DARK vs LIGHT

Summary

The Rest Is Science

Episode: DARK vs LIGHT
Hosts: Professor Hannah Fry & Michael Stevens (Vsauce)
Release Date: May 17, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this witty and wide-ranging episode, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens tackle a listener’s delightfully simple-sounding yet philosophically and scientifically profound question: "Which would win in a fight between black and white?" Across an hour, they interpret the question through the lenses of color perception, fashion, psychology, games, physics, metaphors of good and evil, language, and even evolutionary biology, revealing how even the simplest binaries are layered with nuance.

The core message? Black and white, darkness and light, are locked in an eternal dance, with neither ever truly winning. And the most boring place of all? The undisturbed gray in-between.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Interpreting the Question [03:26]

• Both hosts independently prepared varied interpretations: black and white as physical colors, cultural phenomena, metaphors, and physical forces.
• Michael: “How do you interpret this? What do you mean white and black? Do you mean color, radiation, good and evil?” [03:27]

---

2. Color Popularity & Social Meaning [03:45 – 07:16]

• Color Surveys:
  • Black is more popular than white as a favorite color in most surveyed countries, except China, Malaysia, and Indonesia [03:45].
  • Blue is the overall global favorite.
  • Cultural perceptions differ; white is sometimes seen as a "non-color," merely a blank canvas.
• Fashion:
  • Black dominates in clothing; “Black wins by an absolute country mile,” says Hannah [05:34].
  • Black clothes are more forgiving (slimming, hides stains), seen as cool (goth, heavy metal), and associated with authority (e.g., black belts) [06:12].
• Quotes:
  • Michael: "Black is… a whole style. Whereas white is like, what are you, Gandalf the White? Grow up." [06:19]

---

3. Aggression, Sports, and Psychology [07:16 – 10:27]

• Studies show athletes wearing black uniforms play more aggressively and receive more penalties ([07:16]–[10:27]).
• Referees are also more likely to penalize players in black—so the effect is both psychological (the wearer's behavior) and perceptual (the observer’s bias).
• Black is often associated with power and intimidation: “Players are much naughtier and more aggressive when they’re wearing black.” – Hannah [07:24]

---

4. Games: Chess, Go, and Rainbow Chess [13:04–16:15; 19:55–20:22]

• Chess:
  • White wins 4–10% more often, mainly due to the advantage of moving first [13:18].
  • As Hannah jokes: “Black loses in chess.” [13:04]
• Go:
  • Black moves first and has the advantage, so the two games flip the bias [19:55].
• Rainbow Chess (Michael’s Daughter’s Variant): Playful invention combining randomization and black/white piece mix [14:24].

---

5. Names, Surnames & Cultural Resonance [20:40 – 23:35]

• The surname “White” is far more common than “Black” in English-speaking countries:
  • White: 24th in US; Black: 149th [21:12].
  • Hannah asserts “Hannah Black... it’s cooler.” [21:36]
• Discussion of childhood parental taboos about black shoes, showing color’s deep cultural connotations [21:53–22:44].

---

6. Vehicles and Safety [23:58 – 25:25]

• White cars are more common globally and are safer, statistically less likely to be in a deadly crash compared to black cars [24:11].
• Black wins aesthetic points, but “I’d rather have an unpopular color car than a car that I die in.” – Michael [24:16]

---

7. Music & Keyboards [25:40 – 26:22]

• More white piano keys, but “the only interesting music comes from the black ones,” says Hannah.
• “There are more white keys, but who cares if they’re boring?” [26:09]

---

8. Physics, Cosmology, & The Universe [26:22 – 32:28]

• Olbers’ Paradox: The night sky is dark despite countless stars, due to universe’s beginning and expansion—so “black wins out” cosmologically [26:51].
• White Dwarfs vs Black Holes: Black holes dominate; black again “wins” [27:45].
• Kugelblitz & The Limits of Light: Theoretical “black hole made of light” (Kugelblitz) might be impossible due to quantum effects; too much light might simply dissipate [29:03–31:05].
• Entropy and Heat Death: Ultimately, the universe trends toward darkness; “black wins” in the long run [31:41–32:23].
  • Hannah: “Everything’s eventually gonna die… blackness wins.” [31:41]

---

9. Cultural/Metaphorical Interpretations: Good, Evil, and Literature [41:13 – 50:21]

• Stories: Good (white) often prevails in fiction, but reality and mature literature embrace nuance.
  • Michael analyzes Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea:
    • Earthsea: To defeat the “shadow,” the hero must name and accept it as a part of himself.
      • “He has to name it… his own name.” – Michael [43:29]
    • Acceptance of shadow/darkness is maturity and wholeness (a common therapy theme).
• Grayness as Stagnation:
  • Combining black/white into gray in fiction and metaphor is “flat, dead, boring.”
  • “Everything is a process. Everything has good and bad in it… The acceptance that you have both of them isn’t gray at all. It’s actually a much richer version of reality.” – Hannah [45:39]
• Physics Echo: In physics, darkness ("nothing") is singular; white light requires the combination of all colors, so light is fragile and complex, darkness simple [46:04–47:35].

---

10. Language & Etymology [37:39 – 40:57]

• Origins of “ought” and “nought” for “zero”; language mixes up nullity [37:39].
• “Candidate” comes from Latin for “the one in white”—white toga signaled a political aspirant [40:24].

---

11. Evolutionary Biology: Survival & Melanin [33:03–35:17]

• Chernobyl Frogs:
  • Frogs near Chernobyl have evolved to be jet black due to radiation, via melanin, which protects against ionizing radiation.
  • “Within 15 frog generations…the pigment had sorted itself into the population…” – Hannah [34:50]
  • “Darkness wins again.” [35:11]

---

12. Final Reflections: The Necessity of Opposites & Processes, Not End States [49:01 — End]

• Nuanced Conclusion:
  • The richness of experience exists in the presence of both extremes—not in the monotone mixture.
• Taoism & Literature:
  • Embrace both black and white, never a dull, gray middle.
  • “You need darkness to see the stars.” – Le Guin via Michael [50:16]
  • “Picking just black or just white, what does it get us?” [50:17]
• Science Echoes Philosophy:
  • The brightest phenomena (quasars) occur at the boundary between black holes and light.
  • “The brightest light comes from the darkest depth that eats all light. They’re all together, not separate, not mixed, but both bright and burning and dark and void.” – Michael [54:12]
• Personal Reflection:
  • “Everything is a process...you don’t get to cross a finish line...” – Hannah [52:35]

