs boson destroying the universe No I don't have anything to back that up No I don't worry about that Maybe because the unknown one Have you ever heard of the Higgs boson No

Making me feel real dumb right now I have a lot of existential worries. But not that one? Now it is. Okay. The last name, Higgs sounds familiar, but no. All right, so people don't seem very concerned. I think it sounds like mostly out of,

because they didn't know that the Higgs boson could destroy the universe. No, and a lot of people hadn't even heard of the Higgs boson, which made me felt like, uh-oh, physics has relaxed too much. We had our big thing with the Higgs boson in 2012. We've got to get back in the news because everybody's forgotten us. Get on that branding. That's right. Where is the PR department?

I've got to talk to them. No, people weren't really very familiar with the Higgs, and nobody was worried that the Higgs boson would destroy the universe, at least until I asked them this question, and then they started Googling it, and now maybe they're a little worried. Okay, so you're telling me, Daniel, that the Higgs, something about the Higgs boson could potentially destroy the universe. So let's step through it.

First of all, let's maybe recap for our listeners, what the Higgs boson is. Yeah, so the Higgs boson is. boson is a particle we discovered at the LHC in 2012. It's the last particle ever found so far, and it completes the standard model, and it answered a really interesting question, which is, where does mass come from?

We talk on this podcast, what is a particle? And we think of them as these little dots in space, but you have to ask, like, where is the mass of the particle? If something is a tiny dot, where does it get its mass? And it's not so much about, like, where does it come from or what gets it? It's more like particles have this thing, and it's more like how does it manifests itself in the universe? Like how do we, what gives you that feeling of mass?

Yeah, and it's also a question of patterns. Like we look at all the particles and they all have different masses. You know, this one is a lot. This one is a little. But they're all the same size. So it's not like they have more stuff to them. So we were wondering like, why do these particles have this mass and this particle of the other mass?

For example, we talked in another podcast about the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism, which are fundamentally the same thing, but the weak nuclear force is really weak because the particles that carry it have a lot of mass and the photon has no mass, which is why electromagnetism is so powerful. So this is sort of the question that led to the discovery of the Higgs

is why some of these particles have mass and some of them don't? What's the mechanism there? And it turns out the answer is this Higgs field, this invisible thing that fills space and interacts with some of these particles in different ways.

And the Higgs boson is a manifestation of that field. When parts of that field get really excited, that appears as like a ripple in that field, which we interpret as a Higgs boson. Right. So there's two physical things, the field and the boson itself, which is the particle. Right. And they were sort of discovered at different times, right? Like, physicists came up with the idea of the Higgs field first to kind of make all the equations in the universe work.

Dude named Higgs, yeah. Oh, that would make sense. How do you feel about that naming choice there? I feel like we could do better, to be honest. I mean, Peter Higgs, you know, he did this thing, he did his thing, and he deserves it. But, you know, you might maybe call it the mass field. Would that be a better name? Yeah, I think that would probably be more instructive.

That would save you that explanation. Yeah, exactly, right. It's a thing that gives things match. Yeah, right. Call it the mass field. The massive field. The mass giving field. Yeah.

The dessert field. We should call it the dessert field because that's what gives things mass. That's what people immediately associate, I'm sure. So, yeah, so the ideas that the whole. whole universe is permeated by this field, which is like what would you describe a field? It's just kind of like a, it's just like an

aura out there, right? An aura, well, I love that. I don't know. How would you describe a field to somebody? That's a great question. A whole episode about what is a quantum field and a field is just, it's a physical thing that has a value everywhere in space. Like an electric field, right, is strong here

and weak there. The gravitational field is strong here and weak there. Kind of like an aura. I don't really know what I'm ORA is. I mean, I read about ORAs in novels. Like it's stronger here, stronger around you kind of thing. Or you could say an odor, or an odor is stronger here and not so strong there. It's such a small difference between aura and odor.

