August 3, 2010 • 31 mins
In this episode, Josh and Chuck tackle a mind-melting topic: quantum physics! They ponder subatomic particles and various quantum theories, focusing specifically on a thought experiment called quantum suicide.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuckers Bryant, son of Mrs Bryant. Yeah. Yeah,
(00:26):
just kept the name good for her. I like your mom. Yeah,
have you met my mom? Yeah? I met your mom
at They Love your Mama opening appropriately enough. That's right.
I thought you said your name was Josh Quark for
a second there. If that was off the cuff, I'll
accept that I did. I just made that up. It
is not written down anywhere. That is great. Um, Chuck
(00:49):
said that because we're going to be talking about quantum
physics today and quarks are Um it's my understanding, Chuck
that they're the the fundamental basis of matter. Yeah. They
make up hadrons, which you may You may know that
because we talked about the Large Hadron collider. Yeah, up
until about like thirty seconds ago, I didn't know why
(01:10):
it was called the large hadron. Yeah. Well, there's six quarks, Josh.
They are known as flavors, which is kind of cool
up down, charm strange top and bottom, and apparently charms
strange top and bottom. You can only um be produced
with like a big collision, like the hadron collider, a
(01:34):
large hadron collider. Huh. And there's also antiquark too, which
is like the opposite. Yeah, those are the quarks that
smoke cigarettes and wear leather jackets exactly. Um chuck. Quarks
exist on their particles, their matter, right, they're the building
box of matter, That's what I understand. So they exist
on the sub atomic level, smaller than atoms or below atom,
(01:56):
depending on you know how you like the words sub um.
And they exist in this weird world, the quantum world.
And they they bump elbows against photons, which are my
favorite sub atomic I guess, particles, um, and plenty of
(02:18):
other weird strange It's like this odd parade of physical things, right,
I don't like it. There, I can understand why you don't,
because it's a very disconcerting and uncomfortable world. The the
very comforting ideals and principles of Newtonian physics, which are
what goes up must come down. The Sun's going to
(02:41):
rise tomorrow. Uh, depending on whether or not you're Robert Hume,
um adherent, David Hume adherent. Um. Just these things that
we can depend on, We've come to depend on since
Isaac Newton, you know, you know his breakthroughs. I learned
a lot about myself reading this. Actually, did you learn
(03:03):
that you get angry easily? No, It's just like the
whole notion of like stepping outside reality disturbed me. Yes.
And what's even more disturbing is that this this universe
is envisioned by some very very smart people, or I
should say what I perceived as reality, by the way,
I just want to clear that up nice. So, Chuck,
(03:26):
we've done when on the large Hadron collider, right, this
is just like this, this this huge, fancy, multibillion dollar
machine that's new that's still going right. Um. Back in
the nineties, they didn't have these large Hadron colliders to like,
you know, rely on to actually see and measure and
(03:46):
detect things on the quantum world. They had to use
their imaginations. Physicists did, and uh, specifically there was a
physicist who used his imagination for what's called the thought experiment.
It where Yeah, this guy's name is Max tag Mark.
He is awesome, He's he was at Princeton at the time. Now,
(04:07):
I think he's a M I. T. And he came
up with a thought experiment called quantum suicide. And will
you allow me to explain it as follows, please do? Okay,
So you are a guy and you're sitting in a
room and there's a gun pointed at you at your head.
I don't like where this is kill shot. And you're
(04:29):
looking at the barrel, right, and the guns a little off.
I mean, it's a normal gun, but it took it
up to this new fangled machine, right. And this machine
is set so that it measures a cork. It measures
the spin of a cork. Right, So let's just say,
for simplicity's sake, although you've already said this isn't true,
(04:50):
let's just say that a cork can only spin clockwise
or counterclockwise. Okay, Um, this this machine is set so
that every time the person sitting in front of the
gun presses a button, the cork is measured. If the
cork is measured with a clockwise spin, the gun's not
gonna go off. They'll just be a click, okay, Right.
(05:12):
If when the guy presses the button, the cork is
measured and it comes up with a counter clockwise spin.
The gun's gonna go off, The trigger will be pulled,
the bullet will actually the chamber, it will travel several
feet across the room into the head of the man
sitting in front of the gun, and he will die
guarantee death like it's a kill shot. Okay. What's weird
(05:36):
is that in this quantum suicide thought experiment, Max tag
Mark figured out that if this guy pressed the button
every single time, he's going to hear a click, click click, click,
click click, no matter how many times he presses it,
no matter how long he tries this, all he'll be
(05:58):
aware of is this clicking of the gun because he lives. Yes,
he lives in every single scenario. How can that possibly be.
Let's go back to the beginning that first time the
guy pressed the button. Okay, what happened in another parallel
universe is the gun went off and he died, right. Okay,
(06:19):
So with that first experiment, the the universe split into two,
one where the gun went off and he died, one
where he just heard a click. Now if we follow
the one where he heard the click every time he
presses that button and the cork is measured, Uh, the
universe splits into two, but he's only aware of the
one where he just hears a click, because that's one
(06:43):
where he's alive, and if he died, he clearly wouldn't
understand that because he'd be dead. Yes, so part one
of mind melt starts just started. I think that that's
the quantum suicide thought experiment. Yeah, I like it. Yeah,
it was pretty mind boggling um and it's used to well,
it's pretty exemplary of the kind of goofy, like you said,
(07:07):
mind melting um ideas that are are brought up on
to explain quantum physics. Right, what you have to do
you have to use thought experiments because you can't use there.
It's unpredictable at that level, so you can't use like
regular scientific method right. And one of the reasons why
it's unpredictable is because when you look at, say a cork,
(07:28):
if a cork only had a spin of clockwise or
counter clockwise science quantum physicists have found that when you
observe a quark um, one time you'll observe it and
it's spinning clockwise. The next time you'll observe it's spinning counterclockwise.
Or even more unsettlingly, they found that photons, these smallest
packets of light. You can look at a single photon
(07:51):
at one point or measure it and it's a particle.
You can measure it the next time the same photon
and it's a wave. So this is kind of like
some buddy running, walking, and swimming at the same time
in different directions, right, this so that, like you said,
it's it's it's uncomfortable that what they're finding on the
quantum level. So what you got, Josh, is is a
(08:13):
chaotic situation and that's sort of how it exists now.
