Oldest Molecule, Programmable Proteins, Europa Radar & Light's Double Life

0:00Hello internet. This is your captain speaking Lester Nar joined again by our co-host and resident PhD Krishna Chowery. This is from first principles. We have four great stories lined up for you all today. Starting with scientists have solved the oldest puzzle in the universe and have earned an invite to our game night. They're going to be on my team. Second story. Scientists recode the genome for programmable synthetic proteins. Eat your heart out. Ampic. Number three, NASA's new radar just pulled off something impossible and may in fact lead us to the aliens. And we will wrap up with our fourth story. Physicists confirm that like Superman,

0:41light has two identities that are impossible to see at once.

1:02my friend. How are you? >> I'm doing well. How are you? >> I'm doing quite well. Three days in a row we've been together. Yeah. Now doing episode three. >> Yep. >> Uh really excited for what we're going to talk about today. I I this these some of these stories are really interesting. So oldest puzzle in the universe, 13 billiony old puzzle. Our first story starts from the Max Plank Institute. >> Yes. Headline. Scientists just recreated the universe's first molecule and solved a 13 billiony old puzzle. What exactly did they solve for? >> Yeah. The first molecule, >> yes, >> is an interesting one, right? It's the universe's first composite structure of

1:45multiple atoms. >> Okay. Um, in order to really understand the this story is really about um primordial chemistry. Okay. It's the first chemistry that the universe saw. >> Mh. And it's extremely important for understanding the early universe and also for understanding like fundamental questions like how we got here, right? Because obviously small things that happened back then lead to huge deviations when you stretch out the timeline to 13 billion years when it is now. Right. >> Like the butterfly effect. >> Exactly. And so things that happened back then you you want to really understand at a at a nitty-gritty level in order to really make sense of the universe that we see today. Right? So

2:28this story out of Maxplank's Institute in H Highleberg that's um an experimental story but it also has a theoretical twist. >> So when you say experimental versus theoretical what exactly does that mean? experimentally meaning that in the lab they actually created okay this primordial chemistry and then they studied it to see what the reactions could be like back when the universe first started. So experimentally they did this and then theoretically they actually got some insight into how we can start modeling that early universe right because obviously we can't go back and like like experiment on the early universe the best we can really do is like look with telescopes but even the

3:08James Web Space Telescope is only going to look as far back as the first stars because it requires light. Right. >> Right. And the other I mean we could look at the cosmic microwave background which is a which is going to be part of the story and that thing was at 300,000 years after the big bang. So in order to really make sense of this I think we should start at the very beginning. Okay. Start at the top. Okay. >> In the beginning >> in the beginning was a point and the point was extremely small right infiniteely small. They say it's a singularity and then it pops into existence. the big bang happens and immediately um the physics that we know comes into being. Not not exactly immediately. There's a there's a short time right

3:49after the big bang where we don't know what the hell is happening because the energies and the densities and the temperature is so high that current physics understanding breaks down. But if you go past that, the first thing that happens is um you're going to get like protons and neutrons, okay? the stuff of ordinary atoms except they're not going to be in atomic form. >> How how do you mean? >> Okay, like the sun for example, the interior of the sun or most of the sun actually um is in a state called a plasma. Okay, because stuff is so hot that the electrons don't want to stick around the nuclei. Mhm. >> Okay. So, you've got hydrogen and helium

4:30nuclei on the sun, but like because it's so hot, the electrons can just like go off on their own. And so, you have this soup of protons and neutrons and atomic nuclei. And then you have electrons just bouncing around in a soup of light. >> So, atoms haven't formed because you need to be cold enough for the electrons to agree to to stick around and orbit the nucleus. If there's too much energy, then the photon will come in and it'll just bounce it right off. >> Right. And so that's what the if you've seen the images of the cosmic microwave background, it's this beautiful like map of the early universe in blue, red, and green. >> Yes. >> Um and that is the first ever picture of

5:12the universe at 300,000 years. We can't go before that. We can't go before that because before that light wasn't free to roam the universe >> because there were no atoms. It would just go from one electron to another charged particle to another charged particle and bounce around >> and it was wasn't free like Okay. The reason why I can see the moon, >> right? Yeah. >> Is because the light from the moon is coming all the way. >> It's free to travel all the way. >> It's free to travel all the way, right? Because there's nothing there. Even like you, right? There's air here. Yeah. But the air isn't doing much to the light because it's pretty diffuse. There's not a lot of density and a lot of it is neutrally charged molecules, right? It's

5:52like the the electrons have a neighbor neighboring positive charge that they're interacting with. So the freely flowing light doesn't really interact with it all that much. >> But prior to that 300,000 year mark, it's basically darkness. >> Yes. It's basically so hot that it's like it's not even it's like darkness because it's the opposite of lightness >> of like of Yeah. You know, like it's there's so much light that it's so hot that the light can't go anywhere and and it doesn't mean anything to see something >> in that context. >> In that context, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um >> so even though even using the phrase darkness is not technically accurate. Yeah. >> Uh because it it it's not but as an analogy to >> as an in terms of we can't see it. We can't see the light. There's like a

6:33wall. >> Yeah. and we can't see further back in time. >> You know what's funny? This like reminds me of this idea that in software you have like administrator privileges and then users can access certain aspects of the app, but you can't get into how the core algorithms work. Yeah. And it's kind of like the algorithm of the universe at that very base level. We're currently blocked from being able to actually access >> Exactly. And you know, by that analogy, even even though you can't see that algorithm right? >> Yeah. Yeah, >> you would be able to look at the software >> and know sort of underlying what's what's under the hood. If you're a experienced coder, you could look at an app or you know any kind of thing and then know sort of what the structure of

7:13the underlying database is. And that's sort of what we're trying to do with a lot of the other studies where we're trying to see okay what happened before this >> this 300,000 years ago like were there gravitational waves that were going and propagating? Were was there uh discrepancy between matter and antimatter? All of this stuff, you know, because we're pretty good at physics by now that we can like look at this picture and like now start looking at the little details and start piecing together stuff that happened before. But this story is about stuff that happened after. >> So that's the setup. So that's that's so the idea is the reason it's the first molecule is because of where in time we're able to do this detection. >> Yeah. As as soon as atoms formed. Yes.

7:54Right. As soon as atoms for form, the first thing they want to do is once it's cold enough, they want to start forming molecules. Molecules are just like multiple atoms interacting, right? Like in this in this room, we've got nitrogen, lot of nitrogen. So that's N2, two nitrogen atoms that share electrons. Okay? Um also oxygen obviously, right? That's why we're alive. Um over here, the universe first created only three elements. In the beginning, there were only three elements. hydrogen, helium, and a little tiny bit of lithium. Okay, but when I say they created these elements, it's the nuclei. The electrons aren't anywhere. But these nuclei form, hydrogen is just a single proton, right? It's like kind of a copout to even call

8:36it, >> but like it's like, okay, you got a proton, that's hydrogen. >> Okay, helium, you've got two protons, two neutrons. So, and then lithium, you've got three protons, usually four neutrons. Okay. So, the lithium 7 um as soon as the as soon as light breaks free, now electrons can start forming atoms. So, now you've made a hydrogen atom, you've made helium atoms and lithium atoms. The first atom to actually form was actually helium. >> Okay. >> Okay. Not hydrogen. >> That's interesting. >> Yeah. And it kind of makes sense when you think about um if you if you've done chemistry, there's something called the um ionization potential. So, helium has a higher ionization potential. Basically what that means is it's like um it's it

9:19likes having electrons around it. Okay. >> Okay. The nucleus it's got two protons, right? Two protons. It's got these two empty spots where electrons can be. And because there's two protons, the electrons are happy to hang out. >> Yep. >> With hydrogen, there's a single proton. >> So the pull isn't that much. And so you need the the electron has to be sort of lower, you know, and the temperature has to be lower for this thing to make sense. But helium has got more of a pull because it's got two protons. That makes sense. >> So helium forms >> and helium is moving around and there's a bunch of protons, hydrogen atoms, right? And so all of a sudden you form something called um helium hydide, which is helium >> with a hydrogen proton,