That's right. So a field is something we imagine is everywhere in the universe and has a different value at each location. Right. It's like part of the fabric of the universe. Would that be a good way to say it? It's like one of the things that make up the universe. As long as you make that hand gesture when you say it, you know, that makes it look all dramatic that our listeners can't see, then yes, I agree.

It's part of the fabric of the universe. Yeah, great. And the Higgs field is different from all the other fields we've ever discovered. Right, because it's the one that makes things have mass. Yeah, it's the one that makes things have mass, but that's not the only reason that it's different. It's different than the other fields because it's the only one that, like, can't ever totally relax. Like, it's a little tense.

It's a little, like, worked up, you know, it needs a massage. Or H-HAM of quantum fields is what you're saying. I can't relax. No, the Higgs field can't chill, right? We talked about this also in other episodes like, can space ever be empty? Because you imagine some, like, block of space out there. What's in it?

Well, there are quantum fields, and those quantum fields mostly are relaxed. Like, if there's no light in that block of space, then you imagine the electromagnetic field in that block of space is sort of at its lowest level, right? It's as empty as possible. And you can argue philosophically about whether it can actually get to zero, whether there are quantum fluctuations around

zero, but on average it's zero. So most fields can get down to zero. Okay, so you're saying that Higgs field is sort of maybe unstable, like there's a certain buzz about it. Like, it's not chilling out. It's like it's on a

tense state. Yeah, and so there's two questions there is, is it at zero and is it stable? Right. So the Higgs field is not at zero. Like the lowest level of the Higgs field all the way through the universe at every part in space is not at zero energy. It's sort of stuck at this position.

It has this internal tension to it that makes it like to hang out at a place that's not at zero. And if you think, that's weird, how can something relax when it's not at zero? Imagine like a lake in a mountain, right? Water likes to flow down, but sometimes it gets stuck, right? The configuration of the mountains around it means that water relaxes in the top of a mountain. It would like to flow down to the sea if it could get there, but it's happy to just stay there stably for a long time in a mountain lake.

You're sort of like on a ledge. Like you're happy on a ledge. You could go down further to relax, but that would be effort to get out of your ledge. That's right. Exactly. You'd have to go up first, right? So the Higgs field relaxes and it gets stuck in this local minimum,

which is above zero energy. So the Higgs field is different from all the other fields in the universe in that when it relaxes, it gets stuck in this sort of local minimum and doesn't go all the way down to zero. It's called a vacuum expectation value. And it's fascinating. I have an issue with that name also.

And that's the reason why the W and the Z boson have mass and the photon doesn't, because the Higgs has a non-zero vacuum expectation value. And that's the clue that generated the whole idea for the Higgs. People are like, this is really weird. Why does this thing massive and this thing not? Huh, how could you explain that? Well, you'd have to have some really weird field that couldn't relax to zero. That was the genesis of the whole idea.

That's why we thought of the Higgs. That's the thing about it that gave us the clue to discover it. to like explain the particles that we see we need to come up with a field that can't relax. Yeah, exactly. They get stuck. And you went out and you found it.

And that's where the Higgs boson comes from. It's like the manifestation of the field. It's like an evidence that the field exists. Evidence that the field exists because the field could also go up, right? It doesn't just have to stay at its lowest but non-zero value. It can go up.

And when it gets excited because you create energy density in one spot, you can create a Higgs boson temporarily. So the Higgs boson, as you say, is evidence that the field exists. All right. So that's the Higgs field. And you're telling me that there's something about its inability to relax that might cause the universe to destroy itself, to disappear. Yes.

And I'm loving your use of the passive voice there, the universe to destroy itself, rather than Daniel destroys the universe. Well, you are the universe to me, Daniel. We are all one. We are all the universe. Well, let's get into how that can cause the universe. universe, how Daniel can call it the universe to destroy, to be

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Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Daniel, we're talking about the Higgs field and the Higgs boson, and you're telling me that it's something that is kind of embedded in the fabric of the universe and gives things mass, but it's sort of not maybe stable. It's like maybe at a sort of heightened kind of buzzy tense state.