Final message: Both black and white are essential. The horror is only dull, featureless gray.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Black is… a whole style. Whereas white is... nothingness.” – Michael [06:19]
• "Black wins in fashion, but it loses in chess.” – Michael [13:04]
• “Players are much naughtier and more aggressive when they're wearing black.” – Hannah [07:24]
• "There are more white piano keys than black ones, but the only interesting music comes from the black ones.” – Hannah [25:40]
• "In reality…black is nothingness, and white is all of the colors altogether." – Hannah [06:49]
• “Everything is a process. Everything has good and bad in it…. The acceptance that you have both isn’t gray at all. It’s just actually a much richer version of reality.” – Hannah [45:39]
• "You need darkness to see the stars." – Ursula Le Guin (via Michael) [50:16]
• “The brightest light comes from the darkest depth...” – Michael [54:12]
• “So there we go. That’s what wins. Not gray.” – Hannah [54:15]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:26] The hosts’ approach: “How do you interpret this?”
• [03:45 – 07:16] Color popularity and the meaning of black/white in society and fashion
• [07:16 – 10:27] Psychological effects of color in sports
• [13:04 – 16:15; 19:55–20:22] Chess, Go, and the “Rainbow Chess” invention
• [20:40 – 23:35] Surnames and personal/cultural associations
• [23:58 – 25:25] White vs black cars and accident rates
• [26:22 – 32:28] Physics, Olbers’ Paradox, entropy, universe fate
• [33:03–35:17] Evolution: Black frogs of Chernobyl
• [37:39 – 40:57] Language & etymology: zero, candidate, and white
• [41:13 – 50:21] Good, evil, and the metaphoric richness of black and white in stories and philosophy
• [49:01 — End] Synthesis: the necessity of opposites, the process, and why “not gray” is the real winner

---

Conclusion

Hannah and Michael’s lively journey concludes: neither black nor white ever truly “wins” in a final sense. Instead, it’s the interplay—the tension, contrast, and oscillation between darkness and light—that generates all meaning, beauty, and story. The world’s greatest danger? Collapsing into monotone, unremarkable gray.

“Not Gray.” That’s the final, joyful verdict.

---

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Rest is Science. I'm Hannah Fry.

[B]

And I'm Michael Stevens.

[A]

Now, today's episode. Actually, we're cheating a little bit. We're taking one of the listener questions which we liked so much that we are not putting it in an episode of Field Notes. We are expanding it out into a whole entire super duper long version of our podcast.

[B]

Point is, we love this question, adore it. I think we should get right into to reading it.

[A]

Okay, here we go. It's from Kelsey, who asks. Hello, Hannah and Michael. My 7 year old is a huge fan and just asked me a question which I can't answer, which would win in a fight between black and white. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research uk.

[B]

Here's something strange. Your DNA contains more ancient viral fragments than genes. The genes that build our cells make up only 2% of our DNA. And for years, that is what scientists focused on. They treated the rest, the ancient viruses and stu as junk.

[A]

But now we know that that hidden majority, sometimes called the dark genome, influences how our biology works and how diseases like cancer behave.

[B]

It's a reminder that I sold my car in Carvana last night.

[A]

Well, that's cool.

[B]

No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch.

[A]

Maybe there's no catch.

[B]

That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow.

[A]

You need to relax.

[B]

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood? I think it's laminate. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play. You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit red bull.com/bright summer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. Progress rarely comes as a single breakthrough. It builds gradually. Cancer Research UK plays a central role in that progress, supporting decades of research into over 200 types of cancer. Work that's helped double survival in the UK over the past 50 years.

[A]

For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org thereestiscience. Yeah, I mean, there's lots of different ways we can take this, isn't there?

[B]

There are a lot of questions we get where we're like, next, next. This one, we were like, no, wait,

[A]

that's not true at all, Michael. We adore every single question. Thank you very much.

[B]

That's true. I was just joking. We treasure them all. And we'll answer them all.

[A]

Yes. Eventually.

[B]

Eventually.

[A]

Before as long as we live long enough.

[B]

If you've asked us a question, we will answer it. Just do hold your breath about it.

[A]

Now, I should say Michael and I have not shared our answers with each other yet. No. Of what we think.

[B]

Yeah. We both decided, look, how do you interpret this? What do you mean white and black? Do you mean color, radiation, good and evil? And we said, stop. Let's just both come up with our own interpretations, figure out who wins each of them, and then we'll just come together and compare, and that's what's gonna happen today.

[A]

Do you wanna go first?

[B]

Yeah, I'm gonna go first. Because I think we can start with a. I don't wanna say simple interpretation. But what if this is just about color? What if this is just a popularity contestant? Yeah. Well, thankfully, YouGov has the answer. They've polled people across multiple dozens of countries. What's your favorite color? And white and black never make it into the top spot. But. But here's the deal. Black wins the popularity contest against white pretty much everywhere. Uk, Germany, us, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand. But white actually is more popular than black in China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

[A]

Okay, a small selection.

[B]

A small selection. And I don't know why. And they didn't propose any hypothesis as to why. I will say this was interesting. The number one top favorite color in every country they surveyed was blue. Was it even in places like China, where red is this very auspicious color? Blue was always the favorite.

[A]

Every single country by quite a bit, actually. Every single country has blue as the favorite.

[B]

Yeah. Now, they did say that in China, the distinction between blue and green might be a bit different. It might not be the same as what it means to an American or a Brit. But basically, for the purposes of this episode, black ranks above white everywhere except China, Malaysia, Indonesia.

[A]

I do also sort of wonder whether. I mean, look, if you. It depends on how detailed a color you're allowing, because I might say aubergine, you know, it was my favorite.

[B]

I know. And they didn't allow that. They just said of the traditional. Were you allowed purple Seven rainbow colors. You were allowed purple. Yes. So it's like the seven rainbow colors, black and white were allowed. So there was no gray and there was no brown. So, I mean, look, we still need to do more research.

[A]

You know what, though? This marries actually with the thing that I found, which is that in fashion, in the clothes that people choose to wear, I mean, black wins by an absolute country mile. And not just at funerals, incidentally.

[B]

Yeah, sure. Everywhere.

[A]

Across. Across. Across the board. There's one industry study that found that black was two and a half times more popular than white.

[B]

At least I'm not surprised. No, I mean, white has a disadvantage. It's gonna stain more easily.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Just off the bat, that's gonna knock it down below black.

[A]

It's less slimming as well.

[B]

It's less slimming.

[A]

See all your lumps and bumps a lot more on it.

[B]

If it's snowy, no one will see you.

[A]

It's kind of.

[B]

But at night, no one will see you if you're wearing black. And that's good.