9:59>> but no extra no extra electron. So only two electrons in this molecule, three protons. So it's an ion. >> Okay. >> Okay. It's an ion. Helium atom, hydrogen, proton, and then there's the pro the electrons sort of go around it. >> All all three together. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um this is the first first molecule that's that that was formed. And having molecules is extremely important for stars. And you might be like that's when I first read about this, I was like really confused because stars are helium making factories that take hydrogen and make helium. So why would >> there's no molecules on the sun, right? >> Unless they're in it's in the outer outer but like inside the sun there's no

10:41molecules, right? Okay. So why do we need >> molecules in order to then >> in order to make stars? That's the fundamental question. We need molecules in order to make stars. The reason why is >> we need the universe to cool down >> drastically. >> Okay. If we're a soup of of hot gas, even if it's neutral gas, >> kind of like me this weekend. >> Oh. Oh yeah, I heard about that. Yeah, but if we're this like soup of hot gas, the way a star forms is you've got some like gas cloud >> and then it's going to collapse under gravity, right? It's going to be spinning very slowly and it's going to collapse under gravity. So, conservation

11:22of angular momentum, it's going to spin faster. >> Now, um when it collapses, it's going to heat up, right? Stuff is going to bump into each other and start heating up. Heating up means what? Thermodynamically it means the things are moving faster. If things are moving faster, that's kind of like a outward pressure, right? And if gravity's trying to pull it in, but there's an outward pressure pushing out, >> there's going to be a balance. >> You need to keep having gravity pull in. >> So, what you need is some kind of pressure release valve. >> Okay? >> Okay. That lets go of all that energy. >> Right? >> And that's what we mean by cooling down. We need to cool this thing down and we

12:02need to by conservation of energy all this energy from the thermal motion has to go somewhere and it would be best if it just leaves in terms of radiation. >> Okay, >> remember radiation is also energy. >> Yes. >> Right. >> But the So there's two ways in which this thermal radiation can go. One is it stays there. So things just keep bombing into each other. Yep. >> Getting faster and faster. Getting faster and faster. That's just the energy is getting locked in the heat of the thermal motion. >> But if if we if if we somehow let the radiation just go freely, then we're slowing down. >> Got it? >> Right. Because of conservation of energy. And if we're slowing down, we're cooling. And then that pressure is no

12:43longer there. And so it can contract even more and then cool more and then contract even more. >> So we need some way to dump all of the kinetic energy that is in the motion of heat >> into radiation into light. >> Okay. How do we do that? Molecules are really good at doing that. >> Interesting. >> Converting sort of thermal motion into light. Okay. And the reason why a molecule can do that, so like if you just have an atom, it's just a billiard ball. I mean, atoms obviously radiate, right? There's the hydrogen energy spectrum where the electron bumps to a higher energy and goes down. Like these lights that we have in the studio. Um, I don't know if I don't know what element these guys are, but like old school back

13:24when like we used to have those like white incandescent lights, right? Those were mercury. Those had a mercury gas and the white would be from the mercury energy levels going up and down because you pump electricity, the electrons go up and down, they release light and you get this white, >> right? You get like distinct colors that end up being white light. Okay? So, individual atoms can do that, >> but they can't do that under a certain temperature. Okay? because those energy levels are discreet because of quantum mechanics, right? So, under a certain energy level, if the photon at that energy is not big enough to kick this transition, then you're just stuck moving around being billiard balls. >> Yep. >> Cuz the the temperature is so low that

14:05like the the the excitation isn't enough to do this. Okay. So, all of a sudden now you're stuck. This happens at around 10,000 Kelvin. >> Okay. >> 10,000 Celsius, about 18,000 Fahrenheit. Okay. So, the universe is like bigger now. um it's cooled down a lot but we need to cool down further. >> Atoms won't be able to do this. Okay. So instead what you have is molecules and what molecules can do is they can vibrate >> right? They have like vibrational modes of energy. They can rotate >> and bump into each other that way. they can they have these dipole transitions like each molecule has a quantum state like um and and so those quantum states are actually at the energy level of this

14:4610,000 and lower. So if you can make molecules and you can have those molecules then heat up those molecules will then radiate away and then you can finally form these stars. >> Okay. So understanding this chemistry is really important for understanding the speed at which the universe >> cooled down in its first like million years. Yes. Right. And that's when those first stars formed. Those first stars then created the ingredients for other stars like they could be the things that created the galaxy centers that created galaxies. Right? So so this is very important for us to understand how we got here to understand the chemistry at the very beginning. The the idea is here kind of like we started with there's a

15:27butterfly effect that happens right in terms of where the starting point of the universe is and like where we are here in this 3D space >> and there are these interesting transition points. >> Yeah. >> One of which is you know the transition point from the soup to then having our first molecules >> and from the first molecules to then having the first things like stars. And what's interesting is kind of just the way you talked about it, >> it's kind of non-intuitive that you need molecules to first exist. Yeah. In order for then stars to actually have the capability to even >> even form themselves. And so the reason why this 13 billion year old puzzle is

16:10so important it becau is because it fills in this gap of seeing how it went from first molecules to stars >> which now gives us the ability to understand how long did it actually in this early universe. >> You know we can begin to extrapolate from this to look at star formation. Yes. >> And really begin to have a deeper more robust understanding of some of those sort of later stage actions. Yes, exactly. Like how did the first stars form? Because when they formed, they would tell us it would also tell us how big the stars were, right? There's a there's a hypothesis that the super massive black holes at the center of galaxies are actually these dead first stars, right? Because that's the only

16:51way you can have like a million solar masses, >> right, >> thing, >> right? >> Right. >> Right. So it's it's it's extremely important to understand like very fundamentally what the universe is about >> and and what's what's incredible about this study is that uh this is not it is it has theoretical implications for how we do simulations etc. But this was an experimental result. >> This was an experimental result. So what they did was they they were concerned with this helium hydide, helium and H+ and they were concerned with how this interacts with sort of the next few molecules that arise which is the next molecule that will probably arise is

17:31like um hydrogen right molecular hydrogen which is H2. Now H2 is not very good at dissipating energy because H2 is a symmetric molecule right it's just like mirror image. So like there's some vibrational modes, but there's no dipole in the sense that like all of the electrons aren't squished on one side. With helium and hydrogen, all of the electrons are basically hanging out near the helium because there's two protons in one, right? So then you have this like electric dipole where like there's this charge imbalance and that charge imbalance gives the molecule the ability to do a bunch more like energy transitions and then like dissipate out more heat >> because there's like this empty block that it needs to resolve for. Yeah.

18:13there's an asymmetry and and then like any tiny little thing is going to kick it in a weird way and you know then you get into these quantum states and so on and so forth which we don't have to get into but for hydrogen H2 it's not very good hydrogen and dutarium dutarium is um it's an isotope of hydrogen um chemically it's the same as hydrogen but it's got a proton and a neutron >> right so it's just a little bit heavier now if I have a dutarium and a hydrogen now there's like a slight imbalance of mass right so then you can have some sort of other stuff, but it's not nearly as good as helium hydide. So, the problem is we want to they wanted to figure out how often does helium hydide transition to helium dutyium. Yep. Okay.

