Why… Anything? With Harry Cliff

Summary

StarTalk Radio Episode Summary: "Why… Anything? With Harry Cliff"

Released on January 21, 2025, "StarTalk Radio" hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson delves deep into the enigmatic world of particle physics in its episode titled "Why… Anything? With Harry Cliff." Joined by co-host Chuck Nice and guest astrophysicist Harry Cliff from the University of Cambridge, the episode offers listeners an engaging exploration of the fundamental particles that constitute our universe, the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, and the ongoing quest to understand the matter-antimatter asymmetry.

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1. Welcome and Introduction of Harry Cliff

The episode kicks off shortly after the initial advertisements, with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice introducing Harry Cliff, a particle physicist actively working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva (03:04). Chuck Nice humorously refers to Harry as a "quark man," setting the tone for a lively and informative discussion.

2. Exploring the Fundamental Particles and the Standard Model

Harry Cliff provides an overview of the current understanding of fundamental particles, emphasizing the Standard Model of particle physics. He outlines the known 17 particles, including the six quarks—up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom (also referred to as beauty)—and their roles within atomic structures (03:18, 04:28).

Notable Quote:

Harry Cliff: "It's kind of like we have these Lego bricks in our set, but we don't understand why we have these particular pieces." (07:13)

The conversation highlights the elegance and limitations of the Standard Model, noting that while it successfully describes a multitude of phenomena, it falls short in explaining dark matter and dark energy.

3. The Enigma of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

Delving into the dark sector, the hosts discuss dark matter—a mysterious substance that does not emit or absorb light but exerts gravitational effects on visible matter. Harry explains ongoing experiments aimed at detecting dark matter particles directly through interactions with xenon atoms in deep underground laboratories (44:16).

When addressing dark energy, Harry elucidates the concept of vacuum energy and the colossal discrepancy between theoretical predictions and observed values:

Notable Quote:

Harry Cliff: "If you take the idea was that maybe dark energy is all the kind of quantum fluctuations that's left over in these fields in the vacuum. But if you run the numbers you find, you get an answer that is 10 to the power 120 times too big." (07:54)

This revelation underscores the 120-order magnitude problem, highlighting the tension between quantum field theories and cosmological observations.

4. Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry and CP Violation

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the matter-antimatter asymmetry problem—the observation that the universe is predominantly composed of matter, with little evidence of antimatter. Harry introduces the concept of CP violation (Charge Parity violation), a necessary condition outlined by Andrei Sakharov to explain this imbalance (20:33).

Notable Quote:

Harry Cliff: "So there are B mesons that... oscillate backwards and forwards between matter and antimatter. And you measure the difference to see if the symmetry is violated." (24:07)

Despite experimental evidence of CP violation in particles like B mesons, the current models do not account for the magnitude required to explain the universe's composition, leaving the door open for new physics beyond the Standard Model.

5. Quantum Field Theory vs. Quantum Gravity

The discussion transitions to the interplay between Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and Quantum Gravity. Harry emphasizes that while QFT remains the "gold standard" for describing particle interactions, theories like String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity—which attempt to unify gravity with quantum mechanics—have yet to make testable predictions (30:25).

Notable Quote:

Harry Cliff: "Quantum gravity theories... have no bearing on any experiments that we do in high energy particle physics at the LHC." (30:24)

This highlights the current divide in physics, where the quest for a unified framework continues to face significant challenges.

6. Audience Questions and Engaging Discussions

The latter half of the episode features cosmic queries from listeners, addressing topics such as:

• Identification of Antimatter: Exploring how antimatter is detected and distinguished from matter through annihilation signatures and experiments like CERN's Alpha project (45:37).

  Notable Quote:

  Harry Cliff: "Every particle of a certain species is absolutely identical and indistinguishable. That's fundamental to our understanding of particle physics and quantum theory." (33:17)

• Tachyons and Faster-Than-Light Particles: Debunking the existence of hypothetical particles like tachyons, which would violate causality if they existed (41:10).

• Relativity and High-Energy Collisions: Discussing how Special Relativity influences particle lifespans in accelerators and addressing fears about creating microscopic black holes at the LHC (37:15).

• Dark Matter on Earth: Clarifying that while dark matter permeates the galaxy and passes through us, detecting it requires specialized experiments beyond particle accelerators (44:16).

Notable Interaction:

Harry Cliff: "The universe has been doing this experiment for billions of years where we have protons that hit the upper atmosphere much higher in energy than the LHC. So if this was possible, every object in the universe would have been turned into a black hole." (40:35)

7. Conclusion and Future Directions

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the profound questions and the continuous pursuit of knowledge in particle physics. Harry Cliff's insights shed light on both the triumphs and the unresolved mysteries that drive scientific inquiry forward.

Notable Quote:

Harry Cliff: "Scientists love things we don't understand. That's how science makes progress. And that's what the book's about. It's about all these, like, weird little effects that could be nothing or they could be the clue to something really big." (49:26)

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Key Takeaways:

• The Standard Model effectively describes fundamental particles but is incomplete, especially concerning dark matter and dark energy.
• CP violation is a crucial phenomenon that may explain the matter-antimatter imbalance, yet current theories fall short of accounting for the observed asymmetry.
• Quantum Gravity remains an elusive goal, with theories like String Theory yet to provide testable predictions compatible with current experiments.
• Dark Matter Detection requires specialized equipment and remains one of the foremost challenges in modern astrophysics and particle physics.

This episode of StarTalk not only demystifies complex topics in particle physics but also underscores the vastness of our ignorance, inspiring listeners to appreciate the intricate beauty of the universe and the relentless human quest to unravel its secrets.