But as you pointed out, you wrote this, I should
point out, and this is a performer, this one has
done really well. Right, you should tell yourself. But sometimes
scientists think that the more we learned that some order
will fall into place on the quantum level at some
point well hopefully, yeah, hopefully here else either theory after theory,
(08:36):
either that or else. Yeah, it's like the the the
laws of physics don't the laws of Newtonian physics just
don't apply on a certain level down to they just
apply on you know, the specified level um. One of
the one of the fundamental tenants that that has long
been debated. Um is the idea of Heisenberg's certain new principle. Right, So,
(09:05):
one of the one of the things, like early on
in quantum physics and like the twenties, um, there are
a lot of guys who were trying to explain why
these weird things were showing up right, well, inconsistent at least, right,
And one of the one of the early guys, one
of the early physicists was Werner Heisenberg. Yeah, Mexican, Yeah,
(09:27):
Vanda Heisenfelg And he came up with this explanation or
this I guess he'd pointed out, like a major flaw
with quantum mechanics is that when we observe something, just
the act of observing something, we influence its behavior. Right, Yeah,
this is where I started to get a little hinky
with this. I understand it in concept, like even like
(09:50):
shining a light on something that's small will will cause
it to to change. But it gets a little more
like philosophical than that. Well, yeah, like simply king at
something will affect the outcome. That's a really great point, Chuck.
There's the quantum um physics has a lot of philosophy
and logic tied into math. It's not just straight up math.
(10:14):
There's philosophy to it. Sort of appeals to me on
that level, but it's it's doesn't make it easier to
understand for me. Well, this is how Heisenberg' uncertainty principle
was explained to me once. Um, if you let's say
you're blind and you have this ball, heavy ball that
that has a lot of bounce to it, um that
you've learned to basically see with you know how bat
(10:36):
uses sonar, yeah, to bound bounce back the wave to
find out how far they are from something. Sure, Right,
Let's say you've you've learned to kind of do the
same thing but with the ball, right okay, and you
know that there's a chair across the room and you
want to figure out roughly how far away the chair is.
So you throw your ball at the chair and you
manage to hit it, and the ball takes a second
(10:57):
and a half to come back to you. And after
you know, being pretty good at this point, now you
know that the chairs about thirty feet away. That's how
long it takes for something for for the ball to
get back to you. In a second and a half,
with about as hard as you threw it. Right, what
you've just figured out is the position of the chair,
or where the chair was when you threw the ball
at it. What the problem is is you've just influenced
(11:20):
the behavior of the chair. You just threw a ball
against it, so you sent it careening off into space,
and now you have no idea where it is. Yeah,
I get that. I get the ball moving the chair.
What I don't get is looking at something. Well on
on this level, consider this with photons. Remember the smallest
packet of light my favorite quantum particle um. There is
(11:45):
a nano machine which is it's a motor, right, and
it's operated by shooting light at it. So this these
packets of light that have no mass and no charge.
This the partticles we're talking about so small that a photon,
a little packet of light can actually influence them. So
(12:06):
we use light to see. Say, let's say just and
this is this is a very basic elementary explanation, but
we use light to see. If we have the light on,
there's photons just bombarding something, right, So phots, if a
photon can hit a particle, we know where it's position was.
When we turn the light on, but we don't know
(12:28):
where it is now because the photons just sent it
careening elsewhere, right, which delves back a little bit into
the philosophical Like you walk into a dark room and
you don't know where the chair is until you turn
the light off. But did the light move the chair? Right?
That's that's that's exactly right, right, That's that's what smart
people have to say about quantum mechanics. What R I
(12:49):
don't get it? Okay, I got it, But you do
get it because you just expect it perfectly. I was
just kidding, right, Okay, all right, So that's Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,
and that's been something that kind of provided a conundrum
for quantum physicists, and not everybody's bought into that, right, Well,
and that's why they had to dream up the thought
experiment to begin with. Okay, so if just observing a
(13:16):
um a particle means we affect its behavior, well, then
maybe we should use thought experiments, especially pre large hadron
collider physicists. This is their their thought process, right, So
this is why tag Mark came up with the quantum
suicide thought experiment. Um, But he didn't he came up
(13:36):
with the thought experiment to prove another quantum theory called
the many world's interpretation. Yeah, Hugh Everett, fellow Princetonian UH
in seven. And I know he was stoked, like because
forty years people were kind of like, I don't know
about this many worlds thing until your guy came along.
(13:57):
Call him your guy. I've actually chatted with him. He's
a good guy. Oh that's right. And I provided a
picture like forty years, right, Yeah, nineteen fifty seven and
ninety seven, exactly four years then, Um, and it supports
quantum suicide. The many worlds theory is UH. For each outcome,
each each each possible outcome to an action, the world
(14:18):
copies itself. It splits into a copy of its right,
and it's simultaneous, and we have absolutely no power over whatsoever. Um.
It's a process called decohesion. So Chuck, This this universe
that we're in right now is going along smoothly because
there's no choice or option. Right. But let's say, Um,
(14:40):
I'm deciding whether or not to take a sip of
this coffee or not. Just making that decision. I didn't
just now, but the there was decohesion when I made
that decision not to because in another universe, another parallel
universe now exists where I did take a sip of
that coffee. Well, yeah, and the key here is that
you don't know that this other universe has been created, No,
(15:03):
because you know and you want to you want to
imagine that you can look over to your right somewhere
and you see yourself to drinking the coffee. But you can't.
We're not we're not cognizant of that universe. It's it's
branched off. They're no longer cohesive, right, and that supports
the quantum suicide thought experiment, like perfectly, Well, that's that
(15:25):
is what um, that's that's what whoever came up with
to explain why a particle, a photon could be both
a wave and a particle, right right. The unsettling part
of this is with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, we're in charge,
we look at a quantum particle, we affect it. Right.