18:54Because like if this thing if this thing is really slow, >> then helium hydide could stick around for a really long time and dissipate a lot faster. Y >> but what they actually found was that >> this helium hydide to helium duturium, >> yeah, >> is actually quite fast. Okay. Theoretically, it was postulated that it would be quite slow because there's like some kind of en they thought that there's some kind of energy barrier that prevents this reaction from happening. >> But like new simulations and like somebody actually found like a mistake in the old simulations because scientists are always like you know like I don't think so sure about you sure about that. >> Yeah. Exactly. So, so they found this mistake and so it turns out there isn't

19:35an energy barrier, right? And what better way to experimentally confirm this than to actually make the thing and then make the reaction happen. And they what they found was yeah, there isn't an energy barrier. So even at very low temperatures, you can have this transition happening which means that the helium hydide is turning into this this other not very good molecule. >> So that kind of slows down the cooling >> got it. >> Of this universe a little bit, right? And if it slows down the cooling a little bit, then we need to start reimulating >> that how those stars formed. If we were under this assumption that the chemistry was happening this way and now it's happening this way, right? It impacts the cooling efficiency >> because everything will shift on the 13 billion 13 billionyear timeline one way

20:17or another based on the rate at which the cooling can can happen. Like things either happen sooner or later or later depending on this as a one of the many many many variables in that equation, >> right? And then we can use that and then start looking at James Webb's space telescope observations of the first stars which are I mean this this thing is pushing the limits to how far back we can see light right so we're seeing like the first very first stars that are almost 13 billion I think there's some that are even older than 13 billion years not older than the universe but like almost immediately when stars could form we're seeing that star right like so um it's incredibly exciting to be like okay like now we I think we have a better handle on this

20:59primordial chemistry and now we can start building these models. Science is an iterative process, right? So it's like once you do this now you can do more complicated things and you can push back the envelope further and further into like >> just how much we know >> about the early universe. And this what's interesting is how this kind of ties to obviously James Webb has been sort of more in the news in the popular science news because of its capability set how much has been spent on it etc. Yeah. And what's interesting is you have the results we're getting from James Web over here >> but we still have other fundamental science research that impacts how we interpret Yeah. uh and analyze this

21:39brand new, fresh, highly robust data set in ways that makes it even more valuable than the extremely valuable category that it's already been labeled as. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of cool. Like this was done on a in a lab on Earth, right, in H Highleberg, Germany, right? Like so experiments here >> experiments here can tell us about like stuff that's happening, >> you know, the chemistry that's happening like >> 300,000 years after the Big Bang. Kind of cool. >> It is kind of cool. Please keep all the Big Bang theory jokes to yourself. Uh, as we've already seen them flooding the comments. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, I can I can talk to girls, okay? I can talk to them sober. >> So, that's that's a fascinating that the

22:20universe's oldest puzzle, one of which we've now have an interesting answer for, uh, courtesy of the Maxplank Institute. And so we're gonna shift to another story that's about really small stuff. Uh which is >> Oh yeah, this one's awesome. >> Which is now coming out of Yale University. So the story out of Yale is Yale scientists recode the genome for programmable synthetic proteins. A team of synthetic biologists have rewritten the genetic code of an organism using a novel cellular platform for producing a new class of synthetic proteins. Very fascinating. a little bit earlier this year. This came out and so, you know,

23:00help us understand the implications of the ability to recode the genome for specifically programmable synthetic proteins. >> Yeah. Um, you know, we've we've talked about synthetic bio on this podcast before, like the power of Chrisbar. This takes it even a step further. Okay. This is like honestly I thought this was kind of crazy when I read it. Okay, so Chrisbar is the programmable DNA tool, right? That's the thing that lets us snipe a bit of DNA here and then other enzymes will come in and put in whatever custom bit of DNA we want. Right? This thing is making like so with Chris one can imagine that this

23:41genome sequence was maybe possible without humans right through mutations and stuff like that. Yes. Here we're making synthetic biology that like literally could not be possible without humans. The idea is like Chrisar like that you can see natural processes get the result of what we can >> yeah maybe in a billion yeah it'll take like forever right here we're like so Chrisar we're using the same Lego blocks actg right that already exist we're just we're just reprogramming like how the actg is said because we know what the code is and then we can create our own proteins here we're creating new Lego blocks >> entirely >> does that make sense >> so we're adding more letters to the in

24:22this analogy and the ATC >> not to the DNA but to the protein >> the protein general the protein creation synthesis >> itself so so let's go over some basic molecular biology okay because that's what's going to be needed for this >> so DNA >> DNA comes in four letters okay there's four building blocks that make up DNA and DNA is essential to all life right that's where we get the genetic information from and that tells us the blueprint of how to create whatever we want to create okay DNA comes in four letters ACT G these They're nucleotides. They're just like tiny molecules. Um they've got three parts and you build a ladder on top of each other and you create a giant little um I guess staircase of

25:03>> the double helix >> of the double helix, right? And then the unique DNA, you have unique DNA. I have unique DNA. And that determines like the kind of organism you're going to be, the facial features, everything and everything. >> It determines whether you have good genes or not. >> Oh yeah. Yes. Yes. Those are the genes we're talking about people. >> Not on the body. In the body. >> No, in the body. Um, and so DNA is pretty standard. Four things. Proteins on the other hand, there's 20 different amino acids that life uses. >> Okay. So 20 different building blocks. >> Got it? >> All right. >> Now, what DNA does fundamentally is it tell the it tells the cell >> which proteins to put in a sequence.

25:44Okay. And um what these guys have done is created new amino acids >> entirely. >> Entirely >> beyond the initial list of 20. >> Yes. >> Oh wow. >> That's you see what I'm saying? >> No no no that like we invented a new Lego block. >> Yes. We invented a new Lego block for proteins. >> That's actually okay. Which is which the implications of which now >> Yeah. We can let's discuss the implications first. Let's get into the science which is cuz I think I mean experimentally this is like >> such a hard thing to do. Okay. And I'm going to get into why. Um >> so first >> why why even do this in the first place? Um why does it make sense to do this? >> So here we're going to get into a little

26:26bit of mathematics. Okay. So there's there's four there's four letters in DNA. Yes. >> But I want to code for 20 >> amino acids. >> Um yeah. Yes. >> Let's say 20 distinct words. >> Okay. Sure. >> Four letters. Four letters, 20 distinct words. >> 20 distinct words. Now, I can't just have one word, one letter per word, right? Because then I'd only have four words, a cg. >> Yes. >> Okay. With two letters per word, I would have 16, right? I can have a a a t a c a g and so on and so forth. So, four * 4, 16 words. Yep. >> With two letters. >> But with three, I have four * 4 * 4, that's 64. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So, I can do 64 Yep. different

27:08words >> word combinations with those >> but I only have 20. >> Right. >> So I need a minimum of three. But that means that there's a bunch of repetition. >> Right. >> Right. Cuz I have 64 different >> possible words but only 20 different meanings, >> so to speak. Right. So multiple words are going to mean the same amino acid. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And so there's going to be this redundancy. And life codes for that, right? So, for example, um there's one there's one three there's three threeletter words TGA, T AA, and T A G. All of these three code for stop making a protein. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Okay.

27:49>> ATG. So, like you can imagine there's a little like enzyme um called RNA polymerase that like goes down and it tries to find ATG. Okay. That becomes AUG. I guess it tries to find AUG um in mRNA. MRNA uses a different set of letters. Instead of T, it uses U. Anyways, there's a little there's a little like guy who goes down and he's trying to find aug. >> Okay. Once he finds aug, he's like, "U protein starts here." >> Got it. >> Then he recruits a bunch of other stuff. There's a ribosome that comes in, which is the protein making factory. Ribosome attaches over there. And then now the ribosome goes, "Okay, what are these three? What are these three letters? Okay, I need this thing. >> Okay, next. What are these three

28:29letters? Okay, I need this thing." Right? And so it keeps going until it reaches something called a stop codon, >> which is a signal to stop. That's the end of my protein. And there's TGA, TAA, and TAG. There's three >> different words that mean the same thing. Stop. >> Right. Right. And like in theory, I think I think I can see where we're going with this because what we're sort of saying is there's there's this natural redundancy where certain combinations all equal the same action. Mhm. >> We don't necessarily need all >> need that >> to have the same action because we already have the action. >> So I I >> we just need one. >> Yep. >> We just need one to reliably mean stop. >> Yeah. >> And then the other two, what if we coded

29:10some crazy meaning? >> Yeah. >> Right. That's never been seen before. Right. >> So what if I created an amino acid that's never been seen before that has unique chemical properties and then I started using that to create proteins that have never been seen before. right? >> Not even in the millions of years of of biology, >> right? In the trial and error because so proteins are effectively this chain of amino acids and on the back of each amino acid is something called a um an R group. Um I think it's called a residual group but >> I might be getting that wrong. In any case, yeah, they'll get us in the comments. The R group is basically the thing that makes the amino acid what it is. Sometimes it's like a sulfur atom. Sometimes it's just a lame carbon atom