Transcript

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Chuck Nice]

We'll give you four free 5G phones and four lines for only $25 per line per month with eligible trade ins. And no, it's not a contest. It's every day for a limited time. Everyone's a winner on America's largest 5G network. Minimum of 4 lines for 25 per line per month with auto pay discount using debit or bank account. $5 more per line without autopay. Up to $830 off each phone via 24 monthly bill credits plus taxes, fees and $10 device connection charge. 4 well qualified customers contact us before canceling entire account to continue build credits or stop and balance on required finance agreement too bill credits and if you pay UP devices early ct mobile.com Chuck loved me some particle physics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, who doesn't?

[Chuck Nice]

It's foundational to the world.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

And I foresee a day where you walk into your kitchen and they're all just the particles of the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Aw.

[Chuck Nice]

And you just take whatever you want.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What you need, and make whatever you want. And make whatever you want. That's cool. And I foresee a day where we will end this matter anti matter feud.

[Chuck Nice]

In the octagon. Coming up. All you ever thought you'd care about in the realm of particle physics on StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. Gil DeGrasse Tyson here. You're a personal astrophysicist, Chuck. Nice there.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hey, man. What's happening?

[Chuck Nice]

Can I say you're their personal comedian?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do not involve yourself with me on a personal basis at all.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Take it back. Take it back. Today is going to be a cosmic queries.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

But not after we learned some stuff.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And it's good stuff.

[Chuck Nice]

It's good stuff.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. All right.

[Chuck Nice]

It's going to be on particle physics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow. I didn't know it was going to be that good.

[Chuck Nice]

You know, I know a little bit about particles, particle physics, but I'm not an expert.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

So anytime we hit this kind of impasse. Right. Got to bring in the expert.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right on.

[Chuck Nice]

And where's sort of best particle physics in the world happening?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The collider.

[Chuck Nice]

Of the collider. That's a start. Okay. Yeah, it'll be a collider. That's where it's going to happen. We've got someone who's worked at cern, right. In Geneva.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And he's a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge in the uk. Oh dear. Help me. Welcome Harry. Cliff, Harry. Welcome to StarTalk, Harry.

[Harry Cliff]

Great to talk to you. Thanks for having me.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. So you worked with the Large Hadron Collider, which is one of the experiments of cern. And what did you do? What was your role with that?

[Harry Cliff]

Well, I still work on it, actually. So the LHC is this massive 19 mile ring buried underground. And there are actually four experiments on the ring. So these four places where we smash particles together. And I work on one of them, which is called lhcb. And the B stands for beauty, which is a type of particle that we're interested in studying. So I still work there. I analyze data, look for places where our current theory might break down, although we haven't found any yet, which is a bit frustrating. Although we're getting some hints. That's the general job. It's going through loads and loads of data trying to find places where we're seeing new effects we've not seen before.

[Chuck Nice]

But beauty, that's not one of the names on one of the quarks, is it?

[Harry Cliff]

It is, yeah. Yeah. So there are these six quarks that make up. Well, two of them make up the nucleus of the at, and then there are four others and they have weird names. So the first two that were found after the original two were called strange and Charm. And then the last two, there was this disagreement about what to call them. Some people wanted to call them truth and beauty, which is really lovely and poetic, but in the end, most physicists call them top and bottom, which is a little bit boring. But because we work on these particles, we study these bee quarks, we rather be known as beauty physicists than bottom physicists. So for us at least it's beauty.

[Chuck Nice]

It's got my vote. Yeah, beauty, yeah, Truth and beauty.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I gotta say though, I just think, you know, top and bottom might be a bit more interesting in some respects.

[Chuck Nice]

It's a family show. Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right.

[Chuck Nice]

And Harry, you left off the up and down quark. So completing the family of six quarks. So we get up and down.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Up and down.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, that's right.

[Chuck Nice]

Strange and charmed.

[Harry Cliff]

Yep.

[Chuck Nice]

Truth and beauty, top and bottom. That's it.

[Harry Cliff]

Top and bottom. Exactly. That's right. That's right. Six as far as we know. Maybe there's more, but we've only found six.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, so you're a quark man. We gotta love the quark people. And I delighted just cause I reach the public often that you've written two popular level books. I love it. And I'm looking at the title of your first one, how to make an Apple Pie from Scratch. In Search for the Recipe of Our Universe. Oh, wow. That evokes something Carl Sagan said in 1980 Cosmos.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

He said, how do you make an apple pie? And he says, start with the Big Bang. Did that inspire this title?

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That scene, I think it's episode five where he's sitting in. He's actually sitting in Cambridge in Trinity College and this apple pie is brought out to him. And he looks at the camera with a little twinkle in his eye and says, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. And then he kind of goes up to talk about how the atoms in the apple pie were made inside stars. So it's kind of like. It's quite a well known phrase in physics. It came up like during my university education. So it was kind of. I thought it was a neat way of talking about, you know, what the universe is made from. But through the lens of trying to find out how you make an apple pie, but a really complicated recipe.

[Chuck Nice]

Let's get down to basics.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I was going to say. I mean, I'm going to be honest though, it's a. It's a long walk around the block to get to an apple pie from.

[Chuck Nice]

The starting of the universe.

[Harry Cliff]

Good things take a while, you know, but it's cool. 14.8 billion words.

[Chuck Nice]

But I'm especially delighted by your recently published book. I love this title, Space Oddities. That's very David Bowie of you. Space Oddity.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Space Oddities.

[Chuck Nice]

In fact, that was his first hit. Did you know this? David Bowie's first hit was Space Oddity? Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Ground control to Major.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

To Major. Tom.

[Chuck Nice]

That's what put him on the map. That's the title. The subtitle is the Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ooh. Ooh. Interesting.

[Chuck Nice]

And it's based on that, that we solicited questions from our audience, from our Patreon supporters. We'll get to those in a minute. But I want to first extract more physics out of you. Tell us more about our inventory of fundamental particles. Are we there yet?