(15:49):
That was with who's Heisenberg heisenbergriniple, with um with the
many world's interpretation, we're just observers, right, Yeah, parallel universe
is happening all over the place. So let's say that
you you. Let's say I was the guy who decided
I wanted to find out if there was such a
thing as quantum immortality, that I could just sit there
with the gun and actually carry out this thought experiment
(16:11):
and and see right, and consider this, It's entirely possible
that if somebody did do this, they could live forever
and only they would know. You know why, because as
an observer, under the many worlds interpretation, you're just along
for the ride. I sort of have to accept that,
don't you If you support this theory, well, yeah, that's
(16:33):
the basis of it. So let's say that I was
the guy who sat down in front of this gun
and started pressing the button right, and you're sitting there
watching me, you know, maybe drinking a roop here um,
waiting for that fire. Yeah, eventually it would happen because
you're not doing anything. You're not making a decision. I'm
making the decision. You're an observer, a bystander to my
(16:55):
decision of pressing the button right. Isn't that where predictability
comes in? So eventually, just based on the chances of
a coin toss, you're going to be witnessed to that
that cork being measured, running counterclockwise and the gun going
off and me dying, and after that, the universe can't
possibly split anymore because you're not making the decision. I'm
(17:18):
making the decision to press the button. While I'm dead,
I can't make the decision to press the button anymore.
So then the universe has stopped splitting for you. So
that's that's pretty unsettling, because we have no control whatsoever
over anything. I mean, if I would chalk it up
to free will, whether or not I'm I'm taking a
(17:39):
sip of that coffee. But free will doesn't exist if
the universe is splitting into two to accommodate every possible outcome,
and just imagine it splitting into more than two. What
if there's more than one outcome for a decision like
many worlds? Okay, right, So this is the many worlds interpretation,
and that's how Quantum's Suicide basically proves it. By the
(18:02):
by saying if somebody sat down and did this, they
would become immortal. It shows that the many worlds interpretation
is theoretically possible, which is what it seeks to do, right, right,
And that's sort of the new kid on the block
right when it comes to explaining this. Yes, not like
the za Copenhagen interpretation. Yeah, well let's let's take it.
(18:25):
Let's take it, Chuck. Well, that's the one that's been
accepted and still is in a lot of circles, but
the one that had been accepted for like the last
century basically. And you pointed out too that this whole
thing is really only about a century old or so. Yeah.
I believe it was Max Plank in nineteen hundred, which
is basically founded the field of quantum fiss which is
very new on a you know, on that scale. Newton
(18:48):
came up with his stuff in the eighteenth century. So
this is the I guess, the newest field of physics. Right.
So the Copenhagen interpretation, Josh, is uh Neil's Bore in
the Night in the actually in nine and it says
that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one or another,
but it exists in all states, all at the same time, right.
(19:10):
And the state of existing in all possible states at
once is called coherent superposition or just superposition, right, right,
And the total of all those is the wave function. Right.
So remember I said this is like, this is like
a running, walking, and swimming all at the same time.
So the state of running, walking, and swimming all at
the same time is called the superposition. And then being
(19:32):
able to run, walk, and swim as possible states that's
the wave function that makes you an iron man. It does,
but it makes you like the optimal iron maid. Right,
you just finished the race immediately. Yeah, everyone else is
finished with the running part and you're like dripping wet
with your bike on your shoulder. Nice. Uh so bor um,
(19:55):
he he proved this, this whole shrouding yours cat thing,
this is this is a little funny. And Schrodinger supposedly
did design this to sort of show how silly it was, right,
he he did. But at the same time he was
also I mean, he was a serious quantum physicist and
he was a huge rival of Um Heisenberg actually, and
(20:16):
Heisenberg said Schrodinger's ideas were crap. Yeah, is that the
word he used? And um and I think I can't
remember what Schrodinger had to say about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,
but um, they didn't like each other all right, So
Schrodinger's box, can we kind of describe this? Yeah? And
and if you didn't get this, this is to the
(20:38):
Copenhagen interpretation, what quantum suicide is to the many worlds interpretations.
Experiment designed to theoretically prove that it's possible. Okay, people
are like, can't you just talk about ticks being on
another regions? So much easier? All right, Schrodinger's cat, And
this is I should point out, this is a theoretical experiment.
He didn't really do this, right, he could, well, sure
(21:02):
he could have. So what he did was he got
a box that you can't see into, which is very key,
as you'll find out, he put a cat in there. Theoretically,
he put some radioactive material in there, and then he
put a Geiger counter in there and like a little
device that would you know, if the radioactive material leaks out,
it would smash this poison in there, and it would
(21:22):
kill the cat. Right. If the Geiger encounter sensed radioactive decay,
it would trigger this hammer that smashes the poison vial,
killing the right. But that's just a clever way of
setting this up. It's really not important what he did
being clever, well it was, it was very good. But
the point is he did it within like an hour
or so, so where it's still possible, like the cat
(21:42):
didn't starve to death. The cat could either be alive
or the cat could be dead. You don't know because
the cat is sealed inside this box. So in theory,
the cat is both alive and dead, right. And the
other part about that hour is that he determined, say,
like over an hour, there was a chance that the
the radioactive material would decay or wouldn't decay, so the
(22:03):
Geiger counter of detecting it. And this is where I
have a big problem with all this stuff. Yeah, well
it's like you pointed out in the article too, and
that's what made me think of it, the tree falling
in the woods. Would you really hear it? I have
hated that since I was a little kid. I think
it has to do with how your brain is wired.
Because whether or not the cat is a the cat
(22:24):
is alive or dead. Just because you don't know the
answer doesn't mean it's both. Well that's to me as
an English major music musician type. You know in this though,
So the cats, the cat being alive or the cat
being dead, right, that's its wave function. Those are the
possible outcomes. And since the box is sealed off. Like
(22:47):
you said, it's very important. You can't see in it,
you can't detect anything in it. Um the cat is
the cats in a superposition of both life and death. Yeah.
The point is is we what what Schrodinger was saying
in this and how it how it supports the Copenhagen
interpretation and is actually more like um the Heisenberg's uncertainty
(23:11):
principle than Schrodinger would have liked to admit. Um, we
the observer force the outcome. Okay, by observing it. We
open up the box and the cats either alive and
we see that the cats alive, or we open up
the box and the cats dead and we see the
cats dead. The point of Nils Boers Copenhagen interpretation is
(23:32):
so these things exist in their superposition, and when we
observe them, we force them into basically a choice. We
collapse their wave function, we collapse their superposition, and now
they're a live cat or it's a dead cat. But
it's because we observed and until we observed there in
(23:53):
this state of all states at once. It's that's just
where I and like I said, it has it. It's
got to have something to do with your brain because
my brother was a big math guy and he used
to tutor me some and he could never understand how
I didn't get math, just like I don't understand how
they get physics on that level. But I don't understand
how someone can't sing on key because to me, you
(24:15):
hear the note and you just replicate it. You know what,
I understand what what a brain cramp feels like? Right now? Yeah? Um,
so chuck the again the great thing, the comforting thing,
the thing that allows me to sleep at night about
boars um. Aside from that, uh in Scott's um, the
(24:39):
part about Boors theory that is comforting is that, again
it's up to us, right things don't we We can't
look at a cat and see it in a state
of life and death simultaneously. We force things to happen
and at the very least things make sense to us
in that in that way, right, Um. With the many worlds, again,
(25:00):
we have nothing to do with it. It just happens
on its own. Um. Decohesion happens signed like instantaneously whenever
there's a decision made by a conscious being, and even
worse so times not linear. It exists in like these
jumps and starts and branches, and so for every decision
ever made by any conscious entity that includes rabbits, chuck right,
(25:26):
that there's the universe is split into every possible outcome.