29:51or a hydrogen atom. Sometimes it's like a phosphate group which has a charge. >> Okay? >> Right? So you can have like like a bunch of things that have charge and then those charges on either side will start folding the protein and that's what gives it the 3D structure. All of these R groupoups interacting in this 3D kind of way is what folds this 1D chain into a 3D molecule of a protein that like makes >> a protein do what it does, right? But now what if we could have different R groupoups that like with different elements or like completely unique properties that start making the protein do crazy things >> because what the because what's interesting is you have the chain but the to get the effects it needs to do

30:32into the folded 3D structure and sort of what we're now saying is >> in the wake of something like as kind of like a side note in the way of something in the in the wake of something like uh the Google's product that they put out which created the library of all the different protein fold structures. >> Yeah, Google um alpha fold it won the Nobel Prize in chemistry last year, >> right? And so what you're >> they actually they're actually using some AI to like try and figure out what effect this kind of stuff would have. >> But even if we can see what the protein effect is, what this is sort of saying is we're actually changing the factory that builds them to do it out of the box. Yeah. Effectively, and create these new protein structures which have these

31:12emerging properties that can be extremely completely net new than anything we've ever been able to experimentally. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is even like like Chrisar gives us the ability to make new DNA, >> right? >> But like new DNA in terms of like with the same letters >> with the same Lego blocks >> with the same Lego blocks. This is like new proteins with like >> you know who knows what >> who knows what. Like we could we could start imagining now we have we can use a full vocabulary of 64 >> which which if we started with 20. >> Yeah. >> And we now >> look at look at the diversity of life that we get with >> 20 let alone uh now almost tripling

31:52right or over tripling the number of again fundamental ways in which you can generate and syn this is actually really really nuts and like it was actually like so hard to do. I can I mean obviously >> okay it's like so hard to keep a bacteria alive and also like mess with it so much that like you know this this poor bacteria is like bro like I have no idea what's going on right so what they did was they first started with a strain that already had one of the I think TAG was so TAG is one of the other stopcodons >> yes >> already completely eliminated okay they had just like they had just like done crispar enough to remove all of the TAGs

32:33>> okay >> in a in a separate or in in a in a separate context in a separate context. So they're like let's start with that thing cuz one of them's already done >> because because someone removed it and everything worked fine is what we're sort of saying. So it's like we feel comfortable that if we recode it for something else there are not going to be any negative derivative impacts of the removal. Yes, >> that's already been taken care of. >> Yeah. So next what they did was they said okay now I want to I've got two other stop codons. T AG and TAA. >> I'm going to do what I'm going to do is make TAA the stop codon. It's the stop codon. Okay. That's the thing that's going to tell something to stop making a protein. >> Yes. TGA is what I want to repurpose for something else. Okay. So, first thing what you got to do >> is there's something called like so how does a how does the how does the cell

33:14know to remove so to stop protein >> making once it sees this there's the these things called release factors >> that are proteins in themselves. >> Yes. >> And they look at oh there's a TGA. Okay. Everybody stop stop what you're doing. Okay. So they got that protein kicked it out. >> Yep. They they got the gene for that for that thing. They booted it out of the genome. So now that thing doesn't So that like policeman that's there to like say, "Hey, I see a TGA. You better stop." >> That thing's gone. >> So we've defunded the police. >> Yeah. So we defunded the TGA police. >> The TGA police, >> right? And we've kept the TAA police. >> Got it. Okay. >> Got it. Got it. >> And we've deleted a bunch of non-essential genes. So we've made the

33:54genome a lot shorter. Um this one's interesting. So there's three genes in the E.coli. um genetics where TGA happens in the middle. >> Okay. >> But like something gets put in instead because TGA is sometimes a stop code on because you know biology there's never a hard fast rule. It depends on the context of where this codon is in terms of the rest. So >> there's three very important genes that has TGA in the middle. So they they were like careful enough not to completely remove all TGA. >> It wasn't it wasn't a blanket delete. It was a delete except for >> Yeah. Yeah, it and the other parts weren't a delete. It was a substitution. Instead of TGA, they put in TAA.

34:36>> Got it. Got it. >> Okay. Got it. >> Yeah. So, so except for this part because if they put a TAA, then that protein is done and then it beats up. Right. So, >> even even that that they're targeting like you know you can't see this. You're not like reading it going, I want, you know, like you you got to make some molecular machinery and experimental apparatus to actually target the correct ones. Leave out the ones that are important. Yes. So, they did that. Then they ran into some problems which is release factor 2 which is the TIAA police. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> TIA police because was starting to get um confused because it started not only like it it started recognizing the wrong thing. >> Yeah. Yeah.

35:16>> Okay. Because we've messed with this thing so much. Right. >> Right. It started it started sometimes not recognizing TAA because we put in so much of it. And then somebody would put in um a tryptophan amino acid there instead of stopping the protein production. >> Got it. Yep. Yep. >> So then now they're like okay we got to make taa police better >> right >> at being like no that's a TAA you better stop >> understand the new dynamics that have kind of been created now. >> Yeah. And so they they they then messed with the taa genetics. Yep. >> Okay. Once they did that they um they used assays like which are basically like you know um you do a bunch of like uh chemistry and pipeetting and you try to see which proteins are expressed and so on to make sure that this works. Um

35:58the other thing that I found really interesting was in order to confirm that this worked they would also infect it with viruses. Okay, >> this bacteria and the viral so the way the virus works is it hijacks the bacterial machinery >> to like make more copies of itself. But if if we've done this right, then the virus is coming in looking at this new machinery like where's my stop? Like what what's going on? >> Where's the factory that I >> Yeah. Where's the factory that I normally do? And then it won't work. >> That is >> Is that kind of cool? >> No, that is very intriguing. That is there's so many levels of I mean we could have multiple podcasts on just individual aspects of >> story. >> Um because there there's so many layers of current understanding that are

36:39required to even be able to attempt >> Yes. Yeah. The the hierarchy of processes that happen within a cell at the molecular level, right? I'm talking like >> like >> Yeah. It's it's just incredible the understanding that we have. And finally, what they did was so now when they're all done, they have TGA and TAG, which are like now >> Yeah. >> we can do whatever we want. So then they got these two um they're called non-standard amino acids. Okay. >> Basically made up by us, >> right? Right. Outside of that initial list of >> Yeah. And so and so then they reworked the chemistry that once you know there's a part the ribosome it sees some threeletter thing and then it's like okay I'm going to grab this thing. >> Yep. >> It started grabbing the right thing and

37:20to grab the the this new thing that we made up we have to make it mimic everything else so that the ribosome doesn't think anything different. It's just like, oh, this is the one the the login key, right? And so they did that and then finally they created um this new E.coli. They call it um ochre ochre e. It's a genomically recoded organism. >> It's not the first genomically recoded organism, but this is the first one where they've done all of this, >> right? >> Like new like >> not just changing, we're not just doing the the changing at the DNA level. It is now producing new proteins. Yeah. That we have made up >> and with new Legos. >> With new Legos that we gave it Yeah. And

38:02it's doing so on its own. Like we've created it such that it can self- sustain this new process. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like alive. >> And it's alive >> with all of this new internal dynamics, >> part of which we just made up from whole cloth. >> Yeah. It's it's incredible. It's an incredible story. like it's from the Reinhardt and Isaacs lab at Yale University. Well done. >> Well, >> I mean, yeah, >> this is we're definitely going to almost certainly come back to this story because I am sure they're going to be a >> There's going to be I mean, now that now that I mean, this is the first step in creating a 64 Lego block alphabet. >> Right. >> Right. Actually, it's got to be 62 because you need one to start, one to

38:42stop. Fine. So, you But 62 is a lot more than 20. >> And if we can and Yeah. And Right. And so like the amount of of emergent and derivative properties, behaviors, dynamics that result from tripling the number of Lego blocks that are fundamentally a part of this protein and amino acid generation process. I mean, let the imagination run wild. >> It's like, dude, it's like it's like we're >> it's like we're we've been making houses out of mud huts. Like, we've been making mud huts. All of a sudden now we got steel mother like >> right right >> you know like >> right >> you know what this this is I I'll I'll