[Harry Cliff]

If we're there, I'll be out of a job. So I really hope there's more. We know about 17 particles in total at the moment. So there are the six quarks that we've already talked about, two of which make up the nucleus of the atom. Then there's the electron, which goes around the atom, and the electron also comes in this triplet. There are three electron like particles. The next one's called the muon, and then something called a tau. So that's another three. That gets you to nine. And then there are three neutrinos, these, like, ghostly particles that zip through the universe and through us, and we don't really notice most of the time. So that gives you 12, what we call matter particles in total.

[Chuck Nice]

The neutrinos are related to the three species of electrons, right? So they're kind of.

[Harry Cliff]

Exactly.

[Chuck Nice]

Can we think of them as a family?

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, exactly. So the electron has a partner called the electron neutrino. The muon has its own version neutrino, and the same for the tau. So, yeah, you've got these 12 particles. I mean, that in itself is a mystery because they come in these, like, three copies, these what we call the generations. And we don't know why. It's very mysterious. So it's kind of like we have these Lego bricks in our set, but we don't understand why we have these particular pieces. And then there are the forces. So there are three forces. In our kind of quantum description of the world, we don't include gravity. We don't know how to deal with that yet. But we've got the electromagnetic force, the weak force, and the strong force, and they each have particles. So the photon is the particle of light that goes with electromagnetism, something called a gluon, which is the particle of the strong force that sticks the quarks together. And then the W and Z bosons, which are the particles of the weak force, which is this weird force related to radioactive processes and other things. Sixteen in total. And then the last one, which was found about a decade ago at the lhc, which is the Higgs boson. So that kind of finishes off our 17 particles in what we call the Standard model. But we don't think that's the end of the story. For lots of reasons, mostly to do with astronomy, actually, thanks to you and your colleagues discovering this inconvenient stuff out there in the universe called dark matter. So that suggests there must be more stuff that we haven't found yet.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Interesting.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Whatever dark matter is, we have no idea. And maybe these guys will find it in their particle accelerator, right? And if they do, we'd be very happy because right now it's just this term in our equations, right? It's like.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But we know it's something.

[Chuck Nice]

Something's there, something's there. So we throw it in the equation, right? And let somebody else figure out what.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What does something there. What about dark energy, though? Because that's not a particle.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, we don't. Well, we don't know. Harry.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Harry. I'm gonna throw this one over to you, Harry.

[Harry Cliff]

I mean. Yeah, no, we have no idea, right? We have absolutely no idea. I think it's fair to say. I mean, this is. When particle physicists try to talk about dark energy, things go really badly wrong. So I should be careful. But there was this original. Well, the idea. One idea for what dark energy is, is what we call vacuum energy. So it's the energy left over an empty space once you've taken away everything else, all the atoms and all the partic particles. And in particle physics, the actual truth is that particles aren't really the fundamental ingredients of the universe. They are actually made of something more fundamental, which is called a quantum field. So for all of these 17 particles we talked about, there is a corresponding field. And the particles are actually like little vibrations in that field. They're like ripples in an ocean, if you like. So those fields, even when you've got rid of all the particles, they're still there in the vacuum. And if you take the idea was that maybe dark energy is all the kind of quantum fluctuations that's left over in these fields in the vacuum. But if you run the numbers you find, you get an answer that is 10 to the power 120 times too big. So that's 10 with a 120 zeros at the end, which is a ludicrously enormous number. If it was that big, the universe would be ripped apart in an instant. So we have no idea what's going on, really, from a particle physics point of view.

[Chuck Nice]

So it's the biggest discrepancy ever between a theory and an observation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

However, couldn't there also be something else? Since we don't know what that is, couldn't there be something else that's tamping that the tamping the field so that it isn't ripping.

[Chuck Nice]

Now you're just making stuff up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I mean, but I mean, that's just. That's just as feasible as a field.

[Harry Cliff]

I mean, no, you're dead right. Like, this is what theorists do. They go, okay, this number's crazy. So let's add in another number, another thing that cancels out. That's exactly what people try to do. So, you know, you could be a theoretical particle physicist.

[Chuck Nice]

This is just perhaps semantics, but of your 16 particles, plus the Higgs boson and minus the three force carriers, so that takes us down to 13, I think. Do you count their antimatter versions of those particles as separate particles?

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, I mean, you can multiply that number many times. So, like the quarks, for example, the version of electric charge for the strong force is called color. And whereas with electric charge, there's only one type of electric charge, in the strong force, there are three. They're called red, green, and blue. So you get red quarks, green quarks, and blue quarks, bizarrely. So that means actually there aren't six quarks, there are 18. If you add in the anti quarks, that gives you 36. So you can go up to like crazy numbers if you take all these things into account. But basically, the antiparticles, they exist in the same field. So you have your electron field, an electron or an anti electron are just different sorts of vibrations. But in the same fields, we tend to just count that as one thing, not two, because if you start doing that, it gets mad.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, interesting. Clarify that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We were talking about the lifespan of particles before the show, and you mentioned offline. We have lifespan offline, and you mentioned that you measured a particle. I don't.

[Chuck Nice]

It's for his PhD thesis.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

For your PhD thesis, measured a particle. And the last. Its. Its lifespan was one trillionth of a second. And you said that that was relatively long.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, I mean, there are only a couple of very privileged particles that live forever. There's the electron that we think lives forever, and the proton that lives forever. Everything else decays eventually. Even like the neutron. If you have a neutron floating about in space, it will decay in about 15 minutes. So as you get heavier and heavier, particles tend to decay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Interesting.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, 15 minutes, that's it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

If you break off a neutron and set it free 15 minutes later, it just goes. It goes.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, it turns into a proton and an anti. You tell me, what are the decay products of a neutron?

[Harry Cliff]

It turns into a proton, an Electron and an antineutrino. You get three things out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ah, gotcha.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, and here's something cool. I want to show off the little bit of particle physics I know.

[Harry Cliff]

Okay?