Yeah, and we don't know very precisely sort of what the shape of this mountain that is resting in. Like we know that it's in a place that's somewhat stable because it's been sticking around and, you know, things have been going on for a long time. We don't think in the last billion years the physics has changed fundamentally, right? But we don't have enough precise measurements about sort of parameters of the universe to know exactly the shape of that mountain.

So it could be that it's in a really pretty stable spot. I mean, it might still be stuck up on a ledge, but it might be that the sort of the edges of that lead, the lip of that ledge that it would have to go over to get down to the bottom are really tall and sharp, in which case it's basically never, going to get out of it. Like it's a lake surrounded by really, really tall mountains. And so there's no way that water is going to come down to the ocean. That's right. That's one scenario, right? Or it might

be that sort of metastable that like there's a part of that ledge that's a kind of shallow and not very tall and it might sort of like slop over the edge and flow down to the ocean. And so we're trying to figure that out. Oh, I see. It's not in your equation models? It's in the models. But there's uncertainty, right? The shape of that sort of potential, which is defined by various other pieces of knowledge, like the mass of the top cork and the mass of the W boson. We measure those things and we measure them pretty precisely. And the funny thing is that it puts the shape, it's like right on the edge. Like, in our current level of knowledge, this Higgs field is like very close to the edge between being stable and being metastable. So we're not exactly sure, right? It's like,

Wait, what's the difference between stable and meta-stable? Stable would mean like the lip is high enough that it's never going to get out. Oh, okay. And meta-stable is like, it got stuck there for a while, but it's going to eventually bounce out to go down to the ocean. Oh, I see. Not super stable. Not super stable. So we don't know very precisely the shape of that lip, and so we can't really say with great confidence how stable it is. Okay. So I guess the question is, what would happen if the Higgs field gets out of this?

pseudo-stable state. That's when you were saying bad news might happen. The ultimate bad news. The ultimate bad news. And you might be thinking, oh, I didn't even really know the Higgs boson existed. I didn't really think about it. I don't care.

Why should that affect me at all, right? I never use Higgs bosons. I don't buy them at the store. The price is not going to change. But remember that this field underlies basically everything. I mean, the fact that the Higgs boson has the minimum it does, which is above zero, is the reason why W's and Zs

have mass. And it's the reason that all the fundamental particles have the mass they do, right? So, for example. So if anything, basically you're saying that if anything changes about it, we would have a totally different universe. We would have a totally different universe with basically different laws of physics, for example. Like I would weigh less, possibly. You wouldn't even really exist anymore. Really? I mean, all your particles, all the, the masses of all the particles would change. So the electron would have a different mass. The proton would of a different mass. Like, we don't even know in that case

if quarks could confine into stable particles or if they would be free. So we don't know if we'd have protons. We don't know if we'd have stable atoms. The strengths of the forces would change because if the W and the Z aren't massless, all of a sudden, the weak force,

not so weak anymore. Well, it would be a totally different universe, but, I mean, it wouldn't be better or worse. It would just be different. We wouldn't be in it. Well, in that sense it would be... Somebody could argue that that's better or worse. I think that's worse.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not worst. For us, but what about for the Horan Daniel in that other universe? Horan Daniel Prime, they would probably... That's right. They're waiting to get on the stage. They're lighter. They're probably, you know, more electric. I don't know.

No, you basically start from zero and build the universe up again, and you have totally different... I mean, it's not like we're changing the speed of light, right? We're not changing the universe in the multiverse sense. We're like picking totally new laws, but the parameters are changing. The masses are changing, which affects everything downstream, right? how things come together, how they form bonds, how they make atoms, everything would be totally different. Right. The fabric would, do you're saying the fabric of the universe would unravel or would just change where it's a totally different cardigan?

It would be a totally, we don't even know if you could make a cardigan, right? Like, what could you make? Whoa, okay, that is worse. I mean, it'd be very hard to go from, here's the description of the fundamental nature of the universe as we have it now and then predict chemistry and biology. Like, that would be hard, you know, currently. And so to say, well, let's change those laws and then try to understand what the universe would look like, that's a hard problem. We know it would look totally different. Right.