[A]

Maybe that's an advantage, I think, when

[B]

it comes to what's your favorite col. For reasons I haven't really investigated, white maybe isn't even really considered a color to a lot of people. It's the blankness on which you then get to see your favorite color. But black is. It's got an association with being, you know, the black belt, heavy metal and goth and it's like. It's a whole style. Whereas white is like, what are you, you know, Gandalf? The white, like, grow up, you know, it's just a little more nothingness. Nothingness.

[A]

Even though in reality, when it comes to the colours, it's actually the other way around. Right. Black is nothingness and white is all of the colors altogether.

[B]

That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, who wears white like cult members.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But who wears black cooler? Cult members. There's the coolness factor there. And this is coming from a very specific Western perspective. But yet across countries, YouGov found that black was still usually more popular. Only usually, though.

[A]

You know what, though, Actually, while we're on the topic of black clothing, you know, there was a study into the color uniform that athletes wear.

[B]

Ah.

[A]

And whether it changed how they played. And they came up with the conclusion that players are much naughtier and more aggressive when they're wearing black.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. When it comes to American football, look at the Raiders, right. They are the scariest looking team.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

That is because they're in black and silver and their fans like Are violent. Famously and proudly violent. But I think if they were the Las Vegas Tulips, that would not be their reputation. Yeah. Okay, so so far, when it comes to popularity as a color, in fashion, as a way to win as a sports team.

[A]

Well, let me tell you the stats on this. Cause it's really. Oh, you've got stats. Oh, I've got. Oh, I've got stats. Of course I have. Okay, so this is 1988. This is Mark Frank and Thomas Gilvoich at Cornell. They analyze NFL and so football and hockey, basically American football and hockey. And they were looking at penalty records specifically.

[B]

Oh. So as a measure of how aggressive the team was. Right.

[A]

In the idea being that if you got more penalties, then you were, you were playing a bit naughtier, bit rougher, bit rough around the edges. And the thing is, this is like a natural experiment in a lot of ways. Because there were a couple of occasions where teams changed the color of their shirts from one season to the next, from black to a different colour. And they found that kind of across the board, the penalty average. Right. Was much higher. The number of minutes that you would get, you know, of penalties. I don't know how these sports work. You're gonna have to fill in.

[B]

You're doing fine.

[A]

Okay, fine. The number of minutes that your team were in penalty for increased if you were wearing black. So there was one team in particular, Pittsburgh Penguins, they went the other way around. They went from light blue to black

[B]

and they committed more penalties and they committed more penalties. Oh, whoa, whoa. We need to point out, did they commit more penalties or were they penalized more often?

[A]

Great question. I've got the answer for you. Because in 2012 there was a follow up study. And in this they not only looked at, you know, tens of thousands of hockey games across different seasons, but they also then ran these controlled experiments in high school and college students so that they would like essentially run. Some teams would be in black and some teams would be wearing white. And then they would see how it would work out over and over and over again to see if it made any difference. And they found both things were true. Referees call more fouls on players who were wearing black.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But players in black were also behaving more aggressively.

[B]

So they like objectively re watched these games or something. Right.

[A]

Because I think that's it. When you're wearing darker colors, you're like, maybe I can get a away with this. Maybe I just sort of feel a little bit like, I don't know.

[B]

Okay. So these researchers are Pretty confident that it wasn't just that the referees themselves thought, ah, something happened. The player wearing the darker colors probably instigated it because I'm biased against that. They, they really studied this and found that it truly was the fault of the players wearing the darker colors.

[A]

It was both things. So they were both being accused more often. And also.

[B]

Oh, it was both.

[A]

Yes, it was both.

[B]

Wow. Okay, so if you think that's a good thing, then black wins again. I've noticed that as I've gone through my interpretations. It depends on what you think is better.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, black and white have differences, but which difference you prefer determines which one wins.

[A]

Look, I'll be honest with you. I. I think, I think black wins every single time. I, I'm. I mean, there's, there's the occasional one. This is in my analysis. Right. There's the occasional time here and there where white sort of puts up a good. Almost always I'm team Black in rugby. The All Blacks. Ah, New Zealand All Blacks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Terrifying. You've seen them do the hacker. Oh, my Lord.

[B]

Yeah, I was gonna say. And they're called the All Blacks. They wear black and like, silver.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or white.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I guess we're not the two people who are gonna know the answer to that.

[A]

Maybe it's just all black. Maybe it is all black.

[B]

They're also really good.

[A]

Yeah, they're amazing.

[B]

Their, their women's team is actually really good right now. My stepfather in law.

[A]

Someone in your family.

[B]

I feel like my mother in law's husband is really into rugby.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And he loves the women's team because they're like, blowing it out of the water right now.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

And he's, he's in New Zealand, by the way. Back when, when Michael Jordan was playing basketball, he was so good. The Detroit Pistons had this idea of, like, why don't we just really focus on stopping him from being able to do anything? Like, in fact, let's tire him out. Let's like, penalize him. Let's be mean to him and like, break his will and force his other teammates to do it on their own. And it was really negative. They called it Jordan Rules. And in my memory, the Detroit Pistons, who had this whole, like, strategy, wore black jerseys, but apparently they were more like blue, red and white. However, in my mind, they are the, like, angry Looney Tunes baddies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you've got like, Michael Jordan, this little guy who's like, I'm just a Bugs Bunny over here. I'm a good guy.

[A]

But here I'm flying.

[B]

This association between aggression and black colors and blamelessness in white runs very deep.

[A]

It really does.

[B]

So black wins in terms of roughness, popularity, fashion, but it loses in chess.

[A]

It does lose in chess.

[B]

Fair or not, though, is, I think, maybe up for debate. Because when you look at who wins chess games, the person playing white or the person playing black. White has an advantage. This is like a known thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You can. Even if you look at chess games and the history of chess games, white WINS, you know, 4 to 10% more often.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

By the way, that chance of winning is very complicated because there's two answers. It's like, white wins 37% of the time.

[A]

Oh, because of the draws. Of course.

[B]

Because, yes. That 55 number is if you give them half a win for a draw.

[A]

Right, I see.

[B]

So, yes, it took me a long time to understand this because they'd be like, white scores 55%, and I'm like, scores. I had to go look at a chess glossary to figure out the difference. But across chess games, white tends to win 4 to 10% more. It's usually like 37% of the time. White is the decisive victor 27% of the time. Black is the rest of the time. It's a draw. And as the standard of play increases, you get more and more draws. But also white's win percentage approaches 100%. Why? Because white gets to go first. White has this advantage. I want to talk about rainbow chess.

[A]

Go on.