[Chuck Nice]

You hear what he said, right? Your neutron becomes a proton, an electron, and an anti neutrino. Okay? Now watch the kind of particle the neutron is. You can end up with something that isn't that kind of particle when you're done. Okay, These conservation laws. It's okay for the neutron to become a proton, but wait a minute. The proton has a plus one charge, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So now you gotta.

[Chuck Nice]

Something's gotta cancel that out. Cancel that out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gotta cancel that out.

[Chuck Nice]

We cancel that with a what?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, the proton has a. Oh, the. Oh, wait, wait, the proton. So it's a proton plus one, plus one.

[Chuck Nice]

Who's got a minus one?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's electron.

[Chuck Nice]

Electron.

[Harry Cliff]

Boom.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Boom.

[Chuck Nice]

He said electron. So those cancel. We're good. However, we now have an electron that's a kind of particle that we didn't start with. We gotta undo the fact that we now have an electron.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ah'cause you gotta need the conservation.

[Chuck Nice]

You gotta conservation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So now how do you get rid.

[Chuck Nice]

Of the fact that you now have an electron and the electron is paired up with these neutrinos and What'd he say? You not only get the electron, you get the antineutrino. Antineutrino canceling out the electron.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now that's a great way to balance this out. But my question is, do these things. Are these things actually here or are you just saying, okay, we need this to cancel it out?

[Chuck Nice]

Well, take us there?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Were these hypotheses that we require of the universe, or were these observations that the universe requires of us? Ooh, that was a good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That was a good one.

[Chuck Nice]

Thank you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

[Harry Cliff]

Well, I mean, I guess it goes back to 1896. So Henri Becquerel, French physicist, famously discovered radioactivity in his lab when he left these uranium salts on top of a piece of photographic paper. And he saw that even when there was like a bit of card in between the salt and the paper, the photographic film got exposed. So that was what. What he was seeing there were protons, were neutrons decaying into protons, basically, that the radiation that was being emitted by those uranium salts. So we kind of knew about this process. It was called beta decay back in those days. And then Ernest Rutherford and others studied it in the late 19th century. So we kind of knew about this process way before we even knew what a neutron was. That took another 40 years or so. So the phenomena appeared first and it took a lot longer to actually figure out what was going on.

[Chuck Nice]

The beta particle was the electron. Correct?

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, exactly. That's right. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Because at the time, we didn't know about neutrons. Neutrons would come. We didn't know about neutrons until 1930. So we had to have clumsy other language to account for this. Okay, yeah. So you're saying that the universe is requiring it of us to recognize these properties and they become rather helpful. Correct. In calculations you do and predictions you make.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, I mean, the whole subject of particle physics is kind of built on this idea of mathematical symmetry, these symmetries that are either respected or broken and that generates this very powerful mathematical description of the universe. And I mean, this, like this way of looking at the world is extraordinarily successful. To give you an example, how amazing this theory is, one, there's one quantity that we can. One example of a quantity you can use to calculate is that the magnetism of the electrons, the electron, as well as having an electric charge, it behaves like a little magnet and emits a magnetic field. And you can calculate how strong that little magnet should be to one part, I think now 10 billion. And if you do an experiment, a really, really precise experiment, you get the same number to 10 decimal places, which is crazy. So this kind of way of looking at the world is incredibly powerful. But at the same time, we know we're massively missing something because we don't know what dark matter is or dark energy or any of this other stuff. So it's this amazingly successful theory, but also incomplete.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, it's. You know enough about the universe to quantify your ignorance.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I'm going to say, yeah, without a doubt. Anything you get to 10, 10 places, you, you, you pretty much nailed it.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, you nailed it. On January 24, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh takes command.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gather your people.

[Harry Cliff]

We're gonna need every one of them.

[Chuck Nice]

In Section 31, a new Star Trek.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Original movie on Paramount. Plus, Section 31 is just a place.

[Harry Cliff]

For people to bend the rules. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder. What a cute idea. This is chaos.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let's get messy.

[Chuck Nice]

Don't miss the worldwide premiere of Star Trek Section 31 streaming January 24th exclusively.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

On Paramount +.

[Chuck Nice]

This episode is brought.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Harry Cliff]

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Harry Cliff]

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm Jasmine Wilson and I.

[Chuck Nice]

Support Start Talk on Patreon.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is Start Talk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[Chuck Nice]

Let's go to our questions now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You got it.

[Chuck Nice]

By the way, they were our Patreon supporters. These are patrons of StarTalk. Yes, they are occasionally solicited for questions they might have specifically tuned for the guest. So you're not in studio with us, you're coming to us from London. But that doesn't matter to the questioners. They don't care where you are.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, here we go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's what you got, Chuck, he says hi. StarTalk team Andrew here from Cork City, Ireland, Dr. Cliff, can you please explain how your research on CP violation in B. Mason contributes to our understanding of the matter antimatter asymmetry in the universe? Thanks a million.

[Chuck Nice]

I like that. Let me tee this up, okay? Because I can do the astronomy part of this and then he can go in to the particle physics part of it. Right? So you look in the early universe, you have matter and there's energy there. And matter and energy we know are equivalent, right? And from this, from this bath of energy, it can spontaneously make particles. And if you do that, the laws of symmetry of the universe say the particles are matter antimatter pairs. Because it came out of nothing, you gotta be able to come back together and be nothing again.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And be nothing again.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, so you got the. And this is just going on, right? Okay. But at some point, the universe, out of this soup of energy, created one extra matter particle for every hundred million Particles that it made. And so in the dance off, all the pairs go away.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that's annihilation. Annihilation.

[Harry Cliff]

Annihilation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Annihilation.

[Chuck Nice]

And there's one person left. He's got nobody to annihilate with. That is everything we know and love in this universe that we call matter.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So wait a minute. All matter?

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. From that one.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All matter? Yes.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes. Everything else is a photon. Everything else turned into energy from this leftover.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just the one out of 100 million.