39:23end with this note because >> and this one thing I wanted to say was like uh it's safety concerns are there >> of course >> right and but I was reading at the very end of this article they were talking about like how did you how do we do the safety concerns one of the things that's interesting is you could make these organisms dependent on this new Lego block >> okay >> right and That way if it gets out, >> it's just going to die. >> Die, right? >> Cuz this these Lego blocks aren't out here in the >> right like normal ecoli survives everywhere cuz it depends on the 20 that are found in us in in plants and everything, >> right? >> But like if it if it requires like some like weird thing that's only found in labs,

40:04>> well then yeah, >> because I guess the implication of what you're trying to get at is if this newly if this new form of ecoli >> were to have a leakage problem We don't necessarily understand >> Yeah. >> what would happen in a in a free in a free environment. >> Yeah. >> How it would impact flora, fauna, other ecosystems. >> Yeah. >> Um let the conspiracy theories went wild. But this that one one way that we could mandate safety is to say that like okay, how about like you these E.coli like in order to even digest sugar or something >> like that protein has one of these. >> Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So then it can't it's just gonna like die.

40:46>> The world is going to get very very very >> I'm sorry I I stopped you in the middle of something. >> No, it because I always try to think of analoges to help me kind of frame some of these topics and >> I was talking to someone the other day that um they were talking about >> uh obviously this is related to the UAP issue and they kind of made a similar point. It's like when you look at the periodic table, you know, we have all this certain number of elements that are on there. >> Uh but we've only really figured out how to engineer those elements at their current like at certain isotopic yeah ratios. >> So we're it's as an analogy we sort of have like whatever the number is at those set isotopic ratios. But if we could figure out how to one create

41:26stable states of these other ones or environments where we >> Yeah. like create the magic number element at like 120 or whatever >> then you open up a new set of tools by which you could then engineer things uh but we have a we're not using all of the possible theoretically possible available tools in that cont there's a similar that's so it's how >> it's similar yeah it's um in that context I will say that we have a much better understanding of physics and chemistry there >> for sure >> right with biology because there's like >> 10 to the 10 more >> moving parts the possibility is like, >> yeah, it's like we're at where we're in biology where physics was, I think, in the 1910s, 1920s.

42:07>> Okay. Okay. >> Which which means >> which is like when we were like, "Oh, it's an electron. What is that?" >> Which means we still have not yet had our, you know, our what is Manhattan Project. >> Yeah. Right. like our sort of mid 1900s moment where there's just this incredible explosion >> um of of like >> literally >> literally of like practical applications of the fundamental science. >> Yeah. Dude, it's not >> what a great story. >> Like even though this this story is kind of old. I think it was February. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. But like I I came across and I was like this Lester's got to got to learn about this. >> This is this is really good. This is really good. It's unfortunate that it it was uh out of our rivals in New Haven, but

42:47>> yeah, >> we'll we'll they're part of the they're part of the club. We'll give we'll give it to them. >> Yeah, at least it's not Harvard. >> Go Tigers. Uh okay, that I'm going to have to sleep on that one. Our next story, uh we're going back into space. Uh like our first story, >> NASA's new radar just pulled off something impossible. So during a uh uh during a close Mars flyby, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft tested its radar system Reason for the first time in space. Yeah. And this is interesting because I said at the top how this might lead us to aliens. So how do we get from a radar at Mars to aliens?

43:32>> Aliens. That's what it's always been about, man. >> Always about aliens. >> It's always about aliens. um not like intelligent life. I don't think there's like um you know sea people. Yeah. In Europa, but Europa is an extremely important um planettoid. It's not really a planet. It's a moon of Jupiter, but if it was >> if it was going around the sun, it's quite big, honestly. It's it's quite big. Um it's bigger than our moon. Um and >> it's a planet that has ice on its surface >> and we're pretty sure has an ocean underneath. >> Right. >> Okay. And we're also pretty sure that it's geologically active. >> Okay, >> so there's like volcanoes. >> Okay, >> and the reason why that makes us super

44:14excited is because those are sort of the conditions where we find um a lot of life on Earth in um deep sea hydrothermal vents. Yep. >> Right. Those things are some of my favorite places that you know if I didn't have a um a debilitating fear of water like I would go in a submarine and visit hydrothermal vents. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, >> unfortunately that I don't think I'm ever going to do that. But like those so hydrothermal vents are places on the earth where there's like basically volcanic geothermal activity happening under under the ocean floor. It's been happening probably for billions of years. Um, it's probably where the first life originated around Earth. Um, and it's also one of the only places where

44:55the fundamental source of energy does not come from the sun. >> Oh, interesting. >> Right. That's what's cool. Everywhere else on Earth, >> the fundamental source of energy comes from the sun, right? >> That becomes like photosynthesized and blah blah blah. But geothermal places, I mean, Yellowstone, I guess, is another. The bacteria and those thermal pools, um, they're getting their energy from the kinds of chemical compounds that are coming from from the Earth. Hydrothermal vents are pretty nice because like there's so much diversity of life down there. Um, there's bacteria, there's like sponges, there's like all sorts crazy stuff. So, we're thinking Europa has that and we want to get there >> and we want to get there >> and we want to look at it. >> And this radar system, this Clipper

45:36spacecraft ultimately is destined >> for Europa. >> It's going to get there in 2030. >> Okay. >> So, it's gone a long ways. It was launched last year. >> Okay. >> Um, it already made its way to Mars. It's going to do this like gravity assist. So, it's going to go around Mars. Then, it's going to come back to Earth, I think, 2026. >> Gravity assist from us and then shoot off to >> It's It's a double rainbow. Yeah, it's doing a it's doing a comeback and then it's going to do it, right? And it's got um it's got a lot of systems to try and see >> Europa for what it is. Um usually when we've sent stuff to Jupiter, like Europa hasn't really been the focus, right? We there's so many cool things to see around Jupiter and Saturn and things like that. So, this one is specifically

46:17designed for um Europa. >> Very interesting. >> It's got it's got two things that are really cool. One is it's got a really nice thermal camera. Mhm. >> So with the thermal camera, what you can do is you can look at the ice and see if there's parts that are warm, parts that are cold. Maybe the warm parts are where the water is coming out or like where the geothermal activity is. Extremely accurate thermal imaging. Then there's also a radar system. This is um the radar is called reason. It means um it's a short form for radar for Europa assessment and sounding ocean to near surface. >> Right? Because the idea is it's going to be doing its detection at that ice layer and just s slightly below that ice

46:58layer. Yeah. And we will be able to then make uh have a better picture of what is actually there. >> I mean how deep is the ice? First question >> cuz how how like you know maybe we want to go there and drill >> drill and it's like >> but then it's like okay how how deep do we got to go? >> Is this going to be Armageddon where we have to send you know uh you know two drill two miles into the incoming asteroid. 2 miles I think. I mean they estimate that it's something like 20 km. >> Oh wow. Okay. >> So um and but you know we got robots. >> Yeah. Yeah. We can do we can do it. Yeah. So the radar there's two different types of radar. There's high frequency radar which is at 9 mehz and that's going to give us like

47:39>> up to um 30 kilometers in depth. So we'll be able to see like okay what's the depth of the ice? How how far away is the ocean? So, so if it's below, if the ice is only 20 km, then we would be able to basically detect that >> like the ocean. >> The ocean that's the 10 below that. >> Yeah. And then we also have um very high frequency which is at 60 MHz um and that gets us to about 4 km but we have a lot higher resolution on like spatial features and things like that. So there we can see like what are the fissures in the ice like right like how do those move around? What is the geological history of that ice crust? You know, because if you look at you look at Europa, there's like these long gashes