[B]

Which is not a thing. My daughter says she invented it, and I don't. It's kind of like Bobby Fischer's chess360. His, like Fischer Random chess. But instead of randomizing the back row of pieces for each team, you put all the pieces, black and white, into a bag. This is how she explained it to me. And then you reach in and you pull out a piece, and you put it where it should go on your side, regardless of whether it's black or white.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So both players wind up with this randomized mix of black and white pieces. And yet you both still are either black or white. So some of you. If you're black, some of your black pieces are already on the other side of the board.

[A]

This actually sounds really fun.

[B]

It sounds really fun. And it means that there's a lot of like. Okay, so first of all, you have to have the same arrangement of pieces. So if you've already drawn a queen, then the next time you draw a queen, you have to put it back in. Also, a pawn does not become a queen when it reaches the other side of the board, because some of them are just one step away from already being there.

[A]

Be a bit of. So there's like some.

[B]

Some tweaks that she had to make to make this sort of work. I don't know if it's actually a good game. We have a lot of fun playing it though.

[A]

I think that sounds amazing fun.

[B]

Now, white still gets to go first though, so it probably still mathematically will have an advantage.

[A]

I'm not sure though, because I think that it would be. I think that the dominant thing would be the luck of where your pieces ended up. You know, if you end up with the queen on their back rank, then, I mean, game over or not.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. That's another rule that neither king can begin in check. There's a lot of rules that you have to make up because this doesn't work. But if you follow all the rules, then you get something that kind of works and is kind of fun, especially to play with a six year old.

[A]

Yeah, that does sound.

[B]

But I don't know if there's something else like it. So let us know in the comments if you've heard of a variation of chess like this.

[A]

When I was teaching my daughter to play chess when she was about six years old, we were like, okay, and this one is the little horsey. And then it jumps. It hops over here. Anyway, she then started calling it that piece. She started calling it the galahop. And I was like, oh, that is. This child's a genius. This is absolutely adorable. What a great name. There's a huge fly, really fat fly,

[B]

just flew by my ear and it was like.

[A]

Like a helicopter. Loud. Anyway, I went around thinking that she was a genius for a few weeks, and then a couple of weeks later, we just so happened to be watching. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research uk.

[B]

We often think of beating cancer as treatment, but imagine stopping it before it begins. After years of work, Cancer Research UK scientists are launching a clinical trial of lungvax, the first vaccine designed to prevent lung cancer.

[A]

It builds on Tracer X, the world's largest cancer evolution study, which tracked lung cancer cells over many years to uncover the disease's earliest warning signs. Lungvax is designed to train the immun to spot these signs early on, destroying faulty cells before cancer develops.

[B]

So it's not treatment, but preventative, with the potential to stop lung cancer before it starts. The first stage of the trial starts this year. Focusing on people at higher risk, it

[A]

shows what long term research makes possible.

[B]

For more information about Cancer Research uk, their research breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org thereest ISS did you know?

[A]

About 1 in 3 people with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling. Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfya Gusocomab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy. And for adults with active psoriatic arthritis, serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or if you need a vaccine, imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfire. Tap this ad to learn more about trimfire, including important safety information. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. That's Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs an episode of Bluey in which they teach Bluey chess and she decides to call the horse the knight a Galahop.

[B]

Wait, so did she get it from that? Yes, okay, she got it from Galahop is a pretty. It's a cute wor, but it also helps you remember that the knight can go over pieces like a hop, a gallop and hop.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so in chess, true, the white does have an advantage. I'll concede that. But in Go, which is played by a lot of people, black moves first and is the other way around. In fact, actually in Go, there's so much of an advantage for black that there's some rule where you have to give away a certain number of points to white.

[B]

I didn't know that. I don't know Go very well. But black goes first in Go. Black goes first in Go and has the advantage. Wow.

[A]

All right, well, we've done games. Let's turn to people, but after the break.

[B]

Okay, welcome back. So now let's talk about black and white, not as colors, but as names of Go on. We've got Jack Black, but also Jack White of the white stripes.

[A]

Let's make them fight.

[B]

Let's make them fight. And so last night, I did. No, I didn't. But which surname do you think is more popular?

[A]

Black, I reckon.

[B]

Incorrect. By a long shot. White is more popular. It's the 24th most popular surname in the United States.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Black, not even in the top 100. I had to go searching much deeper. It's the 149th most popular surname in the UK. White is the 15th most common surname. It's the 9th most common in Australia, 21st in Canada. There's only 156,000 people with the last name Black in the US but there's almost 700,000 with the surname White.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'd much rather be called Hannah Black than Hannah White.

[B]

Well, you're not called either.

[A]

I know, but I could be. I could change it by deed pole.

[B]

You could change it. You know I have a Hannah Black. Yeah. I mean, look, Hannah Black again. Why would you rather be called Hannah Black? Cause it's cooler.

[A]

It is cooler.

[B]

Did you know that my mother didn't allow me to wear black shoes as a kid?

[A]

Why?

[B]

She thought that it was what, like, the violent kids wore. This was during the, like, moral panic of the 90s. Around, like, oh, kids are sacrificing cats at night and doing all these things because of Satan.

[A]

What about school shoes, though? What color were your school shoes?

[B]

They were white and blue. Okay. They were always very bright colors, very pleasing, saintly colors. And I'd go to the store, and I'd be like, oh, I want these black sneakers. And she'd be like, oh, do not even. Do not even think about them.

[A]

Bless me, Father.

[B]

Cause you're gonna go to hell if you wear shoes that are black. Like the devil's thumb. And so I own black shoes now.

[A]

When did you get your first pair of black shoes?

[B]

I think I was about 33. I got my first pair of black shoes.

[A]

Did you feel super naughty? I felt.

[B]

I felt really naughty. I hid them in my closet, even though my mom lived a thousand miles away.

[A]

Have you worn black shoes in front of her?

[B]

I have now. But also, as we've established, my mom has softened over time. She now allows me to say some bad words. Whoa. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I can also say the C word. Crap. And so, of course, I say it all the time around her.

[A]

Adorable. I had. In terms of the surname thing, I have a very good friend, actually, who is a doctor. She's called Dr. Black. She was working in a doctor's Surgery. And there's another doctor there called Dr. White. And I think. And I still think that the two of them should set up a surgery together and call it the Gray Doctors.

[B]

The Gray Doctors.

[A]

Yeah. It's a good joke. It's a good joke.

[B]

It's a good little. It was hilarious. It's a hilarious joke.

[A]

Good and evil, though. Good and evil. There is those themes along those.

[B]

Should we kind of go through the tally up who's winning so far?

[A]

Black's winning.

[B]

I think black is winning. Yeah. I think all that white has won is chess and surname, but black has won popularity as a color. It's winning in fashion what people wear. We should look up car colors.

[A]

Car colors. White wins in car colors and white wins actually in more than one way in car colors. Because not only are there more white cars, you're also significantly more likely to die in a black car if it crashes.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Yeah. Let me just say.