[Chuck Nice]

Playing musical chairs in a musical chair. Everybody pairs off and they're happy. And then you think everybody's paired. And then one person is left, and there's no one to pair it with evermore.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And that makes up everything, all the.

[Chuck Nice]

Matter that we love and know in this universe. So, Harry, why did you do this?

[Harry Cliff]

I mean, I wish I could claim responsibility for the existence of the universe. Well, I mean, yeah, this is a big problem, as you say, because, like, we see this in experiments when we bang particles together at the Large Hadron Collider, you always see equal numbers of particles and antiparticles being made. So this is what happens. So the question is, how did you get this asymmetry? And there was a Russian physicist back in the 70s, I think, called Andrei Sakharov, who came up with three conditions that had to be satisfied to allow matter to win this battle with antimatter in the early universe. The first one pretty obviously is you need a process that makes more particles than antiparticles. That's number one. The second one, though, is this condition known as CP violation. So CP stands for charge parity, which is a sort of symmetry that relates matter to antimatter. It's kind of like a mirror. If you put matter in the CP mirror, it shows up as antimatter. So what we're looking for are processes that violate this symmetry and these B mesons that the questioner asked about. So these are particles which contain a beauty quark and another quark. So paired up with an antiquark, usually. And there are a particular type of these particles that do this really weird dance where you create one of these B mesons. And as it travels through your experiment, it oscillates backwards and forwards between matter and antimatter. So it will flip its identity with this very nice sort of periodic way. And what you then do is you watch how often does it decay in the matter state and how often does it decay in the antimatter state, and you measure the difference. And if you see a difference that tells you that the laws of the universe violate this CP symmetry, this symmetry between matter and antimatter. So this is the kind of key ingredient, one of the key ingredients we need to explain this mystery.

[Chuck Nice]

The universe has the power to violate its own laws by this process.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, exactly. So this was first discovered, I don't know, back in the 80s originally. And we're studying it in lots of different particles now. So we know that this CPU symmetry is broken, which is a good thing, because if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here. But the mystery is our current. The particles we know about don't break it enough. So the symmetry is very. Is only very slightly broken. And we need way more of this symmetry breaking to explain the fact that we exist and the universe is there to look at.

[Chuck Nice]

I didn't know we had any mechanism at all to break the symmetry. I'm. Cockles are warmed by this knowledge.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, next question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That is fascinating stuff.

[Chuck Nice]

Good one.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, this is Saren Sauron, Sarkar, friend of ours. Is matter antimatter asymmetry the cause for the Big Bang? We just talked about it. But could that. I mean, are you gonna make a Big Bang, man? In your. In your.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, yeah. What are you hiding from us?

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Astrophysically, it happens much later than the formation of the universe. But with your Large Hadron Collider, you are probing the conditions that would have prevailed at the Big Bang itself or very close to the very beginning. So do you think that this. I'm rewording this question, that this matter antimatter asymmetry would have mattered before it otherwise mattered astrophysically in the universe?

[Harry Cliff]

I mean, it's not. We don't really know when the process that broke this symmetry happened. It could have. So the lhc, as you say, is kind of recreating the conditions of the Big Bang, and we're probing conditions that existed about a trillionth of a second after time zero, if there was ever such a thing. So that's kind of where we are. And there is a possibility that that was the moment. It's all actually related to the Higgs boson. There was this thing that happened about a trillionth of a second into the universe's existence called electroweak symmetry breaking, which is basically where the Higgs field, which gives mass to the particles that we're made from, switched on for the first time. And that reset the laws of. Well, reset the basic ingredients of the universe, set the form of the forces, and it was a sort of a transition, a bit like Water boiling. It's like a kind of like a change of state, but a change of state of the vacuum itself. And that. That may have been the moment which created more mass than antimatter. And that's why we're doing. One of the reasons we built the LHC is to recreate those conditions to see if we see that process happening.

[Chuck Nice]

These phase transitions. You said water boiling. Going from just regular water to boiling or even freezing. Right? Water going. It's water completely changing its state. And you now use this vocabulary sort of loosely in the early universe, or maybe literally, the universe is changing its state of existence. Are you just saying, if it's gonna happen anywhere, that's where it's gonna happen? Cause that's where there's some serious action going down. Down the pipe.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, I mean, it's. Well, theoretically, you can. When you do the. You sort of figure out what this event looked like under certain conditions. You find in the equations of the Standard Model that you can make more particles than antiparticles in certain. This phase transition has to happen in a very particular way, and you actually need more particles than exist in the Standard Model. So the Standard Model, on its own can't do it, but the Standard Model, plus some other things can do it. But it's also possible it happened earlier. So we're talking, like, you know, not a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, but a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. So you're getting closer to time zero.

[Chuck Nice]

That helps me become more accepting of the fact that you can blame these transitions, you can blame all the weird oddities that are going on on these transitional moments in the universe. Right. I mean, because that's where stuff is going down. Right. Okay, excellent. Time for a couple more. What else you got?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, you know, I'm gonna go to Magnus. Here says, Magnus, I am Magnus, son to a fallen father, husband to a murdered wife. I am Magnus, and I shall have my revenge. Okay, I'm sorry, did that just come out of you? Yeah, I don't know. Just sounds like what you should say. Well, your name is Magnus.

[Chuck Nice]

Magnus name is Magn. You know, that is clearly the plight of Magnus.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. He says, my respects, Dr. Cliff. May you describe the link as you see it, between A, quantum field theory as the gold standard of the Standard Model until now, a perfect description of our current knowledge, B, various versions of quantum gravity, that is string theory and loop quantum gravity, which depend on the ADS CFT duality, with or without background Dependency. And just to add, I'm a Swede in Switzerland. Confusing. No. All right, okay. So how it's only confusing to Americans. Okay, Magnus, because.

[Chuck Nice]

So what is that question? I don't get the question. Go ahead. So, Harry, did you follow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Did you follow the question?