48:19and like fissures. Clearly, there's like movement in the ice, right? That's coming from >> well, one, it's so close to Jupiter that Jupiter's gravity lit literally like stretches and and squishes it. Yep. >> Okay. And that's what's causing the geothermal motion, right? The moon is geologically dead. Mars is geologically dead. But Europa and Io, which is the even closer moon, they're geologically active because Jupiter is so massive that it literally like squishes and like you know the moon is tugging on the earth and because the earth has a fluid >> there's tides. >> This one this tidal friction but it's it's so powerful that literal planet is doing tides right and it's like squishing in like so there's a lot of

49:00geothermal activity there. There's probably a lot more in Europa. >> That makes sense. >> So that's what we're trying to find and and um it's going to be really interesting. The the cool part to me was um you know you could ask like why why can't you just so here it was right on Mars and they're testing the radar and the thermal imaging there >> they're doing basically dry run it's already on its way but they're like while we're on the way let's just make sure >> let's just make sure everything is right and Mars is like the best studied >> thing outside the earth and the moon >> fair >> in the solar system right so it's like when we take a picture with the radar on Mars we know exactly what to expect because we've taken a thousand photos already or something to match it >> and then it's like there better not be any new surprises, right? Cuz if they

49:42are, it's not Mars, it's your instrument. That makes sense, >> right? So, everyone's like, fingers crossed everything worked. Everything worked. One thing that was interesting was like, why didn't you just like >> um test this here, right? NASA's JPL made it. Yep. >> Um the radar was actually made by UT Austin. >> Um the thermal imaging was made by Arizona, I believe. >> Um all the universities. And so it's like, why don't you just test it? Well, the antenna for this radar is like as big as a uh football field. >> Oh, wow. >> Right. That's like So, >> in order to test it, like Okay, fine. You can like in order to fully test it in the thing, >> this thing is assembled in a clean room. It's in the biggest clean room in JPL.

50:23And that thing can like sort of barely fit this >> um Clipper probe because the solar panels are so massive because like, you know, Jupiter is five times away from the sun as Earth, right? So like you have 125th the amount of light. >> So you need a giant football field size solar panel to like >> power the radar and the thermal imaging. This thing comes at a cost of energy. Yep. And so you're you're fitt fitting it in this like in this giant high bay um clean room at JPL. You want everything to be sterile. >> Now you like in order to test radar, you need to bounce it off something far away. Right. >> Right. So they tested each individual component but they didn't test the whole thing. for the first time that they're

51:04testing the real big thing and and like work everything was great. >> Talk about tight sphincters. I mean I just I mean I went to I think I told you about this recently. I went to uh up in Santa Barbara uh Redwire Space was doing a deployment test for their solar arrays for the Aremis program. >> Oh yeah. >> And I I went into it was a much smaller clean room but it was still quite large. Yeah. >> Um and just to see the amount of time >> and the scale of this thing. I mean, the scale of this thing is unbelievable. >> So, we saw it, you know, deploy itself out. And the reason for that is they want to have it in a smaller, tighter package >> to to get it off the Earth,

51:45>> but then still be able to have the surface area like you're saying to be able to be be valuable. Um, and even something like that, there was a whole process that had to scrub down, etc. Yeah. So, so it the scale of this stuff is is incredible and it I can only imagine I saw how nervous they were just doing that test >> here >> on the ground and they had already had a successful one for the the first solar array and they were just doing the second one. So, there was already a level of confidence they'd be fine, let alone be like, "Okay, when it's going by Mars that, >> you know, nothing looks no there's no like broken pixel somewhere." >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like they got they got about 60 gigs of data from 40 minutes of radar. >> Okay. on Mars and the pictures look

52:26fantastic. >> So, I think it's going to be a really great uh thing to see in 2030 when we get those Europa flybys cuz it's going it's going past Europa 50 times, it's going to get as low as 16 kilometers >> from the surface, which is pretty close. >> That's quite close. >> That's like real close. >> So, if if there is if there is >> signs >> there's signs if there's signs of life, that's going to be great. Not even I mean signs of life would be crazy, right? Like if we if we I mean it does have some equipment to find like uh you know trace gases and things like that if it came out but like even signs of like a liquid ocean. >> No, that that's No, exactly. Because here's the thing. We we we're trying to

53:07understand how many things are unique to our planet. >> Yeah. >> Uh versus abundant in the universe. And as more and more of these fundamental properties become confirmed as being a because if there's water on Europa, it it's fair to extrapolate that water is relatively abundant, you know, more generally in the larger universe just statistically >> and there's a lot of water on Europa apparently, right? It might be all frozen, but I don't think so. A lot of people don't think so. >> And if it's liquid, specifically, if it's liquid water, um, >> it the it just opens the door more and more. Again, there are levels of what we mean by life and bio signatures and not all life off planet necessarily is

53:47intelligent life, but even the presence of microbial life >> in our own solar system >> in our own solar system, >> right? This is in our backyard >> would would have >> I mean, I think that's that that would be just magical. >> But at a minimum, I think what's great about this is, you know, good thing we got this thing off last year uh before before funding got cut. Got it. >> Um because NASA's really struggling right now. I mean, we're working with trying to get some programs stuff and it's just it's just total blood bath. >> No, dude. NASA's definitely struggling. Yeah. >> So, we got it out there. >> We got it out there and now it's like now it's on a trajectory, right? >> We can't stop it. Yeah. >> I mean, even the the the last story that we had with um with Yale. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That one's funded by NIH and NSF

54:29>> and obviously >> and actually DARPA. >> Oh, I don't like that part. >> Yeah. It's like I don't know. I don't know why DARPA is doing a >> feels like a Call of Duty Lego. If anyone remembers the Call of Duty where I think it featured Kevin Spy as the villain, they basically did this thing where they created a genetic, you know, basically the weapon only impacted people that had this certain >> It was very DARPA's connection to the synthetic protein thing gives me that >> It's a little icky. Yeah. >> Yeah. It gives me that Call of Duty vibe. Yeah. >> Uh not fun. Not fun. Our our last story our last story is out of MIT. >> Yes. >> It's actually shocking to see some

55:10fundamental science coming from MIT. I know Caltech is is more well known for that. But >> yeah, >> uh credit where credit is due. Uh famous double slit experiment holds up when stripped of its quantum essentials. MIT physicists confirm that like Superman, light has two identities that are impossible to see at once. So, you know, one of the things that we always talk about is there's there's stuff happening at the size that we are and then there's stuff happening at the quantum level. And our understanding of these two things is relatively robust, but they don't kind of they don't blend really well. Uh but it seems like this particular aspect we're kind of seeing

55:50some consistency in both spaces maybe. But yeah, I don't know. Yeah, tell me. I mean it's we're >> we're basically finding out that like the world really is quantum. >> Okay. >> And um and it's it's really a confirmation on something that we already knew. Yep. >> But it's an incredible experiment >> um in its own right. So that's that's why I really loved it. >> We love experimental design. This looks like it's brand new July 28th. >> Yeah. So this is again this is hap this stuff is happening >> this stuff is happening now >> every week all the time. >> Yeah. So the idea is the double slit experiment. It's one of the most famous experiments in all of physics. It's something that um sort of confirms this

56:32duality this wave and particle picture of light you know and it's like is is an electron a particle? Is an electron a wave? I mean it's like both but also not both. It's it's an electron and a photon. What is a photon? Well, it's a photon. Sometimes it behaves like waves. Sometimes it behaves like particles. Um Einstein very famously did not like this. >> Yeah. The spooky >> Yeah. He he had he had a lot of problems with quantum mechanics. One of them was the spooky action at a distance. Um which is something that we're actually going to come to. And then the other one was um this idea of like the wave particle duality. It's like no, the world is just well- definfined.