[B]

I don't know. Okay. I don't know how you tally these up. Is it. Cause I don't think they're each worth one point.

[A]

No, we need to wait and see.

[B]

I'd rather have an unpopular color car than a car that I die in, so I don't know.

[A]

You would look cool when you die, though.

[B]

Oh, you would. Wait, he died in a white car.

[A]

Okay, so here's some stats. In 2025 white cars, there were 33 of cars are white. Globally, black is at 23. It's the second most popular. However, if it's luxury cars, it's the other way around. So in North America, 29 of luxury cars are black, and white is. Is second. From Monash University Accident Research center, who were looking at crashes between 1987 and 2004. And White's the safest color. Easier to see, perhaps. Black cars are 12% more likely to be involved in a deadly crash.

[B]

Yeah, No, I believe it. I actually talked to my insurance company about like, hey, we've got light colored cars. Do you guys charge less for those? And they were like, no. But it is true that the lighter color your car is, the easier it is for others to see. And you're in fewer accidents.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. It makes sense. I'm still going black here. I'm still going black. Nonetheless, I think this is the reason why. I just think black wins full stop. Okay. Piano keys. Yes. Oh, there are more white piano keys than black ones, but the only interesting music comes from the black ones.

[B]

Well, now, that seems a bit subjective. Come on.

[A]

Twinkle, twinkle, little star. That's about all you got?

[B]

I don't know enough about music to. I don't know enough about piano to debate you on this bluntly.

[A]

Me neither, but that's not gonna stop me being overly confident. Okay.

[B]

I think. I think you are giving me fuel for my final conclusion.

[A]

Okay. All right.

[B]

But also, I'll just grant you that the black keys are more interesting than that.

[A]

They are more interesting. They are much more interesting.

[B]

But there are more white keys.

[A]

There are more white keys, but who cares if they're boring?

[B]

Well, I think that we gotta give white a point for being the dominant color on a keyboard.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And then we'll give black a point because it's cooler sounding.

[A]

It's more fun going back to your idea about light. So I was also thinking about if you shine a torch into a dark space, right, which wins there? Is it the brightness of the torch or is it the blackness of the space? And I mean, in an enclosed space, you know, on Earth, sure, the whiteness might win, but actually, in the universe as a whole, the universe is very, very definitely black. This is Olbers paradox, by the way.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know about this?

[B]

Yeah. This is the paradox that the sky is dark at night.

[A]

And why should it be?

[B]

Well, at first you would say, well, why shouldn't it be? But then when you point out that there are stars everywhere, even between stars that we can see, if you look with a telescope, you find more and more stars.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So there should be light coming from every direction.

[A]

This should be a very well lit room, essentially.

[B]

But it isn't.

[A]

But it isn't. It's black. Black wins out. The reason, incidentally, the reason, it sort of essentially demonstrates that the universe had a beginning. The light hasn't been going forever, and the universe is expanding, which is why blackness wins out. But blackness does nonetheless win out.

[B]

It wins out also. There's light extinction. There's the inverse square law of light can shine and be very bright, but the further away you get, the dimmer and dimmer it appears.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

So ultimately, the blackness wins out.

[A]

Blackness wins. I mean, look, if you are also pitting the black versus white against one another on a sort of cosmic cosmological basis, White dwarfs, which are essentially what happens when a star dies, everything kind of blows off and you're just left with like the really solid, bright core. Put one of them against a black hole. I mean, there's no. The black hole wins. The black hole wins.

[B]

Well, if we're going to be talking about electromagnetic radiation, here's something fascinating. This Morning. I thought, oh, yeah, obviously, here's a good thing to bring up. The more and more darkness you have, no problem, right? But the more and more light you have, the more and more electromagnetic radiation you have, the closer you get to darkness.

[A]

Go on.

[B]

So I've talked about this before, but I have an update.

[A]

Go on.

[B]

So there's this concept, it's a theoretical concept which states that, I mean, as we know, if you get too much matter in one place, black hole forms. But what if you get a lot of energy, a lot of light in one place? What happens should be the same thing as it turns out. And so a black hole can form if there's too much energy within one small area. And a black hole that forms not from matter, but from light is known as a Kugelblitz.

[A]

Good name.

[B]

A Kugelblitz. I know. I love this. And in an episode many years ago, I turned it into this really cool way to flirt with someone. Like, you're not just hot, you're a Kugelblitz. There's so much. You're just so hot that it cannot remain stable and it collapses in on itself, your hotness, into a corset.

[A]

Is there any evidence of that ever working on any human?

[B]

I've never tried it on another human. But if you and your partner met because of that line, let me know in the comments below.

[A]

You're welcome.

[B]

Also, if that's how you guys met, I've got some bad news for you. A couple of years ago, Kugelblitz's were studied. And again, it's a theoretical thing. We. We cannot make one, okay? The amount of energy required to create 1 is 50 orders of magnitude higher than what we can currently achieve. But there was a paper that came out in 2024 that had this. This great name. No. Black holes from light. That was the name. And the paper talks about how when you have that much light, that much electromagnetic radiation in one place, you need to start worrying about things like vacuum polarization, which is a dissipative quantum effect. I'm not going to pretend to know what all of that means, but I do trust that these people know what they're talking about. It's called the Schwinger effect.

[A]

Schwinger.

[B]

Yeah. And this is where.

[A]

So we've got Kugelblitzes, and now we've got Schringers.

[B]

Schwinger effect. And this is the effect where I can only give you a very surface explanation, but where photons can decompose into electrons and positrons and this process limits the potential for a black hole to form. Theoretically, we don't know one way or the other. But there's definitely a school of thought now that says that a Kugelblitz isn't possible. That before you could reach that critical amount of energy in one location, that energy density necessary for the collapse of a black hole, energy would be dissipated away.

[A]

So, but then, but then, but then, but then, if you. Does that mean that if you have too much energy, too much light, it will stay light? It won't. It won't become dark. That's.

[B]

That's one conclusion you could draw from this. And so maybe white doesn't lose to black here.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The idea being, like, too much black, not a problem. Too much white goes back to black, black wins. In both cases, that may or may not be true. Jury is. It could be that more and more light, you're just gonna continue to have a lot of light. More and more black. More black. It's a draw. Yeah.

[A]

But I mean, in the universe as a whole, once you kind of go to the heat death of everything, once you're kind of looking at entropy and the fact that we are tending towards disorder over time, I mean, everything's eventually gonna die. I mean, there's no doubt that blackness wins.

[B]

I didn't come in here to fight for any particular side.

[A]

I did.

[B]

You did.

[A]

I did.