It's like lost, Oh it is, and it's the basis
of not just lost, but like a lot of other Um,
there's been a lot of other works. Um, what was
that one third contact you sent me? It looked like
a student film or something like that. Yeah, yeah, there's
a bet, just because it's so mind boggling. Um. And
(25:49):
the great thing is is that quantum physicists seem to
have like a little bit of a sense of humor,
or at the very least, they're well aware that what
they're saying is just completely nuts. They're like, hey, don't
kill them usinger, We're just trying to figure out what
the hell is going on here, right, Um. Schrodinger called
his cat experiment quite ridiculous, and Neil's board had a
great great quote, dedn'ty chuck, Yes, Josh. He said that
(26:13):
anyone who was not shocked by quantum theory has not
understood it. Right. That says it all, all right, it
does say it all. And I think also what it did.
Was it bought quantum physicists some time. Yeah, it's like
you go figure this out, but we really go figure
this out. Well, I would come and explain it to you.
You got a little clever there on the last page,
which I appreciated when you said that, you know, there
are all these different theories and when you're talking about
(26:35):
quantum physics, and a lot of them contradict each other,
and maybe if you believe in this kind of quantum stuff,
maybe they're all right. Right Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
maybe the ones that contradict each other they're both right,
depending on what universe you're in, So it depends. If
you're a many worlds interpretation devote, then yeah, that would be.
That would be so quantum, Yes, super quantum that we
(26:58):
should be wearing trawn outfit. It's right now. I saw
that trailer the other day Man before Inception. Yeah, it
looks really good. Yeah, although I gotta say I liked Inception,
but I I it could have been better. I enjoyed it.
I did too. Christopher Nolan can direct and write the
crud out of a movie. Yeah, but how much of
it though? Is that no one else is making anything
(27:20):
even remotely watchable. You're right, Wow, he came along in
a good time, didn't he know he did? Um? So
that's quantum suicide in a bat. I can't wait to
see the listener mail on this man when the physics
guys right in. Yes, it's and I don't I'm not
making fun of I mean it's really enlightening. They take
it really seriously. It's awesome. Yeah. Um, and don't forget Chuck.
(27:42):
We met somebody in New York at the knitting factory
I believe who was a quantum physicist who explained to us,
like how we screwed up the large had round collider.
So if you're out there, I can't remember your name,
remind us that is that the hadron the collider? Dude?
You know those are those are their comedy troupe much
(28:02):
to page on the clider. They have a podcast. Check
it out. Um, I guess now what it's time for
listener mail. Do you have something? All right, it's time
for listener mail, Josh. I'm gonna call this uh cool
Kiva wedding. Okay, can I throw something in first? Please?
There's something we've we've overlooked. Too many episodes have gone
(28:24):
by in my opinion, but we need it, We need
to put this out there. Remember Sean from Virginia Beach,
the cubicle guy who just was like, I've listened to
everything and there's no there was no origin of Hippie Rob. Well,
we put the call out for everybody to let us
know where Hippi Rob first appeared in what capacity, and
we got a great response. First one to write in
was Emmy. Thanks for writing in, Emmy, but thanks for
(28:47):
everybody for writing in. If you go back and listen
to How Squatting Works and listen to approximately the two
fifty mark, two minute fifty second mark, you will find
the origin of Hippie Rob. And if you want to
show up, he also shows up about the same place
in the Earthquake podcast too and elsewhere. But those are
the two largest chunks of the Hippie Rob saga. He's
(29:09):
peppered throughout. Isn't it funny that this dude is just
out there, existing somewhere and has no idea. It's like
in another parallel university exactly. Wow, you're welcome, josh Uh.
This is from Janna in Minnesota and she says, Josh
and Chuck, I'm a huge fan of the show. I
wanted to share a story with you. My husband and
I recently got married June nineteenth, two thousand ten. So
(29:32):
Mozel talked to that, you know, with the reception when
people ding the glass to make newlyweds kiss. I'm not
sure if it's a tradition in Georgia or not. Sort
of is I think it is. We didn't do that. Yeah,
we had paper cups, and one heard it. Did you
really know? We did have a budget wedding, but we
didn't have paper cups plastic. We pbr in a bottle.
That's very classy. Thank you. Everyone else starts to also
(29:55):
ding their glass and then you have to stop eating
and kiss. My husband and I didn't like that idea,
and it either uh something about the annoying clanging sound
didn't sound like fun. Plus it's really demanding. Yeah, you
can't make me kiss. That's what I would have said.
I would get all obstinate in my own weddingh So
we decided that people had to put money in a
jar to make his kiss. Great idea. All the money
(30:16):
placed in our jar would be donated to Kiva Fantastic
through the stuff you should know Micro Lending Team the
micro lending site, responsible micro lending site. Yeah, we should
also spell that because we get called out because it's
such a weird word. It is k I v A
dot org and then slash team slash stuff. You should know, yeah,
(30:38):
if you want to donate for our team. So she
said it wasn't the biggest fundraiser of all time or anything.
They made about fifty bucks and kisses and they were
happy to donate. So that's two loans right there. And
I just thought it was cool that we've been included
now in someone's wedding day and wedding night. Remember that
other one. I guess I'm waiting on us to cause
(31:00):
a divorce that would bring this full circle. I know
we helped somebody through divorce, didn't we Can we get
an an email from somebody who was getting divorced? I
don't know. Maybe I think we have And thank you?
Who was that? That was Jenna from Minnesota. Thanks Janna
and husband. Congratulations on your wedding. Uh. And if Chuck
(31:22):
and I have hastened the end of your wedding or
have been president at the birth of your kid or whatever,
any major life event, we want to hear about it. Uh,
Send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want
(31:45):
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house.
Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuckers Bryant, son of Mrs Bryant. Yeah. Yeah,
(00:26):
just kept the name good for her. I like your mom. Yeah,
have you met my mom? Yeah? I met your mom
at They Love your Mama opening appropriately enough. That's right.
I thought you said your name was Josh Quark for
a second there. If that was off the cuff, I'll
accept that I did. I just made that up. It
is not written down anywhere. That is great. Um, Chuck
(00:49):
said that because we're going to be talking about quantum
physics today and quarks are Um it's my understanding, Chuck
that they're the the fundamental basis of matter. Yeah. They
make up hadrons, which you may You may know that
because we talked about the Large Hadron collider. Yeah, up
until about like thirty seconds ago, I didn't know why
(01:10):
it was called the large hadron. Yeah. Well, there's six quarks, Josh.
They are known as flavors, which is kind of cool
up down, charm strange top and bottom, and apparently charms
strange top and bottom. You can only um be produced
with like a big collision, like the hadron collider, a
(01:34):
large hadron collider. Huh. And there's also antiquark too, which
is like the opposite. Yeah, those are the quarks that
smoke cigarettes and wear leather jackets exactly. Um chuck. Quarks
exist on their particles, their matter, right, they're the building
box of matter, That's what I understand. So they exist
on the sub atomic level, smaller than atoms or below atom,
(01:56):
depending on you know how you like the words sub um.
And they exist in this weird world, the quantum world.
And they they bump elbows against photons, which are my
favorite sub atomic I guess, particles, um, and plenty of
(02:18):
other weird strange It's like this odd parade of physical things, right,
I don't like it. There, I can understand why you don't,
because it's a very disconcerting and uncomfortable world. The the
very comforting ideals and principles of Newtonian physics, which are
what goes up must come down. The Sun's going to
(02:41):
rise tomorrow. Uh, depending on whether or not you're Robert Hume,
um adherent, David Hume adherent. Um. Just these things that
we can depend on, We've come to depend on since
Isaac Newton, you know, you know his breakthroughs. I learned
a lot about myself reading this. Actually, did you learn
(03:03):
that you get angry easily? No, It's just like the
whole notion of like stepping outside reality disturbed me. Yes.
And what's even more disturbing is that this this universe
is envisioned by some very very smart people, or I
should say what I perceived as reality, by the way,
I just want to clear that up nice. So, Chuck,
(03:26):
we've done when on the large Hadron collider, right, this
is just like this, this this huge, fancy, multibillion dollar
machine that's new that's still going right. Um. Back in
the nineties, they didn't have these large Hadron colliders to like,
you know, rely on to actually see and measure and
(03:46):
detect things on the quantum world. They had to use
their imaginations. Physicists did, and uh, specifically there was a
physicist who used his imagination for what's called the thought experiment.
It where Yeah, this guy's name is Max tag Mark.
He is awesome, He's he was at Princeton at the time. Now,
(04:07):
I think he's a M I. T. And he came
up with a thought experiment called quantum suicide. And will
you allow me to explain it as follows, please do? Okay,
So you are a guy and you're sitting in a
room and there's a gun pointed at you at your head.
I don't like where this is kill shot. And you're
(04:29):
looking at the barrel, right, and the guns a little off.
I mean, it's a normal gun, but it took it
up to this new fangled machine, right. And this machine
is set so that it measures a cork. It measures
the spin of a cork. Right, So let's just say,
for simplicity's sake, although you've already said this isn't true,
(04:50):
let's just say that a cork can only spin clockwise
or counterclockwise. Okay, Um, this this machine is set so
that every time the person sitting in front of the
gun presses a button, the cork is measured. If the
cork is measured with a clockwise spin, the gun's not
gonna go off. They'll just be a click, okay, Right.
(05:12):
If when the guy presses the button, the cork is
measured and it comes up with a counter clockwise spin.
The gun's gonna go off, The trigger will be pulled,
the bullet will actually the chamber, it will travel several
feet across the room into the head of the man
sitting in front of the gun, and he will die
guarantee death like it's a kill shot. Okay. What's weird
(05:36):
is that in this quantum suicide thought experiment, Max tag
Mark figured out that if this guy pressed the button
every single time, he's going to hear a click, click click, click,
click click, no matter how many times he presses it,
no matter how long he tries this, all he'll be
(05:58):
aware of is this clicking of the gun because he lives. Yes,
he lives in every single scenario. How can that possibly be.
Let's go back to the beginning that first time the
guy pressed the button. Okay, what happened in another parallel
universe is the gun went off and he died, right. Okay,
(06:19):
So with that first experiment, the the universe split into two,
one where the gun went off and he died, one
where he just heard a click. Now if we follow
the one where he heard the click every time he
presses that button and the cork is measured, Uh, the
universe splits into two, but he's only aware of the
one where he just hears a click, because that's one
(06:43):
where he's alive, and if he died, he clearly wouldn't
understand that because he'd be dead. Yes, so part one
of mind melt starts just started. I think that that's
the quantum suicide thought experiment. Yeah, I like it. Yeah,
it was pretty mind boggling um and it's used to well,
it's pretty exemplary of the kind of goofy, like you said,
(07:07):
mind melting um ideas that are are brought up on
to explain quantum physics. Right, what you have to do
you have to use thought experiments because you can't use there.
It's unpredictable at that level, so you can't use like
regular scientific method right. And one of the reasons why
it's unpredictable is because when you look at, say a cork,
(07:28):
if a cork only had a spin of clockwise or
counter clockwise science quantum physicists have found that when you
observe a quark um, one time you'll observe it and
it's spinning clockwise. The next time you'll observe it's spinning counterclockwise.
Or even more unsettlingly, they found that photons, these smallest
packets of light. You can look at a single photon
(07:51):
at one point or measure it and it's a particle.
You can measure it the next time the same photon
and it's a wave. So this is kind of like
some buddy running, walking, and swimming at the same time
in different directions, right, this so that, like you said,
it's it's it's uncomfortable that what they're finding on the
quantum level. So what you got, Josh, is is a
(08:13):
chaotic situation and that's sort of how it exists now.