So it would be dramatic if the Higgs field change. And you're saying it is, and we don't know if it's possible if the Higgs field can change. But there is sort of that possibility that it could, you know, jump out of those mountains and flow down to the ocean. and when we would have a totally different cardigan-less universe. Yeah, exactly. Everything that we know about the universe would be different. And that does seem like kind of a big deal. And, you know, we made these measurements.

We're trying to understand it. We're trying to make better measurements to get a better sense of how stable this is, right? And also there's the possibility that we just don't understand physics correctly. This is our current model of physics, and it could be wrong. So it could be that, like, hey, you know, there's some other physics that's preventing this from happening. and in a new theory of physics that better describes the universe, the Higgs is totally stable, and this couldn't happen. But in our current understanding, the Higgs is not guaranteed to stay in its state.

Right. And you're saying that possibly maybe some of the things you're doing at the LHC could maybe accidentally cause that change? What are you trying to warn us about, Daniel? I'm uncomfortable with your change to the active voice here. Can we return to the passive? When you press that button, Daniel, and assume responsibility for what happens.

Well, in the scenario where the Higgs field is not totally stable, it's meta-stable, then you can ask like, what could get it over that edge and down to the ocean to change the universe

into a totally different cardigan-less universe, right, without any bananas or anything. And we don't really know, but there are some ideas, right? Idea number one is, what about random fluctuation?

You know, we talked about, you know, quantum tunneling. You know, we talked about electrons in potential wells and they're trapped because they can't go over the lip, but we talked about

they could get through, right? They could tunnel through that barrier. This is sort of like water teleporting out of that lake and then flowing down the mountain. That's possible. Like the field itself could in some points in the universe change, but then it would change back. At one point in the universe would change.

And the thing is, if it changes at one point, then it sort of nucleates and it triggers this threshold where it makes the stuff around it unstable. So if any point in the universe does this, it spreads out sort of at the speed of light and spreads out across the universe. It's sort of like a water balloon, right? Once you pop it in one spot,

the rest of the spot's not going to hold the water. It's gone. Like if you get a little bit of the fields to relax, then that spreads. Like it pulls the rest of the fields to relax. Yes. How do you know that? That's just what the math tells us, you know, that these...

Like it would spread? It would spread, yeah. And so you sort of kind of got to keep the field stable everywhere all the time, which is the kind of thing that makes you feel a little bit terrified. But the chances of this kind of tunneling, we've done the calculation, the chances of this kind of tunneling are very, very small, according to our current understanding. It should happen once in about 10 to the 139 years. Okay. So it's 10 with 139 zeros, which is a lot of zeros. Remember, the universe's current age is 10 to the 10 years. So it's a very, very long time, which means

It's basically never going to happen. So that's not something to worry about. Well, let's talk about kind of what would happen if it happens. So you're saying that maybe something might cause it or someone, which we'll talk about next. Alien physicist. That's alien Daniel. Cardigan wearing alien Daniel. Why isn't it alien Jorge destroying the universe?

Maybe the alien version of you is the physicist and I'm the cartoonist. In which case, it wouldn't happen because, you know, all Jorge's that are responsible and altruistic. Oh, it was responsible, though, was on deadline. At least they show up for the podcast, this is all I can say. But so let's say we did something here and it started to relax here on Earth. Like what would happen? Like the universe would collapse in that point? Would it just be like a black hole expanding?

Well, the field. Step us through the Michael Bay movie in which this happens. Caboom! That's the whole movie. No, the field collapses. So physics changes at that point. And then the field around it collapses and the field around it collapses. And so what's happening is that the laws of physics of the universe are not fixed.

They change as the field changes, right? So like 0.1 seconds into it, I hit pause on my Blu-ray player. What am I seen in the special effects shot there? You know, I have no idea what this new form of the universe would look like, right? like, you know, how would light travel? What kind of other things would move? I have no conception of what it would be like to be in that universe. Wow.