[B]

And I'm not even really going to disagree with you. I think you're bringing up a lot of good points. That ultimately darkness is all there will be. It will be the one on the field of battle at the end. Still standing.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Because you've got the heat death where eventually it's the same temperature everywhere and there isn't a useful energy differential to take advantage of to do any work.

[A]

There is no light.

[B]

There is no light. That's the ultimate fate of the universe.

[A]

Absolutely. That's the direction we're all heading towards. Enjoy the light while it lasts, everybody.

[B]

I mean, I'm gonna definitely say that light does some interesting things.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Energy and work mean that stuff can happen.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

But they're battling it out all the time, every day.

[A]

That wasn't the question that was being asked there, was it? It wasn't.

[B]

Which one do you like more?

[A]

It wasn't. Please tell me which of these does interesting things.

[B]

It was which wins, which wins, which wins. And yeah, you're right.

[A]

I tell you what, if we're not going into quite so depressing a direction, if we're not going to the heat death of the universe. Let's, let's look at the battles, not the wars.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

I still think, I still think darkness wins. I still think black wins. I found this absolutely amazing story about CHERNOBYL, okay, in 2016. And researchers who were near where the damaged reactor was, were looking at the wildlife that had, that still manages to survive close to where everything happened. And they found this really strange thing, which is this, right close to the, to the reactor, all the frogs are black. Oh, right. Isn't that strange? And then you go a bit further out, some of them, you know, they sort of tend to become a little bit lighter. And then if you go far enough out away, then they are, they are essentially back to, to normal frog, normal frog color. But, but the frogs all around are very, very dark sometimes actually pitch black work. And they. Why? Why?

[B]

It's amazing.

[A]

So they worked out that what's going on here is that melanin, which is a pigment that you get in your skin, but also in the skin of frogs. It's the thing that gives you a tan color, but it doesn't just absorb uv. It also dissipates ionizing radiation, of course. Right. So there's all this radiation that's floating around. And so essentially what's happening is, is that it forced this survival pressure on darker frogs. So the frogs who had much lighter skin, who had less of the dark pigment in, in their skin already, you know, would die out much more easily. Only the darker frogs would remain. And then they reckon within about 15 frog generations, the pigment had sort of sorted itself into the population and there was this natural selection for darkness kind of happening in, in real time. And so, like, but I mean, also as a person who has no melanin in my skin.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, this is one of the, the downsides of the MC1R mutation, having red hair. There is no melanin. I, If I go out in the sun, it goes red and then back to white. I, I have to say, darkness wins again. Right? You put me outside on a, on a sunny day and unless I've got a bottle of Factor 50 with me, I'm over. It's game over for me.

[B]

Yeah. You know, I can put you in a radioactive fallout zone and you are going to be hurt more.

[A]

I done, I'm done. Of course there are, I mean, there are some creatures that are, that have both, both black and white. Orcas, for example. I mean, they're pretty cool.

[B]

Zebras, Zebras, Zebras, Zebras.

[A]

Pandas.

[B]

Pandas.

[A]

They're less cool.

[B]

Tuxedo Cats.

[A]

Pandas, by the way. Side note, pathetic creatures. Pathetic. You know how much space they need to have in order for them to agree to mate.

[B]

Too much.

[A]

But also, if you have this, like, gigantic land space where you're like, okay, panda, chill out. All right? Have fun. And then somebody does, like, a little tiny track road through it that's not even taking up any space. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. You've encroached. You've encroached on not having babies anymore. They are absolute drama queens. That's how I like my diary to be, by the way, when I'm writing, Say I'm going into panda mode.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I need nothing. Encroaching. Okay, it's one panda, seven square kilometers.

[B]

So the pair needs seven square kilometers.

[A]

So I think that detailed field studies say that female giant Pandas have about 5 square kilometres and males about 7 square kilometers. And if you go anywhere near that, then they're, like, not having babies. Thank you.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So they need just the two of them within their little zones, and then they can come together. And as long as no one encroaches.

[A]

Yeah, but not even anyone encroaches. It's like, any evidence of any building or any track. Nothing. It's gotta be, like, completely untouched. It's a bit like, you know, are they just really, really, really want privacy?

[B]

They really want privacy. They really need the mood to be right or it's ruined.

[A]

Exactly. They don't want anyone to find out they're playing Barry White in the jungle.

[B]

Okay, yeah, fair enough. But, like, it's a lot of work for us to accommodate that.

[A]

It is a lot of work. Barry White, though, didn't think about him, did we?

[B]

Barry Black.

[A]

Barry, who is Barry Black?

[B]

Exactly. That's a win for white.

[A]

I think it's a win for white.

[B]

Here's something interesting that is kind of related that I've just been wanting to share. So it's kind of related, like, if darkness. If blackness is. Is nothingness, like empty, then we should talk about the words ought and not.

[A]

Go on.

[B]

They both mean nothing, Right? Like knots and crosses. The not refers to an O. Nothing. People will call the 2000s the Naughties because the year ends with the zeros. But ought a U G H, T also means nothing.

[A]

Give me it in a sentence. In a sentence.

[B]

It might be something like, well, if ought is learned, meaning if nothing is learned. And I would see these in books. I'd see ought meaning nothing and not meaning nothing. And I'm like how it's kind of strange that ought and not both mean zero. Why are they different words? They didn't used to be different. Ought came first, meaning nothing. Not for ought, not for nothing. But there's this thing in linguistics called a faulty separation, where people who are speaking to each other misinterpret what your word is and what the article is because they've been smashed together. So when someone said I don't give an ought, it sounds a little bit like, I don't give a not.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

And so people started to think that ought means nothing, but there's also a thing called a not. I don't give a not. I don't give an ought. They were just so similar that we wound up having not as well mean zero.

[A]

The other one I've heard is a napple.

[B]

Yes, there are a lot of these faulty separations. Napkin is one. I think an apkin is what it was called before. People would be like, oh, can I have an appkin? And someone was like, oh, a napkin. Sure. This must be called a napkin. I think other words like that. I've got a whole list of them and I don't have them actually here on my page, but. Apron, Umpire.

[A]

What? So it was a prawn?

[B]

I think so.

[A]

Oh, I like that.

[B]

Now don't. I mean, look this up because I only. I only have the list of these words. I don't know what they originally were, but they got smashed together because of the.

[A]

An.

[B]

The an article before them go.

[A]

And what were the other ones?

[B]

Okay, are you ready?

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Nickname. An ick Name. Apron. Orange. Umpire. Humble Pie. It was Humble Pie. Auger. But I. With auger, I'm like, was it a gir. Before Augur? Did you give us a gur? Augur? Like a thing that you. A screw that you dig a hole with.

[A]

I've never heard that before in my life.