But as you pointed out, you wrote this, I should
point out, and this is a performer, this one has
done really well. Right, you should tell yourself. But sometimes
scientists think that the more we learned that some order
will fall into place on the quantum level at some
point well hopefully, yeah, hopefully here else either theory after theory,
(08:36):
either that or else. Yeah, it's like the the the
laws of physics don't the laws of Newtonian physics just
don't apply on a certain level down to they just
apply on you know, the specified level um. One of
the one of the fundamental tenants that that has long
been debated. Um is the idea of Heisenberg's certain new principle. Right, So,
(09:05):
one of the one of the things, like early on
in quantum physics and like the twenties, um, there are
a lot of guys who were trying to explain why
these weird things were showing up right, well, inconsistent at least, right,
And one of the one of the early guys, one
of the early physicists was Werner Heisenberg. Yeah, Mexican, Yeah,
(09:27):
Vanda Heisenfelg And he came up with this explanation or
this I guess he'd pointed out, like a major flaw
with quantum mechanics is that when we observe something, just
the act of observing something, we influence its behavior. Right, Yeah,
this is where I started to get a little hinky
with this. I understand it in concept, like even like
(09:50):
shining a light on something that's small will will cause
it to to change. But it gets a little more
like philosophical than that. Well, yeah, like simply king at
something will affect the outcome. That's a really great point, Chuck.
There's the quantum um physics has a lot of philosophy
and logic tied into math. It's not just straight up math.
(10:14):
There's philosophy to it. Sort of appeals to me on
that level, but it's it's doesn't make it easier to
understand for me. Well, this is how Heisenberg' uncertainty principle
was explained to me once. Um, if you let's say
you're blind and you have this ball, heavy ball that
that has a lot of bounce to it, um that
you've learned to basically see with you know how bat
(10:36):
uses sonar, yeah, to bound bounce back the wave to
find out how far they are from something. Sure, Right,
Let's say you've you've learned to kind of do the
same thing but with the ball, right okay, and you
know that there's a chair across the room and you
want to figure out roughly how far away the chair is.
So you throw your ball at the chair and you
manage to hit it, and the ball takes a second
(10:57):
and a half to come back to you. And after
you know, being pretty good at this point, now you
know that the chairs about thirty feet away. That's how
long it takes for something for for the ball to
get back to you. In a second and a half,
with about as hard as you threw it. Right, what
you've just figured out is the position of the chair,
or where the chair was when you threw the ball
at it. What the problem is is you've just influenced
(11:20):
the behavior of the chair. You just threw a ball
against it, so you sent it careening off into space,
and now you have no idea where it is. Yeah,
I get that. I get the ball moving the chair.
What I don't get is looking at something. Well on
on this level, consider this with photons. Remember the smallest
packet of light my favorite quantum particle um. There is
(11:45):
a nano machine which is it's a motor, right, and
it's operated by shooting light at it. So this these
packets of light that have no mass and no charge.
This the partticles we're talking about so small that a photon,
a little packet of light can actually influence them. So
(12:06):
we use light to see. Say, let's say just and
this is this is a very basic elementary explanation, but
we use light to see. If we have the light on,
there's photons just bombarding something, right, So phots, if a
photon can hit a particle, we know where it's position was.
When we turn the light on, but we don't know
(12:28):
where it is now because the photons just sent it
careening elsewhere, right, which delves back a little bit into
the philosophical Like you walk into a dark room and
you don't know where the chair is until you turn
the light off. But did the light move the chair? Right?
That's that's that's exactly right, right, That's that's what smart
people have to say about quantum mechanics. What R I
(12:49):
don't get it? Okay, I got it, But you do
get it because you just expect it perfectly. I was
just kidding, right, Okay, all right, So that's Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,
and that's been something that kind of provided a conundrum
for quantum physicists, and not everybody's bought into that, right, Well,
and that's why they had to dream up the thought
experiment to begin with. Okay, so if just observing a
(13:16):
um a particle means we affect its behavior, well, then
maybe we should use thought experiments, especially pre large hadron
collider physicists. This is their their thought process, right, So
this is why tag Mark came up with the quantum
suicide thought experiment. Um, But he didn't he came up
(13:36):
with the thought experiment to prove another quantum theory called
the many world's interpretation. Yeah, Hugh Everett, fellow Princetonian UH
in seven. And I know he was stoked, like because
forty years people were kind of like, I don't know
about this many worlds thing until your guy came along.
(13:57):
Call him your guy. I've actually chatted with him. He's
a good guy. Oh that's right. And I provided a
picture like forty years, right, Yeah, nineteen fifty seven and
ninety seven, exactly four years then, Um, and it supports
quantum suicide. The many worlds theory is UH. For each outcome,
each each each possible outcome to an action, the world
(14:18):
copies itself. It splits into a copy of its right,
and it's simultaneous, and we have absolutely no power over whatsoever. Um.
It's a process called decohesion. So Chuck, This this universe
that we're in right now is going along smoothly because
there's no choice or option. Right. But let's say, Um,
(14:40):
I'm deciding whether or not to take a sip of
this coffee or not. Just making that decision. I didn't
just now, but the there was decohesion when I made
that decision not to because in another universe, another parallel
universe now exists where I did take a sip of
that coffee. Well, yeah, and the key here is that
you don't know that this other universe has been created, No,
(15:03):
because you know and you want to you want to
imagine that you can look over to your right somewhere
and you see yourself to drinking the coffee. But you can't.
We're not we're not cognizant of that universe. It's it's
branched off. They're no longer cohesive, right, and that supports
the quantum suicide thought experiment, like perfectly, Well, that's that
(15:25):
is what um, that's that's what whoever came up with
to explain why a particle, a photon could be both
a wave and a particle, right right. The unsettling part
of this is with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, we're in charge,
we look at a quantum particle, we affect it. Right.
(15:49):
That was with who's Heisenberg heisenbergriniple, with um with the
many world's interpretation, we're just observers, right, Yeah, parallel universe
is happening all over the place. So let's say that
you you. Let's say I was the guy who decided
I wanted to find out if there was such a
thing as quantum immortality, that I could just sit there
with the gun and actually carry out this thought experiment
(16:11):
and and see right, and consider this, It's entirely possible
that if somebody did do this, they could live forever
and only they would know. You know why, because as
an observer, under the many worlds interpretation, you're just along
for the ride. I sort of have to accept that,
don't you If you support this theory, well, yeah, that's
(16:33):
the basis of it. So let's say that I was
the guy who sat down in front of this gun
and started pressing the button right, and you're sitting there
watching me, you know, maybe drinking a roop here um,
waiting for that fire. Yeah, eventually it would happen because
you're not doing anything. You're not making a decision. I'm
making the decision. You're an observer, a bystander to my
(16:55):
decision of pressing the button right. Isn't that where predictability
comes in? So eventually, just based on the chances of
a coin toss, you're going to be witnessed to that
that cork being measured, running counterclockwise and the gun going
off and me dying, and after that, the universe can't
possibly split anymore because you're not making the decision. I'm
(17:18):
making the decision to press the button. While I'm dead,
I can't make the decision to press the button anymore.