But sort of new universe, like zero state Higgsfield universe, would spread at the speed of light. You get this pocket which grows and grows and grows and grows. And I have no idea what it would be like to be in that movie. It has to spread at the speed of light? It spreads at the speed of light, yeah. Okay. So it would be a quick death for us.

Yes, that's right. You wouldn't have time to panic. I mean, you can start panicking now. Pre-patic. I'll pre-panic. I'm Julie. so I know that panicking actually works. Worrying helps things.

The universe responds to your aura of panic. It's the only thing that can violate causality, actually. If you worry now, it can change things that have already happened. Yeah, exactly. And one thing people worry about is maybe some very high density event, I don't know, like colliding protons at near the speed of light, might trigger, might sort of like give enough energy to this thing that it slops over the edge

and gets out of this metastable region and down to the zero. So if it happened here in Earth, I mean, in the flash of light, basically, we would be gone. Yeah, yeah. In our place, it would be a totally different universe that starts from scratch, you think?

Like, it'd be like their Big Bang or something? Well, I mean, it's still sort of our universe, but it's like the next version of it, right? Like, the Higgs field is now a different state, and so physics is different, and so everything is different. It might be a really boring universe, might be really fascinating and complex in the way the ours is, right?

It might even be more rich. Like, maybe you can do all sorts of crazy new kinds of physics we never imagined. Wow. But, you know, our brains rely on this kind of physics, and so we couldn't really exist in that universe, you know, so we wouldn't ever really enjoy it. But, you know, the same argument that suggests that we are not in danger of creating black holes that eat up the earth, right? That similar collisions happen all the time and have not created black holes.

that same argument can be applied here. All right, let's get into how this may or may not cause this Michael Bay movie to become a reality that destroys reality. But first, let's take another quick break. The U.S. Open is here, and on my podcast, Good Game with Sarah Spain, I'm breaking down the players from rising stars to legends chasing history. The predictions will we see a first-time winner and the pressure.

Billy Jean King says pressure is a privilege, you know. Plus, the stories and events off the court and, of course, the honey deuses, the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open has gotten to be a very fancy, wonderfully experiential sporting event. I mean, listen, the whole aim is to be accessible and inclusive for all tennis fans, whether you play tennis or not.

Tennis is full of compelling stories of late. Have you heard about Icon Venus Williams' recent wildcard bids? or the young Canadian, Victoria Mboko, making a name for herself. How about Naomi Osaka getting back to form? To hear this and more, listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain, an IHeart Women's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I would love for you to share your breakdown on pivoting. We feel sometimes like we're at least. leaving a part of us behind when we enter a new space, but we're just building. On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us, I was joined by Volusia Butterfield, media founder, political strategist, and tech powerhouse for a powerful conversation on storytelling, impact, and the intersections of culture and leadership. I am a free black woman who worked really hard to be able to say that.

I'd love for you to break down. Why was so important for you to do, see you can't win as something you didn't create. From the Obama White House to Google to the Grammys, Valicia's journey is a masterclass in shifting culture and using your voice to spark change. A very fake, capital-driven environment and society will have a lot of people tell half-truths. I'm telling you, I'm on the energy committee. Like, if the energy is not right, we're not doing it, whatever that it is. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. 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 it my eyes close. I'm Manny. I'm Noah.

This is Devon. 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. Listen to no such thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so Daniel, step us through. How are you going to destroy the universe? Well, first I'm going to get a consulting fee from Michael Bay. I want a writing credit on the script. Oh, yeah. How much is that going to be worth when the universe no longer exists?

Like, is it possible that when you're colliding particles and, you know, creating mini black holes that evaporate? But, you know, in that sort of high-energy collision, Could you maybe trigger the Higgs field to start collapsing or not? Again, remember, folks, this is a theoretical concern. We don't know if this is real. It's just sort of like, we've done this calculation, we noticed this thing, it makes us wonder. So there is the sort of theoretical possibility that a high energy density event like that

might trigger the Higgs field to relax into its true vacuum. But we have those kind of collisions all the time, right? So the same argument that makes us feel safe about black holes also makes us feel pretty confident about the Higgs field collapsing because protons are hitting protons in the atmosphere all the time. Remember... At the same energy that you're doing it at the LHC? Yes, and at much higher energies.