[Harry Cliff]

I think so. I think they were asking about, well, the relationship between quantum field theory, which is the language of the standard model, the language of particle physics and string theory, and loop quantum gravity. I mean, I think that was the question. I mean, what I would say is that I am really under qualified to talk about quantum gravity. Not my area. I think the. But what I would say is that quantum gravity theories, they say very little about particle physics at the moment. So, you know, string theory, loop quantum gravity, whatever your favorite flavor of quantum gravity theory is, it has no bearing on any experiments that we do do in high energy particle physics at the lhc. And one of the big problems with these theories is they don't really make testable predictions so far. So I would love it if string theorists or someone else come along and say, if string theory is right, you can do this experiment at a collider and you'll see this. But so far, that hasn't happened. So really, quantum field theory is the kind of gold standard. It's the theory that works. Maybe it'll be replaced by one of these theories later, but I think we're away. Aways from that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Interesting.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, so what he says is he doesn't care about gravity.

[Harry Cliff]

I'd love to include gravity. I'd love it, but it's a hard problem currently.

[Chuck Nice]

What is our best understanding of the most things going on in the universe? Is it just sort of quantum field theory? Is that what gives us the best understanding of everything and maybe we'll just have to modify that? Or is there something else ready to take over? All of it waiting in the wings, an umbrella to it all?

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, I mean, as you know, like in modern physics, we have these two pillars of which describe pretty much everything in physics, which are quantum field theory, on the one hand, which describes particles, quantum mechanics, you know, all that stuff. And then we have gravity, on the other hand, and general relativity, which is a classical theory, a non quantum theory. And so you have these two separate theories, but they. They actually don't really overlap with each other. I mean, the only places where you would see quantum gravitational effects are at the center of black holes or at the very earliest moments of the Big bang, these really extreme conditions. For everything else, these two separate theories work perfectly well. So and that's kind of the problem, actually, because the only place you get evidence for quantum gravity are in these really extreme conditions, which we're way, way away from being able to recreate in the laboratory. So that's what makes it very difficult.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Cool, man.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. All right, give me another.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Here's another one. This is Friedrich Johansson who says, hello, Friedrich here from Northern Sweden.

[Chuck Nice]

You Friedrich from up in the hood, right?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hello, Friedrich here from Detroit. So he says, friedrich here from Northern Sweden. Do all fundamental particles of a type have exactly the same mass? And how can we know that?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, I love that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a really cool question.

[Chuck Nice]

I love that. So are all particles of any species identical in every way to the limits of all measurements?

[Harry Cliff]

I mean. Well, because you can measure it, right? So, yeah, every electron is exactly the same as every other electron. Every proton is exactly the same as every other proton. And the reason is, well, protons are a bad example, actually. But say electrons. The electrons are actually made of this thing called the electron field, which is invisible fluid like thing. It's all throughout the universe. And every electron is a little ripple in this same field. And as a result, when you hit the electron field, you make an electron. You make the same type of thing everywhere. So that's why they're identical. I mean, you can always argue that every electron is the same thing. It's part of the same object. So every particle of a certain species is absolutely identical and indistinguishable. And that's really fundamental, actually, to our understanding of particle physics and quantum theory.

[Chuck Nice]

Is it a Borg like that?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, that is the Borg.

[Chuck Nice]

All the members of the Borg. They're not individual, conscious wise. They're all. They're all one.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They're all one entity.

[Harry Cliff]

Although electrons don't come along and try and turn you into an electron.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right?

[Chuck Nice]

You're the Star Trek geek.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I am Locutus. Of electrons, resistance is futile.

[Chuck Nice]

But part of the question was, how do you know? Because you haven't measured every electron in the universe. And you're saying you know enough about the field to know that there's only one kind of particle it can make in that case, and therefore you're gonna get the electron every single time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That is really cool.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Harry Cliff]

We're gonna need every one of them.

[Chuck Nice]

In second section 31, a new Star.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Trek original movie on Paramount.

[Harry Cliff]

Section 31 is just a place for people to bend the rules. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder. What a cute idea. This is chaos.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Let's get messy.

[Chuck Nice]

Don't miss the worldwide premiere of Star Trek Section 31, streaming January 24th exclusively on Paramount. If you have a locked AT&T phone, we're here with bolt cutters. T Mobile will help pay off your locked phone and give you a new.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Chuck Nice]

All on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com carrierfreedom Be a virtual prepaid MasterCard in 15 days. Free phone up to $830 via 24 monthly bill credits plus tax and a $10 device connection charge. Qualifying port in trade and service on Go5G next and credit required. Contact us before canceling entire account. To continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on required finance agreements. Deal bill credits and if you pay off devices early.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This is Yazan Al Hajari and he says cheers from New Jersey.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm Yaz, an artist and filmmaker studying relativity. I'm fascinated by how Einstein's theory is applied to the Large Hadron Collider, where particles approach the speed of light. Dr. Cliff, could you explain how relativity shapes our understanding of these high energy collisions and whether it might someday be possible to safely create a small black hole somewhere in the collider? And Neil, if that were possible, would you like to throw Something into that black hole.

[Chuck Nice]

Totally. Oh, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

We can make it like an amusement park game. Hit the black hole, and then just disappears into the singularity. That question reminds me of earlier in our conversation. So, Harry, you studied particles that decayed in a trillionth of a second. It seems to me that can be a trillionth of a second only at a certain speed, because the faster a particle goes, the longer it would take to decay because its timeframe is shifted relative to the observer. So you can't just declare a trillionth of a second without specifying a speed. Or is that particle at rest?