So then the universe has stopped splitting for you. So
that's that's pretty unsettling, because we have no control whatsoever
over anything. I mean, if I would chalk it up
to free will, whether or not I'm I'm taking a
(17:39):
sip of that coffee. But free will doesn't exist if
the universe is splitting into two to accommodate every possible outcome,
and just imagine it splitting into more than two. What
if there's more than one outcome for a decision like
many worlds? Okay, right, So this is the many worlds interpretation,
and that's how Quantum's Suicide basically proves it. By the
(18:02):
by saying if somebody sat down and did this, they
would become immortal. It shows that the many worlds interpretation
is theoretically possible, which is what it seeks to do, right, right,
And that's sort of the new kid on the block
right when it comes to explaining this. Yes, not like
the za Copenhagen interpretation. Yeah, well let's let's take it.
(18:25):
Let's take it, Chuck. Well, that's the one that's been
accepted and still is in a lot of circles, but
the one that had been accepted for like the last
century basically. And you pointed out too that this whole
thing is really only about a century old or so. Yeah.
I believe it was Max Plank in nineteen hundred, which
is basically founded the field of quantum fiss which is
very new on a you know, on that scale. Newton
(18:48):
came up with his stuff in the eighteenth century. So
this is the I guess, the newest field of physics. Right.
So the Copenhagen interpretation, Josh, is uh Neil's Bore in
the Night in the actually in nine and it says
that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one or another,
but it exists in all states, all at the same time, right.
(19:10):
And the state of existing in all possible states at
once is called coherent superposition or just superposition, right, right,
And the total of all those is the wave function. Right.
So remember I said this is like, this is like
a running, walking, and swimming all at the same time.
So the state of running, walking, and swimming all at
the same time is called the superposition. And then being
(19:32):
able to run, walk, and swim as possible states that's
the wave function that makes you an iron man. It does,
but it makes you like the optimal iron maid. Right,
you just finished the race immediately. Yeah, everyone else is
finished with the running part and you're like dripping wet
with your bike on your shoulder. Nice. Uh so bor um,
(19:55):
he he proved this, this whole shrouding yours cat thing,
this is this is a little funny. And Schrodinger supposedly
did design this to sort of show how silly it was, right,
he he did. But at the same time he was
also I mean, he was a serious quantum physicist and
he was a huge rival of Um Heisenberg actually, and
(20:16):
Heisenberg said Schrodinger's ideas were crap. Yeah, is that the
word he used? And um and I think I can't
remember what Schrodinger had to say about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,
but um, they didn't like each other all right, So
Schrodinger's box, can we kind of describe this? Yeah? And
and if you didn't get this, this is to the
(20:38):
Copenhagen interpretation, what quantum suicide is to the many worlds interpretations.
Experiment designed to theoretically prove that it's possible. Okay, people
are like, can't you just talk about ticks being on
another regions? So much easier? All right, Schrodinger's cat, And
this is I should point out, this is a theoretical experiment.
He didn't really do this, right, he could, well, sure
(21:02):
he could have. So what he did was he got
a box that you can't see into, which is very key,
as you'll find out, he put a cat in there. Theoretically,
he put some radioactive material in there, and then he
put a Geiger counter in there and like a little
device that would you know, if the radioactive material leaks out,
it would smash this poison in there, and it would
(21:22):
kill the cat. Right. If the Geiger encounter sensed radioactive decay,
it would trigger this hammer that smashes the poison vial,
killing the right. But that's just a clever way of
setting this up. It's really not important what he did
being clever, well it was, it was very good. But
the point is he did it within like an hour
or so, so where it's still possible, like the cat
(21:42):
didn't starve to death. The cat could either be alive
or the cat could be dead. You don't know because
the cat is sealed inside this box. So in theory,
the cat is both alive and dead, right. And the
other part about that hour is that he determined, say,
like over an hour, there was a chance that the
the radioactive material would decay or wouldn't decay, so the
(22:03):
Geiger counter of detecting it. And this is where I
have a big problem with all this stuff. Yeah, well
it's like you pointed out in the article too, and
that's what made me think of it, the tree falling
in the woods. Would you really hear it? I have
hated that since I was a little kid. I think
it has to do with how your brain is wired.
Because whether or not the cat is a the cat
(22:24):
is alive or dead. Just because you don't know the
answer doesn't mean it's both. Well that's to me as
an English major music musician type. You know in this though,
So the cats, the cat being alive or the cat
being dead, right, that's its wave function. Those are the
possible outcomes. And since the box is sealed off. Like
(22:47):
you said, it's very important. You can't see in it,
you can't detect anything in it. Um the cat is
the cats in a superposition of both life and death. Yeah.
The point is is we what what Schrodinger was saying
in this and how it how it supports the Copenhagen
interpretation and is actually more like um the Heisenberg's uncertainty
(23:11):
principle than Schrodinger would have liked to admit. Um, we
the observer force the outcome. Okay, by observing it. We
open up the box and the cats either alive and
we see that the cats alive, or we open up
the box and the cats dead and we see the
cats dead. The point of Nils Boers Copenhagen interpretation is
(23:32):
so these things exist in their superposition, and when we
observe them, we force them into basically a choice. We
collapse their wave function, we collapse their superposition, and now
they're a live cat or it's a dead cat. But
it's because we observed and until we observed there in
(23:53):
this state of all states at once. It's that's just
where I and like I said, it has it. It's
got to have something to do with your brain because
my brother was a big math guy and he used
to tutor me some and he could never understand how
I didn't get math, just like I don't understand how
they get physics on that level. But I don't understand
how someone can't sing on key because to me, you
(24:15):
hear the note and you just replicate it. You know what,
I understand what what a brain cramp feels like? Right now? Yeah? Um,
so chuck the again the great thing, the comforting thing,
the thing that allows me to sleep at night about
boars um. Aside from that, uh in Scott's um, the
(24:39):
part about Boors theory that is comforting is that, again
it's up to us, right things don't we We can't
look at a cat and see it in a state
of life and death simultaneously. We force things to happen
and at the very least things make sense to us
in that in that way, right, Um. With the many worlds, again,
(25:00):
we have nothing to do with it. It just happens
on its own. Um. Decohesion happens signed like instantaneously whenever
there's a decision made by a conscious being, and even
worse so times not linear. It exists in like these
jumps and starts and branches, and so for every decision
ever made by any conscious entity that includes rabbits, chuck right,
(25:26):
that there's the universe is split into every possible outcome.