57:12>> Right. >> Right. >> Right. like God wouldn't do that >> there. God wouldn't create ambiguity in >> Yeah. Yeah. The world is well defined. Um and like there's I don't know what you're talking about effectively. Okay. This whole thing started back in 1801 when Thomas Young made the first double slit experiment with light. He wanted to show the wave property of light. So the idea is the following. You've got um you've got a light source. >> Okay. Like from here you um create a single slit like let's say this way. >> Yep. >> You create a horizontal slit this way. You've got a light source. Back then he didn't have lasers, right? So he needed a way to create a very like um sort of

57:54monochromatic like light the same color and things like that. So he's got a prism that spreads it spreads it apart and then he targets only one color. Yep. Right. And then and then you can like be sure that it's just one. Otherwise, light you're not going to get anything. So, he has a horizontal slit in this direction that lets in a specific color of light. And then here, he's got two slits, one up and one down here. Okay? And the idea is the light is going to if it's a wave, well, if it's a particle, it's going to like spray like a bullet. And then there's two slits. So, it's going to spray like bullets here. And then if I have a detector, then I'm going to see two lumps of where the light landed, right? If it's a particle, >> right? If it's a wave on the other hand,

58:35just like how ocean waves spread out and they interfere with each other, the light's going to spread out over here. Then it's going to hit these guys and spread out from these two points and then it's going to create an interference pattern, right? >> Um kind of like the moay patterns that we were talking about last week, right? Where you have like this >> these fringes going out and then they create um light dark light dark light dark fringes on the detector. Okay? And when we saw these light dark light dark fringes, you can calculate from the wavelength of light. You can calculate like how far apart the light dark should be and they're exactly that far apart. You can do the math and like okay, it's pretty pretty awesome that like yep, it's it's a particle, right? I mean,

59:16sorry, light is a wave. Okay, then comes the quantum revolution. We start understanding that light might actually be a particle. It might be quantized, right? Max Plank uses the quantum of light to demonstrate um black body radiation which is like why stuff that's hot glows the way it does and then Einstein himself actually uses light being a particle to explain the photoelectric effect which is how solar panels work and things like that. Mhm. >> Um, okay. So, fine, light can be a particle in a wave, but like you could like sort of justify that by saying that like, you know, even Newton thought light was a particle and like now we're going back to this idea. Maybe maybe there's some like, you know,

59:56um, discreetness in the way that light acts. Then in 1927, um, George Thompson won the Nobel Prize for this. He did the same experiment with electrons and he found that electrons also display this interference pattern. Okay. So now we're in this spot where now electrons are becoming waves. They used to be particles. Light that was a wave is now a particle. On top of that when people try to theoretically formulate all this stuff the people like Heisenberg and Schroinger and Boore um they come up with quantum mechanics >> which now starts having things like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle right this idea that like okay whatever system I'm looking at I can't know too much

1:00:38about it right if I know the position well enough I'm not going to know the momentum so on and so forth um and >> which is such a funny thing I still find that so in infinitely fascinating as a mental thing even as Yeah. And I mean Einstein did as well, right? And he's like, "This is crazy stuff." Yeah. >> Um so then they're like, "So so so then Einstein's like one one of the rebuttals to this to this um this this double slit experiment was okay like you've got a bunch of stuff going and so these guys are interacting, right? What if what if I made the light source so dim >> that only a single photon ever went through?" >> Okay, >> this whole thing. Y >> so it went through one and then presumably naively you would think it

1:01:19would go through one of the slits and then it would >> Right. >> Right. But if it went through one of the slits then I should see just two lumps not the interference pattern. >> Right. >> Even if I do a single photon it somehow splits interferes with itself which already you're like what >> why is it interfering with itself? What does that mean? And it's creating an interference pattern. >> Okay. >> Next question. Next obvious question is to be like okay which slit did it go through right we only let a single photon through right which slit did it go through well if we start attaching detectors on the slits then it becomes a particle again and we see two lumps we don't see the interference pattern >> okay >> so so this was already getting weird and Einstein had an idea okay so Einstein's

1:02:01like no this is this is some weird stuff >> okay so he he had this ingenious it's in in 1927 sve conference you've seen this photo of the greatest human minds. >> Yep. >> Um at the time in one spot >> never to be repeated again, >> right? Never to be repeated again. Honestly, it's never going to happen. Um like more than half of them won Nobel prizes in physics. Um >> just like to be a fly on the wall there. >> It was the Avengers before the Avengers were the Avengers. >> Yeah. 100%. Um and so he has this idea of like, okay, well, you know, I have this first slit right before it gets to the two. Now, if the light is going and it makes its way to the bottom,

1:02:41>> then it's going to bump the slit up a little bit upwards, right? Because of the momentum transfer, like conservation of momentum, the light got deflected downward, so the slit is going to bump upward. Similarly, if the light goes upward, the slit is going to get bumped downwards. Yep. >> So, I could I could instead of watching the light at the two slits. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. >> Right. This is Einstein's like he's a tough cookie, dude. Like it's like it's like he's not going to give up cuz like the problem was I was watching it at the two slits and then and then you know it's like oh well you messed with it right and but he's like no now I'm going to mess with it over here before it even gets to the two slits. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I'm going to watch it >> I'm going to watch the slick go up and down and based on that infer which

1:03:22direction it went and then from there I can tell which slit I went. >> Right. >> Right. >> And then my interference pattern should still be there but I'll also know which way it went. Right. >> This is a tough one. Boore um Boore said this was a tough one. So he goes back and him and Heis it was basically the dynamic was Einstein would propose a problem and then Bore and Heisenberg would stay up all night trying to figure out what was wrong with it and then they'd come back the next next day and they'd have an explanation. This was the explanation. It's a very good one. Um Bour said, "Okay, in order to actually tell >> Yeah. whether the slit was bumped up or bumped down, >> right?

1:04:02>> I would have to know very precisely which way the slit was going before >> and which way the slit was going after. Right. I need to know a difference in momentum. >> Yep. >> In order to tell if it went up or down. >> Yes. >> I need to measure that very precisely. >> Yes. >> But if I measure that very precisely, if I measure the momentum very precisely, what happens >> to my position? >> Oh, you you know >> my position is no longer definite, right? Which means the slit could be here, here, here, here. The slit's position gets fuzzy. Even though I know that >> it went up or down. I don't know where it was when it went up or down. >> You know that it's going up the Y-axis or down the Y-axis, but the actual tick

1:04:42mark on the on the side, it's >> Yeah, >> it's fuzzy. >> Yes, that's fuzzy. That's getting fuzzy, right? >> And how fuzzy that gets means that you have a pretty wide slit, >> right? Which means the light could have come from up here or up down there. Which means that >> this path and this path are no longer equally distant. So you're not going to get that interference pattern anymore. The interference pattern is going to get smudged out. >> This okay this is >> does that make sense? >> And so you can't see even even if you try to do the cheating right >> before the thing happens >> to your detector >> the the the physics knows the cheating is happening. >> It's it's it's funny. I mean, does this tie to I mean, is this kind of the ties

1:05:24to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in >> Yeah, this is this is Eisenberg uncertainty princip because the idea is you can only know one of the two. >> Yeah. >> Uh you can't know both position or momentum. Yeah. >> And like that it's just what it is. >> Yeah. It is just what it's just what it is. This is this is what it is, right? And because of that, like you trying to cheat one step before >> doesn't matter. >> Doesn't matter because you'll have destroyed the interference pattern already up here. This reminds me of like video games where it's like you can't the rules of the game are defined and so like if you try to like walk to the edge of the forest, it'll just like there's no edge of the forest. >> Yeah. It'll just make you circle around. >> Right. Right. So, okay. And so I think

1:06:05what's there's there's a long history of people asking these very ostensibly straightforward >> Yeah. >> questions. >> Where to go? >> Right. Right. We have two slits. >> We have one singular photon. Yeah, >> we're sending it towards those two slits. >> Yeah. Which one did it go through? >> And which one did it? >> And it's like, don't ask, >> right? And Einstein's like, "Bro, this is our job as physicists. What are we talking about >> if we can't like and >> so that was Bor's response, right?" And so what these guys what what these guys at MIT did >> was okay, so when we get into that slip problem, right? We're trying to figure out which way it went. Um, one of the things is you you need the momentum to

1:06:45be so precisely determined to understand which way the photon kicked it, right? >> Um, the photon's momentum >> is very small >> compared to even if I have a 1 g mirror, right? Or a one g thingy, >> like that one gram is going to have a momentum uncertainty that's like massive just because it's so big, >> right? >> Okay. So you need to in order to actually do this thing where I'm trying to figure out which way the electron went the thing that is doing the electron sorry the thing that is doing the pushing yes of that photon the thing that is creating this disturbance of the photon needs to be extremely small and that's what these guys did. The the idea is we were doing this at larger scales.