[B]

Well, you don't dig enough holes, evidently.

[A]

Or know enough words.

[B]

Drill enough holes on the word thing.

[A]

Tell you what I found out when I was researching this. The word candidate.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Do you want to know where that came from?

[B]

Let me guess.

[A]

Go on. Can.

[B]

Can da date.

[A]

I've given you a bit of a clue, given that it's related to this episode.

[B]

Shoot, now I'm even more confused. I was not thinking that way, but I should have been. Where does it come from?

[A]

Roman? Uh huh. It means the one wearing white. Because if you were wearing a white toga, then you were a political candidate.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where does white in there? Can't Candid.

[A]

Candid, because I think it means shining.

[B]

Oh, does it?

[A]

Yeah. Like, chandelier is another.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Candle.

[B]

Candid candle Provides light candidates. Incandescent. Oh, yeah. Candela, A unit of light.

[A]

But anyway, that's all white stuff.

[B]

Yeah, it sure is.

[A]

I tell you what we haven't touched on, though, Good and evil. Because it feels like in stories, black and white do end up taking those two different sides. It's kind of. We've sort of touched on it a bit, but haven't really gotten there.

[B]

Yeah. And in stories, good often wins. Not all the time, but certainly more often than not. Stories are instructing us that good will prevail and that evil doesn't pay. Right. These are cliches. That topic, in my mind, it's, like, way too big to jump into when it's just supposed to be one little interpretation of a question in a podcast. But as you all know, I just finished reading the Lord of the Rings, and I also read the Earthsea trilogy from Ursula Le Guin, who, by the way, I love this. She describes herself as a irreligious puritan and a rational mystic. Which talk about, like, opposites colliding. Right. I loved it. But anyway, Lord of the Rings and Tolkien is often criticized as being just, like, way too black and white. You've got the, like, amazingly just pure Gandalf and the Hobbits and, like, they don't even poop. And then you've got Sauron, who is just evil incarnate. And it's just. It couldn't be more obvious. I don't think that's entirely fair. I think, for example, that if you really dive into, like, what's going on here. You see this? The elves kind of made their own bed. They were the ones who were like, yeah, I want rings. Give us three so that we can stop things from decaying. We don't want anything to change. We want everything to stay the way we want. Well, Saruman even says, look, when you. When you destroyed me, you destroyed yourselves. And where are they all going at the end of the book? They're not going to the White Lands. They're not going to the Black Lands. They have to all leave Middle Earth for Gray Haven. Somewhere in between the two, a new age begins. The Age of Man and magic is, like, gone. I'm not a Tolkien scholar, but I just want to say it's a bit more complicated than that. But in. In Le Guin's fantasy, it's very rich. So, like, in the wizard of Earthsea, the first book, there isn't a battle of good and evil. There's a battle of a wizard against a shadow. Seems like good and evil, Right? But how does he defeat the shadow? I won't. I won't spoil it. But he has to embrace the shadow.

[A]

As in, he's got to accept that darkness exists.

[B]

Not only does he have to accept that it exists, he has to name it.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

And what does he name this shadow that's been terrorizing the world? His own name.

[A]

I think there's something quite deep in there.

[B]

Yeah. That took a very long time to explain to my daughter because she gets the, like, bad guys, good guys, Right. But for the good guy to have to say, I am the bad guy. You're just another part of me. Because at the end of the day, the shadow only exists because of the arrogance of the wizard in the first place. And so if he runs from it and denies those bad parts of himself, the shadow gets stronger. But as he hunts it and thinks about it and considers it, it gets smaller. And so by embracing it and understanding and being conscious and mindful of his darker side, he wins.

[A]

Do you know what? That is so interesting, because this is something that. If you go through therapy, I think that this is something that happens a lot. Right. Is to accept that you have a shadow side, that everybody has a darker side to themselves. And it's not like, oh, you have to try and repress it or imagine it's not there. It's like you have to really embrace it and almost love it, if that makes sense. You have to have to really sort of have empathy for it, because that's the only way that you can really exist as a whole, complete person.

[B]

That's exactly what the wizard of Earth sees an allegory of.

[A]

Yeah. The other thing that I really noticed as you were talking then, when greyness, Right. The way that we sort of think about greyness is very flat, very boring. It's almost like black and white are two extremes. It's the way that we. It's a dichotomy that. Sort of an analogy for a dichotomy. But they're definitely not boring. Black and white, neither of them are boring. Gray, the combination of the two, the land in the middle, is something that feels quite dead and flat. And actually, I think that there is something in this, because I think we fall into this trap quite often of binary thinking when we shouldn't, where actually the reality is. Everything is a process. Everything has good and bad in it. Everything has good and evil in it. The acceptance that you have both of them isn't gray at all. It's just actually a much richer version of reality.

[B]

Well, yeah, exactly. And so, again, this is something that Le Guin investigates, like, almost in some of her stories, too much. You're like, oh, my gosh, like, I get it. You mentioned that white light is all the colors, all the wavelengths, whereas darkness is nothing. Now, this is the opposite of what Tolstoy told us in Anna Karenina.

[A]

Go on.

[B]

So the famous first line there, which I'm just gonna paraphrase, is that every happy family is happy in the same way, but every unhappy family is uni. Uniquely unhappy in their own way. This became the Anna Karenina principle that Jared diamond pushed a lot, saying, look, you've got systems in the world, and these systems have a lot of parts, and every part has to work perfectly for everything to go well, okay? So goodness is this really fragile thing that can only happen in one way. But if one little thing goes wrong, or that little thing, or these two or these three, there's so many permutations of things in which. Which everything goes wrong. So there you go. Unhappiness is very complex, but happiness is very simple. However, in physics, that's not true. In physics, there's just darkness and it's kind of just nothing. But white requires everything.

[A]

Yeah. Wow, that's such a nice way to think of it.

[B]

And at the end of Le Guin's dispossessed, can you tell what I've been reading a bunch of. There's this brilliant line. It's almost like a throwaway line where this guy goes, man, there's all these different planets, and so many different kinds of intelligent beings live on them. And the sunlights on all of these worlds are all different. The stars have different chemistries, different temperatures, different sizes, different orbital distances to the planets. They're all different. And yet darkness is the same everywhere.

[A]

It absolutely is. There's only one way to be dark. There's only one way to be dark.

[B]

But there's so many ways to illuminate.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right.

[A]

White can have that one. I'll let it go.

[B]

White can have that one. But I think that maybe they both should take a W here.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

I think there's another side of this, the Taoist side, which is that we need both. And I'm not a scholar of Daoism, but that's what the yin Yang is about. It's about you've got the white and the black, and they are inside each other, and they're both necessary, but they're not combined into a dull gray in the Lathe of Heaven. Le Guin, basically, a guy creates. He improves the world by solving all race relations by having everyone just be the same color. Battleship Gray.