It's like lost, Oh it is, and it's the basis
of not just lost, but like a lot of other Um,
there's been a lot of other works. Um, what was
that one third contact you sent me? It looked like
a student film or something like that. Yeah, yeah, there's
a bet, just because it's so mind boggling. Um. And
(25:49):
the great thing is is that quantum physicists seem to
have like a little bit of a sense of humor,
or at the very least, they're well aware that what
they're saying is just completely nuts. They're like, hey, don't
kill them usinger, We're just trying to figure out what
the hell is going on here, right, Um. Schrodinger called
his cat experiment quite ridiculous, and Neil's board had a
great great quote, dedn'ty chuck, Yes, Josh. He said that
(26:13):
anyone who was not shocked by quantum theory has not
understood it. Right. That says it all, all right, it
does say it all. And I think also what it did.
Was it bought quantum physicists some time. Yeah, it's like
you go figure this out, but we really go figure
this out. Well, I would come and explain it to you.
You got a little clever there on the last page,
which I appreciated when you said that, you know, there
are all these different theories and when you're talking about
(26:35):
quantum physics, and a lot of them contradict each other,
and maybe if you believe in this kind of quantum stuff,
maybe they're all right. Right Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
maybe the ones that contradict each other they're both right,
depending on what universe you're in, So it depends. If
you're a many worlds interpretation devote, then yeah, that would be.
That would be so quantum, Yes, super quantum that we
(26:58):
should be wearing trawn outfit. It's right now. I saw
that trailer the other day Man before Inception. Yeah, it
looks really good. Yeah, although I gotta say I liked Inception,
but I I it could have been better. I enjoyed it.
I did too. Christopher Nolan can direct and write the
crud out of a movie. Yeah, but how much of
it though? Is that no one else is making anything
(27:20):
even remotely watchable. You're right, Wow, he came along in
a good time, didn't he know he did? Um? So
that's quantum suicide in a bat. I can't wait to
see the listener mail on this man when the physics
guys right in. Yes, it's and I don't I'm not
making fun of I mean it's really enlightening. They take
it really seriously. It's awesome. Yeah. Um, and don't forget Chuck.
(27:42):
We met somebody in New York at the knitting factory
I believe who was a quantum physicist who explained to us,
like how we screwed up the large had round collider.
So if you're out there, I can't remember your name,
remind us that is that the hadron the collider? Dude?
You know those are those are their comedy troupe much
(28:02):
to page on the clider. They have a podcast. Check
it out. Um, I guess now what it's time for
listener mail. Do you have something? All right, it's time
for listener mail, Josh. I'm gonna call this uh cool
Kiva wedding. Okay, can I throw something in first? Please?
There's something we've we've overlooked. Too many episodes have gone
(28:24):
by in my opinion, but we need it, We need
to put this out there. Remember Sean from Virginia Beach,
the cubicle guy who just was like, I've listened to
everything and there's no there was no origin of Hippie Rob. Well,
we put the call out for everybody to let us
know where Hippi Rob first appeared in what capacity, and
we got a great response. First one to write in
was Emmy. Thanks for writing in, Emmy, but thanks for
(28:47):
everybody for writing in. If you go back and listen
to How Squatting Works and listen to approximately the two
fifty mark, two minute fifty second mark, you will find
the origin of Hippie Rob. And if you want to
show up, he also shows up about the same place
in the Earthquake podcast too and elsewhere. But those are
the two largest chunks of the Hippie Rob saga. He's
(29:09):
peppered throughout. Isn't it funny that this dude is just
out there, existing somewhere and has no idea. It's like
in another parallel university exactly. Wow, you're welcome, josh Uh.
This is from Janna in Minnesota and she says, Josh
and Chuck, I'm a huge fan of the show. I
wanted to share a story with you. My husband and
I recently got married June nineteenth, two thousand ten. So
(29:32):
Mozel talked to that, you know, with the reception when
people ding the glass to make newlyweds kiss. I'm not
sure if it's a tradition in Georgia or not. Sort
of is I think it is. We didn't do that. Yeah,
we had paper cups, and one heard it. Did you
really know? We did have a budget wedding, but we
didn't have paper cups plastic. We pbr in a bottle.
That's very classy. Thank you. Everyone else starts to also
(29:55):
ding their glass and then you have to stop eating
and kiss. My husband and I didn't like that idea,
and it either uh something about the annoying clanging sound
didn't sound like fun. Plus it's really demanding. Yeah, you
can't make me kiss. That's what I would have said.
I would get all obstinate in my own weddingh So
we decided that people had to put money in a
jar to make his kiss. Great idea. All the money
(30:16):
placed in our jar would be donated to Kiva Fantastic
through the stuff you should know Micro Lending Team the
micro lending site, responsible micro lending site. Yeah, we should
also spell that because we get called out because it's
such a weird word. It is k I v A
dot org and then slash team slash stuff. You should know, yeah,
(30:38):
if you want to donate for our team. So she
said it wasn't the biggest fundraiser of all time or anything.
They made about fifty bucks and kisses and they were
happy to donate. So that's two loans right there. And
I just thought it was cool that we've been included
now in someone's wedding day and wedding night. Remember that
other one. I guess I'm waiting on us to cause
(31:00):
a divorce that would bring this full circle. I know
we helped somebody through divorce, didn't we Can we get
an an email from somebody who was getting divorced? I
don't know. Maybe I think we have And thank you?
Who was that? That was Jenna from Minnesota. Thanks Janna
and husband. Congratulations on your wedding. Uh. And if Chuck
(31:22):
and I have hastened the end of your wedding or
have been president at the birth of your kid or whatever,
any major life event, we want to hear about it. Uh,
Send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want
(31:45):
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house.
Stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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