[Harry Cliff]

So that trillionth of a second is from the particle's point of view. So in the frame of the particle. So the particle's at rest, basically. So if you were the particle, you'd live a trillionth of a second. But from our point of view in the lab, as you say, these things are going close to the speed of light, so they live way longer. So they actually will travel. They live long enough because of this relativistic time dilation to fly a centimeter or so in the experiment, which, if they just live a trillionth a second, they wouldn't go anywhere near that far. So you're absolutely right. I mean, like relativity, special relativity, I should say, is fundamental to colliders, because what they basically do is they are E mc2 machines. They take E energy, kinetic energy, in these accelerated particles, they bang them together, and they make m. They make new particles, new matter, effectively. So it's absolutely fundamental to what we're doing. But the question about black holes, that's really general relativity. And there were some ideas back when the LHC switched on that if there were extra dimensions of space, so extra directions that you can move in, that it would be possible to create microscopic black holes at the lhc. And. And this led to a load of tabloid stories about the LHC is going to create a black hole, it's going to swallow Geneva and then swallow the rest of the planet, and we're all going to disappear. And so this caused such, like, a big storm in the pretty. The British tabloid press actually really got hold of this story. CERN had to create this health and safety report, which is the most exciting risk assessment you'll ever read. And it basically describes these various hazards, one of which is like a black hole that swallows the Earth. The other is the creation of a bubble universe that expands to destroy the entire of reality. So they had this risk assessment where the destruction of the universe was one of the possible outcomes, and they Basically said, this is very unlikely to happen. And so it's all fine.

[Chuck Nice]

It's unlikely.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And you still got money they gave you. They still let you do it.

[Harry Cliff]

Well, no one's going to sue you if you destroy the planet. Right?

[Chuck Nice]

He's already thought this, I am telling you. So there's a YouTube video before. Before the Large Hadroid Collider was turned on, but there was a countdown to it. There's a YouTube video of the parking lot outside of CERN, and you have the clock counting down, and then it gets to zero, and then the parking.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Lot falls in on itself.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow. The whole. It's pretty funny. Terrifying.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. I was gonna say it's funny if you're an astrophysicist. For the rest of us, it's not funny.

[Harry Cliff]

I should say there is a reason why we knew this wasn't going to happen, and that's because the universe has been doing this experiment for billions of years where we have protons that hit the upper atmosphere much higher in energy than the lhc. So if this was possible, every object in the universe would have been turned into a black hole. So we kind of knew for that reason that it wasn't going to happen.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right.

[Chuck Nice]

Right. There's no greater particle accelerator than the universe itself.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Than the universe itself.

[Chuck Nice]

Ooh, look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right. All right. This is Viper, who says hello. Dr. Tyson, Dr. Cliff Lord. N. I am Sam from O'Fallon, Missouri. I am 16 and have been wondering about tachyons for a few years now. I would like to see some tachyons. I would like to know more about them, and if you guys can go into more depth explaining what is the deal with tachyon? Oh, wow.

[Harry Cliff]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Harry Cliff]

I mean, well, all I really know about tachyons is they're hypothetical particles that travel faster than light. But I don't think they're allowed to exist because they would violate causality. This idea that, like, one event leads to another and not the other way around. So they are. I think there are things you can kind of cook up in your equations, but they're basically forbidden. They turn up in Star Trek, I think, or like, you know, science fiction as a way of, like, facilitating time travel, but all the time. But I don't think that they're things that can exist in reality. But maybe Neil may know more about this than me.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, let's see what Merlin has to say about this. Dear Marilyn, what is a tachyon? Rick McFarling, Dallas, Texas. Tachyons are hypothetical particles that travel faster than the speed of light, named for the Greek tachys, meaning swift, where we also get the word tachometer. Einstein's equations of special relativity bestow this particle with an array of bizarre properties. Here are the top five. One, the slowest a tachyon can move is slightly greater than the speed of light. Two, a tachyon can have infinite velocity. Three, when a tachyon loses energy, it speeds up. When it gains energy, it slows down. A tachyon appears to travel backwards in time. For some observers, if you send your friends a message with a tachyon, they can receive the message before you sent it. Tachyons have yet to be detected.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

There you go. And there's the end.

[Harry Cliff]

That'd be useful for those emails that you forget to reply to. Right. That sit in your inbox for weeks. And then if you could send them back in time, that would be amazing.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. And my favorite tachyon account would be, you see someone walking down the corridor, and then they slip on a banana peel, but he's your friend, and you don't want them to be harmed, so you go to a tachyon texting app. Okay. And you. Cause it's already happened. So you send them a text to say, watch out for the banana peel. So then they get the text before they step on the banana peel.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. So now the person's walking down the corridor, and they get a text, and they look at the text, and it says, watch out for the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And they slip on the banana.

[Chuck Nice]

Because of the nail.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Because of your text.

[Chuck Nice]

Because of your text.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

There it is. Chuck, we got time for one, maybe two more questions.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Actually, let's go with Jonas Dravland. And Jonas says, good morning, Dr. Cliff, Dr. Tyson, and Astro Lord. Nice.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, Jonas, from the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina here. Is there any dark matter in my living room?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or state it more seriously. Is dark matter scattered throughout the universe, or is. Is it all in clumps around distant galaxy clusters? If it is present on Earth, does that allow one to search for it in settings such as your collider, sir?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, I love it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, thank you. Jonas, what a great question.

[Chuck Nice]

When you live in the hills of the Appalachian, you got a lot of time on your hands.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, he's taking hikes and thinking about dark matter, you know.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. So what you got there?

[Harry Cliff]

I mean, there's definitely. There would be dark matter in your living room. Yeah, for sure. Because we. Well, this is actually really astronomy rather than particle physics. But the idea is that every galaxy like our own sits in this big spherical cloud of dark matter. And the galaxy is kind of in the middle of this cloud. So if there are dark matter particles floating around in the galaxy, they're floating through us and through the Earth, and then there'll be a few in the room. It depends on how massive they are as to how many there would actually be. But, yeah, they'd be there. And that doesn't actually help us at the lhc, because at the lhc, we're trying to make them out of energy. But there are other experiments that live down big mine shafts where you have tanks of really cold xenon or other kinds of noble gases, and you wait for a dark matter particle to drift through the Earth, hit a xenon atom in your detector, and create a little flicker of light, and then you directly detect dark matter. So it's a bit like a poltergeist moving, you know, throwing some crockery around in your living room. That's kind of what we're waiting to see. But these detectors are getting more and more and more sensitive. They still haven't seen anything, which is very frustrating. But hopefully one day they'll pick something.