[A]

No, thanks.

[B]

There isn't any judging people based on how they look because they all look the same. But in changing the world that way, a lot of the really interesting characters have gone because they were only interesting because they were biracial, bicultural. They, they. They became who they were. Their boldness, their courage, their timidity, all these interesting things about them only existed because of that tension. And by getting rid of it, the only people left are the main character because he's so boring. He realizes I am just a lump of clay. And so I'm still here. But, like, this woman I loved is gone.

[A]

I mean, it's the same as what we were talking about with entropy. You know, the universe is interesting because it has variation, because it has, like, differences. That's the thing that is allows for energy, allows for matter, allows for light, allows for everything. You know, without it, if you strip out the variation, all you end up with is nothingness.

[B]

So you sort of need both of them. And this isn't just a Taoist thing. This is also. You find this in Christianity when the lion lays down with the lamb. That's an important scene. Not because the lion becomes lamb like or the lamb becomes lion like, but because it's a lion and a lamb, both bright and burning. Some of you may have noticed. I'm quoting GK Chesterton here, all one and a half of you. It's a wonderful essay. Paradoxes of Christianity. And he mentions this very thing, that you've got both of these powerful things together, not mixed into some undifferentiated middle. That's very boring and orderly, but the complexity of the opposites together.

[A]

Heaven and hell.

[B]

Yeah, And I think Le Guin puts it really well in one of the Earthsea books. She has the wizard mention. Look, in order to hear the word, you need silence on either side. You need darkness to see the stars.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So picking just black or just white, what does it get us?

[A]

I mean, sure, let's have both. But also, let's secretly know that black wins. Okay, I'm not letting that go.

[B]

I don't want to make this a podcast where Michael defends Lord of the Rings and talks about every single book Ursula Le Guin ever wrote, but it might become that. Basically. It is true that in the Lord of the Rings, you've got the Good guys and the bad guys, and it's very stark. But at the same time, just like the yin yang, they're never done. One never beats out the other. The story continues forever. Here's my notes where I've written down quotes that I really like. And I'll say that at one point, Sam, Frodo's friend, realizes, hey, he's the

[A]

one with feet like yours, right?

[B]

Yeah, well, all the Hobbits have feet like mine. But they realize that their journey is not like a unique part of history, that it's just a continuation of a story that's been told forever. Sam asks, do the great tales never end? And Frodo responds, no, they never end as tales. But the people in them come and go when their parts ended. Our part will end later or sooner. But the point there is that they don't even anticipate actual victory, white over black, good over evil, or anything. They just anticipate that there will always be both of them together. And in the Hobbit, the most courageous, brave thing Bilbo does isn't anything except to just be courageous enough to explore both. So Tolkien himself says that when Bilbo walks down the tunnel to see the dragon for the first time, which everyone's afraid to do, but he does anyway, in going on, that was the bravest thing Bilbo ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in that tunnel alone before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait. What's really celebrated in literature, not just in Tolkien, but everywhere, is more the confrontation than it is the end. I mean, the end is the. Like, there's nothing else to say. Yeah.

[A]

Everything is a process. Everything is a process. This. Yeah, I think this is it. Right. I. I do think that there is something about this that is really relevant to the way that people live their own lives. Because so often, I mean, I've been guilty of this myself and often still am, actually, frankly, of like, oh, I'll be happy when this happens. As soon as I get to this bit, then my life will be. That will be the end. That will be the sort of the conclusion. I will have decided. White or black. Right, Right. It's like, no, everything is a process. You don't get to cross a finish line. You have to accept that there is everything in everything. There is goodness and darkness in everything.

[B]

Yeah. There is no end that you're reaching where it'll be good or bad. There's just the means to an end. All we have are those means, those efforts, the trying, the practice.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And the universe knows this, too. What's the brightest thing in the universe? A quasar.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

The brightest things in the universe are quasars. What are quasars?

[A]

Oh, don't test me. Go on.

[B]

Well, I'm asking this. I'm asking this rhetorically to the. To everyone, but what is a quasar? A quasar is a black hole. Matter falls into the black hole. It can't all cram in there together. It pushes against itself, the pressures increase and enormous amounts of energies are released. And that's a quasar. Just like the yin yang symbol in the universe, the brightest light comes from the darkest depth that eats all light. They're all together, not separate, not mixed, but both bright and burning and dark and void.

[A]

And definitely not gray.

[B]

And definitely not gray.

[A]

Yeah. So there we go. That's what wins. Not gray.

[B]

Not gray. I love that. I love that. That should be a T shirt.

[A]

Thank you for wearing a gray T shirt today just to.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I'm wearing my. If Uranus, the whole planet of Uranus, was compressed into this shape, it would become a black hole. This is its Schwarzschild radius.

[A]

Very nice.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

There we go. We've come to a conclusion. Not grey.

[B]

Why did we really go to war with Iraq? And did Saddam Hussein really have weapons of mass destruction?

[A]

I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist.

[B]

And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. We are the hosts of the Rest Is Classified. And in our latest series, we are telling the true story of one of history's biggest intelligence. Iraq WMD. In 2003, the US and UK told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But they were wrong. This wasn't a simple lie. It was something far more complicated, far more interesting, and far more dangerous. Spies who believed their sources, politicians who wanted the public to believe in the threat, and a dictator who couldn't prove he'd already destroyed the weapons. In this series, we go deep inside the CIA and MI6, go into the rooms where decisions were made, and look at the sources who fabricated the intelligence that took us to war.

[A]

The Iraq war reshaped the Middle east and permanently war weakened public trust in governments and intelligence agencies.

[B]

And its consequences are still playing out today. Plus, in a Declassified Club exclusive, we are joined by three people who are at the heart of the decision to go to war. Former head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, Tony Blair's former communications director, Alistair Campbell. And former acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell. So get the full story by listening to the rest is classic and subscribing to the Declassified Club wherever you get your podcasts. Not Gray. So thanks for not being gray and thanks for watching. And as always, keep sending in questions because look what it does.

[A]

We had so much fun with this, Kelsey, and we Hope that your 7 year old is suitably pleased that Michael and I have whitted on about this for nearly an hour.

[B]

That's right, Kelsey. You've got a bright 7 year old. Or maybe a dark 7 year old.

[A]

Or maybe both.

[B]

Or maybe both.

[A]

Definitely not gray.

[B]

Not gray. So stay not gray. And by the way, you can send questions to the rest is scienceohanger.com that's it. Thank you and we'll see you next time.

[A]

Bye Bye.