Remember that we have these crazy particles from space, cosmic rays, that hit the atmosphere thousands of times the energy of collisions at the LHC. Really? And it's been doing that for billions of years. You're saying that if I look up in the sky, out into space, or at least our atmosphere, there are, you know, there's like a thousand LHCs up there doing things that are much worse

than what you guys are doing. Yeah, and remember, we don't know what's creating those particles. It's like another great mystery. The universe is like, what or who is creating these super high-indry particles, but they are hitting the Earth, and they've been doing it a lot.

There's millions of them every year at much higher energies in the LHC. So if there was a pretty good chance that one of those collisions would, nucleate a relaxation of the Higgs field, which spread at the speed of light, we're pretty sure would have happened already. And we're pretty sure we're not increasing the danger by doing our little tiny dinky collisions relative to the alien LHC.

I feel like you're telling me like, oh, look, everyone's vaping. If you vape, I'm sure, if I vape, I'm sure that nothing bad will happen. Yeah, look, they set off a nuclear bomb and they didn't ignite the atmosphere, so I'm sure ours won't either. I think you're saying the evidence tells you that this is super low probability or maybe even impossible because there's LHC's happening in the sky

all the time and I'm sure in other planets as well all across the universe and we are still here we are still here yes if you were listening to this podcast then we have not yet destroyed the universe well that's good that stop that You just need to freak out.

All right. So that's the question is, will the Higgs boson destroy the universe? You're saying it's theoretically possible, but so far, so good. That's right. And I wouldn't fold it into your plans. It's more of an intellectual curiosity. It's one of these things where we've learned something totally new about the universe, right? That there's this weird field out there that has a little bit of tension in it,

and that tension is what gives our universe, particular flavor that we're used to. And so we've learned that about the universe. And so we've learned sort of that we were like floating on this magma, right, that maybe our lives are more precarious than we thought. On the other hand, the Earth's been around a long time, right? And while there are a few volcanic eruptions now and then, people get gobbled by lava, mostly you can go around your existence

and not worry about sinking into a lake of lava. And that's basically what you need to do here is not worry that the universe is going to get destroyed by particle physicists or cartoonists. Or if it does happen, it will be over at the speed of light. So why worry about that? It won't be painful either way. Yeah. Also, just as a reminder that if you are curious to know the universe has ended,

there's always a website you can check, right, Daniel? That's right. It's has the LHC destroyed the world yet? Dot com? And it's always kept up to date, we promise. All right. Well, I think this all points to, again, just the idea of how precarious our universe is, you know?

how lucky and how amazing it is that we are even here able to talk about these things and explain them to you guys out there. That's right. So you should enjoy that ice cream. You should take a deep breath of that fresh air. You should listen to your favorite podcast. And you should enjoy the universe because we don't know how long it'll continue. But as we keep learning more and more about the universe,

we discover amazing, crazy things about it. And some of those things are a little bit scary. So go out there and live life. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. And please don't destroy the universe before the next podcast. Were you saying that to other people or to yourself?

It's sort of a mental note. A mental note. I see a sticky on your chest there. Wait until the next podcast to destroy the universe. But I think it applies generally, so I think it's good advice for everyone to follow. 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. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness.

I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the powerful stories I'll be mining on our upcoming 12th season of Family Secret. We continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From tips for healthy living to the latest medical breakthroughs, WebMD's Health Discovered podcast keeps you up to date on today's most important health issues. Through in-depth conversations with experts from across the health care community, WebMD reveals how today's health news will impact. impact your life tomorrow. It's not that people don't know that exercise is healthy. It's just that people don't know why it's healthy. And we're struggling to try to help people help themselves

and each other. Listen to WebMD Health Discovered on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denials easier complex problem solving takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts this is an iHeart podcast