[Chuck Nice]

Last question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, this is David Smith. He says hello, Dr. T, Dr. C. Lord, nice. Dave Smith here, hailing from Naples, Florida.

[Chuck Nice]

Love it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

How do you know you have found anti matter? If antimatter and matter counsel each other out, is it the violence of the interaction, the aftermath, or the moment of ever so slight when you see the matter and anti matter just before their epic confrontation? So he made it into a boxing match like he. Yeah, he's the don.

[Chuck Nice]

King of particles. Particles in the octagon.

[Harry Cliff]

Exactly.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Two particles enter, one particle leaves.

[Chuck Nice]

No, no, in this case, two particles enter. No particles, no particles leave.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ooh, that's a real good fight.

[Chuck Nice]

That's a good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a real good fight. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

An antimatter particle out in the wilderness, can you identify it as such unless you. You then see it annihilate?

[Harry Cliff]

You can, yeah. And actually, the way it was discovered originally was by Carl Anderson, American physicist, back in 1932. So he had this thing called a cloud chamber, which is this amazing instrument that allows you to see individual subatomic particles. They basically create these trails of water droplets as they go through the chamber, which you can see as little traces. And he had one of these chambers at Caltech in California, and he was seeing cosmic rays coming from. From up outer space. And you see electrons, you see protons. And he had magnetic field on his chamber, and he Saw one track that looked just like an electron. It had the same kind of form, but it was bending the wrong direction. So it was an electron with positive charge. And that was that. One photograph was enough for Anderson to say, I've discovered antimatter. But I mean, now at cern, there's a really cool experiment called Alpha, where they actually make atoms of antimatters. They make anti hydrogen and they trap it in a magnetic bottle. So you can't obviously keep it in a bottle because it would annihilate the bottle. But if you have a really strong magnetic field, you can store these things and keep them stored for hours now and then you can shine light on them and look at spectroscopy and do all kinds of really cool stuff. So we can actually kind of effectively store this stuff in very small quantities now.

[Chuck Nice]

So antihydrogen would be an antiproton with an anti electron in orbit around it.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah. If you get a chance to go to cern, you should visit the Alpha experiment because it's awesome.

[Chuck Nice]

And just in all in the interest of disclosure regarding Carl Anderson, the existence of antimatter had just been predicted. Okay, Right. That was Fermi. Correct.

[Harry Cliff]

Dirac. Dirac.

[Chuck Nice]

Dirac. Dirac. Thank you. There was some framework to even be able to interpret that result.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right.

[Chuck Nice]

And there it was. Yeah. Electron doing the opposite. Opposite for its charge. Right. But otherwise it was identical to an electron. Same mass, same everything.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's pretty cool.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, that was very cool. Yeah, very cool.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Who knew I had a twin?

[Chuck Nice]

An evil twin.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

An evil twin. Why does that twin have a goatee? That electron has a goatee. What's going on?

[Chuck Nice]

That's the comic strip, the antimatter comic strip that we need. All right, well, listen, Harry, thank you for being on StarTalk. We love what you're doing and we love how you talk about it. And now that you're in arm's reach, I'd love to come back to you when we have particle physics questions.

[Harry Cliff]

Yeah, I'd be happy to. It was great talking to you. Really good fun.

[Chuck Nice]

Do you have a presence on the Internet? Do you have a handle that people can track you down?

[Harry Cliff]

I do, yeah. You can find me at my website, harrycliffe.co.uk if you want to see what I'm up to. I'm also on Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it HarryVcliffe.

[Chuck Nice]

And your latest book, the Mysterious Anomalies. Space Oddities. The Mysterious Anomalies. Challenging Our Understanding of the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Nice.

[Chuck Nice]

And there aren't many books about what we don't know. And this is just that kind of book. The things that are. That's odd.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What's that? You know what? I could write that book.

[Chuck Nice]

You could write.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I could write a whole book on what? I don't know. I'm telling you right now.

[Harry Cliff]

But, you know, scientists love things we don't understand. That's how science makes progress. And that's what the book's about. It's about all these, like, weird little effects that could be nothing or they could be the clue to something really big. And we're sort of trying to figure that out.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, we're looking forward to Penguin Random House this year.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Big time, buddy. Big time.

[Chuck Nice]

All right, so we're good here. So again, Harry, thanks for joining us. Pleasure, Chuck. Always good to have you, man.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Always a pleasure.

[Chuck Nice]

There's been yet Another installment of StarTalk Cosmic Queries, Particle physics edition. Until next time, Neil Degrasse Tyson here, bidding you to keep looking up.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Skipping cold and flu season is plan A.

[Harry Cliff]

But if you do get sick, be.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Prepared for plan B with Kleenex lotion tissues. Kleenex lotion tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red, irritated skin.

[Chuck Nice]

On top of your cold and flu symptoms.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues. Visit kleenex.com to learn more and buy.

[Chuck Nice]

Now for whatever happens next. Grab Kleenex.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Did you know adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't? From swimming lessons to piano classes.

[Chuck Nice]

As parents, we invest in so many.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Things to enrich our kids lives.

[Chuck Nice]

But how much are we investing in.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids essential skills like earning, saving and investing, giving them the tools for financial confidence.

[Chuck Nice]

This investment costs less than an after.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

School treat at Starbucks. Start prioritizing their financial education today with Greenlight. Invest in their [e-mail] podcast.