1:07:25>> How large? The slit is massive. >> And so the the the the the the spectrum of your error is so massive because of the >> Yeah. You can't even do the experiment. >> It's not there's no meaningful results that come from that. So we're just saying if we go really really really really small, you decrease the the the the band of of the possible error, which at least allows you to start to maybe get at at this question, which way did it go? And if I figure out which way did it go, does it really destroy the interference pattern? Right. >> Right. Because that's what quantum mechanics says. Right. >> Quantum mechanics says that no matter how I'm how small I make the slit, if I try to cheat and get information about which way it went, I'm going to destroy the interference pattern. >> Right. Okay.

1:08:06>> That's what these guys found. They made slits out of single atoms. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, what they did was they suspended these atoms, which it was either lithium 7, super light, or um dprosium. Drosium. Yeah, >> 162. It's a very heavy element on the periodic table. They suspended this these atoms in a light beam. You can do that now where you have these like >> kind of like these optical tweezers that can uh >> like >> cold atoms right at a certain spot in like a in like a little potential well. >> Um and >> it's ultra cold, so they're really they're really cold. Um, and then you can have now single photons move through.

1:08:46>> Yeah. >> And they'll interact with the atoms. >> Yeah. >> And then create my interference pattern. And then what I can do is I can turn off the light >> and then have the interaction like a microcond later. So gravity hasn't had time to sort of impact it. Um, it's still sort of like there suspended, but in that fraction of time now it's no longer in this potential well. So it can start spreading out a little bit. And then if a photon hits it, then it'll kick it, right? Because before it was like confined in this like well, so it was a pretty rigid slit basically. But now we're getting to this movable thing where we can measure >> where it's like I can like in principle figure out which atom moved more. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And then be like, oh, it was that one.

1:09:27>> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um >> of the two of these two uh sort of >> Yeah. Yeah. In principle. They didn't do this, but they're like in principle we could have that information. And then all of a sudden the interference pattern disappears, >> right? And they they they could tune it such that like the amount of like spread that they were getting in these atoms >> um wave functions was proportional to how much the interference pattern was being destroyed. >> Right. So it's at its very fundamental level. I mean like Einstein and Bore would couldn't even dream of this kind of experiment. Right? Where single atoms are now my slits. >> Right. Right. >> But but that's what they did. And like and they're getting this beautiful interference like and they're they're

1:10:07getting the knockoff of the interference as they do this >> thing where they're if you wait longer then it spreads out more then the interference is even worse. >> Um >> so this this is you know as we've gone to a higher level of like let's say resolution by going super super small. Yeah. >> Um >> it's holding up. It's the the the light the wave light wave particle duality is holding true. >> Yeah. >> Even at the smallest scales we can get to. >> Yeah. >> Uh which means that the universe is just weird. >> Yeah. It's just a weird thing. I mean this isn't like the biggest test for quantum mechanics, right? Because there's bigger tests. There's like stuff

1:10:48there's like tests that um won the Nobel Prize in physics two years ago that um it's like um Bell's experiment where you have where you send two particles far away from each other and then you collapse this one and see if that affected this one, right? It's like looking for correlations far far away. And >> is this the non-locality? >> Yeah, this is the non-locality thing. That's really the thing that Einstein was like worried about the most. Um bore >> because these things are not discreet >> like the so bore remembers so like what happened in the 1927 conference um we we basically have these stories about oh Einstein did this and then Boore did this it's from Boore okay so like Boore

1:11:30has maybe like embellished it a little bit and he kind of you know now when we revisit history it turns out bore might have missed the point on what was Einstein's biggest qual which is the action at a distance. >> Like Einstein's question was like if I have an >> like if I have a it's a very simple thing, right? Even with this double slit experiment, I've got um >> I've got an interference pattern here and you're saying that it interfered with itself. Fine, I'll even give you that. But then at the end of the day, I only see one particle, >> right? It's that if I if I average over multiple particles, then I see the interference pattern, right? Cuz it's like one particle comes in, it puts it here. Another particle comes in, puts it here. And over time, I'll see an interference pattern. But you're telling

1:12:12me there's a wave function that's everywhere, >> but then I get only one particle. >> How does the rest of the wave function know that I'm going to collapse here? >> Right. >> Right. Why don't I see two particles? >> Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. >> It's a very good question. It's like, how does this part of the wave function know, okay, don't trigger the detector because the other part is doing it over there, you know? Yeah. And so that was really Einstein's main main qual, >> right? >> Um >> which which this is not this is not solving problem at all. It's just >> rec this is solving this sort of complimentarity thing and showing that it it really lasts even at the smallest of scales. >> Oh my god. >> So there there's still a lot more fundamental research to be done. This was um this was done at MIT by uh the Federv and Keterbach Lab. Um NSF and DoD

1:12:56funding >> of course. >> Yeah. All all like all Yeah. really really valuable fundamental research. Again, we should fund science. >> We should fund science. This like this kind of this kind of stuff is so cool. >> I'm trying to I'm trying to dig into this spooky action at a distance. It's so quantum mechanics because you always talk to me about this stuff. Even in our private, >> I'll recommend you a book. It's called um What is Real? I forget the I forget the author, but it's an amazing book. I have a copy. I'll I'll give it to you. >> Yeah. No, definitely. Because there it seemed, you know, there's always this argument. It's funny earlier you were talking about like we're pretty good. The physics stuff we we have a lot of that. We're quite good. The biology people they'll catch up. Yeah. Um but there this this area of sort of quantum

1:13:36mechanics, the inability to quantize gravity, whatever. Like all it it there's always the argument that we've already figured it all out. Physics all happened in the in this time period that we kind of just went through. >> I mean that's what that's what they told Einstein and Max Planck before they did quantum mechanics, right? So you never know. Um it'll it's certainly like >> I I think >> I think we're poised for um like a lot of cool discoveries both in physics and in biology. I think in biology the tools are now there where it's like we can start doing crazy experiments. Before like when with the physics stuff like the tools were only just catching up because electricity and magnetism had just been mastered in the late 1800s right with Edison and Max Maxwell. So

1:14:19then we could start we could have like these like massive electrical apparatuses and and so once electricity and magnetism was solved then we could go on to this thing you know it's like now maybe like once we're getting you know there there's a lot lot of possibilities on where this can go >> and just to just to be clear it's it's it's there sort of the fra the box the sandbox that we're playing in is well defined. There are just some corners of it like this area of quantum mechanics where we're still just trying to fill in some of the mosaic but we know what the the box is. Yeah. Right. Because we're able to do things like this. >> Yeah. We're able I mean the fact that we're able to do things right like the fact that we're able to suspend two atoms in a laser that's because we know a lot about quantum mechanics. >> Correct. >> Right. That we can even do that.

1:15:00>> Right. Yeah. >> Right. So it's it's like I just I continue to be fascinated by this stuff. Four really really great stories this week. Again, we touched on the universe's oldest puzzle. >> That's right. >> Uh first ever chemistry >> to for being able to really understand how stars form now being able to sort of reimulate the early universe connecting to stuff coming out of James Webb. >> Uh a huge study out of Yale. Uh >> programmable synthetic proteins. That one is still nuts to me. Crazy. That one's That one's nuts to me. We have the Europa mission. New radar reason. It's going to go below. It's going to look at the oceans, the potential liquid oceans,

1:15:41but at least the ice. It's it has two capability sets, uh, and then finally, uh, kind of reconfirming an oldie, but at a level of clarity that kind of puts to bed like this, this is >> we were right, guys. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it Yeah. Yeah. And it just opens up new possibilities for for research >> because again because >> now we're getting down to this >> that level you again with everything you can always move left or right a lane and it's like what if we tried this same fundamental concept of of how to build the experiment but apply it >> over here. Yeah. >> And that ladies and gentlemen is why we always like to talk about first principles here. My name is Lester Nar

1:16:23joined again by my co-host and our resident PhD Krishna Chowdery. We will see you guys next week.